WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 171, 22 July 1930, Page 6

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

No man who ever held the office of Premier, or Prime Minister, of New Zealand ever put more pith into his work than Sir Robert Stout, and this statement is made knowing how Sir Harry Atkinson, who was a Trojan .for work, John Ballance, R. J. Seddon and W. F. Massey, toiled at their task. Stout was much younger than the four great Premiers I have mentioned when he took over the control of the Government. His personality at the time permeated the whole of the political outlook and his activities were such that the colonists commenced to wonder where his next move might la'fld them, for he' dearly loved to act on his own initiative. What an ideal for any masterful man to have reached to be Premier of a country at forty years of age! The Stout-Vogel Ministry survived its full term, which was remarkable statesmanship when we remember what had gone on previously. When election time came Stout was defeated by James Allen. It was not so much his political views which led to his downfall as the attitude he had taken up in Dunedin with regard to religion. It was a crushing defeat and no man could have been harder hit who was Premier of a progressive colony. He had such a grip of things. He had such power and strength of body and mind that the people never doubted his right to the leadership of the Liberal party. Sir Harry Atkinson was sixty-five years of age at the time. His strenuous mode of living as a soldier and a statesman had left him but a few years to live; he was fast wearing out. Beside him at this time Stout was a youthful giant with a powerful voice who made himself heard and one of the best debaters the New Zealand Parliament, has ever known. With John Ballance as lieutenant he might have led the country on from climax to climax and from progress to progress.

Ballance felt the weight and the responsibility thrown on his shoulders when he found himself leader of the Opposition opposed to Sir Harry Atkinson in 1887. Although Ballanca was only fifty-five at the time, or twelve years older than Stout, the next eix years of his life, great statesman though he was, were so full of anxious toil and endeavour that his life was ended, humanly speaking, before it should have been. Stout was out of Parliament when Ballance died, and Seddon was elected as Premier. It is a great story in our political history how Stout, on the resignation of Mr. H. R. J. Reeves of the Inangahua seat on the West Coast, got back into the House just at a time when Seddon's magnetic personality had gathered around him an influence which could not bo upset. Had Sir Robert Stout been in Parliament when Atkinson left office in 1891 his position would have been such that no one could havo disputed his claim to the Premiership. New Zealand might never have known Ballance and Seddon as Premiers. Both of them might have lived years longer than they did. One thing is equally certain, that had not Sir Robert Stout, been thwarted in his political ambitions the very passion and ardour of the man, his love of power and his mastery over his convictions would have worn him out as it has worn out every other man who was a great leader in the political arena. In the councils of the Empire on the other side of the globe Sir Robert Stout would have been a fino figure. None would have excelled him around an Imperial Conference table. There was somethin? very regal about him. There was no court in the wido world where he could not have met other leaders on equal terms. —W.K.H.