Disraeli offered to find him a seat in Parliament, perhaps as a sort of balm for wounded feelings. 'I put that meaning on the offer,' Sir George remarked, 'and really it was very good-natured on Disraeli's part. It was so, all the more, when I remembered our contest over the affair of the Kaffir chiefs and their allowance. You see, I rather had the best of that, and his friends chaffed him about it.' Sir George was his own political party all through life, so far as he was a politician at all. Disraeli asked no pledges, but, as Sir George observed, 'We were far divided in our views, and I should have been in revolt almost before I had taken my seat. Therefore I declined with thanks.'

Meanwhile, being free of official shackles, he hurled himself against the movement, rampant in England, to throw off the Colonies. He was Pro- Consul at large, under warrant of a duty for which he held himself accountable to the English-speaking people. He doubted whether he was not, thus, doing even better work, than he would have found to his hand as an employed Governor. There rang from end to end of the country a shriek of dismemberment: 'Cut the painter, chop off the Colonies, they are a burden to us; we should confine ourselves to ourselves!'

'It is difficult,' said Sir George, 'to make anybody, who was not in that struggle, understand it. One would have called it simply freakish, if the possible outcome had been less grave. It was a strange fit to seize upon the country, and unfortunately it expressed the view of nearly all the leading statesmen. 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. 'Thus,' he instanced, 'until I went to the Cape, no judge had been appointed to the supreme court there, except from England. On vacancies occurring, I named two local men, both, I fancy, of Dutch family, thus breaking down a bad custom. I felt that it was impossible to govern a nation upon terms which hurt its manhood and dignity.' His crusade in England was on a like note, and eventually it found him a parliamentary candidate for Newark.

'Immediately my friends heard of the vacancy,' he narrated, 'they proposed that I should stand for it. I did so, an independent Liberal, and I was ostracised by the party leaders, who had another candidate they wanted to get in. I suppose I was too advanced altogether, and indeed I preached a kind of new gospel. It included emigration; a handmaid to federation when the Colonies had ripened. Then I was for free education, and disestablishment all round, as a necessary thing in relation to Christianity—in fact as one of its main doctrines. Farther, I advocated Irish Home Rule, even drafting a short Bill, and in fine I was for a variety of innovations.'

Apart from all else, he understood that his Liberal rival was required in the House of Commons, to help Cardwell with military affairs. Anyhow, he gathered that impression from a visit which Mr. A. J. Mundella, journeying over from Nottingham, paid him at Newark. The encounter supplied a good story, and its manner was Sir George Grey in a characteristic mood. This was how he gravely met Mr. Mundella's gentle overture, 'Now, won't you withdraw from the contest?'

'Yes, I quite see the difficulty. You want somebody to assist Cardwell. However well your suggestion might obviate the difficulty, I have an alternative which I think would equally suit. I had a military training, I did very creditably as a student at Sandhurst, I served with the colours, and I attained the rank of captain. I shall be glad to show you my papers, proving my knowledge of military affairs; and altogether, if your War Minister requires somebody to prompt him, I don't see why I should not fill the place as satisfactory as another. 'Oh,' exclaimed Mr. Mundella, 'there's no use in coming to you with anything, for you always make a joke of it.' So they parted, and laughing, over the years, at the incident, Sir George said: 'You know Mundella was a capital fellow, of sterling ability and many qualities, but I'm afraid he was never a humorist.'

Sir George was not to be member for Newark, since, in the long run, to save the loss of a Liberal seat, he retired. His committee put it to him that this was the rule of the road, and he felt it no sacrifice to quit the field. The tribes had to be, pacified, but how different the methods in primitive and civilised society! Two tribes fell out during his first Governorship of New Zealand, and they must settle their difference by combat. Sir George deprecated such things, as not being conducive to the welfare of the Colony. No sooner did he hear of the duel, than he ordered a warship to up-steam and carry him to the spot. He was put ashore, when the day was breaking, at a point still sixteen miles from the combatants. He obtained a, horse for himself, another for an orderly, and the pair were given rein.

'I believe,' he told, 'that our first mounts proved not very good, only, at a farm on the way, we were able to replace them with better. Our ride was across rough country, innocent of roads, but we reached our destination just as the campaign opened for the day. I waited a minute to master the state of parties, then galloped straight between them, and called out "Stop! Stop!" Amazed at my appearance, they just shouted along their ranks "Te Kuwana"—the Maori effort to say "The Governor."