The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1884. THE MINISTERIAL MAJORITY.
Nine Southern Members have sent a sort of ultimatum to tlio Government calling upon them to rescind their recent action in augmenting the railway tariff on grain, and demanding an im answer. If the Government accedo to the request they will become objects.of pity and derision, to both friends aud enemies. If, on the otlier'hand, they stand;their ground, their majority in Parliament is hope-! lessly lost. There are not, however, I wanting signs that apart fyom grain j
rates the Ministerial majority is a thing of Hie past. In the last two sessions the Minister who were conspicuously serviceable in keeping the party together were Messrs Whitaker, and Johnston. These gentlemen were the tacticians of their party, and their influence maintained the Ministerial Mr Mitciiemon may be a better Minister of Public Works than Mr Johnston—lis could not well be a worse one—but he cannot exercise that personal influence over members which Mr. Johnston wielded. The Ministry has probably reached it stago at.which it can no longer carry on - the Government of the country with either credit or comfort, It would almost a ppear as if Major Atkinson were putting his houso in order, and that he anticipates, ;if he does not court defeat in the coming session, If Major Atkinson's raid on the Civil Service and increase of railway freights are intended by him to command the support of members in the coming session, lie must be beside himself. The only apparent explanation, of hi 3 singular conduct in deliberately alienating the support of his friends is that he throws up the sponge as far as the present House is concerned, and prefers to take his chance with the country to a futile struggle with, the Assembly, Before going out of power he provides for any deficit which the falling off of revenue in the current year has occasioned, and no one will be able to taunt him with getting the finances of the colony into that muddle which his predecessors allowed them to drift into,
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Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1641, 22 March 1884, Page 2
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347The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1884. THE MINISTERIAL MAJORITY. Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1641, 22 March 1884, Page 2
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