The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND TUESDAY, JULY 8, 1930 1856 – JOSEPH GEORGE WARD – 1930

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1018, 8 July 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND TUESDAY, JULY 8, 1930 1856 - JOSEPH GEORGE WARD - 1930

OIK JOSEPH WARD is dead but, in a poet’s plirase, “lie has left U a name for other times.” To achieve this as the summit of a distinguished man’s life and career is to live on in the memory of his nation and in the enduring records of its progress. Death invariably softens the tone of biography and tempers with a gracious generosity the asperities of criticism. On this occasion, however, when the sound of the sunset gun is heard in the evening of a statesman’s full life, there need he no dependence on conventional sentiment for a kindly tribute. Indeed, the late Prime Minister’s own record in the vital affairs of the Dominion and Empire is the real estimate of his worth and the best tribute to bis memory. And that meritorious record will stand in secure distinction when an increasing sum of years dims the perspective of the historian and reduces individual history to a line. Other statesmen in the past half-century have done greater work in different ways, but few of them earned a better right to be remembered with the friendly, appreciative thoughts that are nearest to impartial gratitude. Sir Joseph Ward gave the best of liis life to the State and the interests of its people. He was not born in the country he loved and served, but be was one of the greatest New Zealanders because of his intense patriotism with* out a blemish from youth to old age. There were, of course, political flaws in the notable service that set him above the common standard of administrators, yet none of these defects depreciated the sound value of bis eager work. Faults in thinking politically on a high-pitched level are not necessarily frailties of the heart, and in the strength of character and sincerity of purpose under review today all weaknesses of judgment were subdued to a point at which each was easy to be condoned and all easier still to be forgotten. So much could have been said fairly in Sir Joseph’s lifetime, and now that be lias gone from the brisk ways of men, one may say the same and more with emphatic frankness and entirely without hyperbole or hypocrisy.

A Rare Vigour It is necessary only to recall the pleasant truth that, for close on fifty years, marked always with a rare vigour of activity, the last of the great Liberals of a bygone day in this country, enjoyed the ready friendship of the people, and never was in danger of losing their goodwill even when his politics failed to win or hold popular favour. The secret of that pleasure was simply the happy fact that he had no malice in his heart; also that he i believed that geniality is better than temperamental gloom. He was not a good hater. Moreover, natural resentment under the lash of criticism, both deserved and undeserved, was not allowed to grow into revengeful wrath. When in the political arena he received more wounds than he ever inflicted. This does not mean, nor need it be interpreted as meaning, that Sir Joseph Ward was a saint in politics. There were moments when flurries of temper and shrill indignation demonstrated that there were storms as well as sunshine. At worst he was likeable, at best he was the most genial of men. His homo life and comradely affection were a perfect model for national leaders. As politician and statesman Joseph George Ward’s career was portion and parcel of New Zealand’s politics for nearly half a century. It need not he pretended, however, that he was one of tjie great political “founders or creators of a new order of things.” His greatest service was rendered in a quick, confident skill at developing and putting into holder and wider practice the polities and ideals of his best inspirers. He was richer than most men in the sources of his inspiration. In his immature and impressionable years he had wise guidance from John Ballance, who saw in the ambitious young man the bursting store of energy and courage that supplies the best structure in the adaptive politics of Liberalism. Later, when that released energy required direction and driving-force, Richard John Seddon provided the guiding hand and the magnetic personality which simultaneously attracts support and disperses opposition. Of the three famous Liberals this country remembers with pride the last was the greatest in clever achievement, though perhaps the least in fame for creating a new order of things. But he won the right to be bracketed in history with his more forceful predecessors in statesmanship, while in more distinctive form and expression he had talents they never possessed. They blazed the trail for a bright young man, and he extended it. So, in the accumulating years of arduous experience, Sir Joseph Ward travelled faster and farther than his inspiring peers in politics and rounded off a romantic political career with more effulgent triumph as a statesman.

Vision and Courage Biographers will tell in detail the story of liis achievement and conspicuous success, and they will find along the upward path fine material for an absorbing narrative. Hurried commentators can only look at the broad canvas of the statesman’s life, and note that, in the foreground, the man himself was greater than his estimable work. Courage and vaulting faith carried him over many hard places where abler men might well have stumbled and abandoned the climb against commercial adversity and unparalleled national difficulties of finance and economics. There was a time, a long period, before bad health disabled him, when his financial fluency was as convincing and complete as a ready reckoner. That conceded, however, his supreme value in the polities and administration of liis country was not exclusively associated with his service and fame as a political financier. More than most men he had an anticipatory sense of progress, and when his practical mind had mastered the details and shaped the course of expansion, he swept forward to his goal in a driving gale of optimism. This faculty was developed to its highest degree of efficiency in his early administration of the Post and Telegraph Department, Railways and other departments of State which depend for success on alert business acumen. All forms of quick communication owe most of their development to Sir Joseph Ward’s practical knowledge of their needs. On the wider field of Empire affairs the memorable Liberal seldom, if ever, strayed from the path of wisdom. lie foresaw the advent of Dominion status when other statesmen dared not dream of its approach. There was derisive laughter at his vision, but he had the last laugh. So, also, with preparation for the worst of all wars. The battle-cruiser New Zealand was a formidable answer to complacency about, and ridicule of, danger from foreign aggression. And it helped to hold the gate against a ruthless, efficient enemy. His dream of an Empire Parliamentary Council has not yet materialised, and may never materialise, but his objective is being obtained in a different way. The Dominions now enjoy something like consultative equality with Great Britain. And now there is tranquillity at last, after a crowded life of effort and rich experience. Sir Joseph Ward tried and conquered, was defeated but again won, saw historic places in far countries, met kings and princes and many famous men, and slipped away into silence, happy in final conquest—a splendid record and reward