The Politician.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 318, 16 March 1878, Page 7

The Politician.

SIR GEORGE GREY AT OTAGO. —ym (PER PRESS AGENCY). BaIcIjUTHA, Friday.

Sir George Grey and party left Clinton this morning at ten o’clock, and arrived here at noon. They were met at the town boundary by the Mayor and Councillors. On arrival at the hotel the Town Clerk read the following address:—To the Hon. the Premier Sir George Grey, K.C.B. On behalf of the Borough Council and the inhabitants cf Balclutha and the Clutha District, we give you a cordial welcome to our township. We rejoice in this opportunity of assuring you of the most cordial aud hearty support of all classes of the community here, in the great political struggle in which for years past you have beeu and still are engaged. We have watched with interest the unmistakeable manifestations of sympathy with the principles you advocate, and of loyalty to your cause, which is the cause of the people, that have everywhere greeted you during your present tour throughout the colony. We regard these manifestations as conclusive evidence that public sentiment is entirely with you, and xve trust you will be spared in health to carry out and to witness the practical benefits of those legislative measures you contemplate introducing to meet the present circumstances of the colony, and that you may reap a reward conmensurate with your patriotic sacrifices and services on behalf of New Zealand, a country so dear to you, and for which you have spent much of your time, talents, and estates.— -igned, John McNeil, Mayor. Thos. Paterson, Town Clerk. Sir George Grey briefly expressed his thanks for the address, which he said was encouraging to any gentleman in a public position. He assured them that every effort would be put forth by him to promote the good of the counti’y.

Three cheers were then called for by the Mayor for Sir George Gi’ey, and wex’e heartily given.

Sir George Grey, accompanied by the Mayor and others, then took a walk through the township, aud returned to the Crown Hotel to Ixxnclieou. The Mayor occupied the chaff, having Sir George Grey on his right aud Mr. Fisher on his left. Mr. Thomson, M.H.R., was vice-chairman. A few of the box’oxxgli councillors and a few of the leading citizens were also present. After the toasts of “ The Queen and the Royal Family,” and “ The Governoi’,” the chairman proposed “ The Health of Sir George Grey,” which was enthusiastically received. Sir George replied in a short aud excellent speech. The “ Health of the Members of the Assembly” was next proposed, and responded to by Messrs. Fisher and Thomson. SirGeox’ge Grey then proposed the toast of “ The Mayor and Boroxxgn Council,” to which the Mayor replied. The company then broke up. Sir George afterwards called uponone or two old acquaintances, and the party left at 1.35 in a four-horse trap, followed by the borough councillors, for the railway station, and proceeded by special train to Dunedin. Dunedin, Friday.

Sir George Grey, accompanied by the Hon. Mr. Fisher, arrived at 4 o’clock this afternoon from Balclutha. A large crowd assembled at the railway station, and the Premier was welcomed with three hearty cheers. The ministerial party was afterwards conveyed in a carriage to Fern Hill Club. This evening Sir George Grey addressed a public meeting at the Princess Theatre. About 1500 people were present, including a large assemblage of ladies in the dress circle. The Mayor of Dunedin presided, and the platform was thronged with leading citizens.

Sir George on rising was received with loud and prolonged cheers. He expressed the pleasure he felt at meeting so many colonists, and went on to refer to the early settlement of New Zealand. He considered it was desirable that the Middle Island should first be colonised, as native difficulties might arise, and the process of blending the races should be slowly aud naturally brought about. It was proposed that Otago should be occupied by a hardy vigorous race, and that they should enjoy a free aud enlightened constitution, with the assistance of leading statesmen of England and the British Parliament. The Constitution was framed so as to enable the people to exercise political rights and enjoy the utmost freedom. For years they enjoyed a free and liberal Constitution. No disasters occurred in consequence, but a development of the resources of the colony, and a growth of happiness and contentment ensued unprecedented in the history

of the British colonies. These institutions were s'wept away. He asked whether the new ones were such as became free men, and were they likely to conduce to peace and happiness ? Sir Geoi’ge then alluded to the franchise. He condemned the system of allowing a plurality of votes to the owners of property, and the depriving of another class of the fi’anchise. This was a violation of the Constitution which was origin illy intended to be given. The franchise should be extended, and lie proposed that every resident for twelve months in an electoral district should have one vote, aud that plurality of votes shoixld bo abolished. He referred to the objections ux’ged against the extension of the franchise because ol the existence of drunkards, maintaining that ixo man should be deprived of his political rights. Evei’y tax-payer was entitled to have a voice in determining how his money was geing to be expended. If men were compelled to obey laws which they had no voice in making, they were degraded, and rendered ignorant and visions. It was inconsistent with honesty to depi’ive a tax-payer of his right to vote. The old Constitution, which had worked admirably, had been shattered, and a lxew Constitution introduced, which pleased no one. He contrasted the number of actual voters in the Colony with the adult population, and urged that the alteration of the Constitution by a small minority of tlxe people was a grievous injustice. A large amount bad been spent in public works, and much of it was wasted. The bxxllc of this money had added enormously to the value of private property, and enriched the few at the cost of the xnany. He considered every person slxoxxld contribute to the State in exact pi’oportion to the advantage he derived. Under the present system of taxation a pauper class was created, whose children would become the sex-fs of the laixd, axxd monopolists and specxxlatox’s would be created. To remedy and prevent this he suggested that the system of taxation should be revised, and a land tax enforced. He proposed that the land shoixld be taxed according to quality. Absentee landowner’s, who derived large revenues from New Zealand, had to pay an income tax in England, and if they thought proper to reside there he considered they should be made to contribute towards the revenue of this colony. (Cheers.) This was xiot radicalism, but pure reciprocity. It was to alter the existing system of taxation, aud to prevent the creation of one class rolling in wealth and another class steeped ixx poverty, that he desired an extension of the franchise. As long as a minoi-ity hold the exclusive light to vote they would legislate for themselves. With the franchise extended, their land laws would speedily be l’eformed in a way beneficial to the people. He stated that his reason for advising the Governor to disallow the Land Act was to prevent the Canterbury squatters obtaining an extension of their leases for thirteen years, without the electox’s being consulted in granting these leases. Parliament had committed a fraud on the people, and he had threatened, when the Act was passed, he should use every means in his power to prevent its passing into law. He urged them, if they wished to recover their rights and to make the colony great aud prosperous, to agitate for an extension of the franchise. It should be the ambition of every man to take a part in the work of legislation, and to try to become one of the statesmen of New Zealand. He had been told during the tour that he was once Governor and he was now only Premiei’, and he replied that lie would rather be Premier than Governox’. Every man had to aid in the building xxp of a nation, which he believed woxxld be one of the greatest the world had seen. They were laying the foundations upon which the happiness or misery of many millions would depend, and according as they acted so woxxld their memory be esteemed. He believed the people of Dunedin would not pi’ove traitors to sxxcli a glorious caxxse.

The following resolxxtion was carried by acclamation: —“That this meeting desires to express its thanks to Sir George Grey for his lucid and valuable address, and to express its entffe confidence in his Government.”

There were loxxd calls for Mr. Macandrew, but he only said a few words.

SIR GEORGE GREY’S STUMPING TOUR. (From tlxe Australasian.) “ The years which bring the philosophic mind to most men have had a contrary effect upon Sir George Grey, who is sowing his political wild oats at a time of life ixx which statesmen usually review the error’s of their eai’ly careei’, and correct the delusions of youth by the ripe experience and matured judgment of old age. The Premier of New Zealand is now stixmpiug the Northern Island, and talking bombast to “ the people” as glibly as if he had graduated among the Chartists of Glasgow or Clerkemvell upwards of thirty years ago. At New Plymouth, on the Bth of Februax-y, he indulged in an oration which might have been delivered, with very few alterations, to a meeting of the unemployed in Tompkius-sqnare, New York, or to an assemblage of the Kearney faction, at the foot of Nob’s-hill in San Francisco. While disclaiming any intention of setting class against class, he held up the landowners of New Zealand to reprobation, because, lie said, “they wore becoming enormously rich by the labor of others—by money taken out of tho pockets of the community. Of course, he thought this was entirely wrong, lie woxxld say, let every man pay for what he gets.” Sir George did not condescend to particulars. This might have been inconvenient. He did not explain that in all new countries, endowed with a fertile soil and a genial climate, nature is the chief factor of wealth, and that human industry is but an insignificant auxiliary to her “ gratuitous utilities.” The natural grasses or exotic herbage of New Zealand, the rain and sunshine, the mysterious alchemy by which vegetation is transformed into wool and mutton, are certainly not the products of human toil; oi*d *■•••“ statesman who denounces

the persons who exploiter these for their own benefit and for that of the community to which he belongs, must be one of two things which we refrain from particularising. Such pernicious rant is all the more inexcusable in a speaker like Sir George Grey, because lie cannot plead, like our own demagogues, the excuse of a defective education, or of that envy and hatred of the prosperous classes which actuate men who have taken to politics because they have failed to succeed in the ordinary pursuits of honest industry. The New Zealand Premier assured his hearers that, “if in a country like their own, they trained up every person to know his political duty, so they would train persons to respect their own judgment and to respect themselves in the proper way, and if they continue to do that from the first in a new country, they could raise up a power infinitely superior to the mass of the population existing in any country in Europe. He had said every man being trained to take part in the affairs of the country would create in him habits of self-respect, but he would say that it would do more than that, it would create habits of morality of various kinds, a man would prize his own home because feeling he was capable of being useful in the country, and would be ashamed to do anything that would damage him in the eyes of his fellow' citizens. By this means they would cease to raise up iu the bosom of a country a criminal population.” These are just the sort of sonorous platitudes which used to be talked in the clubs of Paris in ’B9 and ’4B, and again in ’7O ; but they are certainly not borne out by tile facts of the case in this colony, where manhood suffrage has now been established for twenty years, and where it has come to this, that freedom of speech has been violently suppressed iu the capital, and in one or two other centres of population, and where one of the organs of the “ .Liberal” party, namely, the Bendigo independent. writes thus respecting the “ criminal population” which we are “ rearing up in the bosom of the country” :—“ Earrikinism is a fact, and a fearful fact, which makes us sometimes stand aghast when we contemplate the future of this country, and ask in whose hands its destinies will be placed. The enormities of that crime have been depicted in lively terms by the newspapers of the colony, and all are unanimous in condemning it.” Sir George Grey went on to declare that if the present state of things continued they would create two nations—a rich nation and a poor nation—the poor nation including very few persons who would rise to comfort and competency ; and that “if they did not insist upon a fair distribution of the public burdens, and if they did not insist on all the prizes in political life being offered to every citizen in New Zealand, they who were poor now would have their children poorer, and their grandchildren poorer still.” We have heard something very like this before, and cannot help thinking that the speaker has been stealing some of his stage thunder from Victoria. Be this as it may, it is rather amusing to read that Sir George considers that all such terrible risks may be avoided by—what ? By inculcating habits of thrift, industry, self-denial, sobriety, and forethought. By pointing out that, in a British colony, every man may be the architect of his own fortunes, and that personal conduct or misfortune, and not political misgovernment, is at the bottom of all social failures ? Nothing of the sort. A public meeting never wants to hear the truth. It must be flattered or cajoled, and accordingly Sir George Grey solemnly assured his hearers that the one thing needful “to scatter plenty o’er a smiling land” was to bestow upon every man, who is twenty-one years of age, one vote, and one vote only. This will transform character. This will make all men virtuous, diligent, prudent, chaste, temperate, and just. This will regenerate the individual, purify the community, and transfigure the State ? “ Every attempt made to keep alive political life throughout the country,” said he, “ did good. Bet them look at England after the Reformation. What poets, what orators, what statesmen—a gelaxy of talent such as England never saw before or since. It was the spur of political life brought that about. Bet them look also at the time when the Preform Bill was introduced—Byron, Shelley, Scott, and other men of that period. They might see that the more they kept alive political life in New Zealand, so much the more rapid and effectual would be the advancement of the country.” What shallow fustian is this ! Another sophist might argue that despotism must be a splendid thing, because the reign of Eouis the Fourteenth was the most brilliant epoch of Trench history—the period of Moliere, Racine, and Corneille, of Pascal, Rochefoucauld, and Ba Bruyere, of Eenelon, Massillon, and Bossuet, of Mazarin, Conde, Turenne, and Colbert, of Le Sage, Boileau, and Malebranclie. And a tliird sophist might contend that it was good for a nation to be trampled in the dust by a foreign enemy, because it was at that critical period of its existence that Germany produced the splendid cluster of men of genius of whom Goethe was the acknowledged head and chief. If Sir George Grey’s knowledge of political science is as meagre as his knowledge of literary history, those who accept him as an oracle and a leader are very much to be commisserated.