KING DICK'S " RECORD REIGN. Ten Years Premier.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 148, 2 May 1903, Page 8

KING DICK'S " RECORD REIGN. Ten Years Premier.

TO-DAY (Friday) is the anniversary of the day on which, ten years ago, King Dick took up the sceptic he seems to still have a good grip on. He has got into the habit of bemg Premier, and a majority of people in New Zealand condone the habit. To-morrow the people of all classes in Wellington will show how glad they are that Mr. Sedcbn is still at the tiller by demonstrating at the Opera House. If you care to make a collection of all his sins, as printed by the Opposition, during his "lecord reign," you would find the list ample and complete. * * * He started 'sinning" ten yeais ago, and the people who were without the leaven of naughtiness commenced throw - ing stones right away. One would think that if those stones had been th^ highly virtuous missiles they purported to be that some would have knocked the monarch off his exalted perch, but successive nights of jagged fragments still leave him unharmed and exalted, the record Premier of the Pacific. The artifices used to poison the minds of the people against him have nor been a pionounced success. His political adversaries have tried to show to what an extent he has deceived the people, the people having been blindly led for ten years by darkness w hen they might have basked in the full glare of Opposition effulgence. * + * But, we shall see The time js at hand. The Oppositionists are to form a "cave," and stop the onward rush of Seddonian progress. The Premier is alleged to be trembling. Upon our word we believe it — with laughter Isn't it a trifle hard to believe that a people who voluntarily thrust a huge sum of money on their political leader, axe going back on him now? Wouldn't it be ungrateful of the people, who recognise the immense progress of the past ten years, towards which Mr. Seddon has at least done something, if they.

after his refusal of exalted positions elsewhere, believed, with the frantic few, that the decade past was one of political deception, punishable only in one way ? * * * But, apart from the question of shades of political opinion, King Dick is the record Premier. By the> will of o majority of the people of New Zealand he has been allowed to reign undisturbed, and the demonstration of tomorrow will be unique. It cannot be denied that Dick has haid a "rattling good time" during the past ten years and that the people who are not Premier, and don't want him. to be, are aghast at the idea of anybody being able to luxuriate to a larger extent than themselves. * * King Dick has journeyed Home, he has been to Africa, he has visited the Island Dependencies, he has seen every nook and corner of New Zealand, and money has been expended freely. One always expects to pay for advertisements and experience, and believe us New Zealand is better known through the fact that Mr. Seddon has been its political head than it could have been by the employment of any othei method. We, in New Zealand, want to be heard of, and Mr. Seddon has a fine voice. * * The very boldness of his expressed notions, both here and abroad, have cieated an interest in this country that a ' still small voice" could not have accomplished. The longer the time he i«. allowed in w hich to express the views that have frequently been laughed at — and adopted, the 1 more valuable the standing advertisement for NewZealand. Mr. Seddon's pupils, imbued with their leader's breadth of view and boldness of expiession, may be entrusted in the future to stick to the curriculum that has made the political school an institution worthy of copy.