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Life of Sir George Grey: Governor, High commissioner, and Premier. An Historical Biography.

The Canterbury and Otago Associations

The Canterbury and Otago Associations.

Grey's relations with the Canterbury Association and the Otago Association were scarcely more harmonious than they were with the New Zealand Company. The friction between him and them was, indeed, constant. From the Canterbury Association, at all events, he received provocation. Arriving in Canterbury in advance of his immigrants, J. R. Godley, the agent of the Association in New Zealand, apparently just to keep his hand in, or perhaps openly to identify himself with the New Zealand Company, of which the Canterbury Association was the daughter, went to Wellington in order to join the officers of the Company and other settlers in the agitation against the Governor. Grey took a divine revenge. Years afterwards Godley admitted that he had been able to consummate his task only by "the wisdom and considerateness of Sir George Grey, who had hitherto practically given to its officers nearly the whole administration of public affairs." He took a more human revenge by thwarting the attempt made in 1851 to extend the Canterbury block.

page 75

He was no less in constant conflict with the Otago Association, and the Rev. Dr. Burns, the spiritual head of the community, said that Sir George Grey's treatment of Captain Cargill, its civil head, had moved in him feelings of something more than Christian indignation. There can be no doubt that he was jealous of these imperia in imperio, which diminished his prerogatives, trenched upon his functions, and hardly lightened his responsibilities. The Company and the two Associations had good reason for boasting, when he left New Zealand, that they ''had given him a lively time.''