The Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1912. THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 201, 22 February 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1912. THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Sir Joseph Ward has definitely announced his intention of resigning the leadership of the Liberal Party, in order that "as a private member and a free man he may help the Liberal and Laior Party to check the large landed gourmandisers and sweep them out." This presumes the contention that Sir Joseph Ward believes that the Labor Party, which will not vote for him as leader, will vote for his party under some other leader. It presumes also that Mr. Massey might even become Premier, and that when a motion of no confidence in his Government is put by the Opposition—Sir Joseph Ward's party under a new leader—the votes of Labor members and some others which are now in the balance, will be cast in favor of the new Liberal and Labor leader, whoever he may be. The point is, will Mr. Massey, if he becomes Premier, win through the inevitable vote of want of confidence? There is a fair presumption that he may not, and that there will be an Australian see-saw flavor about politics generally. If Mr. Massey is defeated the new Liberal and Labor loader (there is no absolute proof that Labor loves Liberalism any better than it loves "Reform") may be called on to form a Ministry which, supposing Labor sees a chance of place by supporting the new leader, will contain some of the lucky Laborites. There may be a condition that if this Ministry is defeated the Liberal leader will appeal to the country. Sir Joseph Ward has shown that there are fifty thousand more voters behind the Liberal Party than there are behind the "Reform" Party. The Prime Minister, therefore, stakes everything on the assumption that this majority will remain loyal and that the appeal to the country would send the old party back ■ with a large enough voting strength in the House for all emergencies. The question now is whether Sir Joseph Ward's successor in the leadership can command a large enough following to keep Mr. Massey and his Ministry from the Treasury Benches. We can conceive no circumstances that will deter Mr. Massey ond his henchmen from occupying the benches temporarily, but we seem to foresee a prolonged state of political unrest and the "ins and outs" of parties. Sir Joseph Ward seems convinced that the only method of saving the country is to keep the Massey party out of power. On both sides, all the political guile learned by over twenty years of antagonism is being used. We regard the Premier's action in resigning the leadership of the Liberal Party as absolutely unselfish. He is unquestionably guided in this action by the decision of the Labor men not to vote for a party led by himself. The Premier possibly

believes that a man like Mr. Millar at the head of the party would command the Labor votes and would thus save the country from Masseyism. Politics for the next few days, possibly months, will be more, than usually interesting.