Forty Years a Liberal

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 641, 18 April 1929, Page 2

Forty Years a Liberal

LIFE STORY OF SIR JOSEPH WARD

From Telegraph Messenger to Prime Minister

By

R. A. LOUGHNAN

(Copyright— Sun Feature Service) ENTERING Parliament iii ISS7, Sir Joseph Ward is a veteran among contemporary statesmen and his career is traced and described in this series of articles by R. a. Loughnan for readers of The Sun. No. XXU.

Thus it was made very clear that j \ the New Zealand Prime Minister had | 1 presented, not a cut and dried scheme j t fitted into its constitutional place with i s apt relation to every point in a con- t stitutional Federal system, but aj l rough hewn block to be shaped in ac- j e cordauee with constitutional principles J for the service of a great Empire with £ rapidly growing centres of population t and correspondingly increasing de- t mands, interests and capacities of the outer fringes. s In his reply Sir Joseph answered all the objections made in the debate, and explained that “the whole object of his proposal was to give some definite and j £ articulate shape to the aspirations : which are professed by both the I t Motherland and the overseas Domin-1 1 ions.” j * “He recognised,” states the official i 1 precis, “however, that there were great 1 difficulties surrounding the matter, . and as the whole of the representatives t were against the proposal he accepted < the position with equanimity, and in 1 the circumstances withdrew the pro- ] posal.” _ i Sir Joseph put the matter more fully. Said he: “To make my own position more < clear, I do not want on the matter of < the wording of the resulution, as j against what I have been urging in i the course of the speech I have made, 1 to put anybody in a wrong position. In i view of the expression of opinion of ; the members of the conference against , the resolution, I think it would be less ; , embarrassing for the whole of them, and certainly quite in accordance With my own desire, that I should ask that , the resolution, having been discussed, should be withdrawn.” The president intimated: “That is much the better course.” The conference agreed. The resolution was withdrawn, and the matter ended. REASON FOR THE SCHEME It has been held in some quarters that the discussion in the Conference of this suggestion overwhelmed the proposer as one unfitted by reason of ignorant rashness for the counsels of princes. Such criticism entirely misses the point and the character and intention of the offered scheme. The criticism of the British Prime Minister and other members of the Conference only showed the great difficulties, which were realised fully by the author of the scheme, offered for the purpose of decreasing them. We need not discuss the various objections made, for such of them as were not based on misconceptions of Sir Joseph's meaning, are fit only for a first-class searching debate on the question of practical adoption; and for this the time has not arrived. We are not here discussing the scheme offered the Imperial Conference by Sir Joseph Ward. We are showing only that the man who rose from the position of messenger boy in the Telegraph Department of his country, through much handling of the affairs of State, behaved at the Imperial Conference as a Prime Minister among Prime Ministers, and so showed himself fit for the counsels of princes by taking a leading part therein. Undaunted by this failure, not of his proposal in Its concrete form, but to get something done in the direction he desired and regarded as immediately necessary, Sir Joseph appealed to the world of public opinion. A fortnight after the decision of Conference he gave by invitation an address at the Imperial Colonial Institute. He headed it “A Higher and Truer Imperialism.” He said: “If the Empire was in future to have no closer unity and no more intimate Council of Empire than was represented in a quadrennial meeting of Premiers round a table, then the outlook for Imperial unity was grave and clouded. There were two courses open. First, Great Britain might acquiesce in the continuance of the present system and permit time to lead the self-governing Dominions to a fuller nationhood with a foreign policy of their own, and ultimately allow them to declare whether they would remain at peace while Britain was at war —meaning, as it would, the assertion of independence. TRUE NATIONHOOD “The other and the only course that he could see was the promotion of Imperial co-operation in all questions, including defence. The first principle of this course was the creation of a true citizenship of Empire. Fifteen millions of the race were to-day excluded from full Imperial citizenship, and while this was so we should never have the basis of a true Imperial system. “Unless a scheme was devised by which the nations might be brought, truly and of right, within the Empire, the drift must, as they grew in wealth and population, be toward disintegration. Could that possibility be contemplated without a sense of horror? (Applause.) What was wanted was a free Imperial Council or Imperial Parliament, welding the free nations into one indissoluble whole for the maintenance and permanence of their ideal, including the all-important object of national defence.” Th.e address, as thus summarised, was followed by a. strong eulogy by Lord Selborne, who presided at the Institute’s meeting. “We have,” said Lord Selborne, been privileged to-night to listen to a speech of the greatest importance. It is, I predict, a speech which will be quoted in connection with this great subject for many years to come Those who are present will remember hereafter that they heard this-speech —this speech from the Prime Minister of New Zealand, a country in which his distinguished predecessor, Mr Seddon, has always borne a foremost part in our Imperial deliberations. Sir Joseph Ward has said things to-night . which no statesman of any party in the United Kingdom could sav, not because they do not care about these 1 w n *°L beca " 8e we are not thinki them, but because we know - nf a e ,T he r ar ’ What a Pr ™e Minister of a Dominion may say cannot and

will not be misunderstood in ~ Dominion, yet if we said the sec things, or things like them here, e speeches might be misunderstood the Dominions. The old story 0 ( tC bundle of faggots becomes more tr... every day the Empire exists, Joseph Ward dealt more courageous and at closer quarters with the ih, tion of the organisation of the Effip. than any statesman has yet d O „7 That, is why I have called his sjA. so important and so historical.'' PRAISE AND SYMPATHY These eulogies were, of course, tp-,. satisfactory to Sir Joseph, who hjappealed for the justification whi c . the Conference could not, from th» nature of the proposal made to i extend. It may he held, not withoi:reason, that, the Conference might it have accepted the principle of SiJoseph's proposal with a care.' reserve about the details. As the did otherwise, Sir Joseph did well, feel public opinion outside. He j.~ high praise as well as sympathy, j|uj . as warm as Lord Selborne’s. The “Graphic” made similar eulogy “In his excellent speech at the Rot, Colonial Institute, Sir Joseph Drill set forth with admirable lucidity whs is, in effect, the main problem pop. for the Imperial Conference of lJu The problem is how to give fit Colonies their proper franchise in tit Empire of which largely and constitj. tionally they are an integral part s r Joseph pointed out very justly tha the present situation is anomalous u; may even prove dangerous. The Colonies share in all Imperial liatsili ties, but they have no voice in fie policy which creates those liabilities and only a haphazard and casualsha: In providing against them. If da anomaly is not remedied in time, 1 process of disintegration will develop local new interests and policies wfc will not always be easy to reconcile with Imperial requirements. “How true all this is was shout by the debate on the federal repo sentatives scheme which Sir Joseph submitted to the Conference a for night ago, but which failed to secure the support of the Dominions os grounds which lend no small colon to its author's apprehension. Such 1 scheme, however, cannot be fie growth of a day, or even a decade. The obstacles in the way are formidabl for not only is colonial .sentiment cr yet prepared to adopt it, but for the Mother Country it would mean a coi plete constitutional revolution. If , must be content with the fact fit It is now definitely posed, and fie as the years go on the necessity t' dealing practically with it will b come even more insistent.” This is the same prediction fill Sir Joseph made in withdrawing lit motion. It is possible that if he had worded the proposal differently might have been accepted. GOOD PLACE FOR MONEY About the same time he spoke uj for his country at the New Zeals:: Annual Dinner —the 15th of a rems-'i able series of festivities. He predict:, great progress for New Zealand in fc future, perhaps immediately. As n ambassador of Empire he was takat: every opportunity offering to blow fit trumpet for his country. Speaking: a large attendance, New Zealand''bulking large in the gathering, h “predicted greater progress verysoci There was,” he said, “no safer count: jin the world for investment.” Ttet was just then so much money in fit banks the people could not find intf; ment for it. Not a bad form of con plaint, he thought. “As years ro!k on,” he continued, firing to his s: ject, “the people of the Dominwould realise that it required to 1 more than ever in return for the tn mendous protection received in t**’ j younger days. They recognised un it was of the utmost importance tor main attached to the Old Land. j. The Dominions in the war tire years later made good these pro pit: words of its energetic and far-seen-Prime Minister. Striking a deet* note, he went on: “Considering - growth of population, the diversity laws enacted and the different pn»policies affecting legal interprets’-• in his Majesty’s oversea Domini®' no Imperial Court of Appeal can - he thought, satisfactory if it does: include judicial representation ot - oversea Dominions.” This speech was closely akin tc - . speech he had made in the Conw*®” on the establishment of an Ml*"' j Council on May 25 and 26. : speech went a great deal followed the educational idea h* laid down, and was full of the ■■ j ponsibility resting on a Prime W H ter travelling to London to be P the development and strengthen™ J the Imperial connection. It ino® the pressure of the Imperial situ J I which, having escaped from two j| j atives, consolidation, immediate 1 deferred, was actually still urg® j IMPERIAL ORGANISATION 1 j Most people not very ■ | wondered whether anything M® f L done by the Imperial Conferen A ward the practical organisation - . - British Empire. The lon it , L agitation for drawing up ana ~t e. ! ing a Federal constitution copp all points, capable of reso > possible question in the v (S 1 ’ plicated Imperial field, waS j j|Cl is»r • very live thing, and was l as a thing of paramount s necessity. According to .-most r - tors, many of them men J° m aet c- ~ statesmanship—some of the ~n--1 deep thought, great exper Liy jup ' abundant knowledge—the 0 1 native to a cut-and-dnefl - Federal constitution was , e a}-' : t after the manner of the £ re ' of history. (To be continued daflJt> t| " r || 3 Copies of previous SUX containing The Life r Joseph Ward” nmy he ob f• • 1 j r plication, to the Publisher* gj|| \\P.O. Box GJO.. Auckland.