POLITICAL SITUATION.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 561, 24 January 1891, Page 2

POLITICAL SITUATION.

Things are now assuming a more definite shape in political circles. All the lies that have been told by or on behalf of the Ministry that is now crumb, ling away, have not changed the course of things, or made the Ministerial defeat less apparent. Bogus majorities soon disappeared when the test came, and the Ministry |s compelled to retire after having clung on as long as possible. On their tomb they ieaye an epitaph recording their last discreditable act, the swamping of the Legislative Council with new members, while they themselves have not the confidence of the country. That act stands out in all its naked shamelessness. The evil does not end with the act itself, for a most dishonorable precedent has been established. Any future Ministry may go upon exactly the same tines, and a more dangerous precedent could hardly be established than for a Ministry, during an election, to keep up a pretence that no such appointments would be made, and then when they find thcffiSMVcs 4efeated s foist, a lot of life

pensioners on the people. The most impudent phase of the whole transaction is that these defeated Ministers have extracted a promise from their friends that when in the Council they will support a certain line of policy. The Governor says that he is responsible to no person in the colony —in other words the Council, which has the power of controlling all legislation, can be packed by men pushed to the fore by Downing Street intrigues, or Bankparlor influences. Was there ever a more outrageous insult to the people of a colony supposed to be free ? Time may remedy this scandalous state of things.