SIR JOSEPH WARD'S VIEWS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 13138, 26 July 1913, Page 8

SIR JOSEPH WARD'S VIEWS.

GREAT BRITAIN'S NEW RULERS. FREMANTLE, July 20. . Sir Joseph Ward, ex-Prime Minister of New Zealand, was in transit as a passenger for New Zealand on board the R.M..S. Mongolia, which passed through Fremantle yesterday. .uebonair, alert-looking, and courteous as ever, he leaned his arms across the table in the music-room of tho mailboat, and dealt with his recent tour of Great Britain in an easy conversational manner. This was his firfct holiday for 25 years, and in the calm, measured etyle of a lounging traveller, .he has been studying the political, social, and economic condition* of the Old Country, wonuering at the metamorphosis they were undergoing, weighing the possibilities of future political power, and somewhat disturbed at the evidences of prospective disappearances of British feudalism. "1 am satisfied about this," he commenced, clenclung his fist as if he was driving home a point of political debate, "that everything points to the middleclasses of Great Britain being the rulers of the country. It is becoming recognised by tho thinking men of all sides that the tendency is distinctly in this direction. The old ■ order of things is being waived aside. Everything is changing — the people are changing in theix habits and the cities are changing in their character. There can be no \ doubt that a general evolution is taking i : place in public matters in Britain. To | a looker-on such as I was there appears j to be more activity on all sides in the I public life of Great Britain than there has ever been in its history. London itself is ever changing. Life in this great world is still being evolved. The city is growing with greater rapidity than any other part of the world that I know of. "Electrification has done great things for London. Tubes and their extensions radiating in every direction and : the wholesale adoption of motor busses seem to be making electric trams less necessary ; to say nothing of thousands of taxis that go towards helping to move the great daily travelling population with an ease, quickness, and cheapness that is most, striking. The control of the traffic is certainly creditable to tho authorities. The County Council has been moat active in making short cuts and in opening several streets with different parts of the city, with the result that London is tliie greatest city in the world to-day." ,