AN OFFICIAL MANUSCRIPT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 317, 9 March 1878, Page 10

AN OFFICIAL MANUSCRIPT.

(From the Wanganui Chronicle.') Sill G, GREY TO MR. BALLANCE. We are informed that the following letter was picked up near the residence of the Minister for Education, from whence it had probably been blown during one of those pleasant gales for which Wellington is so justly celebrated. The fortunate finder, a person commonly known as “dirty Jock,” who has lately become a devoted adherent of Sir George Grey, immediately forwarded its contents to us by telephone, and we publish it for the benefit of our readers, posterity, and the human race : Hinemoa, s.s. (at sea, off Martin’s Bay), March 2,187 S. Dear Mr. Ballance, —I have just read your article in the Evening Herald of the 26th ult., in which you so thoroughly expose the acts by which the governing classes in New Zealand seek to maintain, and strengthen their power. The noble and eloquent language iu which you denounce The Times' correspondent, Mr. Halcombe, reminds me very much of Milton, and the phrase “ veneered nature ” is a most beautiful expression. There is a high tone about your writing which I always admired very much, and your remarks about Mr. Fox could not be surpassed by my friend Mr. Rees himself in their good taste and gentlemanly feeling. I intend to forward your article to the editor of the London Times, with a note informing him that it was written by a member of my Ministry. That will be a sufficient answer to Mr. Halcombe’s most wicked assertion that in politics “ the colony has sadly retrograded from the high standard of former years.” I doubt whether even the author of “ Lothair ” could have written in as high and elevated a style. I hope Lord Beaconsfield will see it; he might introduce your allusion to the “ penny gaff ” into a speech in the Lords with great and excellent effect, and allude to Mr. Gladstone as that “ statesman who made wry faces and screeched,” and so made people think him clever. I always did dislike Mr. Fox. In Mr. Whitaker’s time he used to say and write the most wrong and unpleasant things, and now I feel convinced that through Mr. Halcombe he is trying to influence public opiuiou against me in England by means of The Times newspaper. There is a large party there that are always seeking to do me an injury because of my republican principles. The Press laughed at me when I expressed a fear that Auckland might be bombarded by one of Her Majesty’s ships, but I am convinced there was something in it. It is quite possible that even now, under the pretext of being prepared for a war with Russia, a fleet may be sent to this country with orders to destroy Wellington, if there is any hope of burying me beneath its ruins. Indeed I often think that the enemies of the liberties of the people, who have already destroyed the Constitution of New Zealand, are engaged in a base conspiracy against me. It is only by the exercise of the greatest care and prudence that I have so far escaped. Knowing how much the welfare of future generations depends upon my life, it would be wrong to run any risk. I therefore avoid dining at Government House. Though I do not take wine, they might poison me in my soup. However, surrounded by a phalanx of my friends, and supported by the love and affection of the people of this country, I fear nothing. Referring again to your admirable article, I would suggest that caution must be exercised in dealing with historical facts. Abuse and invective is always safe, but it is often dangerous to make definite statements about anything real. I never do myself, as it interferes with liberty of action. You are quite right in saying that “ if anything is calculated to create a feeling of disgust, it is this hankering after the days that are past, when the Assembly slept and knaves grew wealthy at the expense of the people” —that is an assertion vague enough to be safe. No one can prove that the Assembly did not sleep, and that knaves did not grow wealthy. My experience is that they often do, even when the Assembly is wide awake. It was, however, a little imprudent to refer to such facts as the “sale of the Waitotara and Hawke’s Bay lands at 10s. an acre to lynx-eyed speculators,” because these sales were made under my own land regulations, and through that very provincial machinery which I pride myself on having provided. At that time I had a better opinion of human nature—especially “veneered nature”—than I have now, and I had no idea that even “a lynx-eyed speculator” would be wicked enough to give only ten shillings an acre for land, when that was the price fixed by law. A search among the records of the Crown Lands Office would probably show that such baseness was confined to large capitalists, and that smaller purchasers always paid as much as they thought the land would be worth ten years afterwards. My own opinion is that no man owning more than 300 acres can be good, virtuous, and patriotic. While I was quartered in Ireland, I always observed that it was only the rich and wealthy who bought as cheaply as they could, while the poor aud noble peasantry of that glorious country scorned to be guilty of such meanness, and would always give as much for a thin, lean pig as a fat one, knowing that in time both would be of equal value. To my thinking the selfishness and greed of capitalists is at the root of every evil which mankind endures, and I trust that the future historian of New Zealand will be able to say of that great liberal party of which I am the head, that we found the colony nothing but a vast field for the employment of capital and labor, and that we left it full of labor employed in the formation of happy homes, and utterly denuded of that capital or money which is the root of all evil.—l am, &c., (Phonographed) G. Grey. p.S. —Mr. Macandrew was so cross when we fished him out of the water that I almost ref rotted we didn’t let him stay there. He is, jealcfus of ir-fksuce, and says

that since you joined the Government one of our side said he feared our proposals, when we know what they are, would be known as the “ Pinchbeck Policy.” This looks like one of Mr. Fox’s “ prepared jokes.”—G. G.