WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 July 1928, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

RARLIAMENT IN SESSION. A WASTED FORTNIGHT. (Special to “Guardian”.) WELLINGTON, July 16. Though ParTlament opened a fortnight ago it has not yet got down to business. To-morrow members. ma\ begin to take themselves and the affairs of the country seriously. So far they have no more than flirted with their constituents and the public. The debate on the Address-in-Eeply was tedious beyond the customary tedium of such exhibitions. The present Opposition’s habit of adding a want-of-confulenco motion to the Address-in-Reply debate with the certainty of it being rejected by an overwhelming majority can add nothing to the kudos of Labour either in Parliament or at the hustings, and it easily might estrange sympathy which otherwise would have come its way. If Mr H. E. Holland and his associates would only •eschew their little mannerisms of tactics they still would have small chance of ousting the Reformers at the approaching general election, but they undoubtedly would attract a considerably larger following to their ertmp. Political battles, for the time being, are fought on earth, not up in the sky.

MINISTER OF EDUCATION. The attempt of the Hon. R. A. ■Wright to make light of the Government troubles in the course of his speech on Friday night was a very fair specimen of the humour with which the House of Representatives has been attempting to entertain itself .during the past fortnight. First, the Minister of Education said,-there was the Opposition led by the member for Puller, who had his solid party behind him, fourteen of them. Then there was the United Party which sometimes voted with the Government, but did not scorn to know where it stood or why it stood at all. The section of the Opposition led by the member for Wanganui, himself alone, 'was clad in white, as the symbol of innocence and purity. Then there was another section led by the member for Hurunui, clad in yellow, as a confession of disappointment, and yet another, consisting of the member for Nelson, who was slowly drifting, perhaps unconsciously, towards the offieiaUOpposition and Socialism. And so on and so on for a whole weary hour.

THE PROSPECTS. Mr 'Wright expressed himself as being supremely confident of the Prime .Minister being “again in power” after the approaching general election and of-tlie country being ‘‘ glad to see him there.” Setting aside all party bias and political prejudice it scciris highly probable that the predictions of ’the Minister of Education, or the first of them, at any rate, will be realised. No Ministry in the Dominion ever has gone to the constituencies opposed .by such a disrupted Opposition as the one Mr Coates and his colleagues will face in November or December next. Labour is the only force than can possibly cause Mr Coates and his colleagues any serious embarrassment. It is conceivable that it may increase its representapion from fourteen to twenty-two or twenty-three but even the larger of these figures would leave it with less than one-third of the voting strength of the House, and all the mere fragments of the Opposition are pledged not to assist it in ousting the present Government. If these fragments should secure ten or twelve seats there might be difficulties, but not insuperable ones.

THE LICENSING QUESTION. In the circumstances it appears likely that in this election year the licensing question will attract more attention than will the pruning 6f Mr Coates’s majority. At the moment it looks quite possible that there will be a noliceuse revival in spite of all the New Zealand Alliance lias done to estrange casual opinion by denouncing the three issue ballot paper and holding its pledged supporters in the House to the very letter of their compact. This is not to say that the liquor traffic is to receive its quietus at the end of this year. The probability is that the further opportunity the Prime Minister has promised Parliament to deal with the matter will pass away in smoke and the issue again be submitted to the electors in its present loaded foiim. There are merniiers in tlib House, bl course, who will fight for the Alliance platform to the last ditch, hut the great majority of the stalwarts by the time October conies rohnd will he in iio humour for so heroic a demonstration of their convictions.