The Premier.

Manawatu Herald, 16 May 1893, Page 2

The Premier.

Writing on the political situation and the painful position Sir Robert Stoat is placed in, the Christchurch Press refers to the Premier: — Had anyone a few years back predicted that the rough, little educated, bub excessively talkative member of the Westland County Council would become Premier of New Zealand he would have been scouted as a madman. Mr Seddon has won — yet there has been no luck about his win. No one made room for him, no one helped him, alone he has elbowed his way to the benches. He is no scholar, and though he had a fair school education has never been a reader, and has seen little of the world. Outside a few local bodies in Westland he has had no experience of government. Bis position in life gave him no business habits. Of many departments of government he has no knowledge -whatever. He does not know even the rudiments of finance, is ignorant of the Education department and of Native affairs and of Customs and t lands. Of the science of government as carried on outside New Zealand he is as ignorant as a babe. All that we have stated is true in every line of it and yet Richard John Seddon is to day Premier of New Zealand and leader of a majority in the House. Early he became a kind of bush lawyer and talked, then appeared as a mining agent in the Law Courts' and talked, joined debating societies and talked, was elected to local bodies and talked ; talked himself into the House, became notorious as the longest and most frequent talker in it, talked till every one hated the sound of his incessantly clattering tongue. As a Minister he talked himself into the Acting Premiership and then talked himself into the position of Prime Minister t Great is talk, and Seddon is its prophet 1 Mr Seddon has talked almost continuously for three days, and a House cowed, exhausted, yielded to him. No matter what the subject, he is ready to talk. His talk is never clever, never witty, always spun out till it is not worth listening to. It is quiet impossible to do justice to his powers to talk. Last session he stonewalled his own Bills— he had done it so often in Opposition he could not leave it off as a Minister. Naturally the next question is, what sort of a Premier will he make? It is difficult to believe that a man so uneducated, whose : , speeches betray such scanty, acquaintance with affairs, can be a successful Premier. Undoubtedly he is a clever man, very quick at making a little kuowledge go a very long way — "all his mental wares are always on view in the front shop window." Ho is, we repeat, a bora fighter, and has fought his way to the top, but the Premier must be * more than a clever heavy weightpugilist. As leader of the House last session he was a dead' failure. But Mr Seddon is in a sense clever ; he has won every position in life he has fought; for, and notwithstanding his many disadvantages, his determination may pull him. through. He has won the ambition of his life, and he will struggle all he knows to be a success. On some. burning questions Mr Seddon's attitude is doubtful, and it is noteworthy that on the last occasion that the Private Schools Bill came up he conveniently found another and shirked it. HVfta known to be hostile to the Female Franchise, and will see it does not pass while he is Premier. His speeches betray, such narrowness of mental range/ > such an absence of broad statesmanlike views as to place him mentally far below New Zealand past Premiers. . . f