SIR JOSEPH WARD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2669, 20 December 1928, Page 3

SIR JOSEPH WARD.

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 W.M., and published in the Melbourne Herald on the Friday after the General Election at .which the Reform Party fared so badly and the United Party did so well:—

"Melbourne is linked with New Zealand politics because of the fact that Sir Joseph Ward, the last of Seddon's stalwarts, is one of her sons, having been born at Emerald Hill on 26th April, 1856," 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 Wonderfand, Dick Whittington, and half a dozen characters in Shakespeare.

"Educated first in Victoria privately, then at a Sltate school at The Bluff (New Zealand), 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 loyally, with British bulldog stubbornness, 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 moneiy to settlers j a man who thought in oceans, as Admiral Fisher would say, he secured that old sea dog's confidence, and in 1909 placed New Zealand on the political map by offering the Mother Country one or, if necessary, two battle-cruisers. "The freedom of Ithe 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 his Reform party in 1912. "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. But when it came ;to the pinch, true-heartedly 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 the 'third time—political disaster, almost extermination. "Most people thought that Ward was now done with politically. His speeches lacked coherency, and the man himself lacked concenitration, except when he talked of the past. "Defeated in an election in 1923, Ward now was 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 ito England. He hears rumblings from far-off New Zealand, which to a political instinct, trained through.long years by astute Richard Seddon, even now have a meaning. Meantime' his party, of which he is the sole parliamentary survivor, rejuvenates itself and is born again amid the political jeers of the other two parties. They elect Sir Joseph, then in Vancouver, as their leader. He cheerfully accents, and then confounds his followers with cabling a Micawber-like £70,000,000 loan policy, without consulting anybody but his own optimistic self.

"Yesterday morning, on a sick bed, he awoke to find liimself famous, and, after an absence of eighteen years, again, the Prime Minister-elect of his loved Dominion. "Shades of Richard Seddon I"