The Clutha Leader. BALCLUTHA: TUESDAY, AUG. 26. A POLITICAL BOMBSHELL.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLVI, Issue 17, 26 August 1919, Page 5

The Clutha Leader. BALCLUTHA: TUESDAY, AUG. 26. A POLITICAL BOMBSHELL.

Developments during the past few months it fairly obvious that the eoalitioir eotildJ not. exist much longer, much as a large section of the people ■would' have welcomed "a continuation until matters, industrial and financial, had righted themselves. Sir Joseph Ward's dramatic resignation' has left the Prime Minister in a dilemma. Nothing has been prepared for the meeting of Parliament, a laxity scarcely creditable to the Cabinet,'but doubtless a position created! through' a desire to await the arrival in the Dominion of the leaders. If .such is the case the Liberal leader's action' can scarcely be looked upon as '' cricket.'' lie was 'being con- j sid'ered just as much as- Mr Massey by the delay, and his unseemly haste to turn the incident to his own account was scarcely expected l after the close association; of the leaders during the past four years. It is to bo hoped that the solidarity of the 1 lie form party will carry it safely through the 1 present- crisis. Radical reform, however, will have to be made in the constitution of the Cabinet if the desired result is to be obtained. The better sense of the House may be expected to give the Prime Minister a chance to rehabilitate the position created)'by his late colleague 's unsportsmanlike action in preference to superseding his party by one twisted at will by the Labour section. That catastrophe is by no means remote. The Liberal leader is making a wild bid for its support, so mucli so that La'bour is> complaining about his theft of its policy. War figures appear to have deranged his mental grasp of the perspective of tilings. It is- going to be a wild- orgy of borrowing and' spending under his leadership. There- is to be three million borrowed for education, four million for roads, six million for developing electrical energy, there are to be .State terry services, State> ilourmills, 'State coal mines, the State is going to pull the children's teeth and administer the health-giving pill, and it is to provide workers' homes and other domestic Necessities ad libitum, in short, as far as ladling out money is concerned the cost of running a war will not be in it. The people would be wise to think well 'before throwing over the substance it now possesses for the shadow promised, for it is nothing more 1 than tickling the ears of the groundlings to imagine that <m top of a. debt of 172 millions' of money that this Dominion can plunge into a borrowing debauch such as is entailed iii' the Liberal leader's manifesto. .