POLITICAL MEMORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 165, 14 July 1928, Page 21

POLITICAL MEMORIES.

FIGURES OF SIX DECADES.

mrsonal sketches.

HALL AND McKENZIE.

(By S.S.i

Westby Brook Perceval, whose death in London was announced the other day, was one of the three Christ College Old Boys that made their way! :nto the Hoiise of Representatives at thoj general election of 1887. The other bud-J ding politicians constituting the trio, were the Hon. William Pember Reeves! and Air. Arthur Oravenor Rhodes. Sir VV'estby was returned as the representative of Christchureh South; Mr. Reeves ■•wis the choice of St. Albans, now mainly a part of Christchurch North; i'lid Mr. Rhodes was the elcct of GladMotto, then one of the South Canterbury "•ii-titueneies. Christ College naturally v. .1- elated by the success of its three x liolars, for though none of them had ine.il any great prominence in the playing fields, where fame of the 'teens is established, they all had acquitted themselves more than passing well in the classrooms, and, in any case, they ■were products of the "old school." Mr. Reeves is now the only survivor of the three, and, if truth must be told, the only one that has left any impressive footprint on the sand of the country's public life. At »thc following election Sir Westby was returned as one of the three members for Christchurch City, the larger centres of population meanwhile having been converted into triple electorates, but on the Balance Ministry coming into office in succession to the fifth Atkinson Ministry h© was offered the position of Agent-General, as the Higlv then was •tyled, and, following his own bent, abandoned politics for the modest ambassadorial position in London, where he found congenial surroundings and wide opportunities for useful service. It ■was my privilege, as an audience of one, to be present at a dress rehearsal of Sir Westby's first election speech, and I rcrhember it struck me as being a much better performance than the early platform efforts of either of the other "Old Boys." At the end of the campaign, however, Mr. Reeves in this respect had entirely outstripped his fellow collegians. An apprenticeship to both law and journalism had given him an advantage over his two schoolfellows, who had confined their serious attention to the learned profession. Forty Years in Parliament. Sir John Hall was elected to the House of Representatives, as member for the Cliristchurch Country Districts, in 1855 and remained in Parliament, in either the Upper or the Lower Chamber, \witli two short breaks, until 1593. He was debarred by his official position from occupying a seat between 1860 and 1802, and he was absent in England between 1884 and 1887. On three occasions he resigned a life appointment in the Legislative Council to contest a seat in the House, and on cach occasion was elected, the last time being !u 1879, when he sought an opportunity to assist in extricating the country from an extremely difficult financial position. During the thirty-eight years he was closely associated with the public life of the country he controlled, at one 'time or another, practically every department of State,' and probably no other Minister of the Crown ever has had so close an acquaintance with the intricacies of the Public Service as the one he acquired by scrupulous attention to details as well as to broad principles. -A competent critic, who has set down nought in malice, suggests that Sir John was "more an official than a statesman," but he hastens to explain that no unworthy imputation is intended by declaring that the subject of his analysis "was born official and became a very useful statesman." One of the great services Sir John rendered to Sow Zealand was in connection with t'hc extension of the parliamentary franchise to women. There were many otlfer earnest, capable workers, of both sexes, engaged in the struggle for women's suffrage," but few of them brought to the campaign.the tact and iletermination that Sir John did,-and none the influence and strategy that he exercised. But for his sage advice and liis diplomatic example, his rejection of the 'Tialty loaf," and his insistence upon finality# the reform might easily have delayed for a decade and this country so deprived of the distinction of pioneering the way for the rest of the Empire. A Case of Champagne. One is tempted to linger a little longer upon the story of this- simple, unassuming public servant, whose Conservatism was of such a comprehensive character that it seemed at times unoffended by the doctrines of the most advanced Socialist of his own day. '"He was a Conservative, he was a land monopolist, he was a denominationalist, he was a protectionist, but he also was a patriot, and a New Zealand patriot"; .my father wrote of our mutual friend wiien the two men had .grown old together. "He was emphatically a man of business, a man of action, a man of prudence. He was a legislator, a cool, sensible debater, a singularly practical economist, a pleasant and affable colleague, with no craving anxiety for (iffice." In later years, when my father lay practically bedridden, and Sir John was a frequent visitor, it was more thah half a political education to be forgotten by the two veterans and to listen to them settling grave affairs of State from their respective* viewpoints. And they were not without their diversions. Sir John, first in jest, knowing my father's rooted aversion to alcohol n* any shape or form, and then in earnest, having consulted a doctor about the matter, again and again urged his obstinate friend to accept a: case of choice champagne for the good of his health. But the invalid was obdurate. He had renounced strong drink mpre than 70 years before, and he was not going back on the faith of a lifetimff. One °day, however, Sir John found his friend in a more rational mood. He would be glad to have th<§ wine. He bad been suffering a good deal from irritation in liis feet, he explained, and he had just read in a stray magazine that bathing with diluted alcohol would alleviate such troubles. Sir John waa delighted, and, hastening his departure Ibe case of choice wine was. deivered within the hour. The feet were bathed, but not with champagne, and the result was entirely satisfactory. The ultimate fate of tlie 'sparkling beverage is another story," "for which all "rights* are strictly reserved.

A Downright Scot. Perhaps all Scots are downright. But in his most emphatic moods Mr. Jolm McKettzie must have been a little more downright than the rest. I have seen him in such moods, and I remember them. Leaving shepherding in Rossshire in 1860 and coming to farming in Otago, he had secured a sufficiently firm footing on the soil of his adopted country in 1881 to descend upon the House of Representatives as member for Moeraki. From then on till his retirement to the Legislative Council in 1900 he was an inspiration and a force in Par-; liament. When Mr. John Ballance was called upon to form a Ministry in succession to the fifth Atkinson Ministry in 1891, the man from Ros?-shire, with 30 years of colonial experience behind him, was the inevitable recipient of the portfolio of Lands. "Tall, broadshouldered and massive, shrewd, prejudiced and outspoken, a warm friend and a bitter enemy," Mr. William Gisborno wrote of hini at that time, "he is like those clansmen whom we read of in the pages of "Waverley" and "Rob Roy," but whom we so seldom meet nowadays, save in the -solitudes of deer forests and grouse moors in Northern Scotland." And with all his rugged exterior, with all his curt address, with all his impatience of restraint and criticism, John McKenzie still was a great Minister of Lands who did more to facilitate effective settlement during his eight or nine years of office than had been done in any three decades before. True, he was able to reap where his great predecessor ill office, the Hon. William Rolleston, had sown, and enjoyed support that gentleman never had received.-but ho had initiative and vision of his own, and his works still remain as monument* to the application of these gifts. His passion was for settlement, more settlement, and still more settlement, and no doubt in his haste he made mistakes of smaller and greater degree, but in the ultimate the country owes him much having accelerated the development of the richest pf its resources. ■