During the past week the belief has been rapidly gaining
ground that the Dissolution will take place within a very short time. It is even said that the necessary formalities will be carried out at the Council which is to be held at Balmoral on Monday next. We have pointed out elsewhere that if Parliament is dissolved it is most important that the reconstruction of the Cabinet should take place before, not after, the polls. If the Government allow their opponents the opportunity to say without contradiction that there is to be no change in the Ministry, Unionist candidates will be very seriously handicapped, for there is an almost universal feeling (1) that the Prime Minister cannot do the proper work of a Prime Minister while he holds the most arduous of all the Departments of State; (2) that the present Cabinet is too large; (3) that it contains too many men of advanced years, and not enough young men ; (4) that if the Army is to be properly reorganised the office of Secretary of State for War must be held by the ablest administrator in the Government. But the only way to assure the electors that these things will be done, and not merely talked about, is to go to the country with a re- constructed Cabinet. Reconstruction will be a pledge that the Government means business. We want reconstruction, not as a "fad," but because we believe that the national interests at the present moment require a strong and united Unionist party in Parliament, and an efficient and vigorous Administration. We are in serious danger of obtaining neither of these things if reconstruction does not precede the appeal to the electors.
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