A NEW MINISTER

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 128, 23 February 1921, Page 5

A NEW MINISTER

MR. W. DOWNIE STEWART APPOINTED ALLOCATION OF PORTFOLIOS The appointment of Mr. William Downie Stewart, member for Dunedin West, to the Ministry, was announced yesterday by the Primo Minister. Mr. Stewart is to take the portfolio of Internal Affairs, held at present by the the Hon. G. J. Anderson, and also one other portfolio yet to be determined. Mr. Anderson will retain th© portfolio of Labour, which ho took over when Sir William Herries left Now Zealand early in the month, and will be allotted a second portfolio. The Departments at present without Ministerial heads include Customs and Marine. . Some rearrangement of portfolios will be made necessary by the absence of the Primo Minister during his impending visit to Britain It has been indicated already that Mr. Massey will hand over Finance to Sir Francis Bell (AttorneyGeneral), who is to bo Acting-Prime Minister. The portfolio of Railways will go to one of the other Ministers. Mr. Downie Stewart will not be sworn in until next week. The Governor-Gen-eral is at ’present in Auckland. Mr. Stewart- will take up his Ministerial duties early next month. The new Minister is the younger son of the late W. Downie Stewart, formerly a well-known figure in the New Zealand Parliament. Ho represents the constituency that sent his father to Parliament. Mr. Stewart was born in Dunedin in 1878, and was - etlucated at the Otago Boys’ High School pnd Dunedin University. where he graduated LL.B, in 1900. Ho began the practice of law in Dunedin in the same year. He unsuccessfully contested Dunedin South against •Mr. J. F Arnold in 1905. Me was n member of the Dunedin City Council from 1907 to 1913, and in the latter year became Mayor of the city. He won Dunedin West at the general election of

191 L and in the following year he paired with Mr. T. E. Y. Seddon (Westland) in order that he and Mr. Seddon might go to the front wifi- the 'Expeditionary Force. The two young members gained commissions in the training enmns before they left New ■ Zealand, and thev both naw service in France.- Mr. Stewart was invalided back to Now Zealand in a crippled condition owing to a serious rheumatic affection, and he hns not re-

covered fully the use of his limbs. His partially crippled condition,- however, hns not prevented him taking an active part in the proceedings of Parliament, where ho hns shown himself a forceful and well-informed debater. Mr. Downie Stewart is an authority on New Zealand’s social and industrial legislation, aud is a keen student of economics. He was the joint-author, with Professor le Rossignol, of “State Socialism in New Zealand.” which was published in England and America in 1910, and has boon widely read and minted as nn impartial and shin studv of New Zealand conditions. He hns bten a. member of the Otago University \ Council,