THE IDEAL LEADER.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1195, 2 August 1911, Page 5

THE IDEAL LEADER.

THE MAN NEW ZEALAND WANTS. A TRIBUTE TO MR. MASSEY. (By TelcErapb-Spccinl Correspondent.! ' Auckland, August 1. -Tho country is getting to know Mr. TV. P. Massey, Leader of the Opposition, better, and to know him is to appreciate his sterling worth. A writer in the "Herald" to-day discusses tho question, "Is Mr. Massey a strong man?" and proceeds to answer it in a way that reflects a growing feeling at thisend of the Dominion. He says:— "Again and again it has been said to me, "The hour has come, but where is the man? Never did this Dominion more urgently require .a ' strong, self-reliant, trustable, practical, and sagacious Prime Minister tnan now. What a "pity . Mr. Massey is not a strong man.' I respond, 'What do mean by a strong man? por what kind of a man ard you looking to find younstrong man? Ono who is no man if with his tongue he cannot win a constituency, who cannot make the worso appear the better part, or one whoso love of .approbation and of power, whose acquisitiveness and ambition, roll into one smiling mortal, the historic.Mr. Affable, and, Mr. Face-both-ways, who-trum-pets his achievements and the marvellous progress under his governance, and yet knows that the country's heart and strength are failing for want of population and depletion From over taxation and, borrowing—a Grey or a Vogel? A Glad-' stone or a Louis Phillipc?' Long centuries ago a patriotic propTiet cried aloud in Jerusalem to go through tho city and see if they could find 'a man.' What was his conception? It was of 'a faithful man.' Over the entrance to the picturesque church . of Penwortham, near Preston Lane, a baronial mottt is cut out in enduring stone 'fortitcr et fideliter' ('strongly and faithfully'). Tho ideal man wtih the prophet and the baron' was more than strength—it' w'as a strength that, like charity, never faileth. Not power only, -,but staying power, that could not only bear all things, but endure all things, and never betray. Does New Zealand want a Parliamentary entertainer, a political Take, and a 'rake's progress.' A brilliant Louis Phillipo? No, it wants below, before, and above all an 'honest man,' a steward who will be found 'faithful,' faithful to God and his country, and to his conscience; whosa word, given only after his own calm, unbiased judgment, is 'his bond.' Thero are such men, but they are rare, and they have to bo sought out, for they are not self-seeking. They do not vaunt themselves, they are not puffed up, they envy not; they love the truth, and they never fail: I submit that no politician in the Dominion has been subjected to a more searching, I way say cruel, search-light than Mr. Massey, and yet to-day ho stands higher in public esteem than ho ever did. He flourishes unconsumed by fire, whether the furnace be lit and fed by a Carroll, or a 'Ward, or a Fowlds. The precious gold of his character shines more brightly, sheds a richer gleam and glitter, yet is calm and steady. Innuendo, false accusation, misrepresentation, base caricature, and defamation he has borne and still bears, not indeed with insensibility, but with a quiet conscious power and self-restraint. His warmest friends will not claim that he has made no mistakes—("To err is human")—or that he has always seized opportunity by the forelock, but his warmest opponents must admit that he has displayed throughout Ills long and strenuous career an exceptional and splendid self-restraint. Tho old motto of the Greeks and Romans is still true —'Victis qui so victis.' I hope 'to live to see Mr. Mnssoy's self victory crowned by tho supremo approbation and tribute of the Dominion."