RESTING ON HIS OARS.

New Zealand Graphic, 27 June 1906, Page 35

RESTING ON HIS OARS.

In 1890, during tl»e dosing session of the current Parliament, little of importance was done in the way of legislation; . It was not to be wondered at that after the extraordinary achievement of his five years'-of office as Premier, Mr. Seddon should too content for the time merely tocoufirm the position-be had already secured. ’’Mr.

Seddon,” as a by no means sympathetic critic has recently reminded us, “ercur cd UM Premiership in May, 1893; he had-at very short notice acquitted- biinbelf With great credit in the session which opened during the folk>wing mouth; but it was not tiß after the general election at the end of- the same year had been decided in t’.cir favour that he and his colleagues were able to pull themselves together and to prse pound the t-plendiJ programme whieh was realised, as already detailed, in ihe session of 1894. It wss not in the nature of things that such a series of successes could be repeated year by year; and when it is remembered that the same man bad to supply the Parliamentary programme for thirteen year, in succession, the wonder is not that the stream of ideas occasionally flowed a trifle thin, but that it did not dry up altogether. The work of so long a reign eannot fairly be compared, year by year, with that of an Administration which comes fresh into office and is hustled cut again before it has time to get stale; yet even so it has no need to shrink from th* com pa ii son with any ordinary short lived regime. And how many Premiers after thirteen years of it would still have a number of attractive novelties in store for the fourteenth session!”