MR WARD’S STATESMANSHIP.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 114, 23 September 1895, Page 3

MR WARD’S STATESMANSHIP.

The Evening Post, in the course of an article on Mr Ward’s vacillation on the tariff question, saj’s :—“We have never regarded Mr Ward as a financier or a statesman, but his former chief (Mr Ballance) long ago pronounced regarding him —“ smart, but not able.” He bus, however, shown in this Tariff business, * as well as in certain other recent financial transactions, that he is not entitled to be even regarded ns smart. A really smart man would not have been led into the Bank trap set by Mr Murray, or have blundered so egregiously as Mr Ward has done in regard to.this Tariff matter, nor would he have so openly displayed his ignorance and incapacity, Mr Ward now stands confessed as simply a reckless plunger. His policy is a mixture of blundering and plundering. He has blundered teiribly over both bis Bank and his Tariff proposals, and by so doing has plundered the public to a lamentable extent. Heartily and with universal acs cord will the country concur in the endorsement which Captain Russell yesterday gave to Mr Ward’s own expressed hope that he may never have another Tariff to deal with. In whatever shape the Tariff Bill may now ultimately pass, it is not likely that the subject will be re-opened for some time to come, but, apart from Tariff revision, the question arises whether a Minister who has proved himself so ignorant and incompetent in two of the most important financial questions of the day is a man who can safely be longer entrusted with the control and direction of the whole finance of the colony. We pat it to the House and to the country whether it is possible to any longer have confidence in Mr Ward’s ability or competence as a financier or a statesman. Ho has stamped himself unfit to longer preside at the Treasury. If bo does so, there is too much reason to feor that he will involve the colony’s finances in inextricable confusion, and get thing’s into a serious mess. This Tariff matter, following so closely the Bank embroglio, must surely have disillusionised those who formerly believed Mr Ward to be either a safe financier or a trustworthy Minister. We have no ill feeling towards the shareholders in the J. JG, War! Farmers’ Association, JLimited, but we really wish that, in the interests of the .colony as a whole, Mr Ward could be induced or compelled to devote the whole of his time and attention to the management of that much-talked-of concern.”