FEDERAL POLITICS

Southland Times, Issue 18616, 14 August 1919, Page 6

FEDERAL POLITICS

FRICTION AND PETTY JEALOUSIES. It is announced that what are at present the two lehdexs of the Liberal wing of the Nationalist Party in the Federal Parliament are about to retire from the Cabinet (writes the Sydney correspondent of the Christchurch Press on July 28). Mr Watt, a strong personality and an able statesman, goes because he is very sick; Senator Millen, who has only become prominent through the marked mediocrity of his colleagues, because he is tired. “Meanwhile Mr Hughes, with the weary and querulous Sir Joseph Cook in his train, is nearing these shores. The Federal political position is in that stage now that it will either crumble into utter confusion, or it well respond to the magic touch of Mr Hughes, which may revitalise the National Party. Everything depends upon the temper of the country when Mr Hughes arrives, and on the appeal he will make. There is no doubt that Mr Hughes is coming in full war-paint, ready to fight for his throne. He is armed with all sorts of facts and figures about which we know nothing to-day, concerning our postwar position, commitments, and liabilities. He will tell us what we may expect out of the German war indemnity, what we are committed to in the war of preferential tariffs, and what he has done in the way of shipping. If the little statesman finds the country purring under his hand, while his Nationalist team, as now seems likely, is unruly, he may quite likely rush the country into a general election, making the issue one between moderate Labour and Bolshevism. The country is having an overdose of Bolshevism just now, and may quite likely turn furiously to the moderates, and forget for the moment, its grievances against the profiteers, for whom many hold the Nationalists responsible. If Mr Hughes decides to carry on until next March, when there is a general election, he will have a merry time of it reconstructing his Cabinet. With Watt and Millen gone, he will have no man of any marked ability left in association with him, for even Sir Joseph Cook, though an experienced politician and campaigner, is not an outstanding figure. There is not complete harmony in the National Party, and friction and petty jealousies may lead to anything. Now that sickness has laid Mr Watt aside, and there is no further chance of his becoming the, great moderate leader, everything depends upon the circumstances surounding the return of Mr Hughes to the Federal political arena. •