Mr. Savage

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 41, 5 April 1940, Page 12

Mr. Savage

T is not possible to say in three hundred ] words what the life and death of Mr. Savage meant, and still mean, to New Zealand. Even if we had the space, we could not make a final estimate. Time inflates some reputations, deflates others, and it will happen to Mr. Savage as it happened to every leader New Zealand has ever had. But whatever happens to the statesman, the man will remain where everybody placed him once he became Prime Minister and a national figure. Until all those who knew him intimately have themselves become a memory he will remain the man we knew last week: kind, above all things; simple; honest; unassuming; unselfish; always a human being. Partly because he was one of the people, partly because he arrived in the broadcasting age, he was known to more of his countrymen than any leader who ever took the oath of office. If there had been any meanness in him, anything crooked or petty, the whole country*would have known about it. But that kind of criticism was never heard. Many people disliked his policy; some criticised his leadership; a few complained of his loyalty to old friends. No one ever questioned his sincerity or his selflessness. They attacked the Prime Minister. They never even wished to attack the man invested with the Prime Minister's authority. Time, we said, will have the last word. It will judge his methods, pass sentence on his achievement. Time will also deaden the feelings aroused by his illness and death. But it will not do that to-day or to-morrow. Neither their own anxieties nor the continuing worry sf the war will prevent thousands of people all over the Dominion-more thousands than such an event has ever stirred before-from feeling that they have lost a personal friend; and that, in the meantime, is his monument.