SIR GEORGE GREY AND THE SITUATION.

Kumara Times, Issue 1737, 25 April 1882, Page 2

SIR GEORGE GREY AND THE SITUATION.

[tIMArU HERAiiD.j

The /wily veteran has over-reached himself beautifully this time. If he had only rnn straight, it Is quite on the cards that he would have been Premier' now, with a certaitny of remainiuo" in office for three weeks or a month at leash. And «» oni : Sir Jarge " can dd a lot of mischief in three weeks or d month if he ha* his hand well in. Bei sides, he is a wbhderful sticker when h 6 gets into a good thing, and the' chances are that what with a dissolution and a Maori war } and a few other humorous devices of that sort, he would have 1 managed to ptifc through a year or two' before he could have; beeti'bronght td see that he- was hot wanted, tint we knew he would not run straight, ite" could not do it, "hot »f it was over so,'' as the old women say. It would not |«e any pleasure td hint td gain an oh; jeer, without some dodgery. So' Instead of keeping his friend Sir Arthur Gordon's confidence, and c'ortiitlg down at otlce to hear what ail the fu<s was aboiit; he carefully remembered to forget to catch the si earner, and stayed behind in Auckland for a few days, just to make' his dwn little book on any event that might turn up. it lo feed very smart, aud everyVbdy said what a wary old bird he was. But, as it happened, it just settled him nicely. Sir Arthui? waited at GhHstc'hurch a day* so that Sir George and he might meet corofoitably in Wellington, without any impertinent enquiries beforehand; but when he got there, he learnt that his trusted Mentor had not yet left Auckland. His Excellency is not over sharp, they say ; but he' began to smell a rat then • and the more he heard and read about Sir Goorge during tliose foUr 1 idle days, the moie he wished him at •the—Kawau. Then came that delicioite " tell-a-cram," as a schoolboy friend of ours calls them, in the Lyttelton Timea, letting the whole cat out of the bag, teeth and hair and claws and tail a-id all. It was the tail, in fact, that got out first, and waggled about si ctifr fouridedly that it made the blood of all the' Gordons boii. Long before Sir Gedrge readied Wellington, no doubt, his rosy prospects of being Premier had torne'd particularly bine; and when he came to meet his friend at Government House there were words between them. Sir Arthur this not exactly the temper of an angel, and we hear "that he gave Sir Ge.rge' a bit of his mind that rather 1 astonished his weak nerves Sir George, who never dreamt of meeting wiih such a reception and who had been quietly making up his programme of colleagues, appointments and so forth, seems to have been too much flabbergasted to make any sort of resistance. The whole affair did not last an hour, and then, poor Sir George got a hint that the sooner he made himself scarce, the better Her Majesty's representative would be pleased. It was hard lines certainly, and we dare say that Sir Arthur Gordon did not spare the old gentleman's feelings. He never spares anybody's feelings. But after all, it was entirely Sir George's fault, for not running straight. There was an Aurora Austral is in the direction of the Auckland Islands the night before last. There will be a lurid glare over the Island of Kawau, we expect, for a con* siderable time to come. He can swear' as well as most men ; but it will take all he knows to do justice to bis feeling* this time/