POLITICAL.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 8, Issue 451, 13 September 1866, Page 3

POLITICAL.

Changes of animportant character have taken place in our Colony since ws last prepared a summary of news for our British readers. At that time the then existing Ministry was to all appearance firmly established in the possession of the delights of office. The great question of the disruption of the Colony had been brought forward by the Auckland phalanx ; had been debated during a period of unusual length; and had resulted in the victory of the Stafford Ministry. But this was not a fair test of the feeling of the House as regarded the Ministry itself. It was what must bo regarded as an independent question, upon which the feeling of the Assembly was so settled that the same decision would have been arrived at under any Ministry whatever. The question that was to decide the strength or weakness of the Ministry was to come on for discussion afterwards ou the question of Supply, and here it was that it fell. The Pro vincial party, as the result proved, would net willingly give up the proportion of colonial revenue which had been appropriated to local objects, amounting to three-eigbtbs of the whole, and were strong enough to prevent the General Government from depriving them of it —and so the Ministry fell. This was beyond doubt the true reason, though overlaid with much that was irrelevant, and did not appear on the face of the motion of want of confidence in the personnel of the Ministry, which was carried. A new Ministry has been formed —led, however, by the same premier; and one that seems to possess the confidence of the House for the present, though it would be hard to predict that it will prove more stable than its predecessors.

There seems to be but slight modifications of the policy of the old Ministry in tiiat proposed by the new, so far as we are at present able to judge, for the financial statement hud not been made to the House up to our latest dates. Enough, however, is known to enable us to say that the demands of the Provincial party will, for the present, be conceded^

though there is no question of the gradual withdrawal of the subsidy hitherto enjoyed, and, in consequence, of the ultimate overthrow of the whole system of Provincial Governments".