Fair Play SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1893. Richard the Fourth.

Fair Play, Volume I, Issue 3, 18 November 1893, Page 12

Fair Play SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1893. Richard the Fourth.

The name of “ Dick” Seddon is in every ones mouth now-a-days. In trains and trams, on steamers and street cars, in clubs and hotels, in the surveyor’s or bushman’s camp, at the homestead or in the men’s hut;

wherever New Zealanders are discussing the all-absorbing question of the coining elections, the name which crops uppermost on men f s tongues is that of the burly, good-natured, devil-me-care Dick Seddon. You’ve got to call him Dick. There’s no getting away from that homely abbreviation of the full cognomen of Richard John Seddon, for the simple reason that to the people of this colony the Premier is and always will be Dick—Dick the rampageous, Dick the robustious, Dick the stonewaller, Dick the harrier of Hall andi Ormond, Dick the champion of the West Coast miners, Dick the fighting lieutenant of Ballance’s best Opposition days, Dick the diplomatist (the intriguer if you like), Dick the wire-puller, Dick the friend of the masses, Dick the enemy of the “classes!” Big Dick—King Dick, Premier of New Zealand, in this year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-three. And King Dick he is and King Dick he ought properly to be called. We have had vaiious monarchs since the day when the brown-faced men met at the Bay of Islands, and believed all that the pakeha told them. We have had King Grey and King Whitaker, King Yogel and King Atkinson, King Stout and King Ballance, but King Dick is to-day more than ever Our Boss. He makes candidates, or mars them ; he gives Government bounty to those of the right “ colour,” or withholds it from those of the “ wrong colour;” he rides rough-shod over etiquette and precedent, over custom and privilege, and would prance cheerily over the law itself if he could. He is no scholar, as regards books, but is a shrewd student of men’s minds, and of those human likes and dislikes which govern them, and plays upon the vanity of his followers as cunningly as an harpist on the strings of his instrument. He can mirthfully discount the so-called “ independence” of those who dare to be “ doubtful” at election times, knowing full well that once they are in the House they will have to go the way of all “ independents” and choose a side—and that side his side —if “ local votes” from the public purse have not lost potency as an inducement. He is a genial,, cigar-in-mouthed, sides with laughter cracking, whisky drinking, jovial, backsmacking monarch, but a monarch he is for all that, and not easily will he be disposed from his present “high estate:” For, first and foremost he is a Man. . He has his faults, and they are not set down in one sentence or with ease of enumeration. He is

ignorant and vainglorious; ho is egotistical, and sometimes discourteous ; he can bounco and bully-rag at times with all the virulence of a drunken fish wife ; he tramples over men who stand in liis Avay just as mercilessly as a schoolboy rushing flover a choice ower-bed in search of a lost tennis ball; he can emulate Pilate and ask “ What is truth ?” with the full consciousness that, politically speaking, ho careth not a tinker’s damn for that virtue he can but that is enough. But Dick is a Man, and a strong Man at that. In Lancashire, where Dick comes from, they believe in the good old brute force, which does so much for Britishers all the world over; they like to see a maiv “ keep his end up,” whether he be a cotton broker, who is working a “ cornier,” and stands to make a fortune or “ go bung” over the transaction; orthe bristly boarded, bull-pup-followed collier, who has made up his mind to knock Sheol out of some pugilistic and rival hero of tho neighbouring village. Also, in Lancashire, they like a man who speaks out his mind regardless of results, good or bad, and of such is Dick Seddon, once a Lancashire lad, erstwhile miner, Knight Commander of Kumara, High Priest of Hokitika, and to-day Premier of the Colony of New Zealand. And it is this groat, rough, masterful man who is king in this country just now. Ho is threatened with deposition it is true; a good many of his so-called followers would desert him to-morrow if they dared so to do ; and he has a rival, in Stout, who would vastly like to hurl him from the throne and be crowned in his place. But King Dick the Fourth, like King Dick the First, is a nasty customer to meet in a rough and tumble contest such as this general election is likely to be. Just as bold Dick the First cared not for the Saracens, nor for Satan himself, when once he had his back against the wall, and hacked down his enemies right and left with that mighty axe of his, so King Dick tho Fourth is meeting his foes with a dauntless mien, hacking at them right and left with that roaring voice of his, rushing here, there, and everywhere over the country, full of fight wherever he goes. Whether be will win the fight remains to be seen. He has traitors enough and to spare about his Court, and false friends who are worse than open foes, and fight for his throne King Dick will have to do with both might and main. From one class of the community , he ght to get support—from the toilers

in forest and in mino, on the country roads, and in tho factories of the cities, or wherever they may bo, for to these King Dick has boon a benevolent kindly-hearted monarch, and not a liHlo of his unpopularity with his subjects of so-called “ high degree,” the wealthy “classes,” arises from tho favour he has shown for men whom tho “ classos” deem to be of the “ baser sort." With all his faults and all his follios, Dick Soddon has done his bost, according to his lights, to help the workers of tho country; not by pouring out greasy gush, of tho Stout-aud-water kind, about Ideal States and tho liko; not by preaching diluted Socialism, stolon from obseuro American or Continental writers—-dubbed for tho nonce “ the most enlightened and thoughtful mon of tho ago,”—but by shoer downright liai’d graft. Betwoen King Dick and the would, bo usurper of his throne, Sir Robert Stout—Stout tho Apostate Liberal, Stout tho ex-Ropnbiicnn—-who took atawdiy honour and damned himself as a Domocrat once and for ever —thoro can bo and should bo, wo think, but little difficulty in choosing. Stout talks ; Seddon does, has done, and will do good work for tho workors. And as tho downfall of King Soddon means the triumph of the usurper, Stout, Fair Pi,ay hopes that King Dick will come out on top at tho elections, and that his rule may bo prolonged in the laud. But once moro 'stab* lishod in security on tho throne, King Dick must amend bis ways abjure the political “ sack” of intrigue, cunning, and all “crookedness,” and live a cleanly truly Liberal life, otherwise thore will be a revolution in tho land, another ruler will bo called upon to wield the sceptre, and the Soddonian star will sink for ever. With all thy faults, King Dick, wo lovo thee still, but mend thy ways, or ovil shall befall thee.