WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1920, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE NEW YEAR. MR. MASSEY'S MESSAGE. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Jan. 1. In his message to the people of Xew Zealand Mr. Massey epitomised the speeches he made up and down the country during the election campaign. "Loyalty, industry and progress" were the principles he stressed in his appeal to the constituencies, and they are the keynote of the felicitations he offers them on the threshold of the New Year. It would be a poor spirit that would carp at his sentiments or at the words in which he expresses them. But the Prime Minister's own personal and political friends are becoming a little alarmed lest he should fail to realise the full significance of the verdict delivered at the polls. "INDEPENDENCE." That Mr. Massey has a working majority behind him in the House therfe can be no reasonable doubt. The independence claimed by some members of his party during the election campaign was not of the kind that endures, ft always was qualified by the reservation that in the event of a no-confidence motion being tabled against the Prime .Minister his restless supporters would return to the fold. The independence of certain Liberal members of the House is of the same order, tie truth being, of course, the present system of party government does not allow a member to vacillate from one iside to the other without loss of influence and prestige—one might almost say without loss of self-respect. But the knowledge that the Government represents only •» minority of the electors is going to make its supporters far more critical than they have been in the past. DIFFERENCES OF'OPINION. Mr. Massey evidently was alive to this fact when he issued his New Year message. "I know perfectly well," he says, "that it is impossible to avoid differences of opinion in minor matters; but there should be only one opinion With regard to essentials." This amounts almost to an invitation to his own supporters to take more latitude in the way of criticism than would have been at all convenient when the contending parties were more evenly balanced'. Whether or not there will be any marked change in the discipline of their own party on account of its larger and more stable majority remains to be seen, but it is recognised that Mr. Massey has proved a very tactful leader so far as lus followers are concerned, and fhat he possesses something of the Seddonian genius in knowing when to tighten and when to loosen the reins.

ANOTHER TRCCE. Some people believe that the Prime Minister's conciliatory message is intended to smooth the way to another "truce" between the Reformers and the Liberals, and the Hon. W. IX S. MacDonald, the Kon. A. M. Myers and Mr. T. iVI. U'ilford are being mentioned' as probable members of a Coalition Cabinet. Other people, however, who profess to be acquainted with the temper of both parties, declare that at present such an arrangement is quite out of the question. llr. Mac Donald and Mr. Myers would be warmly welcomed to the other side of the House, if they were disposed to cross the floor, but the younger of Mr. Masscy's followers would look upon Mr. Wilford as an intruder, and it is doubtful if the Prime. Minister himself would receive the very intense member for Hutt cordially. The relations between them in the old fighting days were very strained, to put it as mildly as the facts will admit, and apparently their association in the National Cabinet did not improve them.

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