THE LATE PRIME MINISTER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 244, 15 April 1912, Page 4

THE LATE PRIME MINISTER.

It is stated by a southern paper, whose information is usually reliable, that Sir Joseph Ward has definitely decided not to accept oflice again in a New Zealand Cabinet. If the statement is true, one can hardly blame the late Prime Minister for his decision. The character, private and public, of no public man in th« history of New Zealand has been so traduced or his actions so shamefully misrepresented as has been the ease with Sir Joseph Ward. Now that he is, in a sense, out of reach of their poisonous darts, revilers are heaping encomiums on his administration of the Post and Telegraph and other departments, and acknowledging that he really has been of some service to the country. This is arrant hypocrisy. Politics have come to such a deplorable pass in this country that a political leader has either to die or leave office before he is even given credit for honesty of purpose. This sort of thing may produce bitter fruit in the near future. If it is a crime to slander even a bad Parliament, as pointed out on one occasion by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, the British Parliamentary Labor leader, it is equally a crime to slander even an indifferent leader of Parliament. (Between political slander and honest criticism there is a wide gulf. One cannot have too much of the latter, no matter what side occupies the Treasury benches, but all decent men who have the interests of their country—as distinct from any party—at heart should eschew, as they would the plague, the vilification and wilful misrepresentation of those to whom they are politically opposed. No party descending to such unworthy tactics can hope to obtain for any period the confidence of the country. They may do so for a time, but the innate sense of discrimination and fair play of the people as a whole will soon prevail, as it prevailed in the. case of the late Mr. Seddon, and as it assuredly will prevail in the case of Sir Joseph Ward. As a leader, the latter had his shortcomings—what man Was not?—but that he did his best for the country, according to his convictions and talents, that he made great sacrifices in time, money and health, and that he will occupy an honored niche among the monuments of New Zealand's history there can be no doubt in the unbiased mind.