New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, AUGUST 12.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4802, 12 August 1876, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, AUGUST 12.

It is not a congenial task to revive disagreeable historical facts from the almost forgotten records of the past. Nothing short of a strong sense of the duty we owe to the public as journalists could have induced us to undertake such a work. But the facts revealed in the Blue Books are so instructive, and so full of significance when read by the light of recent events, that we must not shrink from the duty. It must be borne in mind that Sir George Grey has recently come before the public of New Zealand as a great political leader ; that he has assumed the role of a reformer; that he constantly puts forth claims to philanthropic sentiments, embracing the present and future welfare of the people of New Zealand in particular, and of the whole human race in general; and that he repeatedly appeals with confidence to his past official career in order to justify his claims to the support and confidence of 80,000 people, and of an influential party in Parliament. Under these circumstances we have an equal right to bring his official acts under review in order to see how far they are consistent with his present position, the more especially as Sir George Grey has been somewhat reticent as to specific facts, and has dealt only in generalities. We shall, therefore, be doing a. service to Sir George Grey himself, no less than to the public, in recalling a few of the many instances of that devoted self-sacrifice and liberal statesmanship by which ho has endeavored to advance the liberties and prosperity of the people of New Zealand. Sir George Grey loves the people of Auckland with a great love, and with a self-sacrifice and devotion which are continually appealed to by his grateful followers. But if any reliance is to be placed upon history, he has been rather an inconstant lover. As long ago as 1846 he had conceived an affection for the people of Auckland, an affection as deep and unselfish as now. On the 7th October in that year he wrote to the Bight Hon. W. E. Gladstone that “ there are in the northern part of the island many gentlemen for whom I entertain the highest respect and esteem.” But in four short years the ardor of his young affections had cooled down, for we find him writing to Earl Grey in 1850, that the same part of the colony was

Teeming, with numerous disappointed claimants to office, disappointed land claimants, aliens, various persons arriving from the Pacific and other places, who, being frequently Americans (sic) bear no attachment to the British Government, or probably to any government whatsoever. Ho was off with the old love and on with the now, for while ho wrote thus of the erstwhile object ■ of his affections, he spoke of the people in the South as follows;—“There never was a body of settlers to whom the power of local self-government could be more wisely and judiciously entrusted.” It must have been a balm to the wounded feelings of the people in the North to find him writing in the same despatch that, “it is not_in the least my wish to reflect upon the inhabitants of the Northern portion of New Zealand, or to draw any invidious comparison between them and the people of the Southern settlements. Now, after many years of estrangement, he has returned to the love of his early days, and the impulsive ardour o! his youthful affection having worn off, his attachment is doubtless of that staid and placid character which comes with maturity. But it is net only in this respect that his feelings have undergone a remarkable change. One of the things which he contemplates with horror, is the appointment of Ministers selected from the Civil Service of the colony. It is a “ blot which he has never known to exist elsewhere,” and his mind is haunted with apprehensions of the direful results which threaten the colony and the whole human race from the presumed subserviency of Ministers so appointed to thoso who selected them. There was a time, not so very long ngb, when his feelings wore not so harrowed, when in fact ho regarded the

system of nomination as the very acme [of perfection, and as a thing so good that the colony could not have too much of it, but that was when he invented it and put it into practice in this colony on a scale which leaves all servile imitators utterly in the shade. That was about October 7th, 1846, when, in a despatch to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, we find him writing thus : I would recommend that in the first instance the officer administering the government in eacn colony should be permitted to appoint a Legislative Council, composed, as at present, of oflicial members, and of nominees of the Crown.

The Ministry at Home were charmed with the idea, and Sir George Grey was directed to put it into practice, which he lost no time in doing. He had now devised a system of government after his own heart, and one which, so far from being a ‘ ‘ blot, ” was calculated not only to “last for centuries,” but to serve as a model “for all time.” We find him writing to Earl Grey on the 25th of March, 1847, as follows : Her Majesty's subjects, both European and native, appear to appreciate fully the advantages of their present position, and not only evince the most gratifying contentment, but generally offer the most cheerful and active assistance in carrying out my various measures.

Here was a blissful state of things—a sort of anticipation of the millennium. The two provinces of Ulster and Munster were in that flourishing condition which he probably hopes to revive by means of the resolutions now before the House. But, alas for the mutability of all mundane institutions and the fickleness of the human mind! —a few short years’ experience of the working of the system brought about results which were described by Lieut.-Governor Eyre in a despatch to Governor-in-Chief Grey of August, 1851: The present form of council is so unpopular, and daily becoming more so, that there is little probability of the Government being able to induce any gentleman of sufficient character, standing, amicability to join it, the prevailing impresslon among the best educated and most respectable of the community being that it would neither reflect credit upon themselves nor enable them to serve the public usefully by becoming members of a Legislature which is so distasteful to the public generally.

Mr. Fox, in a memorandum to Earl Grey of January 24, 1852, tells us how this Council was composed :

When [last summoned at Wellington, in June, 1851, it consisted of the Governor-in-Chief, the Lieu-tenant-Governor, two Colonial Secretaries, two At torney-Generals, two Land Commissioners, two Commanders of her Majesty's Forces in the Southern province, a Treasurer, and Collector of that province, and four private colonists, nominated by the Governor, one of whom resigned during the session, altogether eleven salaried officers of Government, and four official nominees. It was this Council through which he passed the Provincial Councils Bill, and which he now seeks to induce her Majesty's Government to adopt.

It did not then occur to Sir George Grey that those gentlemen were, as he remarked the other day of Dr. POLLEN, “chosen by no constituency in the colony.” Doubtless his own choice was sufficient in itself to invest them with a kind of patent qualification, and perhaps had the Doctor been fortunate enough to be selected by the same infallible judgment, he would not now be a stumbling block to those grand schemes of universal regeneration and earthly bliss which Sir George Grey is thirsting to confer upon the human race. In fact, the case resembles Bishop Wabburton’s famous definition of orthodoxy and heterodoxy. The people of Wellington were the heterodox when in their memorial to the Home Government they remarked: —

But it is certain that scarcely one, probably not one, of those whom .Sir George Crey has persuaded to sit in his nominee Council will be returned by the suffrages of their fellow-colonists in the future representative Council. It cannot be said of Sir George Grey that he has been “chosen by no constituency,” for he was elected by two. Indeed, he hesitated and dallied for a long time as to which of them should appropriate his affections, just as he did in the old days between the North and South, and when he ultimately made up his mind, he was burthened with the same perplexing misgivings. Again, he had no wish to make any “invidious comparisons ” between the two, but after having maturely weighed the matter in his mind, he discovered that “ his great love ” for his old friend Sandy Black, and the people of Auckland (who had accepted him first, and like many suitors with blighted affections who come into the law courts, had “ rejected many other eligible offers”) necessitated his jilting them for the Thames. Certainly Sir George Grey has been “ chosen,” and at some future time his constituents will be able to say emphatically, in the memorable words of General Wolfe, in describing the capture of Quebec, “We had a choice of difficulties.”

But it is not alone in these matters that Sir George Grey finds food for melancholy reflection and fervid eloquence. Like the conventional “ old man” in the farce he is impressed with a profound idea that “ the country is going to the dogs, sir.” The country is in a state of “financial difficulty,” the Government is corrupt, taxation weighs down the colony like a nightmare, extravagance rears its guilty head and stalks abroad, and. generally a state of things exists which is fraught with perdition to the whole human race, and is abominably fatal to his grand schemes for the final regeneration of mankind, and the especial benefit of sundry grievously overworked and struggling mothers and their numerous offspring. For a perfect model of what Sir G rouge Grey would like to see established we must go back to that blissful state of things which existed under his paternal government, and which was thus described by Mr. Fox in his memorandum to Earl Grey : The colonists complain that year by year the expenditure has grown without reference to any greater necessity for outlay. It is wasted in the maintenance of establishments and offices, not unfrequontly created for the express purpose of making provision for political friends and dependents. The estimated revenue of the Southern province for 1851-2 amounts to £20,735, of this not loss than £21,744 was appropriated by the nominee Legislative Council to official establishments, chiefly In the item of salary, exclusive of police, while the merely nominal amount of £950 for roads in a province larger than England, and £IBOO for a gaol at Wellington is all that is voted for any useful public object. The number of officials, exclusive of police, amongst whom this large revenue is lavished, is 118, employed in administering the government of 1800 Europeans and about 11,000 natives. Whilst other resources are thus wasted the colony ia being burdened with debt. . . . During the late session of the Provincial Council ho has caused a new tariff to be framed on a scale higher than that of any other British colony, except the convict settlements of Van Diemens Land and Swan River. Compared with those of British North America, the Capo of Good Hope, Natal, and South Australia, it is in nearly (in the latter case, exactly) double that on which the tariffs of those colonies are framed.

Mr. Dorset wrote to Governor Grey on October 8, 1850. The arbitrary Governor lias clone nothing towards the civilisation of the natives, but by bis vacillating and mistaken policy he has been the originator of three rebellions, and the principal means of retarding the advancement of the natives, and the amelioration of the race. „ No wonder we find Sir Georoe Grey afterwards writing of this gentleman as “ a Mr. Dorset.” Mr. Fox sums up the state of the colony in the following charges against Sir George Grey :

1. Tho unnecessary postponement of free institutions and an attempt to force on tho colony an odious form of government, 2. The Illegality of various acts legal and administrative. 3. Injurious, If not unlawful tampering with tho currency. 4. Injudicious Native policy. 0. Excessive taxation.

0. Excessive expenditure. 7. Tho creation of heavy debts. 8. The non-establishment of a militia. 0. "Want of official voracity, and his private circulation of calumnies against tho colonists. , Tliis was the happy state of things

which existed when the colony was divided into two provinces and governed under a system devised by Sir George Grey. Naturally there will be in Parliament, and throughout the country generally, a burning desire to speedily revive those piping times, and naturally therefore, everybody, from the Premier downwards, will readily agree to sink any little ideas of their own as to our political necessities, and go in to a man for the marvellously grand conceptions which have been hatched in the mind of Sir George Grey, and which derive additional grandeur from that air of mystery and lofty obscurity with which they are surrounded.