THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1879.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1721, 26 August 1879, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1879.

That naughty old maxim, which says that language was given to man to disguise his thoughts, was excellently illustrated at the great popular demonstration at the Oddfellows’ Hall on Saturday evening. A more’ powerful oratorical effort perhaps was never made by Sir George Grey. Nature and long experience on tho stump have done great things for him. An accomplished speaker, in tone, in arrangement of laconically rounded periods, and in composition, the Premier is undoubtedly a past master in the art of charming an audience. And it is especially when ho has before him men whose imaginative feelings are more strongly developed than is their knowledge of political affairs, that Sir George’s powers of persuasion come out most brilliantly. It is not our intention to review the enormous mass of assertions, arguments, and so forth, which ho evolved on Saturday night. In a variety of ways the speaker merely reiterated passages to be found in his numberless speeches made in the House and elsewhere. Of course some new dohatoahlo ground was broken upon at the end of his address, when many answers were made to questions which, if wo are to judge from the reports of “Hansard,” might have fairly been expected to prove very disagreeable to the candidate. But Sir George Grey’s dialectic skill and hia insidious way of bringing sophistry to his aid carried away many of his •mthusiastic listeners, who succumbed to the glamor the artistic orator had thrown over them. Suggestio falsi, suppressio veri, is not a bad motto for politicians in distress, whose moral calibre is far below the range of their debating powers, and without a doubt tho Premier remembered this well last Saturday. It is a pity, however, that ho should again have launched into statements the nature of which must have the effect of materially strengthening the painful feeling which is fast gaining gronnd, that not a word Sir George Grey utters can he relied upon, and that when brought to bay he thinks hut very little of boldly distorting the truth. On that great land question, for instance, of which he has tried to make co much capital, his past acts when last in power stand in singular relief against his denunciations of the “favored class from which he would wrest their infamously acquired big estates,” so that the working class could settle on the land and thereupon wax fat, and grow happy. It was Sir George Grey who framed the Land Regulations of March, 1853, which fixed the price of agricultural land at 10s per acre, with gridironing privileges, and of pastoral land at 5 s per acre. These regulations have always been known as “ Sir George Grey’s Regulations,” and it is under them that the very pick of the old Wellington province, and almost the whole of Hawke’s Bay, passed into the hands of a few such as the Bussells, Tollemaches, Ormond, and others, and the departmental control in tho Land Offices was such at that time that numberless areas of the finest agricultural country were sold at 5s by goodnatured officials, who could he easily prevailed upon to wink at certain things. The portions of those Land Regulations of 1853 affecting runs are well known. Not many days ago one of the oldest Wellington settlers, Mr. J. Valentine Smith, who has for a great number of years lived in the Wairarapa, where he was one of the earliest selectors, had something to say on tho subject of these Land Regulations. Mr. Smith was one of the first members of the Provincial Council of Wellington, and was intimately connected with the politics of the day. In a letter of his published ;in a Wairarapa paper a remarkable statement occurs. Immediately after Sir George Grey had proclaimed these Regulations he left Wellington for Auckland, passing through tho Wairarapa, whence Mr. Smith accompanied him on his northern trip. “ During the journey,” writes Mr. Smith, “ Sir George Grey asked me this question—- ‘ Do you not think it will ho a good thing by these regulations to enable gentlemen with capital to acquire extensive blocks of country, and so take up a position in New Zealand similar to that of landed gentry in England ?’ Tho question struck me at the time as a remarkable one, and I remember it as distinctly as if I had heard it only to-day. I have since found that the same question was put by him to others.” Of course abundant proof has been produced from time to time, besides this statement of Mr. J. Valentine Smith, which prove how insincere Sir George Grey has been when uttering those declamatory protestations against owners of big estates. If harm was ever created to public interests by any land monopoly occasioned by tho original cheap mode of tenure, it is Sir Goorgo Grey—both in this and tho other island—who must be blamed. And yet in his demagogic endeavours to inflame the public mind against old and respectable settlors, in his intemperate appeals to tho poor man, whom ho thinks ho can hoodwink and use at election times, the Premier’s memory conveniently fails him, and records of his own political history are either sot aside or worked up so as to suit his own ends. And it must bo remembered that it is with this land monopoly cry, the “ bursting up of tho big estates” that Sir George Grey finds it most easy to move tho working men. But any honest man should feel thoroughly ashamed of himself, in tho present aspect of affairs, commercial as well as political, for trying to sot class against class as our fanatic and unprincipled would-he-loador is doing just now.

The “ Lyttelton Times ” and its evening satellite are in a liigli state o£ virtuous indignation because certain electors on Saturday niglit expressed in somewhat a noisy manner their disapprobation of the candidature of Sir George Grey. The “ Lyttelton Times ” lays the fault down to the Conservative party at largo, and drags in the Star Chamber, the Bastilo, Cayenne, and Siberia, as being quite apropos to the matter. The “ Star ” lays the affair almost entirely at the door of Cashel street, against which part of the town it seems peculiarly envenomed. Neither paper can understand that such a thing as a popular demonstration against the god they bow down to should be possible. However, wo undorstai d that arrangements have been made by the Association under the plea of retaliation, by which no opposition candidate will henceforth bo allowed to open his mouth. The employes of our contemporaries will

turn out cn masse, and several enormously strong and stout men have been put on the staff for the time being, for the sole purpose of adding weight to the “ genuine popular demonstrations” that are to take place.