MAKERS OF NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 15, 13 April 1907, Page 22

MAKERS OF NEW ZEALAND

By

H. H. LUSK

SIR GEORGE GREV. I'l’ may be objected, to begin with, that, in the first instance at least, Sir George Grey naturally belongs io another and wider class than the men of whom 1 shall have to speak as the “Makers of New Zealand.” To a certain extent, it must be admitted, this is true. Grey’s services to the Empire, and through the Empire to tiie world, did not begin with New Zealand, and it may even be questioned whether his work here gave in all respects the best opportunities for tiie display of his natural peculiarities of character. In South Australia, batore lie bad been here, and in South Africa when lie had left New Zealand for the first time, he had opportunities, better, perhaps, than any he obtained here, of displaying the strong points of Ills remarkable personality. And yet the “Makers of New Zealand” without Grey would be almost as bad as the iday of Jlabdet with the part of the "rince left out. Not that he was necessarily the greatest of the then who began the work of building up the nation that was to be, but that he was the first, and the man who was able for tliat reason to leave the stamp of his pwn individuality on its institutions, and therefore on its history. It is at least doubtful whether anybody ever knew Sir George Grey really .well. Up to a certain point, indeed, it was easy to make his acquaintance, and to get upon what seemed a frank and friendly footing with him; but to anybody who was at all critical in his estimate of men it soon became apparent that there was always something behind which, for some reason, was not expressed. Most likely this habitual reticence was a matter of original temperament, and was not, as many people thought, a deliberate policy of concealment, but at any rate there can be little doubt it was responsible for the fact that throughout his long career it can hardly be said that Grey ever had a friend. Many people knew him; many more admired him; a good many disliked, him very heartily: it cannot be said with truth (hat anybody ever became ii-ally intimate ' r with the man, however closely they may have been connected with him in political life, or however largely he may have made use of them in working out his plans. This was" probably at once the strong and the weak point of the character of the man’ who has with much justice been Sillied/ England's Great Proconsul.” It enabled him to 'make use of many men, while lie was used by none himself, which certainly contributed not a little to his executive success; it made him treat others as pawns in n game of chess, not to be sacrificed hastily, indeed, but to be retained and valued mainly for lhe use that could be made of them in strengthening his position and carrying his game to success —an attitude which did not tend to produce affectionate regard. x From first to last the temperament of Sir George Grey was (hat of a : a man to wdjoriv public life, its cares, successes, results,Avere everything, or nearly everything—private life, in comparison, almost nothing, lie had refined private tust.c.s, bid up private enthusiasms, just, as lit* had many pleasant friendly acquaintances . with people all over the World, but no intimacies that might have proved embarrassing to him -in his {Miblio position. When I first made his acquaintance

he , was a man not much over forty years of age, but one who had even then been the almost autocratic Governor of two young colonies for fully twelve years, lie was fond of children, and nobody knew better how to make himself agreeable to young people. Walking—generally alone—was at that time his chief amusement, and wherever he went he had a pleasant smile and a kindly word of interest and sympathy for old and young. At that time there was no better known figure about Auckland than that of the Governor. Rather tall mid thin, his active a/I yet always dignified figure was familiar everywhere, though perhaps the long hili ’of Parnell, with its thin sprinkling of houses', was his favourite walk, in which he never failed to return every salute, and hardly ever to notice children, even when, as was often the case, his face showed that he was studying some question deeply enough to have justified and explained absent-mindedness in anybody else. To anybody who knew him then,' and cared to speculate on what he knew, there were two Greys bound up together within the outer covering of the° Governor’s personality; there was the man, pleasant and gonial in his every-day manner, interested in everything’ anil everybody with whom he came in contact; always dignified, but never haughty; there was the statesman, full of plans for the future, and looking at nearly everybody he met as a possible instrument to be used in carrying out those plans. The first Grey was' the one presented to the public, and few men could have made themselves more popular; the other was the man recognised bv the comparatively few- with whom he came into closer contact, and of these nearly all admired his power, lint very fed indeed had any strong feel in" of personal liking.

.Perhaps it would give a wrong impression to give Sir George Grey the new title of “ Empire Builder.” A great Imperial administrator would more nearly represent the special turn of his mind, and only a builder in so far as a commanding talent for administration, exercised in a very imperial fashion, could entitle him to the somewhat vague title. As an administrator he was remarkable, perhaps almost unique. It was his fortune—good or bad, according to the point of view from which it was looked at, perhaps—to succeed men who had allowed public affairs'to drift into positions of difficulty, and seemed wholly incapable of setting them right. This was the position in South Australia, in New Zealand, and Cape Colony, and from the English Government’s point of view, at . any rate, in Nf-w Zealand in 18(12, and in each case the colonists and the Home Government had good reason to be satisfied with the results. In South Australia he unquestionably saved the young colony ft’bm

utter bankruptcy and failure, and left it contented, and on the high road to prosperity. In New Zealand he found was raging between natives and European settlers, the arrest of all progress, and utter stagnation in what trade and settlement existed; after eight years he left it with its difficulties apparently at an end, and European settlement so far advanced and established that the time seemed to have arrived when its people might safely be left to work out their own political destiny. It need hardly be said that these results were not reached without the use of means which a good many people considered at least questionable. There were not a few, both of Maoris and Europeans, who looked with disapproval on tiie policy which surprised a pa on Sunday, when the natives had been led to believe the pakeha’s religion forbade him to fight, and the even more questionable act of kidnapping a hostile chief who had trusted to a guarantee of safeconduct, at least implied. There were even more perhaps, who resented, the policy which swept away advantages obtained by the New Zealand Company, and a good many private persons under the more or less questionable sanction of Grey’s predecessors in office. In those, as in many other public aets of his career, both in New Zealand and elsewhere, there can be little doubt that he relied on the principle that the” policy of the greatest good to the greatest number justified in statesmanship many things wholly’ unjustifiable in private life.

It would not have been easy to meet with any educated Englishman, born early in the last century, who was more completely democratic in his theories of government than Sir George Grey, and when the opportunity arrived for devising a constitution for the colony which he looked on as destined to carry on the traditions of England in this part of the world, he naturally turned to America for his model. As originally- drafted, indeed, by Grey, the constitution of New Zealand was in most respects an alinost exact copy of that of the United Stales, in which the provinces took the place of the States of the Union, and the Provincial Councils elected, in equal numbers, the members of the Legislative Council. He even favoured the American system of elective judges, and had reproduced on a small scale the democratic ideal of the founders of the great American Republic in every respect but that of the Governor, nominated by the English Cabinet, and representing the sovereign. Had it been possible, lie would undoubtedly’ have suggested the substitution even of an elected Governor, but this he was well aware could not be acepted by the Home Government, or embodied in a statute that would run the gauntlet of criticism by an English Parliament more than half a century ago. As it was, the original draft was materially altered—a nominated Council being substituted for one chosen by the Provincial Councils, and a good many minor alterations being made, all of them "in the direction of 'toning down the excessively democratic features of tiie proposed ebnstitution, as they' appeared to English statesmen fifty-three years ago. Tn spite of this the constitution drafted by Grey, and altered by others in deference, to the prejudice of the day was the most democratic of all that Were granted by England to any of her young colonies in these early days. This, unquestionably, New Zealand owed to Grey, and his strongly democratic theories of government. Perhaps the most singular men-

tal characteristic of the man was that his theoretical democracy of sentiment in government was combined with an unyieldingly autocratic temper in the conduct of public affairs. In theory it was the wilt of the people -Hiat was entitled at all times to rule; in practice tt was that will only ns expressed through Grey himself. A republic ruled by a dictator who possessed the confidence: of a majority of the people, was there can be little doubt, Sir Geo. Grey’s real personal ideal of a perfect government; at any’ rate it was the only form of popular government which he was fitted to exercise. This accounts for the . fact that his success as a ruler was in alinost exact proportion to the opportunity which his position gave for autocratis actinon. In South Australia, in New Zealand, and in South Africa, his success as a ruler was remarkable, because in the first and last, and in the second during his first administration, he was practically' dictator. His second New Zealand Governorship was less successful, for then he had a Cabinet to be consulted; his attempt to form and work with a Cabinet of which he was Premier was the least successful of all, because his genius was that of a ruler rather than that of a leader of men.

(To be continued.)