THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8160, 18 June 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1906.

It has been very properly decided, in our opinion, to inter the mortal remains of the late Premier in Wellington the capital of this country, which has been frequently ■' termed the Britain of the South. Although the West Coast; people mast certainly have wished in their hearts that their greatly beloved chief's last resting place should be on the West Coast, they, no doubt, recognise that it is more befitting it should not be so, but as arranged, for apart from the fact that Wellington ia the Empire City, it

is there that Mr Seddon really oonsumated bis many great labours. New Zealand ia rapidly growing into a country of importance, and the late Premier demonstrated in a remarkable manner that it is possible for a politician in this country to make his iDfluenoe felt, and his name respeoted throughout the great British Empire. The spontaneous unanimity with whioh the British world has united to deplore the loss sustaiod by the Empire, and to sympathise with the blow that has i fallen upon New Zealand, through the sudden death of the late Premier, ia one of the most magnificent tributes ever paid to the memory of a oolonial statesman. In this great outburst of! public feeling there is not a single discordant note, the generous appreciation of Mr Seddon's patriotic services being all the more remarkable because there must have been a great many public men, as well as private individuals, whose political predilections were generally opposed to his. Here we have pruof, if proof were needed, of the Imperial character of his political purposes, and of the determined manner in whioh he forced those purposes upon all with whom he came in contact, however indirectly. During the present generation the colonial world has produoed four men whose ability and energy lifted them head and shoulders above their compeers, each of them becoming pre-eminent in their own sphere of influence. Sir John A. Macdonald, in Canada; Sir Henry Parkes, in Australia; Cecil Rhodes, in South Africa; and Richard John Seddon, of New Zealand were undoubtedly the greatest and most influential men whom the modern colonial world has seen. Of these Mr Seddon was certainly not the least, and if we estimate his plaoe by the influence he acquired over great masses cf men he may be termed the greatest. The sympathy and expressions of appreciation evoked by his death testify to this, while they oannot but be gratefully felt by his fel-low-colonists and by those who mourn u personal loss.