ry touching.'

The vital spur was captured, and with it a cohort of Maoris who were
marching to relieve the pa. The garrison of Wereroa were beaten by
tactics, the most deadly of weapons, and they accepted the verdict. The
victory was the more complete, in that the Governor lost never a man of
his tiny army. It would be hard to aver that he did not, even as the
grave Pro-Consul, love such an adventure for itself. That tune sang in
the blood.

Here a signpost is reached. Thirty years had passed, since Sir George
Grey waded into the surf where savagery and civilisation meet, stilling
it for the latter. The harness of empire on him, had been at full strain
all the time. He had come through the passes, alike in the conduct of
wars, and in the higher mission of spreading light and happiness on the
wings of peace. But much sunshine had covered his track, and it was a
light which would not fail.

What think'st thou of our Empire now, though earn'd
With travail difficult?

No, the cold hand of Downing Street intervened; his second Governorship
of New Zealand slammed to a close. It was an era when the Imperial spirit
was niggardly, obscurantist. Brushing aside details, it is easy to see
how the servant and the official masters, choosing different roads, would
ultimately part. The 'dangerous man' was outcast, and thereon he said in
ripeness: 'If my going was equivalent to recall, I have nothing to regret
in what I did. Farther, I think history has vindicated my work as a
whole.'

XVII FOR ENGLAND'S SAKE

'Suppose,' urged Sir George Grey, 'that in my lifetime a hundred men have
died from disappointment and chagrin--that is enough to condemn the whole
system!'

He was speaking of Disraeli's discovery, that the great colonial
Governorships should go to those who had been 'born in the purple' or had
married into it. It was, in a way, a matter personal to him, because the
plan came into operation about the date his Pro-Consulship ceased. He
felt that possibly it influenced the manner of his going, and, if so,
that a wrong was done him as an individual. But he was merely bringing
out his attitude to the system itself.

'I thought it was bad for everybody. In effect, it shut the field against
simple merit; anyhow, discouraged it. A person might have all the
qualities for a Governorship, except part and parcel in the peerage. On
the other hand, it was injurious to the Colonies, because it set up men
on an em