PARTY PREVAILS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16921, 29 July 1915, Page 6

PARTY PREVAILS.

Otra readers will not require to be told that we are profoundly disappointed that the negotiations for establishing a National Cabinet have failed. The party leaders had been bo frequently in consultation during the last month that there appeared to #xist, alongside some natural difficulties, a genuine desire on both sides to abolish party government for the period of the war; and the assumption was warranted that Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward were fortified by a similar desire on the part of their respective followings. The formation of a nonparty Government was manifestly the correct thing, its desirability being emphasised not only by the special requirements of a world crisis but also by the even halance between the Government and Opposition sides of ■yhe House resulting from the elections. Jfhe present Ministry i 3 as patriotic as any collection of public men that could be brought together in New Zealand, and each member, wo are certain, desires to givo his best service to tbo country and the Empire. But the Ministry is not tho most efficient that the Parliament could produce, because .it is drawn from one side only; it is not the most representative, because the Opposition received several thousand more votes than the Government did' at the general election. The Government survived the elections by some lucky chances—the mistake of a poll clerk in one election, for one instance, and for another tho election of a candidate who in of eight received 885 out of of 3te42 votes. "We mention these facts because ■we think they ought to have influenced the Reformers when they approached the question of setting up a National Cabinet. A proper appreciation of the true position should have induced the Prime Minister to submit proposals that the leader of the Opposition could not reasonably have refused'. We are disposed to think that a serious error of judgment was committed) in prematurely making public the terms upon which the negotiations Ibetween Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward commenced; but now that the subject i* apparently done with tho people areen~ i

1 titled to review the situation in the light of the information disclosed. The facte are simple. Mr Massey first proposed that his party should retain six portfolios and the Opposition should be given three. On this being rejected a five-to-four proposition was made, and a further extension followed on the basis of six to five. If that fully represented the position, we think ! the public would have wished j the Opposition to accept the last | and most favourable proposition, 1 notwithstanding that Sir Joseph Ward's proposal for equal representation was very much fairer. But the distribution of portfolios which Mr Massey mentioned in his final offer could not have dispersed any suspicion of lukewarmness aroused by his first. That Mr Massey should retain the Premiership nobody would dispute, but to insist upon also taking Defence and Mr Allen retaining Finance, however it may have been; intended, was hardly the most likely way to succeed. Sir Joseph Ward's objection te that arrangement is certainly very hard to refute. The tenor of the' correspondence which we publish this morning, however, leads to the unpleasant conclusion that party considerations were too prominent throughout the negotiations, and tha main responsibility for j that must rest upon the gentleman who took the initiative, who alone could formulate the successive and progressive bases for discussion. The precedent of the Imperial National Cabinet has been quoted in the course of the negotiations, but unfortunately the spirit that animated the party leaders in the Mother Country has been absent from the New Zealand negotiations. When Mr Asquith determined | to form a National Cabinet his Administration, although, it was supported by an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons, went out of office in a body and the Government that w«3 formed was, from a constitutional point of view, an entirely new one. Had Mr Massey followed this 1 precedent strictly there would liave been less room for the failure of the negotiations.