MINISTER OF FINANCE

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18804, 28 November 1932, Page 7

MINISTER OF FINANCE

18 YEARS IN PUBLIC LIFE

SEEN MUCH OF THE WORLD.

EARLY IMPRESSIONS

(Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Saturday. It is just upon 18 years ago that the Hon. William Downie Stewart, the son of a father bearing the same name who served in both branches of the Dominion's Parliament, was first elected to the House of Representatives for Dunedin West by a constituency he lias held continuously ever since. He had contested unsuccessfully the Dunedin South against Mr J. 1 • Arnold in 1905, and it was not until nine years later that he again entered the political arena. In the interval he had served In the Dunedin City Council for five or six years and occupied the Mayoral chair for the customary period. Previously he had graduated at the Otago’University, practised as a barrister and solicitor, travelled through Siberia and China during the time of the Japanese war and seen much of the world and of life and opportunity. The War. The nineteenth Parliament of the Dominion was opened on June 25, 1915, rather more than ten months after the outbreak of the Great War, and when the Governor-General’s speech was submitted to the House ol Representatives it became the privilege of Sir James Parr and the Hon. W. Downie Stewart, as new members, to open the discussion upon this weighty production. Needless to say, Sir James Parr, the senior of the two speakers, discharged his share of the talking with ready address and appropriate emphasis But it was left to Mr Stewart, then looking no more than an earnest, alert young fellow of 25 or so, to closely arrest, the attention of the House and the galleries. For a full hour, without a superfluous word, lie commanded the interest of the whole body of his listeners, who would have cheered but for the sanctity of the occasion. Good for the Nation.

Mr Stewart, in those days, as now, was an optimist of the sound kind, and a few lines from his speech years ago may bear repetition. “In regard to the bearing of the war on the Empire itself," he said, “I suggest that this war will demonstrate, as previous wars have done, that war is the greatest factor in bringing about closer union between members of the same community. We know that every federation that has taken place in the past has been the result of a great war, and I think one great result of the present war will be to bring about an organic change in the Empire, so that all parts of the Empire will ultimately be enabled to take part in the control of diplomacy in foreign affairs and common defence.” So far, at any rate, one of the debutant’s predictions has been realised.

Coalition. Having quoted a fragment of Mr Stewart's first speech in the House it may be permissible to present another passage from the same speech which in a measure helped to create the National Government of 1914-1919. "I hold strongly," the young man from Otago declared, “that there Is as much necessity here for the creation of a National Government as there was in England. The public are looking for it—and rightly looking for it—because in such a time as this we need the best efforts of the best brains of lh(! community to deal, with the problems that are in front of us, not only during the war, but immediately after it is over." Had Mr Stewart had his own way at the beginning of the war lie would have amalgamated the two major parties and saved the Dominion many millions of pounds sterling.