The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1925. NEW CABINET POSSIBILITIES

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12330, 28 December 1925, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1925. NEW CABINET POSSIBILITIES

With the Christmas and New Year festivities over, the next event of national importance is the reconstruction of Cabinet. The Prime Minister has promised us the names of the new Ministry early in January. Ihe announcement is being awaited with an unusual concern. The country is anxious to see whether Mr Coates will be the Mr Coates to whom it gave so emphatic a mandate last November.

That verdjet was a personal tribute to one who had won to the highest political preferment <fn his own .merits. It was also the expression of a widespread opinion that in Mr Coates had been found a new Moses to lead us away from the wilderness of reaction, make-believe, and blatant partisanship to the Promised Land of benign and broad-minded nationalism. ,Th e death of the late Reform Leader gave his successor an ■enviable opportunity to break with traditions which were distasteful to a majority of citizens. Mr Massey was a big man in more ways than one; but his bigness was discounted by the deference he was constrained to pay to overmastering influences inside the party. When he passed hence, the door of escape from those influences was thrown open. So far, Mr Coates has not disappointed either friends or conV r r xf ; ■ That he will spoil that record by tinkering with the question of Ministerial reconstruction is incredible. From the point of view of party strength, he is in an unassailable position: he can do as he thinks right. Whether he is the strong man so many believe him to be will be proved by ths Cabinet he chooses. Several days ago we published an article on the subject. It was an analytical and carefully-prepared forecast of the possibiliThough it is only a forecast, time may reveal that it was not rash guesswork. It indicates a Ministry in which New Zealand may safely have confidence; a Ministry rejuvenated by a powerful infusion of young blood and shorn of all, pr most, of its old handicaps.

The replacement of Mr Statham as Speaker is foreshadowed, and the retirement, later on, of Mr Nosworthy. In neither case does the prospect alarm us; on the contrary. Mr Statham has some admirable qualities which fit Him for the Chair, but he is lacking m certain other essentials. He is inclined to be too much bound up with himself, is deficient in a knowledge of human nature, and too much addicted to stressing mere formalities. ■ It would be an unwarrantable euphemism to describe the Minister for Agriculture as a howling success. His demerits may be summed up.by saying that in the things that matter he is as unlike the Prime Minister as he well could be. Instinct does not hasten to the relief of Mr Noswcrthy when reason fails him. There is a trifle too much of sectionalism in his composition, a shade too much of intolerence, to make him an ideal camp-mate for the Prime Minister.

If Cabinet reconstruction should follow the lines of our article, the community will have no cause to regret that it passed an overwhelming vote of confidence in Mr Coates at the General Election.