Six Geo. Grey's Stumping Tour.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2829, 9 March 1878, Page 4

Six Geo. Grey's Stumping Tour.

(FKOSI THE AtJBIUAIABUN.) "Tbe years which bring the philosophic oriod '* to most men have had a contrary t fleet upon Sir Georue Grey, who is lowing hia political wild oats at a time of life in which statesmen usually review the errors of their earlier carter, and correct the delusions of youth by the ripe experience and matured judgment of old age. The Premier of New Zealand is now •tumping the Northern island, and talking Bombast to "the people" as glibly as if ke had graduated among the Chartists of Glasgow or Clerkenwell upwards of 30 {'ears ago. At New Plymouth, on the th of February, he indulged in an oration ■which might have been delivered, with "wry few alterations, to a meeting of the mnemployed in Tompkins-square, New. j York, or to an assemblage of the Kear■ey faction, at the foot of Nobs-hill in San Francisco. Whiledisclaiming any intention of setting ehui against class, he held up the. land-owners of New Zealand to reprobation, because, he said, " they were becoming enormously rich by the labour of : «tlierii-by money taken otit of the pockets of the community. Of course, he thought this was entirely wrong. He would Mt,"' Let ivery man pay for what lie getsi* Bir Giorge did not condescend to partleulari. This might have been iffS^BT^menfc.: He did no* explain that in all new countries, endowed with a fertile joil and a genial climate, Nature is the chief factor of; wealth, and that human industry is.but an. insignificant auxiliary to her " gratuitous utilities." The natural grasses or exotio herbage of New Zealand, the rain and sunshine, the mysterious alchemy by which vegetation . is transformed into wool and mutton, are certainly not the products of human ton ; and the statesman who denounces the persons who exploiter these for their own benefit and for that of the community ito which he belongs, must be one of two things which we refrain from particulansing. Such pernicious rant is all the more inexcusable in a speaker like Sir George Grey, because he cannot plead, jlike our own demagogues; the excuse of a defective education,. or of that, envy and hatred of the prosperous classes which .actuate Wen who have taken to politics because they have failed to succeed in the ordinary . pursuits of honest industry. _, _ . :-i' -The New Zealand Premier assured his fcearers that; "if in a country Jjke their own, they trained up every person to know his' political duty, so they would tram persous to Respect their own judgment and to respect 'themselves in ibe proper ttfiy, and if, they, coutinue to do that from the. first in a new.,"country* they could raise up a power iufinitely t-uperior to the mass of the population existing in any country in \Europe. lie had said every man being trained to take part; in the affairs of the country "would create in; him habits -of self■■ re'spe.ct, :bufc he would sny that it would '.'do'.mojre than that, it.would create habits of morality of various kinds, a mau would prize his own home because feeling he was capable of being useful in the couu- , try, and would be as Lamed to do anything thitj would damage him in the eyes of bis fellow citizens. By this means they would cease to raise up in the bosom of id country a criminal population." These, ar» just the sort of sonorous platitudes wbieh used to be talked in tbe clubs < of Pan* in $0 arid *48,! and again m !i'7O', f but they are certainly not borne 'out fectii;.of the vcase in . t this 'colopy, where manhood suffrage has now Wen established for twenty years, and 'f }sre\.ii !„'has come*, to this, that free-; dom of speech has been violently sup-, pre'sed in the capital, and in one or two •ther centres of population, and where; #n#. of the organs of the •• Liberal" party,; namely, tke Bendigo Independent, writes thus respecting the " criminal population" which we are ?* rearing up in the bosom of the country t"^-'" Larrikinium is a fact, and a fearful fact, which mikes us ioni'efimes stand aghast when we contemplate the future 6t this country, and ask in Whose hands its destinies will be placed. The enormities of that crime have beea depicted in lively terms by the Bewspapers of the colony, and, all are unanimous in condemning it.'*; . : .- ; ■:> Sir George Grey went on,to declare that if. the present state of things con* tinned they would create two nations, a rich nation and a poor nation, the poor, aation including rery few persous who woum rise to comfort and competency:; and that "if they did not insist upon a fair distribution of the public burdens, and if they did not insist on all the {prizes in political.life being offered to "txtti citizen jii JStew 1 Zealand, tney who were poor!now would.bare their chil-; dren ,abd .!their, grand-children. ,poorerv stilU',' We bave ; heard something very like this. before, and cannnot kelp thinking that the speaker has been, stealing some of his staice thunder from "Victoria. Be this as it may, it is rather amusing to resd that Sir George con.; sideis all such terrible risks may. be avoided by—what ? By inculcating babits of thrifty industry, seU'deuial, sobriety^ and.torethouglit? By pointing out that, in a British' colony, e>erjr man maybe the architect of his own lbrtuues, and that personal conduct or misfortune, and not 1 political misgovernment, is at the bottom of all social- failures P Nothing of the sort. A public meeting never wants to hear the truth. It must be flattered orj cajoled, and accordingly bir George Grej: solemnly assured his hearers that the one: thing needlul " to scatter plenty o'er a smi'ing land " was to bestow upon every, man, who is 21 years of age, one vote, : and; one vote only. This will transform: character. -This ■ will make all men virtuous, diligent, prudent, chaste, temperate, and juat. 'Jhis will regeaeratel the iiidividual, pnrify the community,; and transfiKure tbe state! " Jivery; attempt.' made to., keep alive• political life throughout tbe country,", said he, " did good. Let them look at England after the Beiormation. What poets, what orators, what statesmen—a gwlaxy of tail nt such as England nev,er saw before or since, fltf was tke spur of political life .krouglit,,that about. Let Aem look also "at tie tim« when the Befdrmi. Bill.- was introduced r- Byron, Shelley, Scott, and other men of that period. They might see that the more, they kept alive political life in New 2Sealaudi'so much the more rapid at d effectual would be the advancement of tke country/' 1 • ■ • '■ j ' '■■' ■■••■■■- ":r-.,-\ What ah'allpw fustian is this I Another sophist might argue that despotism must ' be al«pT«sid thing, because the reign of Louis the Fourteenth was the most brilliant epoch of French history—the period ol Mofiere, Bacine, and Corneille, of Pas-. - ,cal, UocKefoucauld, and La Brnyere, of Feneloo, Massillon, and Bossuet, of Mazarin, Conde, Turenne, and Colbert, of Le

Sane, Boileau, and Malebraucho. And a third sophist might contend that it was good for a nation to bo trampled in the dust by a foreign enemy, because- it was at that critical period of its existence that Germany produced tho splendid cluster of men of nevus of whom Goethe was the. acknowledged head and chief. If Sir George Grey's knowledge of political science is as meagre as his knowledge of. literary history, those who accept him asi an oracle and a leader are very much to] be commiserated.