THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1931. THE NEW GOVERNMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20985, 23 September 1931, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1931. THE NEW GOVERNMENT.

The new Government is now formally constituted, portfolios have been allotted and the personnel of the Cabinet has been announced. Except for the passing of an Imprest Supply Bill, Parliament will not function for a fortnight, when the Government proposes to be ready for action on its policy. At present the Cabinet, which must shape its programme in the intervening days, offers the only new material for consideration. Its membership brings no surprises, closely following recent predictions. Those members of the former Government who retain Cabinet rank also retain, largely, their old responsibilities. The chief exception is the Prime Minister, who has had his hands freed of heavy administrative duties. Railways, the largest department in his list, is no longer onerous. Mr. Masters, on the other hand, from holding no portfolio, will now administer two of considerable importance, Education and Industries and Commerce, from the Legislative Council. As the need for economy in education has been much discussed of late, the wisdom of giving him this portfolio is open to question. To have it held by a member of the Council has been strenuously criticised in more tranquil days. It cannot escape comment now. The incoming Ministers from the former Opposition have not been handed sinecures. Mr. Coates will handle a heavy load. He takes his old department, Public Works, in which he first won his spurs, and will also become responsible for unemployment relief. This second task should give ample scope for the administrative ability and the drive he is known to possess. New relief policies are being shaped. They were badly needed. To give them form and substance is work that demands attention urgently. It is for Mr. Coates to act as guide on the way. That Mr. Downie Stewart should be Minister of Finance was expected. There would have been much surprise if he had not been chosen. His capacity to grip the intricacies of the subject is well proved. He has, in addition, a gift for the clear exposition of them not equalled by any man in public life. But with this portfolio and Customs he carries a heavy burden. The remaining distribution of departments calls for no special comment. This, then, is the new Government. Without over-emphasising the difficulties of the times, it can be said a trying, involved and in parts undoubtedly unpalatable task awaits handling. It is not unfair to remark that the Coalition Government inherits something far worse than a half-million deficit. Formation and acceptance of the new Government does not alter the fact that it succeeds to difficulties which have been made greater by the policy of drift and of temporising which has existed so long. It is quite true the general economic situation has steadily deteriorated, and that has had a great deal to do with the national outlook which must be faced. It is equally true that warnings of what would happen, of what actually was happening, were plentiful, but produced little effect. Much precious time has been lost—not simply because some months have elapsed between the first proposal of combined action and the adoption of it as a plan—and as a result the task of the new* Government is so much the more difficult. These things must be recalled to emphasise the salient fact that unless new methods are adopted, and a new determination to act is shown, there will have been little profit in forming a Coalition Government. It will have the general sympathy of the country, it is entitled to general assistance. Its part is to retain the consideration and the disposition to help by so bearing itself as to deserve them. The movement which ended in the formation of this Government started with the appointment of a committee to consider the national economic situation and, if possible, devise a common policy to meet it. That body heard a volume of evidence from sources outside the political field, but it devised no policy. Instead, the Coalition was accepted, and it is now shaping its own policy. There is, as yet, no hint of what measures will be adopted; but there should be no difficulty in deciding what should be selected as the outstanding task. That should be to set the affairs, and particularly the finances, of the j State itself in order. Industry, especially primary industry, is unquestionably face to face with grim circumstances. The first and most essential thing to be done is to reduce to the absolute minimum the charges placed on it by the cost of government and public administration. The accomplishment of it would be both material and moral aid for industry. It is also the first, natural, inevitable task of the Government. Rigid economy, a close supervision of all outgoings—especially the small ones, which have the knack of mounting into a formidable total —are the great essentials. These things are not easily done, but the Coalition Government has supposedly been formed to attempt difficult things. If it does not, it will have come about in vain. These are the principles to be kept in view. A point in procedure may be commended to its notice. It is to put the cards 011 the table, to tell the country at once, in one instalment, what is to be apprehended. That done the remedial measures proposed should also be revealed freely and fully. If the Government does not show that it trusts the people, if it does not give certainty, even the certainty of hardship and general sacrifice, it will not win the confidence of the people. Unless it has that, it will be impotent, it will throw away the chance it has, as a new Government of freshly aligned forces to lead the country along the hard road that 1 must be traversed.

THE 'MANCHURIAN CLASH.

Hopes of a speedy end to the clash between Japanese and Chinese at Mukden have been falsified. The trouble has spread until a virtual state of war exists in Manchuria, the Japanese occupation having spread to a second of its three provinces and taken control of all important communication centres. More significant than the news of military movements, which must be read with caution because of the limits imposed by circumstance and instruction on information from the seat of the trouble, are the widening reactions of the clash. The tense feeling in the treaty ports generally, the enforcement of martial law in Tientsin, the resentful protests of the Chinese Government, 'and the very grave steps taken by Russia, all point to an extension rather than a contraction of the disturbance. How far the Japanese Government is responsible for the outbreak is not yet clear : it may be found that, in the first instance, unauthorised acts by Chinese officials at Mukden led to sudden reprisals by Japanese soldiery on their own initiative. Yet this would not absolve the Japanese Government from blame for the subsequent seizure of strategic positions by forces in its pay nor from responsibility for the losses and damage inflicted on the Chinese. Nor can the Chinese Government, assuming its officials to have been the aggressors, escape a share of the onus. The entry of Russia so definitely into the affray carries it still further toward a state of actual war, and the history of the region suggests that rival ambitions have only slumbered of late, awaiting a convenient time of arousal. Apparently, the situation is fast passing beyond an easy settlement by foreign intervention —Russia's is that of a party too closely interested to be impartial—and the hints that action by the League or application of the Briand-Kellogg Pact would be unwelcome make it more awkward still. Nevertheless, intervention is demanded by what is known of the facts, and the treaty Powers not yet entangled in the trouble may have to take a hand on their own respon-sibility—-and explain to others afterwards.