MR. BALDWIN'S TEAM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22271, 20 November 1935, Page 12

MR. BALDWIN'S TEAM

The task of rearranging Cabinet is understood to be engaging Mr. Baldwin's attention. No great changes are expected. Some guesses made do not commend themselves as reasonable. Most can be said for continuing to observe the principle, embodied in the National Government, of a threefold Cabinet. Mr. Baldwin is not at all likely to depart from it. However, in using the opportunity of change given him by the election, he may find that regard for this principle will present some problems. He has lost the two MacDonalds, father and son, and has now only Mr. Thomas, Secretary for the Dominions, as a Cabinet representative of Labour. Whatever may be the outcome of rumoured efforts to find a seat in Parliament for either of the Mac Donalds, it appears that there may still be a necessity to look around among National Labour members for someone to be promoted to Cabinet rank. Decision on this must await consideration of the position created by the defeat of these two Ministers. As the seat of Mr. Elliot, Minister of Agriculture, is not yet secure, being under petition for a fresh poll, a further problem may have to be solved. This also may be postponed. But in the meantime interest centres on the reported possibility of the creation of a Ministry of Defence co-ordinat-ing the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry, now with separate portfolios. Mention of Mr. Winston Churchill's name in this connection gives piquancy to the suggestion ; he has qualifications, and the recent healing of the breach between him and the Government may be taken to increase the possibility of his inclusion in the Cabinet. Yet the amalgamation of parliamentary control of the three departments cannot be regarded as a change to be easily determined. When an arrangement of the kind was proposed some months ago it had little favour. That some alterations in personnel and portfolios will be made can be reasonably assumed, but the team as a whole will probably remain much as it was before the endorsement of the Cabinet's policy was so emphatically given by the country. This expression of approval in general implies satisfaction with departmental administration.