The Press. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1898. SIR GEOEGE GREY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10147, 21 September 1898, Page 4

The Press. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1898.

SIR GEOEGE GREY.

Sir George Grey lived to witness the Diamond Jubilee of the reign with the most striking feature of which — the colonial expansion of the Empire —his own career has been so intimately bound up. He has not, however, survived to see the partial realisation of his great political idea—lmperial Federation—in the nascent Australian Commonwealth. But he fias gone to his grave full of years and full of honours. In many ways his life must be regarded as the most remarkable in colonial annals. In hie' career as Colonial Governor he has represented her Majesty in three of her colonies; he has been in turn the autocratic ruler of Crown possesuons,

constitutional Governor ✓ with responsible Ministers, himself a Minister, I and finally an irresponsible tribune of i the people. His experience of power ■, embraces all the varieties of its exer- . cisc between the extremes of autocracy and democracy. . That he should have been appointed to so responsible a post as the Governor of South Australia at the early age of twenty-eight, in itself marks him as a man of great and early recognised ability. In the case of each of his four appointments as her Majesty's representative, he was called to office at a time of peculiar difficulty or danger. South Australia was plunged in financial embarrassments ; the Cape was involved in Kaffir troubles ; New Zealand on both occasions of his appointment was harassed by Native wars. He left South Australia on the high road to prosperity ; he is still remembered at the Cape as the ideal Governor, and he had not been three months in New Zealand before the rebels of Kororareka were suing for peace. Imperialism was not merely a political theory with him; j it was a dominant passion. In his later years it has found expression rather j in rhetoric than in action ; his mind ■ has loved to dwell on glorious visions ( of a federation of English speaking ' people. In his Governor days it took more definite shape in the practical sphere of colonial politics, and there can be little doubt 'that had Lord Lytton appreciated and sympathised with his views for the federation of the African colonies forty years ago, Mr. Chamberlain's difficulties in that part of our dominions would never have arisen to-day, and had his subsequent views on expansion in the Pacific been regarded, the English would have been exclusive masters 'of the Southern Seas. The relation of the dominant nation to its aboriginal subjects always formed with him an engrossing study, both in this colony and at the Cape; but though critics of his "flour and blanket " policy with regard to the Maoris may differ as to its practical results, there can be no-doubt he has possessed in a peculiar degree the power of winning the confidence and even the affection of Native races. In the memories of New Zealand Natives he will always remain "the Father," the one beloved " Kawana," who has ever been sufficiently in touch with them to win their affection and regard,

In reviewing the varied incidents of his long career, one cannot but be impressed with the many-sidedness of Sir George's character. As, a military commander he was an officer of undaunted courage, prompt action and ready resource. The most striking instance of his promptitude and resourcefulness was furnished by. his action when the Indian mutiny broke out in 1857. It will be remembered that on that occasion he took upon himself to divert troops at thp Cape, intended for another destination, and send them to India—thereby rendering' a signal service to the Empire at a most critical juncture. He acted in bold defiance of all authority; he did not stop to reason why; the troops were imperatively needed in India at the moment, and he sent them—the authority could follow after. liofd Loch has since ungenerously claimed the credit for this splendid piece of audacious disobedience, but the act was Sir George Grey's, and his must remain the honour of being at once reproved by the officials ol the ISorse Guards and thanked by the Parliament of his country.

He has earned distinction in many fields. Before his first appointment as Governor he had already established a reputation as an explorer. His personal daring, his splendid endurance, and his ' dogged" persistence against difficulties entitle him to rank high among the heroic band of Australian explorers; and if he accomJ plished less than some of them, he dared I and endured as much as most, under the copper skies of North-west Australia. Himself a man of wide culture and high intellectual attainments, he had done much in all the colonies he has governed to spread the work of education and to popularise learning and letters. "Grey College" in tihd Orange Free State still remains a monument of his liberal views of education; and the difference in the attitude toward the English befcween the Boers ruled by President Bwsyn and the Boers ruled by President Kruger was recently attributed by an American writer to the superior educational advantages which the Orange Free State owes to his foresight, and to memories of his wise rule at the Gape; In New Zealand, top, he laboured to extend education to the Maoris as the surest remedy for racial differences, and our present Native schools system owes its inception to him. The two libraries with which he has endowed Auckland and the Cape are monuments at once of his cultured erudition and his splendid generosity. When we come to speak of the latter part of his life—the twenty years of his Parliamentary career in New Zealand—there is not, we 1 regret to say, the same unanimity of approval. Grey the Grey the politician are scarcely recognisable as the same man. In the one position he was marked by sagacity, consistency and capacity for prompt! and successful aGtion ; in the other we find him chimerical, vacillating and unpractical. His training as Governor, in fact, was such as to develop qualitiea the antitheses of those that go to make a successful Cabinet Minister. The habit of selfreliance and freedom from control rendered him impatient of colleagues ; he was too fond of personal prestige to brook rivalry, hence, perhaps, his conspicuous failure to surround himself with strong and able coadjutors. He was by nature an autocrat, and all his previous experiences had gone to develop the autocratic in Jifs character. His democracy was doctrinaire, not instinctive. ' It had his intellectual adhesion, not his moral sympathy. As Governor his position as leader was assured him by his office; as parliamentarian his authority had to. be won and retained. And in his restless determination to win and retain it he often resorted to means we cannot but deplore to maintain and increase his influence ; many of his bids for popularity were such as we can scarcely think his judgment sincerely approved. He appealed too often to the emotions, and not always the disinterested emotions, of his political following, and in his metamorphosis

from autocrat to democrat he turned demagogue in the process. His short administration was a series of bungles; as we have before pointed out, his finance so utterly broke down that had it not been for the prompt use of the submarine cable by his successor in office New Zealand would have had to make default. The legacy of his Premiership was a deficit of a round million; he soared so far above the reach of practical finance that in one year he even dispensed with the commonplace necessity of a Budget. Nor can it be said that as a private member he wa# any greater success than when on the Ministerial benches. He was a great orator; his honey-tongued eloquence never failed to arouse a popular audience ; but in the House itself his influence steadily declined from year to year. Hβ became a political visionary; he tended to forget the practical needs of our few thousands of population in dwelling upon the future of uuborn millions ; and his legislative experiments, such as his proposal to legislate to protect children from eating wax vesfcas and his suggestion to make the railways of the colony free, though they speak eloquently of his large heart and warm sympathies, can but throw doubt upon the soundness of his judgment and his practical, wisdom. But the limited success of his career as a politician, compared with his brilliant achievements as a pro-Consul, ■will not detract from the honour in which his memory will always be held in the colony. Those who knew him will remember his infinite grace of manner, his Old World courtesy and hospitality, his genuine kindness of heart. Those who but knew of him will honour him as scholar and soldier, ruler and philanthropist, and accord him a high place among the band of Englishmen who, during the past half-century, have wrought at the building of our colonial empire.