ESTABLISHED 1866. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Wednesday, April 17, 1901. THE FEDERAL ELECTION RESULTS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXV, Issue 86, 17 April 1901, Page 2

ESTABLISHED 1866. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Wednesday, April 17, 1901. THE FEDERAL ELECTION RESULTS.

Mr Reid may well be pleased with the result of the Federal elections, for the Free trade party, of which he is the head, have a safe majority in the Senate, and in the Lower House arc so strong that under Mr Reid's tactful leadership they will be able to force Mr Barton and the ultra-Protectionists to largely modify the policy which they •put forward at the elections. We do not regard Mr Reid as a model politician, and we are not in the least inclined to regard him as a statesman, bub regarding the result of the Federal elections from a purely New Zealand point of view it is impossible for us not to be gratified at the turn affairs have taken. There is now a very much better chance of tho Zealand produce trade with Australia being left without the interference and opposition of a hostile tariff, as would have been a danger had Mr Barton had a bigger majority in the House of Representatives ; and for the present, at least, there need be no more ta'k of any necessity for a treaty of reciprocity. As to the future of the opppsing leaders in the Commonwealth Parliament, we venture to predict that if Mr Reid maintains a straightforward course, abjuring those tactics which have in the past brought no small discredit upon him as a political leader, he must, within the next eighteen months or so, oust Mr Barton from the Premiership. Whether this will be or will . not be a good thing for the Commonwealth we need not here discuss; we are merely stating a strong probability. But tho case against New Zealand federating with Australia is now stronger than over. We have no need to forego advantages of which we are sure, in keeping our own national identity, for on the one question of the produce trade, over which the advocates of Federation hava been so concerned, the danger, real or imaginary, of its being materially affected bids fair, with Mr Reid's strength in the Commonwealth Parliament, to disappear. Meanwhile, please note that Queensland, one of the federated colonies, has this year a deficit of over half a million sterling. Surely it would be unwise lor New Zealand with its. surplus this year of £300,000 to federate with States which are in the linancial condition of the colony we have just mentioned.