PARLIAMENTARY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 173, 6 August 1869, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY.

We take the following from a letter of the Wellington correspondent of the Southern Cross: — - Now that the debate on the privilege question ia over, people's minds are clearing up about the question. It appears to be admitted — firstly, that the matter is not between Mr Fox (as a member) and the House, but between the Crown and the House. There is no question as to the right of the Crown to remove Major Brown from the command, but there is a question whether the Crown could offer the alternative of either resigning the command or the seat in the House. Anything affecting the seat of a member is a matter of privilege. This can be construed as a threat; and, if a threat, it is an interference by the Crown with the freedom of debate — the privilege of fill others most zealously guarded. And this, too, in an official letter. * * . * * * * You will have heard! of the " surprise resolution," or " leap in the dark," as some called it, taken under suspensiou of the standing orders; upon the ipse dixit of the hon. member at the head of the Government that some great peril was overhanging the colony. The motion having been seconded by Mr Stafford, the Opposition " came to corn" in a spirit of the most trustful confidence. But after the vote had been taken, an impression began to gather ground that the whole thing was what is .c-lonially. termed a "sell;" a skilful manoeuvre to obtain an affirmation of Mr McLean's resolutions, against which thirty-seven known votes were to be recorded, and perhaps more. For my own part, I did not believe that any Government would do so foolish a thing as to throw a .boomerang which must, inevitably recoil upon themselves. The secret has been well kept; indeed, the first information obtained has been from the columns of your journal, received this day. From your account of the proceed-, ings in TJpper Waikato it appears to me, not that the general peril ia which tliecolony ha? been for months i has been exaggerated

(we are all well enough aware of otfr position), but that too much has been made of the particular emergency. However, what you state is enough to relieve the Ministry from the imputation of trick. It was said in Wellington that Tawhiao had created a bishop (who did not say "Nolo episcopari"), and that the Government had taken alarm on learning that the Right Reverend had been appointed, domestic chaplain to the Kinj*. My impression still is, that the present Ministry will stand; but only because there is little desire to turn them out. Fox came in with a minority, and is in a minority still. Their mainstay (as far as personal confidence goes) is Mr Grisborne, because he is trusted. Whether he too will lose prestige, by degrees, as so many of our public men have done, remains to be seen.