Evening Post. THURSDAY, MAY 29, 1930. A JOINT RESPONSIBILITY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 125, 29 May 1930, Page 8

Evening Post. THURSDAY, MAY 29, 1930. A JOINT RESPONSIBILITY

: The statement issued by our new Prime Minister after the swearingin of his team yesterday was distinguished by a modesty equally appropriate to the character of- the man and to the difficulties of a minority Government. He has taken office, as he says, "under circumstances of difficulty," and he approaches his great task "with a due sense of humility" and a consciousness of his limitations,, which his opponents recognise just as clearly as his supporters to be no mere figures of speech. Taking office about a year ago under similar conditions, the normally tactful, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald committed the unfortunate blunder of warning; his . opponents that there must be "no monkeying'—a warning which would have come with propriety from the leader of an unwieldy majority addressing fol* lowers who had been tempted by that fact to assert an inconvenient freedom, but was grotesquely out of place in the mouth of a leader who could neither take office rior hold it without the support of one or other of the opposing parties. The statement in which Mr. Forbes makes his bow to the country in his new capacity is not marred by any such discord. In his very first sentence he refers to the personal goodwill of his political opponents as one of |he things that have fortified him in the facing of his new responsibilities, and it is again to his opponents that the whole of his second sentence is addressed. Prom those who may definitely differ from me politically, I know that the Government now taking office will receive consideration, and that there will be national and Imperial occasions upon which they will feel justified in giving us- their disinterested help. Nothing could have been better than this reference to the national and Imperial occasions on which the Prime Minister Soes not appeal or argue for the help of political opponents, but quietly assumes that it will be freely given. Among the domestic problems which even a minority Government cannot possibly avoid and on which, despite differences of opinion, it may "fairly anticipate from all parties in Parliament their aid to reaching the best solution," the first place is properly given to unemployment. One may even hope that, following the precedent which may be established in Britain as the result:of Mr. MacDonald's striking appeal, the aid of which Mr. Forbes speaks may take a more intimate form than the mere benevolent treatment of proposals initiated by the Government in the usual way. But, whatever form this necessary co-operation may take, the unemployment is the urgent and- menacing problem which must be given precedence over all others, and it is highly satisfactory to learn that "plans for a more permanent remedy than it has previously, been possible to evolve" are in contemplation. Whatever else may be shelved, to grapple with unemployment is the paramount duty of the Government and the Legislature.

Of external affairs the Prime Minister had nothing to say yesterday beyond the already-quoted reference to the "national and Imperial occasions" on which the Government could look to the other parties for "their disinterested help." That gap is filled, and filled in a highly satisfactory way, by the statement which is issued to-day regarding the Imperial Conference. In the hopeless confusion and uncertainty, of our politics during the last three or four months, the affairs of the Empire received very little attention, and as Sir Joseph Ward was not well enough to attend the Imperial Conference, and the insecurity of the Parliamentary position and the claims of domestic business would seriously embarrass his deputy or his successor, the prospect of New Zear land's adequate representation at the Conference did not seem bright. At a conference of the Prime Ministers of the Empire we could have no adequate representative but our Prime Minister, nor on previous occasions has anybody suggested that we could, but it was not to be supposed that any Prime Minister could afford to go, or that the country or Parliament could expect him to go, if he was liable to be treated as M. Tardieu was treated while he was attending the. Naval Conference in London, and have a no-confidence motion carried against him in his absence. Mr. I'^orbes is to be congratulated on the manner in which he has faced the difficulty. He has acted with the utmost promptitude, for the decision must have been reached at the very first meeting of his Cabinet, and it is the first of the Government's decisions on a definite issue of the highest importance to be published. At the same time the decision is clearcut and businesslike, reconciles the conflicting claims of domestic and Imperial policy by a reasonable compromise, and while necessarily re-

cognising that the fate of die decision rests with the other parties he puts it before them in such a way as, without any contentious suggestion, to throw" the responsibility upon them. In order to allend a conference which meets in London in October, Mr. Forbes should leave New Zealand somewhere about the Ist September, but by that time our Parliament would in ordinary course have completed about two-fifths of its session and perhaps one tenth of its work. In view of the gravity of the problems that must be tackled, it is out of the question to end' the session then, nor can the Prime Minister leave the House to complete its business without him if part of that business may be to carry a motion which would bring a new Government, and perhaps a new Parliament, into being before he returned. What Mr. Forbes proposes is that he should attend the Imperial" Conference with an assurance from the Opposition parties that no no-confi-dence motion will be carried against his Government during his absence, and that as a condition of that assurance they should accept his undertaking to give the most important and controversial of his policy Bills precedence, so that they may be disposed of during the two months before he goes. To suppose that Parliament can be .persuaded into completing in those first two months, which it mostly wastes, the business which it is accustomed to spread over five months, and to finish in a fortnight of blind haste induced by exhaustion and homesickness, may seem an extravagant expectation. To expect that the heavy contribution which is usually made to the waste of those first two months by the unreadiness of the Government will be withheld on this occasion may appear almost equally Utopian. But if the Prime Minister is prepared to guarantee the second of these conditions, will not the leaders of the other parties help him to realise the first? We believe that they will, and that in loyal co-operation the three of them can succeed.- It is of equalimportance that the Prime Minister shall attend the Imperial Conference, and- that the heavy legislative pro■gramme awaiting Parliament shall not be skimped. If Mr. Coates and Mr. H. E. Holland are of the same mind and spirit in this matter as Mr. Forbes, both these indispensables can be achieved, but not otherwise. ■ ■ •