POLITICAL NOTES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 4769, 21 January 1887, Page 2

POLITICAL NOTES.

SPEECH BY THE PREMIER. j A telegram from Dunedin 10-day says:— " Sir Robert Stout, tho E'remiur, will addross a meeting of his constituents (Dunedin East) on Tuesday evening next." The following is from the New Zealand Times, which it should bo remembered opposes the Government :— lt is rumored that when Parliament meets every effort will bo madu to slip through the session quietly and with as little fighting as possible, regelating all moot questions to *he general election which must follow this session. Ministers still profess (as they did last year) a fixed intention to push through the Representation Bill afc all hazards, but there are many sceptics as to the determination having any more substantial outcome than it had last year. It is whispered that soundings have been attempted in a certain hiyh quarter as to the probability of a dissolution being refused until a redistribution should have taken place, but that "no bottom 1 ' was reached.

A Wellington correspondent writes : — Whatever may have been the truth or falsehood of the rumor as to the resignation of Mr Buckley, nearly everybody has been talking about it, and the gossip about it is very circumstantial ; it is the revival of an " ancient professional grudge," embittered by personal and local animosities, old and recent. I have heard the whole story will come cut in the Law Courts. The following facts are the only ones I can gather as affording color of foundation for the rumors that are now afloat. A year or two since a gentleman was assaulted on the Hutt Road. It was said that Buckley had anything but friendly relations with this person, and rumor stated the suggestion that he had some special knowledge of the circunv stances under which this assault was committed. W. H. Waters, at that time in a larije way of business, but a bankrupt, wa^ also spoken of in some vague way as having- a li-nowloya tho allogfifl violence. The facts were inquired into before the H.M., Mr Travera being counsel for the complainant, but the investigation disclosed nothing to show any connection on the part of the Colonial Secretary with the subject, but the proceedings developed a state of feeling between Travors and Stafford (Buckley's partner) and Buckley himself, who was a witness, which was of a most acrimonious and rancorous kind. The bankruptcy of Waters appears to have revived the old story. Travers will appear for the Assignee ; Jellicoe will appear for Waters, so that tho Colonial Secretary will be between two very hot fires, which is anything but an enviable situation. He should be consoled by the knowledge that if he comes well out of it he will stand on a higher social and political level than before. As to his resignation, the last thing I have heard about it is that Buckley is perfectly willing to resign rather than that his colleagues should suffer the annoyance of being mixed up by outside gossip with his personal or professional quarrels.

The Wellington Post (Government supporter) declares that the only reform needed in the Legislative Council ia to abolish tho life tenure of members and substitute a seven or ten years' term, to allow the number of members to be reduced by the operation of natural causes, and refraining from making new appointments until the number is brought down to about thirty-five, and providing that the number of members receiving pay shall not at any time exceed a certain number. Members might then in turn after some years' gratuitous services and as vacancies occurred amongst their seniors succeed to an honorarium. It condemns the Government proposals as calculated to make the Council too powerful.