E POLITICAL SITUATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16642, 14 March 1916, Page 8

E POLITICAL SITUATION

QUESTION OP AN EARLY SESSION.

(Fboh Oub Own Cobkespondent.) WELLINGTON, March 13. Current opinion in well-informed circles ia tlhat an early session of Parliament is inevitable. In addition to the familial' reasons hitherto advanced that Parliament must, meet to .'pass legislation for, compulsory national service, and that it will bo necessary for the Prime Minister and Sir Joseph Ward to meet the House priQr to their visit to London, it is suggested that there may bo financial reasons for calling Parliament together Last session a loan of £10,000,000 for war purposes was authorised. Not very much information is vouchsafed as to the rate at which this money, which is all being advanced by the Imperial Treasury, is being spent, but certainly tho rate of expenditure has increased enormously since when the money was voted. Such speculations lead very easily to tho discussion of another possibility—whether a local war loan may be'necessary—and we have had hints for months past in the speeches of British statesmen that the British treasury cannot bo drawn upon without limit. It is stated that a section of responsible financial men in New Zealand are bringing pressure to bear on the Government to take steps to get control of tho surplus money abounding m this country now, in order that it may not •be dissipated in -unproductive expenditure, or in moro or less speculative investment, but "really consorved for the purpose for which all the resources of the Empire /nay yet be needed—tftio winning of the war. Tho metljpd by which the Government can do this is, of course, by the flotation of a local loan.

The Prime Minister said to-day that ho would not be $ble to say for a fortnight yet any_ more about the possibility of an early session of Parliament. At the end of that period he hoped that the Cabinet would be able to decide as to the date on which the House would meet. He would not say whether there was, or was not, a likelihood that the Cabinet would decide that Parliament should be called together before the usual meeting time —the end of June.