SIR GEORGE GREY AND OTHER THINGS PERHAPS INTERESTING TO PENINSULA FOLK.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 325, 29 August 1879, Page 2

SIR GEORGE GREY AND OTHER THINGS PERHAPS INTERESTING TO PENINSULA FOLK.

To the Editor of the Akaroa Mail.

SiR,->-My attention was particularly called the other day to an address published by the member for the Peninsula, from reading an article in the Press of the 12th instant, commenting on the views therein expressed,. I have also read your article in retort. My impressions, on reading :he Press article were, that there was no attempt by labored or long-fetched arguments to prove that W. Montgomery's manifesto containpd anything beyond what might be safely advocated by evory candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives I make this remark because you and the Lyttelton Times, or perhaps I ought to say the Lyttelton Times and you, have characterized the .address as, being courageous and outspokem I am free to express that I do not perceive that it is either one or the other. What I mean Ib/ that any one of its published tenets involve no particular display of courage ; nor isthe outspokenness at all calculated to imperil one vote. What care I—and many others like hie—for Triennial Parliaments," Property Tax, or that the great mystery has enshrouded Native affairs, fiddle dee, &c, &c., ad libitum. There are questions that effect the vitality of the Peninsula of 'far more importance to the electors than any of these things. The Parliament may sit whenever and wherever it pleases. It may„tax a la discretion, and the Native question may be punched into a cocked hat, and, as far as I am concerned, 1 shall look on with a placid and disinterested feeling. But what Ido feel an interest in is, the question of our railway. - L do not find in the address any allusion to this, beyond generalities. I contend that the construction of a railway .to the Akaroa waters is a work of national importance, and the opening up of this harbor would be the key to the whole Southern Island. Because a general feeling, exists here that this work should be carried out with all possible despatch, it does not follow, that its utility is of mere local advantage, on the contrary, Tdo not think there is one of its local advocates, and indeed many of its opponents, who do not see that the benefits it would confer on those locally interested would be a mere drop in the ocean, compared to the interests it would subserve to the people spread over thousands of square miles. It is too much the fashion for those who occupy seats in the General Assembly, to vaunt that they go there to legislate for the country at large, and scorn the idea to in any way cater to the wishes of those who place them there. Personally, I consider there is too much of this, and that our or any other member should be taught that, to a large extent, he is a delegate, that is, that in many of his actions he should feel himself influenced by a majority of his constituents. If he thinks that his brain is superior to the brains of combined hundreds, and refuses to act on their suggestions, then in that case his resignation should at once be tendered. lam lad to make these latter remarks from the fact that our member's address is remarkable for the absence of anything particularly in reference in reference to the Akaroa Railway. No one knows better than Mr Montgomery that this subject is uppermost in our minds, and that Sir George Grey and all his liberalism, or better still, perhaps, his maddism, is ditchwater to us, in comparison with this great work. If I were to speak to Mr Montgomery 1 should say— go on, sir, throw all your energies into this work ; leave not a stone unturned ; face its Christchurch opponents with courage; be outspoken to them. Tell them that when you go into the House you have a duty—a national duty—to perform, and that however painful it may be to disturb their vested interests, your conscience admonishes you that you cannot lend yourself to pander to their selfish interests; say this, but of course you must not forget to do a little of it. Identify yourself with this glorious and great public work ; pursue it to a successful issue, and the name of Montgomery will be immortalized.

For the present, I shall say no more of the railway. But, Mr Editor, I trust I may be allowed to make a few remarks anent politics, and about ohe Sir George surnamed Grey. I observe that you have taken a very decided stand in favor of the aforesaid Sir George. I observe that we have had an unusual allowance lately of leaders, all tending to one point, to wit— to elevate the above-named Sir George at tha expense of others. Speaking for myself, I am free to confess that I object to any opproach to adulation where the recipient is unworthy. I speak advisedly when I say that this gentleman is utterly unworthy of the fulsome adoration he is receiving from you and a large section of Canterbury people. What have been his acts since he landed as Governor somewhere about 1845 ? They have been one succession of overbearing tj ranny. From the very first he showed his teeth. He never missed an opportunity of displaying his dislike to the settlers of New Zealand. In every instance, where possible, he tried to dispossess the early settlers of their, land, and, until compelled by his Imperial employers, he refused to individualise titles to those who had, in almost every instance, given ample payment for their land. Of course I am not referring to those who claimed land as far as the eye could reach. He tried to dispossess the Wairarapa settlers—men who were hardworking and energetic, and whose only fault was, that they came there before Sir George, and, having no one else to treat with, treated with the Maoris. The natives were amply satisfied with the Pakeha and their bargains, and protected them against all the menaces thundered forth by His Excellency the Governor of New Zealand. Finding this all ineffectual, he (Sir George) passed an Act in the Nominee Council to the effect that for every night a pakeha pitched his camp, or his own corpus for that matter, on native land he was liable to a £100 penalty. This was intended solely for the benefit of these Wairarapa unfortunates, although it applied over the whole of New Zealand. I myself am indebted to the New Zealand law to something like £530,000. However, even this all failed ; the Maoris refused to listen to the voice of the charmer, and declared themselves openly as their pakeha's champion. Hi's Excellency roared and fulminated, as we know from late passages how he can roar and fulminate, but all to no purpose. No, my dear readers, he was no poor man's friend in those days, and never gave any signs, that he meant to occupy that platform until he went into the General Assembly. It is but recently that he could command one single vote of

his present constituency. He was hated —publicly execrated by every soul in the Province of Auckland ; he positively had not one single friend, and even now, as faraß that goes, I should doubt if his position has been much altered. There was one quality about him that perhaps may be called good, and that was that he served the Imperial Government, his masters, even to subservience; everybody was made to bow the knee to this one Moloch; human sacrifices were offered without reserve to propitiate his Deity. Tho time came, however, when his masters got tired of him, and politely bowed him out of the Vice-regal Throne. He never got employment again. When Auckland sought out Sir George, it Was his vices, and not his virtues, that made him ripe for the invitation. Auckland knew that he could be made useful to Auckland, and they dragged this man once more into prominence. J3e it was that could have thrown some light on to so some 30 miles of unauthorised railway. He it was again that had some inkling of the rolljstuffing case at the Bay of Islands. He it jwas that headed the Government that .drafted the. Re-distribution Bill which deprived Akaroa of its member, and Mr Montgomery it was that never enlightened us up to this momentinto this pretty little scheme for disfranchising the Peninsula. And he (Sir George) it was, and is, who took up this wretched poor man's platform. It had its day in England; it flourished for a time in America; it was a sure card on the Continent. How is it no w ? Does England or any other civilized ! nation believe in it ? No! It stinks in the nestrils of .the working man. The working man long ago demonstrated to \ the working man's friend that he invariably turned out his greatest enemy. It is only the mean pandererthat can descend to cajolea class of people with professions and promises of. how, if placed in power, he will immediately disseminate sedition, conspiracy, and all other devilish sentiments, to the ruin of all classes except the one he reprepresents, which cannot be ruined. But does he "do it ? No! He has wheedled what he calls the working man into placing him there,, and now he commences, by a course of fraud and deception, to make his working friend believe he is striving with all his might for his good. But really this only occurs, if it ever does occur, after he has satiated his own wants. No, I say, .away with the working man's friend; let us have done with him as they have done with him long ago in . the old country. Let him stink here as he stinks there, and the working man.will find he will flourish far better under the auspices of a representative who makes no professions of class legislation, but goes in to do good to all alike. I must say, Mr Editor, that I was surprised that you should give us for a leader in yourlast issue a copy of the winnings of Sir George Grey in a General Assembly speech. No doubt he said all that you say he said, and was capable of saying a great deal more ; but it is quite evident on the face of it, that it was mere recrinination. Some one had been < pitching into him, and he was doing his best to return it with interest. I think you made a mistake in publishing a speech that contained nothing more than vituperation from beginning to end. The tastes of your readers are surely a little above this. I shall never forget the speech he made here. When' he 'fold us how lie loved Akaroa, how devotedly attached he had been to Akaroa for years, what a heap of love he intended for the future to store up for Akaroa, there were those, indeed, who shed teaisatsuch unparalleled benevolence. And his first act—so tender, so loving, so full of benevolence—was to frame a Bill practically to disfranchise the Peninsula. Oh! such is life, we must all bow to it. The working man's friend was always the worstjof frauds, and so he will continue to the* end of the dreary chapter. I was almost forgetting one of the most touching little anecdotes related by Sir George when last here., He told us, as many may recollect, that he,had mixed with Kings, Emperors, Queens, Princes, Princesses, Lords, Ladies; and all the beauty and talent of Europe, but one episode in his life, an event that would never pass from his memory, was, that in one of the most romantic valleys to/be found in a couutry of unsurpassable grandeur and beauty, he had come across a lady residing in a hut. The whole narrative was so thrilling, and one's attention was so wrapt up in the old gentleman's poetic relations,, that he had passed on to another subject before any of us had time to elicit a few details. Naturally, after winding up our curiosity to the highest pitch, we ■ felt interested to know from the hands of such a competent authority whether the lady was handeome, or whether she was ugly, whether her eyes were blue or black, whether, in short, she was a blonde or whether she was a brunette, or indeed any other shade of tint; but no, we have never been satisfied, and, like Montgomery's Native question, it remains enshrouded in mystery. Yours, &c.,-; .'.. PAKEHA. Peninsula.