N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, JULY 4, 189O.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 957, 4 July 1890, Page 16

N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1890.

It is a fact that Providence fights for the big battalions, always. The collapse—by division, with after revival—of the no confidence debate shows that the leader of the Opposition is aware of the fact. We may perhaps be singular in this opinion. There are as a matter of fact very manv opinions quite different. *fter the first night’s debate the political tip3ters made a grea> mrny prophecies and dreamed a great many dreams. The leading fact was that the Opposition had carried off the honours of the first night’s debate. Mr Ballance had made a grand attack all al mg the line; Mr Kichu d on had done nothing but stand up to make pauses uiufe or less impressive ; Mr Reeves had followed up the perplexed adversary with triumphant el quence. The situation was too much for the critical onlojkers. They evoked a long series of speakers, they pictured a. procession of rats having the Ministerial ship in haste, they began to think that soon t.he G overnmenfc must be in a minority. To them the collapse of the d-bute means that the Opposition leader most be withon' brains, and th Oopo-ttion party without disci| lie-*. in Ih-’ir view it is only the usual Oi po •<<

fiasco. “ They played their cards badly in the past,” we shall be told ; “ they play them badly now, and they will play them badly in the future.”

It is of course possible that the division of Wednesday is duo to want of cohesion and consequent lack of discipline. But a party which agrees to

be bound by a list of speakers drawn up by its leader, can hardly be said to lack discipline, at all events not altogether. It is idle to expect us to believe that the gentlemen who were primed to go off according to order would have denied themselves the pleasure of getting into the Hansard Paradise, unless by force of command to the contrary which they obeyed. The most reasonable of all the suppositions is that the debate collapsed temporarily because the Opposition wished it to collapse. The Government on these occasions is generally ready to stop With a certain majority of between twelve and twenty they were cot likely to want to go on. The only people to whom delay was likely to be valuable were the Opposition. Their only hope was of detaching members from the Government side. Three were mentionedon Wednesday as having “ gone over,” and these were Daturally regarded as the forerunners of a great migration from one side to the other. On Wednesday morning it was an open question whether the migration might be expected to go 00. The Opposition had scored heavily in the no-confidence debate, the principle of the delegated leadership had broken down badly at the first trial. The warrior to whom the bow of Ulysses had been confided bad been utterly destroyed by the recoil of that tremendous weapon. It was natural to suppose that his side was about to reap the benefit of disaster.

But as the morning got older it became apparent that the Government position was unassailable. No one on the Government side cared for the barren honour of rhetorical victory. Everyone on the Government side was aware that Mr Richardson could not speak. “Heis an administrator ” they said; “we don’t want him to talk. It’s a good thing he can’t talk. We want him to act.” We can not see that it is a bad thing for a man to be able to talk when his administration has been logically and powerfully assailed. But the point is that the Government party thought nothing of the result of the debate on Tuesday night. They left the Opposition leader free to act. He saw that the big battalions were inclined to remain in serried array. He knew that Providence is always on the side of the big battalions. Perhaps he thanked his stars that the big battalions were so stolid as well as so firm. Had they been wide awake they would have kept their numbers in hand so as to crush the Opposition overwhelmingly at any division, whenever they chose to ask for that arbitrament. But being careless, they gave the enemy his chance of retiring with the smallest possible loss. The enemy having gained a great advantage was satiofied with it. He had got every advantage except the advantage of brute force. That advantage he could not secure. But by allowing thß debate to unexpectedly collapse he minimised the adverse division list, It was like a commander who leaves his camp fires burning while he decamps in the darkness. The Opposition leader has got the most out of a difficult position. While complimenting him, we cannot heipregretting f hat the dissolution which is imperatively necessary will not be immediate. The troops having been got away with the ba«* possible lo>-s, there is an end of the general action. The regular battle has been replaced by a Series of skirmishings, which mean nothing but bwelling the volume of bausard and talking to the country. The tactics have bppn good.