Page:Life·of·Seddon•James·Drummond•1907.pdf/393

 better to be sure than sorry.’ This is the keynote of the situation that led to the great majority of December 6th last. And the conclusions arrived at were quite right. Extremes on the part of either the labourites or the capitalists must lead to disaster. 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.

“On May 1st last I commenced my fourteenth year of office as Premier, and the papers say—and I suppose when both the Conservative and Liberal Press say it they cannot be far off the mark—that I am firmer in the saddle now than ever. However, I have my troubles before me, although with the whole of our party returned, and with only a few new members (or in other words ‘young colts’) to break in, the duties of the whips and the driving of the coachman will not entail much anxiety. Imagine a party of fifty members, and to lose only one of them, and he (Willis, of Wanganui) to be replaced by another Government supporter. I think this might claim to be a record in parliamentary history. However, I must leave New Zealand politics and give you a little idea as to how the Home elections and their results strike a New Zealander.

“In the first place, I was not surprised at the defeat of the Balfour Government. Had the result been otherwise, I should have been astonished, but I did not expect the dèbâcle that took place. Between the Chinese in South Africa, the muddle in regard to education and tariff reform, without the people being educated, was enough to wreck two or three Governments. How on earth they allowed the Rand mine-owners to juggle them into the importation of Chinese into South Africa, one cannot understand. The method was clumsy, and the Government should never have touched it. All they ought to have done was to have swamped the country with people of our own race. It was a splendid opportunity; they should have put road, railway, and irrigation works in hand, so as to provide work for immigrants. Numbers would have gone to the mines, people would have settled down, and I go the length of saying even supposing they had allowed Europeans—Scandinavians, Italians, and other Continental nations—to come, it would have been better than to have introduced the Chinese. Chinese, from my long experience on the goldfields, were never any good underground, whilst their other characteristics are sufficient to condemn their introduction into any country. They have proved dear labour, much dearer than Kaffir, just as I anticipated. As below-the-surface miners they have proved to be no good, both in Australia and Cuba. They are, moreover, a source of trouble to the present Government, who seem to be ‘backing down.’

“The education question, too, had got to be solved by the Bannerman Government. It is just possible that between the Catholics and the Anglicans on the one side, and the Nonconformists on the other, they might steer a middle course and put the Bill through. But they have got a hard row to hoe. As one who had a taste of it in our own colony, you will understand it. I think myself that in the end the secular system with the modified Bible-reading or religious instruction out of school hours would go through, but education should be put outside of sectarian influences.

“In respect to the parties at Home, Mr. Chamberlain, to my mind, still stands out as a bold and brilliant leader, and I am inclined to forgive him a little of the Chinese question. The courageous manner in which he tackled tariff reform stands out in bold relief as contrasted with Balfour’s weakness on