Untitled

Lyttelton Times, Volume LIX, Issue 6869, 6 March 1883, Page 4

ViOTOBXAir politics have gone down during the last ten daya to a dreadfully low level. A Minister with a following of seven has actually met a House of 86, with an elaborate Governor's Speech, instead of a resignation. When he ought to be holding office only till his successors have been re-eleoted by their constituents, he is announcing a short session, calling upon the Bepresentative Chamber to grant supplies, and promising reforms of various kinds. This spectacle of sticking to office is decidedly unpleasant to anyone who has a respect for representative institutions. But bad as it is, it is insignificant compared to tho con dust of the party leaders. Mr Berry has been for years tho hot radical who could make no terms with that incarnation of selfishness, the Conservative party. Also for a number of years Mr Service has headed a phalanx, whose leading principle it was that Berryism must be scotched and cast forth like a noxious reptile. The end ot the play is that tho noxious reptile and the incarnation of selfishness bavo agreed to divide whatever loaves and fishes there may ba ia the Government of the country. Any man who chooses to read the back numbers of both the chief party organs in Melbourne will stand aghast at the utterly awful character of the combination that ia now offering to rule the country. It has been said in this connection that there are in reality in these Colonies no party lines, because there are no principles sufficiently marked to divide political parties. If the remark be true, then have Service and Berry, with their respective followers, been until now making a long parade of false pretences. If the remark be not true, then Service and Berry, and their followers, are now not telling the truth. The publio men of Victoria have either been fibbing for years about their political principles, or they are now fibbing about the inability of their principles to prevent a fusion of parties. The situation ia without a ray of consolation.