POLITICAL NOTES.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 338, 8 September 1898, Page 2

POLITICAL NOTES.

(BY TELEGRAPH - .SPECIAL correspondent) Wellington, Last Night. UNCONSTITUTIONAL PROCEEDINGS. I UNDERSTAND that the Ministerial party are much chagrined owing to the House adjourning this morning without making any progress with the Estimates. The Opposition also had arranged for relays of members and were prepared to keep the debate going till Saturday night unless the Premier promised to bring down the Public Works Estimates at a definite date. It may be explained that under the new standing orders the House can go into Committee of Supply on Tuesdays without any debate at all or any intercepting motion, it follows, therefore, that the present Premier takes the fullest advantage of this standing order and asks the House to consider the Estimates every Tuesday. The Opposition naturally fear that the Estimates will occupy a good many Tuesdays before they are through, and that the Public Works Estimates will therefore be delayed till the end cf the session, as was the case for the last two or three years. They, therefore, are anxious to elicit from the Premier some definite promise as to when he intends to bring down the Public Works Statement aud Estimates. Mr Seddon, however, refused to give that information till the general Estimates are passed, and hence the obstruction on the part of the Opposition and Left Wing, who are determined to have some understanding on that point before they allow the Estimates to go through. A CURIOUS POSITION.

The geueral opinion is .that Mr Joyce, the Acting-Chairman of Committees, was decidedly wrong in allowing the committee to adjourn this morning without unanimous consent (which was certainly not given) or without a motion being passed reporting progress. Mr Joyce's action has been commented on to-day in strong terms. A BLUFFING PREMIER,

Mr Taylor to-night accused the Premier of absolutely bluffing the House by refusing to give any details of the contingency votes in the Estimates. He warned the Premier that when he next came to Christchurch, he (Mr Taylor) would hang on to his skirts till three in the morning, in order to expose Mr Seddon's fallacies, and he assured the Premier that he would not get off so easily is he did the last time he visited that city. Mr Taylor also ridiculed the Premier's threat of a dissolution, which he was using to frighten his timid fo lowers, and said Mr Seddon knew perfectly well lie was not entitled to get an appeal to the country at the present juncture.