SIR GEORGE GREY'S PETITION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4263, 18 November 1874, Page 5

SIR GEORGE GREY'S PETITION.

(From the Canterbury Press, November 10.) We publish this- morning among our interprovincial telegrams the substance of the reply of His Excellency the Governor to the petition addressed to him by Sir G. Grey. Our readers will remember the general purport of the petition. Sir George assumed that Mr.-Vbgel's object in visiting England was to apply to the Imperial Parliament for such an alteration of the Constitution Act aa would confer on the General Assembly the power of abolishing the provinces. He urged various considerations why such abolition should be regarded as unconstitutional and revolutionary. And he concluded by instructing the Governor as to his duty in two particulars. Eirst be hoped His Excellency "would feel that it was his bounden duty to his Queen and country" to summon' the General Assembly to meet with the least possible delay. Secondly, he prayed the Governor to telegraph immediately to the Imperial authorities that there was: no pereon qualified to communicate with them respecting the proposed abolition, and that any negotiations on the , subject would be illegal and a violation of the rights, liberties, and privileges of the people of New Zealand. To this tirade the Governor gives a courteous and dignified, but crushing reply. In a fewsentences he disposes of Sir G. Grey and his memorial most effectually. He points out, in the first place, that the petition invites him to " act independently of, if not in opposition to," his responsible advisers, a course which, he rightly adds, " would be justified only by great and exceptional emergencies." He proceeds to meet the petitioner's statements with an emphatic denial. There is no intention, he says, on the part of the Colonial Government to make any application of the kind alleged ; nor is there any necessity for doing so to enable the Assembly to carry out the constitutional changes it has declared advisable. There is also "no person 'qualified'—if by that expression is meant 'accredited'"—to negotiate with the Imperial Government on the subject of the abolition of the provinces. • The Governor hopes this information will satisfy Sir G. Grey that his petition as to the assembling of Parliament ought not to be complied with; and also that it is needless to telegraph to Her Majesty's Ministers a fact which must bo as well known to them "as it might be supposed to have been known to every person in this colony." His Excellency concludes by expressing his sense of the value of Sir George's opinion on the affairs of New Zealand ; in consideration of which he is willing to forward any representations tho latter may wish to make. But with regard to his conduct as Governor of New Zealand, with every respect for Sir G. Grey's greater experience, he must claim the right of acting " according to hiß own view of his duty." Altogether we fancy Sir George begins to feel that he has made himself rather ridiculous. He must wish he had been less hasty in rushing into print with his petition. The Governor's reply puts him in the wrong on every point. It shows that ho was entirely mistaken in his facts; that his statements as to the proceedings of .the Government wore without foundation; and—though His Excellency writes with studied courtesy—manages to convey a strong hint that the good advice he so freely bestowed on tho Governor in his memorial was a piece" of uncalled-for, not to say impertinent, interference. ;