ALEXANDER HERDMAN

Taranaki Daily News, 3 August 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

ALEXANDER HERDMAN

OUTSTANDING CAREER

(By

H.E.C.)

It is probably no exaggeration to say that one of the personalities most discussed in the Dominion this week has been that of Sir Alexander Herdman, lately one of His Majesty’s Judges, and now a bitter political opponent of the Coalition Government. Sir Alexander has crowded a good many experiences into the 66 years that have elapsed ■ since he was born in Dunedin in the year when the murder of Gascoigne and Whitley at Whitecliffs made Taranaki fearful lest warfare between Maori and pakeha was to be again renewed. His father being a bank manager, it was not surprising that the future judge entered the service of one of the Dunedin banks. But he resigned to take up law, and when he was 25 years old was admitted to practice. For seven years he practised in north and central Otago, in. the course of which he became a member of the Naseby borough council and subsequently mayor of that town. In 1902 he won the Mount Ida (Central Otago) .seat in the House of Representatives and in addition to developing his interest in politics the experience led to his removal from Otago to Wellington city, where he practised until his elevation to the bench. Sir Alexander lost the Mount Ida seat in 1905. He was a forceful opponent of the redoubtable Prime Minister, “Dick” Seddon, who in 1905 nearly annihilated the Opposition, the member for Mount Ida being one of the victims of the political landslide. Seddon did not live to meet the Parliament in which he held such an overwhelming majority, and it was not long before Herdman and other members of the Reform party took heart of grace. The need of the moment was a daily journal to expound "the political doctrines of the Reformers and the views and aims of the “man on the land.” The Wellington Post was emphatically independent of party ties. The Wellington morning paper, the New Zealand Times, was a warm supporter of the Liberal-Labour Administration held together so firmly by Seddon but beginning to show signs of disintegration under Sir Joseph Ward’s leadership. Besides the loss of Seddon there were other factors that helped to dissolve the formerly victorious Radical Government. Labour was becoming uneasy in double harness with the Liberals. It had seen a Labour Ministry in charge of the affairs of the Commonwealth of Australia, and it was told that only by adopting the Australian policy of being a self-supporting, self-ruled and entirely independent party could it ever reach success. The Crown tenants were clamouring for the freehold which Ward’s first Minister of Lands, Robert McNab, initially declined unequivocally, but concern-, ing which he afterwards held out hopes of compromise. The Reform party stood for the freehold for all Crown tenants who wished to obtain it, for Civil Service reform, and for retrenchment in the cost of administration. The establishment of the newspaper “The Dominion” market! a definite challenge of the Ward administration by all who desired a change of Government. Sir Alexander Herdman was one of those who helped to found the paper. He was one of its first directors, and as the board included leaseholders and freeholders, rigid prohibitionists and bon viveurs, business men who wanted protection and farmers who desired freetrade it can be seen that the only cement that held them together was a common desire to oust, the Ward Government from office.

Whatever his political views may be. Sir Alexander could always be relied upon as a fighter. He had stood up to Seddon when he was “King Dick” to most of New Zealand, and in his campaigns for Wellington North his constituents could never complain that they did not know where their candidate stood in regard to any political or social question. Sir Alexander won the Wellington seat in 1908, but it took another four years to see the complete defeat of the Liberal party. Throughout that period the Governments of Ward and McKenzie had no more persistent and caustic critic than, the member for Wellington North. Occasionally he tired of the struggle, and only a few months before political victory was achieved had thought seriously of leaving the Dominion for Australia.

When “Bill” Massey became Prime Minister, Herdman was made Minister of Justice. He did not forget his election pledges in regard to the Civil Service, and the non-political control the service enjoys enjoys to-day is a memorial to the tenacity of Sir Alexander Herdman during his first term of office as a Minister of the Crown. As an individual he was, on the surface, always rather austere. As a director of any enterprise he was quick to grasp the essentials, even those of technical operations. He did not suffer fools gladly—even among fellow directors — and he had no hesitation in expressing his opinion in unmistakable terms. Sometimes they were plain enough to tax the diplomacy of the most tactful chairman, but as his colleagues came to know him they were amused rather than annoyed at his comments and criticisms, while they admired his energy and judgment.

It has been whispered that even in Cabinet Sir Alexander did not always show that deference to a leader which Massey—who became almost as popular and exacting a Dictator as Seddon —demanded from his colleagues. However that may be, there is no doubt that the wharf strike in Wellington, a year or so before the war, caused the Massey Government and Herdman in particular a good deal of anxiety. After six years as a Minister he was made a Judge and his views of that high position were expressed admirably in his farewell address from the Bench to the legal practitioners in the Auckland Supreme Court. “I am glad,” he said then, “to be able to reflect that the Bench of Great Britain and her possessions is the one public institution left which still commands the respect and confidence of all classes ... In the main this is due to its complete independence. A judge need fear no man, and any attempt on the part of the executive to whittle away the independence of the judiciary would mean the beginning of the end of its strength, its dignity and its usefulness.”

Now he has left the calm atmosphere of the Bench for the hurlyburly of politics. His first utterance shows that his old faculty of making caustic criticism is functioning as well as ever. But political success is so niuph a matter of organisation that even his friends will wonder if so ragged an individualist can submit to team control, or if so old a campaigner can stand the pace.