NEW BOOKS

Evening Star, Issue 25939, 2 November 1946, Page 13

NEW BOOKS

TWELVE PNIME MINISTERS Having served students by his ‘ Dictionary of New Zealand Biography,’ Mr Guy H. Scholefield,- Parliamentary Librarian, has now done sometning of the same kind for the rank and file of his country, more, particularly its youth, in ‘ Notable New Zealand Statesmen,’ sketches of 12 of its Prime Ministers. It has been much more easily done, since these are the lightest sketches, yet its influence may be wider. The book is overdue, because .New Zealanders for the most part know far too little of their earliest history. It began neither with, the Savage Government nor with the depression that preceded it—last of many. There were heroes before -Agamemnon who deserve to be more than names. They had their own problems and their own personalities, and though personality, to some 'theorists, makes but a small part of / history compared with economic forces, for the natural man it must always be the most interesting part of it. ' The 12 Prime Ministers, out of 26, who are treated in this volume have been well selected for variety of character and interest. They are Fitzgerald, Sewell—the second to hold the office, though official lists, treating representative Government as something uncompleted while Fitzgerald ruled, make him the first—Fox, Stratford, Domett, Weld, Waterhouse, Vogel, Atkinson, Grey, Balance, and Seddon. By a tradition from which we have departed, with one brief exception, in the last 50 years, half of them had Rome claim to be scholars. Fitzgerald, as well as Domett, wrote verses: Sewell made Latin puns; Fitzgerald and Fox both had some skill with water colours. No small proportion of these first statesmen were politicians only by force of circumstances; in the fullest sense, some of them never became New Zealanders; rather they were exiled Englishmen. . All of them were born in Great Britain, and five spent their last years there. Weld was afterwards Governor of Tasmania and, of the Straits Settlements, and Waterhouse, before he came here, was Premier of ‘South Australia. It will be a surprise to most people to learn that Vogel, one of the chief shapers of them all, spent only 15 of' his 6.4 years in New Zealand. Fitzgerald, who was, with Grey, ihe orator of the. series, and in his later years, ,as Auditor-General, did much to build up the present system of safeguards on public expenditure, wrote: c ‘ My life seems wasted. . . . However, the world goes around without our moving it. Perhaps we are all unconsciously (sowing seeds which will one day sprout.” It was not too much to claim. In these brief live 3 Dr Scholefield refrains from labouring any -contentious issues. For the simplest mind, he makes them readable, and that is the greatest service he could do.’ The . story presented of a continuous effort, lasting for a hundred years, to overcome difficulties and make New Zealand, what it. is to-day, may,.have its real influence in fostering a national sense on the part of its people— : a task scarcely attempted yet except by a few of its poets. The book is attractively produced, with a foreword by the Prime Minister and portraits of all its subjects'. Whitcombe and Tombs' Ltd., publishers. Price 15s.