POLITICAL GOSSIP.

Evening Star, Issue 6054, 7 August 1882, Page 4

POLITICAL GOSSIP.

[By Ora Special Reporter.] WELLINGTON, August 0. The first session of the present Parliament is now iu its twelfth week, yet it is only within the past week or ten days that Parliament has seriously set about attending to the real business of the countiy. It seems to have taken the whole of the previous part of the ses-ioa to convince the Opposition of their own lamentable slate of disorganisation and of the utter hopelessness of any attempt to oust the Ministry from their seats. Throughout the conduct of the so-called Opposition has been pusillanimous and occasionally contemptible. This must have been evident to the most casual observer. The leader of the Opposition, in fact, has all along resembled a formidable looking but really harmless dog, backed up by a lot of little yelping curs constantly' seeking to egg their leader on, and the moment the Ministerial mastiff has advanced within fighting distance they have ceased their fighting, and slunk out of sight with their tails between their lews. Tins farce of advancing and retiring—for all the world like carrying out a set of quadrilles- -lias been repeated so often that Parliament lias become unutterably weary of tin'game, and not a few members of the Opposition—members be it understood who alt along meant fighting, and up to a certain point were fully prepared for t he combat have at length grown sick and weary, and for the rest of this session will do their utmost to Hush the business of t lie count ry forward as rapidly as possible. Under these Dir cmrwtancos it is not improbable that the session will be brought to a close w thin the next three or four weeks. Borne people jay a fortnight, but I fear they are over sanguine At, any rate, as 1 have already stated, members have at last set to work in earnest. A cursory glance at the work done during the week just ended will show this. On Tuesday night the four million loan I fills woo brought down and formally read a fast lime. At the request of Mr Montgomery Wednesday evening was devoted to a discussion of the financial condition of *be Colony—the first di.-cu.-sion of Cm- k’nd ‘ba f ,s taken place ibis not dc.standing ike fast that the Financial Btaterrmm. was delivered weeks and weeks ago. This debate was useful in one respect only ; it taught Mr Montgomery and his friends either that they ore thoroughly unable to grasp the question of finance, or on the other hand that they cannot successfully controvert the Colonial Treasurer hj figures. The fact remains that the financial garment was so admirably sewn together that its enemies could not oven manage to pick a hole, in it. On Friday numerous consolidation and other Lids were successfully put through Committee, A Southern member actually so fir forgot himself as to give audible utterance to the forcible but by no means elegant expression “ fool,” making matters worse when called to order by saying that this was the kind of language lie was used to 'when iu the South, which, of course, is a downright libel, as we all know. The second reading of the Loan Rills was to have been taken on Friday, too, but for some reason the debate is postponed tilt Monday evening. Borne anxiety is felt as to tiro result of that debate, Du tiring, however, is pretty certain. that should the Ministry be defeated in regard to this part of their policy, a dissolution will in all probability ensue, in order that Ore sense of the people may be taken on tire subject. Buck an evrnt would of course mean an intermediate session, which, for obvious reasons, it is to bo hoped will be <TVOIuDU.