POLITICAL PORTRAITS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14325, 15 October 1910, Page 5

POLITICAL PORTRAITS.

w IV, THE HON. J. A. MILLAR. WHO GOES HIS GAIT. (By Kodak.) Last week I called Sir Joseph Ward a diplomat, and the Hon. James Carroll a greater diplomat. Mr Carroll's familiar friend, the Hon. J. A. Millar, scorns diplomacy. Ho was sixteen years at sea, and he has still something of the blunt directness of tho sailor. While Sir Joseph Ward is smiling, nodding and conciliating, Mr Millar moves along as if the deck was clear, and he had only tho far sky and a safe port to contemplate. The size of the man, the easy, sailor swing of the broad slioulders, tho eye that challenges your question with all confidence, give an impression of conscious, rugged strength ; the big head bulges with capacity, the round sanguine face and firm mouth declare a grimly cheerful fighter. " Tlio smooth and honeyed sentences " of his political leader be has never learned. He jerks out short, unambiguous remarks that might be commands on a dark night. He rather favours tho word " no," which other politicians loam during their first week in Parliament to abolish utterly from their vocabulary. Sir Joseph Ward must think that his friend Mr Millar, with all his a'bility and shrewdness, has never learned the first trick in the game of politics. I should like to know what Mr Millar thinks of Sir Joseph Ward.: THE REWARD OF RECKLESSNESS.

By all the teachings of diplomacy , Mr Millar's reckless actions should j have brought him to political destruc- , tion years ago. He appears to be ' quite careless whom he offends. He [ prides'himself upon being a man of his j word, and his word as often as not , brings pain instead of balm to the all- \ Eowerful voter. Hunterville wants'to '■ e made a stopping-place for the express, points with pride to its develop- ;' ment, and sends to Wellington a de-. .' putation with numerously signed peti- j tions. Mr Millar does not oven count i the deputation or the signatures. "It's no use ashing me. For this and that and the other reason I'm not going to do it." If they are-not. discomfited by this rude fiat before they commence their plea, it crushes them when they have finished. They go away convinced that the Hon. Mr Millar is an obstinate man, a most wrongheaded man, but that at least he knows his mind and is not afraid of i them. They do not come back next "> week in a slightly larger deputation. '; All the year round Mr Millar goes on . stubbornly refusing people, disappoint- ' ing people, making the diplomatists • gasp as they see him playing ducks and drakes with the electors' suffrages. And the bewildering result was seen two years ago. when he was returned for Dunodio West by the largest ma- • jority ever polled by any candidate in . an election in New Zealand. A DEPUTATION DISCIPLINED. Until tho long suffering head of th» Government turned a few weeks ago, •■ and set limits to their invasion, deputations were the daily scourge of • Ministers all through the session. Par- ; liameut and committees took up lonfc • hours enough, and deputations claimed the meal liours and tho morning-sleep' hours when the clamour of the Houso had sunk to peace; Sir Joseph Ward, having left the Houso after a stormy Friday night at 3 a.m., would meet a ■' deputation from Taumarunui at 9 a.m. on Saturday—the first of five—as if he felt refreshed and cheered to'seo them... Even tho truculent Hon. R. McKeime.: . who if some rash civil engineer or in-,' credible surveyor dared to differ with - him upon a'technical point in the presentation of a case, would make the members of a deputation eyo the door with fears for an assault, has been known to sit from 5.30 p.m., when the House rose, until within a few minutes of its resumption at 7.30, rather than dismiss undoubted voters with their long story less than throe times told. Hut, m contrast to this, I remember, how, the Hon.. J. A. Millar disciplined a deputation who had ■ refused his hint that they should call ' again at some more reasonable hour. "Very well gentlemen, it is ball'-nast twelve, and T can give you twenty minutes. So choose your speakers and ba » brief." Thev chose their speakers, and Mr Millar heard them, watch in ; band. Thev finished with a rminfiil, anxious rush which left the Minister just two minutes to reply. He took , no more. A CONSISTENT POLITICIAN.

Mi' Millar noes liis own gait, oquall.v regardless of the feelings of Sir Joteph ; Ward and those of tlie meanest voter. ' The railways should not he expected to pav interest," was the constant declaration of Sir Joseph Ward. "The railways must pay interest, and they are. going to pay," was the brutally enun- , •ciated maxim of Mr Millar when lit* took charge. Of course the selt-de-termined hues of conduct to winch ha cleaves so strongly are often rash or wrong. He refuses a small favour to T assist"the Tiniaru fish industry, on tha absurd ground that he has refused to assist other industries in the name way. It is natural that we should have to pav something for Mr Millar's virtues. He never showed more strongly his contempt for general opinion than when he attended officially last year, with Mr Carroll, the inaugural meeting of a bookmaker's club which: had been formed in Wellington. When church and school and bar united in a '■ deputation to Sir Joseph Ward this session, and poured into his sympathetic ears their denunciation's of tha. bookmaker, and when the 'anti-gambl-ing resolutions followed, and member ' after member in the House vented: their scorn and their contempt upon the same unhappy class, there was keen interest to hear what Mr Carroll and: Mr Millar would say. Mr Carroll said nothing, like n diplomat, but Mr. Millar made a speech which those who. most lamented his opinions most ad- . mired. He declared that he he- 1 lieved in the bookmaker, and was not opposed to betting, and went on to make the best defence of his opinions that was capable of being made. Although a leaseholder he stood_ by Sir Joseph Ward when, in the opinion of other leaseholders, the Minister for'' Lands offered to " betray the national . right" by the Land Bill of last ses- .'■ sion. A good many people saw tha possibility of a split in the Government party, with Mr Millar as the formidable leader of the leasehold faction, when that Bill was brought down, hub the Minister for Labour remained loyal ' to his chief. When the Government made weak concessions" to the West . Coast miners, and on other occasions when it showed its weakness, there were rumours that Mr Millar disapproved of its proceedings, and had stay* ed away from successive Cabinet meetings, rather than bo a party to itaactions. Before he entered Parliament he wns the skilful leader of the maritime strike of 1890, and though his stiff-backed administration of the lißIxrar Department has alienated some extremists of the Labour Part?, it has not impaired his genera] popularity. He thought it necessary to.'snj.\ after last election and in Invftearßill, strangely—that though he 'wotvild like naturally to be Prime Ministeyfhe will not seek,the oincomfortable h«iours of that position while Sir Josc&'i War'6s is pleased to bear them. . Sir*! Joseph, piay. ftw.a much fej Mr J*£llar A -