THE PALL MALL GAZETTE ON SIR GEORGE GREY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 925, 9 January 1880, Page 3

THE PALL MALL GAZETTE ON SIR GEORGE GREY.

As was expected. Sir George Grey has been defeated in the New Zealand Parlia ment, called together after the dissolution he asked for. This is satisfactory, for no one who has followed Sir George Grey’s career during the past few years can suppose him a fit person to conduct the policy of New Zealand through the trying period which seems now to be before the Colony. He has, to speak plainly, put himself entirely in the hands of the mob, and has done so under circumstances which were specially objectionable. He ought certainly to have foreseen that the wholly unchecked democracy which he wished to establish, with a plebiscite, an elected governor, and the rest of it, would not be acceptable to the country. He ought to have been aware also that his native policy was uot calculated to satisfy either Maoris or colonists. Yet he pursued his coarse regardless of the consequences, and at oue moment it seemed as if New Zealand might suffer even more severely than Victoria from the mischievous attempt to set classes against one another. However, the people have proved for the time wiser than their leader, and Sir George Grey has ceased to he Premier of New Zealand. Unfortunately, we fear this will uot be the end of it. Sir George Grey is now 70 years old ; but he is not a man to take his defeat quietly, and there is dangerous material tor him to work upon if he should resolve upon agitation. The exceptional and perhaps rather inflated prosperity of New Zealand is over for the time, while the working population of the Colony consists mainly of assisted imimigrants. If, therefore, Sir George Grey displays the same recklessness out of oS;; that he his shown while in power, there may yet be serious trouble with these people Luckily, tlie Governor is a man of judgment and ex porience.