CANADIAN TRIBUTE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 332, 20 September 1932, Page 7

CANADIAN TRIBUTE

mr. downie stewart "DOMINATES HOUSE FROM HIS WHEELED CHAIR." PLUMMET IN N.Z. POLITICS. Writing in the Vancouver Daily Province.of July 25, Mr. Francis Aldham, a Canadian journalist, pays a tribute to the Hon. W. Downie Stewart. The article is headed "Dominates Country from Invalid's Chair" and reads as follows: — - When two men compete in Parliament to catch the Speaker's eye, the race generally is to the swift. For the member who is first on his feet traditionally has the floor. In the Commons of New Zealand there is a man who does not even try to rise, but he is very effective in cutting the ground from under "the other fellow's feet. To the Speaker he is the member for Dunedin West since 1914. To the Prime Minister he is a tower of strength. To the members at large he is a mine of information on a myriad of subjects, yielding impartially to the pick and shovel of follower and oppositionist. To the Socialists he is dangerous because he has studied — and written about — Socialism and remained a Tory. To the people of New Zealand he is Downie Stewart the Second, who might have basked in the sun of his ! father's political prestige, but pre- 1 ferred to light a fire of his own. In ! his younger days he dabbled in poli- j tics while he succeeded in law; diu i fair to win an easy comp^tence and follow the primrose path to medioc- j rity. Came the war. Stewart the Second. William Downie Stewart the Second (his father had been AttorneyGeneral for New Zealand) was 38 when he went overseas with' the Anzacs in 1916 as second-lieutenant in the Otago Regiment. He served in Egypt and France, and within a year was invalided home. His own education had been completed and his professional career well launched before the war blighted the world, but Downie Stewart was obsessed with a desire " to help the broken boy. The half-educated who had tossed their school books aside to answer the call of the bugle were coming back to New Zealand and to a world grown grey in half a decade. Their studies could not be resumed at the point of interruption; n;ew values reigncd, new qualifications were required. It was largely owing to the efforts of Downie Stewart that special provision was made by the New Zealand Government for the training of returned men. Facilities and endowments for post-war education in agriculture and the practieal sciences stand as monument to the memory of the man who was glued to a chair but refused to take the count. Soon he was Minister of Customs | for his Dominion and valued adviser , to the Prime Minister. The Treasury ; benches in Wellington are comfort- j able couches made for two, but by 1 tradition the Premier has oue to him- | self. The late Premier Massey shared ; his with Lieutenant Stewart and lis- j tened hourly to that low vibrant voice j whieh was heard in Vancouver a week ago, when the envoy from down under gave his message of hope and confidence to Canada, en route to the Imperial Economic Conferenee Strongest Ministei-. Now he is the strongest man in the New Zealand Cabinet. ' He holds the portfolios of Finance and Customs, is Minister of State Advances, and also Attorney-General for that Dominion. When Harry Stevens went to Honolulu last winter to treat with New Zealand j for Customs preferences, it was the : man in the wheeled chair who met him halfway across the Pacific. Stev- . ens found in Stewart an antagonist friendly, but firm, and a treaty was concluded which has won more praise. . than criticism. Vis a vis Downie Stewart impresses j one as a dynamo of energy sup- j pressed. He cannot leap to his feet as he was wont to do, but there is no | lack of vigour in his speech. His | trenchant sentences are compound of logic and common sense. His voice is a trifle harsh, his manner somewhat aloof, but one gets an impression of profound sincerity of purpose. He used to pound one palm with the other fist to emphasise his point, but since arthritis set in as aftermath to his war wounds, his hands lie inert on the table. From the chin up, however, Downie Stewart is alert and comp'elling. He can convey in speech as much animation as another man does in all the gestures combined. From His Chair. Back home in Parliament he is listened to with respect. Political faddists have learned to dread the impact of his cold logic. He dominates the House from a wheeled chair. When he brought in a Bill to exclude all persons suspected of Communism he made it apply to British and foreign alike. There was bitter opposition, for New Zealand is very British, but Stewart kept repeating that it was easier to keep these fellows out than to deport them, and finally his Bill got through. His Government was criticised fcr proposing to send a large delegation to the Ottawa Conferenee. Some suggested on grounds of economy that a one-man delegation would suffice, but there was never any douht as to who the one man should be. Downie Stewart is the plummet in New Zealand politics He says he wants to see the Cana-da-New Zealand treaty enlarged and trade between the two Dominions expanded. To achieve this purpose he undertook a journey of 18,000 miles in a wheeled chair.