OCCASIONAL NOTES.

Southland Times, Issue 9165, 15 March 1886, Page 3

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

tt \fi always a pleasure to listen to Sir George Gieji However you may disagree with his opinions, yon cannot belp liking the man, and admiring the speaker. He is, for one thing, eyery inch a gentleman. You will never catch Mm failing in point of manners. Neither do you need to wait for the sound of his voice to know that he is in touch with his audience. As soon as you see him s<ep upon the platform /Ou instinctively feel that he will bring down the house. There is something in his very appearance that bespeaks him the old man eloquent. Bat it is not so much in his eloquence after a<l that his power lies as in that magical* gift of calling.forth the sympathy of his hearers which he possesses above all other speakers I ever heard. I'hia electrical quality, which is quite independent of what he says {that is sometimes commonplace enough), is at once felt in hia every tone, look, ana gesture, The man himself is more eloquent than his words. Not that I undervalue his oratory, Far from it. As a mere speaker there ia none to compare With' aim among the politicians of New Zealand, and very few even at Home. There iB bi much difference in this re•pect lor example; between a fctout or a Joe Hatch (two of our most loquacious statesmen) and the good Knight M there is between a scrannel pipe and Apollo's lute» What I mean to say is that Sir George Grey's true gfeatnes3 does not lie in bis oratorical powers, great as these are, bat in that philanthropic cosmopolitanism for which he is often laughed at py men of narrow views and imperfect svmpatbies. As a practical politician 1 grant that he was a comparative failure. After making all due admissions in regard to the ignorance, conceit and incompeteacy of bis colleagues, it must be confessed that he did not shine as a Minister. He was in fact as much oat of hiß proper element, that i?, the element of his higher nature, as a fish out of water, As a Govercor it ia "unive; sally acknowledged that he d splayed the very highest qualities of the statesman, and that in a great variety of wayß. indeed versatility in the higher walks of statemanship was one of his inoit striking characteristics But Sir George is a enriou* mixture of great and small qualities He is, as I have just said, a statesman in the very noblest sense of the word, but when be was in office as Premier he could stoop to the veiy j ettiest kind of political trickery ; though it is only fair to say that many of the things that^d^gxaced his Administration Weie done by bis colleague", not only without his consent but even without hia knowing aDything abont them. It is often said too that he never gives a shilling in ch»rity. Whether this is the cas< or not I cannot tell, nor would I care to k ov. Even if itwere true, it would sot in the least modify my profound conviction of the genuinely benevolent chatacter of Sil George Grey's mm'». I tbmk I have seen enough of human nature to know that such seeming contradictions often exist in the best and gieatest men. And it is just such seeming contradictions that have given occasion to these opprobriouß and Btupidly unjust things which are so often said •bout our greatest man. Sir George Grey's ••care fc.r the race" is a standing joke, bat it is *fier all a very poor one. It is precisely this care for the specie?, this raie power cf extending hia sympathies beyond his own home, his own parish, his own district, hl« own country, and his own race, until he feels, «o to speaV, that he has the whole of mankind in bis embrace, that constitutes him Sir George Grey, and makes him beyond question the most powerful man in New Zealand.lam toll that his political followtrs have dropped off ore by one, seduced by the baits of mammon, <ill they have nearly reached the varnishing point. But he is just as powerful to-day, though be stands prtciically slone, fighting, as 1 thick he himself once expressed it, for bis own hinri, as he was when he headed his rabble of a Great Liberal Party. I was corry however to notice that bis voice was feebler and his shouldeis more bent than ' they used to be. But Sir George would be poweifal ioa veTy real sense even if his voice ' * were silent in death, For it is the thoughts ■""':' which he has breathed into the^&ir that conStitute,,and will long constitute, 'bepriucipal force in bur cc lonial politics, let Stout and ■yjogel combine to hoodwink and bamboczle the people as they may, 'John Brown's soul is still marching on." Wr George Grey may be illogical, unpractical, pei verse, autocratic acd all the rest of i% in minor matters ; acd in these he is, to say the tiutb, often utterly, cay. unaccountably wrong ; bnt ascend a bit, and get a full view of -higher rfgions of his policy, and you shall find (hat it has a con--8 at accy defep^r than i hat of the logic of the senate Ortlie forum, the consistency of ideas, : woi^rly W CBlledt-and not of mere politic expedients— pi, those eternal principles of rittVt and justice witbont which politics are only so'mnch statecraft; or devilcraft. This • I6f& ideal, which he; sometimes makes such »n a^furmcsVdj^in bis tfi-irfcato realize it, is without conirqm?y; ihi sonroe of &*<*s>•

Twobr three weeks asjo I leceived the following letter from,an- Old Identity whose name, which I am not at' liberty to give, i« well known throughout New Zealand :—.: 14 Inotice in the Wbekby Times a little fan by ' Busticus' about Dr Stuart's expulsion from his University. It has occurred to me that possibly yon are not aware of the facts, which in reality redound greatly to the good Doctor's credit, as • Rusticns' evidently half suspects. In 1 843 (the year of the Disruption) party politics ran very high all over Scotland — 4 Whig' and / Tory ' being more or Jess mixed up with Church questions proper. la St. Andrew's University, where Dr y Btuart was at that time a la*t year'fl student, and held several valuable and honourable posts, the feeling rah so high that the Senatus, or Board of. Professors, issued a mandate commanding the students to vote for the Tory candidate for the Lord Rectorship of the University. The btudents feeliDg this as an invasion of their ancient privileges, met and determined to support the Whig candidate, and ultimately, by their 'Nations. 1 elected him in spite of the Senatus. D. M. Stuart and some half -dozen othere were appointed a committee to coDvey to the fienatns Accademicus the vote. Tbe Senatus refused to receive it, and ordered them to go back to the students and claim their votes for the Tory candidate. The committee poiuled out that this was an infringement of the ancient privileges of the students, as defined by the constitution of the University in its charter, and refuaed to comply. Next day, without any further ado, it was published to the world that D. M. Stuart and his five companions were deprived of their privileges and expelled out of the University. This carried with it loss of degree, of bursaries and scholarships, and even in Smart's case expulsion from a mastership in the " Madras < ollege" (a high class school which still exists) in St. Andrews, where fetuart earned bis bread. Influence of all sorts was. brought to bear to get the Senate to mitigate the sentence, but they refuaed, except towards one man of weak health who caved in and submitted to the Senate. Then the sludents appealtd to the House of Lords, and a Bojal Commission was appointed to investigate the whole affair. They came to Kt. Andrews, and examined everyone, and immediately and without hesitation pronounced the Benate in the wrong, and advise! the students to be reponed. But this the Senate refused to do. and tbe Commissioner actually re-visited the University, formally censured the Senate after summoning them before him, and pub j licly removed the sentence of expulsion and reponed till the students in their former positions. Thi«, however, did not affect the future, and these men of course found it uteless to go up for a degree, and all chance of bursaries or scholarships was gone. Nor did it replace Stuart in his mastership in the Academy. After some 30 or £0 years that same University sent oat to the same D. kL. Stuart his degree of L\D. The incident is historic, and has had far more influence than you would think, especially ab the time, in drawing attention to many abuses in the Universities, and was really an important factor in bringing about the abolition of Tests." The moral of this episode in .Scottish University history is perhaps i his— that you need not expect much wisdom or justice from a Professorial Board, BPBTIOU3.