POLITICAL NOTES.

Colonist, Volume XXX, Issue 5018, 29 September 1887, Page 3

POLITICAL NOTES.

the new" Parliament .'Us -ma^tjc^ regretted." Not one word '^H^jM is expressed with regard to the defelp of ,the able- Liberal etatesman—£>ir Kobert Stoat. Thus the leading paper of the Opposition in the Empire City exhibits its strong party bias. The Government lost severely when Sir Kobert Stoat, Mr Tole, and Mr Dargayille were defeated, but the Opposition loss has been equally as severe. Messrs Bryce, Kolleston, AUwright, Thomson, and Hurethouse are the prominent men included in the Opposition's loss. Thb composition of the new Parliament, judging from the speeches of the candidates, is as lollows: — Ministerialists 87, Opposition 45, and Independent 18. The subjoined table shows the strength of parties in eaoh Provincial district:—

It is satisfactory to note that of the 37 Ministerialists no less than 20 were returned by Nelson, Westland, and Canterbury constituencies. Of the Dunedin candidates, " the Otago Daily, Times" support* 1 the election of Messrs. Allen, Cargill, Dick, and Gore, of whom only Mr Allen was returned. On the morning of the polling day that journal came out with an article bristling with misstatements, one of which was that the Stout-Vogei Government bad increased the expenditure at the rate of eighty thousand pounds a year. • OvKHHEABD in the Eden electorate. —Elector: I'd vote for ye, only you're lubh a fool.-—Candidate: Fool, am I? Then I'm the man to represent you. —-This sally of wit (says the Auckland 1 Star*) gained a vote. , An anecdote, apropos of the recent rumors of disloyalty on the' part of Ministers, wai told by Sir Julias Vogel when he addressed the Wellington electors the other night, Ministers, he said, generally carried cypher codes with them -when travelling about the country, for U3e in communication with each other. On one occasion when Major Atkinson happened to be in the same town as Mr Bryce, he received a telegram, in cypher from SWohn Hall. Not having his code with bins, he asked Mr Bryce to tracslate it for him. That gentleman did so, and the substance of the message, as given Sir Julius by a member of the Ministry was as follows :—" Major Atkinson—Look after Bryce. He is not to be trusted."—The story (i*ys the "Post") was received by the audience with roats.of laughter. „ The system of nomination is not quite what it ought to be. It is a relio of the old system of open voting, which has been long superseded by the ballot. In the beginning of the change, the open voting by show of bands was left untouched, and though it has been ever since the fashion to denounce this r«lio of the old system as an infringmerit of the new, no serious attempt'lias-been made to bring it into harmony with the new. This is the moit 'surprising* as (here is no difficulty at all in the way, Ihe'

M Uuioipal system.'gi^s^ui^Mft^good example of harmony of the nomination proceedinga m j th thd ballot. 31 secures all: jtjie^advantages,:", : pf nominjatisn the .btallpt;. An amending Bili of one clause would extend thai practice from the local to the' general elections of the ; country without any great expenditure o| time and trouble." Uniformity of principle in these affairs is so desirable that the next session ought not to be allowed to pass without securing it.— < Lyttelton Times.' ; The Tuapeka' Times' asserts that ' two of the newly eleeteid member* of the House on arriving at Lawrence from the interior, where each had been blessed with a walk over, immediately wired to the District Manager at Dunedin for their railway passes so as to save the fare to Duneflin.' Ai both the legislators indicated are strong Oppositionists, this may be taken as an earnest of their burning desire for retrenchment. Ladies have not secured the franchise yet, but they do exercise a powerful influence over elections as will be seen by the following extrac from the 'New Zealand Times/ as to what took t lace at Wellington, on the polling day:—One of the scenes of the day at Te Aro was that of Mrs Menteath riding on the box seat: off a drag full of voters coming to the poll. It was, indeed, a sight to see the lady nodding gaily and cheerfully to the crowds on the footpath, who cheered her heartily. Mrs Menteath worked magnificently all through the day, and amply provedf he assertion of the lady in Kip Van Winkle. Ladies cannot Bit in Congress, true, But at least we rule o'er those that do. Nor must the spectacle of Bir Julius Vogel driving up to the scene of action and shaking hands with Mr and Mrs Menteath go unmentioned. But it was after six o'clock, and from that time till the poll was declared, that the excitement in this district-began and continued. The streets wore lined with crowds of people, from Mannersstreet up to Ghuzaee street, and the number of eggs—in an advanced stage of decompositiqn— and the quantity of flour used and thrown about in the vicinity was simply wondeiful. No one was free from the general attack. Of the three policeman who were on duty, one was covered in flour, eggs, and mud; and the person even of the i reporter, usually secreted in an out-of-the way corner, was not exceptcd. People of all grades and sexes were I plastered over, and woe betided every man who took a cart up that street. There were a number of rows that the police were unable to deal with, and icdeed it is fortunate that nothing jKurse has to be chronicled, considering |||j|fexcited state up to which the Ij^Bllj^ment had been worked.

JLU8TKICT. Wellington anterbary...... tago............ outhland uckland ...... [awke'g Bay... aranaki elson ......... [ar 1 borough... Shetland [aoris ......... M. 8 14 6 1 3 1 1 i I 2 1 u. 9 8 8 2 .13 8 2 1 1 0 3 l. 0 1 5 3 8 0 0 0 0 1 0 T. 12 18 19 19 4 3 5 2 8 4 Totals... 87 45 13 95