SEDDON’S TRIP TO Australia in May-June 1906 was intended as a rest cure from overwork. Instead it turned out to be a series of official engagements, dinners, interviews and speeches. Still, Mrs Seddon confided later to the Governor, Lord Plunket, that for years she had not known her husband so well or so cheery.1 On the return journey to New Zealand, on the evening of 10 June, with the Oswestry Grange only 150 miles east of Sydney, the Prime Minister had a sudden heart attack and died despite the strenuous efforts of his physician, Dr Minchin.2
During the days that followed as Seddon’s embalmed body was returned to Wellington, a complex constitutional problem developed for which there were no New Zealand precedents. When Ballance died his successor was on the spot and acting as Premier; he had been sworn into office immediately after the funeral. This time, however, there would be delays before the funeral; worse, Seddon’s heir apparent was on the other side of the world. On hearing that Seddon was dead, Plunket immediately cabled the news to the Colonial Office. He then summoned William Hall-Jones, who was Acting Prime Minister. The Governor described the situation in his report to the Colonial Office:
The position in which I was left was a somewhat unusual one. The man whom the country generally accepted would be invited to form the new Government was in England and could not reach New Zealand for about two months. My Attorney General stated that, if I wished, I could cable to Sir Joseph Ward, asking him to become Premier and to appoint an ‘Acting Premier’ until his return. I could find no precedent for such a course …. The other alternative was to ask Mr Hall-Jones … to form a temporary Government on the understanding that he would resign when Sir Joseph Ward arrived. Mr Hall-Jones, however, stated that he could not accept office upon such terms, as it would have been derogatory to his position …, but he said that if I asked him to form a Government without imposing definite conditions, I could rely upon him to do the right thing when Sir Joseph Ward returned.
The Governor accepted these assurances, although he was pleased to be told confidentially next day that Hall-Jones had already cabled Ward giving the same promise.3 On 13 June 1906 Hall-Jones issued a press statement explaining that while he would assume the prime ministership unconditionally after the funeral on 21 June, he intended to stand aside for Ward when he returned from England. This was the course he followed. Hall-Jones assumed most of Seddon’s portfolios for the time being and made almost no other changes to Seddon’s Ministry. A few days later the depleted Ministry met Parliament, which quickly voted supply after members had been sworn and then went into recess awaiting Ward’s return.
The arrival of a series of telegrams at Queen Anne’s Mansions, London, caused a flurry of activity and rearrangement of plans. First Ward despatched a rather florid response to Hall-Jones’s first cable: ‘The awful news of our dear old chief having passed to his long home comes as a stanning blow to me. His colleagues will feel with the people of the colony that a great and good man, who worked with unflagging zeal for the country he loved being taken from them removes the most striking figure in colonial public life. The grief of his dear wife and family will be tempered with the knowledge that the hearts of the people of New Zealand will go out to them in the unprecedented trial they have to bear.’5 Then began a frantic search for a passage for the family back to New Zealand. Plans for a brief trip to Berlin to study wireless telegraphy were dropped. There were telegrams, messages of condolence and a round of memorial services to deal with, including a service at St Pauls Cathedral ‘of the most impressive character’ attended by 1500 people, including Lord Elgin, Winston Churchill, Pember Reeves, Lord Onslow, Austen Chamberlain, Mr Justice Williams and Kathleen Beauchamp (Katherine Mansfield).6 On 15 June Ward spent half an hour with King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace. He also met the Prince of Wales. Ward contacted McNab in New York, and Fowlds. The latter decided to travel back to New Zealand with the Wards.7
After some last-minute shopping when Ward bought himself several new suits, the party, now numbering fourteen, boarded the Majestic for New York on 27 June, leaving Cyril behind to work for the Manchester Ship Canal Co. In New York they booked into the Waldorf Astoria before Ward was taken down to Oyster Bay on 7 July to meet President Theodore Roosevelt. They discussed trade and penny postage, Ward telling a reporter that he found TR better acquainted with New Zealand’s affairs than any other official personage he had encountered.8 Ward’s presence in the city drew some press attention, and he was invited to speak at the Lawyers’ Club luncheon. In response to a question he made some widely reported comments about the role of the state:
Public utilities should be owned by all governments …. This particularly applies to the lighting of municipalities, the telephone and telegraph system, water and all means of transportation … We’ve been successful in every venture and no party could present itself for election in our country except it announced that it stood for the present form of Socialistic Government. There is no turning back. Publicity of the widest sort is the constant safeguard … Perhaps here in the United States … more drastic measures would be necessary to stop the abuses that I am told exist particularly in the management of railroads.
Ward’s message was very similar to that being preached by Eugene Debs and leading members of the Socialist Party of America, as well as some urban Progressives. The interest shown by the American left in New Zealand’s social experiments had been gathering since the 1890s, and Ward’s address no doubt encouraged the steady trickle of reformers to New Zealand’s shores.9
The food at the Lawyers’ Club function took its toll. The whole party caught food poisoning, and most were sick on the train trip to San Francisco. They arrived there a few weeks after the great earthquake and following fires had levelled 512 blocks of the city, killed 700 and left 250,000 homeless. No shore accommodation was available, and the Wards were fortunate to be able to live aboard their ship, the Sierra, until it sailed.10 Ward visited the Oceanic Steamship Co. and discussed the desirability of retaining the San Francisco mail route to London. He had now long dropped his former hostility to it; it was ‘undeniably’ the fastest route to London, he told a reporter.11 His efforts were in vain, however. The service was in its last year of operation.
Meanwhile New Zealanders had been waiting for Ward with anticipation, and in a few quarters, disquiet. Immediately upon Seddon’s death the press agreed that Ward not only would, but should take over.12 There were some, however, principally in the Government caucus, who doubted whether a Ward Government would mean promotion for themselves and were constructing other scenarios. Some if not all of the Australian press speculation being reported back in New Zealand probably emanated from Wellington. The Melbourne Argus thought that Ward lacked Seddon’s ‘ready sympathy with the humble toiler and the rough miner, and above all he lacks the alertness of mind which always enabled Mr Seddon to check revolt at its first appearance’.13 The Sydney Morning Herald thought Seddon’s death would hasten the appearance of organised labour as a political force, and that Ward ‘will find himself sooner or later face to face with the three party system’.14 The Lyttelton Times, which had always lent an ear to the Liberal left, noted that while Ward was Seddon’s ‘natural successor’, more progressive Liberals were not entirely happy with his attitude to the labour and land questions.15 Others came to Ward’s defence. The News was miffed by the Australian comments, and was certain that such a systematic person as Ward could handle the strains of office, although it acknowledged that he lacked the ‘great commanding personality’ of Seddon.16
The conjecture continued over the weeks until Ward arrived. McNab’s confidant, A. C. Martin of the Gore Southern Standard, reported to him: ‘Everything chaos—waiting for Ward. Wish you all had been on the spot— grand opportunity. Field [MHR for Otaki], Symes [Patea], Baume [Auckland East], Kidd [Auckland Central], Tanner [Avon], all think they are entitled to place in the serum and report credits them with urging Hall-Jones to carry on and leave Ward alone.’17 The report was true. A group was trying to bypass Ward. The Liberal barrister, John Findlay, told McNab in a letter on 30 June that he had crushed a plan to detach Hall-Jones from Ward.18 It seems unlikely that Findlay had to try very hard. Hall-Jones was a man of honour. Moreover, he felt that to deny Ward the prime ministership would have been to entrench factionalism within the Liberal Party. As Edward Tregear told Reeves in mid July, the feeling was that Ward deserved a ‘fair show’.
Ward is looked upon as the legitimate successor of Seddon, & if he assumes the mantle of Elijah will have a good turn. He is clever & nice; if he takes good advice he might have both Liberals and Labour as his followers. But he will have to work hard to fill Seddon’s shoes. Seddon’s personality, his rough bonhomie and absence of frills with women at a hundred socials as well as at dinner and at seamens and miners unions with men etc went a long way. Then Sir JGW’s religion is against him. I despise the idea but there is a deep-seated fear of being ‘governed from Rome’. So too some think him a plunger and distrust him. But he has thousands of friends ….19
As the country waited, speculation turned to the likely membership of Ward’s Cabinet. Many names were mentioned; there were ‘no less than 18 aspirants for office, some of whom mean to play up, if they are disappointed’, Cohen told Reeves. However, a consensus was building around three people: George Fowlds (Grey Lynn), J. A. Millar (Dunedin Central) and Robert McNab (Mataura).20 This news was conveyed to Ward by a variety of methods. Ward’s former bench-mate in Parliament, P. J. O’Regan, who was a leading Catholic layman and later to become a distinguished lawyer, wrote to Ward that the ‘sectarian screech owls’ had ‘begun to show their vicious claws’. He advised Ward to pick the best men. O’Regan was emphatic about Millar, McNab and Fowlds. Fowlds was a better bet for the Auckland slot than Baume, and as a leading prohibitionist Fowlds would restore the balance to a Cabinet containing Millar, who was popular with ‘the trade’.21 No doubt Ward had been discussing such issues with Fowlds as the Sierra chugged its way down the Pacific. One thing seemed certain: several of Seddon’s Cabinet would have to be dropped. All except Hall-Jones and Carroll were ‘merely Mr Seddon’s henchmen, placed there to do his bidding’, Lord Plunket told the Colonial Office on 9 July, and the Governor, like others, predicted that Ward’s tenure would be short if he persisted with them.22
The Sierra docked in Auckland at 4 pm on 30 July 1906 to be greeted by a friendly crowd and a collection of local panjandrums. After official greetings the crowd demanded a speech. Ward was happy to oblige. He referred to the ‘irreparable loss’ of Seddon and spent time praising his late chief. Then he congratulated twenty-two-year-old Tom Seddon, who had won his father’s seat of Westland in the by-election on 13 July. Ward then turned to the claims that he, Ward, was out of sympathy with workers’ interests: ‘I do not want to do anything unfair to any class of the community, and I recognise it is the duty of those holding responsible positions to give effect to a policy which will be in the interests of all.’ The country must be placed ahead of sectional interests, he added.23 The speech was vintage Ward on such occasions: smooth, flattering, non-specific, but with a vague philosophical thread running through it. Later in the day he parried questions about the new Ministry, and next morning unveiled the Seddon Memorial Lamp outside the new St Helen’s Maternity Hospital in Pitt Street before setting off for Onehunga where he boarded the overnight boat to New Plymouth. From there he proceeded by train to Wellington with many receptions and speeches on the way. In Wellington a large crowd was gathered on the waterfront. Vincent was despatched to fetch a newly pressed pair of pants from Awarua House for the formal reception. Inadvertently he brought down a pair of his own, into which Ward, much to the family’s amazement, managed to wedge himself.24
Arriving back in New Zealand to assume the prime ministership, July 1906.
True to his word, Hall-Jones announced on 2 August that he would resign in Ward’s favour as soon as the new Ministry was ready to be sworn into office. In between a huge civic reception on the evening of 2 August and many visits from well-wishers and place-seekers Ward managed to consult with all members of the existing Cabinet. Speculation by now was at fever pitch. The Dunedin Evening Star predicted that Ward would sack Duncan, Mills and Te Wherowhero, and that the new ministers would be Millar, McNab and Fowlds.25 On the 3rd Mills let it be known to the press that he was happy to go, but Duncan held on till he was fired. Later that day McNab and Millar received confidential telegrams asking them to catch the first express to Wellington.26
The Rt Hon. Sir Joseph Ward, PC, KCMG, Prime Minister of New Zealand. An official photograph, which was made into a postcard.
Ward’s long-awaited announcement came on 6 August, and at 2.30 pm he and his new Cabinet were sworn into office by Lord Plunket. The press had guessed correctly. Ward himself took a heavy load. Besides being Prime Minister he was Minister of Finance (the first time that title was used), Postmaster General, and Minister of Industries and Commerce. Hall-Jones took over Railways from Ward, coupling it with the Works portfolio which he had held now for ten years. Carroll, the third-rariking Minister, remained Native Minister, which he had been since 1899, and James McGowan, considered lucky to be retained, kept Justice and Mines. Albert Pitt, who had carried most of Ward’s portfolios while he had been away, stayed as Attorney General and Minister of Defence, and also took over Ward’s former portfolio of Colonial Secretary, soon to be renamed Internal Affairs. The former Secretary of the Seamen’s Union, Millar, aged fifty-two, became Minister of Labour; the barrister, McNab, at forty-two the youngest in Cabinet, was appointed Minister of Lands and Agriculture; and Fowlds, the forty-six-year-old Auckland mercer, took Education and Public Health.
Most commentators approved of Ward’s cabinet-making, although there were many disappointed faces around Parliament Buildings. The Herald noted that ‘there is a feeling of confidence that a new business-like aspect will be imported to the doings of Government and Parliament’, while the Lyttelton Times revelled in the fact that Ward had ‘gone frankly to the progressive section of the party for help’. The Press commented that the Ministry, having so recently lost its strong head, needed its new strengthened tail.27 The Opposition praised Millar’s inclusion but was uncertain about McNab’s views on land and thought the single-taxer, Fowlds, to be ‘a distinct menace to every man on the land’. Massey’s deputy, James Allen, called the new cabinet ‘a job lot’ containing some single-taxers, some freeholders as well as leaseholders.28 There was some truth in Allen’s comment. The new Cabinet was an exercise in philosophical compromise and regional balance. Fowlds, Carroll and McGowan were the North Islanders; Millar represented organised labour, Fowlds was an advocate for the new, radical, urban approach to land and a devout Protestant who could counter-balance his Prime Minister’s Catholicism. The farmers in Cabinet were neatly divided among themselves on the preferred method of land tenure. Charting a new course with such conflicting advice would be difficult, yet there was an inchoate yearning for progress which Seddon had simply turned his back upon.
By the time Cabinet got down to work, maintaining the status quo on all fronts was no longer a policy option. Expectations were high; many centred on the land question. Not only the Opposition regarded land as pivotal to future political allegiances; W. Hood, the spokesman for the Otago Trades and Labour Council, asserted that the land question was one that would make or break Ward, and decide whether there was to be a separate Labour Party.29 Ward, meanwhile, had gone to Christchurch for a few days to sort out several matters relating to the Exhibition due to open in November. He left a band of carpenters and painters behind redecorating Seddon’s office and constructing a new back door as a means of escape from over-persistent callers. McNab was at work on a bill to revise the land laws.
The Speech from the Throne on 21 August revealed little about the plans of the new government. However, the report of the Department of Lands tabled two days later revealed some interesting statistics. While the government had been able to open up 641,133 acres for 2227 settlers during the past year, only another 3.3 million acres remained in surveyed, or yet-to-be surveyed blocks in the government’s land bank. Demand was running gready in excess of supply, and an aggressive policy of acquisition from the Maori would have to be adopted if there were to be any chance of the state meeting expectations.30 Moreover, there were signs that the new government had arrived at the conclusion that there could be little or no further alienation of the land from the state by way of the freehold option.
It was Ward who revealed his Ministry’s new approach in the budget he presented on 28 August 1906. The Prime Minister announced that there would be an end to the sale of Crown land except in exceptional circumstances. Nor would there be any more of Jock McKenzie’s leases in perpetuity. Instead McKenzie’s 999-year lease would be replaced with a new 66-year lease with valuation of improvements at the end of the term. Those with existing leases-in-perpetuity could convert to this new 66-year lease if they wished. At the end of the 66-year term a lease could be sold for the value of the improvements, or renewed for a further term. Aware that these proposals would mean little unless there was a steady supply of new land becoming available, Ward outlined a policy designed to secure access to large tracts of Maori land lying idle or undercultivated. Maori would be helped to individualise their titles the better to be able to sell to the Crown.31
Ward’s ‘new broom’, 1906.
Reactions to the announcement were instant. The Southland Times called it a ‘veritable bombshell’ which endeared the Ministry to leaseholders but would anger some of the larger runholders. Discussions in the lobbies were said to be ‘loud and long’.32 Massey was gleeful: ‘They have thrown down the gauntlet. And on behalf of the freeholders of this country I have the utmost possible pleasure in taking it up …. It is a question of independent settlers or a state tenantry. Serfs of the Crown or every man his own landlord.’33 The Herald was even more scathing: ‘The Government expects that settlers will go into the forest and the wild, live as pioneers half their lives, make waste land into a garden, and if they begin early enough, be rewarded by seeing the farm they carved from the wilderness taken away from them in their old age ….’34 Ward had done what Seddon had always refused to allow: he had let the battle lines be drawn. Try as they did to defend their proposals, some Liberals became genuinely scared by them. There was no way that Ward and McNab could now escape from the impression that the Liberal Government was basically against the freehold, despite the fact that there was no question of expropriation from those already enjoying it. Rural Liberals, some of them victors by the narrowest of margins at the last election, and a majority of them vigorous supporters of the freehold, were non-plussed by the turn of events. Some even began to talk of forming a Country Party.35 Where organised labour was at best lukewarm about the proposals, suspecting the Government had not firmly come down on their side, rural Liberals knew it had landed unceremoniously on the wrong side for them. In a letter that praised Ward for the most part, James Coates of the National Bank told Reeves the proposals were seen as ‘too revolutionary’.36
Ward tackles the land question, 1906.
McNab’s Land Act Amendment Bill was referred to the Lands Committee of the House where it was mauled behind closed doors. It emerged early in October with a few concessions to freeholders, but with leaseholders prepared to see it pushed through Parliament as quickly as possible. A lengthy and acrimonious debate took place on 10 October, the Government asserting loudly that it was not in any way opposed to those currently enjoying the freehold. It was now clear that if Ward persisted with the legislation it would be a bitter fight; he was not sure that he would have the numbers.37 On 11 October the Ministry surprised their most partisan supporters by backing off: the Bill would be made the subject of recess discussion around the country before coming back to be passed in 1907. This was only the first of many changes of direction by the Ward Government on land matters, changes that disconcerted supporters and appeared to play into the hands of opponents. Many saw this as a sign of ministerial weakness. Cohen thought delay ‘unwise’, and that ‘anything could happen’.38 ‘I fear [Ward] is not a “tactician” which seriously detracts from his obvious great ability’, Coates told Reeves.39 Others were saying the same thing. Pamela liked Ward’s ‘cheerful, conciliatory and explanatory’ method of government, but added that he seemed not as ‘au fait in the procedure of the House as was his predecessor’.40 Seddon’s earlier misgivings about Ward’s tactical skills were being amply justified.
It would not be fair, however, to place all the blame for the Liberal Party’s dilemma on Ward. The huge caucus was virtually ungovernable. In a rare moment of illumination Massey pointed out the nature of the problem: ‘How is it possible for them to have any policy?’ he asked. ‘On the land question they are two-thirds leaseholders and one third freeholders; they are about one half prohibitionists and one half anti-prohibitionists …. One section of the Ministry are extreme Free Traders and another section extreme Protectionists; one section are in favour of the totalisator, another section are opposed to the gambling machine and all its works; one section are in favour of preference to unionists, and another section are opposed …’41 The Liberal Party had become the vehicle for every kind of faddist anxious to commit the state to his own obsession. Seddon had increasingly found progress on any front beset with difficulty and resorted to inaction; Ward was now experiencing the dangers inherent in bold action. But the compromise, uncertainty and postponement that followed were probably even worse for the Liberals.
After the end of the session and the opening on 1 November of the Christchurch International Exhibition, which was to be visited by nearly two million people during its five months, Ward paid his first visit to Southland as Prime Minister. He was relaxed, revelling in the adulation showered on the local boy. He joked with his audiences, and threw figures around, making light of tens of thousands of pounds. As with Vogel before him and Nash in later years, his audiences admired his dexterity. At Bluff there was a banquet with rifles being fired and the Bluff Band playing ‘Rule Britannia’; in Winton, where Ward opened the new Post Office, he received a hero’s welcome.
Ward’s Southland trip was cut short by the sudden death of his Attorney General, Albert Pitt. Accompanied by McNab, the Prime Minister hurried to the funeral in Nelson, and on the way the two of them decided on Pitt’s replacement. Dr John Findlay, a forty-four-year-old barrister friend of McNab’s, ‘a scholarly and somewhat withdrawn man’ with a mind as ‘quick as lightning’, was appointed to the Legislative Council on 23 November and became Attorney General and Minister of Internal Affairs on the same day.42 Ward took Defence under his own command.
The Prime Minister’s new portfolio responsibility was not just a matter of administrative convenience. His mind had been turning around imperial matters for some time now, and an imperial conference was to be held in London the following April. As early as 1902 Ward had been hoping to draw the strands of Empire into what he called at the time an ‘Imperial Zollverein’. He looked to the day when New Zealand’s Agent-General would have a seat in the House of Commons and a senior judge would represent New Zealand in the House of Lords.43 Where other colonies saw strength in autonomous colonial units drawn together by language, loyalty, learning and leadership, Ward was a centralist. In defence, trade and shipping he wanted the effective leadership to come from Whitehall, the colonies having a formal procedure for input to decision-making. Centralisation would enable the socially and economically advantaged countries of the Empire to unite against the dangers, common to all, from the rest of the world. These came from oriental immigration that could undermine living standards, from what Ward labelled ‘unfair competition’ from shippers using low-paid coloured crews, and discriminatory trade practices, as much as armaments. Where other colonies were content with loose ties and occasional consultation on such matters, Ward craved for the day when fast ships, cheap cable links, and imperial free trade would tie the Empire together. He wished to facilitate unified responses to challenges from without, and make London the natural Mecca for colonial royalists like himself.44 With Liberal governments now in power in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand progress towards some form of what Ward now called ‘imperial federation’ seemed realistic.
The Cabinet, 1906–8. Back: G. Fowlds, R. McNab, J. G. Findlay. Front: J. McGowan, W. Hall-Jones, Ward, J. Carroll, J. A. Millar. Alexander Turnbull Library.
After a series of North Island political rallies, Ward set sail for Sydney and London on 28 January 1907, leaving Hall-Jones as Acting Prime Minister. In Melbourne he had discussions with Prime Minister Deakin and with Sir William Lyne, the Commonwealth Minister of Trade. After the talks Ward told the press that there was need for an advisory council in London where a regular input from Australia and New Zealand would prevent wrong-headed imperial decisions on Pacific defence and immigration.45 Immigration was much on Ward’s mind. A small net gain in the number of Chinese in New Zealand in 1905–6 had led to public clamour for a poll tax payable by Chinese, a measure which Ward was to introduce in 1907 46 Both he and Deakin were worried about the less rigorous rules which allowed ‘race aliens’ to gain admission to the United Kingdom, thus gaining the right to enter Australasia by the ‘back door’. In London Ward was to tell an audience that his anti-Asian feeling was based not only on ‘instinctive feeling’, but also on ‘consideration of our geographical position in respect to Asia, and of the tempting character of the lands which we occupy’.47 Ward heard talk of the ‘yellow peril’ wherever he went in Australia, and as he departed Perth and was asked if he had any special message for Australians, replied: ‘Make Australia white and keep it white’.48
In London Ward, Theresa and Eileen, who had both developed a taste for travel, settled in with the other dignitaries at the opulent Hotel Cecil in the Strand. Billed as ‘the largest and most magnificent hotel in Europe’, it contained suites, smoking rooms, a theatre ticket booth in the foyer, and a sandy promenade in front referred to by many as ‘the beach’, where an assortment of princes, prime ministers, and pooh bahs would toddle with their top hats, canes and cigars. Ward found it all most congenial. With its 6000 electric lights and its huge wine cellar, the Cecil was a scene of continuous animation, according to Theresa, with callers until the early hours of each morning 49 And if interest flagged a little, or an escape was needed, the Liberal Club was but a step along the Embankment.
The Colonial Merchant Shipping Conference, involving the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, began deliberations at the Foreign Office on 26 March.50 Shipowners and representatives of British seamen joined the politicians, Lloyd George (UK), Lyne and W. M. Hughes (Australia), and Ward to hammer out agreement on twenty-six resolutions dealing with the standards of crew accommodation, manning levels, policies towards deserters and the need for wireless telegraphy on ships carrying passengers. Ward took a prominent part in discussions, his contribution being described by Lloyd George as ‘businesslike’ and ‘practical’.51
By 10 April the colonial contingents at the Hotel Cecil were totally preoccupied with the Colonial Conference due to begin at Downing Street on the 15th.52 When they got to their suites the premiers had found stacks of conference documents awaiting them.53 The Times, under the influence of Leo Amery, was urging the conference to develop ‘real partnership’ between the colonies, a message that Ward in particular found congenial. In the discussion on the establishment of an ‘Imperial Council’ Ward wished it to be composed of the prime minister of the United Kingdom, the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the prime ministers of the self-governing colonies. He wanted it ‘consultative and advisory’ on matters of concern to the Empire. Other than these specifics, Ward was happy to fit in with others on matters of detail. The conference tended to divide into two groups. Deakin, Ward and Dr Jameson of the Cape Colony favoured greater control over imperial policy through an ‘independent Imperial secretariat’ (Deakin) or an Imperial ‘council of advice’ (Ward). The opposing group, led by the British and supported by Sir Wilfrid Laurier of Canada and General Louis Botha of South Africa, had little desire to be bound too tightly to any decisions emanating from an advisory body. At last they all agreed to the establishment of an Imperial Secretariat inside the Colonial Office. They decided also to hold more regular ‘Imperial Conferences’. But that was as far as it went. The same lines of division appeared on the question of ‘Imperial Preference’ in trade. Ward was enthusiastic: ‘If you were to put a duty against America and Russia upon a special article and give the opportunity to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, to send the same article to England, I am as persuaded in my own mind as I am alive that the price would be as low by the natural rivalry between [the colonies] as it would have been by allowing that product to come in from Russia or America.’54
Ward was in his element, more worldly-wise on matters of trade than Deakin, and also more percipient when he argued that Imperial Preference could help prevent the Empire drifting apart. But neither prime minister could budge Asquith or Lloyd George. Free trade was the British Liberal Party’s principal article of faith. On 7 May a general motion urging Britain to take up preferential trade passed the conference. But Botha did not support it, Laurier was absent, and the British were strongly opposed to it. Deakin and Ward’s victory was empty.55
Ward receiving an Honorary LL.D., Edinburgh, 1907.
Towards the end of the conference, which concluded after its fifteenth session on 14 May, the question of a common approach to naturalisation procedures arose. Deakin and Ward did not fight for a common imperial approach this time; instead they defended their right to have an Australian and New Zealand attitude to ‘coloured aliens’. Ward pronounced New Zealand ‘a white man’s country’ and told the conference, ‘we intend to keep our country for white men by every effort in our power’. He went on to say: ‘We look upon [New Zealand] as a glorious portion of the British possessions, and we want to keep it so. We are advancing in many ways and are well circumstanced with a fine population throughout, and we want to avoid the mixing up and the contamination of the races both now and in the years to come by preserving it for white men today and not allowing any law, whether for the purpose of naturalisation or for any other purpose to interfere with it.’56 The common thread of protection of privileged living standards ran through all Ward’s conference contributions. Compared with other countries, even those within the Empire, New Zealand, to him, seemed uniquely God’s Own.
On the need for faster transport links between the colonies, Australia and New Zealand again spoke as one, with Deakin and Ward hoping for a fourteen-day service between London and Australia, and a twenty-day service between London and New Zealand.57 Only on defence was there any noticeable difference. For years the Australian had been pushing for an end to the 1902 Naval Agreement, which imposed naval levies on the colonies. Instead he wanted an Australian coastal naval unit. Ward, however, made no request for any alteration to the 1902 agreement, indicating that if necessary New Zealand was prepared to increase its levy.58 In the end no change was made to the agreement and the colonial levies remained.
The ‘torrent of hospitality’, as Deakin called it,59 swept the premiers to Buckingham Palace, on to Portsmouth to view the Royal Navy’s new dreadnought,60 and to many civic functions where the freedom of several cities was conferred upon them. Laurier’s digestion began to play up and the ‘mental and gastronomic exertions’ impaired Deakin’s health.61 Ward received honorary degrees from Edinburgh and Dublin universities, and was described in his Edinburgh citation as a man of ‘perseverence, energy and rare business capacity’.62 Receptions and speeches often lasted late into the night as the prime ministers vied with one another for their audiences’ applause. Attention usually focused on Deakin and Ward. Deakin had the edge in oratory. Born in Melbourne only a few months after Ward and growing up in Fitzroy, Emerald Hill and South Yarra, not far from where Ward’s early years were spent,63 the tall bearded Australian had had a better formal education than Ward, having indulged his passion for Latin and Greek at university. He had a slightly deeper baritone voice than Ward, but spoke equally rapidly. His sentences were more elegantly constructed, reflecting his wider knowledge of English literature and his private penchant for writing poems and prayers. His career, like a meteor, had moved faster through the political heavens than Ward’s and would burn out earlier. By 1907 his Government was on borrowed time. The presence in London of Billy Hughes of the Labour Party was a constant reminder of Deakin’s vulnerability. For the moment, however, none could ignore him; ‘a very likeable man, of brilliant endowments, a splendid orator, with much fire and force’, said Laurier of Deakin, while Leo Amery called him ‘the greatest natural orator of my day— in English’.64 Some, however, saw his speeches as verging on the mischievous.65 Ward was not really in the same class, but he tried. At the Colonial Institute on 25 April he spoke after Deakin, and at length. Only the Daily Telegraph flattered him, calling him ‘less a dreamer and more a man of affairs than Mr Deakin’.66 Throughout all his speeches ran the theme of imperial unity and the need for closer communications. On 12 May in Edinburgh Ward told 100 wildly cheering New Zealanders: ‘New Zealand must stand shoulder to shoulder, back to back and hand to hand in endeavouring to put the different positions of the British dominions into one indissoluble Empire.’67
On 9 May, like Seddon ten years before, Ward was sworn as a Privy Councillor. Then, after a visit to the Clyde shipyards, where Theresa launched the inter-island ferry, the Maori68 they set sail for home via Brindisi and Suez. Always the supreme optimist, Ward announced as he departed London that ‘the noble idea of Empire unity is distinctly nearer and clearer than before we came’.69 He repeated the sentiment in Perth when he arrived on 11 June. Just as the effects of the royal tour of 1901 had suffused his speeches for months to come, he was once again on an imperial ‘high’.
