The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1881.

Kumara Times, Issue 1442, 12 May 1881, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1881.

For many long years Sir George Grey received full credit for what his most bitter opponents could not deny him—the power of making as grand a speech as could be heard in New Zealand. He could sway the multitude by the apparent earnestness of his appeals to to their foibles, and more than this, he would use what may be called downright sound argument. But he stopped at that, and never made the slightest effort in the direction of carrying out all or any of his grand ideas. If the lengthy reports in the leading papers of the colony of Sir George's recent address to his constituents at the Thames are at all fair, the great pro-consul is rapidly approaching the last stage of manhood depicted by Shakespeare. Judging from what we have read it can be asserted that he has descended to absolute drivel. In his speech there is not to be found a single expression which indicates statesmanlike views. He makes a long harangue upon matters which a parish vestry would think beneath their notice, and the only occasion in which he in any way comes to the front is when he denounces all who differ with him as robbers. He uses the word five times in as many lines in his speech as reported by a paper previously favorable to him. He has not forgotten one habit, however,

that of mendacious misrepresentation. He had the barefaced audacity to rerecommend the people to get rid of the “ plural vote,” although he must be aware that many who were listening to him knew perfectly well that when he was in office, he caused the Governor to withhold his assent to the Electoral Bill passed by both Houses, simply because the dual vote to the Maories had been struck out. The measure was his own, and contained every principle of electoral reform he had advocated, but as a clause was amended so as to prevent Maories from swamping the votes of Europeans in certain Northern districts, after electing their own members, he deliberately advised the Governor to withhold his assent, and the measure was accordingly rejected, although it had been agreed to by a majority in both branches of the Legislature. Again, in his recent speech, he referred to the question of immigration, and denounced a system which reduced the price of labor, and Hooded the colony with people of an unsuitable class. This comes very well from a man who at the time he was openly sympathising (or pretending to do so) was secretly making arrangements for the shipment of six thousand paupers from the workhouses of Manchester and other places. Judging from Sir George Grey’s remarks about the Legislative Council condemning the system adopted by successive Governments in causing appointments to be made in that body for political purposes, he must forget the fact that no sooner did he take office in 1877, than he introduced a number of his own most violent partisans into the Council, avowedly for the purpose of obtaining a majority in that body. On the decease of the Speaker of the Council, Sir John Richardson, Sir George appointed a member of the House of Representatives to fill the vacancy, solely on the ground, as stated in his own official correspondence, that he considered it advisable to reject the Hon. Major Richmond, who had been Chairman of Committee in the Council for many years, and select Sir William Eitzherbert, because the latter gentleman favored his own political views. There is not a single expression made use of by Sir George Grey at the Thames but can be easily refuted, and if the rest of the speeches delivered in his stumping tour resemble that he gave at the Thames, it may be assumed that his mana is departed, and that Greyism is defunct.