SIR GEORGE GREY AND HIS POLICY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4832, 16 September 1876, Page 3

SIR GEORGE GREY AND HIS POLICY.

♦ TO THE EDITOR OF THE..NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —The virtuous but virulent Sir George Grey was somewhat staggered on hearing Mr. Vincent Pyke's curt but terribly true description of our great patriot's recent issue of writs to recover, if he can,,large money penalties from the public treasury. Sir George, with the hoardings of a lucrative and protracted official career at his disposal, can doubtless tude towards his fellow colonists, and to invest a few pounds in a speculation of this dubious kind. The venture may return him a hundredfold in the hard cash he is said bo dearly to love, and at all I events, it affords a ready and cheap means of worrying his adversaries and gratifying political malice, envy, and all uneharitableness. . The opportunity, too, seems a providential one for thejfortunes of that needy squire who rises so incontinently and so gracefully to the oft applied spurs of the Knight of Kawau. To attorneys sitting daily as .members of Parliament at Wellington, the classic environs of the Auckland Police Court can be but a barren-field of professional fees. The politieal earthquake which has opened up this glorious case, involving many thousand pounds penalties, at the squire's feet, must therefore humanly be regarded by him less as a public calamity than ~as~a special and private intervention of Providence, especially as the principal informer in the case abandons his half of the penalties which are legitimately attached to the verdict. Vide informations laid sometimes under the Licensed Victuallers Act, where the informers are always entitled to half of the penalties inflicted; The heavy penalties "attaching" to verdict in thi3 case must, if obtained, be dealt with and received by the professional men engaged, and if not paid to the principal informer will probably fall into the credit side of the attorney's bill of costs,, and get ultimately lost in that sea of " extra fees, travelling expenses," or general "emoluments," known only to the profession and their clients, which no Disqualification Acts in the past, present, or future will recover ever more. But the verdict is not obtained yet. That doubtless is a source of anxiety to the already wealthy Sir George Grey and his smart attorney ; but it is a consolation to the public, who, should they gain a verdict, will have to pay for all these feats of legal hairsplitting—the result purely of factious obstructiveuess to the will of the people of this colony. Verily the country has reason to regret the fortuitous circumstances of the day which returned Sir George Grey to this colony and to the Assembly. Instead of adapting his ideas to the altered circumstances and policy of the country, and gently moulding its institutions to that great and united entity foreshadowed and provided for by the Constitution, he has chosen to use his great name and influence given him by the Queen as an instrument of oppression and blind faction, and rather than forego his own theory of government would prefer apparently to see the country involved in political confusion and disorder. Let us trust the combined intelligence of the Houses of Parliament and the country will, notwithstanding all such obstacles, continue in its determination to preserve the unity and strength of the colony, for therein lies our only power to avoid that chaos towards which the tactics of Sir George are dragging us slowly but surely on.—l am, Ac, , Sentinel.