THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 267, 21 April 1915, Page 3

THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

GOVERNMENT'S BAKE MAJORITY. A tOUTICAIi TRUCE URGED.

■I (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Last Night. A new zest has been given to political . gossip by the decision of the Court ol Appeal in the election petition cases. , The judgment given by the Court to-daj is regarded as a definite assurance that the members for Hawke's Bay and Tau- , marunui will not be disturbed in the possession of the seats they won last December. The Government, in other ■ words, lias now no reasonable ex.pectai tion of being able to secure an additional seat, while there is still a chance, , though a slight one, that it may lose i a seat in the Bay of Islands. What the Government will do under these circumstances remains to be seen. When 1 the House of Representatives meets at the end of June, the Government, assuming that no further change takes place, will have a majority of two, reducible to one when a Speaker is elected from the ranks of the Reform Party. One or two members of the Ministerial Party are pledged to support proportional representation, an issue on which the leader of the Opposition might choose to challenge the Ministry if party fighting were to become the order of the day. The situation appears to demand a political truce of a more definite character than exists at the present time, i but obviously the initiative must come from the Government, and there is no- . thing to indicate that a move has been made in that direction as far as the Ministers are concerned. Possibly events will develop rather quickly.