THE STATE OF POLITICAL PARTIES.

Evening Star, Issue 10469, 12 November 1897, Page 4

THE STATE OF POLITICAL PARTIES.

A DISSOLUTION NEXT YEAR PREDICTED. MINISTERS UNAELE TO CONTROL THE HOUSE. [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, November 12. Day by day it is becoming more manifest that little legislation is to be passed this session. That the Government will weather the next few weeks without a severe reverse is exceedingly probable, but the man a of the Right Hon. the Premier and the other occupants of the Treasury benches has gone, and, to use a stock phrase, the handwriting is on tho wall. What will probably occur is this: there will be a dissolution within the next twelve months ; Government will next session find themselves unable to carry on the business of the country, and will ask His Excellency to dissolve Parliament; a general election will follow ; and when tho new Parliament meet the present Opposition will come into power, and will have a three years’ lease of office. This, I venture to predict, is a safer conjecture than that a coalition Government will be formed, though that is apparently the goal for which the Left Wingers are striving. It has only to be added that it is unacknowledged axiom with parliamentary institutions that inability to pass legislation owing to the attitude of the Opposition invariably tends to discredit the Government. The idea of Mr Ward being taken into the Ministry, either before the session closes or during the recess, is not seriously entertained by the Government following.