EVE OF PARLIAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 February 1923, Page 5

EVE OF PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE MEETS TO-MORROW

GOVERNMENT MAJORITY LIKELY

MARGIN OF THREE VOTES,

(By Wire—Parliamentary Reporter)

Wellington, Last Night

Last moment gossip before the session, which opens on Wednesday, gives the Government an alipost certain majority of three. If Mr. C. E. Statham is made Speaker the regular Government members, numbering 38, will be confronted by only 41 members nominally belonging to the Opposition, and it seems to be pretty generally anticipated that Messrs. Isitt, Witty and Bell will vote not with the Opposition but with the Government, which is therefore likely to carry the day by 41 votes to 38.

The belief that the Government is safe is not confined to optimistic members of the Reform Party, but is shared by members of .joth the Liberal and Labor Parties. “We might as well take a diviaion at once and go home,” was the expression used to-day by a prominent Liberal member. Several Labor members have privately given their opinion that tho Government is very unlikely to bo defeated. Though tho House will meet on Wednesday the Address-in-Reply. debate may not bo commenced until Monday evening. The firet two days of the session will bo occupied with preliminaries, and there will be no Friday sitting unless members show a special desire to have one.