The Big Man of N. Z.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, Volume 1, Issue 33, 15 November 1901, Page 2

The Big Man of N. Z.

j The '" Windsor Magazine•" for &e\x,tejiiber.GOia^aiiQs.aiU article bvMv. Fred* j crick Dolman, on " I Jolitical leaders |in INT. %?.> iaa which Mr, Seddon figures, i rajtlier ];aor,e prominently ibaij will b,e ! agree&'ble to Mr, Pi rani .and some of i the Pr.ei.aie^s other critics, Mr. Dot 1 man. After paying a- fitting tribute to Sir .Greorge firrey-^whom h-> rightly describes as (he most -eminent' -niau 5 that hits eyer directed th« destinies, of I the Colony— fir Harry Atkinson, Sir | John Ha Jl, Sir Julius" Yogel, and Mr, I John Balianfe, declare tjj.at Mr. Sed* \ don *'£an hardly fee placed second to ?, any of these able predecessors/ This j w ill be challenged, of course,' by the j Premier's less generous .opponents; J but, if a politician is to be judged by 1 his Parliamentary achievements, Mr/ j Sed 'ob is Goiteinly ennfte^to: rank \ with the greatest men in colonial | history. Mr. Dolman summarises tho local estimates of his worth in a pithy .paragraph. " In New Zealand its If/" he writes, " you discover the great in. I fluence of the man by' the manner in which 'Dick Seddon' is spoken of on all sides; with enthusiastic admiration by his political friends, who are generally working men, and with cynical bitterness by his enemies, who" as a rule, belong to the moneyed class. In New Zealand today 'Dick Seddon' stands for much the same social division as did 'Joe Chamberlain' in j England rather more than fifteen years ago. In "Wellington and Auckland I was presented with several portraits of the Prime Minister, varying in hue from the angelic to the diabolic " Mr. Dolman knows where to draw the line between these two extremes, and simply represents Mr. Redden as a stvonoearnest man, who would have made his mark on a much larger stage than the one he has found in New Zealand. Mr. Dolman's sketch is supplemented by another from Mr. H. Myres, in which the Premier is styled ""a'bioman to do big thi- gs," aiid made the hero of several excellent stories. One of these, which seems now to colonial readers, is to the effect that away back in his boyhood Mr. Seddon was saved from drowning by clinging to a trombone which a passing banefsman had pushed out to his 1 eseue. " Since then "_ he told Mr. Myers, in a recent interview, "I have always encouraged village bands." Perhaps this incident accounts for certain musical instruments being placed on the free list in the Customs tariff.,At any rate that trombone's service to the Colony and the Empire deserves to be comniimori ated by some abiding memorial.

Australia has imported our baulk timber, and she sells it to us again in the form of the family washstand or the chiffonier She goes one better she buys our tinned beef, washes the label off, pus her own on, and sends it back at advanced rates.' The r i o- e for something novel is apparently the reason, and certainly the Australian label is more attractive than the New Zealand pattern. Perhaps, if New Zealand saw the Australian "stags'' on their native "pasture" stavino- ° o ff starvation on gum sticks, they Avould avoid the beef, for in the export some "real" Australian might filter through. —Northern Luminary. *

Our national debt is certainly lar°- e enormous perhaps, for a country whose birth, as the age of nations counts, is only of yesterday, and whose population only equals that of a second or third rate city in Europe or America, But yet our industrial progress, aided no doubt, by great natural advantages, has been such as to i notify the heavy national liabilities undertaken, and they will be justified even m a larger measure by the future-**-«•■ Taupeka Times* " ' -