THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MAT 11, 1925. DEATH OF MR MASSEY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19476, 11 May 1925, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MAT 11, 1925. DEATH OF MR MASSEY.

It is with deep regret that we record the death of Mr William Ferguson Massey, Prime Minister of New Zealand, in the early weeks of his seventieth year. New Zealand is the poorer for the loss of a statesman who loved her well and served her for a long term of years with strenuous zeal and high intelligence. • His removal will be deplored by all classes in the community, and controversy will be hushed by the general thought of his fine qualities of mind and heart, his pure patriotism, his earnest endeavour to further the welfare, as he conceived it, of the dominion and the Empire, and his unselfish devotion to interests unconnected with his own advantage or aggrandisement. He will be mourned, missed,

honoured in death as in life, and remembered with loyal fidelity. I' ol ' some months past it has been known that Mr Massey was not in good health, and the pause in his indefatigable public energy was noticed with genuine concern. The simple fact is that he worked too hard. He loved the work, just as Mr Seddou loved it; and in both instances the . warnings bf anxious friends anti even of medical advisers were neglected. In politics, more perhaps than in professional or commercial life, the passion of persisting against difficulties is very obstinate; why, it might be hard to say. And now, largely owing to his spirited strenuousuess, Mr Massey has gone—gone almost on the eve of realising the natural ambition of holding the office of Prime Minister of the dominion for a period exceeding that of any of his predecessors. Ho has gone and left a great gap. It was in 1894, the year following Mr John Ballance’s death and Mr Soddon’s accession to the Premiership, that Mr Massey entered Parliament as member for Waitemata after an exciting byelection contest, in which all the Ministerial influence was, not too scrupulously, exercised against him. He told the House ..that ho had beaten the Premier and Mr (now Sir Jamesl Carroll and the chief Government Whip and the Government order to employees and ail the circulars witn which the electorate had been flooded. The militant and confident note sounded on that occasion was prophetically characteristic, so to speak, of his entire public career, and especially of his unflagging activity during the prolonged and uphill struggle against Soddoniau predominance. To Sir William Russell, who was leader of the Opposition in those days, he gave loyal and effective support, and of course the labour and the responsibility of his Parliamentary duties became heavier after he succeeded to the party leadership in 1903. An almost hopeless fight it must have seemed at times, but ho was gallantly aided by Mr (now Sir) James Allen and other lieutenants, and he displayed a very fine quality of persistent determination. The high reputation which he had won in Parliament extended, slowly perhaps but surely, throughout the dominion, though ho did not become familiarly known in the South until after his accession to the Premiership. There were some signs of a turning tide even before Mr Seddon’s remarkable career came to a close in 3906, and the indications gradually strengthened during the five years of Sir Joseph Ward’s Administration. This trend was hastened by a partial revolt of Labour from the alliance of 1890, and the results of the general election in 1911 showed that the Re-, form party, after the many years of work and waiting, was about to come into its own. The short-lived fiasco of the Mackenzie Government delayed the destined development for only a few months, and on July 10, 1912, Mr Massey became Prime Minister and inaugurated a regime which has been terminated only by his death. During the long period of nearly thirteen years for which ho hold office, Mr Massey devoted himself to the service of the country with an unremitting intensity that eventually undermined his strength, though in his bravo and buoyant bearing there may have been few perceptible signs of the gradual effect of the strain. Admirable as his industry was from one point of view, he nevertheless did wrong both to himself and to the country by burdening himself with the charge of, too many departments, and the load became heavier after the broaking-up of the Coalition and the subsequent departure of Sir Janies Allen from the dominion'. Ho had not been at the head of affairs for very long before the domination of hjs personality became established in Parliament. Ho was not autocratic in his ambitions and ways, and a seemly sense of moderation in all things marked his public conduct: so that the country did not suffer any injury in consequence of the unlimited nature of his power. His domestic policy,, which was not lacking in reasonable liberality, commended itself to all who recognised the desirability of managing legislative enterprise and public finance on different lines from those favoured when Mr Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward were in office, though the accession of Sir Joseph himself and some of his political friends to the Government in 1915', when war was raging, had the effect of suppressing parliamentary controversy in large measure for four years. Mr Massey’s policy, when ho had free way, might fairly be described as LiberalConservative. There will bo some difference of opinion as to whether Mr 'Massey attained the degree of celebrity reached by Mr Seddon. Perhaps his name was not quite so widely known outside the dominion, . and the elder statesman had a certain advantage (if advantage it were) on account of the experimental novelty of some phases of hia policy. Moreover, his habit of appealing with studied purpose to the primary sentiments and political passions of the proletariat gave him a kind of popularity in New Zealand which the leader of the Reform party neither won nor desired. It is nothing to Mr Massey’s discredit that he never posed as a public saviour or served as a public idol. He was charged with the task of reconstructing or “ reforming ” the national policy on safe and well-reasoned principles, and, sound democrat as ho was, without an atom ' of reactionary prejudice, it was yet not difficult for demagogy and extremism to stigmatise him with a spurious stamp of antidemocratic intention. But if he was not idolised by the people who had fawned on Mr Seddon, he nevertheless won the reluctant respect, and even the more reluctant liking,. of most of those who were sorry to see him come into power. There may have been uncompromising (and often unintelligent) hostility, but there was neither anger nor contempt, in the workers’ familiar talk of “Bill Massey.” He himself bad been —still was, in the truest sense—a worker. . Burly in mind and body, patriotically industrious to a fault, agreeably approachable, as cheerily optimistic in all circumstances as Mark Tapley, shrewd, sympathetic, and very human—here, surely, was a man whom the most relentless opponent could not cordially dislike. And the supporters who understood him better—especially the colleague, and friend, who conversed with him and knew the salient qualities of his mind and heart—realised that he was a man worthy of sincere esteem, admiration, and affection. Mr Massey’s work as an Imperial statesman deserves special mention. The welfare of the British Empire as a

whole—its security, greatness, and prestige —lay as close to his heart (and this is saying much) as the separate welfare of New Zealand; and destiny brought to him, as it brought in one form or other to so many ot his contemporaries, the amplest opportunity of proving his devoted interest. As Prime Minister of the dominion throughout the Great War he acted witji a resourceful vigour, r.n unerring sagacity, and a tireless industry which won golden opinions from all patriotic people. The strain must have been very severe, and it left its mark, but at the time he wore the weight of labour “ lightly as a flower,” and no country could have desired a more capable or more stimulating leader in a time of anxious tension. It is true that he had the invaluable aid of tried colleagues, but of course the main responsibility for the dominion’s war policy and war work rested upon the broad shoulders of the head of the Government. As representative of New Zealand abroad on several occasions—at Imperial Conferences in London and at the Peace Conference in Paris after the Armistice-7-Mr Massey displayed no mean qualities of practical and farseeing statesmanship. Some enthusiasts wore disposed to complain that hia attitude towards world-problems Was lacking in idealism, and that his supporter the League of Nations project, for instance, was only lukewarm. It may bo admitted that he was not a visionary at any time, and that the bent of ,his mind was not towards any sort of sentimentalism. He was a matter of-fact everyday statesman, jealously vigilant for the security of all parts of the British Empire, and indisposed to run any risks with that security; but it is only just to add that his desire for a reign of universal peace was genuine and earnest. Mr Massey was not au eloquent speaker; his utterances in Parliament and on the platform were docked with no flowers of rhetoric or imagination; but bo possessed a thoroughly adequate faculty of direct, forcible, lucid, and telling expression. He was no dealer in vaguely imposing generalisations, and the listener or hearer could never be in doubt as to his meaning and purpose. Neither subtle nor passionate, he addressed his appeal and his argument to common sense and right reason, ignoring (perhaps disdaining) merely sentimental considerations, and oven his strongest opponents seldom accused him of indulging in claptrap or any specious form of ad captandura disingenuousnoss. Ho was a generous as well as a resolute fighter, and though ho could be provoked occasionally to severity and even to invective such manifestations of controversial heat were always transient. He was innately good-natured—his cheery, open countenance was the true index of a temperament alike humane, blithe, and unconquerably optimistic—and in all his personal relations ho was admirable. In his home and among his friends ho was a radiant sourco of happy affection and camaraderie. Ho has "gone home and taken his wages,” life’s duty well done, the long public toil finished, the full tale of honour told. New Zealand may not look upon his like for many and many a year. Ho should, and surely will, be remembered with gratitude and pride.