The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 1875.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 138, 9 June 1875, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 1875.

We publish to-day a letter to the Wairarapa Standard, professing to be written by Sir George Grey. We say " professing," because we would gladly believe for the sake of Sir George's own reputation that the veteran mem- j ber of the Npw Zealand press who , edits the Standard had in this instanced been the victim of a boax. If the letter 1 had appeared simply on its own merits ; under a norn de plume, or from some ordinary writer, it would have been best to consign it unnoticed to the waste-paper basket. But, under the authority of Sir George's name and j t with the prestige of bis former position, it seems to us little short of being both ' rand and dangerous. The author of the letter states, as his reason for writing it, the fact, as he is pleased to call it, that <( from the system of government into which we have gradually been drawn by the action of the General Government, and from the nppoint- ■ ment of Governors for party purposes, or as a reward for party services, we may be led upon a great variety of subjects into the class feelings which . disturb the order of society in the mother country," He attempts to. establish his so-called fact as regards the General Government-of New Zealand by no instance whatever from their own conduct. The only Governor he mentions is Sir G. Bo wen, who is ; sneered at for being promoted and rewarded, as if a despatch in favor of ' capital punishment' wi'thiu the walla , of ' a prison were the chief act of his official [ life. The letter quotes as a proof of tbb intensity of class feelings in Englaud the cases, with their results, of, two trials for murder. In the first of /O theße, Townley was nothanged because he was shown to have been insane. In the other, a person of the name of Wright, not having been shown to be 1 insane, suffered according to the law, i \ We have not space, and it is beside the

point, to enter into the detitfle of theae two ca&efcu iSif (xeorge'B own statement shows that there a great deal to be Said id contradiction to the views he Jakes. As for the Brisbane execution the fault found by the writer is that the assistants who carried out the law were black. Sir Georee'd class notions seem Blocked by a black man laying hands upon a white. His liberal views are not even skin deep. We do not dwell upon tlie implied accusation agaiußt a Queensland judge, jury, and Governor of deliberate murder. "It seems sinful to eet a native colored race to in plain terms murder a white man." The letter goes on to recall in a summary wbv the recollection of cruelties connpeted with the Tower of London, the Bastille, and the inquisition. What have these to do with the abolition oiP provinces ? '.Something lesß than than the Catiline conspiracy, not half so much as the repudiation of Pennsylvanian bonds. In Bpeaking of the Council of Ten iv Venice, why is the word "provinces" printed in italics ? Is there a sane man in New Zealand who imagines that Mr Mac'^andrew or Mr Rolleston is in danger at the Governor's dinners ? Has Mr Fitzherbert arrived at a trreen and vigorous old age, like the persistent and wily Mithridates, through the scientific use of antidotes ? la economy only the decorous pretenoe, or is the real motive of fhe Provincial Council of Nelson for declining to entertain the Marquis of Normanby, a fear lest Mr Curtis should be poisoned, under Dr Pollen's directions, by the Governor's buffer? Is this the reason thfit Sir George Grey has kept himself so"' long 1 * in 'the safe seclusion of Kawau : — " As late as 1757 a packet of poison was sent from the Council of Ten ?" We have commented very shortly on this curious production, but in so doing we have thrown a stone. at the idol whoee supposed sanctity alone can give it weight. If the members of the Assembly and the people of New Zealand are as sensible as the electors of Newark they will require something much more to the purpose before they enlist under the banner of Sir George Grey as the champion of Provincialism and the aboliaher of Governors.