The Globe. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1089, 26 December 1877, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1877.

Either the Press Agency has clone Sir G. Grey a great injustice in misreporting what he said at Auckland on Wednesday night, or else the Premier was more than usually disingenuous in his way of putting things. For example, he endeavoured to make a point of the unfairness of the jiresent mode of apportioning the franchise, and this is the way he put it: — Then the franchise was not fairly apportioned. Counties had large subsidies which were raised from the whole population per head. Taxation so raised ought to be spent in some manner that all ought to have a voice as to how it was spent. Counties were broken up into ridings, and the law made it possible that many men had no vote at all. Many also had one vote only, while others have as many as forty-five votes, so that the former were swamped. [Shame.] It was said that property should be represented, but large properties had been obtained by unfair influences, and had been increased in value by railways and public works, which were paid for by the people of the colony,_ Having now therefore given this property its value they had to submit to one man swamping them with forty-five votes. Both himself and his”colleagues were determined to remedy that system —to make the voting power equal. They considered that every man resident for a certain time in a district was entitled to vote as much as the man with property. Life was much, human affection was much, and should be represented. The first sentence in the above quotation appears on the face of it to mean that Sir G. Grey is dissatisfied with the present mode of voting for members of Parliament. When we talk of the “ franchise ” we do not mean the right of voting for members of local governing bodies, such as County Councils, Borough Councils, Road Boards, &c., but the right of voting for the members of the supreme legislature. However, having made the general assertion, that the franchise is not fairly apportioned, the Premier goes on to prove his proposition by a reference to the election of members of County Councils, and winds up with the assertion that his Ministry considered that every man resident for a certain time in a district is entitled to vote as much as the man with property. Now every word he had to say regarding the Counties, may or may not be quite true, but wo submit that in any case his remarks had nothing whatever to do with the question at issue—that was whether the franchise was fairly apportioned. There are a certain class of minds to whom the boundary line between truth and falsehood is of the most shadowy character. Sir G. Grey’s mind appears to belong to this class. On more than one occasion his utterances on public questions have all the appearance of wilful and determined misrepresentation. Take, for example, his speeches on the Canterbury run question. Notwithstanding the repeated corrections to which he has had to submit, he persisted in talking of the tenure of those runs in such a way as to make those of his hearers not better informed, believe that those leases were granted in such a way as to exclude settlement. It was in vain that he was told that those runs were open, and had always been open, to the free (selector; he persisted m maintaining

that the nmholcler was shutting out the freeholder. In a similar maimer, he wishes to tickle the Auckland popular ear, and so ho succeeds in confusing two questions, and leaving a vague impression upon the minds of some of his hearers that our present franchise is monstrously unfair. Of course, lie nowhere asserts that one man can swamp fortyfive votes, in the election for members of the General Assembly, but his evident intention was to convey that impression. In other respects, the speech was also most disappointing. Even Sir G. Grey's most devoted followers cannot suppress all expression of dissatisfaction. Refer' ring to his remarks on his land policy tl e Lyttelton Times is forced to express regret that he did not take the opportu nity of explaining the course which he took at the end of the session in advising his Excellency to veto the Land Bill, and warns him that if he makes his proposed visit to all parts of the colony, he will soon be asked to give that explanation. Our contemporary also thinks that the latter part of the speech, with reference to the Governor, might Avell have been omitted. The Tlmaru Herald , a journal which of late has been warmly supporting the Grey Government, says that the speech will disappoint even Sir G. Grey’s most ardent adherents, and characterises the greater portion of the speech as “nothing but claptrap, and very far-fetched claptrap too."' Our contemporary concludes as follow ; “ Wo can readily believe that many of our readers were fairly puzzled by the latter part of Sir George Grey’s speech; and that when they got to the end of it, they put down the paper in utter bewilderment, as to what in the name of goodness the Premier had been driving at. We can easily imagine them asking what the Sepoys, and the Loyalty Islands, and the endowment of the Canterbury Bishoprics, and the Kaffirs, and the Indian Mutiny in 1858, have to do with the public affairs of New Zealand in 1877. We fancy wo hear them saying, ‘ Why did not Sir George reserve all these interesting reminiscences for a tea-meeting, or a lecture at the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society ? Why did he not tell ns how the Land Act is likely to work, and what the chief provisions of the Financial Arrangements Act are, and why he did not resign when Lord Normanby refused his advice, and whether he thinks he can make both ends meet, and how he means to raise and spend the two and a half million loan, and whether he is going to establish manhood suffrage and a jmoperty tax. and burst up the big estates, and reduce the Customs tariff ? Why, in a word, did the Premier, at the most important public meeting that has been held in New Zealand for years, tell the public nothing that they wanted to know, and everything that they did not care sixpence to hear ?' Ah, gentle readers, you have just hit the bull’s-eye, in asking those very pertinent questions. Wo will endeavour to answer them as clearly as we can. We are perfectly confident that in making this extraordinary speech at Auckland, Sir George Grey had no other object in view than to tickle and entertain his audience, without committing himself at all to any definite expression of ojuniou on public affairs. With a great show of frankness, and of a desire to ‘ have everything in the Government perfectly open,’ lie took remarkably good care to let nothing whatever out, but to shut everything in the Government up as closely as possible.”