GRATTAN GREY’S BOOK.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4407, 13 July 1901, Page 3

GRATTAN GREY’S BOOK.

A SCARIFYING CRITICISM. j MUDDLED WRITING AND JUMBLED j FACTS. j Some time ago wo noticed that Mr 1 Grattan Grey, recently cuiei of tne New Zealand "Tiaiasara’sLait, Had written a dook entitled "•Australia, Uid and New.” ] ic attempts to give a history of the Common wealth Horn earnest times to j tlie present day, but it has received a j scariiying criticism rrom the reviewer of : tn© "Daily Chronicle,’' London. From ■ the face tuat Mr J. Grattan Grey is well known in this country and his departure was not unattended by somewhat sensational doings, the reading of a review of his latest work will not be without interest to many. Suppose for a moment, says the writer referred to, that an English author, having in his preface relerred to the illimitable ignorance of Frenchmen about London and .jglaimed for himself an intimate knowledge of Londoners and their affairs, ivent on to write, among other things, that “Chanscry-lane runs from Fleat street to Hoborn,” and repeated the mis-spellings often enough to make you sure it was not a mere matter of badly-read proofs. Suppose that Ins knowledge of English history led him to state that Ireland and England were united in 1698 by a Scottish Earl named Oliver Cromwell, and that an American Parliament passed the Stamp Act. Suppose that half his chapter on tne Press was taken up with a eulogy on the owners of one newspaper, and that his chapter on literature was entirely made out of an interview with one preacher and four hitherto unpriuted poems by that preacher’s seventeen-year-old daughter. How far could one feel justified in taking serious notice of that author’s ppinions ? The parallel is fairly close all through. Details of Australian history may not be as well known or as important as similar details of English history, but the man who undertakes to tell you about them cannot plead that as an excuse for inaccuracy. And an author who deliberately asserts his qualifications for knowing the truth—who specially parades his “intimate knowledge” of Australasia, his “exceptional opportunities” of studying events there, his “continuous residence of nearly forty years” in those regions—who pours contempt on the ignorance of Englishmen and ridicules the unreliability of globetrotters—lays himself open thereby to sterner criticism than the elobe-trotter is worth. The greater the Englishman’s ignorance, the more blameworthy is it to pose before him as an instructor when your teaching is all wrong. Here is some of MR GREY’S HISTORY:

“It (Australia) was discovered in 1609 by Don Pedro Fernando de Quiros, a Spanish nobleman, who named it Australian of the Holy Spirit.’' That is correct enough,except that Do Quiros, who was a Portuguese pilot, did not discover Australia at all, or get within 800 miles of it: that what he diu discover, one of the New Hebrides, he reached in 1606; and that tie called his discovery Australia because his master, Philip 111. of Spain, belonged to the house of AustriaNor is his account of recent events much more trustworthy. At the very worst, Mr Chamberlain’s proposed amendments to the Privy Council’s clause of the Commonwealth Act were scarcely “persistent attempts to emasculate that measure of self-government” ; and it is a daring thing to tell us, while we still remember a certain week of futile intrigue, that Sir William Lyno “recognised at once that Mr Barton's claims were superior to his .own, and lost no time in recommending . Lord Hopetoun to send for that gentleman.” Between these accounts of early and recent Australian history there is plenty more of the same sort, though Mr Grey does not generally disport himself among definite facts. He prefers to write paragraphs in which the conditions of a hundred years are jumbled up together, laws passed in the sixties being spoken of as if they.were in force in the thirties, and sO‘ forth. He believes, too, that Captain Cook wrote Hawkesworth’s account of his voyages. He suggests that convicts were sent chiefly to Tasmania because “the stations there were more romantically situated.” His knowledge of the blaokfollow does not seem to include acquaintance with Curr’s standard work on him, now fifteen years old, and certainly ignores all recent discoveries and observations in that branch of ethnology. His account of New Zealand isi hopelessly muddled, because he lumps together acts of the Imperial Government, of the New Zealand Company (which was usually at loggerheads with the Government), and of isolated settlers playing their own hand without regard for law or justice. It is, perhaps, of less importance that (as has been hinted above) he cannot spell correctly the names of the principal Melbourne streets, and that he talks of “the results that have flown” from the occupation of America. It is a pity, because just now we want to know everything we can about Australia, and"the views, and; observations of a man who has lived there for. forty years might bo' of great interest and value. But when an author is so careless about his facts one can hardly attach much weight to hi» opinions, especially as they are for the most part embodied in the slipshod phrases dear to minor orators at public banquets. If Mr Grey would clear his mind of cant phrases, settle with himself what he really has seen or has reasonably good evidence for believing, and put that on paper as simply and strightforwardly as he can, we might , yet hare something 'of value-from him. In the meanwhile, one can only repeat that his narrative is incoherent, his statements of fact too- often incorrect, his style, his spelling, and his grammar all peculiar.