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Evening Star, Issue 16549, 8 October 1917, Page 4

This Hon. John D. Ormond, whose death * at an advanced age wo A Link with chronicle to-day, was a the Past. man of considAablo intellectual parta, as well as of some distinct mark in tho earlier political history of the Dominion. Though a member (ono of a quartet of life membsrs) of the Legislative Council to the end, his public appearances had been infrequent of "late years; indeed, to many of the younger generation hiß name would be more familiar as that of a sportsman and owner of racehorses than of a politician. Forty years ago, however, and later, he was a fairly prominent figure in our public life. One of the early settlers in the Hawke's Bay Province, he did excellent service as Superintendent, besides Sir Donald M'Lean, after the last Maori war, in establishing peaceful relations between the two races, and subsequently he was a useful member of the Fox, Waterhouse, and Atkinson Administrations. Mr William Gisborne,. in his well-known work on

New Zealand .politicians, wroto, with char-1 ,actoristic shrewdness: "Mr Ormond is a " man of great mental power. He is cool, "observant, cautious, prudent, and resolute. His political and administrative vis considerable. He thinks " deeply, and, when he has mado up his "mind to act, he acts with decision and || with effect. What he has lacked in "later years is sympathetic power. He "•has become taciturn, reserved, and "angular in his general relations to other "public men. . . . What he says and "does always has'weight, but it would' "have much greater weight were he able "to work heartily with men generally. "As it is, ho is more like the Veiled "Prophet of politics than the gregarious "statesman of the present day." Evidently these are not the characteristics of a popular democratic politician; and to Mr Ormond's coldness of temperament and mental fastidiousness must be attributed the fact that ho never became a figure of first rate importanco in the Dominion. His intellect, and especially his powers of speech, would (given other qualities) have qualified him for almost any position in public life. The race of early New Zealand poli- j ticians, of which Mr Ormond was a salient and favorable specimen, is nearly extinct. They were, for the most part, a fine class of- men—capable, intellectual, courageous, patriotic—though perhaps it has been the fashion in certain quarters to overpraise them, to the inferential disparagement of their successors. New Zealand has always, in the main, been fortunate in the calibre and character of her public men, and for our part wo are not disposed to depreciate the later representatives in the interests of the early school. New occasions demand new types and new methods, and democratic development has rendered obsolete many ways of thinking and modes of action which were natural and even useful when the last century had still some part of ite course to run. The "laudator tern-"! poris acti" will always have a tendency for the statesmen of a bygone generation, as such; and the sentiment should not be harshly treated. Without taking a sentimental view, we readily admit °the virtues of the old order of politicians, who, despite obvious limitations, were in many respects admirably fitted for their task—a task widely different from that which faces the public men of to-day—-and Mr Ormond's gifts and services entitle him to a place on the roll of New Zealand worthies.