A Great Leader.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17631, 7 December 1922, Page 6

A Great Leader.

Some fifty years ago the hundred employees of the late Mr John ■Grigg, of Longbeach j included a seventeen-year-old lad, named Massey, who did anything that a station hand in those days was asked to, do and earned a reputation for industry and steadiness. Today, as Prime Minister of the Dominion, with a, record of . nearly thirty years of publio service, he is inviting the electors to give him a further proof of the confidence which they have reposed in him for the past ten years. From a purely material point of view Mr Massey's career is a striking proof that New Zealand is rightly describect as the land of opportunity, in which a man of character and brains jnay, by *iiß exercise of determination and energy reach any position, even the highest. The. qualities that made the lad at Longbeach respected by his fellows, and that made hint later on t successful farmer, are the same by which Mr Massey won his way into Parliament and thence into power as held; of" the Government. Their value is recognised far beyond New Zealand. It has in the past few years fallen to Mr Massey, more than to any previous occupant of his position, to take part on numerous occasions m tho Councils of the Empire, and there,' in the company of representatives of every oversea State and Dominion and of the leadore of the British Government, he has achieved a reputation for strength of character/stability, and abundant common sense. "We look for senso when"ever Mr Massey speaks," said a leading English journal last year, "and we "never fail to find it." "I know "him," said Lord Milner, at a gathering held in- Sir* Massey's honour in London, "as the most 6taunch, th*> "most steady, and the most consistent "■of' Imperial statesmen. I won't pay " him so poor a compliment as to raj' "he never changes his mind, but he "never changes his direction. On all "fundamental questions of policy yon "always know where to find him and "when you find him you have found a "rock on which you can build." Steadfastness, is, indeed, the "outstanding characteristic of the statesman —we do not use the word lightly—who has guided New Zealand for ten years. He is neither unbalanced by prosperity nor dismayed by adversity. In the darkest days of the war he neve* lost heart, and his calm courage and unfailing resolute cheerfulness gave,,him a place in the hearts of the people that remains unchanged to this day. Then he was recognised by friend and opponent alike as a great leader. One who up to quite recent times wa3 among his strongest political critics has said that "there is no man "in life to-day who has the "essential qualities of leadership ex- « cept Mr Massey .... no man in our

"public life who has profited more by "his experience, has shown more markedly his steadily ripening judgment "and increasing political sagacity, and " a broader outlook than he." In the difficult depressing times through which wo have passed since the war Mr Massey's unfaltering optimism was an inspiration to th& people. He never permitted us to doubt that the cloud* would break, and his reassuring confidence that better days lay just ahead undoubtedly helped to allay the public's fears and avert panic. lli6 personal popularity is unbounded, and in spite of the criticism which his political opponents level at his policy, not one has ever uttered a word against his character or his honesty. Indeed, more than ono has gone out of his way. oven in the heat and bitterness of the election campaign, to pay a tribute to Mr M assay's stainless probity and many admirable qualities To-day, with his physical vigour and his mental powers undiminished by his arduous duties, more capable than ever of leading New Zealand through the period of reconstruction that yet awaits her, Mr Massey invites the electors to pronounce upon his past administration and his policy for the future —to decide whether they shall afford him the opportunity of restoring the Dominion, to prosperity, or whether they shall entrust ths task to a politician without experience, without a policy, and almost without a party, and who could not govern except as the servant of a party whose policy, as put into practice in another land, has dragged it down to chaos and despair. We do not think the people of New Zealand will hesistate in committing their fortunes again to a leader who has so richly earned their confidence and their goodwill.