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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5157, 2 October 1877, Page 2

The division on the want of confidence motion resulted last night exactly as most people knew it would. We had heard previously very loud talk, and we had seen pretty positive writing deolaringat first that the Opposition had a safe majority, next that the division would be exceedingly close, and lastly that the Government would not win by more than two votes. The result is a Ministerial majority, on the absolute votes, of nine, and a practical majority of ten, Mr. Bryce being absent through illness. Counting heads on the motion gives from the whole House— Opposition, 38 ; Government, 47 ; two absentees, Messrs. Bryce and Brandon, and the Speaker. Now, as the Waka Maori ” question was exactly the one upon which the Opposition calculated upon raking in the most stray votes, it is plain that they have been beaten badly. The matter was one upon which many a supporter of the Government on other points seemed likely to go against them, and the pasty got up for the occasion out of a fortuitous concourse of circumstances by Messrs. Bunny, Sheehan, and others, played their trump-card in Mr. Larnach’s motion. The game has gone decidedly against them, and though we hear much of a fresh deal, in which the Opposition propose to shuffle the cards more to their own advantage, we do not think that they will again get so good a chance of throwing out sprats to catch whales, or spreading such an apostolic sheet, including clean and un'clean, as they lowered down to the gaze of the country last night.