Sir George Grey Reviewed.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3879, 4 June 1881, Page 2

Sir George Grey Reviewed.

The hopes of the Ministry and their friends that Sir George Grey did not. intend, in theY immediate future, to take an active part .in public affairs, hare been rudely dissipated by the appearance of the " old man eloquent " amongst his constituents/ and the delivery of tlie able, and statesmanlike address which has infused new life into the Liberal party throughout the colony. All men who are really in earnest, by a kind of natural necessity are found advocating what the timid and time serving (even of their own way of thinking) are apt to consider extreme views, and in politics especially, which having to do with, human needs, passions, and prejudices, cannot be regu/ated by mere theories and economical axioms, if there were no enthusiasts, every step were taken with mathematical precision, progress towards true liberty would inevitably be slow. Happily, nbw and again men arise like Sir George Grey—men whose natural qualities are of the highest order, men of brain power and high culture, experienced in the craft of statesmanship and the ways of the world, who strong in their convictions of the right, featlessly avow those eon* fictions, enforce first their consideration and eventually their adoption, and tread down the barriers of vested wrongs, and conventional iniquity. Would the English Keform Bill ever have been carried had Lord John fiussetl not been an enthusiast, bad he hot had the " courage ot his opinions "and not been afraid in the face of the gowerful aristocracy, of which by illustrious birth he was himself a member, that the data of oligarchy were past, aud that the safety and honor of the State were best confided to the people themselves. It is the fashion to scoff at Sir George Grey, m a erack'brained theorist, or revile bin as! a turbulent demagogue, wha preaches Communism with the view of attaining through .the destruction of the preseut

state of things, political and social, % position for himself of absolute authority. Those who recollect the times of the Reform Bill, or who hare read the historical details of the^ period, may remember that the same things and worse than these were said of Lord John Russell, whose name is now inscribed high on the roll of fame in that great Empire, whose progress and glory the liberation of the people by his hands has done so much to enhance.—-Tuapeka Times.