SIR GEORGE GREY IN 1849.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 138, 10 June 1880, Page 4

SIR GEORGE GREY IN 1849.

We (Otago Daily Times) have been .shown a most interesting relic of the < past, in the shape of a copy of the ' [Wellington Independent of August 20, ;i,B49rrnearly thirty-one years old I It is of very small size, ss may be supposed, containing sixteen columns of crown folio, of which only two columns are advertisements. It is almost entirely filled with the resolutions of the " Settlers' Constitutional Association," in reply to Sir George Grey's , despatches to lbs Home Government recommending the postponement of Repre»enlative Government in New Zealand. We are told in an editioral

that " the perfect unanimity with which the resolutions were carried, not a single dissentient being found to one of them, and the zealous expression of feeling they t'alled forth were most satisfactory; and would have convinced Sir George Grey, if he had witnessed it, that he had nWe a great mieteke in attempting to delude the colonists of Port Nicholson by fair words and pledges never intended to be fulfilled." This is warm, but the censure k further insisted on in the following terms: — " Let Sir Geerge Grey remain yet another year in New Zealand end a most wholesome lesson will be taught him — a lesson which may not merely prove of incalculable service to him in his future career, but which may serve bb a bea con to warn others against treading in his Excellency's stepE — against triflirg with end trampling upon the best feelings of the whole community; but especially against endeavoring to accomplish their 'ends by a systematic recourse to cunning artifice and misrepresentation, instead ot acting in. 'that spirit of oandour and good faith which British subjects have in all quarters of the globe a right lo expect from the representative of the Queen." The sentence we have italicised might have been penned with equal truth to-day from which we may judge that Sir George has not changed" much for the better. A summary of the resolutions arrived at is appended. No. 1 "complaina of the general untrustwo!(hinrs3 of Sir George Grey's dispatcher," ; (2) " exposes the meosureß resorted to by Sir George to obtain the sanction of his nominee council to the form of goverrmeet proposed by him"} (3) "exposes Sir George's expression of the difficulties be encountered in forming a council, and of the general opposition of the colonists." To omit the others, No. 11 asserts the belief of the association that Sir George Grey .is not and never has been friendly to representative government? 7 But in (his we must acknowledge Sir George has changed, for how dearly he loves it now 1