SIR GEORGE GREY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3160, 15 August 1881, Page 4

SIR GEORGE GREY.

" Civis" in the Otago Witness says : — There really are elements of greatness in Sir George Grey, and I have always maintained it. His speech on the second reading of the Ministerial Local Government Bill has a moral elevation in its tone seldom reached in the pages of the New Zealand Hansard. If I were a Greyite—whicli lam not—l should print that speech in pamphlet form and sow it broadcast over the country, like bread upon the waters, to be seen after many days. You can often laugh at Sir George —hi 3 knight-errantry being capable of the most surprising lapses into Quixotism—but you cannot despiae him. Listening to one of his best speeches you can hardly deny him the breadth of vision which belongs lo statesmanship, however certain you may be that other necessary qualities are wanting. It is amusing in the speech I refer to to listen to Sir George's views about our Volunteers. After affirming his belief that " the Volunteers of New Zealand will turn out to be one of the finest forces in the world," he goes on to sugguest that deer should be bred on the hills for the Volunteers to practice upon ! "If you put deer of every kind in those mountains, and if you put rifles in the hands of your young men, you will have a set of hardy, first-rate shots, like the Swiss or the Boers, and then woe betide any enemy that puts foot on New Zealand !" This is good, and so is the parable of local bodies in the desert: If'there were a set of famishing local bodies in the desert, perishing for water, and calling out aloud to me for water, and I brought them a water cart full of water, I should bring them what they asked for ; but it would very soon be exhausted, and they would ask for more, and this they would continue incessantly to do. But if I knew that underneath the surface was running a spring which was absolutely doing harm to some low lying land, and which utilised would yield a perennial supply of that for which the local bodies were crying out, and if I erected a pump for them, could it be justly said that I had laughed at them, ' ' ■ t wi'PTi they asked for water I gave them a machine ? Highly ridiculous this, no doubt. The ■j< cal bo'ios" in '• the desert" crying out to Sir George Grey for water, and P ; v • eorge supplying thpm either by water inrt or pump, would mnko a striking if nnlv one knew how to represent n " loon) body" pictorially. Yet, when yon have laughed your fill at iibsurdities such as these, you come back all the same to the conviction that Sir George Grey can make a great speech. On the occasion ' refer to he charged the Government meamre with "proposing to continue legislation which belongs to a dying-out system of civilisation." "T cay, sir, that a new system nf civilisation has been given birth to, that it. lies* like an infant in its cradlp, that mankind nt large are looking to it for the benefits which it will ultimately give, and that it is our duty to take this child to our arms, to nurse it, and to provide for it mean." by which it can make its great influence felt." Tt is rather a bathos to find that this " new civilisation " is represented by the speaker's own Local Government Bill. Notwithstanding his amusing weaknesses Sir George f rey amongst the ruck of Colonial parliamenteers is a Triton amongst minnows. If he were a younger man I should say he would be the Gambetta of y ew Zealand.