Richard John Seddon

“ Ballance was speaking, and loud cheers went up from the Liberals when he concluded his speech. Mr. Seddon’s first action, when he was put forward by the Government, was to defend his old chief, Sir George Grey, from attacks made upon him from the ministerial benches. In indignant tones, he reminded the House that Sir George Grey had been the means of giving the colony manhood suffrage, triennial Parliaments, and a land tax. Mr. ”

“ If God be for us, who shall be against us? Your work is before the whole world, and is being copied everywhere; but the battle is still raging, and the fight must go on. We shall need you for our leader to the very end of the conflict. ”

“ We care nothing for the taunts hurled against us; nothing for the puny and contemptible accusations that are made. We know that we shall succeed in laying here the foundations of a race which shall be in every respect a monument to the efforts of those who have striven to build it, which shall be as a light here, at the utmost limits of the known world, lighting up the dark regions which surround New Zealand and securing to them civilization and Christianity. ”

“ We seek something nobler, something greater; and we shall have this solace in old age, that we can look back on something accomplished here, upon abuses swept away, upon freedom secured, upon liberties gained for the people of New Zealand, upon a system of society which secures a home to all, and hope for all men in the country. ”

“ The old man’s eloquence fired the imagination of the people, who were struck with profound veneration at the sight of the Great Pro-Consul descending from the towering heights of intellectual superiority to take part in the humdrum affairs of colonial life. ”

“ It has been said that the labour movement will drive away capital, but that is a fallacy. In other colonies, and also in the Old World, labour is protecting itself. I advise the people of this colony not to look at the movement as at an evil thing. ”

“ In that respect he saw in Sir Harry a kindred spirit. “On the goldfields,” he said once, at the conclusion of an exceptionally fierce attack, “the man who has the courage to fight for what he thinks is right is the man who is respected. I believe I have that courage, and I believe the Premier has it, and that is why we are both respected in New Zealand.” ”

“ I have seen old men and women bidding good-bye to their sons and daughters, and shedding tears as they parted from them when the young people were starting on their voyage to this country. Then the time comes when the sons and daughters send for their fathers and mothers to come out. ”

“ Loyalty is but kinship written large, and every man and woman of this colony is proud of the crimson thread which makes the people of New Zealand loyal sons and daughters of the British Empire. Your high office has been to voice our loyalty, and give it effectual shape, and the vigour and judgment you have displayed in this have not only won our gratitude and admiration, but have shown the world that whatever be the sacrifice, we cheerfully take our stand beside the Mother Country for the maintenance of her honour and the integrity of the Empire. ”

“ But, Sir, with the experience I have had and the knowledge I have gleaned while serving in the position of a representative on local bodies, I shall try to convince some of those members who are on the Opposition benches that by adopting their present course they are not doing that which is right and good, and which will be beneficial to the colony at large. ”

“ You must have good men with a stake in the country. You must have men who will be devoted to their country. You must turn New Zealand from a colony with a pauper population into one of the happiest countries in the world. ”

“ The home of “Seddon” stories is the West Coast of New Zealand. It was there that he was best known as a man and a friend. On his visits to the Coast he threw aside all the trammels of office, and went among the people as one of them. His journeys to that part of the colony were triumphal processions, and royalty could hardly have aroused greater public interest. ”

“ He does not know even the rudiments of finance; he is ignorant of the Education Department and of native affairs and customs and lands. His speeches are wearisome to listen to, and we do not believe that his warmest supporters could say they would be read by anyone but a lunatic for pleasure and instruction. Of the science of government as carried on outside of New Zealand he is as ignorant as a babe. ”

“ When the Premier spoke of those old days, he became once more the genial ‘Digger Dick,’ whom the Coast has never allowed to sink in the Right Honourable R. J. Seddon.” [1]
Another pen-picture by a journalist represents Mr. Seddon at a ceremony connected with the opening of a section of a railway on the Coast. The writer says:—“Gathering little knots around him, he spun yarns for their amusement, and started songs with rollicking choruses, in which his voice
From King Dick Abroad. ”

“ He was followed in the debate by Sir George Grey, whose only object was to see the people play with the new toy he had given them, the one-man-one-vote principle. The impatient old man testily told the House that the electors were waiting to take possession of the privilege. He was irritated at the delay, and every fresh speech made his irritation become more apparent. He was incensed at the spectacle of a dead Parliament governing a living nation. He could not imagine how the people with a great privilege in their grasp could brook the delay of a minute, much less of a whole session. ”

“ We, therefore, pray you to consider favourably the grievances which afflict the Maori people, and to save our bodies from these evils. “The hearts of the women and children, the young and the old, are full of gladness at your coming here among us this day, so that you may see the two races assembled side by side in honour of your visit, and to accord you a united welcome in the name and under the protecting shadow of our gracious Queen. Let this gathering be a token of the love the two races living in New Zealand bear to one another.” ”

“ The Government struggled through three stormy years of existence, fighting its opponents with one hand and fending off the depression, the unemployed, and clamouring labour with the other. It was the Government’s policy not only to encourage the establishment of new industries, but also to assist old ones by a protective tariff. But people who are smarting under the lash of taxation are not likely to look favourably on fresh burdens. ”

“ Although he believed that Liberalism and Conservatism had no real meaning here, he felt that the colony was divided by a distinct line of demarcation. “It is the rich and the poor; it is the wealthy people and the landowners against the middle classes and the labouring classes. That is the real position in New Zealand. Wealth has power, and wealth asserts its sway, and I call upon every man on the Opposition side of the House, who desires to do his duty, to prevent the representation of wealth on the Government benches to the detriment of the people.” ”

“ Seddon expressions of my deepest sympathy, and to the people of New Zealand our sense of the loss which they and we have all sustained by the removal of a statesman so distinguished in the history of the colony and the Empire. ”

“ He told the Federal Labour Party, when its members entertained him at lunch, that they were engaged in a noble work, but that their first endeavour should be to improve the material conditions of the people. “We must shape our labours so as to avert from our children the heritage of degradation and misery they have had in the Old Country. ”

“ They no longer placed their hope in the Government. They began to leave the colony in swarms, like migratory rats that are starved out of one district and pass on irresistibly to another in search of food. ”

“ To exalt labour and to improve the conditions of the workers is noble, but at the same time it is wise and just to give security to capital, to ensure its profitable employment, and the corollary of the development of the resources of the country. ”

“ It appeared inevitable that in a few years there would be a number of very rich men in New Zealand holding enormous properties which they really had no more right to than their fellowmen, and the great mass of people would be sunk in poverty. ”

“ For years you have taken liberty from the people of New Zealand. You took from them their provincial institutions. You set up nothing of equal freedom in their place. You took from them their fair right of representation, so that in many places small numbers of electors, who are easily managed, could return members to Parliament. Under that system the Opposition and their friends acquired vast tracts of territory—tracts so large that if the whole of them was summed up together, honourable gentlemen would be astonished. ”

“ The tribunal that was expected to be a tyrant has proved to be a mediator. There are hardly any limits to its powers; but it is as conciliatory as it is powerful, and it leaves no stone unturned to bring parties together without the intervention of the law. ”

“ Passing on to still greater things, he became a humanist, eager to do something for humanity’s sake.
“All legislation which I have brought to bear upon the human side of life is the legislation which counts most with me,” he said to a newspaper interviewer once; “there is much talk of men being Radicals, Conservatives, Socialists, and Liberals. I am none of these. I am a humanist. I desire to improve the conditions of the people, to inspire them with hope, to provide for their comfort, and to improve them socially, morally, and politically.” ”

“ New Zealand, a group of islands of almost the same extent as our own country, has sent us her Prime Minister, a man who, endowed with a truly liberal spirit, and thinking that nothing should be excluded from the ranks of his party, was the first of all Ministers of the British Empire to grant the right of voting to the sex to which the Goddess of Learning and the Muses belong. ”

“ Down through New Zealand’s future, he sees what we may not see―
Sees the full-ripened fruit, the wise laws that assuage
Arrows and darts of misfortune, sorrow and sadness of age;
Sees strong Plutus degraded, grinding Monopoly prone;
Sees men reap where they sowed, each one holding his own;
Infancy nurtured, Maidenhood guarded, and Motherhood blest;
Labour ennobled and richly rewarded with guerdon of rest;
Homes made brighter and purer, hearts more glad and elate;
Woman, co-equal with Man, sharing the duties of State ”

“ The temptations of the town are great: the lassitude and the weakness arising from its toil often tempt men to drink who would not drink otherwise. That continuous life in one unvarying occupation for many years deadens men’s mental energies. Why should these people be deprived of the one weapon which enables them to resist oppression? ”

“ With a total population of some 2,000 souls, the children seem to run into hundreds, and from the little red-vested rascal in his father’s old boots to the uniformed cadet, from the rosy-cheeked girlie who shook her curls over her face in a terror of joy at the Premier’s smile, to the lithe winsome maiden just budding into womanhood, all seemed the very best of their kind. ”

“ Stay not your lamentations, O ye peoples, for ye have indeed lost a father. Verily our pa of refuge is razed to the ground. The breastwork of defence for great and small is taken. Torn up by the roots is the overshadowing rata tree. ”

“ He looked upon school teachers as something more than Civil Servants, working day after day for a salary, and apart from his sympathetic efforts to improve the condition of a class of public servants, he felt that it was necessary in the interests of the colony to maintain a high standard amongst all teachers of the young. ”

“ I have no fear that any policy proposed by them will not be a fair policy, and one which will forward the interests of the colony. I have not any fear that anything absurd will be listened to, either by them or any other class of members. Possibly some of them may imagine that things can be done by legislation which cannot, but after they have had experience of Parliament, and what laws can do, I have no doubt it will be found here, just as it is in England, that labour representatives are most useful members, none more so. ”

“ There are to-day free places and scholarships for three thousand; thus master minds will be at the command of commerce and politics. When the best minds of a nation guide its destinies that nation is bound to hold an exalted position. ”

“ Whether we are in office or out of office, we can pursue that course and do our duty by our neighbour and our fellowman. With that object before us, it is immaterial to us what position we hold. We shall hardly turn aside to notice the contemptible accusations made to try to darken our good fame. ”

“ It was as disappointing to his opponents as it was pleasing to his friends. He showed that Mr. Ballance’s policy would be continued just as if the late leader was with them still, and that, as long as the Liberal Party was in power, the colony would progress on the lines laid down by Mr. Ballance, and sanctioned by the people. It was the general policy that he clung to for the rest of his days, the policy which is now in force, and which has left a long line of reforms behind it.
His success completely changed him. From the day when he was sworn in as Premier he became another man. ”

“ The mass of the houses would seem to have been built in a hurry, as by men impatient over a labour that promised no golden return, and there is a general unpainted, rugged air that fits in well with the surrounding country. In common with other parts of the Coast, almost every house has the outside chimney, either of iron or of wood, lined with iron, telling of the wide open fireplace and of cheery log fires, and many have their scraps of garden, assisting materially to improve the general effect. Perhaps the most striking and pleasing thing about Kumara is its children. ”