THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1935. THE NEW ORDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22741, 29 November 1935, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1935. THE NEW ORDER

There should be as little delay as possible in effecting the change of Government which the electors have decreed by a vote that is more emphatic than any previously cast in the Dominion. All the considerations of political decency, as well as of political expediency, demand that the fullest respect shall be accorded to the public verdict. The National Government has received notice to quit. It is due to the electors who have served this notice upon it that it should not stand on the order of its going, but should go at once. Every facility should be offered to the Labour Party to assume as speedily as possible the responsibilities of office with which it is to be entrusted. It is perfectly understandable that the Prime Minister should await the return to Wellington of the Minister of Finance and the other members of the National Government before he tenders its i - esignation to the Governor-General. But all his colleagues should have joined Mr Forbes before the week has ended, and the Government should recognise, as soon as its members have re-assembled, that it is incumbent upon it to make way at once for its successors. The Leader of the Opposition has arranged to be in Wellington on Monday. It may be surmised that he has been informally advised that his presence there at the beginning of next week is desirable, with a view to his receipt from the Governor-General of a commission to form a new The composition of the first Labour Ministry in New Zealand is, however, not likely to be known for several days. The Prime Minister of a Government representing the Labour Party is not, like the Prime Minister of a Government composed of members of any other party, entitled to make his own choice of his colleagues. The selection of the Ministers is a privilege that is claimed and exercised by the members of the party who hold seats in Parliament. It would seem, therefore, to be a reason-

able assumption that the members of the party will be summoned to attend a caucus in Wellington next week for the purpose of selecting the Ministers who are to be associated with Mr Savage and to whom their various Ministerial offices will be allotted by him. The change of Government would not in itself necessitate an early session of Parliament. The supplies that have been voted would admit of Mr Savage and his colleagues carrying on the business of the country until the middle of the year, which is the normal time for the opening of a session. The Labour Party has, however, made promises that can be redeemed only by the enactment of legislation, and Mr Savage has indicated that for that reason Parliament may be summoned to meet early in the year. The buoyant state of the public finances enabled Mr Forbes to say a few days ago that he anticipated that it would be possible next year to complete the restoration to public servants of the cuts which it was necessary to make in their salaries and wages, and it would seem, therefore, that the policy that has been pursued by the National Government will smooth the way towards the fulfilment by its successors of this one of their pledges. But the Labour Party has made promises also to other sections of industrial workers, and the fact that legislation will be necessary in that these promises, as well as those to the public servants, may be redeemed constitutes the reason why Parliament will be convened to meet at an early date. It is to be gathered, however, that this session will not be one ad hoc. Parliament, having been assembled, will proceed to consider other features of the new Government's proposals, which include the completion of the Napier-Gisborne railway and probably the completion of the South Island Main Trunk railways —both of'them, in face of the opinion of the Eailways Board to the contrary, regarded by Mr Savage as "economic propositions."