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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 174, 23 July 1879, Page 2

The Post does not speak in favorable terms of the two great speeches delivered on Friday night by Sir W. Fox and Sir George Grey. A leader on the subject concludes as follows:— When Sir William concluded rather suddenly and unexpectedly with a tame aud unimpressive peroration, the general digappoiutment was plainly indicated by the total absence of that enthusiasm which usually is evoked by the great oratorical effort of an Opposition leader. Everybody felt that Sir William Fox had not done what was expected of him, and that while he had displayed unnecessary personal acrimony — his remarks about Mr Sheehan altogether passing the bounds of good taste — he had not made out nearly so strong a case against the Government as he might hare done had he restrained the rancour of his tongue and entered more fully into particulars. But if the attack was disappointing, the defence was equally so. Sir George Grey's exordium was delivered with all the histrionic effect which he so well knows how to use. The manner in which he slowly and, as it were, painfully, prepared for the oratorical effort and then deliberately placed himself in the very centre of the House ; the fervid eloquence with which he depicted himself as standing there — the man whom the Opposition, for base and selfish reasons, were striving to hunt down and to destroy ; the impassioned declamation with which he denounced bis opponents and their motives ; the vivid coloring of his picture of the misery caused in Great Britain by the oppression of the vast mass of the people by the aristocracy ; the lofty declaration that he still had friends enough in the House and.the country to bear him triumphant against all opnosition — all the tricks of oratory were used with an effect intensely dramatic. But it was " vox et prefer ea nihtt." Not a single accusation was fairly met and refuted, not a single challenge actually accepted, not the slightest real defence even attempted. The only answer vouchsafed by the Premier to the charges made against his administration was that they were " untrue "-an expression which he repeated at least a score of times with wearisome iteration. His speech was purely an ad captmdum appeal to the " gallery " and in no way a Parliamentary defence of Mb administration. There were all the usual platitudes about the human race and posterity bat not the faiqteit justification of the many

sins of omission and commission of which he and his Ministers had been accused. He characterised some of Sir William Fox's remarks as tomfoolery and buffoonery, bqtit would he difficult to apply any other description to his own allusions to the Legislative Council and the Home Government. The two knights, in short, simply scolded one another with feminine virulence, and the feeling left after listening to their mutual diatribes was one of disappointment near akin to disgust. The following telegram from our Southern correspondent reached us from Waiaa just after last issue had gone to press:— "Mr John Tinline of Lyndon Run was yesterday fined fifty pounds for not having dipping material ready, also forty shillings for not giving notice of muster. Two other informations against Mr Tinline were withdrawn, and one charge of permitting diseased sheep to stray, was dismissed on the ground of ownership not being proved. A decision in a case charging Mr Tinline with not wool branding with letters thirty- two thousand Bcabby sheep, the minimum penalty being four hundred pounds, waß held over till next court day. The Magistrate stated that he did so as the case involved a very heavy penalty, but he himself bad no doubt on the subject."— Marlbormtgh Exprest. Thirty-six applications were sent in to the Caversham Borough Council for the office of Town Clerk, the salary for which is only £100 per annum.