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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 65, 23 April 1914, Page 6

j When, after a succession of stonentfalls, the Opposition held up'the Bill repealing the Second Ballot to the point of the exhaustion of everybody, the lobbies echoed with a rumour of a dissolution. Impartial onlooKers condemned the protracted stonewall as quite unjustifiable and childish, but the Leader of the Opposition wasHihphatic in his opinion that as the Government had not provided in the repeal" measure a substitute for the second 'ballot it v/as the duty of his party to block the business of the country interminably. For close on three days the Opposition sat back and talked, and the ; Prime Minister now admits that if the guillotine operated by the Chairman of Committees (Mr Malcolm) had not had the desired effect, his alternative ,as head of the Government was tp seek a dissolution. So some foundation for the rumour, though jvheu, Mr Massey gives it ag_. the the. breakdown of the stonewall,, he is talcing away the credit* which belong' to "the rulings of the Chairman of for it was Only, 'after {genuinely angry protest that the Oppositionists bowed to the rulings of the Chair, and subsided. On the other hand, there i,s evidence to sttpport the Prime Minister's contention that the Opposition would not have- fwelcomed a dissolution at that stage. < For the Government had succeeded 1 St s impressing the business people and tlie l general public with its strength and determination in the face of the attempt by the bombastic Labour agitators id : " paralyse 1 trade from the North Cajite to the Bluff," and, in contradistinction, Sir Joseph Ward indubitably lost favour by his petulant remonstrances in the House anent the strike, (conditions and circumstances were such as svould have operated favourably for the Government had the dissolution taken place and the members had gone to the country, and the Leader of the Opposition knows this well. For himself, lie played a poor part,at a time when circumstances called for the organised resistance of the whole Legislature,, and his performance then 011 the political stage when the " mob roared t at the gates of. the citadel," is hardly,;likely to ensure him a "star" role in the future. "