SIR GEORGE GREY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 360, 4 January 1879, Page 9

SIR GEORGE GREY.

TO THE JSDITOU OF THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL. SIH, After some few weeks of incubation in his ir-laud home, our great Premier has again made his appearance in public as the expounder -of his Government’s policy. I, for one, had fondly hoped he would have-treated the public to something new, but the chickens hatched .and exhibited at the Thames were of the same old d ep Grey, without even the least variation in the shade of color. That Grey chickens were the best and orthodox color, and that there was nothing like Grey, was the burden of his speech. There was, however—at least to me—one new idea which I trust 1 shall ever treasure up, viz., that “ I (Sir George Greyi was the first advocate and originator of all public works not only in this, but all other colonies.” It

struck me, on this new discovery of the greatness of our Premier, as to whether or not he might not have had some hand in Creation itself—as draftsman, or something of the kind, to the Great Architect ; perhaps he will some day be good enough to enlighten the public of New Zealand on this subject also. In all seriousness—for I have the greatest respect for the Premier, in consideration of the many kindly and good traits of character which he so often f xhibits, especially towards children and their mothers—l ask, does he imagine for a moment that such platitudes and vague generalities as he repeated for the hundredth time at the Thames will be any longer accepted by the New Zealand public for statesmanship ? As one who takes considerable interest in .New Zealaud politics, and knows as much as most people of the state of publicfeeling—being myself not of the upper ten, but one of the people —I tell him nay. We are quice sick and weary of claptrap and bumkum, and want an amount of enlightened and prac tical statesmanship aud energetic administration in our public men of which Sir George Grey and his colleagues have shown themselves singularly destitute. We have little sympathy or care for the Premier's great schemes of combat with the Home Colonial Office, or the reform of our Upper Chamber. So far as I can judge, since Sir George Grey has been in office, instead of reforming our Upper House, he has done a very great deal towards deforming it by the appointments and calls he has made to it. I have nothing to say against the personal character or worth of those gentlemen he has called, or those, if rumor speaks truly, who are to receive that honor, beyond the fact they are the creatures and tools of the Premier; which reminds one of the days of yore in the British Pa? liament, with this difference, that in Great Britain it was generally doue, aud threatened in 1832, in the interest of the extension of the rights and liberties of the people ; while our Premier's object in recent and further threatened appointments is to secure the most autocratic or personal rule, which would have been his for the future but for the decided stand taken by our Upper Chamber, against the dual Maori vote, insidiously incorporated in the great and muchvaunted Electoral Bill of last session. I consider the Legislative Council of this colony will well deserve the everlasting thanks of its people for their firm and sta-tesmaulike conduct on that occas on. 1., for one, can forgive, them a multitude of sins in consideration of that one great act of pub ic virtue —by which the freedom of electors aud independence of Parliament has been preserved to the people, after, by the subserviency of their own representatives to the present Ministry, it had been voted away. —I am, &c, One of the People.