“SEDDON DAY BY DAY.”

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 463, 4 July 1902, Page 3

“SEDDON DAY BY DAY.”

PRESS REFERENCES. “GOOD HEAVENS! IT’S SEDDON.” London, May 23. Soddonism continues to bo a prevalent cult in London, but it must be confessed that the general tone of the references to the New Zealand Premier has been distinctly less respectful and more “ chaffy ” —not to say derisive—since the news arrived of the 5000 sovereigns being paid to him, and of his latest utterances. Ho is not taken anything like so seriously as before.

Last evening, the Westminster Gazette had another lovely Carruthors Gould cartoon, in which Mr Scddon was the principal figure. It represented your Premier just arrived at the front, early in tho morning, in strictly correct military hat, which was queerly associated with diggers’ high boots and a huge Maori mat worn as a cloak. He has “ knocked at the door ” of a tent, and Lord Kitchener has just popped out his head—the rest of his person being doubtless in night array—and is exclaiming, “ Good heavens 1 It’s Scddon 1! !” The likeness is capital, and the general offect quite killingly funny. In his left hand the New Zealand Premier is holding a leg of mutton.

But in othor oases Mr Seddon is more respectfully treatod. In its leading article of Tuesday last, for instance, tho Daily Telegraph remarked: “New Zealand is tho most democratic of all our colonies, and Mr Seddon is the most typical democrat who has ever filled tho office of Prime Minister within the borders of the Empire. It might, therefore have been thought that he would have been a 1 grateful person ’ to the Radicals of Great Britain. Ho is a great man and a powerful, but—he is a staueh Imperialist. And so it comes to pass that, next to Mr Chamberlain, and possibly Lord Milner, the Prime Minister of New Zealand

is an abomination to the Little Englander fraternity. He has given them cause, for New Zealand has, in proportion to its numbers, Bent more contingents to the aid of the Mother Country than any of tho daughter nations, and, as Mr Seddon remarked on land ng at Durban,

1 there were more where these came from.’ But the raising of voluntoers in his colony is by no means the gravest offence Mr Seddon has committed in the eyes of the enemies of their country. He has used the most uncompromising language about the bases of peace, and his virile words have made the womanish allies of Mr Kruger wince, and have brought on hysteria. Not very long ago a member of Parliament, who had filled for a brief spell a subordinate office in Lord Rosebery’s Government, menaced the oolonies with the grave displeasure of the Radicals if they clung to their faith in the British Empire.”