Cut the painter! You cannot imagine any sensible
person of these later, and regenerate, days having such an idea. Throw
away Australasia or South Africa! You have heard my retort on such a
demand. Who had the right, to tell another man, of the same blood, that
he was no longer a Briton, because he lived many sea miles distant? Who
could answer that? None! It was all a whimsy, a craze, a nightmare, which
will never return--Never, Never!'
Sir George instructed the country, by word and pen, on the true value and
destiny of the Colonies. He moved about, a crusader, indignant at
separatism, eloquent to knot, and re-knot, the painter. For the slash of
the knife he offered federation, and, springing therefrom, a happier,
better world altogether. He did not doubt, to his last days, that the
peril of the Empire was very real. Neither did he doubt that it was
overcome, largely by the wisdom and foresight of the Queen. 'But for her
action,' he declared in so many words, 'events would most probably have
ended in the cutting adrift of some of the colonies. She saw true, and
clear, and far, as the Prince Consort when alive had seen, and the Anglo-
Saxon race has reason to be thankful.'
Wherever he had been, Sir George Grey had endeavoured, in his own phrase,
to extend the liberties and right's of the people.
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