The Evening Star THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1926. RICHARD JOHN SEDDON.

Evening Star, Issue 19272, 10 June 1926, Page 6

The Evening Star THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1926. RICHARD JOHN SEDDON.

Richard John Seddon died on June 10, 1906. After .what he himself described as the hardest month he had experienced—and his was indeed a career brimful of energy—he embarked at Sydney on the Oswestry Grange. Hardly had the vessel cleared Port Jackson Hoads than his strenuous life came to a sudden end. The vessel put back to Sydney, bearing the remains of one who but a few weeks previously had been received with an extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm, and whose stay in Australia, whither he had gone chiefly to negotiate reciprocal trade agreements, had been remarkable for the demonstrations accorded him on his visits to Sydney, Melbourne, Ballarat, and Bendigo. And that was a noteworthy thing about all Mr Seddon’s tours abroad. Outside communities took him to their heart unreservedly because of his broad humanitarianism and his strong Imperialism. Their welcome was free of the acerbity which strong party political bias infused into the receptions to which ho was accustomed in his own land. Regarding our affairs from long range they saw only the bold outline of what was boing accomplished, and they admired and envied. They missed much of the detail of the means by which the great end was being achieved, and which to a small, but never silent, minority in New Zealand was at times intensely aggravating. It was this which probably caused him to say at a luncheon given him in Melbourne by the Federal Labor Party two days before his death; “ I have been for years the butt of j much abuse and ridicule for what has i been called my experimental legislation.” The ideal prompting that legislation may perhaps be found in a speech he had made a few days previously to a gathering of ex-New Zealanders in the Grand Hotel, Melbourne. In the course of this he said: “New Zealand to-day enjoys greater prosperity than she has ever enjoyed before. It is also lasting in character. There are no unemployed in New Zealand. Capital was never safer or bringing in better returns. I honestly believe that, if the country continues on its present lines, vice, degradation, and suffering will bo kept from the land. 1 have been asked in Australia how New Zealand’s prosperity is accounted I for. My reply is that it has been to a large extent promoted by the dc- | velopment of national resources, and I by giving equality of opportunity. When I road of the large number of workless people in London I feel that there must be something seriously amiss. It is a terrible reproach to the nation. . . . The self-governing

colonies have a great opportunity to avoid what has taken place in older countries. They are building the foundations of a great nation. At the creation of the world it was never intended by the Divine Master that only a few should have the enjoyment of the good things and that countless thousands should want for food. Tho sooner selfishness is thrown aside tho better.”

After a lapse of just twenty years it is a coincidence that history should repeat itself, despite the intervention of civilisation’s biggest upheaval. There is continued prosperity in New Zealand, and there is widespread unemployment in Britain. It cannot now be said that countless thousands are starving in Britain, because selfishness has so far been thrown aside as to pay the unemployed a dole provided by the taxpayer. But that much of it remains there is evident from the obstinate adherence to the theory of low wages. If twenty years ago it had been possible to foretell that a Liberal Administration in New Zealand would survive but sis years after Mr Seddon’s death and that for the remaining fourteen years his Conservative political opponents would guide the destinies of this country, there surely would have been grave shaking of heads among the huge majority of the electors who, in 1905, returned fifty-six Liberals to Parliament as against sixteen Oppositionists and four Independents. But there has been no retrogression of New Zealand. The party pendulum in 1025 did indeed swing to almost as great an extreme as it did the other way in 1905. But the change is merely in name. Possibly methods of achieving the end have altered, but the old Seddonian ideal remains—the development of national resources and the giving of equality of opportunity. The displacement of the Liberal Party from office has not meant the displacement of humanitarianism from our legislation. Mr Seddon was a great innovator, and, like all such, encountered strong opposition—until his innovations had time to prove themselves. Then they were quietly acquiesced in and but slightly modified by his successors in office, whatever their political color. It is true that there is a disposition now to make humanitarian schemes such as pensions and superannuation more self-supporting and less dependent on the Treasury. But should not the continued prosperity of New Zealand justify this, and, were it not done, would it not imperil a further continuance of prosperity by dislocating Government finance? It is, in fact, quite obvious that Mr Seddon himself foresaw that some such step would ho needed and himself meditated taking it. Could he but revisit this land to-day he would assuredly be pleas* 2 with the superstructure which has been reared on the foundation he laid. Of those who were his original colleagues but three now remain—Sir Joseph Ward, Sir James Carroll, and the Hon. W. Pember Reeves. We close with a quotation from the last named’s book, ‘The Long White Cloud 5 : “He concentrated absolutely on politics, seeming to live, move, and think for them alone. ... I cannot recall hearing

him talk of any non-political subject for ten minutes. Added to this, his restless energy, physical and mental alike, was almost uncanny. . . .

His highest and most honorable quality as a public man was his genuine sympathy with the poor and weak, the victims of ill-luck, failure, and old age. . . . He wanted to help the less fortunate, and his notion of help was practical. ... In older lands men heard of far-away little New Zealand and envied its people. When Seddon became Premier New Zealand commercially was at low water; times were very bad indeed. When he died the country was more prosperous and in a

sounder and more comfortable position than it had ever been before. . . . There was no unemployment, and there had not been a strike or lock-out for thirteen years. . . . That is how Sodden left his country, and of how many statesmen can as much be said?”