SIR GEORGE GREY’S RELAPSE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2235, 27 April 1881, Page 3

SIR GEORGE GREY’S RELAPSE.

Tho Otago “ Daily Times” of Saturday refers to tho announcement that the health of tho member for the Thames has againfgivon way, in the following terms :—The news telegraphed from Auckland yesterday that Sir George Grey has suffered a relapse will not probably give rise to any serious apprehensions for the venerable politician’s health. Sir George Grey always is liable to relapses about this time of year. For some reasons best known to himself he invariably preludes his annual speechifying tour by a series of false alarms about his bad leg, and his general state of prostration and debility. He always reminds us of tho old lady one meets at evening parties sometimes, who is dying to sing some of her antiquated songs, but, finding that no ono asks her, has to fall back on coughing and fainting, and protesting that she will never bo able to sing unless she gets bettor. Of course everybody at once avows a deep anxiety in her speedy recovery, and the dear old soul is perfectly well as soon as she sees her chance to gratify her harmless vanity at the expense of her hearers’ ears and patience. Sir George has been trying all sorts of little innocent dodges to attract attention lately, but as nobody has taken the slightest notice of him, or afforded him a shadow of an excuse for emerging from hia retirement, he has had, as usual, to suffer a relapse, and to make a fuss about his log. The public know this little bit of gammon so well now, however, that they are scarcely affected by it at all. When they read tho familiar announcement in tho papers they chuoklo good-naturedly, and pass on to something of more importance. Even in Auckland, where great efforts are being made to galvanise Greyism into some sort of vitality again, wo are assured those manoeuvres about Sir George’s illness excite nothing but ridicule. The feeling there is that if he is going to make a demonstration, the sooner he comes out and makes it, without further humming and hawing, the better ; but there are, honestly speaking, only the feeblest indications of a desire for any such demonstration at all. Mr Speight, who may best be described as Sir George Grey’s advance agent, recently felt the pulse of the public in tho most populous and the most Groyite portion of Auckland, but the symptoms were not favorable. He only had abou @OO persona at hie

meeting to start with, and they dwindled down to a mere handful before ho had done. There was no active opposition to him, or to the cause that he claimed to represent; but the expected audience simply stayed away, while the few who put in an appearance loft early. The absence of enthusiasm could scarcely have been more marked than it was. Of course we do not suppose that the feeling of the people in Auckland towards Sir George Grey can fairly be measured by their feeling towards Mr Speight. The trut... is that they realise the enormous blunder they made in returning men of Mr Speight's class at the hi.iding of Sir George Grey, to the exclusion of their real loaders; and they are determined to show, whatever their regard for Sir George Grey himself may be, they ere not going to put up with his dummies for their representatives again. At tho same time wo cannot help thinking that their zeal for Sir George himself has also cooled down considerably. There was a vast deal of cupboard lore in it from the beginning, and now that it is pretty plainly shown that Sir George Grey cannot do anything more for Auckland, we fan-iy Auckland will not go to much trouble to do anything more for Sir George Grey.