The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1928 A WIZARD WITH OLD TRICKS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 487, 17 October 1928, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1928 A WIZARD WITH OLD TRICKS

SIR JOSEPH WARD’S return last evening to the political arena as a leading gladiator with new colours was something of a personal triumph. There were locked doors far ahead of time and policemen, like cherubim, guarding the ways to Paradise; also three thousand Auckland citizens within the Town Hall a hopelessly inadequate rendezvous—and half that number outside under gaping megaphones and a perfect sky; a nation everywhere on the tiptoe of expectancy; and cheers and the sound of cheering “like thunder heard remote.” The lesson of the fulsome demonstration was unmistakable; a lesson easy to interpret. This was really three things in one: a compliment to a statesman and his record as a former Liberal, a sign of the times revealing public discontent with political mediocrity and pretentious muddle, and perhaps a shadowy message of doom on the electoral wall for the Reform Belshazzars. And the man himself? There was at first no doubt at all about his vigour and perennial youthfulness. A living answer indeed to those of us who, not without sympathy, had noted the interesting fact that the veteran had passed the Psalmist s threescore years and ten. He was brisk, confident, almost gaily aggressive; burbling with enthusiasm, babbling the highest and most excellent intentions. On the vital test of politics, however, there was no cause whatever either for enthusiastic delight or for emotional gratitude. All too soon came the pathetic discovery that the new, long-looked-for statesmanship was nothing more or better than merely the rapid magic of a familiar wizard with old tricks. The policy* of the party was left in ludicrous mystery. To speak with the plainness that grizzled statesmen practise and enjoy, Sir Joseph, like the head of Don Quixote, “was full of nothing but challenges, complaints, enchantment, torments, abundance of stuff and impossibilities.” Again, as in the halcyon days of Liberalism, now a political creed buried and despised, the air was thick with suggestions, devices and gorgeous expedients. Bold proposals floated in radiance like motes in a sunbeam. Dare opponents and thoughtless critics say that great things could not be done, that unemployment, lack of land settlement, railway losses and all the other evils had become chronic and incurable? Nonsense, simply the prattling nonsense of immature politicians, and persons “in need of pickling.” All that a statesman need do, as the United Party’s leader himself would do in a twinkling, was to enrich New Zealand with £.70,000,000 of borrowed money, to be available at once for everything and for everybody at 4J per cent. As the. great audience imaginatively heard the crisp pound notes rustling in a whirlwind of optimism there were cheers, high hopes, and hoarse exultation. For a moment admiration was delirious. If one must go in at the deep end, it is best to make an heroic splash. Everybody admires a plunger. The thoughtful members of the wizard’s audience, however, found it farcically impossible to square his plunging policy with his strident denunciation of the Government for its borrowing policy. Though Sir Joseph has dwelt upon*it, there is no necessity for referring to his years at all. Enough, and more than enough, when smiling at his quaint conceit in ranking himself with Gladstone and Earl Balfour to dismiss and forget that phase of his leadership by simply recalling R. L. Stevenson’s .pawky observation, applicable to us all in time, that “old people have faults of their own.”