SIR JOSEPH WARD

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3756, 15 May 1936, Page 11

SIR JOSEPH WARD

AND RAILWAY CHANGES. THE EVENTS OF 1908. Sir Joseph Ward is No. 38 of Mr. Jas. Cowan’s “Famous New Zealanders” series in the “New Zealand Railways Magazine. Mr. Cowan writes: “The political career of the late Sir Joseph Ward was distinguished by two features which have marked several other great lives in colonial history: his rise from smallest beginnings to the highest position in the Dominion, and his quick, vigorous, far-seeing share in the affairs of the British Empire. Like his chief, Seddon, he was one of those men who made their way upwards without any assistance, by inherent merit and force of character. Ambition was strong in him, but it was ambition with sound and brilliant capacity behind it. The spirit of initiative was his in an unusual degree; he was not afraid of criticism once he was convinced that his actions were in the country’s best interests. He was for forty years a consistent champion of Liberal principles in government, and he was responsible for necessary reforms and innovations in the country’s administration.” Sir Joseph Ward was Minister of Railway and Prime Minister in the golden age of New Zealand railways. It was the day when a railway was perfectly certain that it had a load to lift, even though it might not pay more than 3 per cent, on the transaction. In the period when the southern railhead of the Main Trunk railway -was at Taihape and the northern railhead at Taumarunui, with gangs of navvies strung out across the intervening King Country, a Minister of Railways could feel sure that the transport job, once the wilderness was settled, would be his. Service roads were built alongside the building railway in order to permit delivery of construction materials, but after the railways was built it was considered that the job of these parallel roads was finished. No one envisaged that the time was not far off when all over the country parallel roads would roar with vehicles carrying both passengers and goods that were regarded up to that time as a railway privilege —and carrying them with the help of imported fuel. Mr. Cowan does not dwell on the significance of the transition period, but he expresses it sufficiently by reproducing a photograph of Sir Joseph Ward (with Minister of Public Works Hall-Jones, later Sir William) driving the last spike of the North Island Main Trunk railway in 1908. This last spike was a tremendous achievement for a country of limited borrowing power. The romance has already been told by Mr. Cowan in his sketches of the engineers Rochfort and Hursthouse.

Sir Joseph Ward’s hand in railway construction—the year 1908 saw the Government’s purchase of the Manawatu Company’s Thorndon-Long-burn line as well as the filling of the Main Trunk gap—his founding of the Tourist Department, his penny post, his financing, his share in Imperial Conferences are dealt with at length by Mr. Cowan. Sir Joseph Ward was a practical Imperialist. “One of the most-discussed acts, several years before the war, the seemingly impulsive offer of a dreadnought to the Empire, was a master-stroke justified by results. Therein Sir Joseph was a seer, a prophet; he had vision and imagination that were verified to the full.

“I write of Ward as it was my good fortune to know him—a pleasant, clever, brisk, active man, with a wide range of interests. It was probably his Irish ancestry that gave him his sunny nature, his traits of generosity, and quick sympathy. His kindly nature was not repressed by political antagonism. I like to dwell on his generous nature. It is natural for a man in power to smile on his friends; it is not so easy to be generous to fierce opponets. Hot speeches once over, Ward was the most genial of companions. Honours came to him, but he was never puffed up. He was a firm and steadfast friend, therein he was closely akin to his great chief, Seddon. If he made some enemies, as every strong and prominent politician does, he had an army of life-long friends.

“Thousands of New Zealanders have warm and kindly memories of Joseph Ward; he lives in the hearts of his friends, his fellow-country people, and that is the best monument any man or woman can have.”