POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 20 July 1880, Page 2

POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE.

(by telegraph.) (FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Wellington, July 20. There seems to be a strong distaste for the Maori Prisoners Bill. Had members voted according to the dictates of their own consciences, -it. would- have been thrown out by a large majority ; but the Treasurer played his cards well when he stated emphatically and often during his speech that he would not remain half an hour on the Government bench if the Bill was thrown out. This attitude had the effect of bringing waverers to a decision in hi 3 favor, for the defeat of the Ministry is a contingency both sides of the House view with aversion. It is a pity that the fate of the prisoners should rest upon suGh a basis. So gtrong was the antipathy for the arbitrary, oppressive, and non-English measure, that certain of the staunchest of the Government opponents last night resolved to stonewall and to resort to all the legitimate forms of the House rather than permit the Bill to go through Committee. Mr. Reeves was the ringleader, and just as the debate on the second reading was drawing to a close, he created some amusement by swaggering into the chamber under a load of books from the library, which were intended to assist him in making a speech of a length unrecorded in the annals of constitutional •government. Better -counsels prevailed, however, and although he rose and opened with a bang' a statute -book that had survived a century and a half, and which' was printed in the Irish , -language, and displayed a demeanor that seemed to bode considerable prolongation of the session, he wisely remarked that he had re-considered the mattef,- and determined not to pursae the obstructive course which he had threatened to follow. The Bill has, yet to go. through Committee, and ..it is anticipated that every means will be expended to secure the right of trial for the prisoners and the mention of some definite period at which they will'be liberated. No wonder that such an opposition to the measure has transpired, seeing that whilst th 6 offences of the delinquents are paltry, and have been fully, atoned for by the incarceration of over a year, innocent man, who fought bravely on the Queen's side during the native war, are detained, and it is proposed to. detain them -for a still further period of more than a year, and then let them loose without a trial. It is reasonably asked. Will not such an act of oppression irritate the natives and necessitate the maintenance of a large armed force on the West Coast to keep them in check when liberated 1 An Irish member says that so strong is the intention of the Government to force this measure through to-night that they will sit till next week if hecessary.