A REAL STATESMAN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9583, 1 September 1909, Page 5

A REAL STATESMAN.

To the editor. Sir,—A good deal of criticism has been published re Sir J. G. Ward's doings prior to his going Home. One of the many critics denounces Sir Joseph as a despot of the first water, and supports his statement by the fol'owing:—"Sir J. G. Ward, in one fell sweep, went in for a most crushing retrenchment of the Civil Service—offered one or two Dreadnoughts to the Mother Country if required—gagged the Press of the Dominion—prorogued Parliament —sacked a leading Socialistic Cabinet Minister—then took a run to the Mother Country to receive King Edward's benediction." This is all very true. But the critic might safely have gone a good deal further and showed that through his thunderbolt action as a statesman, he was the primary cause of rousing from a rtate of lethargy to that of general activity every statesman in the British Empire—nay more than that, every thinking mind in the British Dominions—if not every nation in the world. A man who has the strength of "'ill, the clearsightedness and force of character to carry cut all that Sir Juseph Ward has done must prove himself to be a statesman of a very high order. A good many of our small New Zealanders say there was no immediate need for Sir Joseph's offer of a Dreadnought to the Mother Country. But the greater thinkers—men of ponderous mindsmen who see and think under the surface—say that the offer was a most timely and well placed one. No doubt a good deal of ill-will has been engendered against Sir Joseph by a certain class of our colonists, which will be speedily buried if Sir Joseph will, on his return, go in for a necessary loan to carry out some muchneeded public works, and a determined and judicious system of closer settlement of our unproductive lands; then he will remain with us for a considerable time as the uncrowned king of "God's Own Country."—l am, etc., J.M.