DOWNFALL OF THE GOVERNMENT

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1485, 6 July 1912, Page 6

DOWNFALL OF THE GOVERNMENT

iECISIVEIY DEFEATED. "THE rWCOrWDENCE iOTION. OPPOSITION lAJORITY @F EIGHT. : ; HEATED INTERCHANGES. - 'AN=tX<IIN!STER'S BITTER THRUSTS.

.The Mackenzie Government was dsfeatcd at ten minutes to five o'clock this morning in a No-confidence Division. Forty-one votes were recorded for the Reform Party, and-33 for the Government. A critical point in the political drama that has been evolving for a week past was reached at ten ■ minutes to midnight last ninht. Five Minutes earlier Mr. Buxton was placidly holding forth on trade oxpansion and how to ensure it to a House that contained little jnore than a bare quorum of members, and a number of very bore d spectators. As Mr. Buxton concluded the empty benches rapidly filled. When Mr., Hindmarsh . moved the adjournment of the debate, the • Opposition challenged a division. Mr. Sykes, M r . sidey, and other members who have been absent from recent sittings through illness, appeared in the lobbies as the division bell commenced to ring, and spectators trooped in eagerly.. Mr. R. M'Nab quietly surveyed the sceno of his former activities from a seat near the door of the ayes lobby. There was visible perturbation in the Ministerial ranks, while the voting was in progress.' Excited members gathered round Mr. Mackenzie and other Ministers when they returned to their places. _On the other side of the House, Mr. Massey leaned in an-easy attitu.de "against his bench, and quietly surveyed what was going forward. There was no demonstration when the division was announced. Mr.-Massey warned his followers, with uplifted hand, to hold their f peace, and the members of the defeated party busied them selves in desperate haste in putting up a member to inaugurate a stone- ,. wall. For a niomont or two there was no response, and it looked as though a vote on tho no-confidence" motion would immediately be ' taken, Mr. Smith, i'.of / ; Waimar'ino,,v however, stepped into the breach at the last minute, and the dreary debate proceeded. The division 'figures . wero 'first announced as 39 to. 32, but the name of. . the. Hon. R. M'Kenzie was subsequently added to the list of defeated "Ayes," making the voting 39 to 33. The H.on. W. D. S. Macdonald was the next speaker put up to gain time for the defeated party. At 1.45 a.m. the Prime Minister commenced a dignified speech in tho course of which he defended his party, and admitted that it was beaten, There were highly sensational de velopments before the division bell was permitted to ring. The Hon. R. M'Kenzie made a remarkably bitter speech. The Hon. J. Colvin and Sir Joseph Ward strongly deprecated the tactics of the member for Motuekai One of the members who spoke before . the"division was MK TV M. Wilford. Histclosing remark clearly indicated that the Reform Party may in future draw .support from more ample sources than is now thought possible. v

Mr. Wilford sat down at 4.40 a.m. T en minutes later the Mackenzie Gov~'s ernnient- had suffered defeat by 8 votes.