Speech hy Lord Onslow.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6296, 17 February 1892, Page 3

Speech hy Lord Onslow.

! The Dunedin Star thus summarises and and criticises the Governor's farewell speech at Dunedin :— -Those who listened to Lord Onslow on Saturday will be in accord, there can be little question, with Mr Ward, who described His Excellency's speech as most able and eloquent. It was essentially different from the frothy oratory which custom, we may say,- has sanctioned on such occasions, and evidently, with a purpose, contained much matter for serious thought. Lord Onslow, in Home politics, is a member—and not an undistinguished member— of the Conservative party. How times are changed from the days of the old Tories his breadth of view and liberality of sentiment tlemonstrate. He will always, he said, " be found fighting on the side of those whose cardinal policy, setting aside all minor considerations, is that of strengthening the Empire all over the world and pro- [ moting the well-being of the people at Home." In his possition, as directly representing the Sovereign, it was becoming in His Excellency to remind the colonists generally through those who were present of the privileges they possess in being citizens of the British Empire. Those who talk loosely of the ties which bind us to the Old Country, and decry loyalty as a mere sentiment, do not, lie thinks, realise or understand what is involved, and how fatal the severance of thoce ties might prove. We are integral members of, take it for all in all, the greatest Empire in the world, which wields a maritime power commanding the ocean highways, and asserts influence in every quarter of the globe. We enjoy constitutional and personal liberty to an extent unknown under any other flag — not even the vaunted stars and stripes. Lord Onslow points to the moral certainty, in the ovent of the disintegration of the Empire, of the opportunity beinw seized by the more ambitious European Powers, and pretty plainly indicates, although he does not say so in so many words, that we might find ourselves exchanging free citizenship for the galling yoke of foreign domination. "Do not tell me that France, Germany, or Russia would not gladly avail themselves of the opportunity to seize upon some portion of the Empire, if they could do so with very little difficulty." An Australasian Republic, which some people talk about so glibly, would be, for many years to come, a perilous experiment. His Excellency trusts more to the good sense and self interest of the colonists in maintaining the unity of the Empire than to any scheme of federation. "I do not look so much to an Imperial federation as to the idea of an Imperial alliance — to an empire in which the proud motto of Scotland, Nemo me impune lacessit, should be spoken as much by every branch of the Imperial tree as by the trunk itself." Lord Onslow was very happy in his allusions to New Zealand politics. "He has learnt, he Lays, many things since he has been here ; whilso disappointed, in that his expectations have not been entirely realised. So many theories, he would imply, were in the air when he arrived three years ago that he had hoped to see some of them materialised— with the view, we may presume, of seeing how they could work. He inclines, it would seem, towards th« adoption of the Hare system, which undoubtedly would secure a more complete representation of the people ; and we fancy, from the way he treated the subject, that he favors the political enfranchisment of women and the addition of their shrewd common sence and regard for the main chance to the electoral intelligence of the people.

Mr Mennel, a special correspondent of lyt London Daily Telegraph, who recent)'* visited this colony, has written a letter wliicii is very interesting to New Zealanders. Mr Mennell says he had the luck to lie in New Zealand with three different and curious figm-es, Kipling, General Booth, and Sir George Grey, " the first with primal powers unexpended, the second in the zenith of his extraordinary apostolate, the third with faculties undimmed despite of octogenarianism, and still intent, as for years past, on his ambitious but not wholly Quixotic mission of influencing England through antipodean channels. A unique figure this Sir George Grey, the autocratic democratic, bird's-eye viewing the nations from his distant vantage ground, eagle-like in sight, ever youii'j in sympathy, the keen, interested watchman of the world."