THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JULY 11, 1921. A POLITICAL ANNIVERSARY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18294, 11 July 1921, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JULY 11, 1921. A POLITICAL ANNIVERSARY.

Yesterday was the ninth anniversary of the assumption of office by the Reform Government in the dominion. Mr Massey has consequently entered upon the tenth year of his career as Prime Minister. If the fall of the Liberal Government and the advent to power of the Reform Government may perchance seem to a forgetful public mind to be incidents related to a long-past period in New Zealand political history, that can be due only to the fact that for the greater part of the intervening years the march of time was accomplished with what must generally be felt to have been .leaden, dragging steps. There were no years in living memory that were so long as the four and a-half which followed the first week in August, 1914. Yet, short as a period of nine years may be in the history of a country, political changes have generally occurred so rapidly that the existence for so long of a Government under one head is infrequent, not to say exceptional, in a British community. Mr Seddon alone in New Zealand continuously hold the office of Prime Minister for a greater number of years than Mr Massey has done. Whether Mr Massey will retain office sufficiently long to establish a “record” Prime Ministership may bo a point of interesting conjecture. Not less interesting, however, is the question, to winch future historians of the dominion may give their attention, whether the whole of the political record of nine years must not have been written in different terms if Sir Joseph Ward had tendered the resignation of his Government when the result of the general election of 1911 became known. Certain it is that the turn political events took in the few months, after that generat election wore more favourable to Mr Massey than he can almost have hoped for. It enabled him to take office in July, 1912, with a majority sufficiently large to be, in fact, a “working majority” for the terra of the Parliament. The fact that the general election of 1914-reduced that majority to very slender dimensions was itself fruitful of an important development. It rendered absolutely necessary what popular opinion may be reasonably said to have regarded as eminently desirable—the formation of a National Government for the term of the war. The record of this Government was in many ways disappointing to the public. Its weaknesses and its defects wore principally due to the fact that it was loss a non-party Government than a Government of two parties, but it served its main purpose on the whole satisfactorily. The public accepted it as the only possible Government at the time, and the precipitancy with which the Government was dissolved, throughthe withdrawal of the Liberals from it on the eve of the meeting of Parliament in 1919, was plainly resented by the electors by their restoring the Reform Government to office with an .overwhelming majority at the general election in that year. This election was, in fact, a personal triumph for Air Massey. The serious tactical blunders of bis opponents contributed in large measure to the success of the Reform Party, but the personality of the Prime Minister, the strength of which had not previously revealed itself, transformed that success into a swooping victory. When lie entered upon Ministerial office Mr Massey’s principal political assets were his transparent honesty and straightforwardness, his courage and determination, his knowledge of the needs of the country, and his capacity for work. His usefulness and his vision were hampered and limited alike by his lack of opportunity of personal observation of conditions outside of New Zealand and bv the narrowness of his experience. When he met the

electors in 1919, however, his mind had been appreciably broadened and his-put-look had been correspondingly widened as the result of his travels and of his‘ intercourse with the leading statesmen of the world. He impressed the electors with a sense of political bigness. He was undoubtedly a much greater mam than their previous acquaintance with him had justified them in supposing him to be. And in the new Parliament—that which is now in existence — he is incontestably the most striking figure. He will have to encounter perplexities and trials, duo to causes beyond the control of the Government, when ho returns to the dominion from the Conference at which he is now representing the dominion at the heart of the Empire, but he possesses a fund of statesmanship that is not enjoyed by any other person in the domestic politics of the day, and it may be confidently assumed that he will meet the difficulties which are crowding in upon the country with high courage and an earnest desire to promote the well-being of New Zealand.