ANOTHER CANDID FRIEND.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1560, 18 February 1879, Page 4

ANOTHER CANDID FRIEND.

The following scathing criticism of the Ministry is from the summary for Europe published by the “ Otago Daily Times The Hon. the Attorney-General has made a speech at Invercargill since the opening, in which he reiterated much that he had previously said in Dunedin, and the only thing particularly to note in the speech was that he again alluded to and defended the proposal which has been mooted by Sir George Grey, that the colony should claim the right to elect or to nominate its own Governor. This reiteration seems to argue some settled purpose. It has ns yet obtained but little support from the press, and is generally looked at as altogether a wild and visionary proposal, tending to separation from the mother country, and eventually to Republicanism or a dictatorship. It is regarded by many Liberals who generally view the policy of the present Government with favor—as ill-timed and dangerous, and will, we believe, tend to weaken the posit ion of the Ministry rather than strengthen it when appealing to the constituencies, as they must do after next session. But it is by no means improbable that the eloquence of the Attorney-General will persuade many of his followers to adopt the idea as an article of a new political creed. Sir George Grey, from his extreme views and his many crotchets, has lost much ground with his followers; but he has not hitherto proposed anything so revolutionary as this, and it is difficult not to charge him with an ambitious desire to be the first elected Governor of New Zealand, and thus to find balm for the wounds inflicted by the Colonial Office and the present Governor, Lord Normanby, on his sensitive pride. The latter is about to leave us for Victoria, and passes through Canterbury and Otago to take farewell of us on his way. He will be well received, as a large section of the community is inclined to resent the coldness and disrespect with which on various occasions the Marquis has been treated by Sir George Grey and the present Government. It cannot be slid that the Marquis of Normanby has been a brilliant Governor, and ho is not altogether free of a suspicion of partisanship. He has had, however, a very difficult position to fill since Sir George Grey’s advent to power, and he has, on the whole, fill d it with discretion and dignity. Sir Hercules Robinson, our new Governor, who is to arrive at the end of the present month, is a man of different calibre, and some curiosity is felt as to how he will get on with Sir George. We have enough work to accomplish in the way of practical legislation to make most people consider that it is undesirable to be perpetually raising discussions on theoretical questions, and dissensions on small points, and it is this tendency in the Premier and the Attorney General that is just now weakening the Liberal ranks.