THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1908. WHY NOT STAY AT HOME?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9042, 29 January 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1908. WHY NOT STAY AT HOME?

When the Ward Administration was formed we heard a good deal about tha value to the country of "a strong Government," and the new Government was for the moment declared to bs all that the country demanded. The vacillations of the Min's ry respecting the Land Bill, altered public opinion to some extent, 'ind at the present time it may be doubted if the Administration is considered a "strong" one. It is proposed, however, to make it unquestionably strong, on the bundle-of-stieks principle. Eight Ministers are not deemed sufficient to carry on the Government, and additions to the numerical strength of the Cabinet a-e, we are assured, contemplate! • The excuse for this is that, with the ever-multiplying departments of State, Ministers have more to do than they can get through. The proposal to add to the Cabinet membership is not new. Whenever a Minister has passed on to *,he "great majority," a section of the Press has declaimed against the overtasking of Ministers generally, and pathetically alluded to the sacrifice of health and life involved in the holding of portfolios. There is bathos as well as pathos in the declamation. Every colonist is

sincerely grieved when a Minister of the Crown is cut off by the grim Reaper; but facts have to b% looked squarely in the face. It is as a rule not the legitimate [function of office that kills, but the illegitimate "pace" at which Ministers move in order to retain their seats on the Treasury benches. There can be no manner of doubt that Ministers rush about the country, feast, and speak for more than the exigencies of legitimate administrative duties require. From the termination of one session to the commencement of the next, they are confirmed perepatetics. Everywhere they go they are banqueted and ravelled by members of their party, (hey make long speeches of a more or less electioneering character, and then sit up into the early dawn transacting such State business a3 is imperative. At stray inteivals they return to the capital to take up a huge mass of work which has accumulated in the offices, rush through that, and then once more make excursions into other provinces and other towns to renew the game of wooing the electors. This has been the practice of the Government for years. The present Ministry is no worse than its predecessor. Is it; any wonder that members of the Cabinet become worn out and wearyp and fall Into ill-health? The affairs of the country would be better administered if Ministers would stay more at home, and attend to the business of their departments; and there would then be no heed on the score of overwork to add to the strength of the Cabinet. It may be doubted, however, if the idea of additional strength is really motived by the plea of overwork. There is reason to assume that it has a placatory rather than any other basis. There are members who are still sore at being left out of the present Cabinet when it was formed, and who have noi yet recovered from the wound to their personal vanity and ambition. Is it r.ot possible that they may' nibble at a bait of the kind just thrown out into the political waters, and be appeased for the time being? "John," said the "auld wife"-to her husband, "I'll never desert you as long as you have a.shilling." The malcontents of the Ministerial party may be induced to follow her example, and stick to the Government so long a3 it ha 3 a portfolio in prospective.