AS OTHERS SEE US.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5835, 11 December 1879, Page 3

AS OTHERS SEE US.

(From tbs A u.ib'aiasiun.) Mnddleheadedness has been sa ; d to be a great course o£ motive power, ami it is equally true that an immense personal advantage is derived from incon-Lt. i,cy. A man who holds himself bound to-day by the principles he professed yesterday is at a great disadvantage as compared with the man who lays down his principles and shapes his course to suit the convenience of the moment, quite regardless of the fact that last week his principles w. re different and his course directly opposite. Politicians, above all men, profit largely by this privilege of inconsistency, aud by discarding the fetters which self-consis-tency imposes. And no politician has need this privilege more extensively than Sir George Grey. This ia to be accounted for in a great measure by the erratic and impulsive character of that eccentric politician, into whose mind no idea of such a thing as a principle seems ever to have entered. A New Zealand paper has been illustrating this characteristic of the ex-Premier by soma of his recent acts aud declarations as compared with his statements and acts some years ago. Thus recently, when defending his action in respect to the resignation of Mr. Hall, he declared:—“ln the United States all these things are required to pass in writing. That is a rule which I always insisted on when Governor. I, as Governor, insisted that it should be done ; and I believe that it was the proper rule to follow. ’ And yet Sir Hercules Robinson, in his memorandum about the same matter, states;—“Upon the following day, the 19th August, the Premier called upon the Governor, his business being, as he stated, to speak about Mr. Hall’s resignation of his seat in Council. The Premier said he considered such resignation a most improper proceeding, opposed to the spirit and intention of the Constitution Act.” Here is a flat contradiction between what Sir George Grey affirms to be right and proper and what he actually does. Again, when lately referring in the House to the position of the present Government, he used the words : “ It ia useless to say that the Crown has no knowledge of what takes place in this House. It has knowledge. It acts, occasionally, upon that knowledge; and if ever there was a period of time in which the Crown ought to act on its knowledge—when tho Crown ought to hare a Ministry chosen by itself, and acceptable to the majority of this House—l believe that time has arrived.” And yet this same Sir George Grey, only a couple of years ago, formally advised Lord Normauby, that any notice taken by the Governor in communications between himself and his Ministers of matter in debate in the House was an infringement of Parliamentary privilege. Now, when we say that a man is unprincipled, we mean that his actions are incapable of justification on any moral or intellectual principle that can be taken as a ground of action. In this view Sir George Grey appears to have very strong claim to the distinction of being totally unprincipled. It is obvious that a man who can profess and discard rules of conduct in this way has a very great advantage over one who is handicapped with principles and hampered with consistency.