SIR GEORGE GREY ON CONSTITUTIONALISM.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 263, 10 April 1875, Page 2

SIR GEORGE GREY ON CONSTITUTIONALISM.

(From the Rally Southern Cross.) Continued from our last. I will now come to the House of representatives, aud I tell yon again, that with regard to that branch of the Legislature that an interference has taken place with them which is most adverse to our interests. I will put the proposition in this particular way: First of all, I say it is essential for any people who are to be well governed, and who return a House of Representatives, that they should be able, in some way, themselves to reward their members, if they are rewarded at all and that there should not be an extraordinary body represented in the interests of Great Britain, because their interests are not ours, but the interests of a.party —I say' there should not be an extraordinary body who can manage that House of Representatives by giving them rewards with which they have nothing to do. (Cheers.) What I mean is this—lately two systems of rewards have been created in this colony. The one is they have tried to set up a peerage here, and :> peerage of a most contemptible, and hitherto unknown kind. (Laughter and cheers.) The peerage is this: A man has the rank and dignity of a son of a baron given to him for his life within the limits of New Zealand, but if he travels out of New Lealand he is nobody at all. I object, to that altogether. First it is a gross breach of the law —it is a gross breach of a solemn compact entered into with us. I will explain this to you. In England they tried to set up a similar sort of peerage, but they gave a man a title for life, and a seat in the House of Lords. They Only created one, aud the whole country rose as one man and said “ the Queen cannot do this ; we do not want to say anything against the Queen; poor creature. She probably hardly knows anything about it, but her Ministers cannot do it in her name.” The Ministers said, “Oh but we can.” “No, you cannot,” was the answer. “ Oh yes we can ; why the Queen is the fountain of honor. Cannot the Queen do what she likes in that way ?” “ Not a bit,” was the reply. The Queen is the fountain of honor for all Constitutional honors. She may create as many British peers as she likes, also as many Irish peers, but she cannot make any Scottish peers. She is prohibited from doing that. They took care of themselves at the Union.” (Laughter and cheers.) But the answer followed was this: “The Queen can make a new orderor knighthood, and can make knights, but she cannot create a new kind of baron.” So they said “ Oh, yes, the Queen can. Did not the Stuarts make the baronets and create that order?” “ I’es,” was the reply, “ but the Stuarts did an immense number of illegal things, and the result was that they lost their crown.” (Cheers.) “Well,” said the Ministers “ but when the present family were put ou the throne, they did not promise the people ucver to create any new order of nobility.” “ Oh, no, certainly they did not do that, but they promised to govern according to law, and that was the condition upon which they got the throne, aud that is not governing according to law, it is breaking the laws of the country, aud the Queen cannot do it.” Well, it was admitted then that the Act was illegal, and then they said: “ Well, but surely you would not pay the Queen an indignity, and revoke her letters patent.” “ Oh, but we will,” was the reply. “ We do not know that the Queen does not wish them revoked ; probably she does.” So the letters patent were revoked, and there was an end of that. No such attempt was made again. There is another reason. In the Constitution Act the Queen solemnly undertook to interfere in no way with anything relating to the order, good government, and happiness of the people of New Zealnd, except by joining in an Act with the General Assembly in this country. Therefore she shut herself out from creating such an order of peers. I may be told —but this is very foolish of you, we don’t want to hear this any more, she has only made four, why not leave it alone. But, I answer, the principle is one —if the four are admitted where is it to stop? I can only say that one reason why in early youth f tried to discover new countries was to find places to which people might repair to avoid the evils of the old society I had seen in England, and I very unwillingly find it now declared that an aristocracy is to be set up in this country —that some few are to be endowed with great wealth, and that probably hereafter millions are to be left in great misery, and with no rank at all. (Cheers.) I say, therefore, stop the system at once, don’t let us have any 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. (Cheers.) 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 tho Queen, and let us be all equal in rank as we were before. The next point is this new order of knighthood. There are great orders of knighthood. Any man who renders a great and worthy service to the Empire can be enrolled in these, but you cannot, persons who have not a valid claim, because the whole British nation watch what is done. Every name upon whom such honors are conferred is scrutinized with the greatest care, and so it ought to be. That is the true safeguard against their being made the means of bribe, and improperly influencing men. But by creating a new order of knighthood, regarding which the inhabitants of Great Britain eared nothing nt all—which was formerly only conferred on Greeks aud Maltese, persons whom the English people absolutely despised—by doing that you created means of corrupting, ami influencing men, and holding out honors which ought not to be presented them ; and you have doue that which interferes seriously with the liberty of our General Assembly here (cheers), because wc have no power to reward them. I do not mean that our public men are not to be rewarded but I say that a man who has served the Queen faithfully iu New Zealand, whether in peace or war, is worthy of as high and great honors a man who serves her Majesty in any other part of her dominions, aud ought to have them ; and if they are allowed to have them as they ought to be, then it will bo impossible that they can be injudiciously and improperly bestowed. Mind, I do not say the others have been injudiciously and improperly bestowed,

but they might be, and it is a dangerous power—a power which ought not to be exercised. But there is one other reason why it is a dangerous power, and ought not to be exercised. It is is impossible to exercise such power, it is impossible to create such a peerage such as has b en created here —to make a man honorable for life in New Zealand, it is impossible to create an inferior order of knighthood of this kind without drawing a broad distinction between us and our fellowsubjects in England, without making us an inferior people to a certain extent—almost a laughiug-stoek to the people at home. If we manfully say that we want no honors, such as are not given to her Majesty’s subjects in the other portions of her Empire, we want no honors such as are not received in England generally, I think we would do our duty to ourselves, and our duty to our country. (Hear, hear.) To my mind there is something noble in one class of honors, something contemptible in the other. Supposing a man is raised to one of the great English orders of knighthood ; whilst he may be sitting almost in a cottage in New Zealand his banner is hanging up in Westminster Abbey, or in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. There it hangs amongst the greatest and noblest banners of men who have performed the greatest possible services to their country. That to me appearssomething absolutely desirable for our public men; and toopen to them honors which they may be glad to get, and which we may be proud to know have been conferred on them. (Cheers.) These are points connected with the Constitution of the General Assembly which I think deserve our most earnest attention. Our object should be as far as possible to open up to our public men honors of the best, greatest and most enduring kind, and to take care that these honors are of such a nature that they cannot be conferred upon persons by mere solicitations, upon persons who may have in no way earned them; that they may not be earned by pleasing the Governor for the time being, but that they may be earned by valuable services rendered to this country, and through this country to the Empire at large. (Cheers.) Passing from those points I would now come to other questions which most materially concern our welfare here. The first thing I propose to glance at is the question of the Land Fund, because that is much more mixed up in those matters than you would, in the first instance, possibly conceive, for in truth all that has been done in regard to the Land Fund, all that has been done in reference to the interference with the liberties which the inhabitants of this country ought to enjoy, has been done by Acts of Parliament, passed without our having any knowledge at all upon the subject, which is one of those extraordinary interferences, regarding which I was speaking before. I will give you an illustration of what I mean. The first time a land fund to any amount was accumulated, was in the Province of Auckland. With great difficulty I had accumulated about £25,060 from the sale of waste land within the provinces. No sooner was this money obtained, than an Act of Parliament was passed in England, which ordered it to be handed over to the New Zealand Company. Without our knowing anything of such an application, or that such an interference was attempted in any way whatever, to my great astonishment one day I received a letter from the representative of the New Zealand Company in this country enclosing me an Act of Parliament, demanding £25,000 to be paid over to him at once. I really did not know what to think, but I was in this fortunate position that the lands is Auckland which had been sold, and upon which that money had been raised, had been purchased under certain stipulations which amounted to a contract on the part of the Queen. So upon consideration 1 replied I would not pay the £2S,(XX). I have no right to retain it, but I will not pay it. They answered, “ What, you don’t mean to say you would not obey an Act of Parliamcn,” and I said —and that is a most important point for us to consider—the Parliament was deceived. I never was warned of Whitt was going to be done. The Parliament should have had full information on the' subject, and they never would have passed a law ordering me to commit a positive breach of faith and contract. So I would not pay the money. I went home shortly afterwards, and to my great surprise when I got to London, the Secretary of State, who was formerly a friend of mine, was not in when I called, I thought he was, and was very much puzzled. However, I was told he was not in. (Laughter.) I did not know exactly what to do, but I went away; and in the evening I got a letter from the Law Adviser of the Crown upon these subjects, asking me to call upon him next day. I went, and found him sitting upon oue side of his fireplace. It was winter time, or early in the spring, and he asked me have a chair. I sat down, and after he had talked to me a little while, he asked me had I seen the despatches jyet, which must have passed me on the way (!) as I was coming home from NewYealand? I said, well, no, I had not seen them. So he said : “ Read that despatch,” andhtluded a paper across to mo. Air. Mcrrivale was the gentleman, a very able man indeed, a great writer, and altogether a most excellent person. I read the despatch ; it was of a very violent character, and stated that such a thing had never been known before as a Governor refusing to obey an Act passed by tho Queen. The affair had created the greatest consternation, aud. in fact, a severe “ rowing ” was given to me (laughter), so I read it very carefully over and I thought to myself “ Silence is golden, now you had better say nothing,” so I simply handed it back and said I was very much obliged to him for allowing me to read it. and not a word more. I sat and looked at him, and he looked at me (laughter). Presently Mr. Merrivale said, “ Well, what do you think of that?” I replied I am very sorry for the Colonial Department that has written the despatch, but it does not hurt me. He asked: “What is your reason?” I said: “If Parliament is led to legislate for a colony under a mistake, and an Act goes out which is against the interests and the rights of the inhabitants of that country, and the Governor for the time being says I must obey it because it is an Act of Parliament, you leave no resources for the people but to revolt—what else can they do? Whereas, if the Governor, ou receiving the Act, says Parliament has been deceived, and I won’t obey it, he prevents such a thing, and there is a reference home; if he is right, he has done you a great service ; if he is wrong. you_ can punish him. Now, 1 am right.”

(Cheers). Then I explained why I was right, aud Air. Merrivale said to me, “ I think you are right, and I will report so to the Secretary of State ;” aud the next day I got a note from the Secretary of State, that lie was very anxious to see me, and so that matter ended. Ho certainty said oue thing to me; he remarked, “We are very anxious about this in a Parliamentary point of view, because the New Zealand Company are very powerful. Do you think when the despatch goes out the Acting-Governor will pay the money !” I said I thought he would because he was a soldier, and would just obey orders. Ho remarked that that was a great relief to his mind. The orders were paid, but the money was refunded. I am obliged to the General Assembly for having in the preamble of an Act affecting the matter used the words “Whereas the Governor did lawfully refuse to pay the money.” In that case you will see thatthere was the interference of an extraordinary body. You all know ' now the history of the creation of the land fund. To be Continued.