LIFE OF AN IMPERIAL STATESMAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23330, 23 October 1937, Page 4

LIFE OF AN IMPERIAL STATESMAN

MR DOWNIE STEWART'S BIOGRAPHY OF SIR FRANCIS BELL

"Sir Francis Bell: His Life and Times," By W. Downie Stewart. Illustrated. Wellingt on: Butterworth, £2 2s. (Reviewed by G. E. Tho mpson, M.A., Litt.D.)

Readers of Mr Downie Stewarfj " Sir Francis Bell: His Life and Times," will, no doubt, nd find in the book each his own special points of interest. For the times were stirring, the events recent, and it is absorbingly attractive to be taken behind the scene of a stage of which we have been spectators. But the interest of most readers will properly centre in the view so deftly and so clearly presented of the dominating personality of Sir Francis Bell himself. Mr Stewart has produced a well-drawn and instructive picture of a man who, to all shades of political opinion, was one of the outstanding political figures of recent New Zealand times. Of, this view of Bell,. Mr Stewart has given abundant evidence. "This man is the uncrowned king of New Zealand," said a Labour M.P. in 1921; "he is one of the ablest men in the southern hemisphere." "Sir Francis Bell," said Mr Nash in 1936, "was one of the ablest and clearest thinkers I have ever been in contact with." To Mr Massey, the Prime Minister, with whom he was long associated, Bell was "a consummate master of legal and constitutional problems." Successive Governors-General paid grateful tribute to his ability and expressed to him their indebtedness for the advice that had done so much to smooth their path. Lord Jellicoe wrote to Bell in 1920: "Your father and you are such great figures in the history of New Zealand that to me you almost represent the progress and development of the Dominion." Other evidences are adduced in the book of the "remarkable ascendancy achieved by Bell in the National councils," of his high reputation at home and abroad as an Imperial statesman, of his ripe judgment fortified by long experience, and by a mind of unusual penetration and clarity. Such a man, in any environment, slips automatically into the position of general adviser, and wields an influence greater than those who publicly may be more prominent. In political circles such a man becomes a great source of strength to any Government, whether it be in the stability of a safe position or amid the quicksands of fluttering majorities. Yet, to the man in the street, Bell remained rather behind the scenes. He was never on the forefront of the political stage, and, as Mr Stewart says, was never a great public figure as was Seddon or Massey. He did not seek the highest office in the State. He accepted the office of Prime Minister fin 1925 only for a stop-gap period of six days after Massey's death, pending the election of a new party leader. If Legend, which is never at rest, was inclined to class him among those who " exercise an autocratic rule based on invisibility," and to add the inevitable gibe that he was a " sinister figure behind the scenes," his personality merely gains thereby in impressiveness. Abundant reason there is, therefore, for the evident attractiveness which Mr Stewart has found in his subject, and the space he devotes to the building up, by Bell's own words and actions, and by a plenitude of unbiased opinions expressed in the letters and speeches of his associates, of the manysided fabric of Bell's life and character. Judged by the effect of the book on the reader, and by the clearness with which the full-length figure of Bell is made to stand out before us, Mr Stewart's method must be regarded as eminently successful. Mr Stewart's biography of Sir Francis Bell is, of course, essentially a work of history. According to Carlyle, " history is the essence of innumerable biographies." And Emerson says, still more downrightly, that " there is properly no history, only biography." But, whatever be the true relation of biography to history, it is evident that biography, especially in New Zealand, is both the correction and the completion of history, if history is to be a philosophy, and not a mere pageant. History in its first form precedes biography—as Thucydides and Polybius preceded Plutarch. But history in this first form, merely narrative and descriptive, can only be a pageant. It is the task of biography to breathe upon the " great dust heap of history " and to make it live. In fact, biography must make history what Dionysius called it in ancient times, and Bolingbroke and Carlyle later. " philosophy teaching by examples." The history of New Zealand since the coming of white men has already been written—but only a first sketch, an outline, a foundation. It is for biography now to clothe it more and more with' flesh and blood, and to supply the philosophy and the psychology. Much has already been done in this direction. Lives of some leading political figures have been written. But much remains still to be done. Mr Stewart's present work plays here an excellent and efficient part Whether or not it be better to allow the traditional generation to pass so that by standing back one can obtain a better view, the value is incontestable of an immediate presentation of the ljfe ..nd personality of a political figure, while memories of him are still present and warm. A later biographer might fit his work into the more complete mosaic of New Zealand history. He might gain a little from the lapse of time. But there is much more that he would lose.

The problem of arrangement which besets every biographer, and a political biographer more than any other, has been solved in Mr Stewart's book by an excellent compromise between chronological sequence and unity of interest. A year-by-year narrative easily becomes the dullest of chronicles. As it is, a student of New Zealand politics will here find a ready and abundant supply of material in selfcontained chapters. Bell's views on some of our major political controversies are given at length, and expressed so clearly and so cogently that they are an education in themselves. As Mayor of Wellington for two periods, he made his tenure of office memorable by a bold policy of city improvements. As Minister of Internal Affairs and Leader of the Legislative Council in the first Massey Cabinet, and as Acting Prime Minister during Massey's absence in London, and later as Attorney-general, he brought with him into each office far-reaching and permanent reforms. Given in extenso are his views on afforestation, on Empire citizenship, on immigration, on post-war censorship, on seditious literature, on jury reform, on the rights of advocates, on Imperial relations, on the proposed Imperial Council. Residents of Auckland will find interest in his picture of Old Auckland, when "the long slopes and ridges and gullies of Remuera, leading down to the foreshore, were practically a wilderness . . ." with sequestered pools in certain of the sedge-bordered creeks running down the gullies." Dunedin residents, too, will find equal interest in the story of his boyhood's days at the Otago Boys' High School, and the description of the old family home at the corner of London and Pitt streets, on an area occupied at that date by gardens, lawns and dense native bush.

But no chapter in the book equals in dramatic interest that which gives the inner history of the Ministerial crisis at the sailing of the first Expeditionary Force in October, 1914. In protest against the sending of the New Zealand troopships under no other escort than the obsolete Philomel, though the German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were thought to be in the Tasman Sea, Bell "handed his resignation to Massey and left the Cabinet room," and Massey threatened to follow. When news came some hours later that the transports had been recalled, Massey was found sitting in the Cabinet room before an open telegram, " with great beads of perspiration on his large head." And when Bell was informed at early dawn, "he was deeply affected, and tears of thanksgiving streamed down his face." Even more stirring is the revelation, now for the first time made public, that the New Zealand force on its way en route for Samoa in August, 1914, missed the German cruiser fleet by less than 15 miles. "The temptation to linger on the contents of- this most readable and stimulating volume are almost irresistible. But one last quality deserves mention. One cannot but admire the author's restraint in the use of his material. It is well known that Mr Stewart's admiration of Sir Francis Bell was in a large measure reciprocated. For a time they sat side by side in the same Cabinet, and Mr Stewart's conduct of Ministerial affairs had Bell's warm approval. Yet nowhere in his book does Mr Stewart obtrude his' own personality or make much mention of his own views. Indeed, his modesty has led him into the opposite extreme, and much apposite matter might have been incorporated had he had the desire and the space to introduce more of Bell's letters to himself, which are known to express a high regard.

Mr Stewart has reaped all the advantages that come from the closerview of his subject. He has brought to bear on his task a special combination of gifts and opportunities The subject of his study was a personal friend, a frequent associate, a colleague and participator in many of the later events described. Mr Stewart has also had at his disposal a wealth of private and official letters. It may be said that only a lawyer can, write with complete success about a lawyer, from the point of view not merely of technicalities, but of cast of mind and right attitude to legal problems. Similarly a parliamentary man or an exMinister of the Crown is best fitted to bring a due understanding to the environment, problems, success, and influence of a fellow-parliamentarian or Minister. Mr Stewart has therefore special qualifications as a political biographer, and further biographies from his pen of earlier New Zealand statesmen should eagerly be looked for.