SIR G. GREY AS A PROVINCIAL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4413, 12 May 1875, Page 3

SIR G. GREY AS A PROVINCIAL.

(From the Australasian, April 17.) The speech delivered by Sir George Grey, the newly-elected Superintendent of Auckland and member for Auckland City West, is one of the most curious productions we have read for a very long time. Parts of it remind us of “Sandford and Merton” and the “Swiss Robinson Crusoe.” Other portions of it are a bizarre blending of Philip Egalite and Sir Charles Dilke ; while the political tone of so much of the address as relates to provincialism bears a strong resemblance to what may be supposed to have been the sentiments of a fine old Conservative in Wessex or Mercia when the project was first mooted of merging the petty kingdoms of the Heptarchy into one realm. Sir George Grey is at once an ultraRadical and an ultra-Tory. In its moral aspects his address is beautiful. It glows with domestic virtue, and burns with the steady flame of lambent patriotism. Not even the Rev. Mr. Day could have given utterance to prettier phrases than these : “I, for one, in my heart, earnestly desire that one distinguishing characteristic of New Zealand through all time shall be that every mother, looking, at a clever son, may believe that the time may come when all his fellowcitizens will recognise his worth, and he may be a blessing to the country in which he was born. And I hope that many mothers may still see such 'aspirations realised, and enjoy the happiness that flows from them ; and I say more than that, I hope that this may ever be a country in which the young wife, when she looks at a studious husband, and sees him still cultivating his intellect and doing his best to perform his duties to his fellow-men in every respect, will believe that the time is not far distant when his worth and merit will be acknowledged, and when others will recognise those virtues and that goodness which she herself sees in him—when at last the ineffable pleasure may burst upon her of seeing that her dreams have been fulfilled, and that he has been dragged out by his fellow-countrymen and chosen to hold positions of which he has shown that he is worthy.” If New Zealand possessed an artist as capable to pourtray domestic scenes as Mr. John Gully is to depict the magnificent landscapes of that country, what a charming subject the foregoing would present:—The young wife watching with the fondest affection her intellectual husband digging potatoes and revolving in his mind some of the knottiest problems of colonial statesmanship, while Sir George Grey, seated on a three-rail fence, should survey with folded arms and an approving smile this Oincinnatus of the South “ cultivating his intellect, and doing his best to perform his duties to his fellow-men in every respect,” by the cultivation of mealy murphies. Really, the new member for Auckland West should try his hand at some idyllic poetry, A la Theocritus, or compose some eclogues after the Virgilian model. A mind like his will be thrown away on politics. Indeed, it is quite painful to observe the change which occurs in that gentleman’s language when he comes to deal with questions of statecraft and of government. Although he is the bearer of a title himself, and is understood to be the owner of a very fine estate at Kawau, he is vehemently opposed to an aristocracy and to a class of large landowners. “ Stop the system at once,” he says, “don’t let us have tiny more of it. The Minister who advised the Crown to appoint these life peers in New Zealand, and took the peerage himself, did that'which was a crime against our liberties in New Zealand. Probably the reply will be, it was done in ignorance. I accept that reply. But, I say, retrace your steps, sweep it away just as they did in England, recall this order of the Queen, and let us all be equal in rank, as we were before.” .Of course, one of Sir George’s earliest legislative acts will be the introduction into the Provincial Council of a Bill for the abolition of human nature. Not otherwise can he hope to sweep away either of the evils ho complains of. The acquisition of real estate is the desire of every man in a civilised country, and no moralist, philosopher, or statesman has yet attempted to define the line at which this desire ceases to be a virtue and becomes a crime. To the owner of half an acre a hundred acres must appear a large estate ; to the proprietor of a thousand nothing less, perhaps, than 50,000 would assume proportions of real magnitude. Then, again, the area of a single property which might appear immense in England would be reputed insignificant in Russia or in Oregon. So that, even if any hard and fast line could be drawn between large and small estates, it would have to be shifted in order to adapt and adjust it to the geographical dimensions of the various countries of the globe. As to titular distinctions, the craving for them is rooted too deeply in our common nature to be ever eradicated. It is common alike to the savage and to the most highly civilised races of mankind; and it manifests itself with striking power in democratic communities. America swarms with rough and ready republicans who would resent as an insult the omission of the “handle” to their names, be it Judge, or Colonel, or ’Squire. And one has only to look through the Temperance Year Boole, published in this city, or to peruse the titles borne by the officers of the various friendly societies in order to comprehend how universal is the appetency for an honorable and distinguishing appellation. Perhaps, also, oven so enthusiastic a leveller as Sir George Grey would bo apt to experience a slight feeling of irritation if addressed as plain “ Mr.,” or as “ Citizen.”

Sir George's advocacy of provincialism, and the arguments he adduced in favor of it, were worthy of each other. He wants to sweep away the General Assembly, and one reason for doing so is, that if it should become the sole legislative body in New Zealand, and if a mob should get possession of Wellington, or if it should fall into the hands of the Russians, the people in the other parts of the colony would have to sit down and fold their hands, and make no laws at all. If this is not talking to Buncombe, we should like to know what is ? But if there were any doubt of it, it would be dispelled by what follows : “ I believe that Auckland will rise to be a city of very great importance indeed, and that it will really become the Seat of Government again, a seat of a most important Government, a seat of intelligence, a seat of learning, a seat from which civilisation will be spread to all the country round, instead of sinking into insignificance. I believe that by sweeping away the General Assembly in its present form you will save an enormous and absolutely useless expenditure, and that you will bring things entirely under your own control. I believe your youths, if given the openings I have spoken of, will have posts of worthy ambition set before them, and you will rear great men, and that you will send secretaries of state to England, who will hold their own with the best statesmen England has ever produced. I firmly believe that such will be the case ; and, upon the other hand, I feel satisfied that if the General Assembly, constituted as it now is, is allowed to usurp all the powers of this colony —if the provinces are entirely to be swept away, the population of the distant parts will sink in intellect, and will actually fall year by year to a degree that you yourselves could hardly corosive.” Is there any warrant for such a prediction in the lessons of history ? Did France suffer by the abolition of her provincial parliaments ? What has been the most brilliant period in the intellectual history of the Scottish capital ? Was it before or since the Union ? And has Turin retrograded since it ceased to be the capital of a kingdom, and the seat of its Legislature, and has subsided into the chief city of a province ? Sir George Grey must be surely well aware that in coming forward as the champion of provincialism, and as the opponent of fusion and federation, he is merely emulating the futile experiment of the old lady at Sidmouth, with her ocean-repelling broom.