THE AUSTRALASIAN ON SIR GEORGE GREY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6964, 13 March 1884, Page 5

THE AUSTRALASIAN ON SIR GEORGE GREY.

The Australasian, in an article on Federation, says that Sir George Grey takes the Little Peddlington view of the matter. "That eccentric gentleman," it remarks, " in his endeavour to make a little political capital out of the question, in the interests of the Opposition for the time being, laid great stress upon two points. In the first place, he said :—' He questioned the right of a Legislature to send forth gentlemen to fetter their liberties in a distant place.' Of course the phrase, 'fetter their liberties,' is mere claptrap and bunkum. Nobody knows better than Sir George Grey that a Federal Council would not and could not do anything of the sort, and he was merely using the words to tickle the ears of the groundlings. But did it never occur to him that this sending forth by legislatures of gentlemen to deliberate in a distant place is precisely what has been done, for the last century and upwards, by every state in the American Union ; the Legislature-in each of which sends two representatives to the Senate in Washington—a body po«seasing and exercising far larger powers than the House of Representatives ; for it can impeach and remove from office any officer of the United States from the President downward!! ; it can and dots revise the financial measures of the Lower House; and it lias a ' voice potential' in the appointment of foreign Ministers as well as in determining the foreign policy of the nation. But we never heard of anyone in California, or Florida, or Minnesota questioning tho right of the local Legislature to send fuith gentlemen to so distant a place as Washington, even if they should happen to thwarr. the voice of the people as oppressed in the House of Representatives, electud by the inhabitants of each State. The second point raised by Sir George Grey was that, in the proposed Federal Council the majority would rul-\ Well, we are afraid that this is an evil —if evil it be—incidental to all representative forms of government, and that we must mak-; up our nlinds to put up with it as resignedly as we can. 'But,' exclaims Sir George, 'by this Federation Act it is proposed to give powers to a distant Government which wo do not allow our own Governor.' And here, again, it seems strange that so thoroughgoing a republican as the speaker is should condemn the foundation principle of the Government of the United States, where the Federal Legislature exercises powers far greater than those of the elective governors of the respective states, and no Sir George Grey ventures to impugn the wisdom and advantage of such a delegation of authority from what were once separate colonies to what is now the central (Government of a great nation. In reality, however, the opposition which is here and there offered to federatioa is of a frivolous and fractious character, dictated by a spirit of potty provinaialism ; and it is as little likely to arrest the progress of the movement as Sir George Grey is to become President of a New Zealand republic."