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New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 706, 19 January 1853, Page 3

The plfhliar character of the charge against Sir G, Grey—(tfSlifce bad declareda malignant purpose of pursuing Auckland with an enmity which would make it a place of desolation with grass-covered streets)—which was advanced by the Southern Cross , and reiterated in that journal by a writer rejoicing in the not inappropriate nom Je guerre of ‘‘The Man in the Moon,” warrants our once more adverting to it, i(ji)*b for the purposed letting our leadflHwjww that bur contemporary maintainsl|MfpTO this hour an un-' broken silence on the subject. This, it will be admitted, is not 4 wr fault. We pointed out the peculiar nature of tlffi decusation as •establishing a cftfeinct line of demarcation between it and those strictures, however pungent, which the Press may claim a right to make on the public acts of public officers,— and ns therefore imposing an absolute obligation on those w ho gave it to the world to be both ready and willing to produce satisfactory evidence of its truth.— We assured him. (as we were fully warranted and .perfectly sincere in doing], that there were citizens who, though far from sympathising with his ordinary style of warfare against the Government, yet were desirous of ascertaining the real fact in this ease, and disposed to receive with the most impartial consideration any proofs he might be able to bring forward.—We tempted him by the assurance that if he could establish this charge he would do more to promote his darling object of exciting popular feeling against His Excellency than all his unwearying assiduity in that behalf for years past has succeeded in effecting; and we stimulated his self-love by suggesting the estimate that all honourable nien must form of his journal and the remnant of an old and happily nearly defunct clique with which it is identified, if it should be found that they had, without foundation and in the more wanlonncss of political or personal malice, put into circulation such a charge against Her Majesty’s Representative in the colony. Rut all has been of no avail. Our usually pugnacious contemporary and his lunar and other friends have been mute and motionless. Rob Acres, with his valour oozing out at his fingers’ ends, was a veritable hero of chivalry in comparison with them. Punch's well-known carricalurc of Lord John Russell, as a little boy chalking “No Popery” on Cardinal Wiseman’s door and then running away in consternation, might, with the needful alterations, pourlray (although it would be but imperfectly) their conduct. Their guiding principle seems to have been that he who makes a charge, and runs awav, may live to make a charge another day. Now, —whatever the flatterers of the clique may tell our contemporary to the contrary — the public are not unobservant spectators of bis course on this occasion. If lie imagines that because he takes no notice of the situation in which he has placed himself, therefore it is not noticed and commented on by others, the trite illustration of the ostrich’s supposing that it is out of sight because it hides its own head in the sand may derive freshness from its singularly apposite applicability to hisselfdeccplion. It will be an additional instance of self-delusion if be should hope that his failure to substantiate this charge will not affect the credibility of many of his other assertions. A favourite question of Daniel O'Connell’s to a witness who, as the sharpwilled lawyer could at once perceive, had i irreparably committed himself by someone | statement, —“ By virtue of your oath is that just,as true as all the rest you have sworn?” and the unsuspecting “Yes,” which was the usual reply, often decided the verdict of the jury. A similar result will follow here. | This accusation from its peculiar nature I affords ail who are interested in its truth or I falsehood—(and every man who has made I Auckland the home of his family or the | place of his business is so)—a right to demand evidence on (he subject, which was not

so conveniently or obviously presented by many of the allege lions broached by the Cross ; and* if our contemporary tacitly mils that this is Ibcapablo of support,' the conclusion will be very legitimately drawn, even by some who have hitherto believed things because they read them in the Cross, that other accusations arc just as true as this, —anfi no more. But what, if our contemporary has all this time been only gathering his strength, to come out some mornings with an array of crushing proofs? Shall Wbe be defeated by his doing so ? Not at all. We have never ventured to assert that his charge was absolutely untrue. Indeed its nature renders it impossible that we should do so; for it would that we should lake upon us to a Airin' that certain words never were used, and the onus prohandi clearly rests upon those who affirm that they were. We did and do say that we consider it improbable in lhe| highest degree that such a man as His Excellency has formed —and not merely formed but avowed— a purpose so evil in itself, and so damaging to his own reputation. But our object has been simply to elicit the truth, not to gain a victory,—at all events, any victory beyond that "which we shall have secured if we force our contemporary to enter on that vindication of himself which the circumstances imperatively demand. If he adduces evidence of this grave accusa-tion-even as much evidence as would suffice to convict a man of petty larceny—we trust we shall manifest no reluctance to acknowledge its force; and should he succeed in proving his case, the regret we sfeall undoubtedly feel at the establishment of such a charge against the Queenfe Representative will be in some measure by the removal from the character of our Colonial Press of the deep slain r lhat must attach to it if the charge should appear to have no other origin than parly or private ran-cour,—-even though the organ through which the calumny was circulated be one whose course from the first has d<Me little indeed to exalt the character or advance the respectability of New Zealand journalism.