of pioneer colonists, who had overcome almost insuperable difficulties, they felt ashamed of their weakness. Looking around for someone to blame, they fell upon Sir George Grey, whose croakings about the depression, they said, had added to their miseries.
Throughout the whole of the South Island, Sir Julius Vogel’s popularity increased as rapidly as Sir George Grey’s decreased, until the spendthrift Treasurer became the idol of the southern provinces. The general election sent him to the House with thirty-three staunch followers and Sir George Grey with five. Sir Harry Atkinson had thirty-two, and Mr. Montgomery twelve, while there were seven independent Opposition members. The Government, in short, had thirty-two followers, the combined forces of the real Opposition numbered fifty-two, and Sir George Grey’s party had almost collapsed.
As soon as members assembled in Wellington for the session, a solid Opposition was formed. Sir Robert Stout and Messrs. Ballance, Montgomery, and Macandrew, all strong men, helped Sir Julius Vogel to draw up a scheme for a new Ministry. They offered Sir George Grey a seat in it. The old leader, however, could not overcome his dislike to the new leader, and not only refused the offer, but cut himself off from the party by entering into direct communication with Sir Harry Atkinson. Sir Robert Stout and Mr. Montgomery waited upon him at his residence and asked him to give them help. Merely saying that he would consider the matter, he turned and walked out of the room. Next day, when a deputation waited upon him and asked him to accept a portfolio, he flatly refused to be a member of a Ministry in which Sir Robert Stout was Premier and in which Sir Julius Vogel held any office whatever. He told Stout that in making an alliance with Vogel, he had done a wrong to the party with which he had been associated.
Vogel’s infirmities would not allow him to take the Premiership, which therefore fell to Stout, with Vogel as Colonial Treasurer and Ballance as Native Minister and Minister for Lands. It was not a workers’ Government, but it was a Government of hard workers, and it lost no time in settling down to the task it had taken in hand. It seemed that the ideal strong
