WORLD-WIDE SYMPATHY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13202, 13 June 1906, Page 4

WORLD-WIDE SYMPATHY.

The spontaneous unanimity with which the British world has united to deplore the loss sustained by the Empire, and to sympathise with the blow that has fallen upon ev>? Zealand, through the sudden death of our Premier, is one of the most magnificent tributes- ever paid to the memory of a colonial statesiaan. In this great outburst of public feeling .there is not a- single discordant not-e, the generous appreciation of Mr. Scddon's patriotic services being all the more remarkable because there must have been a great- many public men, as well as private individuals, whose political predilections were generally opposed to his/ Here we have proof, if proof were needed, of the Imperial character of-his political purposes and of the determined manner in which he forced those purposes upon all with whom he, came in contact, however indirectly. During the present generation the colonial world has produced four men whose ability and energy, lifted them head and shoulders above their compeers, each of them becoming pre-eminent in their own sphere of influence. Sis John A. Macdonald, in Canada; Sir Henry Parkes. in Australia ; Cecil Rhodes, in South Africa; and Richard John Seddon, of ''New Zealand, were undoubtedly the greatest and most influential

men whom the modern colonial world has seen. 0£ these Mr. Seddon was certainly not. the least, and if we estimate his place by the influence he acquired over great masses of men he may be termed the greatest. The sympathy and expressions of appreciation evoked by his death testify to this, while they cannot but be gratefully felt by his fellow-colonists and by those who mourn a personal loss.