OBITUARY.

Wairarapa Age, 18 May 1932, Page 5

OBITUARY.

THE HON. W. FEMBER REEVES. A REMARKABLE CAREER. NEW ZEALAND STATESMAN AND AUTHOR, LONDON, May 16. The death is announced of the Hon. William Pember Reeves, New Zealand statesman and author, father of the New Zealand arbitration system, at the age of 75. (Of his 75 years of life, William Pember Reeves spent 39 in New Zealand and 36 in England. Canterbury-born, he qualified in law, but chose journalism as his pathway into Parliament. • From 1887 till 1896 he was one of Canterbury's hopes in the House of Representatives, and in the last five years of that period, from 1891 till 1896, ho was the Ballance-Seddon Minister who brought into operation the labour laws (including the famous 1.C.A.) of the new Liberal regime. In 1896, when Mr Seddon had still ten years of office ahead of him, there came a sudden turning-point in the career of his * 4 Socialist'' colleague. Although e«ly 39 years of age, Mr. Reeves quitted Parliament and New Zealand to become Agent-General (later High Commissioner) in London, and in that post he remained twelve years, till 1908, when he quitted the High Commissionership. Meanwhile, he had been “digging-in” in England. In 1902 he had become a member of the Senate of the University of London, and in 1908 he was appointed Director of the London School of Economics. He remained Director, and on the Senate, till 1919. But two years before that (in 1917) he had become chairman of the'National Bank of New Zealand, and it is chiefly as euch that the post-war generation has known him. Apart from his other activities, Mr. Reeves took high rank as a writer and poet. His published works include “The Long White Cloud,” “State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand,” “The Passing of the Forest and Other Verses.” and “An Introduction to the History of Communism and Socialism.” He contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and to the Dictionary of National Biography. Mrs. Reeves, who was Miss Magdalen Stuart Robinson, of Christchurch, is author of “Bound About a Pound a Week,” and their daughter has written several novels under the pen name of “Amber Reeves.'') TRIBUTE IN SYDNEY. (Received Tuesday, 9.35 p.m.) SYDNEY, May 17. The flag was flown at half-mast over the New Zealand Government offices to-day as a mark of respect to the late Hon. W. Pember Reeves. — i