Leaders of New Zealand

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 982, 27 May 1930, Page 8

Leaders of New Zealand

THIRD FARMER-PREMIER Thirty-Six Cabinets FOR the third time a farmer Prime Minister is entrusted with the task of forming a Cabinet. Excluding the ►Seddon and Massey reconstructions, the lion. G. W. Forbes's choice will be the thirty-seventh Cabinet that has governed New Zealand. In seventy-four years of responsible Government New Zealand has been ruled by thirty-six Cabinets, the average term of office being just over two years. It is interesting to note that down to tlie beginning of the Eong Parliament of Seddon the term of office of the 26 Cabinets had been less than one and a-half years.

Mr. Forbes may take a little heart from the fact that Seddon took office in May, and that he was acting leader of the House during the illness of his chief, Ballance, in the 1592 session, the first after the accession session in 1891. Two other Ministries, the Bell-Sewell and Fox, the colony’s first two cabinets under self-government, fell into the lap of Fortune in the month of May. September and October are the most fataf months for Ministries, as might be expected from the fact that the parliamentary sessions are then well under way, bur every month in the year, except December, has been the month of the beginning of some Ministry. The trying-out of responsible government brought three Ministries in twenty-six days, Bell-Sewell, Fox and Stafford, but Parliament is now a tame institution as compared with that of former days. The issues are not so keenly disputed and the forms of the House are more stringent. It is long since a speaker had to fine a member £2O for disobeying the chair, as happened to the Hon. Mr. Gisborne in 1881. In -earlier days no Prime Minister could assume he was sure of his office. Sir Harry Atkinson was five times Premier in five years and four months. Up to Seddon’s day Sir Edward Stafford held the record for long term Premier, holding office for just under nine years Seven have been Premier for periods of less than two years, including the redoubtable Sir George Grey. Eight Premiers have been lawyers by occupation, three have been com mercial men, one was a surgeon Alfred Dommett had been a public servant, Seddon was a miner turned publican. Vogel had been in turn a clerk, miner, newspaperman, Grey was a soldier by profession, three have been farmers, Ballance was an ironmonger who took to running papers, and one, Hall-Jones, had been a car-

penter. Only two, Coates and Forbes, are natives of New Zealand. To this list may be added Sir Francis Dillon Bell, who was acting Premier for a few days. The Hansard staff did not employ shorthand reporters until 1567. Up to that date politicians were expected to supply corrected reports of their own speeches. These were compared with the newspaper reports and whichever were deemed the more reliable were inserted in Hansard. The busy men had little time to write out their speeches and therefore the early Hansards are not of very much use in tracing a Premier’s record. Ballance, Seddon and Massey died in harness and only eight (Sewell, Dommett, Waterhouse, Pollen, Ballance, Seddon, Massey and Coates) clung to the democratic idea of nor having a title. It may also be news to some that at one time, when Hi ce was hard in the colony, Parliar.i . cut down the Governor’s salary from £7,500 to £5,000, Lord Onslow being the unfortunate Governor who entered office at the reduced salary. The number of members in the House was also cut down from ninety-five to seventy-four. Forty years ago a move for an elective executive had great support and it was generally thought that the measure would become law in the middle nineties. The advent of Seddon, however, headed off this measure. The plan was to have an executive council, seven members to be elected by the House and one by the Legislative Council. Under this scheme six of the Lower House representatives would hold portfolios, including the Premiership. The other two members of the executive were to be without portfolios. All would continue in office for the three years of a Parliament, except that the Governor would have power to remove Ministers, on the vote of the House.