THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Colonist, Volume XXX, Issue 5024, 6 October 1887, Page 4

THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

(From the •LylteUon Times.') Major has been sent for and had the Opposition made as clean a swoep"of Canterbury, Nelson,1, and Weßtlancl, as it has made of Auckland, Wellingbn City, and the Wairarapa and Napier constituencies/ the result "would undoubtedly be to relegate New Zealand to the position of 1588. The lively dread still felt in Mid-New Zealand'of such a fate as this, coupled with the success of Messrs Ballance, Hutchinson, Smith, Samuel, and Marchaut in the West-Centre of the North Island, has cut up the AtlunBonian phalanx irretrievably! The leader himself has reached the shore after a sufficiently tight struggle, but he has reached it without Messrs Rolleston, Bryce, Trimble, Conolly, * W. F. Buckland, Allwright, Hirst, and J. W. Thompson, on all of whose votes he might have securely relied. .The best of his old and tried crew have perished, and he must do what he can bow with men many of whom either distrufct him secretly or have openly expressed their aversion to seeing him take the command. It is truo that he lra-3 Mr Mitchelson, Captain \ Russell, Mr Fulton, Mr Fergus, and a number of other members more or less unknown to fame, but his Party is singularly weak in debating power and hardly so composed as to attract new membera to its ranks by any commanding presence. Luckily for New Zealand, Major Atkinson's following is too weak to enable their leader to dream of going alone. ,For this result, we repeat, Canterbury has to thank herself and the determination of the mass of her electors to show a united force and an unbroken front in the coming struggle. Thanks to Canterbury,. Sir Julius Yogel has what Major Atkinson has not. Including his own vote, the exTreasurer will probably be able to reckon on a band of at least twentyseven trustworthy adherents. There will be no such cohort around any other leader in the Assembly, and without a ddul# Sir Julius must be reckoned with in any combination which may distract the minds of onlookers, and occupy the attention of the House during the next few weeks.