AN INSPIRING LEADER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3713, 12 May 1925, Page 26

AN INSPIRING LEADER.

A ZEALOUS SERVANT OF THE s STATE. By S. Saunders, formerly Editor of the Lyttelton Times. History—if history be written aright—will assign a high place to Mr Massey among the big-hearted, patriotic men who have spent themselves ungrudgingly in the service of New Zealand. As Prime Minister hie legislative and administrative achievements are comparable with those of the greatest of his predecessors, and as a

leader of the people his ardent Imperialism, his dauntless courage and his insistent optimism in a time of unparalleled national stress inspired the whole country with cheery confidence and determination. He may have been lacking in vision and imagination, and oven in some of the other ornate qualities of statesmanship; but he was rich in the possession of the faith that moves mountains, in the hope that springs eternal and remains undismayed, and in the charity that suffereth long and is kind. His political career was scarcely of his own choosing. Greatness was thrust upon him rather than desired. When he first entered the House of Representatives in 1894 hia equipment for the task he had undertaken, with little thought for the morrow, consisted of a sanguine temperament, a nodding acquaintance with a school primer on political economy, and a stout heart. The sanguine temperament and the stout heart served him well, but his superficial acquaintance with political economy came nigh to bringing about his undoing. At the end of his first session, Jisappointed and discouraged, he would have gone back to his farm, bereft of many ideals and some illusions, never to return. But the older members of his party, seeing much promise in the young man, dissuaded him from his purpose, and he returned to Parliament to fight valiantly in Opposition for 18 wears and to hold office with high distinction and credit for a further 13 years. But to-day most of those who are mourning the passing of this striking figure in the public life of the dominion are thinking rather of the man than of the politician. A steadfast friend, a chivalrous opponent, kindly hearted and intensely human, Mr Massey was a lovable man to all who came near enough to him to appreciate his qualities of heart and hand, his strength and his weakness. Though he had read diligently and thought deeply when he first came to Parliament ne affected neither the graces of the courtier nor the culture of the student, and it was the fashion among supercilious observers at that time to regard him as a politician of the stolid unimaginative type, a somewhat dull fellow inclined to take himself and his mission in life too seriously But the older and more sagacious members of his own party saw further below the surface and discovered in the sturdy young man from Waitemata, with his rough exterior and blunt speech, the makings of the persistent critic and strenuous fighter their cause sorely needed at that particular time. It was William Rolleston, as Mr Massey afterwards was proud to tell, who by the word in season induced the future Prime Minister, when assailed with doubts and misgivings, t-o hold fast to the opportunities destiny and his own efforts had brought his way. He was a long time in reaching the goal his friend and mentor had set before him. but those 18 years he spent in Opposition, never again questioning the decree of Fate, were invaluable in bis preparation for the great work that lay awaiting him in the years beyond. Long before their expiration he had become one of the best equipped members of the House, admittedly the readiest of its debaters and the most tact l fill and inspiring of its leaders. His opportunity for the wider exercise of these qualifications came with the general election of 1911, which left the attenuated Liberal Party clinging to office by the casting vote of the Speaker. The ill-starred Mackenzie Ministry held the remnants of Mr Seddon’s big battalions together for a few months, and then Mr Massey came into his own. And yet not fully into his own. He had led the forces of Reform to victory by his almost unaided effort; but the spoils were not to be his alone. His party had been out of office for 21 years; it had no*.

sat on the Treasury Benches since he had been in Parliament. In these circumstances his colleagues of necessity were drawn almost entirely from the more inert and less progressive section of the old Conservative Party, which never would have had the wit to shape its policy toward> modern thought nor to change its name to “Reform.” For two years he made tne best he could of the load he was carrying, narrowly escaping being sent back to the cool shades of Opposition at the General Election four months after the commencement of the Great War. Then came the National Cabinet and the suspension of party strife till just before the General Election of 1919, which gave him the only substantial majority he ever Enjoyed. It was during the life of that Parliament that he was seen at his strongest and best. During the war he had become the undoubted dominant force in the Cabinet and he never after relaxed his hold upon affairs of State that mattered. In the' interval he had forgotten the precepts of the political economy of his youth, had renounced the timidity of his old associates, had framed a progressive policy of his own, and had frankly confessed his conversion to the tenets of Liberalism, if not to their popular interpretation. All this has been counted against Mr Massey bv his opponents, and, indeed, by some of his friends, as inconsistency and insincerity, as bidding for votes and renouncing principles; but no politician ever was more in earnest or more courageous than was the Prime Minister when he stood lip in the House and admitted in reply to taunts of this sort that with the passage of the years he had changed his mind on many questions, that he nad not been ashamed to learn from other people, even from his political opponents, and that his conscience accused him of no wrong m having profited by observation and experience during his journey through life. He knew his EnveTson well, as he knew many other literary giants, hut it was on an other occasion, and with a different purpose that he quoted the great American's description of consistency ns “the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” His facility in the use of happy quotations of this kind was astounding, considering how little time he can have had for rending in the later years of his life; and his acquaintance with the text of his Bible, from coveT to cover, was simply marvellous. A friendly

biographer has pictured him as a deeply religious man, who regarded the Bible as the finest book that ever was written. It required no depth of religion to share this estimate of the Great Book but in very fact this zealous servant of the State was an earnest, practical, broad-minded Christian, who found expression for the rugged faith of his forefathers in good works without number, in patient forbearance, and in devotion to what he con eeived to be the best interests of nis country. He leaves to New Zealand a rich heritage of remembrance and inspiration.