The Evening Star FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1902.

Evening Star, Issue 11676, 7 February 1902, Page 4

The Evening Star FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1902.

Wk fhihk that almost the entire local community will approve of the The City Council’s decision to Premier. take the initiative in the matter of entertaining the Premier at a public banquet in view of his departure to represent the Colony at the King’s Coronation. A small amount

of growling may be expected, no doubt, from those people who can never carry their minds beyond the narrow considerations of political partisanship; but these signs of petty bitterness on the part of an eccentric minority may safely be ignored, seeing that four-fifths of the population certainly desire to do honor to Mr Seddon as the Imperial representative of the Colony. It is needless to say that the action of the City Council has no reference whatever to politics, in the restricted sense of the word; and the ordinary opponents of the Government, as regards domestic matters, may take part in the proposed tribute without waiving onq iota of their hostility to the general trend of Seddon ian legislation, Wc ourselves have felt called upon again and again to assume an attitude of opposition to the Ministerial policy; but we have never concealed our opinion that during the last few years Mr Seddon has towered intellectually and (in a sense) morally over all the other public men of the Colony; while the splendid efficiency of his Imperial work, from October, 1899, to the present hour, has won the admiration of thousands who had previously had nothing but criticism for his sayings and doings. We know that there are a few smallminded people who affect to believe that Mr Seddon has been actuated by personal motives from the very start of the patriotic movement, and who assert that he would have adopted an anti-imperial attitude if the best chances of popularity had seemed to lie in that direction. These people are entitled to their opinion, which is doubtj less a solace to their irreconcHaTne souls; i but for our own part we are quite sure that the Premier's motives have been cn- | tirely disinterested, and that he has been I continuously animated by a single-hearted patriotism and an intense conviction of the need of Imperial solidarity. No doubt he ! has enjoyed ihe fresh popularity and cx- | tended fame that his Imperial labors have ! won him, but a public man may legiti(mutely appreciate the good-will of the i people without hankering after it in an uni worthy and unscrupulous fashion, It is ) right, then, that the chief municipalities ■ of the Colony, in the name of the people, 1 should pay honor to the great Minister | who is about to attend the King’s Coronai t ion as an honored guest and as the repre- ( sentative of tho entire population of New i Zealand. In the Home Country the freedom of a city or borough is occasionally ; v*oted hy the municipal council, in aocordj ance with ancient custom,' to a distinguished ! man. The colonies have not adopted that 1 particular custom, but the attention which Dunedin is about to show to Mr Seddon i may be regarded as of a kindred kind, j Tim Old World ceremony has no strictly j political import. The freedom of the City j of Liverpool was voted to Mr Gladstone i by a Council mainly composed of Conservatives ; and in similar fashion Mr Seddon j will not interpret the present action of the j Dnnedip Council a.s an expression of par- ' tisanship or complete political approval. ; Wo are sure, moreover, that in his speech , at. the banquet he will confine) himself to , matters of high national and Imperial im- ’ port, which involve no party differences, and will scrupulously abstain from advanc- ! iug any claim or instituting any comparison that could hurt tho susceptibilities of any political opponent.