REFORM, SIR GEORGE GREY, AND THE MARQUIS OF NORMAN BY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 5017, 14 December 1877, Page 3

REFORM, SIR GEORGE GREY, AND THE MARQUIS OF NORMAN BY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The public are much indebted to you for the enlightened and discriminating guidance that your leading columns have impartially afforded, in order to forming a sound judgment as to the various matter* (if controversy that have ariseu between the present Governor and Sir George Grey. It would be an easy matter to pour forth ur.id<*s of declamatory exaggeration, " full of sound aud fury, signifying nothing but it is a real boon to the community, in critical tiui- s like these, to have appropriate data carefully sought out and judiciously applied. The crisis is certainly an important one in the history of New Zealand. The position seems to be tins : A great reform iu the administration of the affairs of this country is urgently needed, aud this reform Sir George Grey au.l his supporters have set before them the task of strenuously endeavouring to accomplish. To this thenare opposed very powerful interests aud influences; and if the vantage ground now happily occupied by the reform party weiv allowed to be taken from them, whether by openly violent opposition or by means of insidious snares, the cause of reform might, be fatally damaged. It is to be regretted that the present representative of iter Majesty in New Zealand has so decidedly assumed the rdlc of au anti-reform partizan. He appears to have adopted, from the (irst, the personal policy of so thwarting the present Ministry as to cause them to icsigo, or to biing them into such a position that he might have a plausible pretext for dismissing them. It might be well to warn his Lordship that if this sort of thing goes on, the result will probably be the forwarding a memorial to the Queen signed by thousands of the colonists of New Zealand, and praying for the removal of the Marquis of Normanby from the oflice of Governor. The unshoe would probably be that he would be recalled to 44 grace the House of Lords" by his presence, or, at the least, that he would lind his way obstructed as to occupying the most lucrative positions of colonial Governorship. Meantime it is earnestly to be desired that Sir George Grey and his Ministry will not allow small technicalities to displace them from their vantage ground, that they will not play into the hands of the etnnuy by being worried into resignation iu circumstances such as would usually imply that alternative, 11 The safety of the people is the supreme law." B»» it remembered that Lord Normanby ;s not to New Zealand what Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria is to Britain. His Lordship is a mere bird of passage among us, having no stake iu the country, except the interest of drawing from it for a few years, and then from s.nno other colony, the valuable salary attached to his office. If Sir George Grey could be driven into resignation, or if au excuse could he found lor dismissing the present Miuistry, Major Atkinson would become Premier, and would propound a policy taken in "part from his predecessor's. But the measures of reform introduced under

each auspices could not be trusted, aud the Bupport given even to such measures by their ostensible promoters would he half-hearted. One great achievement has been quietly effected in the unexpected colonialisatioa of the Land Fund, an act of tardy justice for which you, sir, have so long and persistently maintained an uphill light. Other reforms of not less importance, especially in the North Island, remain to be accomplished. — i arn, &c., Reformer.