For the Empire’s Sake.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue IX, 30 August 1902, Page 546

For the Empire’s Sake.

LEAVES FROM THE DIARY OF A PREMIER ON TOUR.

Beyond acknowledging his indebtedness to wireless telegraphy, the editor does not feel at liberty to disclose the source of the interesting communication which follows, the securing of which is perhaps the most remarkable “scoop” yet made in the history of New Zealand journalism.

Hull, August 22. —The naval review was the closing act of the Coronawas the closing act of the Coronation drama. The midnight Royal salute was the signal for visitors to pack their traps and get back to their homes. On Tuesday evening-, when sauntering in the vicinity of Buckingham Palace, a favourite resort ot mine, I could not help remarking on the suddenness with which the King's guests had taken themselves away and those fine lines of Kiplig came into my mind—- '• The triumph and the shouting cease. The captains and the Kings depart, Still stands the ancient sacrifice.” So appropriate they seemed to me; the captains and the kings all gone, and myself standing there all alone, and feeling quite old after all I have sacrificed tor the Empire. It is not often that 1 suffer from depression or feel lonely, but that evening I was far from myself. I would have dropped in on the King if he had been at home, but he was away in the yacht. I experienced quite a sense of relief when I saw approaching me the genial Lewanika, of Barotseland. Under ordinary circumstances I would barely have noticed him, for the fool ish fellow, quite unintentionally, of course, raised an awkward laugh against me the other day 'by remarking-, at Early Dash’s “At Home,"’ that he and I were the only two savage monarchs present. He was evidently under some absurd impression that because I represented New Zealand 1 was a Maori chief. On Tuesday, however. I was too lonely to remember that against him. and, after all, he is always a King, so I greeted him affably.

“When you go home to your country, Massa Seddon?” enquired he. 1 always feel annoyed when folks ask me that stupid question, but 1 graciously covered my impatience, and explained that 1 was waiting for certain things.

“Oh,” says he, with a barbaric grin, “1 know, you mean same as Massa Barton has got.”

It was foolish of me to feel vexed with the savage, for he meant nc barm, but 1 had just had a disagreeable interview with Barton in reference to the same subject earlier in the afternoon. He (Barton) came into my room in the hotel to say goodbye, as he was leaving early next morning for Australia, via Canada. His portmanteau was in his hand, and, laying it down on the floor he asked, with affected surprise. ‘Aren't you coming with us, Seddon?”

“No,” says I, “I’m afraid I can't get away quite yet.” “Oh!” says be, with a -beastly smile, and added. “Well. I suppose we may consider the feast all over now. though, I say. old man, you don’t seem to have had your dessert yet.” He laughed at his joke till I thought he was going to have a fit. but became suddenly serious when I says:

“There’s some. Sir Edmund, that have got more than their desserts.”

“That may be,” snarls he. “but at least they got it at the table, they’re not stopping behind to pick up the scraps.”

“It isn’t everybody that would be satisfied with a measly knighthood. Barton. You’re a modest soul,” was was my reply.

“It wasn’t everybody that was offered it.” l>e rejoins.

“No, Barton, there were bigger things a-going than that. What would you say to a baronetcy, if it had been offered you?” “I would have said, “Give it to Seddon, he wants it more than I do.’ ”

“There you would have been wrong. Sir Edmund Barton, K.C.M.G.,” says I, very softly and deliberately, “because Mr Seddon was offered it and refused it.”

“ You mean, he says he was offered it and refused it. We've all beard that yarn, Dick, my boy, but it won't wash; no, it won’t wash, Dick Y'ou may cablbe it as a rumour to New Zealand, if you like, and they may swallow it, but it doesn't go down here." And before I had time

to say a word he grabbed his traps, said “ta-ta,” and was gone.

. . . Left for Hull the same night. Just when 1 was on the point of getting ready for my journey one of those wretched newspaper men waited upon me. He wanted an interview. It seems that Mr Stead’s statement giving currency to a rumour of my intention to become leader of the Labour party in South Africa has created a great deal of comment and speculation, and the reporter came to me to learn the truth. He showed me a copy of a paper containing Stead’s remarks. I affected not to have seen them before, far less, to have heard anything of the i amour to the effect that I was impressed with the need of a strong statesman in South Africa and meant to offer my services; and the enquiring reporter got no satisfaction out of me. I told him in my most oracular tones that “Time would prove,” whatever that means, and that “nobody is ’ustified or authorised to say that 1 will renounce New 7 Zealand and live at the Cape.” And that is literally the case. 1 thought to have been able by this time to announce my plans for the future, but I am as unsettled as ever. I don’t know what I shall do. It all depends on circumstances which I am expecting to eventuate every day. To the private ear of this diary alone can I confide the disappointment which I feel over the result of my visit to the Old Country. My hopes have not been realised. Heaven forbid that I should say anything disloyal, but the King is most unsatisfactory. I can’t make him out. However, I am not going to despair, and shall extend my stay here for some time yet, under one pretext or another, to see what turns up. As to the South African idea, it has certainly been present in my thoughts very frequently, but I never gave Mr Stead any authority to say that I contemplated the Cape as my future sphere of action. I have the clearest recollection of everything that, passed between us on the two occasions on which he courted an interview with me. On the second our conversation was of such a kind that neither of us is likely to forget it, for we came to high words and parted on no very friendly terms. The Editor of the “Review of Reviews” is a masterful man; and so am I; and it -was a case of Greek meeting Greek when we met. We spoke of many things, New Zealand and my labour legislation among others, and then the talk drifted away to South Africa, as was to be expected. I could not help twitting Stead with his pro-Boer leanings; and his reply was characteristic of the man. “My dear Mr Seddon,” says he. “you quite misread me.” Whatever I may have said or written tn favour of the Boers belongs to the past. Like yourself, I must not be judged by my bygone utterances, but to prove to you that I am no pro-ißoer, let me ask you whether j on have ever heard of me being long identified with any movement, that did not pay. Review my long career, my Tribute of Modern Babylon period, my Spook stage, my ideal newspaper epoch, and you will find that, though an idealist before all things, 1 have never allowed my commercial instincts to be obscured >r my financial schemes to be imperilled by “sntiment or idealism. I could not possibly be an active proBoer now, for the simple reason that as a commercial speculation there is nothing in pro-Boerism.” I admitted the force of his argument. “Many people,” he continued, “cannot understand my character, but I think that you, having so much in common with me in that respect, will.” No, I am no pro-Boer, Mr Seddon, but I am a pro-African, as I be-

lieve you to be. Although the late Mr Rhodes did not think fit to allot me the -task of carrying out his wishes, the aims that he cherished have always been mine too, and now that he is gone, I would gladly devote what talents and energy Heaven has vouchsafed me to carry to a successful conclusion the work he inaugurated. 1 have my ideal of what Africa might become. It is a high ideal, I admit, but not necessarily one impossible of attainment. But it requires a man of very rare qualifications to direct the destinies of the country. I enjoy unrivalled advantages for discovering- such a man, for I am on terms of personal and more or less confidential communication with the Cardinal Secretary of State at the Vatican, with the Procurator General of the Holy Synod, the Al chbishop of Canterbury, Dan Leno, the Czar of all the Russias, the President of the Hayti Republic, the successor to the Mahdi, the Kenniff Brothers—in fact, with all the most notable and

influential people of the day, and in all that wide pircle I know of no man fitted to realise my ideal. A man with the wisdom of Socrates, the character of Marcus Aurelius, and the genius of Napoleon, is needed, and where shall we find that trinity of qualities embodied in one man? I am well aware that I do not possess them myself, but with all my faults and shortcomings—and no one is more painfully conscious of them than myself—l am perhaps the one individual who comes nearest to that perfection we are seeking after. I say It modestly. I ”

I can do a bit of this sort of thing myself, and before he had got out more than the first word of his next sentence I had got the floor and held it.

“What troubles you,” says I, “has been troubling me, too. As you say. I am a pro-African, and have my ideal as to the future of that great country. But I experience almost the same difficulty that you do about getting a suitable man to direct and guide the fortunes of the country. I have a pretty wide experience of men. I am in personal and more or less confidential communication with Mr Witheford, Mahutu, the King, and Prince of Wales, E. M. Smith, King George of Tonga, Clement Wragge, I’. R. Dix, and, indeed, all the most notable and influential people of the day. In all that wide circle I have only discovered one man who would fill the billet, and he unfortunately fills another. He might be persuaded to throw up the latter, however, if sufficient inducement offered. Mind you, Mr Stead, I don’t say that he would, but he might.” “You surprise me, Mr Seddon,” says Stead, “I had not believed there was another man in the world save the one I myself suggested who would be competent for the position, and I am inclined to question it now. Do you know the gentleman you speak of so

highly?” says he. "1 wouldn’t speak of him so highly if 1 was uot so intimately acquainted with him,” says 1. "Anu, ± auu c d, "to be us frank wi>h you a-i you are with me, it never occurred to me till you mentioned yourself that there was another man in the Empire so suited for it as he; and I’m not even

disposed now to admit that tnere is. ’ "What consideration would your friend regard as adequate tor relinquishing me cnanees or securing the position? suddenly says my idealist editor.

“Well, speaking between ourselves,” says 1, "no consideration would have sumced eigirt weeks ago, for then he understood his appointment was a dead certainty, but the outlook has altered since then, and I believe he would be more approachable now.” “Do you think that in view of the service he would be rendering to tne Empire he would go shares with me in Africa? 1 can be of great assistance to him with the large circulation of my paper, and tor the same reason 1 would be a formidable impediment to the success of anyone I cared to oppose. You must recognise this.”

“With all my weaknesses, Mr Stead,” says I—“and no one is less conscious of them than I am I have no fear of any man who would oppose my friend, but Africa is a big place, and there is room in it for both you and me —I mean him. 1 think 1 could persuade him to assent to the proposal I understand you to make.” There and then he took down from the wall a large map of Africa, and we were soon poring over it together, red pencil in hand. But it was not long before it became quite evident to me that Mr Stead’s idea of partitioning Africa was to reserve most of the southern part to himself, and to relegate my friend to the region north of the Zambesi. I could not stand quietly by and see the dearest friend 1 have in the world robbed of* his prospective inheritance, and we came to words about the matter.

“You’re mighty concerned about that friend of yours,” says he, seizing one end of the map with the intention of putting it away.

I grabbed the other end and pulled it towards me. The fabric yielded to the strain, and parted in the middle, just a little north of the equator. And that is th only partition of Africa we effected, for I took my hat and made for the door, disgusted with the self-seeking egotist. As I left the room Stead shouts after me, “Bah! 1 know who your friend is,” but 1 affected not to hear.