SIR G. GREY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5111, 10 August 1877, Page 3

SIR G. GREY.

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, — I have lately been -very much troubled with a species of something that has been hahnting me since the occasion of a visit of mine to the House. Let us call it a dream ; say “a native: dreamed a dream.” I trust your readers will be compassionate, and pardon me for asking you to allow me to publish it. J do not wish to “trouble” any of them “even to read” this my “dream”; but to suffer me to bedrid of it. ! Geordie, my little man, come' here; I desire a few words with you. I went to the House the other evening, and heard you upon the Charitable. Institutions Bill. Do you always talk in that, way ? One would think, to hear you, that the members of that H ouse. either nominated themselves or, that tho electors of Now Zealand were a lot of stupids, that they elected a parcel of scamps to [ represent them, that these scamps selected the choicest, spirits among them to manage the affairs of the country, and that these latter amuse themselves plundering the country for the purpose of enriching themselves and their friends. Geordie, don’t you khow.it is very wrong to talk in that way about our rulers? That is not what you were ; taught at Sunday school, when you used to trot about on a Sunday “ with a clean collar to your shirt: full of bread and butter and catechism." Don’t you know • that to say and do those things calculated to disgust highminded and honorable men,with office, and thus to throw the Government of the country into the hands of rhinocerous-hided scamps and unscrupulous rowdies is a grievous wrong to, “humanity,' mankind, and the human race.” Don’t lot mo have any more of this sort of thing. Geordie : why do you talk so much about the rich and tho poor; is it that you may set class against das*. ■ Don’t you think it a pity to 1 get up that sort of thing in a new country like this. If you think the poor have not their fair share of the good things of the land, bring in a Bill like a man. Til support you, with a view to altering “the incidence of taxation,” and that sort of thing, "Sink ■ artesian wells " (happy thought that, for a Nasarene), ini tho pockets of the rich, and place the taps in the pockets of the poor, and needy, the aged, and infirm, the poor lunatics, those poor women with more than their share of babies, the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, and those sort- of people. Never mind the able-bodied, let them go and earn their living like you and I do. All tfflngs properly adjusted, cry, “ Fall in, New Zealand, forward,” and so we move along, an exemplary cdlonial family, r “Jogging along together, my boys, i My dear tdd wife and I." ' Geordie. why do yon always talk about mankind? Tell mankind to go arid get shaved—far too' hairy and hoary nowadays, to my fancy. Sit you down t let’s you and I have a korcro. Let us change the subject. Let us talk about womankind, ladykind, ,pratty-girl-kind—far sweeter and jucier subjects than mankindgot no juice out of those be-whiskered follows. Lot's begin; and you take'second— - ■ “ Georgie bo-peep has lost his sheep, 1 And can’t tell where'to find them ; Leave them alone, they’ll, never come home, Nor leave their tails behind them.” , .-•••••- Very well done indeed. You remember that judicioUa little arrangement of ours, taking -all the Maori prisoners to i Kawau,. leading mankind, the . jolly stupids, to believe that we did it all from pute love of tl;e Maoris; those nice little rowing [excursions of ours round the island, eh, with ,Maori chiefs for our crew, and boatloads of pretty'glrls from Auckland, Take second again. < • JAV. '■ ■ . ’,L

! " Georgy Porgy. puddin’a pie, . I Kissed the girls and,piaddthem cry!” ' Yon naughty sly old Geordie. You, with that slimy, wicked, and most—in a scriptural sense of the word-damnable-(hush-sh-sh, just a- little too strong that, eh ! Geordie)—Manhood Suffrage Bill of yours. Some years ago, a statesman came fdotyn from Melbourne and was talking very largely ahput manhopd suffrage, telling people not to pass a Manhood Suffrage Bill, that It would prove the greatest curse to the country, when told he' was just the man they wanted to give evidence before the then select committee, he said “iNo, no, no ! whatever you do, don’t send for me : I shall have to unsay all I have been saying in Melbbume.” Just so you, Geordie ; no one knows better than you that manhood suffrage would prove a dire ctirse to this land. Then why do you bring it in ? Is it that you may weaken the hands of those who are striving earnestly to do the best they cap for the country, by making it appear that they are withholding from the poor their right f Look at and listen to me Geordie: I’m in real earnest how. Drop that Bill!—drop It If you don’t, I'll give yon a . good sound whipping, you most . atrocious, little scamp, you. I say, Geordie, whatever possessed you to send those letters and telegrams to the big secretary on the other side of the,world, who walks about with his feet opposite to our feet you know, telling him that the British ships were to be sent to bombard poor little Auckland. Geordie, that “mouldy old land" from which our pa’s came : has done many strange things in her day. On one occasion she drove the French; like a parcel of rascally fellows, pell-mell out of Spain; she knocked Napoleon (kwful cruel to humanity he was, Geordie), with his gangs of F.uropo down-trampling rascals, into a cocked ' Hat at Waterloo: but she is not quite so bad as you appear to think, Geordie. Fancy the storm of battle raging, the British war ships hailing their shot, awful big some of them, rayl bigger than you could carry, upon the poor little town; the ■ women of Auckland swarming with their chicky-biddles to Point Britomart, holding up their littlest, and exclaiming “ You great beastie; hit a man of your own size.’’- The shame of those brave officers, and men; they hide away tocir faces and whisper "Bight you are, old woman;’’ they bout , ship, and slink out of Auckland harbor, like a party, I am told, slunk out of the House the other evening like a whipped hound/ Do you know • him, Qeerdlo, a sleek koroua looking customer? No; beg pardon, thought he might be an uncle of yours. The big secretary snubbed you rather, didn’t he; talked about "credence” and that sort of thing. And old Normanby too; he warmed you a little, didn’t ho; " Samuel ?aid to Agag,” and that kind of thing, and you put in rather a lachrymose appearance at the House on that occasion, whining about “no opportunity of replying before being damned in the eyes of the people at Home.” Look here, Geordie, you get that Bill passed to enable the people to elect their own Governor.- Thou get them to elect me first. I’m biggest you know. And you and Stout shall bo my secretaries. Won't we warm our "predecessor's” jacket for,him—such fun. I say Geordie, you remember those merry days, when we were young. Our predecessors, “ the blood and treasure despatch,” those church missionaries, the widow Meurant, and those sort of people Wo made it rather lively for them then, didn’t we? A fine subject, that large purchase of Fatrbnrn’s at the Thames, wasn’t it. You and I know that Willhams the missionary wont to the Thames, where he found two'strong tribes of Maoris, fighting over a block of land ; and with rather a peculiar menu, Williams thought it only an act of “humanity ’ to tell them that it was wrong for “ mankind ” to kill and otherwise dispose of the “ human race." Neither party would yield when it was proposed that the pakeha should take the land; both sides were determined the other should not keep it. Williams proposed the Missionary Society should buy It and hold sit tor a time at least; this was objected to. Williams then bought it for Faitburn, paying certainly not a ivery high price for It; hut. Williams succeeded in iranking peace. Government since took most of that land and sold It. giving Faitburn's family only a small portion. They wore content. So with Taylor s purchase at the North Cape. King purchased a large block, Mr. Commissioner (now Sir Dillon) Bell told me bo would willingly give them the whole dot if In his power— that It was the most worthless country ho ever saw. So with the greater portion of the land purchased by those missionaries, worth about hi per square mile. One reason why they purchased so largely was that the pakebas who used to come to New Zealand in those days wore not a most desirable class of men : different to the present state of things. The missionaries never desired that their descendants should become rich, nor as a rule are they, but far

the contrary. "They hoped they might earn a Uving by keeping a few cattle and sheep, with a little farming. Had the missionaries been sentenced to 6 months imprisonment upon bread 1 ahd , water for buying - - so much worthless rubbish, it would about have uict. thecase. You and l knew all this Geordie ; but it did not suit your purpose to state it in that way, you little imp. What you wanted was at any price to be looked upon as great and good, l wading through streams of misrepresentation, ..seas of injury and agony (did it never occur to you.what those poor men must have su£fered, : arising from the injury dope to thp missionary name and cause; through jne wicked use you made of those foolish and ill-considered purchases?) to get yourself to he ..represented in the light of ia pure and good angel. What jolly stupids humanity, mankind, and the human race must have been ever to have mistaken- you for an angel, you queer little scamp you. Geordie, you remember being sent from the Cape Colony to settle the affairs of, this land. Had you acted then in a straightforward manner, which, of course, you could not do. youknow, ■ there would have been little war. I need not enlarge upon that now, further than to .tell you I hold you responsible for most of what followed. ,Do you know, .Geordie, I sometimes think you are likely to meet with some rather rough usage in the next world. I am: afraid, old Mr. Fuzzybuzzy will not let you off. quite so-easily as I do, my poor little fellow. Look here, Geordie, 111 tell you what you’ll do when returned to your island home" during" the recess!" Devote sixty minutes each day 1 to ’confession; if you have no one else to confess to, confess solemnly to your pump-handle; If you cannot get through with it all in sixty minutes, put the balance in a postcript next day, and so continue 1 ; and on, each occasion, as you arrive at the jnciest portions, im igine to yourself a small J.P., one of the minor kind; whispering like a .little malignant into your offside ear, “heaw, heaw.” Now, Geordie, none of. your larks. Don’t you go tittle-tattling about me, telling your big brothers at the House,. Maclmdrew, .Stout, Rees, and those other chatterbox companions of yours, what a great big J.P;. has been saying to you, whining about “ no other medium of communication “ where is one to flee for.rcfuge? what hope is there for any one.”; The remedy is simple, the refuge nigh ; don’t do it again. Now, Geordie, I want you to try and distinguish yourself; try to do something-really great;-try to perpetrate a miracle ; try and be a good boy. Tata, Geordie, my little man, tata.” [] Sir George Grey, K.C.B. “ England’s model! Governor;” , “the great Proconsul,” lend me' thine ear; Thirty years ago thou did’st stand ' high in the estimation of thy, fellows. Thou was’t then, in possession pf great power for good and for evil. Thoijrdid’st choose the latter.. “Mene, Mene, >Tekel, Upharsin.” “ Thou art weighed iu , the balances and art found, wanting.” Thy power for mischief has; gone from thee ; thy, claws are pared ; ;thou art known. Thirty years-ago thou pub r lish hard and cruel statements respecting your predecessors, certain Church missionaries, and others, among them one Henry Williams. It ihay be beneficial for you in your,"old age, pointing to repentance, to be told that with re- 1 gard to your statements respecting the latter, there was “ even one man in the colony-found (not) to give them credence.!’ It may be some, consolation to you in your declining years to be told that that brave, kind, good, and most un-selfish-man, Henry Williams, you and others so amply, cruelly, l and wickedly maligned, trotted on in his life's battle his “ trust in the Great Captain of his salvation," cheered; with the remembrance, “My witness is in Heaven, my record on High,” The'following letter is ' from a good man; one you know, still alive, a Wesleyan minister and missionary, who landed with my father: in'New Zealand, now:more than half a .century ago,. .Read : ■ 1 ' “ Auckland, 27th Dec., 1867. “My Dear Sir.— 1 V ... Since I saw you last your venerable and dear father has .been called away by the Head of the. Church to" a better world,' where the ‘ wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.’ . “ I esteem it one of ■ the happiest circumstances of my residence 1 in . New Zealand "that your honored parent chose to , favor me with his friendship from the, time we landed in the; Bay ,of Islands in 1823 to the end of his-truly Christian and . most useful life. In, my estimation he has always ranked amongst those l of whom l the world was not worthy ;’ and I have, no doubt that he has felt the happiness of being so much influenced by the principle and spirit of our Lord and Saviour. A more useful or a. more -worthy man, in;my opinion, never ;came to New Zealand. • “I have no doubt that he could say in truth, during the war with Heke,. and when suffering from the groundless aspersions of , some Europeans. ‘My witness is in heaven, my record on-High and that, he is now. en- . joying ‘ the.rest that remaineth for the people of God.’ “Should our faithful Creator permit me to’ end my course with the serenity which attended the departure of his tried servant, I trust I 1 should be for : ever thankful. Old age has brought Mrs. Hobbs and myself to the ‘margin,! and' we hold ourselves greatly indebted to your dear mother for the cheerful kindness she has always shown. do Mrs. Hobbs in time of need. May your dear mother experience the truth of the promise, ‘ At evening time there shall be light.’- —I am, &c., JOHN . Hobbs.” 1 ■■ ' ■ A'- : ■ —I am, &c., .■ ■ • 1 i ■’ i ' Thmomas 0. Williams, J.P. ; Wellington, Bth August. i