The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, JUNE 12, 1882.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 4065, 12 June 1882, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, JUNE 12, 1882.

The popularity of Sir George Grey, we are tod by our special correspondent in Wellington, is reviving. He has smashed up the Opposition; has gained the sympathy of a large mpjority of the Members; and is successfully carrying through the House Bill after Bill, whilst the Ministers are looking on almost paralysed. When the inspired organ of the Government states " that Sir George Grey has returned with the fullest plenitude of his mental powers, looking ten years younger, and apparently in excellent health and physical strength;" and admits " he already holds the balance of power," it looks as if our correspondent was not alone in his opinion. The position of the Ministry just now is a critical one. Sir George Grey is a politician of unusual resource. As a Governor he was noted for being somewhat arbitrary and imperious; as a member of the House he has hitherto assumed the character of a demagogue. It is very evident that his political experience during the last four or five years has not been wasted. He has apparently during the recess reviewed his political career, and found that, although it was easy for a man in his position to raise a multitude by stamping his foot upon the ground, or to induce the multitude so raised to applaud anything he chose to tell them about their rights, to over-rule their rulers -that this was not statesmanship. A crowded hall is not a nation, and a clamourous endorsement of one-sided resolutions has nothing in common with the deliberate conclusions come to by members chosen to represent the constituencies. Sir George Grey has also occasionally allowed his petulant temper to get the better of him; which has led him into several very unnecessary quarrels, and, being rather erratic in his views, never studying his parties in the least, he has never, for any length of time, succeeded in retaining a following. Seeing that his past efforts have been so much waste of time, he may intend to adopt fresh tactics, with a view to attain power; and the position he now occupies in the House would bear out this view. It has been hinted that more unlikely things than a coalition between the Ministry and Sir George have happened in Parliamentary circles. Men who are separated by personal or party antipathies are, as a rule, more hopelessly at variance than those who are divided by great principles; and that at least two members of the Ministry and Sir George Grey have been separated by party antipathies of a very inveterate character, is certainly no secret to anybody. The latter has not left a stone unturned to prove that the Hon. Mr. Whitaker and Major Atkinson had not carried out their stewardship with integrity; whilst they, in their turn, have been accustomed to return the compliment in good set phraseology. To those who have had little interest in the difference! which have alienated our fore-

most politicians, there may appear little or no reason why those differences should be kept up, or why they hesitate to sink personal and party predilections when public interest required it. For years past public business has been retarded, and legislation has been brought almost to a standstill by the petty divisions which have prevailed in the Assembly. There has been no lack of forces in the House, but those forces have been made powerless for good by the predominence of faction. Under these circumstances, the position taken up by Sir Gorge Grey will be hailed with pleasure, provided he does not make use of it to gratify personal or party grievances, long ago forgotten by the public. He has hitherto appeared a paradox to us. His actions have shown at times that he is very clever, but very stupid — very strong, yet very weak — very good, and yei the incarnation of all that was mischievous and evil. His utterances have occasionally been noble and of the true statesmanlike calibre ; but if he attracts he also repels, and it is from this cause that he rever has had a large or strong following. A man with so much good in him could be of great value to the State; but it has been annoying to those who admire and who would support him to see his powers wasted in personal squabbles, whilst matters of public interest were neglected. The position, however, he occupies at the present time is an anomalous one. With his small but compact following he can at will turn the tide in favor of or against the Ministry. He has already disorganised the Opposition, and now holds the fate of the Ministry in his hands. Although a Government that is the best administered may not always be the best; the best Government is never the one that is badly administered ; and, unfortunately, the strongest administration is not always the one that is composed of the best men. The best administrators are those who have the courage of their opinions, who work the hardest, and are familiar with the country's needs, and who are the most firmly determined to supply those needs at any hazard or sacrifice. Sir George Grey has already intimated that it was only on the native question he supported the Government; on other matters he was free. This looks as if he meant mischief ; but perhaps he intends merely to effect a ohauge in the personnel of the Ministry. If it is the latter, and it is done with a view of putting better men in the place of some of those who are now occupying the Ministerial benches, then we think he will not only have the support of both sides of the House, but of the country also. The s.s. Macgregor leaves Onehunga today, at 10 a.m., will arrive in Waitara tomorrow morning, and returns the same evening. The Native Land Court sat to-day, at the Court-house, New Plymouth, when a number of succession claims were heard and determined. The new Railway Time-table has been published, by which it will be seen that on and after Thursday next, the trains will leave New Plymouth for Waitara, and the stations to the north, at 7.5 a.m. and 4.10 p.m. They will leave Waitara, for town, at 9.20 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. ; and for south at 7.25 a.m. and 4.20 p.m. ; from Hawera, for New Plymouth and Waitara, the trains leave at 6.45 a.m. and 3.30 p.m. On Saturday last an accident happened to a spring cart owned by Mr. W. French, of Frankley Road. When nearly opposite the Baptist Church, in Gill-street, part of the harness broke, and the shafts of: the cart becoming disengaged, the cart was suddenly tipped up, and the occupants were thrown out. Miss Greenway was picked up in a state of unconsciousness, and it was at first feared that she had sustained some severe injuries. We are glad to state, however, that the injuries were not so severe as were at first apprehended. One of her wrists was sprained, and her face was considerably lacerated and disfigured. Mrs. Lowe, Madame Carandini's mother, died at Emerald Hill, near Melbourne, on tho 17th May, aged 79. Her famous daughter, Madamo Carandini, has five daughters, of whom the Misses Rosinai Fanny, Eliza and Marie are the best known as public performers, though all have distinguished themselves in that line. The eldest is Mrs. Palmer, so well-known in concert circles and tuition. The late good old lady. Mrs. Lowe, was a great grandmother, and without trenching too much on homo life, it may be added that there was every prospect of her becoming a great, great grandmother in the course of a few months. The total earnings of the British people have increased from £961,000,000 in 1870 to £1,15G,000,000 in 1880, an increase of nearly £200,000,000, which equals nearly £6 per head of the entire population. And since the annual expenditure of the people is rather less than £1,100,000,000, it follows that there is a surplus of £60,000,000 per annum to add to the accumulated wealth of the nation. What this accumulated wealth now amounts to (says a writer in Cassell's Magazine for April) must seem absolutely fabulous to those who have never studied the subject. It was £8,310,000,000 in 1870; it had grown to £8,960,000,000 in 1880, being an increaso of £650,000,000 sterling in the short space of ten years. And yet, strange as it may appear, it is tho fact that while our wealth has thus accumulated our use of trold and silver in the transaction of all this business hns steadily declined. Sir John Lubbock showed some timo ago that the British people now manage to transact £100 worth of business while actually employing no more than a single halfsovereign in the coin £ tto niata.