THE MINISTRY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11541, 30 March 1898, Page 4

THE MINISTRY.

The public, like ourselves, will be pleased to learn, on “ official ” authority, that neither the Hon John M’Kenzie nor the Hon A. J. Cadmaa has any immediate intention of re*, tiring from the Cabinet. The gentlemen named are two useful Ministers, with whose management of their particular departments little fault can be found; and their continuance in office is a guarantee that a progressive land policy and an improved system ,of railway management, combined with intelligent aid to the mining industry, will still .be pursued. These two Ministers are worthy colleagues of the Premier, and are the last men whom we should wish to see withdrawing from public life for any reason whatever, least of all owing to failing health, which was the reason assigned by rumour. But three Ministers do not make a Cabinet, any more than one swallow makes a summer, and the non-re-tirement of Messrs Cadman and M’Kenzie will not affect the contention that a strengthening of the Ministry is absolutely necessary prior to the opening of the parliamentary session. The Premier is the only reliable debating member of the Government; for Mr MTKenzie, though a splendid fighter, is often unable through illness to take part in parliamentary debates, while Mr Carroll, though a finished orator, is lacking either in interest or in energy, and rarely lends his chief a hand. What is "urgently required is that there should be an able and forceful Minister of Defence and Justice, and in lesser degree a Minister of Public Works of a more robust type than the present holder of the portfolio. Meu are wanted who, while possessing the confidence of the public and the esteem of Parliament, would ba able to strengthen the Government in debating power. The “ official ” reticence on the subject of reconstruction does not, we hope, mean that no change in the Ministry is contemplated. Bather, it may he inferred, the absence of'Contradiction favours the presumption that two or three resignations may shortly he expected, and that Mr Seddon will fortify his position by calling some new men to his councils.