SIR G. GREY'S ACCUSATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6757, 14 July 1883, Page 5

SIR G. GREY'S ACCUSATIONS.

Criticising Sir G-. Grey'a utterances, Mr. JBryce said : The hon. member for Auckland East made what I think, considering the nature of the resolutions, was a very remarkable speech, because I did not observe that he addressed any portion of it to the question before the House, and it seemed to me that he took especial care not to commit himself I to approval of anything the hon. member for Akaroa had proposed, or av.y motion C;at j was before the House. I wts, I must v. mfess, sorry to see the line which the h in. I gentleman thought it not unbecoming fiia position in this House to adopt—very sc'ry indeed, because I remember the tirr.e whe:V I venerated that hou. gentleman fir n-ore tfan I venerated any politician in New Zealand. Aly recollection of him goes back to tho days of my boyhood, when I regarded him witn feelings shich I should be very happy indeed to recall. Therefore I felt sorry when I heard him make a speech which I couil not help considering degrading to his own character, and degrading to the character of this House, These constant attacks the hon. gentleman makes upon public men in this House must have a very bad effect on this colony. They have, 1 believe, injured the tone of the House to a most lamentable extent already, and if continued they will lower it still further. It seems to me that the hon. member thinks it a sacred duty to bring charges against official persons and to care little whether or not he is in a position to Bheet these charges home. Consider what he said last night with reference to the Colonial Treasurer and his family relations. One would have thought, from the manner in which he explaiued things, that whole hosts of" the Treasurer's relations had been put and put improperly into the Civil Service. Not only did he try to degrade the Treasurer in that way by imputing to him that he assisted his family at the expense of the public, but he did not even refrain from attempting to degrade the character of the Bench of the country. Sir,'l say this, that if the charges which that hon. member is in the constant habit of bringing against persons who are in office are true ho h bound to sheet them home, and he has no right to make use of his high standing in this colony in order to make such charges when he is not prepared to substantiate them. I have myself been subjected to very gross charges both out of the colony and in it. Why, I do not know, except perhaps that there is a popular impression that I have ' served the country. Now, it does nut matter whether that impression is true or not, but it is because that impression exists that it has been found necessary to traduce my character that seems to me to be the case. Ido not want to refer to how such censure affects myself, but I say that this sort of thing, if continued, will affect the colony. If it comes to be generally accepted that as soon as a man enters into public life or ( assumes or is forced into a position high in office, his character is then ; to be traduced and vilified as a sacred duty tho effect will undoubtedly be to keep decent men out of the Legislature. There- • fore I grieve and lament that the hon. gentleman who has had and still has most wonderful opportunities for doing good in ] this country should use those opportunities for the purpose of traducing, as ho certainly , does, the character of public men in this , House. The hon. gentleman did not spare , either my friend the Minister of Lauds, but I should like to know whether he can deny, or whether any man in this House can deny, , that aince my hon. friend has had the management of the Lnnds Department of this colony greater good has been done in the administration of the lands than ever has been , done before ? Sir, who will deny it ? i

MR. RUSDEN'S HISTORY. The following are Mr. Bryce's remarks on Mr. Rusden'a book :— The hon. member referred to a gentleman now in London who ■ has written a book called "A History of New Zealand," and in that something has been said about a great many of us, something even against the Ministry. I say at once that I do consider it worse for any man to write traducing the character of a Minister than of an ordinary person. I do not mean individually, but it is worse in its effect upon the public mind. Now certainly it was no excuse for Mr. Rnsden that I was a Minister, but the truth is this book has to some extent been misapprehended. The attack ia not pose upon me. What does Mr. Rusden care about me individually ? He cares nothing about me, but what he is trying to do is prove that the New Zealand colonists are villainous in their entirety, and when he referw to me he merely docs so to show that the colouists are so entirely vile to the core that they will select persons of that kind to administer their affairs. That is the purport of the book. What he says on that matter is not, I suppose, from malice at all. He canuot have malice against me, but what he has said is traducing the character of the colony. The book is full of slanders of the same sort against the colony. The other gentleman for whom the hon. member for Auckland East became the apologist has done the colony very much harm in the same way. As I have touched ou this question, which is a somewhat disagreeable one to me, I should like to say a word or two more about if the House will bear with me, and I have been slandered, as I think, simply because I am a Minister. Perhaps the House will forgive me for making a few remarks that may refer to myself. At the time referred to in the book, let hon. members consider what the state of the country was on the West Coast. Titokowaru had broken out. He had committed mHrder ' on unarmed people. He had done everything that he possibly could to outrage our feelings by his mutilations and acts of cannibalism. He swept that coast clean. He drove the settlers off, destroyed their stock, burned their dwellings, and early in November crossed the Waitotara River, coming down to Wanganui. That was the position then. The Kai Iwi settlers, only twelve miles from him, as a matterofself-dofencejmet together andformed themselves into a troop of cavalry. Now let me say this, —I do not undervalue the position which the colony and this House has been pleased to give me, by making mo a Minister of the Crown. I do not deny or wish to conceal the fact that I am proud of that, but I have never felt so proud of any position in my life as I felt then, and as I feel now, of having been placed in command of the Kui Iwi Cavalry. Let me tell hon. members what that corps consisted of. It consisted of the settlers of the district. To show hon. members the corps still further, I will tell them that in November, IS6O, there were no less than five military officers serving as private troopers under me, and two of them wercj the senior military officers of the district. That, I think, will establish the character of the corps. That will show ihat they had some confidence ia me, and I assert they have never lost it yet. Now, Sir,'l do not know that I should have felt the attack on myself so very much, but the objectionable paragraph in tbo book coupled me with "one Sergeant Maxwell." Now, let me tell hon. members that the parents of that young man entrusted him to my keep-. ing and I lost him. He was the only son of his parents, and he died under fire whilst under ray command. Hon. members cannot expect to look with anything like calmness at slanders on the dead. That young man was a typical New Zealand settler. There was only one thing he feared, and that was dishonour, and he gave up his life in defence of his country. His body was followed to the grave by almost the whole population of the district which knew him best, and there were mauy who regretted him most sincerely. Now, looking at these facte, it was a painful thing for me to see in a book called "A History of New Zealand," a statement to the effect that he went out and easily and gleefully cut down young children and women, for I felt shocked when I saw it; shjeked for his sake—l say nothing of myself—and I feel shocked to find an apology for that writer in this House. On my return from the country I went to my own home, and almost the first statement I heard there was, that I had been charged with the gleeful slaughter of young women and children. Then I was invited to attend a dinner at Taranaki, and these statements being fresh in my mind, I said—l shall never be ashamed of the words I said— that the writer of these things was a liar, a slanderer, and a coward. I said that, having proved himself to be that, ho was ready to cast up his eyes to Heaven and thank God that be was not as other men, and I added that other men might well thank God that

[ they were not as he was. The hon. member for Auckland Eaat thought the expression < was very shocking. Ido no not pretend to form myself upon the model of any of those mythical Romans, hat I happen to be a man, and have the feelings of a man. I say, Sir, that I should be either more or less than a man—less than a man, I ehonld say—if I had not spoken in the terms of indignation which I did. I defend the words here, and I shall defend them at the bar of Heaven itself.