AFTER REFLECTION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2373, 14 December 1908, Page 5

AFTER REFLECTION.

EX-MINISTER FOR LANDS

INTERVIEWED IN SYDNEY

On his arrival in Sydney the other day Mr Robert M’Nab was*promptly interviewed by a representative of the “Daily Telegraph,” and at this distance it is interesting to'read what the late Minister of Lands had to say ■about the elections which brought about liis own downfall. He spoke without any bitterness, and appirently without any regrets. He thought that from the Government’s point of view there would he more than _ a working majority in the new Parliament. It had to he remembered, he said, that in the fast Parliament the Government had a phenomenal majority, and wound up with practically only' fifteen, or. at the most, sixteen members arrayed against it in a House of eighty. “That was a position too inconsiderable by its one-sid-edness to be maintained.” Now the Government could count on a working majority of twenty-six. Asked if he considered the increase in the ranks of the Opposition showed any growing feeling against the Government, Mr M’Nab said he did not think so. The most important electioneering cry of the Opposition had nothing to do with the alleged decadence of tlie Liberal Party. He referred to the dairy regulations. The* Government, he explained, recently took over the inspection of dairies throughout the dominion, and suggested regulations were prepared and sent, to the Stock Committee. They were considerably modified by the, committee, and then submitted to the people immediately concerned. The interference with the operations of the dairymen was used for all its worth, as the saying was, by the Opposition, and there was no doubt that the elections in Taranaki. Wairarapa, the vicinity of Wellington, and Mataura (Mr. M’Nab’s own electorate), were affected by the cry. If the estimate of many people in New Zealand was correct, outside the dairy regulations the Opposition would have gone back no. stronger than it was in the last Parliament. 'That was why he held that the change did not indicate a swing <*)f the political pendulum . The truth in connection with tlie dairy inspections would ho realised beyond possibility of misrepresentation by next election. Speaking of the second ballot Mr. M’Nab very cautiously observed that its supporters in the Dominion were not so numerous as they were before the elections. Tho most he would say about the licensing question was that the next ten years would produce enormous changes.