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The Life and Times of Sir George Grey, K.C.B.

Chapter XLIII. — New Principle Of Appointing Colonial Governors

page 340

Chapter XLIII.
New Principle Of Appointing Colonial Governors.

"His head
Not yet by time completely silvered o'er
Bespeaks him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpaired."

The curt letter, in which the Duke of Buckingham in fact dismissed Sir George Grey from the public service, was well calculated to wound its receiver sorely. No regret was expressed, no approval of long and faithful service, no sympathy with the suffering, which such a deliberate insult, must inevitably cause.

The Governor was not greatly surprised. For more than twenty years he had refused to truckle to Downing Street and Pall Mall. Minister after Minister, both Liberal and Conservative, had chafed at his inflexible opposition and independent judgment. He had been threatened often—accused times without number. To his other faults this was added that the threats could never be fulfilled, the accusations were always refuted.

The time was come as the Colonial Office thought, when they could do without Grey. The transition period, as they believed, page 341had passed. The colonies were fairly launched upon a safe course, and henceforth Governors might he found who depended not on strength of character, on wisdom and judgment, but whose claims to preferment rested on social rank and courtly manners.

There seems little doubt that Lord Carnarvon held Sir George Grey's despatch, so strongly animadverting on the position taken by Mr. Cardwell and General Cameron, as a direct act of mutiny. It was the bad fortune of Lord Carnarvon always to be drawn into antagonism to Sir George, and always to be compelled to feel that he was "a dangerous man."

Before proceeding to extreme steps Lord Carnarvon requested the Governor of New Zealand to withdraw this document. To this request Sir George gave an emphatic refusal. While the refusal was on its way to England Lord Carnarvon resigned, and the Colonial Office was handed over to the Duke of Buckingham. In May, 1869, His Grace acknowledged Sir George's letter. Correspondence most probably passed between the Duke and Lord Carnarvon, and the result was that in June the Duke informed the Governor that in a further despatch he would inform the Governor of the appointment of his successor, and the time of his arrival in the colony.

There was another reason which probably influenced the Imperial Government in their conduct at this time. Mr. Disraeli, in his ultra aristocratic proclivities, had determined to confine the governorships of the great colonies to peers or the sons of peers. Henceforth the right to represent the Crown in the great dependencies was to be a birthright. It was indispensable that a man chosen as governor should be "born in the purple." One exception only was to exist. To marry a peer's daughter was in some cases to confer the same right as noble birth. It was indeed urged by Mr. Disraeli and his friends that the colonists themselves desired this new departure.

One of the ills which colonies are heirs to arises from the success which attends so many of their early leaders. In new countries riches are oftentimes swiftly amassed. The sudden development of fresh sources of wealth, the opening of mines, the discovery and utilisation of pastoral countries and wide agricultural areas, with their attendant commerce, finance, and increased land values, have page 342specially during this century raised a large class of colonial monied aristocracy. Of these considerable numbers return to the old country, and make strenuous efforts to penetrate the sacred circles of what is called "society." It thus happens that there is always in London an army of colonists, formidable both in numbers and financial power. Many of these are men who have occupied prominent positions in the political and social world in Australia, Canada, South Africa, or New Zealand. They have united to form associations, partly social, partly intellectual, and indirectly political in character. They are always present to the English public, and are certainly sufficiently self-assertive. But in reality they do not represent the public feeling of the colonies, nor are their views at all to be taken as an index of the state of public opinion there, Among them are men of undoubted ability, of unostentatious liberality, and high character; but there are also many who are vulgarly anxious to be—or at any rate to appear to be—on familiar terms with people of high position. Snobbishness is as much a weakness among wealthy colonials as among fortunate tradesmen and the parvenu wealthy of the Mother Country. It is through such channels that, too often, English public men obtain distorted and contemptible ideas of colonial character.

It was probably from such sources that Mr. Disraeli received the impression that, in the sarcastic words of the Saturday Review, "the colonists particularly desire to be governed by the Porphyrogeniti."

It 1867 a new batch of Governors was appointed. Lord Belmore was sent to New South Wales, the Marquis of Normanby to Queensland, Sir George Bowen being sent to New Zealand from that colony, as he had not completed his term, and Lord Canterbury to Victoria. On the appointment of Lord Belmore, the new rule was openly canvassed. The Saturday Review, in a caustic article on that appointment, remarked, "Indeed it seems absurd to be called upon to notice the cool proposition that unless a man is born in the purple he is disqualified from representing the Sovereign in her colonial dependencies. This is an evidence of the intrepidity which presumes on the ignorance of the multitude." To this day, although some noticeable exceptions have from time to time occurred, the rule then established has been acted on, at least by page 343the Conservative party. The most recent appointments carry it out fully. Lord Carrington and the Earls of Hopetoun, Onslow, Kintore, and Jersey have had the Australasian Colonies committed to their charge.

It is said that Lord Knutsford alleged that the colonies cared little or nothing for ability in their Governors, but regarded it as due to themselves that gentlemen of rank, wealth, and social qualifications should be appointed to represent the Queen, at any rate in the more important colonial possessions.

In the practical dismissal of the Governor of New Zealand, the Colonial Office accomplished two objects. It severed the connection with a Governor whom it cordially disliked, and it opened a place for some titled protege under the new colonial regulations. Both reasons were understood and appreciated by Sir George. As regarded himself he felt that he was treated discourteously. As regarded the new rule for the qualification of future Governors, he felt that the efficiency of the public service would be impaired, a laudable ambition would be taken from a large number of men eager to serve their Queen and country, and an altogether false idea would henceforth govern the relations between Great Britain and her colonics, which might possibly lead to evil results. Sir George had long since arrived at the belief that complete freedom in self-government, to the full extent of selecting their own Governors, alone could enable the colonies to achieve the greatest results in happiness and usefulness.

Sir George Grey had, as we have seen, been promised by the Duke of Newcastle the government of Canada when his term had expired at the Cape of Good Hope, but he relinquished that expectation with the government of the latter colony as soon as it was fully determined that he should assume the government of New Zealand, at a time when the difficulties of administration called in an imperative manner for the ability and administrative capacity which he possessed. On his return to England, Grey applied to be re-instated at the Cape, and received answer from Lord Granville that his application had been noted. For twelve months he was kept in uncertainty and suspense, and when, urged by his friends, he applied for a pension, Lord Granville replied that it was not page 344possible to give a pension to any person who was not either sixty years old or incapable of discharging the duties of any public office.

Sir George then allowed the matter to drop, but writing in 1869 he said: "My situation has, however, been rendered by Lord Granville a hard one. I am as capable as I ever was of serving Her Majesty in a good climate, and I am liable at any moment until I am past sixty to be called on by the Secretary of State to serve Her Majesty until I am sixty-six. If I decline to do so, or do so negligently in the opinion of the Secretary of State, I forfeit all claim to pension. Until, therefore, I am past sixty, it if difficult for me to determine on any future plan of life. After a career of great activity I am thus plunged into a life of uncertainty, and without an object of any kind before me…. I feel that after thirtythree years of unusually severe service in the colonial department, and after the sacrifices, personal and pecuniary, which I have on several occasions made to meet the views of the Government, it was hard to condemn me to doubt and uncertainly of this kind, and the expense and discomfort which necessarily followed from it. Twenty-six years' service as Governor, and an intimate acquaintance with the customs of the colonial service, enable me to say that the course pursued towards me is in several respects harsh and unusual."

For a long period Sir George Grey waited and hoped for employment. His enforced idleness while he was waiting the pleasure of Lord Granville did not, in the opinion of many eminent men, evince much wisdom on the part of Ministers. Thus General Napier, an old college chum at Sandhurst, wrote to Sir George Grey in February, 1869: "What a pity they did not send you out to India, instead of Lord Mayo, where your talents would soon have had ample scope, for matters appear to be coming to a crisis there on our north-western frontier." In December of the same year he wrote that Sir George was wanted again at the Cape, "as you are in two or three other colonies, to set things to rights." He then went on to say that he thought Ireland would be all the better for a share of Sir George Grey's government.

Patiently the great pro-Consul waited upon the pleasure of Lord Granville, refusing to believe that his proffered services would be declined. He was in full possession of mental and physical powers page 345such as few men in a generation are permitted to enjoy. The quick activity of youth was indeed-gone, but the ripe judgment of mature age, the enduring powers of a sound manhood, the vast experience of an eventful life, far more than made up for the bounding step or the enthusiastic hopes of bygone days. Not yet sixty years of age, unequalled in his power over savage races, and in his knowledge of practical colonization, he stood alone in the greatness of his views and plans, as well as in his boundless hopes for the future of the English people, and through them, for the nations of the earth. His mind, enriched by a thousand streams of knowledge and reason, instinct with masculine vigour, and guided by the noblest principles, was capable of great, almost unbounded usefulness. To him the Queen, her Ministers, Parliaments, and people had been often indebted. The lives of colonists, their property and safety had been by him conserved. The honour of the Empire had times without number been vindicated by him. No possible opportunity had ever presented itself in vain in which the glory of the Crown or the welfare of the subject could be increased; always successful in the field, always wise in the Council chamber: a leader in every good and worthy enterprise; a patron of learning and the fine arts; a passionate devotee and teacher of science; a born ruler of nations, he was the very first of England's sons who claimed at once the gratitude of his country for foreign work well done, and the proofs of a solitary greatness in colonial government.

South Africa was then and for years after crying out for one hand and brain to guide her. That hand and brain were ready and anxious to take up a work so grateful, hut the calm self-sufficiency of Lord Granville, and the prejudice and dislike of Lord Carnarvon passed by, and relegated the one man who could have saved the Cape from the terrible disaster which threatened it. No greater political blunder was ever committed than that of which Lord Granville was here guilty, afterwards followed by Lord Carnarvon, in relation to Sir George Grey and the colonies of South Africa.