POLITICAL NEWS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3739, 10 July 1883, Page 3

POLITICAL NEWS.

[l!Y TELEGRAPH.]

[l-T.OM OUR OAVN CORRESPONDENT.] Wellington, This day,

The groat debate to Avhich we havo all been looking forward with fear and trembling for the last fortnight on Sir George Grey's Constitution Amendment Bill took place last night, but it Avas lame in the extreme, and Avould have collapsed in a feAV minutes had it not been that the abolition of the provinces Avas dragged in as a side issue. This tended to keep it alive for an hour. Great admirer of Sir George Grey that I am, I cannot approve of a plebiscite. Wherever it has been tried wire pullers have used it for their oavii purposes, and it. is iioav admitted on all hands that its use has been failure. Mr Berry tried it in Victoria when he avus the leader of the biggest majority ever a man had in that colony, but it would not work, and he Avas glad to drop it, for even he saAv it Avould never do to settle a general election on its merits. Sir George Grey, in his reply, Avas'at his best, and he taunted poor Major Atkinson with filling the Civil Service Avith one family, and that the representation iioav was anything but a fair representation, and hence his continuance on tho Treasury benches. This was much more spirited than the speech in which he introduced tho measure. From _ what_ Avas said during the debate it is quite evident that the debate on abolition is not going to be a peaceful one. The only great thinker I knoAT of who approves of the plebiscite— and Sir George asserted there are many such—is Lord Derby, and ho approves of it simply because he says it woidd stop warfare, in which he assorts many English families aro interested, as Avar means fortunes to many, aud then the influence Lord Derby considers much too great in high places. Those scribes whose information is limited by the somcAvhat hackneyed phrase "It is rumored" have rumored threefourths of the Cabinet out of political life in their rumored impending changes. To advise you to take all such rumors cum tjra.no salis is not enough Avhen they go to the extent they do at present. The only part of the rumor that is authentic is what we have knoAvn for months. One member of the Cabinet Avishcs for a trip Home, but surely that is not enough to justify a correspondent iv asserting- a total reconstruction of the Ministry, Mr Green's Eight Hours' Bill Avas laughed out of existence last night. MiGreen explained too much, and hence the result, so a little silence is at times golden.