THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1923. THE POLITICAL, SITUATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18803, 5 March 1923, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1923. THE POLITICAL, SITUATION.

Tub swing of tho pendulum is a fully recognised feature of political life. It has not bceu observed in New Zealand to tho same extent as in most British countries. Tho Liberal Party under successive leaders enjoyed an exceptionally long period of power, and already tho number of years' that have elapsed since tho Reform Party came into office is exceeded only, in tho history of this dominion, by the term of tho Ballance-Soddon-Wr.rd-Mackcnzie regime. Of tho Prime Ministers in the British dominions at the time of the outbreak of the Great "War, Mr Massey alone retains his office at tho present time and he ha-s continuously retained it. Mr Asquith exists in tho cold shades of Opposition where he has been joined by his successor as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Sir Robert Borden in

Canada has retired from political life and his successor in the Prime Ministership, Mr Meighen, has been deprived of power; Mr Andrew Fisher in Australia has forsaken politics and his successor, Mr Hughes has lost office; General Botha, in South Africa, has quitted this life; and there is not one of the subordinate States in the British Commonwealth in which the Premier in 1914 retains his position. Mr Massey attributes the comparative reverse that was suffered by the Reform Party at the polls in December last to the swing of the pendulum and to the operation of special factors each of which, we agree with him, had sovne effect on the result of the voting. In his reference to this matter at Hamilton on Saturday, Mr Massey does not seem to have mentioned one of the arguments by which electors were influenced, unfovourably to the Reform Party, in the casting of their votes. This was the argument, a perfectly sound argument within certain limits, that the Government’s majority in the last Parliament was far too large and that the interests of the country demanded that the Opposition should be strengthened. When we recall that five seats were lost to the Reform Party by narrow majorities, we may almost conclude that the set-back, as Mr Massey calls it, which the Government has received would, despite the violent outcry that was made against the retrenchment policy and against certain remissions of taxation, not have been experienced if it had not been for the well-meaning actions of the persons who, while they wished to see the Government maintained in power, considered it desirable that it should be confronted by a more effective Opposition. Wo have not associated ourselves with the view that a dissolution of Parliament may be the outcome of the existing condition of political uncertainty. If, however, there were to be a general election at an early date Mr Massey would have small cause to be anprehensive concerning the result. The Reform Party would not again lose seats through the splitting of votes as it did in December last, and its candidates would receive the votes of a large number of electors whose des'.re to see a better balance of the parties in the present Parliament than in the last one certainly contributed to the creation of a distinctly unsatisfactory situation.