THE POLITICAL PARTIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 July 1919, Page 6

THE POLITICAL PARTIES.

INTERESTING TIMES AHEAD. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, July 1. Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward, after all, are coming back to New Zealand on the same steamer. They will airive here early in August, and then the political situation will become interesting at once.

One of the matters that is being discussed is the composition of the Ministry that Mr. Massey may be expected to form when the Nhtional Government passes out of existence. There are thirteen Ministers at presen.t, including the representative of the native race, but the increase in the numbers was a war measure, and Mr. Massey is not likely to select more than seven or eigh,t colleagues. It is possible that Sir James Allen, who has had a long spell of very active work, will jirefer not to take a portfolio again. If this should prove to be the case, Mr. Massey will have at least three places to fill, assuming that Sir William Fraser, Sir Francis Bell, Mr. Guthrie, and Mr. Herries retain Ministerial rank. There is a report that Sir William Fraser also may retire. The selection of Ministers obviously will be a delicate business for Mr. Massey, who will have to reckon wi,th an unsettled party, an insecure majority, and an early general election. Sir Joseph Ward will have no easier task if circumstances require him to form a Ministry before the election. The break-away of the parties may produce some interesting disclosures as to the relations between the two groups of Ministers during the last three years. The forms of Ministerial unity have been preserved, though not always without exceeding difficulty, but it is no secret that Ministers have disagreed. Some Ministers think that other Ministers scored party points within the National Government; .that things were left undone that ought to have been done, that public interests were sacrificed to expediency, and so forth. Will all the Ministers be content to share the blame for the National Government's sins, or will there be explanation and recrimination?