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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 9166, 28 July 1890, Page 4

The Skinflint Party is a party no more. Bent and torn by conflicting feelings and emotions, tbe phalanx has been split into three sections. We are not surprised. Uncompromising public virtue does not, as a rule, stand tbe test of party pressure. There has been a great deal of party pressure put upon the Skinflints lately. The Government has been begging and beseeching and threatening and rating; the Government’s friend’s have been urging, expostulating and entreating in tbe lobbies. Every kind of inducement has been brought to bear upon the Skinflints to win them over to give a block Ministerial vote upon all tbe items of tbe Estimates. In part, these exertions have been successful. The Skinflint Company has been broken up, and its members may just now bo classed in three divisions. First of all come the subservient Skinflints, among whom we may reckon Messrs Alien, Hobbs and R. Thompson. These gentlemen, after refusing, we believe, point blank to surrender their right to discuss and alter any single item or class of the Estimates, have practically agreed to swallow whatever the Government orders them to swallow. Next come the uneasy Skinflints, men like Messrs T. Thompson, Lawry and Harkness. They would very much like to vote with the Opposition on all the reductions, but are afraid of their party’s anger. By their party we mean Sir Harry and his whips. In the third category come the resolute Skinflints : Messrs Goldie, Barron and Saunders. They are pledged up to the hilt for retrenchment: they sincerely believe it to be absolutely needful. Therefore, though they all dislike Mr Ballance’s followers, and profess to distrust them, they vote for reductions utterly irrespective of the men by whom they are moved. The resolute Skinflints are politicians who not only say, “measures not men,” but actually mean it, and act upon the maxim. The subservient Skinflints say it, but do not mean it, and consequently do not act upon it. Tbe uneasy Skinflints oscillate between the two. They talk well and really do mean well, but they have not always the courage to act well. Nevertheless, though thus divided and reduced, the Skinflints have helped the Opposition to do good work. To Messrs Goldie, Saunders and Barron belongs' tbe credit, so far, of having stuck to their principles and redeemed their promises, with some assistance from the uneasy section. The resolute Skinflints have begun to teach both the Government and the country a most important lesson. This lesson is that under certain circumstances it may be possible to substantially reduce tbe details of the Estimates in Committee. Old Parliamentary hands have always declared this to be impossible. Repeated experience has shown it to be next door to impossible. But the events of the last ten days have shown it to be not absolutely out of the question.