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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1081, 7 October 1879, Page 2

;If Mr. M'Caughan, the member for I Uiverton, is to be accepted as an authority 'we should .say that Mr. Hall and his colleagues, whoever the}' may be, will not hold oliice long. Finding that Mr. M'Caughan was going to vote against the Ministry, his committee held a meeting, and passed tho following resolution, a copy of which was forwarded to him : *' Your committee, seeing that you are in opposition to the present Government, wish to know if you will keep your pro- ! tnisc, and aupport no Ministry unless Mr. j Macandrew is a member of it." To tiiis | Mr. M : G'aughan replied as follows in a telegram to the Secretary:— <:\\ellingj ton, October 3, l!S7'.'. To James Tayl>»r. ; Itiverton.—lnform meeting that to keep i Macandrew is just what I am doing. The House is sick of .Sir George Grey and other Ministers, and Macandrew s friends wish to get him with a better team and stronger Government within short time. Trust me, and will see all right.—JPCifcnAN*." Now, if this telegram means anything :;'iher means that Mr. M'Caughan is wilfudy deceiving his constituents, or that he will be found in opposition to the Hall Ministry, which, we presume, will be in ofiice in a few days, unless, indeed, it includes Mr. Macandrew—a very unlikely thing, seeing that the Liberal party has decided to have nothing to do with a coalition Government. Judging from this, and other information that has reached us, we believe that, could Str George Grey be induced to yield the leadership of the party to Mr. Macandrew or ?>lr. Montgomery, very little difficulty would be experienced in turning the present minority into a majority. The prospect of getting a Ministry composed of such moderate men as Messrs. Mac-

Andrew, Uallance, Montgomery, Header Wood, and others of equal ability and influence would speedily win over many of those who voted against Sir George Grey's Government, not because they had very great !->ve for Mr. Hall and those likely io be associated with him, but because they loved Sir George Grey less. With tiie prospect of a Ministry containing a large amount of the Canterbury element, members who are not blind followers of thrMto-nothing-and-do-it-bndlyparty would speedily ally th-.-ms -iw-s v. ith the Liberal party. We s':;;.ii i ':\ the course of events during the week with more then an ordinary amount of interest.