Sir George Grey found himself reinforced, in so believing, by the opinion of General Grant. This he heard from Sir T. Fowell Buxton; who had travelled in America with Mr. W. E. Forster, while Grant was President. The General took his English visitors for a drive, and his talk was of military matters and his horses, until they were nearly back at Washington. Suddenly, he went off on the subject of an alliance between Great Britain and the United States, his hopes and expectations of it. He added that he should not live to witness the drawing together, but he was certain it must become a great power in the world, especially on sea.
'Well,' Sir George commented, 'if General Grant, a man of singularly practical character, was among the prophets, I am quite content to be in his company.'
When he talked of the federation of the British Empire, or of the larger welding in which he had belief, Sir George would declare, 'No good service is rendered by creating difficulties ahead. We may be certain of this that each generation, as it comes rolling on, will hold its own views upon every subject, differing widely, perhaps, from the views of its predecessors. The essential thing, in all government, is to secure to the people at large, the power of enacting the laws they deem to be the wisest and best suited to the circumstances of their age.'
Thus, while he had worked out definite lines of federation, he was content if principles were accepted. 'No man,' he argued, 'should presume to lay down the law in such a matter; just let the vision be realised by natural process. Be there the hewing of materials, and the building would follow by and by. If it were possible to solidify the English-speaking people for common purposes, the gain to them, and to mankind, would be splendid. The blessings of federation were a hundredfold.
'Why,' said Sir George, 'war would practically die off the face of the earth. The armed camp which burdens the Old World, enslaves the nations, and impedes progress, would disappear. The Anglo-Saxon race, going together, could determine the balance of power for a fully peopled earth. Such a moral force would be irresistible, and debate would take the place of war, in the settlement of international disputes. If the arbitrament of reason, ousts the arbitrament of war, a new and beautiful world is unveiled.'
It was because Sir George saw, in federation, a vista of brighter life for the masses, that he was so persuaded an advocate of it, so keen a believer in its realisation. As a result of the cohesion of the race, we should have all life quickened and developed; unemployed energies called into action in many places where they lay stagnant. Below federation, the very essence of it, was decentralisation, the getting of the people fairly spread over the earth, not huddled into a few places where decay would follow overcrowding.
'Every section of the British Empire,' Sir George detailed this point, 'having complete self-government would contain its own life within itself, would offer the highest opportunities to the labours of its citizens. Whenever you constitute a new centre of authority you create a basis of general activity, which, in its turn, has off-shoots. There would be more employment; the waste lands of the Old World, and the still untilled ones of the New World, would be taken up. Federation is not the mere grouping of us together, but the settlement of problems that have long been forcing themselves to the front. Difficulties which we can ill solve now, which appear to block our path, we should be able to settle with ease.'
Sir George discerned an element, not fully dreamt of, which would immensely strengthen the federal idea. It was the influence of women, growing to be a powerful factor in the affairs of the world. This sweet authority would tend to keep nations from plunging into scenes of bloodshed. It would be a blessed assistance towards the peace of the world in times of excitement, and so a bulwark for federation, which was the creator of peace.
Finally, the rise of the Anglo-Saxon, by means of federation, would benefit the world in respect to religion and language kernels of all advancement. It would mean the triumph of what, if carried out, was the highest moral system that man in all his history had known—Christianity. And it would imply the dominance of probably the richest language that ever existed, our own English.
So speaking, Sir George Grey summed up: 'Given a universal code of morals and a universal tongue, how far would be the step to that last great federation, the brotherhood of mankind, which Tennyson and Burns have sung to us?'
NOTE. Those who desire to study Sir George Grey's full and final scheme for Anglo-Saxon federation, may refer to the 'Contemporary Review' of August 1894, where it appeared as an article by the present writer.
'I am just waiting my time to go, meanwhile doing what little I can that may be useful to my fellow-men.'
These were the words of Sir George Grey, and none could better express the closing years of his life. If he might sow, in some wayside garden, an idea for the common happiness, he counted that a day on the active list. It made him feel young again, blowing the old fires red and rosy. Ever, he held to his tryst with Dean Stanley.
'One evening,' it had been made, 'the Dean and myself were walking round Westminster Abbey, as the doors were being closed. It was during my visit to England, after my last Governorship, and the Dean was full of the restorations then being carried out on the Chapter House. Naturally, I had the keenest interest in whatever affected the ancient seat of the House of Commons, regarding it as a shrine of constitutional government.
'Dean Stanley wanted to show me everything, to explain the whole place. He told me of a theory of his that the Commons, while sitting there in the circular room, probably had no parties, so called. They were grouped in a ring, not confronting each other sharply, antagonistically, and everything went on with quietness. But when they moved across to St. Stephen's, they found themselves set opposite-wise, which fact may have tended to create the party system. That was the idea put to me by the Dean, though how far he applied it, I do not recollect.
'Anyhow, he was anxious that I should study the Chapter House under him, but it was too late to do it that evening. "Never mind," he said, "let us wait until things are more complete and we shall go in together." "Oh," I answered, "I really need not trouble you. I can look in myself one afternoon." "No, no," he insisted, with much good nature, "I want to be your guide. You must promise that you will not go there without me." "Very well, then," I assured him, "I shall wait until you take me."
'The Dean and myself did not, as it happened, meet again at that period, nor were we, by the decree of Providence, ever to meet. Thus, I shall not see the earliest home of the House of Commons, as it has been restored, for I promised.'
There swam in Sir George's recollection, a little story touching the evolution of the body politic, during his own time. It was like Maui of Maori legend, and Arthur 'by wild Dundagil on the Cornish sea,' in that he scarce knew whence it came. He inclined to link it, a whiff of airy gossip, with two of the most strenous middle Victorians, but would hold no names certain.
'At all events,' he said, 'the Cabinet was formerly a smaller body than it now is, and less formal in its proceedings. The members would drop in, with the newspapers in their hands, and take a chair, here or there, as the case might be. A quite large Cabinet being created, the Prime Minister suggested, "Gentlemen, had we not better sit round the table?" The suggestion met with approval, and the Premier made to take his place at the head of the table. Thereupon, a colleague caught up a chair, put it beside that of the Premier, and sat down with the remark, "There is no such thing as a President of the Cabinet."'
For a good while, Sir George Grey spoke of himself as being in England, only to bid England farewell. Some fine morning he would pack his trunks, and sail south to those who knew him best. Every step in New Zealand was a greeting; in London a mile was bare. Once he did pack his trunks, but the fine morning never arrived.
When rallied about that, Sir George defended himself, 'I suppose I want to see what I can do, as one of your most eminent statesmen did, in his youth. He went to a small island, then connected with the family property, and studied laboriously for a whole winter. He desired to establish what was in him, what exertion he was likely to be equal to, in the world's affairs. Then, lest trouble should ever befall him, he, another time, went into lodgings to test how little it was really possible to live upon. I don't recall at what figure the experiment worked out, but it was a ridiculously small one.'
A spirit, kindred in its attitude to the seriousness of life, animated Sir George Grey, even as he spoke. Affairs in England seemed critical, and he would stay on to watch them, since any hint might be of import. In London there beat the heart of the Empire, and he would keep his ear to it. He heard most clearly through that trumpet, the endless roll of London's traffic. Moreover, the great city, while she hardly nodded to Sir George, smote him afresh with the spell which is hers alone. Oh to be in London!
So dates moved past, and Sir George Grey, as he waned under the growing load, realised that he and Greater Britain would be no more together. That thought he parried, not liking to admit it, but the painter was cut when he resigned his place in the Parliament of New Zealand. It had to be done, therefore let it be done; but it was a shock, like losing a limb to the surgeon.
A hail from Greater Britain became thrice welcome, and that of Mahomed Naser Eben took Sir George by siege, especially its quaintness and literary touch. When Governor of the Cape Colony, he sent word up-country, by David Livingstone, that he would be glad of any manuscripts throwing light upon the Greeks and Romans in Africa. To a British man-of-war, making patrol of the Mombasa coast, there rowed out a boat, having a respectable old Arab gentleman in the stern-sheets. He handed up a parcel, desiring it to be delivered to Sir George Grey at Cape Town. Sir George had left South Africa for New Zealand, and the manuscripts, as the contents of the bundle proved, were sent after him.
'But nobody could read them,' he stated, 'until here, as I learn, an Assyrian gentleman has been visiting Auckland. What is my surprise, on opening this envelope, to find everything made clear in English, including Mahomed Naser Eben's letter to me. He addresses me as a cavern of hospitality, which is very handsome, and a phrase with a true Oriental flavour. Unluckily, he appears to have got lost for two years in that part of Africa marked Oman on the map. Hence a delay with him, in sending the manuscripts, but he need not have apologised, my single feeling being gladness that he discovered himself again.'
It was nigh forty years since Mahomed Naser Eben wrote, and in the interval many skies had changed. Two had been apart, a sundered heaven, the doing of that tragedy which ever lies in wait upon romance. But they came together, as the clouds were gathering, and upon them the sun ray of Mahomed Naser Eben could sparkle. Sir George had scarce mastered the mystery of his epistle when he was drawing out a reply to it. His only doubt was whether the erudite Arab might not have changed his address!
'We are about the same age,' Rewi imparted to Sir George Grey in New Zealand, 'and when I go, your time will be approaching.' Sir George recalled this, on hearing that Rewi had been gathered to his Maori fathers. He was buried in a grave which 'The Governor' had selected, near the spot where the last fight took place between the Maoris and the English. 'We should lie together,' Rewi also held, 'as being the two people who brought peace to New Zealand. Sir George's voice shook when telling this proof of Maori affection, as his eyes turned dim at reading an address sent him, to fabled London, by the men of that race in the Cook Islands.
'Our word to you, O Grey,' they saluted him, 'is this. We wish you happiness and health, and to know that our love goes forth with this letter. We wish to tell you that your name will never be forgotten by the Maori people in these islands Many of us knew you in New Zealand, but all have heard of the great things done by you, for European and for Maori, in that country. May God's blessing rest upon you, and give peace and happiness to you, who have done so much for the peace and happiness of others, in your long and honoured life.'
An illness brought that life very near the ebb, and friends wondered, of an evening, if next morning they would hear his simple, tender, 'Good-bye to you.' Sir George waited ready, abiding in the faith, witnessing of it, 'Man should have religion as his guide in all things. I feel that God communicates with His creatures when they please. He lets them know what is right and wrong, even argues with them.
'It was a comfort to me, in trying hours, to feel that I was working according to the way of my Maker, so far as I could comprehend it. Perhaps I most experienced this nearness of an all-wise Providence while I was amid the heathen acres of the far south. You seemed to be communing with the Great Spirit more intimately in these lonely haunts than elsewhere. I have always been supported by the belief in God's goodness, as manifested to me. My judgment is that man cannot prosper if he falls from faith, by which I mean trust in a Supreme Being.'
There were no shadows, no terrors for Sir George Grey, in what we chilly term death. He could look blithely along the road, ready to greet it with outstretched hand when it turned the corner. Just, he waited to go, as he might have waited for a sure arm on which to lean. He saw the lamps afar. 'When one has reached an old age,' was his vista, 'the thought of death should not be a sad thought. It is not sad with me, but on the contrary pleasant, meaning a happy event to be welcomed. Death! I do not believe in death, except that the flesh dies; for the spirit goes on and on. Terror of death is necessary, in order to keep men and animals from killing themselves. That is all.
'The future is mystery, for none have returned to inform us what is there. But our knowledge of the, Creator teaches us that His goodness will be greater and greater towards His creatures. If the babe leaves the womb, to come into such a beautiful world as ours, how beautiful a world may we not pass into? It was terrible to the babe to be torn from the womb, but it had no idea what loving hands were waiting for it.
'We have God's assurance that He is always good to His creatures who die, and we may be satisfied. Really, there is a lovely romance in death, in the spirit being released from the clay, which, through ill-health or old age, has grown to burden it. That spirit, struggling onward and upward, shakes itself free and soars off, bright, fresh, eternal, to the other world for which it had been preparing. It purifies itself, by throwing aside a weight, and thus death is not death but life; another birth, life in death.'
Not then, not for another year and more, was the departure to be. 'Put my watch under my pillow,' he looked up cheerily to those at his bedside; 'and thank you for taking care of it while I have been ill. It's the watch the Queen gave me, and I like to have it near.' But that illness sapped and mined him, even while he proposed, 'Oh, yes, we'll go down to Chelsea and inspect Carlyle's old house. I'll try and fill it again with him, in particular the room at the top which he built to be noise-proof, and which wasn't.' The visit was never paid, but the celebration of the Queen's reign of sixty years still found Sir George able to be about.
That was right well, for how many had made such a contribution to the history and dominion of the reign? Truly, dreams had come about, since he listened to the bells of Plymouth, when taking passage by the "Beagle." Here was goodly proof of things achieved for the happiness of men, such as even he had scarce dared to imagine. The fairies had been working.
Sir George followed, in imagination, the nations of the realm as they walked through London, its capital, while all the world .wondered. He attended, in heart, the simple service at St. Paul's Cathedral, where he himself was to find a last resting-place, sleeping with the worthies. He could picture the great fleet, seal of the sea-power which made all possible, spread itself athwart the Solent. Yes Sir George Grey heard, from afar, the 'tumult and the shouting,' and they rounded off his own career as the True Briton and True Imperialist.
He heard also, amid the glorious rumble, of another royal progress made by the Queen. It was at her Highland home, the spectators the eternal hills which lie about it. For caparisoning there was a donkey-chaise, and for escort a Highlander, carrying the shawls. The Queen was bound for the manse, across the fields by the river-side, to pray with the minister's wife that he, being ill, might be made whole.
That was the royal progress Sir George Grey would best have liked to see, because it held the key to the other. From it, he sent, by his friend the Prime Minister of New Zealand, a last message to Greater Britain. 'Give the people of New Zealand my love,' it ran, 'and may God have you in His keeping? It was the closing of the book, save for the blank pages which occur at the end.
'It's all light,' was Selwyn's dying exclamation in Maori. None knew the Maori words that Sir George Grey murmured, and none doubted what they were. To us, the island race of two worlds,
Under the Cross of Gold,That shines over city and river,There he shall rest for ever,Among the wise and the bold.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Romance of a Pro-Consul, by James Milne