CROSBIE WARD.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 815, 9 January 1868, Page 2

CROSBIE WARD.

(From the Lyttelton Times.)

The news of Mr Ward’s death has been received in this Province with deep and universal regret, and the Colony generally will not fail to estimate the loss which it has suffered. No country can lose without sorrow the services of a tried and respected public man, even when his career has extended into a green old age. But the early, and to human eyes, untimely death of a man in the prime of his intellectual powers —just as his lesson of statesmanship has been hardly learned, and when the public has begun to rely on the promise of his future life —such a death as this has always been most keenly felt by a self-governing people. Most of all must such a death be felt in a young colony, where able and trusted public men are few in number, where the arena on which they fight their battle of life is necessarily small, and where a sort of family interest his felt in the development of each actor’s character and powers. Crosbie Ward was the son of the Hon. and Rev. Henry Ward, rector of Killinchy, County Down, Ireland. He was born in that parish on the 10th February, 1832, and was educated at the Collegiate School, Castletown, Isle of Man, and at Trinity College, Dublin. He was called away from his studies by the news of the death of bis two elder brothers, who were drowned in Lyttelton harbour ; and arrived in Canterbury in the Stag, on the 17th May, 1852, to superintend their affairs. For three years he was. engaged in farming, and his first public appearance was in March, 1855, when he was returned to the Provincial Council by Akaroa. In December, 1855, he stood to represent the Christchurch Country District in the General Assembly, and was defeated.

On the Ist July, 1856, commenced his connection with the Lyttelton Times. On first embarking on this enterprise, which he did with his wonted activity, everything connected with a paper was new to him. But he undertook at once the general management of the paper, and till very lately he was engaged in writing for these columns. In October, 1856, be again offered himself to represent the Christchurch Country District in the General Assembly, and was again defeated ; but obtained a seat in that Assembly on the 28th May, 1858. In October of the same year, Lyttelton sent him to represent its interests in the Provincial Council, when Akaroa had treated him as it has from time to time treated all its best representatives, bythrowinghimout without any reason intelligible to the outer world. In the first two sessions of the Assembly which he attended —those of 1858 and 1860 —he took comparatively little open part. He spoke little, and then with embarrassment. His manner was that of a man struggling with a wealth of thought, but as yet unable to take a clear view of the necessities of the occasion; able, more than most men, to see what was to be said on both sides of the question, conscientiously desirous to do justice, but wanting the experience which was gradually to bring him to practical decision. Indeed, it must be said that the tendency to balance too long between two sides of a question—a fault certainly not possible to a narrow mind—tended long to mar his practical usefulness, and to the last was apt to torment him. This is not too strong a word, for he was fully alive to his own failing in this respect, and struggled to overcome it. But while comparatively silent in the House, he was not idle ; and he very soon commanded a position in the Assembly remarkable for a man of his age, and second to few in the colony. His first speech in the session of 1858 was against the ballot; and he at once began to advocate steam postal communication—a subject with which his name will be long remembered in New Zealand. In August, 1861, he joined Mr Fox’s Ministry, as Postmaster-General, awowedly more as representative of Southern interests in a Northern Government, than on any distinct political principles When he took the office of Agent for the province of Canterbury in England, it was felt by all who knew him well that his career was nearly over. His disease had got such a mastery over him as to deprive him of rest, and to make his life a protracted torture. He-worked on here nevertheless, and wrote for this paper as usual till he sailed for Melbourne, in company with Mr Hall, to represent New Zealand at the Intercolonial Postal Conference ; and after doing his work there to the full satisfaction of the Colony, he returned to New Zealand, and thence sailed for England via Panama, as Agent for Canterbury. By the mail before last we heard of his having negotiated the sale of £150,000 of Provincial Debentures, and by letters that have just arrived, dated 26th October, we hear that he was doing his duty to the last with his wonted pluck, although not expected to live many days. Mr Selfe writes, “ Poor Crosbie Ward is dying —sinking fast. He will never leave his room alive, I think a few days will see the end ; —he is emaciated to the last degree, and suffers much. I saw him yesterday for a quarter of an hour, as he expressed a wish to see me. His mind is clear, and he bears up gallantly. * * * * I could not, of course, say much to him, in our brief interview—my anxiety being to prevent his being troubled about wordly matters. I begged him to leave to me any business arrangements of the office which he did not feel could be managed by others. But his pluck is wonderful, and he will die in harness. He insisted on having an interview with Mr Larkworthy, the Manager of the Bank ot New Zealand, and on dictating to the clerk at the office a despatch to the Superintendent.” The telegram does not mention the date of his death ; but this extract from a private letter shows us our old friend dying as he had lived, a brave, unselfish man, doing the work he had found to do in this life with all his might, until death relieved him from his pain and from his labour.