WARD KEPT IN touch with Hall-Jones by cable while he was away. Fowlds, too, was able to send a useful summary of events to Ward in Fremantle.1 McNab, Findlay and Fowlds had been moving around the country, McNab in particular seeking support for his land reform proposals. The intention to introduce major legislation during the coming session covering land, tariffs and the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act was announced early in April. Meantime, the Native Land Commission, consisting of the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, and the young lawyer MP, Apirana Ngata, was sitting in several parts of the North Island hearing submissions on the vexed question of Maori land titles.
Of vital importance to the Liberal Government’s political future was an outbreak of industrial unrest in 1907. The first strike of any significance since 1894 took place in November 1906 among Auckland tramway employees.2 The Arbitration Court took a lenient line, fining only two strikers. More serious was a round of strikes which disrupted sixteen freezing works, beginning in Wellington on 12 February 1907. There could be no denying that the stoppages were in direct contravention of both the letter and the spirit of the arbitration system. The Arbitration Court fined 266 men £5 a head for striking. Many refused to pay. On 11 March Cabinet decided to enforce payment and writs of attachment on wages were served on the defaulters. This only exacerbated deteriorating relationships between the government and unions. The annual conference of the Trades and Labour Councils in Dunedin early in April roasted the Ministry, Millar and Findlay in particular. Some denounced the Arbitration Court as a sorry failure.3 By mid-year, after the Court of Appeal had ruled against attachments on wages, it was becoming clear that existing penalties for non-adherence to the provisions of the IC&A Act were unenforceable. New legislation seemed unavoidable.4 What had long been the workers’ Government seemed to be drifting into head-on conflict with an increasingly militant section of the union movement. Millar’s reputation as a friend of organised labour had been tarnished.
Signs of political instability were evident; in a by-election in May 1907 the Opposition won the seat of Taranaki, which had been held almost continuously by the Liberals since 1890. About the same time Hall-Jones had a serious heart attack and was forced to take many months away from politics. The Ministry was effectively in the hands of the newly appointed quartet of McNab, Millar, Fowlds and Findlay.
The Maheno, bearing Ward back from the centre of Empire to a troubled local scene, rounded Pencarrow Heads in Wellington early on the morning of 26 June 1907. A party of ministers sailed out to meet the ship, and together they returned to a warm reception from several hundred gathered at the wharf. Ward was chirpy. He said he had not been indisposed for even half an hour while away, and claimed to be the only prime minister who could make that boast.5 Photographs show him looking spic and span, and holding what had become his trademark in middle life—a cigar.6 The press indulged him, heaping praise on him for his conduct atthe conference. The Evening Post compared his efforts favourably with Seddon’s, and the Lyttelton Times claimed that Ward had represented his country ‘with dignity and eloquence’.7 The Governor reported back to Lord Elgin at the Colonial Office that Ward’s ‘moderate’ line at the conference had met with ‘universal approval’ in New Zealand.8
Barely twenty-four hours after Ward’s return, Plunket opened the parliamentary session with a hastily cobbled-together speech which was short on specifics about pending legislation but long on generalities about Ward’s exploits abroad. The Governor informed the House that the conference had decided that the colonies should henceforth be known as ‘Dominions’. The 1907 session was to be the longest so far in New Zealand’s history. The days of the brief eight-week session allowing farmers to get home for lambing and calving were long gone. Meaty bones of contention, plus a growing tendency for members to speak on a wider array of issues, slowed progress. Parliament was no longer a brief annual interlude in the routine of Cabinet government; it was becoming the forum in which entrenched sectional interests slogged away at their opponents. The Liberal Party, led by someone who preached the doctrine of governing in the interests of all with special favours to none, found such sectional politics increasingly hard to handle.
For the moment the Government seemed safe enough. A caucus of the Ministry’s supporters, the first since Ward had taken over as Prime Minister, met on 3 July 1907. Fifty-six MPs including three who described themselves as ‘independent’, were present.9 There was a spirit of cooperation among members. A pledge of loyalty to Ward as well as confidence in the Ministry was carried unanimously.10 Such amity did not last long. There were rumours that McNab was about to announce major concessions to freeholders in his second stab at land reform. In Ward’s absence the Ministry had discussed the tactics to be followed in the House.11 Some of McNab’s proposed changes were given to the caucus on 3 July, but the full details were not released until Ward’s budget on 16 July. They surprised many. Holders of leases-in-perpetuity would now be able to freehold the land at present-day valuations less the value of improvements they had made. Those on land settled under the Lands for Settlement Act would be able to pay off no more than 90 per cent of the value of the land and would never get the freehold. Henceforth there would be no more 999-year leases of Crown land; instead new Crown land taken up by settlers would be held on 66-year leases that would be perpetually renewable, each renewal being made on the basis of a fresh revaluation and a new rental. New land taken up under the Lands for Settlement Act would be on 3 3-year leases with perpetual rights to renewal.
Seen in one light the provision allowing the freeholding of some leases-in-perpetuity was a concession to freeholders. But the new proposals made land aggregation the subject of steeply increased land taxes. There were to be new measures aimed at increasing the amount of Maori land coming on to the market. And the increased rental revenue resulting from many of the changes was to be placed in an endowment fund which would be split 70/30 for the purposes of education and old age pensions. The Liberals were sticking to their ideal of treating part of the land resources of the country as an endowment for future generations.
It was difficult to gauge exactly what the effects of the new measures would be, but freeholders this time seemed happier, leaseholders somewhat disconcerted. Many Government supporters refrained from clapping at the end of Ward’s speech. One said that McNab’s land campaign had suffered a ‘ghastly collapse’.12 The Times asserted that Ward’s Cabinet had ‘not yet gained a stable footing’ with its land proposals, and labelled the new measures a reversal of the earlier plans.13 Others were not so sure: the Herald claimed to be able to detect evidence that leasehold principles were still alive and well in the new proposals.14 The Ministry’s measures had confused rather than persuaded. The legislation when it surfaced went off to a select committee and the House turned to amending tariffs.
The New Zealand-South Africa Customs Treaty Ratification Bill passed the House on 12 July 1907. South Africa agreed to admit bran, oats, wheat, butter, cheese and meat at lower rates of duty, in return for New Zealand taking feathers, fish, dried fruits, maize, sugar, tobacco, tea and wines. The deal was part of Seddon’s earlier promise of a duty-free breakfast table.15 The Tariff Bill introduced on 27 August was more complex. Like its ill-fated predecessor of 1895 it dealt with a wide range of duties from cars and machinery to boots, flour, and other foodstuffs. Millar had carefully prepared the Bill while Ward was overseas, and he showed considerable skill shepherding it through the House.16 Nevertheless there were some close calls. A. W. Hogg nearly succeeded in getting all duty on flour abolished, and it was noticeable that nearly all urban Liberals, mindful of the price of bread for their electors, voted with Hogg. Eventually the Ministry had to promise a degree of price regulation on bread, flour and potatoes before it got its way. Worse followed. On the evening of 4 September a group of Liberals from mining and rural areas joined the Opposition to defeat a clause proposing a new duty of 5 per cent on mining and dairying machinery. Ward’s patience snapped. He berated his errant followers, causing ‘quite a sensation’.17 A motion to cease deliberation of the Bill carried; Cabinet met; there was talk of an immediate dissolution. Ward was tiring of the constant disloyalty in Liberal ranks and wanted to whip them into line.18 The Dunedin Evening star shrewdly observed that if the Government was to do anything more than stultify, ‘an emphatic remonstrance’ by Ward would be necessary from time to time.19
In the event, Ward’s sudden burst of anger worked. Liberals in marginal seats were, for the most part, not anxious for an early encounter with the voters, and when Millar’s recently defeated clause was resubmitted to the House, it passed. The incident gave rise to several criticisms of Ward’s parliamentary management. The editor of the Press claimed that Ward lacked the ‘masterful qualities as a leader which Mr Seddon displayed’, while the Herald boldly, and perhaps wishfully, asserted that ‘the unrestrained Parliamentary power of the Government is at least seriously imperilled’.20
In fact, by cracking the whip Ward asserted a degree of authority that helped the Ministry carry the land bills which soon dominated the business of the House. The Land Laws Amendment Bill edged its way through the House, Ward taking a moderate line in defence of the leasehold, while arguing for the freehold in certain circumstances.21 McNab told the press he was surprised by the Bill’s easy passage.22 The Lyttelton Times noted that land reformers and freeholders were both restrained as the ‘compact’ between them, ‘understood rather than stated’, helped the Bill and its companion measure, the Endowment Bill, through all their stages.23 The Governor was so impressed that he reported to Lord Elgin that Ward was a good manager of the House: ‘Ward guides the House with tact and good humour, Seddon hectored and domineered over it.’24 In fact, Plunket had missed the point: it was only when Ward used some Seddonian tactics that the Ministry got its way.
The session of 1907, which ended on 25 November, took its toll. Ward worked himself to the limit of his endurance. ‘Pamela’ noted that at a parliamentary function in October he seemed weary and sat in an armchair all evening.25 Dominion Day on 26 September, designed as a day of celebration for New Zealand’s newly declared status, came and went with considerable pomp but little enthusiasm, possibly because Ward refused to make it a public holiday. Proclamations were read from the steps of Parliament; the Governor held a luncheon for parliamentarians, reviewed the troops and staged a garden party for 2400 people. In the evening he and Ward addressed a crowd of 5000.26
Pomp and ceremony did not placate a growing section of the Liberal Party’s traditional supporters. On 19 August Millar unveiled his Industrial Conciliation and Amendment Bill. It got a mixed reception, organised labour’s view of the measures hardening into hostility. Motions of no confidence in the Ward Ministry were moved at meetings of the Trades and Labour Councils in September and October in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin.27 Millar’s decision to retain imprisonment for non-payment of fines imposed by the Arbitration Court was one bone of contention; another was the measure designed to marginalise agitators from the union bargaining process.28 In the end the Bill never got beyond a select committee. As it had with the land legislation the previous year, the Ministry backed off for a time, leaving protagonists confused about the Government’s ultimate intentions.
Try as Ward did to keep the old Liberal coalition together the task grew more onerous every day. Ward took to confiding some of his worries to Plunket. He would decide on a strategy of conciliating ‘moderate’ workers, hoping that in times of good wages and high levels of employment the bulk of them would give a wide berth to the more extreme elements, often referred to as ‘Australians’. Ward hoped that a combination of the ‘free breakfast table’, more workers’ housing, legislation against Chinese immigration, and opening up more land would be enough to carry the Liberals through the next election. The only other option seemed to be the formation of a new party incorporating ‘a large majority of his present supporters and probably a certain number of those now in Opposition’.29 This possibility, which would have cut the Liberals free from organised labour, was first cased publicly by some politicians in September 1907.30 Ward, however, made it clear that he preferred to stay with the more radical section of the party that he had promoted in 1906. He was no political adventurer in any case and to the end of his days persisted in the search for a broad-based progressive party. As a prophylactic measure, however, he did revive his interest in electoral devices that might protect the Liberal Party at the polls. For a decade now various alternatives had been the subject of discussion amongst his colleagues, especially McNab. Either proportional representation or a second ballot—Ward had not yet decided which—might be advisable to ensure that former Liberal voters who flaked off into political labour leagues would be able, in the last analysis, to ensure the Liberals survived at the polls.
At the end of the session Members ‘scuttle[d] off to different parts of the country like schoolboys let loose’.31 Ward allowed himself only a few days at Bluff over New Year. Many problems required attention, not least the accommodation shortage following the spectacular fire which burned down much of Parliament Buildings in the early hours of 11 December 1907. The debating chamber, several ministerial offices and many of McNab’s historical records vanished in minutes. In a fit of generosity which he later regretted, Plunket offered the Governor’s residence next door as a temporary home for Parliament.32 This necessitated relocating the Governor, and the only suitable residence for him while a new Government House was constructed near the Basin Reserve was eighty miles away in Palmerston North. Plans for a new Parliament Buildings were soon under way; they grew more ambitious by the month, culminating in Harold Matthewman’s grand design, approved in 1912 but never completed.33
Of more immediate concern to Ward was the coming election, which he was determined to win in his own right. Vincent recalled that the subject was much on his mind as he struggled with the caucus bequeathed to him by Seddon.34 If Ward was to succeed, the North Island would be crucial. Every electoral boundary change for more than twenty years now had seen a reduction in the number of South Island seats, traditionally dominated by the Liberals. Ward hoped to repeat in the North Island the land strategy that had worked so well for the Liberals in the South. Crown land purchase was accelerated; rail construction was slowed elsewhere as all available resources were poured into completing the North Island Main Trunk; and a vigorous public works campaign, involving roads, bridges, telephones, improved mail services and new post offices had been under way for some time. Ward’s speaking tours became even more arduous than Seddon’s. Trains, ferries, coastal shipping and motor cars were all pressed into service. In the month of January 1908 Ward travelled from Bluff to Wellington, back to Christ-church, Dunedin and Invercargill, from there back to Ashburton, Wellington, Westport and Auckland. On 7 February Ward addressed a large crowd (a ‘great meeting’, Fowlds told him by telegram next day) before setting off for Hamilton, Te Aroha, Morrinsville, Paeroa, Waihi and Thames. With Theresa and one, or sometimes two secretaries at his elbow, he would meet deputations, despatch government business by telegrams,35 drive like royalty down main streets, talk with schoolchildren, and bestow holidays upon them like some visiting potentate. His speeches, and there were often five or six in a day, were carefully tailored to his audience. ‘Progress’ was the underlying theme of them all. The car in which he would arrive in each town was the symbol of progress, a visible message that New Zealand’s government was the most modern in the world. He told an Auckland audience that his policy ‘was neither revolutionary socialism nor hidebound individualism’. He favoured ‘the prudent use of the power of the State to give equal opportunity to all and make the people as a whole, and not any class in particular, healthier and happier’. This could best be achieved by ‘courageous and careful extension of the State acting along prudent and progressive lines’.36 In the mining towns of Paeroa and Waihi Ward talked of protecting jobs and a hard line against Chinese immigration; at Karangahake he praised compulsory arbitration; in the Far North where he ventured late in February the subject was development, railways, roads and bridges. Two days after slithering around in the mud in ‘the roadless north’—a journey described by the accompanying Herald reporter as ‘most irksome’, and then taking three-quarters of an hour to pass over half a mile of road near Paparoa in the company of Gordon Coates, the chairman of the Otamatea County Council, the Prime Minister announced that he would find another £200,000 for roading in the back blocks.37 His audiences these days were attentive rather than ecstatic. Gone were the heady days when Liberal political rallies were more like religious revival meetings.
Bluff Regatta, 1908.
Ward’s northern trip, which returned him to Wellington ‘looking fit and well’,38 had brought him face to face for the first time in his life with significant numbers of Maori, as well as with the land hunger of their Pakeha neighbours. In Kohukohu settlers wanted to see nearby Maori land ‘opened up’. The recently passed Native Land Settlement Act, resulting from the Stout-Ngata Royal Commission, facilitated access to Maori land, but stirred apprehension within Maoridom. An elder in Kaikohe pointedly told Ward that the Prime Minister was ‘the father of the two peoples’ of the Dominion.39 By the time Ward with the Governor and the Maori MPs gathered at Waharoa on 18 March for a hui to discuss Maori land, he had acquired a rather better awareness of the sensitivities involved. Yet he could never develop an appreciation of the Maori viewpoint that idle land held spiritual value. If Maori would only cultivate their lands assiduously, he told the hui, the trouble would disappear.40 Such a view was not just a reflection of the political pressures of the moment. It stemmed also from his passionately held values, his preoccupation with the work ethic, industry, effort, application, production, in a word, ‘progress’.
Ward’s meeting with the prophet Rua on the Whakatane waterfront on 23 March 1908 needs to be seen against this backdrop. Following the resumption of Crown purchase of Maori land in 1905 opinion divided sharply among Bay of Plenty Maori41 Followers of Numia Kereru, a Tuhoe chief, remained loyal to the government. The prophet Rua’s more isolated Urewera Maori were less compliant. Alternating between a romantic hope that King Edward VII would arrive at Gisborne and deliver them back their lands, and a policy of open confrontation with the government, which it was hoped would produce the same result, Rua’s followers had reached a stage nearing warfare with Kereru.42 Ward decided to intervene. Contact was made with Rua, who invited Ward to his camp in the Urewera. Ward resisted this; the dangers were too great. He did, however, agree to meet Rua on the Whakatane beachfront on his return from campaigning in Opotiki43 The scene on Monday 23 March 1908 has been well described elsewhere.44 Rua, seated on a chair, ‘affected all the kingly dignity of a great sovereign’ and greeted the Prime Minister ‘with a bow of Chesterfieldian condescension’. Ward, for his part, ‘delivered a tactful little speech’ in which he thanked Rua for bringing his followers with him. After a time the Prime Minister and the prophet retired to the Commercial Hotel for a drink and a private chat. Rua emerged a different man. He told his supporters that there was no point arguing against the government. Ward then addressed both Rua’s and Kereru’s followers. He asked them to settle their differences and to remember that there could only be one government. ‘The Government will do what is right by Rua and the rest of the Maoris as long as they do what is right, but there can’t be two suns shining in the sky at one time.’45
Meeting of Ward and Rua Kenana at Whakatane, 1908. Alexander Turnbull Library.
Emboldened by his apparent success, Ward drove off, pausing at several Maori settlements on the way back to Tauranga to shout ‘Kia ora’ at bemused parties of schoolchildren.46 The encounter with Rua was characteristic of Ward. Face to face, he believed he could ‘sweet reason’ anyone to his way of thinking. A drink would lower the barriers, decrease the tension. It often worked. The Tuhoe came to see the land issue the government’s way. Between 1910 and 1921 more than half their land was alienated to the Crown. Some of the money received went to building the ‘New Jerusalem’ at Maungapohatu. Much of it went on liquor. Rua, meantime, had been flattered by Ward’s visit and on future occasions refused to deal with any but the highest.
Ward made little secret of the fact that he wanted only a brief parliamentary session in 1908. Not only was it election year, when all politicians prefer to be out on the stump; conditions were cramped in Wellington since the fire, making brevity a virtue.47 Ward was soon talking of the need for a ‘legislative holiday’. Little was promised in the Governor’s speech, and once more everyone had to await the budget for a glimpse of Ward’s plans. On 7 July he delivered what he called an attempt ‘to do even-handed justice’ to all classes in the Dominion.48 He reported a budget surplus for the previous year of £767,849 and promised to continue borrowing at a rate of £2.5 million while rolling over past debts through regular payments into what he called his ‘sinking fund’. Traditional Liberal policies would be continued, though there was more stress on the need to look after urban workers. Seddon’s Advances to Workers scheme to facilitate the building or buying of workers’ houses had already resulted in the construction of 1179 houses; it received another £300,000. Ward told the House that it was essential to have a contented work force. He also announced that consideration was being given to extending the Public Service Superannuation fund that already had 7000 members, to all other workers without access to a superannuation scheme 49
Only two issues of any substance delayed Parliament. The first was a new Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill. It seems clear that the Ministry for a time had hoped that it would not be necessary to resurrect Millar’s proposals on 1907. However, the rash of industrial unrest on the West Coast coalfields early in 1908 forced the government to act.50 The strike at Blackball mine lasted eleven weeks and was followed by another in Auckland directed against the Electric Tramway Co., which left Aucklanders without public transport for three days. The Cabinet was worried.51 When another strike broke out among Wellington bakers just as Parliament was to open, the issue was sealed: the Arbitration Court was being defied, even ridiculed. Many were talking of an end altogether to compulsory arbitration. Neither Ward nor Millar was in any mood to agree to such suggestions. Ward and most of his advisers believed that a return to strike action as a method of solving industrial grievances would hurt the overwhelming majority of workers and help only a militant minority. On the other hand, as Jim Holt has pointed out, the arbitration system ‘had to be reformed to be saved’.52
The first draft of the 1908 Bill attempted to outlaw all strikes, but eventually Millar agreed to limit the prohibition to those unions actually covered by a current court award. The proposals about attachments on wages were modified and imprisonment as an option was removed, much to Ward’s relief. Workers in vital industries were obliged to give fourteen days’ notice of intention to strike. It was made illegal for a union registered under the Arbitration Act to assist others on strike. Breaches of the law could now be handled by the Magistrates’ Courts as well as the Arbitration Court. There were other changes affecting dispute procedures and a modified form of collective bargaining through Conciliation Councils made its first appearance. Altogether it was a major streamlining of Reeves’s legislation, now fourteen years old.53 Throughout the debates Ward was cautiously watchful. He told the House he could understand militancy: ‘It has frequently been represented to me … that many of our best working men … feel they are being kept at a dead-level, and that there is no incentive to them by their own exertion to work up the ladder of life.’54 However, coming to terms with a permanent urban work force eluded Ward all his life. He kept hoping that the possibility of settlement on the land, better urban housing and improved standards of health care would keep workers quiescent. If all else failed, and sweet reason no longer worked, the law must force a settlement in an industrial dispute.
The Second Ballot Bill was a tacit admission by Ward that he was increasingly worried by the potential political impact of organised labour. He came reluctantly to accept that under the ‘first past the post’ electoral system, socialist and labour support could be strong enough to split the Liberal vote and give a seat to the Opposition. The Bill required a second election to be held seven days after the first in any electorate where no candidate received 50 per cent or more of the votes cast in the first ballot. It was assumed by the Government that whatever their grievances against the Liberals, those who had indulged themselves and voted for independent, labour or socialist candidates on the first ballot would return to the Government on the second rather than face the prospect of Massey. In this calculation Ward’s Ministry was astray; critics such as the Southland Times who predicted a short life for the second ballot were nearer the mark.55
Parliament’s brief session was interrupted by a twelve-day break in August to enable MPs to travel to Auckland on the newly completed Main Trunk Line to meet Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet. Five ministers plus a large number of MPs, friends and families arrived in Auckland after a twenty-two-hour journey. Fowlds described the scene to a friend: ‘The platform and the streets of the city were one mass of people gathered from all parts of the Dominion. Magnificent triumphal arches were erected in honour of the visitors, and the main streets were a mass of greenery, bunting and illuminations. It is estimated that at least 150,000 people were in Auckland for the greater part of the week. The weather was simply perfect from first to last…. I think the effect must be good on the relations between the Empire and the Republic.’56
It was Deakin who had invited two squadrons of American battleships, preceded by a flotilla of destroyers and two armoured cruisers, to southern waters, hoping that he could use the visit to boost his goal of an independent Australian coastal navy. Ward was only too happy to give such a visit the royal treatment and he had hopes that his preference for a better subsidised Royal Navy unit within the context of the 1902 agreement would in no way be dimmed by the American visit.57 The visit afforded Ward a spectacular election-year diversion, with many opportunities for ministerial publicity. When ministers boarded Admiral Sperry’s flagship Connecticut in the Waitemata Harbour there was an ear-splitting sixteen-gun salute. Speeches, presentations, banquets and further gunfire punctuated the next few days. Ward, Theresa and Eileen led a party of 210 officers to Rotorua, where Sperry, Ward and his wife were given Maori cloaks.58
Ward about to drive the last spike to complete the construction of the Main Trunk Line, 1908. National Archives.
Lady Ward receiving a bouquet, 1908. National Archives.
On 26 September Ward celebrated the completion of twenty-one years in Parliament. Ministers and members gathered to make a series of presentations. Newspapers reflected on his career. The Southland Times made some interesting comments. The editor praised Ward’s Cabinet career, but then went on to say: ‘He has yet to demonstatrate that he is the peer of his predecessor in office in the capacity to lead men; and it will not be suggested that he has yet placed to his credit any measure that will compare with the Land Act of Sir John McKenzie, the Old Age Pension Act of Mr Seddon, or the Conciliation and Arbitration Act of Mr Reeves ….’59 The judgement was unfair in one sense: it overlooked Ward’s Advances to Settlers Act of 1894. Whatever else could be said about Ward’s personal motives at that time, the measure had been a major agent in settling the land, nowhere more than in Southland. But try as Ward might, he could not shake off the impression that, when compared with Seddon, he lacked the presence, the guile and the outright brutality sometimes needed by leaders intent on achieving great things. Constant comparisons with Seddon irritated Ward and made him a driven man. And that side of the Prime Minister worried the Governor, who disapproved of the constant tripping by his ‘perambulating premier’. ‘I should not be surprised if he broke down before long’, Plunket wrote to the Colonial Office. And such an event would be a ‘disaster’ for New Zealand as well as for the Empire; ‘so far as I can judge, he is the only man capable at present of leading and holding together a large party in the Dominion’.60
The Governor’s fears about Ward’s health were misplaced. He had the constitution of an ox, and like Seddon before him enjoyed moving around the country even if it meant a lot of speaking. On 16 October 1908 he announced that an election would be held on 17 November. He was soon operating at breakneck speed once more, visiting Feilding and Palmerston North before going south to spend six days in his own electorate. However, enthusiasm for the forthcoming elections was hard to whip up. Newspapers noted how little interest there was.61 Downie Stewart, later to be a Reform Party Minister of Finance, had earlier in the year been confident that Ward had ‘conciliated the commercial classes to a man’ and that he ‘sits safer than did Seddon in later years’. By November he was not so sure, noting that ‘politics here are about as dull as they can be’62 Ward found the going heavy. His speech in Winton was described as ‘rather below form’.63 Superficially he oozed confidence, but his actions in the later stages of the campaign betrayed anxiety. Massey succeeded in putting the Prime Minister off his schedule when he went down to campaign in Geraldine. Ward quickly appeared in the electorate as well, only to receive a less-than-encouraging response from his audience, whose show of hands on a confidence motion in the Ministry was so inconclusive that it required another count. In this now prosperous farming community there was growing hostility to trade unions, which the Liberals were seen to have fostered.64 Then when Fowlds began to panic about his chances of holding Grey Lynn, Ward hurried north to help. On 7 November at His Majesty’s Theatre there was uproar in the gallery from a crowd labelled by the press as ‘Socialists’. The Ministry was having trouble with both extremes of its erstwhile wide-spectrum support. The policy document issued by the Prime Minister a few days before polling was lean on specifics and rotund with rhetoric. The choice on election day was beween ‘a steady march, breast forward, and a spiritless marking time; between faith in your country and distrust; between a policy of firm courage and one of timid hesitation; between a policy of opportunity for all and one of favour to a class—in fine, between progressive liberalism and old time conservatism’. Ward went on to remind voters of the stagnant years of the Continuous Ministry, although no voters under thirty-five could have had clear memories of those days.65 Anxiety, it seemed, was paralysing the progressivism that had always been such an appealing part of Ward’s personality.
Ward’s worst fears were not realised; the country was not yet ready to throw over the party that had become a New Zealand way of life. On the first ballot the Government won thirty-four seats, the Opposition sixteen, with three independents. There were some shocks, however. Never safe, even in the heyday of Seddon, McNab lost Mataura. Carroll was forced to a second ballot in Gisborne, and several other prominent Liberals failed to win outright. Ward himself saw his portion of the vote in Awarua slip to 65 per cent, his lowest since he was first elected in 1887.66 The second ballot on 24 November 1908 produced a final result giving Ward forty-seven seats, Massey twenty-five, with four independents plus the Maori seats. Perhaps the most ominous sign for the long-term future of the Liberal Party was the fact that a new-style labourite, David McLaren, won the second ballot in Wellington East. He managed to do so only with Ward’s support, since his opponent in the run-off was a Reform Party candidate.67 Designed to rescue the Liberals, the second ballot had delivered the first seat to the Labour Party, who in time became the executioners of the party of Seddon and Ward.
