POLITICAL NOTES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3719, 26 January 1891, Page 2

POLITICAL NOTES.

" Civis," in the Otago Witness, Bavß : —Some half-dozen calls to tho Council havo been detormined on, and the last act of tho Ministry will be tho appointment of Sir Harry as Speaker. Such is the latest political bulletin at the time of this preEeot writing. Sir Harry has held tho fort for threo long years, and, though beaten at Inst, ho is not routed. His evacuation is orderly nnd deliberate. \ Not only does he save hia baggage— \ what there is oi it—but ho carofully 1 packs up everything portable about tho placo, When Mr Ballanco and his hungry army getp 'jito it theywill nnd it swept garnished. The first duty of Ys Gneral " to feed his own men ;"he next is to starve the enemy. Sir Harry does both. To a virtuous and disinterested mind it is always a pleasure to help one's friends, but tho ploasure is distincly heightened, almost doubled indeed, when by one and the same act you help your friends and youi enemies. And both these ments of happiness are his. He tho Council with his own which is well, and he Ballance stuffing it with his, almost better. As for that pledge Sir Harry's, of which we have hearc|H so much, it is rather awkward, grant you, but what would you have ? ™ No pledges are for all time, "When I said I would die a baohelor," quoth Benedict,"ldid not think I ghouldlive till 1 were married," Moreover, the Council must be brought up to its " working strength," and it is wonderful how much older its aiembors have grown sinco tho elections. Whilst thus thoughtful for others. Sir Harry is not altogether forgetful of himself. There are difficulties about tho Agent' generalship. Sir Dillon Bell, in faot, bluntly refuses to budge. So as the next best thing going is the Speakership, Sir Harry appropriates it as his own pcculiam, and from that coign of vantage, with its attendant six hundred a year for life, he oan laugh at the slings and arrows of outrageous Ballance. He then marches off the field with all the spoils, if not with all the hououre, of war ; and to the last abundantly lives up to his reputation as tho first strategist in the land. Suoh is la haute politique in Now Zealand. Mr Mitchelson has, we learn, expressed his regret that _ a momentary absence of his mind should have made him forget the ; courtesy he owed to the now Speaker, f The probability of tho Ministry \, making appointments to the Legislative Council is muoh canvassed, and the names of Messrs O'Rorke, ■ Larnuch, Montgomery, E. Riohardson, and Major J£ai£p f Native) arc freely mentioned. So far, however, ""N, the matter has not been disousjed by the Cabinet. *"