GREY'S VISION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 39, 16 February 1943, Page 2

GREY'S VISION

mutual aid plan

AMERICA AND BRITAIN

A recent article in the Star recalled the "forgotten dreams" of Sir George Grey and Sir Julius Vogel. It must have brought to many bewildered modern minds the depressing knowledge that in the infancy of nations, as in the infancy of men, there goes a tragic amount of planned thought for the future — "dreaming" to some—that is stifled by the denunciations of "practical" men. It brought, too, some amazed and reluctant admiration for the Victorian mind, which we persist in regarding as formal and confined, incapable of exploratory flights. That dream of a federation of the Pacific Islands, under the British aegis, was remarkable enough in the days when the units of the Empire had been acquired more or less by merchanting expediency, and developed in confusion; but it had in it even then something of self-interest, coming from New Zealand planners, something within the realms of practical politics, even though its expounders were denounced as dreamers by the very noisy "Little Englanders." A far more remarkable dream of Sir George Grey's, one revealing the essential greatness of his mind in having the power of prophetic vision, envisaged America and Britain drawing together again for mutual defence and assistance. It is recorded in Froude's "Oceana." J. A. Froude, the historian, visited New Zealand in ISBS, in the course of a tour of the colonies; he was making first-hand inquiries into the subject of Imperial Federation, in which he was ardently interested. During his stay here he visited Sir George Grey, whom he describes as an old acquaintance, at Kawau. Sir George, he says, talked on the federation of the Empire "with a fullness of knowledge Avhich left nothing to be desired." But while the old statesman, being ardent in the British cause, saw that her future strength depended on maintaining the attachment of the colonies, he deprecated "any artificial attempts at a mechanical union" between the Mother Country and her own dependencies. Realisation of Dream He did, I think, contemplate some eventual far-off league between the members of the British race scattered over the world, for mutual defence and assistance. The policy of kindred he believed to be so strong in us that, in some form or other, America and the old home would draw together again, and the colonies would be included in the bond. This was dreaming if you like. To-day we see its realisation, but neither Sir George nor Mr. Froude was free of the criticism of the realists of those days. Mr. Edward Wakefield wrote what he himself called, in the language of the Victorian second heading. "A Scathing Criticism of Mr. Froude's 'Oceana.'" in an article in "The Nineteenth Century," entitled "New Zealand and Mr. Froude." He says there that Mr. Froude indulged in "an intellectual lounge" with Sir George, a most unsuitable person from whom to cull ideas, for, because of his autocratic manner, he was out of touch with the real ideas of the people.

Sergeant-Pilot L. A. Barr, tHe youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. T. Barr, of 64, Princes Street, Onehunga, who gained his wings in New Zealand, is now stationed in England. Educated at the Onehunga Convent School and the Auckland Grammar School, he was prominent among cyclists, being the only one to gain second place in two consecutive years in the 100-mile race from Auckland to Morrinsville.

However. Froude has some very interesting' things to say of the makinsr of life in New Zealand; a lot of "it astringent, in the manner of an old man criticising the bringing up of a child. But while he saw much that was challengeable, in the future he predicted, as others have done, a great destiny for us. "So varied, so remarkable,"' Mr. Froude says of our country; "the future home, as I believe it to be. of the greatest nation in the Pacific." And "in another passage he says: "I can well believe that it will be in the unexhausted soil ana spiritual capabilities of New Zealand that the great English poets, artists, philosophers. statesmen, soldiers of the future will be born and nurtured."' Judgment of Americans There are those of the English tradition who would point out to us that both America and the Dominions derive from the mother root an old and dignified literature: that the modern American is merely the last word in the worst traits of democracy, too closely worshipping a' fast, materialistic way of life, too crude in speech to be of good influence. But'this is Froua's judgment on the Americans: "Nowhere in America have I met •Rith vulgarity in its proper sense. They are never in haste, and There is a composure about them which seems to say that they belong tc> a great nation, and that their position is assured. I observed at San Francisco, and I have observed elsewhere in America, that they have not the sporting taste so universal in England. They shoot their bears. they shoot their deer, in the way of business as they make their "pig? ir.ro bacon: but they can see a strar.ve bird or a strange without wishing immediately to kill it. Perhaps kiliing is an aristocratic instinct, which the rest imitate, and democracy may by-ar.d-by make a dinerence." This, round about the time o: Frances i roliope's "Domestic Life of the Americans" and of Dickens' ■"Martin Chuzzlewito' was certainly an original idea. The minds of Sir George Grey and James Anthony Froude saw far forward in their own day. To what further great reality" does that phrase "and democracy may by-ana-by irisko a draw the niinds of the people of this country, and ot ail democracies throughout the world? For the essential Ides of our life, our culture. Is that en> tne greatest poetry or a. tlte po-etry of good living, the social betterment