RICHARD JOHN SEDDON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1416, 26 June 1915, Page 2

RICHARD JOHN SEDDON.

A statue of the late Richard John Seddon will be unveiled iu Parliament grounds, Wellington, today. It is a little over nine years ago since Mr Seddon passed away. Referring to the late statesman, the Post says, inter alia:—Few men have entered the House of Representatives with poorer prospects of a great success than the rough miner in whom the men of the West Coast first found a congenial representative iu 1879. He uad no advantages of birth or education, of wealth or social position, and he had to face an assembly which was far more sensitive on these points than the advancing tide of democracy has since made it. In those early days 'he could hardly raise his voice iu the House without raising a titter. But he soon lived that down, and before many years had passed, and without any help but that of his own genius, he held the assembly which was once disposed to jeer at him in the hollow of his hand. And he so held it for a consecutive period almost twice as long as that for which any Prime Minister in England has, since the Reform Bill, succeeded in holding office without a break. The contrast between the early difficulties and the subsequent mastery presents a general analogy to the case of Disraeli. Bike him, we may imagine Seddon saying under the sling of initial failure, ‘'The time will come when you shall hear me ! As a Parliamentary orator, of course, Seddon had no touch of the incomparable genius of Disraeli, but, weighted at first by a heavier handicap, he far surpassed that singular man in the of Parliamentary management. To the last Disraeli’s position In the House of Commons was rather like that of an alien. He could dazzle it on occasion, but Seddon’s mastery seemed like a hypnotic power that kept it under uniform and complete control from day to day and year to year. Ihere was nothing dazzling about his eloquence, but he exercised a personal ascendancy wuich was perhaps even more strougly felt in the lobby than on the floor of the House.” Peace to his ashes!