ines to be just and wise. If he has
to decide, not for himself only, but for others, unto future generations,
there lies his course all the more. There was one clear line for me,
simply to hang up the constitution, and intimate to the home authorities
my ideas about it. This I did, and fortunately, as I thought, my plea
prevailed with the Colonial Secretary and with Parliament. The latter not
merely went back upon its act, a quite extraordinary event in English
Parliamentary history, but empowered me to draw up another constitution
for New Zealand.'

You seek, for a moment, to contemplate the Mother of Parliaments having a
measure she had given forth, bluntly returned upon her. It was a trying
experience, but she emerged from it more worthy than ever of her proud
title. 'We shall give him,' Peel declared, when Sir George Grey went to
New Zealand, 'an assurance of entire confidence. We shall entrust to him,
so far as is consistent with the constitution and laws of this country,
an unfettered discretion.' Parliament lived up to that promise, and Sir
George set himself to the mapping out of an adequate constitution.

'The circumstances under which I drafted it,' he resumed his account,
'were peculiar, not to say romantic. The folks in New Zealand were aware
of the work that had been delegated to me, and of the date at which it
must be carried out. I was to have the constitution going within five
years. There were various interests, and some of these would advance the
request, "Tell us what you are to recommend; let us have a part in
framing the laws under which we are to be governed. You are an autocrat
in your ways, and it is intolerable that we should not have a voice in
the matter."

'Then I consulted my Executive Council, and I found it the autocrat,
unwilling to let me do anything at all. I believed that, if left to
myself, I could fashion something which would secure the gratitude of New
Zealand for all time. I fancied I was capable of that: as I had visions
of a new form of constitution being helpful, far beyond New Zealand. In
the end, when my thoughts had bent to a shape, I went up into the
mountains between Auckland and Wellington, camped on Ruapehu, in a little
gipsy tent, and set to the task. A few Maoris accompanied me to carry the
baggage; nobody else, for I could not have drawn the constitution with a
cloud of advisers about me.

'Where did I get my inspiration? Oh, by talking to the hills and trees,
fro