Forty Years a Liberal

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 621, 25 March 1929, Page 2

Forty Years a Liberal

LIFE STORY OF SIR JOSEPH WARD

From Telegraph Messenger to Prime Minister

By

K. A. LOUGHNAN

(Copyright—Sun Feature Service)

ENTERIN' G Parliament in ISS7, Sir Joseph Ward is a veteran among contemporary statesmen and his eareer is traced and described in this series of articles by E. A. Loughnan for readers of The Sun. No. 11.

In ISS4, about four years after the fall of the Grey Government, the great bitterness of the struggle with Grey had subsided, and good work had been done by tacit compromise, not without heated discussion, when another disturbance came to the political atmosphere. A division of parties had come about over a railway policy. This was the project for uniting the East and West Coasts of the South Island by rail. An enthusiastic section urged the instant beginning of this, and a determined section opposed it as extravagant, visionary, ruinous and physically impossible. The support of the Southern population of the South Island was languid, but the cohesion of the middle and Northern peoples, effected by the extension of the original purpose, which was the junction at Christchurch and Hokitika, to an iron line running by the Buller Valley to Nelson, made the South Island support very formidable. The population of the North Island was uniformly hostile, but the advantage of numbers being in those days with the South, the East and West Coast railway became a hot political slogan, and both sides girded themselves for a great struggle. Seeing a chance of defeating the Atkinson Government, which had reigned after Grey, some Liberal champions added their weight to the new railway movement. Sir Julius Vogel, happening to return to New Zealand in a private capacity at the moment, was hailed by the Southerners as a possible leader, by reason of the prestige he had secured with his great policy of immigration and public works. Here was an ideal leader for the new movement of attack on the Conservatives. He was assured of a seat in Parliament at the first opportunity, and accepted. The opportunity came in the session of 18S4. The Atkinson Government was defeated, and appealed to the country. BATTLES FOR POWER The new House assembled soon, and there ensued a desperate struggle, in which several Governments came to power for brief periods, until final victory seated the Stout-Vogel Government on the Ministerial benches. The double name showed the effect of the junction of tlie leading Southern Liberals with the new railway party men. Their chief, Mr. Stout, who had been Grey’s Attorney-General, was elected leader. Sir Julius Vogel took the Treasury, and Mr. Ballance, who had been Grey’s Treasurer, took office as Minister of Lands. Thus, Sir Julius Vogel, though strongly supported by the new railway men, missed the leadership in the new party. As Colonial Treasurer he took second place to Mr. Stout as Prime Minister. The new party was not quite a Liberal Party. It was a composite party with many strong Liberals in its rank and file. They kept it united. There was a tacit understanding of equality in the leadership, and the Government was given the combined name of Stout-Vogel. That Government promptly placed the railway policy that had brought it together on the Statute Book, and then set to work with some points of the Liberal policy which the Prime Minister and some of his colleagues represented. But after the attainment of its material object the party had not the -elements of stability, and after three years of office fell in ISS7, giving place to the Government of Sir Harry Atkinson. This was after a General Election in which the Prime Minister of the StoutVogel lost his seat. He was defeated In his Dunedin constituency by the statesman who, as Sir James Allen, has been continuously in the public eye ever since, making his mark with an energetic, able and useful career. INFUSION OF YOUNG BLOOD , In this Parliament of 18S7 Sir Joseph (then Mr. Ward) was a member. Like its predecessor it was distinguished by the entry of new, young blood into the political field. The Par liament of 1885 presented a galaxy of youth eager and ambitious. Dr. Newman. Andrew Monteath. Oliver Samuel, Scobie Mackenzie, were the chief new seats in that Parliament, and men talked admiringly of them all, hoped high for each, and great was the reputation for oratory which Scobie Mackenzie built up to the surging accompaniment of universal admiration. Of the Parliament of 1887 the new talent of young blood was contributed by Joseph G. Ward and W. Pember Reeves. They sprang to the front, made their mark from the start, and unlike their predecessors in general admiration, they both achieved distinction in Cabinet office. The name of Reeves is linked with the industrial arbitration system, of which he was the thoughtful and energetic founder. The number of great things with which the name of Ward is linked is legion. The number, the quality and the wide-reaching character of these was amazing to the student of politics, dazzled as he was by the appearance of each in turn, like a meteor flashing through the political firmament. The stories of them will speak for themselves as the long record develops in these pages. And he is still with us. As he took his seat the other day in the Prime Minister’s place in the House of Representatives, we thought of these many services of the Dast, and felt we had the right to expect large additions of similar useful work before long. A MAN OF PROMICE In his first Parliament the future statesman attracted general attention at once. Men were struck by the elegant, supple figure of the young man, hi 3 genial face—nature's letter of credit—and pleasant manner, the spick and span neatness of his dressing. When he spoke, which he soon did, his

ringing voice—a clear, melodious tenor —brought added interest. Who is this bright young man of the jaunty bearing and the lightly, swung stick? The young fellow who flies at high game? This when he startled the House with a most exhaustive speech on the San Francisco mail —a subject beloved of many Postmaster-Generals. and to be handled only by men who know postal systems through and through, and can use words weighted with experience, and have a first-hand knowledge of the ships of commerce, of their voyages, speeds, costs, profits, and the things belonging to their charters; and can measure the benefits and bearings, of great mail services. This young chap, so debonair, so full of the joy of life—why does he dive into such a subject, and howdoes he manage to handle it so -well? Of course no one imagined that a future Postmaster-General, one of the most successful, perhaps the most successful of all, had performed this feat of study and grasp. But that was absolutely the case. The unprophetic imaginative were content to feel astonished, and perhaps a little bored by many details easily flowing in that ringing tenor stream; it preferred to ask, who is this precocious young fellow? What does he do? What’s his history? TRAINING FOR SERVICE The answer to that was easy and ready. An Australian born —Melbourne, what time the roar of the Ballarats, of Bendigos, Dunollys, and other great goldfield centres filled the air and the minds of men —he came a small child with his parents to New Zealand. Southland became his country, when that country, separating from Otago, filled its population with high ideas of self-reliance. This atmosphere the boy breathed while he absorbed reading and writing and whatever else the public school system at the Bluff had to offer. But he did not stop long at the absorbing, for at the age of thirteen his name appeared among the juniors in the telegraph service, and he was carrying messages jauntily, in spick and span uniform, about the streets of Invercargill and the Bluff, which, to-day, is Campbelltown. But he did not remain in that position long. He had breathed the air of self-reliance, and the breathing had become a habit. The ordinary vouth does not breathe that air. When he starts in life he does just what is required of him in business, and devotes his spare time to amusement. He acquires experience mechanically, if not unwillingly. Promotion is an affair of routine and years; play is the main object always of his life. The man who gets on studies his work, masters it, whatever of it is put into his hands, and studies deeply what is beyond, gets hold of the principles, making himself fit for any promotion that may come, and always his desire for betterment is keen. Such are the men who rise in banking, insurance, engineering, law, medicine, journalism —all the professions. Of this kind was young Ward. A MORSE EXPERT Consider his telegraph service. Just a messenger he was, in service. But years after when he had worked his way to the Premiership he delivered a political speech at Winton, where there was no officer capable of wiring it to the Press of the Dominion. But the speech got to the Press the same night of its delivery. Sir Joseph “Morsed” it himself. Now where did he learn to operate the wires? Messengers do not operate. Young Ward must have mastered the practice somehow. Whether he did this as messenger* or later when he went into the railway service is immaterial. The point is that he went industriously outside his ordinary duty to help his self-reliant spirit to better work and get higher advancement. At 20 he started in business as an export merchant. During the seven years between that event and his start as a telegraph messenger he had tried three things. Leaving the telegraph service he went to a merchant’s office, and from the merchant’s office he made his way into the service of the Railway DepartmenL Thus when he took to trade on his own account he had acquired an equipment of knowledge that was useful to him later in all the departments of the Government—Telegraphs, Railways, Postal, Finance, and the rest—that came into his hands. He had made those hands capable by his industry and research. That was the secret of his success with them. SUCCESS IN BUSINESS But this is premature. We have reached the time seven years after his start in life at the early age of 13, when he made up his mind to start on his own account. The spirit of self-reliance tossed aside all dependent positions. He wanted to be master of his fate, captain of his soul. Determined to build his fortune on the lines of his own architecture, he went boldly into business as an export merchant. A small capital of £BOO was placed at his disposal by his mother, who believed in the shrewdness of her boy and in his reliability. Success came to his first venture, and very soon he was well established in business. He was steadily and rapid!? rising, with vistas opening on all sides for advancement by steady energyvigilant watching and prudent management. But this success which would have contented most young men, did not absorb all his energy. The Bluff township, entering the municipal world as the Borough of Campbeiltown, sent the call of local government into the heart of the rising young “burgess." The appeal was irresistible, the young burgess was elected councillor; * resolute study quickly made him master all th>e requirements of local government. (To be;continued daily.)