POLITICAL NOTES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5497, 28 November 1896, Page 3

POLITICAL NOTES.

Wellington, November 26, f Tho Mayoial election is a lest of what will happen nest week. Mr George Fisher from being a Conservative, then the total strength of the _i Middle Party, and now a Seddonite nominee, was held by tho Liquor Party, who was running him to be a dead certainty for the next term as Mayor. About an hour before the closing of the poll I met a genial member of the trade with a very wide smile irradiating his countenance, and he observed, "Wo are going to give you slops to-day me jfcbhoy, What between the Liberal Party, the Liberty League, the Labour Vote, and that nice telegram from Seddon this morning promising Fisher that the Terrace jail should not be turned into a lunatic asylum, we have a majority of between 240 and 250; that knocke you, don't it." I said I hoped he was not too sanguine. A couplo of hours after when the Returning Officer gave Bell a majority of 382, my friend's smile vanished, and with it all hopes of the Liquor ticAfrnext Friday. talk of canvassing. Ladies usually, find no time for anything who are making themselves acquainted . with the by-roads and lanes and slums of the city, heedless of rebuffs and the aroma of stables, expounding i the principles or want bf principles of tho candidates they farour, grateful for a promised vote dfia depressed, when told that they are too late: circulating litertare and pleading eloquently for votes. Here 'is an incident which happened this afternoon. Fascinating lady canvasser to undecided and slightly elevated elector: "Allow me to put your name on ticket. Stout, Menteath, and

Atkinson, will you ?" Elector: "Can't stand Atkinson, marm, he'd rob the poor mah of his beer." Canvasser: " Well, thon, Menteatfa, he's not a temperance man." Elector: "Don't know him, marm, perhaps he's too much tother way." Canvasser: "Oh dear no; he standa as a substitute for MrDathio, iflfd. everybody believos in Mr Dnthie." Elector: " That's so, marm, honest John forme." - Canvasser: "And Stout too, and then you see you can have either beer and lemonade and be a sort of Bhandygaff," Elector: " There's snmmat in that, anyhow you can put me down Stout and Alenteath." j HOKE SPOILS TO THE VIOTOES. When the 1896 Mining Amendment Act was before the House, a goldfields member dnbbed it the Ziman Mining Aot. It revolutionised the principle of individual rights by giving opportunities to capitalists to take up 640 acres; the usual sized lpase was thirty acres previously. Mr Ziman took up four such leases besides buying' several working mines. Not only was this special Act passed, bat Mr Gordon was seat specially to write another report on the Ziman options; 'and these were written up in the high falutin style we see.in prospectuses. The whole business had a fishy look about it, . and during the recent session something leaked out about the profits , (certain people had made out of the Ziman Consolidated Mines by selling Mi, their shares on the London nfarkot, More recently newß of a more definite nature has come to band, and the statements' are on the authority of a reliable gentleman who has been in London for about a • year in the thick of the mining boom in New Zealand-minea, and the story goes that certain persons had certain / shares and sold them for a big sum. The Act itself was the subject of mnch comment, last year and' the report was so highly colored that mining men shook tbeir heads and Bniffed suspiciously. Whether the information re the sale of the scrip is correct or not it is a matter which the next Parliament will probe to the bottom for the positions held by both. thePremierand MrGordon on another syndicate is altogether inexcusable, taore especially with regard to the former. The exceptional privileges given to Mr Gordon on abandoning his office as Government Inspector and being paid'his. salary for three months while acting for the German syndicate and the present of one hundred guineas lor the copyright of a ridiculous book he published, and then the. inclusion of the Premier on the Directory are all opposed to even very lax interpretatio| -of what the Democracy is exposed to be. There have been so many questionable things done that the disquieting feeling that the principle of the spoils to the victors has been more farreaohing than any one imagined, that it is absolutely necessary in the interests of pure Government that a complete change should take place in the administration.