POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 July 1919, Page 3

POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

WHAT OF THE FUTURE ? • NATIONAL CABINET TO. DISSOLVE. PROBLEM FOrTmR MASSEY. WELLINGTON, June 30. Mr Massey and Sir Joseph -Vurd, after all, are coining back to New Zealand on the same steamer. They will arrive here early in August and then the political situation will become interesting at once. One of the matters that is being discussed is the composition of the Ministry that Mr Massey may be expected to form when the National Government passes out of existence. There are 13 Ministers at present, including the representative of the Native race, but the increase in the numbers was a war measure, and Mr Massey is not likely to select more than seven or eight colleagues. It is possible that Sir James Allen, who has had a long spell of very active work, will prefer not to take a protfolio again. If this should prove to be the case, Mr Massey will have at least three places to fill, assuming that Sir William Fraser, Sir Francis Bell, Mr Guthrie and Mr Herries retain ministerial rank. There is a report that Sir William Fraser also may retire. The selection of Ministers obviously will be a delicate business for Mr Massey, who will have to reckon with an unsettled party, an insecure majority and an early general election. Sir Joseph Ward will have no easier task if circumstances require him to form a Ministry before the election.

The break-away of the parties may produce some interesting disclosures as to the relations between the two groups of Ministers during the last three years. The forms of ministerial unity have been preserved, though not always without exceeding difficulty, but it is no secret that Ministers have disagreed, Some Ministers think that other Ministers scored party points within the National Government, that things were left undone that ought to have been done, that public interests were sacrificed to expediency, and so forth. Will all the Ministers be content to share the blame for the National Government’s sins, or will there be explanation and recrimination ?