THE POLITICAL POSITION.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 August 1915, Page 4

THE POLITICAL POSITION.

NATIONAL VAiiQttSl! AiNiU LMOS. (By Tcdegiuph.—Special to Daily New^; Wellington, Last Night. The stories that got about early in tihe week, to the offect that the association of Liberals and Reformers hod definitely .broken up the aHiance between ' the progressive patties, are not justified iby appearances. Among the wares of messages of congratulation reoeiVed by Sir Joseph Ward are quite a number from prominent Labor polltieuUMj who wished the Liberal leader good luck and expressed a hope that he would exercise a wholesome influence upon the whole Cabinet. Of course, the extreme section of Labor, which would reach the millennium iby revolution, gather than by evolution, denounces' the truce between the liberals and the Reformers is part of a deep-laid scheme for further exploiting the workers, and declares its intention to fight it on every possible opportunity, and with any weapon that may como to its hand. The sane section, which is in a large ma. jority, smiles at those threats and com- / ments laconically: "Let them fight." THE BUDGET. Four now Ministers who have been absent in the South Island during the past few days returned to Wellington this morning, and the first meeting of the National Cabinet was held during the afternoon. Th c business transacted lmd mainly to do with minor mattens—the arrangement of roonu, allotment of secretaries, and so forth—but It' is understood that the Budget was mentioned, and a date for its delivery tentatively fixed. In business and financial circles a good deal of importance is attached to this event, and speculation is rife everywhere as to the nature of the war taxation. Nothing at all authoritative is likely to leak out before the Budget ia actually read in the House, but people who profess to know the trend of the Ministerial mind predict that tliero will be a substantia! addition to the graduated land tax, and an attempt to differentiate between , fully used, partly used and unuied lands. They also talk of a scheme to appropriate the large slice of the »ro, fits that have been made by individuals out of the war, and of another to get for the State a share of the earning* OJ tlie great tobacco monopolies. It is expected that the totolisator will not *' be touched this year, and that beer will also escape any further impost. Of course, all this i a merely street-earner and lunch-hour speculation, and must be regarded as nothing more than gentle exercises in the art of " nutating." , * w t-BKXTKAM. ■ Though the agitation concerning the training camp at Trentham is not bei« K , conducted with the vigor it\wae a few weeks ago, there is still an uneasy feeling abroad that all is not weli with the place. Neither the existence'of a National Cabinet, nor the setting up of a Ho.vol Commission, will save the Minister |for Defence from some scarchins questions when the House mawnWe* and the public, rightly or wrongly, will await his replies with- anxious'interest.