THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXII, Issue 131, 6 June 1888, Page 2

THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

[From our Special Reporter.] Wellington, June 6. ' Ministers are now sanguine that the tariff will be adopted in the main. It is expeoted that some of those -supporters who have strayed from the fold in consequence of the budget proposals will return after the tariff has been got through, but that the others will form a middle party. With these, other influences than discontent with the tariff will doubtless operate, some of them feeling aggrieved at the way in whioh retrenchment has been carried into effect, and the fact that ibeir exertions to have dismissed officers reinstated were unavailing. The middle party, or free traders, however, assure me in the most emphatio manner that their severance is complete, and that they have not the slightest intention whatever of going back to the Government. They say that Sir H. Atkinson left them, and that it is not they who are the deserters. They claim to be thoroughly united and say they have the support of Messrs Grimmond and Duncan, who are Freetraders on the .Opposition side of the House. One of the middle pwty assures me that they will not respond to the call of the Government to meet them after the tariff is done away with, as they no longer recognise Sir H. Atkinson as their leader.