WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3491, 20 May 1920, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS

A MESSAGE OF GOODVVILL.

(Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, May 19.

During the past week it has been no easy matter to get a word with Sir Joseph Ward. Packing, ebusiness engagements, correspondence, intimate and formal farewells anfl the laundred a.nd one preparations for a trip round the world and an indefinm“, absence have kept him busy the whole day long and far into 1-hr-2 night. He has had no pausing places in his crowded hours for the onto»-taimszent of the superfluous joux-n-ati:;t, This afternon, however, in the space uf scarecly more thafi a -.‘nearl3;/ Lzml shake and a_vel-y cordial ‘_‘2Lu revoir” he ran off :mswel'S to :1 (loz+3v.l only half framed questions.

Politics and the political -situation h declined firmly *0 discll.=.%. “Of course I take as much inner-3:=’r. in them as ever I did,” then added smilingly, “but the alretors have given meaholiday and I am not going to be so ungracious as to hang about the SChool~ro.'_\u\..’ He had made some allusions to the general election when ad-i:e'3:sillg his‘ Jcl friends in the South, and they were in print for everyone to see. but -he hoped his political opponents would believe him when he -ail he was carrying no personal blt‘.ael'-'l‘:-SS away with him. He ha-l re-zeia-ed hard knocks and had returned ’|'h(“-Til’. but he liked to think there had been no p»-r~ sonal ill-will on eitner side. Public life would be int;-319:.-alule were it otherwise. ‘

“No, I cannot say how iong I will ‘be away. Evervthiiig will depend on circumstances—the pr:)2_;i::3s's 0: the business I have in hand, the :leLzan-.?s of my friends, perhaps my health, yes, and to an extent my inclin:lt'Eonr;.” ‘EO the rumour that he is contrsniplzating an excursion into Imperial poiliticsz, Sir Joseph gave a eniphatic denial, qualified at once by a recogziitinn of the duty that lies upon every Citizmr of the Empire. ‘A man nli§;ht find himself at any moment,” he explained, “confronted «by a set of circumstances that would alter the who}e course ‘of his life and _call him to some unexpected sphere of activity. That anything of this sort is going to happen to me, I have no idea '—lt_p'resent, but I can see no further than other people into the future.

Sir Joseph could not give an cp"nion concerning the financial pmziticu of the Dominion without appemsing to introduce party politics; but he vzmild say, without. imagining his views different from those of his political opponents, that the great reclnirom«snt of the country in the years to come would be c-ourageous'and vigomus. as well as careful and ecconomhil administration. New Zealand I'.!\’l laud greatness thrust upon her, so to speak, by the war. She has] 9. great public debt, a gr-eat burden of taxation, and great sooi:-11 and industrial problems "to solve, but she also had great resources, great’ virility and great traditions_ The, opportunities of the Government by whatever name it might be called, would be as big as would be its I-esp<).lsi'nilities.

He -hoped it would remain a strict‘-y non-party question, but Sir Josephfs urgent appeal to the electors on the eve of his departure would be to see that they obtained some measure of electoral reform during the life of the present Parliament. There was no need to reiterate the figures he had quoted to his southern friends, They simply showed that the Dorniuion, with all its boastemd universal :~:.ul':‘l'age, was retaining one of the most ineffective and uncertain systems of election known within the Empire. ' He did not stress the matter because the system had operated against. ':2imse’:f and his friends——this merely persorml aspect was of small consequence—~but because Parliament would never be truly representative of the people till they had an equitable system of election.

“But with all this‘ and with all the other handicaps from which we are suffering,” Sir Joseph Ward said as h cast a politely suggestive glance towar-ds the door, “I have no fear for the future of this splendid little (-vun‘try_ There may be many a hard task before us, many a stiff hill _to c-lir_r.b, but we have only to brace ourselves up to the effort to pull through 2.11 right and the goal, always in sizlxt, is Well worth winning. My personal interest in the country will never flag, whatever the futrue may hold for me, and I trust the people of New Zealand. who have treated me so well in the past, and are treating me so well now will remember me with the same kindly feeling as I have tow'a.rds them.”