PRIME MINISTER CONFIDENT.

Mataura Ensign, 13 May 1912, Page 4

PRIME MINISTER CONFIDENT.

PEB UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION. WELLINGTON, May 13. Hon. T. Mackenzie (Pime Minister), speaking to a 'Post' reporter, said he had just returned from an extensive tour of the South. He said that the country was right. If a general election took place to-morrow there was not the slightest doubt that the Liberal Party would come back with a good majority. Replying to Hon. J. A. Millar's prediction that the Government would be defeated on a no-confidence motion, he said: "We are in the hands of the House. All I know is that the Liberal Party at the conference pledged itself to support the men selected by the party. If it fulfils that pledge we will carry on but the House and the country need have no anxiety as far as I am personally concerned. If the House says it does not want us we will accept its decision without argument, but we will use no means whatever to seoure a majority. I know the constitutional position. An appeal to the country cannot be made until the House is exhausted, but there may be one or two ups and downs before that takes place."