POLITICAL GOSSIP.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 July 1915, Page 4

POLITICAL GOSSIP.

NATIONAL CABINET PROPOSALS. CONFERENCE ON MONDAY. By Telegraph.—Press Association. /Wellington, Last Night. Apparently there can he no further development in connection with the National Government proposal until the further conference suggested by his Excellency the Governor has been held, probably on Monday. The conference does not seem at all likely to produce any change in the attitude taken up by the two parties, and one gathers that the party leaders do not look forward .with any enhusiasm to the re-opening of a difficult subject that they had regarded as closed; hut the suggestion—.perhaps request would be the better word—made by Lord Liverpool could not be disregarded. It is understood that at least six men will attend the conference, three from each side,/ and that the Governor himself will preside, The proceedings will be entirely informal and non-committal, and naturally they, will be entirely confidential. The impression in political circles is that these new negotiations will not be protracted. The J'rime Minister and the Leader ol the Opposition have stated their minds fully already, and the rank and file of the parties are anxious for a quick and final settlement one way or the other. If this last effort to bring a "national ■Cabinet" into existence fails, as it appears almost certain to do, the Government will be faced with a situation of exceeding difficulty. The Opposition will renew its offer to assist the Ministry in all matters connected with the war, and the course of business up to the present stage of the Parliamentary session is an assurance that the offer is not an empty one. The Ministers have had every possible facility in passing their war Bills, and they have been spared a vast amount of intrusion that they would have ibeen required to face under normal conditions. But the Government's difficulties are internal rather than external; the members of the Reform Party in the House want a rearrangement of portfolios, and may insist upon having it. Even that point is overshadowed by the pressing needs of the Finance Department, which has got to find additional revenue to the tune of something like a million sterling. There has got to 'he new taxation on a large scale, and a Government with a majority of one vote, and representing a party, that includes widely diverse interests, lias to devise a taxation Kill to fit the case. It would be a miracle, under the circumstances, if tin? Bill suited every member of the Government party, and the Opposition's undertaking with respect to war Bills does not apply to such a question of domestic concern and principle as the incidence of taxation. What will the country members say to an increased land tax, or the city members to duties on articles of common use?