WELLINGTON TOPICS.
the new political party.
DISSATISFACTION. (Special Correspondents
Wellington, Jan. 27.
The statement concerning the formation of a new political party attributed to ''two northern members of Parliament" and now going the round of the newspapers, is merely an ela/boration of other stories of the kind that have been mentioned in this column from time to time. That the National Government is less popular with the parties to-day than it was at the time of its formation, when it seemed to be the only alternative to another appeal to the constituencies to decide whether the Reformers or the Liberals should have charge of the affairs of the country during tlie course of the war, there can be no possible doubt. During three and a half years of office it has had several dis-agßi-ibie things to do, has committed many blunders and has left various pledges unfulfilled. These sins of commission and omission have brought it into more or less disfavor both in Parliament and in the country and the talk of a new party is one symptom of the prevailing dissatisfaction.
DESIRE FOR A CHANGE. But whether or not the proposed new political party will take definite shape in time to make its appeal to the constituencies at the next general election will depend very largely upon what the absent party leaders do or leave undone on their return to the Dominion. A peculiar feature of the position is that the dissatisfaction with the National Government is associated with a uiucii kindlier personal feeling towards the two party leaders, irrespective of political colors, than existed in the days before the truce. This is a good augury in that it suggests the public life of the country is to be placed on a higher plane than it sometimes has occupied in the past. But neither Mr Massey nor Sir Joseph Ward will be accepted as the leaders of the new party without first renouncing his allegiance to the coalition. The promoters are frankly tired of non-party government and determined to get back to the old order of things as early as possible.
THE PEACE CONFERENCE. It is thought here that the cable messages referring to Mr Massey's protests against New Zealand being represented by only one delegate at the Peace Conference give a distorted idea of the manner in which tlie Prime Minister has made representations on the subject to the Imperial authorities. His friends will not believe that Mr Massey is basing his claim for a second delegate on SJew Zealand's war sacrifices or that he is declaring these sacrifices to be equal proportionately to tho?e of the Mother Country. This, they say, might be the language of the section of the British Pre-'a that is always peeking to put Mr Lloyd George in the wrong, but it would not be the language of a representative of the Dominion wishing to make the way of the Imperial Government easy. The facts of the case will be awaited with some interest and meanwhile Mr Massey's critics are making what capital they can out of the cable reports.
THE EFFICIENCY BOARD. The local papers, perhaps a little tardily, are waking up to the fact that the National Efficiency Board is in peril of being shunted into oblivion. The "Dominion" can find "no justification in reason or common-sense for the Government's apparent intention of allowing the Board to wind up its activities in the near future," and the "Post" thinks it "amazing' that just when the Board is best qualified to help the State it should receive its marching orders from "an ungrateful, uriappreeiative Government." The "Post" implies very broadly that certain politicians, "including a few in high places." are looking askance at the Board on account of its disposition to interfere with their prerogatives, and without attaching too much importance to a suggestion of this kind it is easj to believe that on occasions Ministers have found the commissioners' recommendations a little embarrassing
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Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1919, Page 7
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662WELLINGTON TOPICS. Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1919, Page 7
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