SEDDON NO FENIAN.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 965, 26 June 1897, Page 2

SEDDON NO FENIAN.

' The Wearing of the Greea.'

The rabid loyalist is up on his hind legs once again. His patriotism has been outraged by the audacious misconduct of Premier Seddon in singing ' The Wearing of the Green.' And the* rabid loyalist has written to the San Francisco papers, just as if the American people were going to sympathise with him, and has whined out in mournful phrases his condemnation of this reprehensible display of Fenianism on the part of the Prime Minister of a British colony. Alas ! poor Seddon. He has been wounded in a - tender place. There is nothing disloyal about him, from the crown of his massive head to the soles of his substantial number nines: He is as English as they " make them, and though he possesses a broad-minded sympathy with ' the m ost distressful country ' in her agrarian and political troubles, there is as little Fenianism about* him as there is socialism in the Conservative creed of Captain Russell or the. mighty Bollestpn. The rabid loyalist might have spared himself that whine in the San Francisco papers if he had known Dick Seddon and his musical repertoire as well as the Observeb does. Mr Seddon has a voice as powerful as a fog-horn, and an obliging disposition, but he labours under certain disadvantages as a vocalist. He has succeeded in mastering only two songs. One is ' The Wearing of the Green ' and the other ' Wait till the Clouds Roll By.' The former he has Bung three thousand two hundred and eighty-one times — the latter six hundred and seventy-one times. ' Wait till the Clouds Roll By ' was his popular song in the bad old times.when the Tory administration ruled the roast.andthe country . was overshadowed by the clouds of depression. But the times changed. Dick Seddon himself was called to power.and the clouds of depression rolled by in right good earnest, and Dick's favourite song passed out of date. It was no longer appropriate to the circumstances of the colony. Consequently, Mr Seddon obliterated it from his repertoire^ and fell back entirely on 'The Wearing of the Green.' For months, they Bay, he wrestled with a new song to take the place of 'Wait till the Clouds Roll By,' but unsuccessfully, and finally he gave np the attempt in despair. He was too old, he said, to learn a new song now. * • • ••• • • This is why. Dick Seddon gave them ' The Wearing of the Green ' at the concert on the s.s. Alameda on the. passage to San Francisco. He solemnely promised his colleagues at the farewell Cabinet meeting that under no circnmstances would he allow himself to be prevailed upon to sing ' Wait Till the Clonds Roll By ' during his tour, lest a political significance should he .attached to it by the enemies of Liberalism

v and the impression -be conveyed -Jto - the mind of the uninformed foreignerthat th£ clouds of depression afcill Rested" on New Zealand. ' Dick has loyally kept his promise to his colleagues, but. at what cost ? Political significance has been attached to his' other song also: They have endeavoured to make a double-dyed Fenian of him- because of it. Now, Mr Seddon must perforce yield himself op to i the inevitable and retire from the arena of vocaliam. . If he does not, his foes will euchre him out of that Privy Councillorship to a certainty on the ground that he sings disloyal sentimental songs.