New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4884, 16 November 1876, Page 4

New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16.

The despatches from Earl Carnarvon to his Excellency the Governor, which were issued in a Gazette Extraordinary yesterday afternoon, and which we publish this morning, will be read with satisfaction by every sensible person in the colony. _ Agains t the two or three hard facts which they contain the wild and bombastic nonsense to which Sir George Grey and his satellites have treated ns for some time past must shatter themselves. It will be remembered that Sir George made great capital out of the assumption that the Abolition Act was ultra vires, and that the Royal assent had been given to it without proper examination. A telegram from the Secretary of State for the Colonies subsequently stated, that the Crown Law Officers had been consulted before her Majesty was not advised to exercise her power of disallowance in respect to the Act, and Earl Carnarvon now definitely, says that previously to this ho had satisfied himself that the passing of the Act was within the competency of the Colonial Legislature. Until Sir George Grey and Mr. Macandrew discovered that the Crown Law Officers were against them they had professed their willingness to rely implicitly on the judgment of those gentlemen. Like a pair of ancient dames, however, who have no doubt of the correctness of all opinions that tally, with their own, they no sooner found out that 1 the very opinions on which they professed to rely were unfavorable to their views, than they turned round and made a great fuss about having ' the question at issue decided in the law courts of the colony, and requested the country to place a tidy sum of money at their disposal, to be thrown away, most likely upon such constitutional law as Messrs. Rees and Stout could provide them with. The country refused this, and decided that if Sir George Grey wanted to go to law he could do it as the members of the Pickwick Club were permitted to travel, namely, at their own expense, since which time all ideas of troubling the Judges of the Supreme- Court on the subject seem to have been abandoned, and the matter has been far more comfortably settled by the decision of a precious convention of ignoramuses at Dunedin that the Abolition Act is ultra vires, and that Sir George Grey and Mr. Macandrew are to be sent Home, by public subscription, to prove this. ■ ■ It seems a pity that the idea of appealing to the Colonial Law Courts should have been abandoned, for, as Earl Carnarvon simply remarks, the judgment of these Courts would set the question, if any such question is seriously believed to exist, at rest in the most authoritative manner. But that is exactly what Sir

Geobge does not want to have done. He does not want any question set at rest, but wishes everyone: to be kept open,- in order that he may vaporise and vacillate concerning it, and so produce as much general confusion as possible, which has been the be-all and the end-all .of his statesmanship since he entered bur public life more than a year ago. It is not at all improbable, however, that in this respect Sir Gbokge Grey is as fully appreciated, at Home as he is here, for the sentences in which Earl Carnarvon expresses natural surprise that even one man in the colony could have been found wicked enough or: foolish enough to believe in the bombardment canard, would apparently point tb-sbme such conclusion. This theory 1 is also supported by the pointed manner’ in which, the Secretary for the Colonies says that Sir George Grey need not r under the circumstances, be surprised at no telegraphic despatch being forwarded in consequence of the alarming, one sent Home by,Him.. ■ Butit is in the shorter of the two despatches published this morning that Earl Carnarvon after all gets at the pith of the matter. ■ He shows that- the ’ colony,; through its representatives, having'.exp'ressed an opinion on the very points which ' Sir George Grey ■raises, it is not for ;him to offer any observations respecting 'them. This shows that the: Secretary for the Colonies recognises representative government, and the right of the colonies to legislate; without dictation from Home, whilst the autocratic ex-Governor declines to do so. Indeed) there can' be little doubt but that with all his talk about, the human race and the rights of man, Sir George Grey basin him all the qualities which produce a despot, and that adverse circumstances, alone prevent their natural operation. At the general election of nearly a year ago the abolition question was put fairly before the people,, and the ex-Governor and! Mr. Macandrew themselves as,willing cheerfully to abide the. result. The result was an overwhelming majority returned to Parliament pledged to abolition, and then Sir George and the gentleman, till recently Superintendent of Otago, found themselves opposed by those : very representative institutions which they professed to respect. As a consequence :,they now want the colony willynilly to return' to provincialism, or something worse. Mr. Macandrew, we really believe", from a sincere though mistaken patriotism for the province, the destinies of which he had so long guided; Sir George Grey, because the mischief which it is said. is:.always provided for idle hands finds in him an eager workman. The despatches ‘ published to-day should settle the hopes of the first-named gentleman, and should cause the employment of the second to take a fresh direction.