The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1806, 2 February 1884, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

Equal and evict justice to all men, 01 \\h itsoever state or persuasion, religious or politic ill Here sh ill the Press the People's rifjhf maintain, Unawcd b\ influence and unbribed by gain.

SATURDAY, FEB. 2, 1884.

+ Sir GrcoßOis Grhy's speech at the Choral Hall on Tuesday night possesses a depper {significance than might at first", sight appear to be the case. It is the fir,st bugle call in the coming political campaign. Sir George has at length discovered a burning question on which to measure swords with the Government, and ho does not intend to let the grass grow under his feet. Tuesday night's speech was a direct attack on the Federation policy, which he takes to be the chief plank in the Ministerial platform next session, and the main issue upon which the next general election in December will be fought. The idea of advancing under cover of an address to the working men of Auckland was a happy, if it was not a strictly honest one, and the notion of bringing a most faithful henchman prominently before the public was scarcely less ingenious. That Mr Bees should be asked to read certain brief extracts from the proceedings of the Sydney Convention — that he should be imported into the business, and invested with some of the glory — may be fairly taken to indicate that he is on the look-out for one of the city seats. The connection, between the subject of the speech and the occasion would not be apparent were Sir George Grey other than he is, a politician with a purpose, and that purpose a determination to oust the present Ministry at any cost. The burden of his song is that Federa-

tion is a diabolical invention of the several. Governments of the Australasian colonies to rob tho people, and more especially th» people of New Zealand, of their liberties. The justness of a conclusion depends, of course, on the accuracy of the premises. The dismal portrait of Federation which Sir George conjures up might, if we believed in its correctness, afford sufficient ground for alarm. The people of New Zealand would natuially object to l<e legislated for by a community of black men, or Kanakas ; and if tho adoption of the proposals of the Convention wore to make such, a contingency oven romotely possible, they ought not to be ontertained for a moment. Sir Groorgo is careful not to explain in what way tho enfranchisement of tho black labourers of Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia, is consistent with tho scheme of the colonial Governments to rob the working classes of their liberty. Surely no autocrat, or set of autocrats would care to transfer the powers which they hold to be dangerous in the hands of the white population to the degraded toilers in the sugar plantations? But it was never contemplated that federation should rob us of tho power to legislate for ourselves in respect of our internal affairs, and nobody knows this bettor than Sir Goorge Grey himself, who, in his celebrated speech in the Theatre Royal in November, admitted that it was necessary to our safety that the colonies should, in international concerns, act in unison. Strangely enough the Government of Major Atkinson had not then declared in favour of Federation. It is not, however, particularly necessary that Sir Goorge should adhere closely to facts, or th.it his historical comparisons should bo just and apposite. So lone; as he can discount the ignorance of his hearers he ought not, perhaps, to adhere too slavishly to more truths. Seriously, however, it is pitiful to S'jc a man like Sir George Grey, endowed by nature with talents superior to most of his fellows, and privileged by fortune to ripen and enrich his intellect, reduced to practice the irts of sophistry in order that he may win a hollow political advantage. He invited his hearers to consider ihe ease of Rome ;as if there existed the faintest likeness between the Roman Empire, with its conquered provinces — held together only by a bond of military organisation — and the voluntary confederation for mutual support and confidence, of free, enlightened, and self-dependent Anglo-Saxon colonies. The main portion of the audience in the Choral Hall knew nothing of Rome, and were obliged, of course, to swallow what Sir George Grey told them ; though our respect for human nature induces us to think that there were some, at ciny rate, who were not deceived. But Sir George proceeds to strengthen his position — " Where " he says " would our liberty be now if England had federated herself with other European nations in times past, and bound herself by their laws? Where would we all have been now ?" The reporters inform us that at this point the audience applauded. We can quite believe it. There are people to be found who will applaud anything. But, on reflection, ought we not the rather to weep over than applaud such puerility, coming from such a quarter 1 At what period of our history docs Sir George Grey wish us to suppose England to have been federated with the other European nations? Does ho indicate a time when tho people had no hand in the making of the laws which governed them — a time, for instance, before the Great Revolution ? And does he desire us to concede that under a system of European federation England would not have progressed at all. Britain may not have had such a brilliant record perhaps ; Ti afalgar and Waterloo may not have been added to the story of England's history ; but is Sir George quite sure that the condition of his protege, the working man, for whom he professes to feel so keenly, might not in an age of peace and progress have been vastly in advance of what it at present is ? But allowing that England would have suffered in evexy way from federation, is there, we would ask, any analogy between the case of England, federated with the Continent " in times past," in an age of absolute government, linked with nations having peoples of different language, customs and manners to her own, and that of New Zealand, federated for purposes of national defence, and for the more efficient administration of international law, with nations the inhabitants of which are allied in blood, and animated by the same spirit of enterprise and freedom 1 There is absolutely none. But this "antifederation" cry is a useful political watchword. Sir George Grey and his party may be perfectly justified in using it, on. the principle that all's fair in love and war. But we do not think the working m^n are likely to be cajoled by it. Federation is not a machine to rob the people of their liberty ; it is a necessity of the age we live in ; it Is a prelude to the advent of the age of Peace, an age in which the working man will be far better off than it was possible for them to be in an era of glory, bloodshed, and legal rapine.