SIR GEORGE GREY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 464, 19 April 1890, Page 5

SIR GEORGE GREY.

HIS NATAL DAY. To-day being the 78th birthday of our most notable public man, friends and foes, bub in both cases admirers, will heartily join in tendering congratulations. Notwithstanding that I venture to differ from Sir George upon the question of the hour, a land tax, I cannot let the occasion pass without tendering my tribute. For Sir George holds an unique position as an intellectual Crcesus-as a man who with the strength and grace that only disciplined culture and travel, engrafted upon rare intelligence, can bestow, has had peculiarly advantageous opportunities of arriving at sound conclusions. Moreover, he is a man whose life, as Gibbon says of the pagan philosophers, has been spent in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue —a man who has the first requisite of genius, heart—a man whose motives are so pure, and whosesympabhy with humanity is so ardent, that to him his friend von Hiibner’s words may be fitly applied :—“There are choice natures which nothingcaninjure, like the ermine, which goes through mud without soiling his beautiful coat ” —a statesman, of whom it may be recorded that he does not look to the present for an impartial appreciation of his acts, and who has that rare attribute of a statesman—the art of playing a losing game —an orator, to whom Dryaen’s eulogy of Halifax is peculiarly appropriate — “ Of piercing wit and pregnant thought. Endued by nature and by learning taught To move assemblies and withal, an author, whose “ Polynesian Mythology ” is to “ The Ancient History of the Maori ” as wheat to chaff. Nor can I refrain from recording the singular similarity of his religious views with those of Beaconsfield (Lothair, p. 179) — “There is a change, doubtless a great one, paintul it may be, certainly very perplexing, but I have a proiound conviction of my immortality, and I do not believe that I shall rest in my grave in soecula sceculorum only to be convinced of it by the last trump.'’ For such a man—like a Moses on a Mount Pisgah—to have had leisure, means, and opportunities, to quietly study statecraft and philosophy, in many phases, for over fifty years, constitute alone such a combination of advantages as few have ever possessed ; especially when —as in his case—the theme of increasing human happiness and decreasing human misery has been the invariable goal of anxious and consolidated thought. Nor has it been mere theme, for the sincerity of his benevolence is testified by his invaluable benefactions both here and at the Cape. But to all this must be added the rare privilege of having discussed such subjects with the best minds in many climes ; in their own languages with the reflective Boer, and the communistic Kaffir, in salons such as Holland House, with such statesmen as Macaulay, Gladstone, Peel, Salisbury, Newcastle, Russell and Morley—with such logicians and philosophers as VVhately, Babbage, Carlyle, J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, Froude, Whewell and Bishop Wilberforce—with Princes such as Prince Albert—and with women, fair and gifted, such as the then Miss Barrett—the late Mrs Browning. Nor is this all. For we find in those masterly South African despatches (see reprint by Willis and Sotheran, London, 1860) —which I conceive neither Warren Hastings nor Philip Francis have excelled—that he with, as I believe, unselfishness unparalleled in the Imperial service, risked his fame, his employment, and thereby his future advancement, and also a large sum of money (£6,000), for the sake of what was evidently engrained in him—a love of truth and justice, the resistance of wrong, the promotion of right. Nor was it a trivial risk. It was great; and it proved real. For his courageous stand for what he believed, resulted in his dismissal, by the author of “ The Last of the Roman Tribunes,” and his reinstatement only on the personal intervention of one who recognised noble worth and rewarded patriotic devotion— THE QUEEN.

He might well add to his motto of “ Stabilis,” the motto in arduis ”of a man strongly similar in respect of “ that calm but indomitable force of will which was the most striking peculiarity of his character” “calm, deep, earnest, patient of delay, unconquerable by time ” YVarren Hastings, “ the great Pro-consul,” as he is termed by Macaulay. It may be, that Sir George, during his governorships here, made great mistakes. It may be, that when Premier, he grievously erred by surrounding himself with some men who were most objectionable. It may be, that he did not perform all that was expected of him whilst in Ministerial power. It may be, that he whs then not sufficiently careful to repress an exhibition of conscious superiority. It may be, that some of his legislative measures do not commend themselves to our judgment. It may be that there are spots upon his fame; but he may well feel with pride that hie fame will bear many spots. And he can well afford, with equanimity, to remember—as was said of Bacon—that “no reports are more readily believed than those which disparage genius and soothe the envy of conscious mediocrity.”

It is true that our criminal law takes no cognisance of the doctrine of set-off. But this is not how the ordinary acts of public men should be judged. Thegood actions and the bad actions should be fairly weighed, and the vei'dict be on the result. I venture to think that it is in the interests of the human race that such men should be held in reverence; and as a proof of such reverence here, is the fact that, although I I know some who might not be willing to help his return to autocratic power, I know of none who do not readily acknowledge his intellectual superiority, his finished culture, and the value of his benefactions; and who would not sincerely regret his absence from parliamentary councils. It may fairly be said that to know him intimately is, in itself, a liberal education, and I am quite prepared to believe that there are not wanting those who would, apply to Sir George Grey the declaration made by Baxter, in his “Saints’ Rest,” referring to the noblest of British statesmen, “ that one of the pleasures which he hoped to enjoy in heaven was the society of Hampden. 1 ’ Withsuch uniquead vantages, with such rare opportunities, withsuch matured knowledge and mental discipline as must result therefrom, with such noble principles of selfabnegation engrained, with such experiences, with such anxious and persistent zeal to multiply human enjoyments and mitigate human sufferings, and, above all, with the knowledge that we have that it is the highest mountains that first catch the light that foreshadows the dawn, it is idle not to recognise how heavily handicapped must be the man .who ventures to doubt the conclusions which such an intellectual veteran, with finished eloquence, promulgates—and how sure he should be of his positions, and of his weapons, before advancing to attack. Indeed, his, exactitude should not be less than that required for a problem of science,

nor his circumspection than that of a Von Moltke or a Todleben, or (to use a livelier illustration) less than that of Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim in conducting their mimic sieges, or in their amorous assaulb upon the Widow Wadman. In the words of Scott — “Far may we search before we find, A heart so manly and so kind,” and (slightly altering the Iliad for the pur pose) 1 can, indeed, truly say—- “ From him it never was my fate to find A deed ungentle, or a word unkind, The mildest manners with the bravest mind.” R. Laishley. “Auckland Star,” April 14.