WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 March 1919, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE GENERAL ELECTION. A CANARD. (Special Correspondent). , Wellington, March 14. The author of the story that Parliament will be dissolved immediately on the return of the party leaders from the Peace Conference, without members being calied together, at lenst has the /.aiisfactiou of having been taken seriously. The Actings Prime Minister has thought it necessary to inform the Press that such an idea exists "only in the imagination of a few" and less exalted politicians have explained at some length that such a course would be wholly unconstitutional, and utterly impossible. As a matter of fact it would be neither. There is abundant precedent for the dissolution of Parliament on the arrival of Sir. Masscy and Sir Joseph Ward ill the Dominion and possibly the party leaders had something of the kind in their own minds when they took supply till the end of the year.

RECONSTRUCTION. It would not, however, lie politic, or oven decent for the leaders to dismiss Parliament in this fashion. They have been away on a very important mission and the only authority to which they can properly report the results of their labors is Parliament itself. That they will encounter a great deal of searching criticism from both sides of the House, irrespective of color, when ihey do meet the representatives of tiie people is certain, but with a general election in view they cannot afford to evade this unpleasant experience by a dissolution. Nor is it easy to see how the truee could be formally terminated and the parties again arrayed in opposing camps without the approval of the House being given to a reconstructed Cabinet. This is the most delicate of the many difficult tasks that lie before Mr. Massey.

IMPENDING CHANGES. There is a feeling abroad that there will be unparalleled changes in the personal of the House of Representatives at the next general election. To begin with it is expected that two or even three of tlie Reform Ministers included in the National Cabinet will not seek re-election. Sir William Eraser and Sir James Allen have said almost as much to their intimate friends and the story that Mr. Massey will go Home as Resident Minister in London still persists. Then, oh the other side, the Hon. T. M. Wilford is known to lie well-disposed towards an extensive European tour and Dot particularly enamoured of the life of a Minister of the Crown in a National Cabinet with little scope for enterprise and none for initiative. As for the private members, not an unusually large number of them are retiring voluntarily, but the disabilities imposed upon them by tho party truce are likely to cost many of them their seats.

THE LIQUOR BTLL. Though Wellington is the headquarters of the two parties contending over (he liquor poll it is not greatly agitated just now by flieir activities. The leaders on both sid.-s appear to he devoting their efforts to other communities add to be leaving the capital city to make up its mind for itself on the issue to be decided next month. As far as can be gathered the opinion of people best informed upon the subject is that the result will turn rather on completeness of organisation than upon superiority of numbers. It is expected, in other words, that the result will he decided by the electors who abstain from voting. If this is the case, the personal enthusiasm of the Prohibitionists and the indifference of many of the Moderates will k be big factors in the U«»iio»,