NEW YEAR MESSAGE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10782, 31 December 1928, Page 5

NEW YEAR MESSAGE

PRIME MINISTER'S GOOD WISHES TO CITIZEN'S nr , ; , SOLID GROUNDS FOR PREDICTING PROSPEROUS TIME - V tVress Association.! WELLINGTON, Deo. 29. The following New Year message was issued by the Prime Minister to-day: "On the closing of the year, I express to my fellow citizens tha heartiest of good wishes for 1929. There, are solid grounds for predicting i times “for th© Do* min' on, and in this prosperity l sincerely hope that all may share. I hardly need say that no effort will be wanting on the part of myself and my colleagues in the Government to do everything possible to advance the well-being of all classes Of our people. To one and all 1 extend my best wishes for a bright and happy New Year. JOSEPH C. WARD. Prime Minister.

ROMANTIC CAREER. A TRIBUTE FROM MELBOURNE. The fact, that Sir Joseph Ward once again occupies the Treasury benches in New Zealand gives added point to the following, written by \V M. and published in the Melbourne Herald on the Friday after the general ejection at which .the Reform Party fared so. badly and the United Party did so well: —• “Melbourne is linked with New Zealand polities because of the fact that Sir Joseph Ward, the last of Sethlon’s stalwarts, is one of her sons liliving fc born ob EmGrulirl Hill’on April 26, 3856,” writes. W.M. “One of the great, political romances of the Dominion, the history of Sir Joseph Ward, reads like a strange mixture of Alice in Wonderland, Dick Whittington, and half a dozen characters in Shakespeare. “Educated first in Victoria, privately, then at a State school at Bluff (New Zealand 1 ), a post and telegraph messenger at 13, merchant on his own account at 21, a captain, of industry in the South Island at 31, Ward' became, at 37. the youngest Minister in Seddon’s Cabinet. Business 'embarrassments of a most serious and distressing nature followed, and in these Seddon stuck loya-iy, with British bulldog stubborness, to his colleague. Political rejuvenation came, and then a, glorious career of political power until the death of his chief in 1906. - “As Postmaster-general Ward achieved penny postage in the Dominion, for -which he was knighted. A sterling Imperialist, he was the first man to advocate the All-Red cable service-, now an accomplished fact; a-wizard of finance, he was the first man in Australian or New Zealand political history to raise a 3 per cent, loan, which was effected to advance money to settlers; a man who thought in oceans, as Admiral Fisher would say. he secured that old sea dog’s confidence and in 1909 placed New Zeeland on the political map by offering the Mother Country one or if necessary two battle cru'sprs.

“Tlie freedom of the cities of London, Edinburgh, Bristol, and Manchester, and a baronetcy followed these' great public efforts, and then again - came- dark political oblivion, this time at the hands of Massey and h : s Reform Party in 1912. never; lost heart. “A super-optimist, Sir Joseph never once lost heart. I saw him in Sydney just before the war, and he was quite certain that soon he would turn the: tables on Massey. Bub when it came to the pinch, tpueheartedly he became a colleague! in the National Ministry with, his former political enemy as Prime Minister until 1919, when some sort- of crazy brain-wave ‘impelled him to propose a political disruption, which was followed by his defeat for th" third timepolitioal disaster, almost extermination. ‘‘Most, people thought that Ward was now done with politically. His speeches lacked coherency, and the man himself lacked concentration, except when he talked of the past. “Defeated in an election in 1922, Ward, was now described as politically" extinct, although as a business man and a director of many public companies he was still as successful as ever. “Then the old war horse makes a trip to England. He hears rumblings from far-off New Zealand, which to a political instinct, trained through long years by astute Richard Saddon, even now have a meaning. Meantime his party, of which he is the sole parliamentary survivor, rejuvenates itself, and is Item again amid the political jeers of the other, two parties. They elect Sir Josepn. then in Vancouver, as their leader. Bo cheerfully accepts, and then confounds his followers with cabling M : cawbefi-like £70,000,000 loan policy, without consulting anybody hid his own optimistic self. The other day he awoke to find himself famous, being after an absence of. 18 years, again the Prime Minister-elect of h : s loved Dominion. “Shades of Richard Seddon!”