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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 28 August 1880, Page 2

| The Ministry are in a sad plight. They have had to abandon most of their financial measures, and. the fossilised individuals in the Legislative Council have strangled another of the Ministerial offspring. The Deceased Persons Estate Duties Bill has been rejected by a majority of 13 votes, and it would be interesting to know by what manner of reasoning the "Lords" warranted their action. On the face of it, the course followed by the Council is very peculiar in so far as the fossils are liable to be. accused of throwing out the Bill because it was calculated to lesson the sum that would become payable to their legatees in the event of their removal from this wicked would. Of course the fact that under the Bill large sums would be payable to the Colony out of their ' vast estates had 110 influence upon the estimable old gentlemen who form the Colonial House of Lords. They were actuated by the purest of motives. These nominee legislators, these rejected of constituencies, always are actuated by the purest of motives. Important State reasons guide all their actions and itwould be high treason to breathe a word of suspicion that personal interest .• had anything to do with the rejection of the Deceased Persons Estate Duties Bill.