The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday at Noon. TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1920. THE NEW HIGH COMMISSIONER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 518, 30 March 1920, Page 2

The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday at Noon.

TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1920. THE NEW HIGH COMMISSIONER.

"We nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."

The retirement of Sir James Allen from political life after an uninterrupted parliamentary career of thirty-three years will be received by both his friends and his opponents with regret, tempered by the knowledge that his experience and capacity will not he lost to the country, but merely transferred to another sphere, in which he may be confidently looked to to continue the yeoman's service he has always given to New Zealand. As the representative of the Dominion at the heart of the Empire we may be sure he will carry out his new duties with the same single-minded devotion to our national interests that has characterised him throughout his public life.

That his counsel and his administrative abilities will be missed in the Cabinet goes without saying. After more than a quarter of a century's intimate association with the Prime Minister, first as his able lieutenant in opposition, and later as his righth: ml man and practically his equal yoke-mate upon the Government benches, it cannot be but that the la! tor will, in the trying task of p> st-war reconstruction and the recti iration of the errors and ineptitudes of the late National Government, often regret he no longer has Sir James Allen to turn to. But Mr Missey's shoulders are broad, and his capacity for work almost unbounded, and he may safely be trusted to win tlsrough to a safe and satisfactory s< lution of problems which now nripe tr almost insoluble.

As a Cabinet Minister Sir James Alien first won his spurs as treasurer, in which post he showed his power of dealing with the complicated difficulties of national finance in a manner that delighted his friends as much as it confounded his enemies, who hud always somewhat smugly congratulated themselves tliat linanee was the particular in which the Massey Government would fail. But he had scarcely convinced the country thai he had brought tn his Department knowledge and ability that have certainly not been exceeded by his predecessors, than the war began, and with it came his great opportunity. For it is as Defence .Minister during the trying five years of hostilities that iie will be remembered. To his great task Si;' James Allen brought what his enemies called obstinacy, but which we should prefer to characterise as the resolute steadfastness of a man, who, having conv'r.ced himself as to the right path. fellows it without suffering himself to be turned aside by either persuasion, criticism or abuse. The usual path of the politician is along the line of least resistance: the road the Defence Minister trod led direct to the goal he had in view, the aiding of the Empire to win the war with the full re«lg*|rces of the Dominion. flew roug|fj^n'd'. stony the route o f ten was win be realised by those who have not forgotten the abuse of the lower-grade politicians disgruntled by for the first time bumping up against a State Department where neither political pull, cajolery or threats prevailed, and the clamour of municipal patriots, who,nut commercialism above efficiency in their leu.l and long-continued . agitation for local camps, to say. nothing of the anti-conscriptionists and con-' scii ntious objectors. To have lived down the opposition he encountered, to have literally made b.icks without straw by creatine; a great military department out of practically nothing, and to have finally convinced hi* most bitter critics that his '.Vu\ was the right way, was surely the work of no comman man, but of e:ie possessing the attributes Horace m.U't have had in his mind when he coupled together the epithets ''just a ui tenacious of purpose.''