MR SEDDON’S RECORD.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 886, 9 May 1903, Page 1

MR SEDDON’S RECORD.

OPINIONS OF PRESS

The Wellington Post, states It is satisfactory to find the Premier directly joining issue with tlic labor leaders in regard to the increase of population, and contending that they are in error in their, evident desire to keep New Zealand as far as possible a close preserve for the people already in it. An increase of population would stimulate the produc-

lion and internal trade of the colony, and the Government should endeavor to encourage ail influx o£ colonists of the right type. Another point on which i\lr Seddon deserves credit, is the attention lie is paying to educational objects. His ideas as to Hie co-ordination of primary and secondary schools arc, it is true, somewhat vague and crude.. He is not always fair to the secondary schools, hut lie has at least brought the question of educational reform into prominence. If he will have the primary school syllabus amended and the ltoyal Commission which he foreshadowed on a previous occasion, set up, he will do much to atone for the neglect which education suffered during the earlier years of ills administration. 1-le should, however, be most careful in the selection of tile-men to constitute the Commission. Education is a matter that should not come into party politics, and the Commission should be composed of experts rather than politicians. The Wellington Times states : —The demonstration of .Saturday evening in tiie Opera House was a spontaneous and unmistakable tribute to a staunch democrat —a New Zealand patriot first and an Imperialist after —from a public that lias watched his career without any of the glamour and enchantment lent by distance. It has been the fashion in some quarters to allege that whatever might tie .Mr Seddou’s popularity in other centres the people of Wellington have lost or were losing faith in him as their political leader. The enormous and enthusiastic meeting in celebration of his ten years’ Premiership constitutes a triumphant reply (o this statement. It was a “ record ” recognition of a “ record ” achievement, and was a striking proof that our democracy is not so “ fierce and fickle ” in its treatment of representative men as is sometimes asserted to he the case.

The New Zealand Herald stales Even those who for ten years have opposed the policy of the Premier may well declare a ten minutes’ truce to congratulate him upon the political record which he has achieved by his long tenure of office ; not the less heartily can those congratulate him who have independently supported him or opposed him as occasion re 5 quired. Supporters, opponents, and critics can alike agree that his record is a remarkable one, and that lie is a remarkable man. We do not suppose that very many will question that his ten years of Premiership is due very much more to his own personal qualities than to wliat might he termed his policy. Sometimes jocularly and sometimes ironically, Mt Set!don has been declared throughout lb: Empire to be most supremely self reliant. Between just and unjust judgments an average ot public opinion can always he struck which hits a habit of proving sound in the end and will probably prove to be so in Ibis case. Apart altogether from his political doings, which can well be left, on one side when his fellow-colo-nists view him from neutral ground, he is a strong man with an iron hand Such men know how to seize the skirts of happy circumstance, hut lew belter than our ten years’ Premier, .Mr Seddon.