A Seddon Monument

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 25, 21 June 1906, Page 1

A Seddon Monument

The late Mr. Seddon's best and most enduring monument is in our statute-books. . ' All the great things,' says Disraeli in ' Tancred,' ' have been done by little nations.' Our tight litWe islands have for many years taken the lead in legislative ' great things.' And in connection therewith, the late Premier, with his bold and progressive ideas, won a place in social and legislative reform which will long make his memory a precious dowry to our nation. Various schemes are already afloat to raise a fitting monument to his memory. Some of our New Zealand precedents are singularly unfortunate,. Wetherell once said that Campbell's 'Lives of the Lord Chancellors ' added a new pang to death. And, for our statesmen, a new terror has been given to death by certain hideous totem-stones with which we have done ' honor ' to their name and fame. For which of his political sins, for instance, did we inflict upon poor John Ballance that grotesque caricature in marble that stands in loutish pose upon its corns in front of our Parliament Buildings, and stares with idiotic vacancy at the chimney-pots across the way ? John Ballance's name deserved— from New Zealanders at least-a better fate than fo be writ large beneath an effigy that might have been built for Madame Tussaud's. Some day, people with kindly hearts will cart the graven Thing to the stone-crusher or the lime-kiln. When next we profess to do monumental honor to our statesmen, let it not be the sort of post-mortem ridicule that we threw upon Ballance, or that Campbell was" supposed to have piled upon the Lord Chancellors, or the printer Curll upon the eminent men that had the misfortune to pass over to the majority in his day.