MINISTERIAL WORRIES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10044, 14 May 1910, Page 4

MINISTERIAL WORRIES.

When the general election at Home was in progress, reference was made frequently to the care which the Cabinet Ministers took of their health. At the height of tha excitement over the appeal to the people members of the Government

found time for golf, and motoring, and other pastimes. "And," says the English correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, "this religious observance of health was, after all, nothing more than commcn-sense.'' The great political parlies—and particularly the Liberal party—depend for their succass upon their leaders. The emergency might beget the man, but it would be extremely difficult to discover a successor for either MrAequith or Mr Lloyd George. Knowing this, everything is dons to relieve he work of Ministers, and the correspondent says that he has no hesitation in saying that there is not a member of the British Cabinet topay who has upon him the same amount of personal strain as falls upon the average colonial Minister. In England a Minister of the Crown has not only the permanent head of his department and a private secretary to fall back on, as he would have

in Australasia; he has also a Parliamentary under-secretary with a seat in the House, whose duty it is to take up a good deal of the political work of the office, and, in addition, a private Parliamentary secretary, who takes upon himself many of the minor responsibilities. Under this system, the time of the Minister is reserved for matters of moment. Further, a member of the British Cabinet is not at the beck and call of the public; he is not worried because Karao wants a pillar-box £or because the paint work of the Ohoka school has blistered badly. Deputations are few, and the person whose business is of sufficient importance to warrant a private interview is rare. Out here, a Minister may be interviewed a dozen times a day; at Home, it is exceptional, despite the innovations made by Mr Lloyd George and Mr Winston Churchill, for a Minister to come into personal touch with a pressman. In short, it is realised that a Minister's time is too valuable to be wasted on trivial matters, and that less valuable meD are capable of attending to lesser things. His health is not a thing to be endangered needlessly.