POLITICAL OUTLOOK

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 112, 11 May 1912, Page 9

POLITIC AL OUTLOOK

MACKENZIE MINISTRY PROSPECTS NEXT SESSION. MR. MILLAR PREDICTS DEFEAT. fBT TELEQRAPH — PRES;! ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, 10th May. The defeat of the Mackenzie Ministry during the next session of Parliament is certain. That was the opinion expressed to a Herald reporter by the Hon. J. A. Millar, M.P. for Dunedin West, who was Minister for Railways in the Ward Government. Mr. Millar is equally confident that the present House of Representatives will serve its term. "Theio is no chance of a dissolution duiing the preHent Parliament," said Mr. Millar. "According to precedent, especially after a general election, the House must be exhausted before the Governor will grant a dissolution, and as only one party has had an opportunity to show wliether it has the confidence of the House, the other party must be given an opportunity before the country is again put to the expense of a general election. "The other party must most certainly have that opportunity if it defeats the present Government. So far as I can iearn, the Government will be in a minority when, the question is tested. In my opinion, the Government will be defeated when it meets the House." Reverting to the possibility of a dissolution, Mr. Millar said, he thought there could not possibly be a dissolution until Mr. Massey has had an opportunity to show whether ho can. command a sufficient majority to carry on the work of ttio country. That had always been the practice, and he could not pee how it could be departed from in this case. Th« Governor was almost certain 'to satisfy himself that no party in the House could command a sufficient majority before he granted a dissolution.' Mr. Millar added that if Parliament survived the first session, there would certainly be no dissolution in the second or the third, and it would serve its ful] term.