POLITICAL NEWS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3769, 14 August 1883, Page 2

POLITICAL NEWS.

[by telegraph.]

[from our oavn correspondent,] AVellington, .This day,

To-day Mr Fish is to. inquire lioav Mr Shaw Avas permitted to ask all and sundry to take a pleasure trip to Terawhiti last Saturday. I am afraid I shall haA*e to drop Mr Fish, though I will regret it. Ho Avas one of those that I confess I expected better things of. If he could only keep his abusive tongue at half the speed at which it now wags ho Avould be greatly improved. I am sorry to see an able man so prostitute himself as Mr Fish has been doing of late, but the last week ho has been going it with a vengeance. He may last the pace, but there will be but little of his reputation left if he keeps on falling foul of everyone in his present style. The Roads and Bridges Act, which no later than last week the Colonial Treasurer said had not broken down, looks very like as if that had taken place. _ Nearly £1,500,000 are claimed, and to feed those heavy claims we have £200,000. How is it to be done ? lam inclined to think the Act has broken down, and we may just as well say so. The day after tho Budget was delivered you will recollect I Avrote emphatically on one point—only the point Avhich I claimed best to understand—that relating to tho figures, and then I said the Customs receipts would never be realised. Well, how is that tuniing out ? I think a month ago I wroto that every month had failed to reach tho average necessary to give that total. July has fallen short of that average no less than £15,000, and, more significant still, is £28,000 short of July the previous year. Of course there will be savings made to meet this large deficiency, and I only hope that these'savings will not be made 'out of your railway works. On the estimates this year £115,000 is to be spent towards causing Wellington and Napier to be joined by 'tho iron horse.

Sir Georgo Grey had a field day yesterday. He moved that the position of the ' Premier was not a satisfactory one. He did not consider it right that the Premier of a colony should bo a director of large monetary institutions, but then Sir George Grey or any other Opposition leader can say AA-hat he likes ; but to carry-such in the face of a strictly party division is impossible, and so a proposition Avhich holds good nearly everywhere- else Avas negatived as regards New Zealand. His next appearance Avas not such a good one. He did not see why the paupers or poor of Home should not find homos here ; they had a right to it. That may bo a fad on tho part of the hon. gentleman. A very poor person at Home has a perfect right to travel whore he likes, provided he travels at his OAvn expense, and provided also he can pro vide for himself where ho goes to. AA r e havo Imperial predecent for. that. Formerly largo numbers of grooms and stablemen who too_ horses over from Australia to Calcutta were left destitute in the latter place, where, owing to the lowness of wages in their calling, they could not provide for

themselves, and what was the result ? AVhy, it was made compulsory on every ship taking such mon in charge of horses to give a bond that the men should bo returned from Avhence they came.

I knoAV tAvo men who took the respective oddsof sto land2o to 1 that the Golden Crown crushing would not average two ounces per ton. At the time they Averc thought madmen, but they won their money. _ One knew a deal about mining, and kneAj, if the crushing was a small parcel of 50 to 70 tons, the neAV plates Avould cause a great reduction in the crushing. I flatter myself that in •Vtrisirparticular I was as correct in my forecast as in matters political, for I said the crushing I did not think would exceed the two ounces at a time when many talked ot from seven to twenty.