WORLD WAR ONE obliged Ward to choose between Empire and the day-today needs of ordinary New Zealanders. Empire won, a fact that contributed to his ultimate downfall. As Ward saw it, no efforts should be spared to win the war; those who argued that domestic concerns ought to be given higher priority were troublemakers. After stumping the country in April 1916 as part of the recruiting drive, a tour that took him round the South Island, spending many days on trains and coastal ships, Ward was in no mood to tolerate carping from his erstwhile allies on the left, whose patriotism often seemed lukewarm. When James McCombs criticised him personally for the delays in setting up the promised Board of Trade to control prices—some-tiling which everyone knew the Liberal leader had promised and been fighting for against the less enthusiastic Massey—Ward delivered a stinging attack on him and on other representatives of organised labour. He and his colleagues, Ward told Parliament, ‘loathed traitors’. A few weeks later, he accused Labour of ‘playing to the gallery’ at a most difficult time for New Zealand. Such comments only drew equally cutting responses from Labour MPs, Payne calling Ward a ‘traitor’ during a debate on budget legislation.1 This sort of cut and thrust helped make the breach between Liberals and Labour unbridgeable.
Ward could not acknowledge that he was ignoring the problems of everyday life, and in his budget legislation in June 1916 he argued that his taxation measures, especially the excess profits tax aimed at land speculators, would hit those who were doing well out of the war and would thus help those on lower incomes. But in reality, Ward’s mind was on other things. Even his determination to control the cost of living flagged in the middle of 1916. The National Government had never promised to reduce the cost of living, he told the House, merely that they would try to do so.2 By now he was almost totally preoccupied with Empire and the role that he might play in bringing the war to a successful conclusion.
A meeting of the Empire’s prime ministers had been talked about in London since the end of 1915. Ward saw himself as Massey’s equal in all but name and was determined that he would go wherever Massey went. For the moment, however, tensions in Cabinet meant that neither was sure whether the National Government could survive lengthy absences from New Zealand by them both. Allen, the next senior minister, was unpopular with others, Lord Liverpool told Harcourt. Instead, Liverpool was asked by Massey to sound out the British Government about whether Asquith or Harcourt could visit Australia and New Zealand.3 When this proved impossible, the message back to London was that New Zealand’s representatives would not be able to come until the autumn of 1916 at the earliest. In time it became clear that the National Government was more likely to survive with both Massey and Ward absent at the same time, than with one or other left at home. Knowing that the political truce was a time-limited arrangement, each found it difficult to resist maneouvring for partisan advantage, and the best way to keep current arrangements intact was for each leader to travel with the other as some sort of hostage. The two of them became like ‘Siamese twins’, as Sir Maurice Hankey, the British Cabinet secretary, rather cleverly described them, each really wanting to be free of the other, yet not able to sever the tie.4
Massey and Ward made three trips to Europe, and were absent from New Zealand for nearly twenty-three months between August 1916 and August 1919. These absences placed great strain on those ministers remaining. By July 1916 the two of them were planning their first visit to London.5 There was no option but to leave affairs in Allen’s hands as Acting Prime Minister. Arthur Myers was to manage the Finance portfolio for all of the time Ward was away. Each leader’s colleagues kept in touch by letter and cable, Ward’s group making more frequent use of cables, to Massey’s occasional irritation.
Arrangements had already been made with the British Government for an escort across the Atlantic and the pair with their wives slipped away quietly from New Zealand after the House rose in August 1916. The news that they were on the Rotorua making for the Panama Canal took time to leak out, but caused them some worries about their safety on the Atlantic crossing. They arrived in London on 8 October, Ward telling a reporter that ‘its always a pleasure to get back to the centre of Empire’.6 It proved difficult to get the other prime ministers together. Botha could not come, and his deputy, General Smuts, was tied down with the East African campaign. The new Prime Minister of Australia, Billy Hughes, was in the midst of a referendum on conscription. Nor was the British political scene much more amenable to an Imperial Conference at the end of 1916. ‘Mutual mistrust and recrimination’ had become an everyday part of British Cabinet life,7 and Asquith was about to be toppled in the interests of a more energetic war effort. Until the new Prime Minister, Lloyd George, had formed his War Cabinet and decided on a bigger role for the Dominions’ prime ministers, Massey and Ward seemed surplus to British requirements. They took up residence in the Cecil until it was commandeered by the Air Board and then moved into the Savoy. They visited—and praised—convalescing New Zealand soldiers at the Hornchurch Camp in Essex, and went over to visit troops in France. There was the usual round of dinners, speeches and reverse hospitality, all of it as familiar to Ward as it was new to Massey. Ward found London even livelier than usual. On 25 October he and Massey attended a meeting of the British Cabinet. Two days later they were lunching at Mansion House with the Lord Mayor. Westminster and the Liberal Club were pulsating with intrigue, and it is likely that Ward was present on 8 December when Asquith, only hours out of office, spoke to his colleagues at the club, receiving an overwhelming vote of confidence from the assembled Liberals.8 The changes in Downing Street brought new faces to several ministerial offices, people whom Massey found congenial.9 But they were of a different political persuasion from Ward. Crewe, Samuel and Harcourt were on the outer; Tories like Curzon, Bonar Law and Balfour now held senior office. There was a new Secretary of State for the Colonies, a Conservative, Walter Long. The British Liberal Government that Ward had come to know so well had gone for ever.
Fascinating as it all was, Massey and Ward were wanting action by the New Year or freedom to return home. Long had the difficult task of persuading them to stay on, while pressing Lloyd George to firm up on a date for the Imperial Conference. Massey and Ward ‘do not like the prospect of remaining here indefinitely’, Long told his Prime Minister on 12 January 1917, while conceding that any conference before March would be difficult because of the commitments of Smuts and Hughes.10 Without the option of a jet trip home, Massey and Ward lingered on in England. Each was invited on successive weekends to spend time with the King at Windsor Castle. The British Government used them more and more to make patriotic speeches designed to lift flagging morale. At several of these Ward spoke about his vision of a post-war world. The Empire in future would be safer with ‘one great Imperial Navy’ under British control, he told an audience at Gresham College. But the individual Dominions would need to be guaranteed their say in imperial matters, and ultimately a federal parliament for the Empire would have to be set up. In the meantime there should be an Imperial Council. It was all rather familiar, the sweetener this time being his advocacy of a ten shilling per capita levy on imperial countries to pay for the Royal Navy. Ward went on to talk about a post-war world where the Empire became self-supporting, with immigration and capital transactions coming entirely from within. With an amazing rhetorical flourish he concluded by telling his audience that ‘historians would say that this war was a necessity, an inestimable blessing to humanity and the British Empire’. Some weeks later he told the National Liberal Club that Britain needed to take a leaf out of New Zealand’s book and realise that working people needed more social legislation and higher wages.11 At times, but only occasionally these days, he saw the Empire as an instrument for worldwide social and economic advancement.
The Imperial War Conference finally began on 21 March 1917. It dealt with trade and imperial matters in general. The Imperial War Cabinet alternated its meetings with the conference. It concentrated on the conduct of the war, supplies and Allied strategy, receiving regular briefings from military chiefs as well as from the Chancellor, Bonar Law. Initially the Cabinet had been designed as a small, intimate meeting of Dominion prime ministers, with attendant ministers coming in from time to time. However, according to Leo Amery of the secretariat, ‘when I conveyed this to Ward he exploded, asserting that though technically Massey might be Prime Minister, they were really twin stars; and that if he did not attend every meeting to which Massey was invited he would go home and break up the coalition.’ Early in January 1917 the British Government gave way, but the precedent of New Zealand’s dual representation was then used by the Canadians and the Indians to push forward their multiple representatives. This in turn meant that more British representatives had to be added. The intended intimacy of the meetings was destroyed.12
Ward and Massey in London. Cartoons from the Free Lance.
Imperial War Cabinet, London, 1917, from Leo Amery, My Political Life.
At the Imperial War Cabinet Ward had little to say, speaking principally in support of Smuts who initiated a discussion on war aims at the meeting on 27 March. However, at the conference chaired by Long, Ward spoke frequenriy. He took the lead when the question of the future consitution of the Empire came up for discussion on 4 April, although it was Massey who made the case for an Imperial Council to exist alongside an Imperial Cabinet, holding the fort between Imperial conferences. Just as the matter was about to come to a vote Ward insisted on making a long, rambling contribution to the debate. With Laurier now in Opposition, Botha absent and no Australian present at all, he felt he was the senior representative by far, the only link with past debates on his favourite subject. His views had been modified only a little since 1911. There was a need for ‘some properly constituted’ Imperial Parliament with well-defined powers. The machinery of the British Parliament was ‘clogged’ and could not carry out the work of the United Kingdom and the Empire at the same time. There should be a continuation of the British War Cabinet after the war, with imperial representation on it. But he stopped short of repeating his 1911 scheme for imperial representation on the proposed body; ‘how that representation is to be created is not for me to say’. And he expressly rejected any power of taxation for any central administrative body. Nor was there any mention at this point of a naval levy.
Smuts and Ward, 1917.
The speech was vintage Ward. On his favourite subject, passion knew no bounds. The rhetoric gushed out of him and he peppered his utterances with impatient declarations such as ‘I cannot for the life of me …’. But by now he cut little ice. The British were no more enthusiastic about his plan than in 1911, and talked of a better system of Empire ‘evolving’, rather than being created. The carefully worded motion moved by Sir Robert Borden of Canada to put off constitutional reform of the Empire until after the war passed easily on 16 April.13 Harcourt, who was watching the conference from a distance, wrote to Liverpool: ‘I do not think Imperial Federation made much progress and indeed properly understood in its highest development it is very alarming to the Ministers of self-governing Dominions.’14 When the British Government decided it was politic to add a representative of the Dominions to the War Cabinet it was not Ward but the newly arrived star from the East African campaign, General Smuts, who was invited. Ward had to be content with the conference’s resolution on 26 April favouring imperial trade preference and urging emigrants from Britain to settle ‘in countries under the British flag’.15
May 1917 on Salisbury Plain. Three prime ministers — Ward, Massey and Mackenzie — review the New Zealand troops. New Zealand Herald.
The conference ended on 27 April, leaving just enough time before sailing to review New Zealand’s troops on Salisbury Plain on 1 May. An early film clip survives of Massey, Ward and Mackenzie with their wives watching King George V taking the salute. Massey is taller, wearing the old-fashioned wing collar which easily fitted his long neck. Ward is bull-necked, with a more modern, low collar, spats, and a white handkerchief in his pocket. A watch chain stretches across his expensive suit as he moves about often gripping his lapels. There is an even greater contrast between their wives. Theresa is tall and thin, wearing a stylish fur and one of her wardrobe of elegant hats. A British paper had earlier described her as ‘wonderfully young-looking’. Mrs Massey is plump, more plainly dressed and decidedly grandmotherly in appearance. The same paper called her a ‘charming and kindly woman with a quiet voice’. The King seems the shortest of them all.16
Back home by the end of June Ward and Massey quickly resumed their imperialistic song and dance routine. The most important thing was winning the war, Ward told reporters, and victory was only a matter of time now that the Americans were involved. War had been the greatest educator and regenerator the Empire had ever known, solidifying Empire like nothing before it.17 Both leaders found talk of Empire less stressful than domestic issues, but these could not be avoided. There was a budget to be presented early in August. This event annually stretched loyalties within the National Government, and there was soon press talk about tensions within Cabinet and the two party caucuses.18 When neither Massey nor Ward spoke in the Address in Reply some commentators bemoaned the fact that Parliament was being ignored.19 Domestically, nothing it seemed could please anyone. When Ward responded to the criticism of his excess profits tax of 1916 by removing it in the 1917 budget, he set off another round of criticism, this time from people who usually identified with the Liberal Party. The Lyttelton Times wrote a savage editorial to the effect that the government had surrendered to ‘the rich profiteer’, and when Ward refused to budge on the issue the Times grew more personal in its attacks on him.20 Ward and Massey adopted the tactic of interrupting debates critical of the government with motions relating to the war, or to preach homilies about loyalty and the need to subscribe to the War Loan. There was disaffection within both parties. For the moment more publicity was given to the tensions within the Liberal caucus. A Cabinet vacancy on the Liberal side had resulted from McNab’s death. As a former Minister of Justice, Findlay was most available, but the ambitious pair, Hanan and Russell, wanted Findlay kept out.21 Others including Wilford were pressing their cases, and the usually mild-mannered George Forbes from Hurunui, also a hopeful, referred to ‘widespread discontent’ with the National Government. The suspension of elections, he said, had made the Government ‘autocratic’.22 Eventually Wilford assumed McNab’s old portfolios in November 1917 and Findlay decided to resign from the House, which he had so long aspired to enter, at the next election.
Ward’s imperial preoccupations and his long absence from New Zealand made it seem as though he had lost some of his old financial wizardry. His handling of his portfolio during the parliamentary session of 1917, especially of taxation measures, was inept. His detailed explanation of why he had scrapped the excess profits tax, setting out as he did the many anomalies with it, only raised the question of why he had agreed to it in the first place.23 Exempting interest received from war loans from income tax also proved hard to sell to ordinary folk. Fowlds, who was attempting a political comeback as a radical Liberal, called it ‘quite indefensible on financial, moral or political grounds’.24 It was Ward, rather than Massey, who always seemed these days to bear the brunt of criticism of the National Government. The Prime Minister remained discreetly in the background while the Liberals’ old political and media friends belaboured the hapless Minister of Finance.
Ward did find time to make his first visit to Southland in eighteen months, where he talked a great deal about freeing the world from the ‘Prussian menace’, but his promise of a better world at the end of the conflict somehow lacked conviction. He predicted a drop in the prices of farm produce, but told farmers he was certain that interest rates would also fall, thus reducing their costs.25 He could still draw affection from some, such as the conference of Post Office employees that he addressed in January 1918. Ward always followed his speech to them with a reception for the delegates. ‘What a change came over the most aggrieved of them, after the first few minutes of desultory talk!’ a delegate was to recall years later.26 For others, however, he had emptied much of his former reservoir of good will. He seemed positively relieved as the six-day session of Parliament came to a quick end in April 1918 and he and Massey were able to slip away once more. Ward was suffering from a serious dose of domestic-issue avoidance. The trip revived him as always: this time they had Hughes and Joseph Cook from Australia aboard and were able to beat the younger men at deck quoits.
Ward with Massey and General George Richardson, addressing the troops in France, 1918. New Zealand Herald.
The ‘Brains of the Empire’, as the London Evening Standard called the Dominions’ delegates, were mostly assembled by 8 June 1918, and the Imperial War Cabinet met on the 11th at 10 Downing Street.27 Their presence in London, as it had been the previous year, was seen as a shot in the arm for a war-weary nation. Patriotic speeches gushed out of Massey and Ward. They visited the front, motored round the troops, had a taste of shell-fire and dined with Lloyd George. This time Ward was less voluble at the conference. Imperial trade preference was the only subject that excited him, and on 19 July he delivered a disquisition on the likely threat posed after the war from heavily subsidised products from enemy countries and the need to control imperial freight rates ‘in some way’.28 Imperial communications were as close to his heart as they had been at any stage in his political career.
Meetings of the War Cabinet again alternated with the conference. Once more the British Government hoped for a more intimate series of meetings, and once more Ward ruined their plans: ‘I sent the usual telegram inviting the Prime Ministers, or if they could not come themselves, a representative’, Long lamented to Lloyd George, ‘but New Zealand promptly telegraphs that Massey and Ward are coming as before, and I am convinced that as before they will both insist on being present, with equal rights.’ Long felt there was no option but to accept the inevitable and tell all the prime ministers that they could ‘bring a colleague’. However, the British were determined to have some sessions with the imperial prime ministers alone. In all there were thirteen such meetings between 21 June and 16 August. No minutes were sent out.29 When Ward found out about them he ‘left England in a state of great irritation’ and promptly took the matter up with Liverpool on returning to New Zealand in October. ‘I feel that I am labouring under such a sense of injustice, humiliation and indignity that to go on as I have been both in London and here is scarcely possible’, Ward told Liverpool, hinting at the possibility once more that he would break up the National Government.30 Yet again the British government gave ground, Long doing his best ‘to smooth him down’.31 It was not the last of the indignities Ward was to feel at the hands of the British who, more and more, regarded him as a tiresome supernumerary.
A Maori officer enjoys one of Ward’s cigars, at the front, France, 1917–18. New Zealand Herald.
Ward with Massey, 1918. Alexander Turnbull Library.
If the last home visit had been difficult, the two months spent by Massey and Ward before returning to Europe again promised to be thoroughly menacing. They arrived back in New Zealand to the news of Peter Fraser’s overwhelming win in Wellington Central and left again with every prospect that Labour’s success would be repeated in Wellington South. Ward’s colleague, G. W. Russell, had been campaigning around the country, irking Allen with a number of statements which the Acting Prime Minister deemed disloyal to the National Government. Russell now seemed to be in financial trouble as well. The government had embarked on a policy of purchasing undeveloped tracts of land with a view to settling returned soldiers on them, but this policy had had the short-term effect of pushing up the price of land, making settlement more difficult, especially for returning soldiers. A campaign aimed at the introduction of prohibition at the next election was under way, and sectarianism was still on the rampage. Allen had recently approved a pay rise for the police: ‘it is especially desirable at the present time to have the police a satisfied lot of men’, he told his chief. He was less enthusiastic about consequent pay demands from other state servants, however. To cap it all, an influenza epidemic had broken out among returning members of the 40th Reinforcements, something which was already well known to Massey and Ward, whose ship, the Niagara, had more than its share of infected soldiers aboard.32 It must have been music to Ward’s ears to hear of Long’s cables to Liverpool that it was ‘of the utmost importance’ that he and Massey return to London ‘at the earliest possible moment’.33
The parliamentary session, the first to be held in the new Parliament Buildings, lasted twenty-four days. Ward took little part in it except to present his budget on 26 November. Wisely he steered clear of new forms of taxation. Instead there was a small increase in the rates of existing income and land taxes. He raised war pensions and provided a bonus for government employees. Money was to be raised by local authorities for hydro-electric construction, and Ward made several comments about air travel, and its future relevance to postal services. His only other contribution to the session was to support the legislative amendment providing women with the right to stand for Parliament.34 On the evening of 11 December 1918, one month after the Armistice, the two leaders, this time accompanied by their wives, who had wisely avoided the hectic mid-year trip, boarded the Remuera bound again for Panama, where they were picked up by HMS Ophir and given a rough, cramped but quick trip to London.35
Massey and Ward went straight to Paris where they settled into the Hotel Majestic. Immediately they were confronted with more difficulty over Ward’s status. Canada, Australia and South Africa had all been allocated two representatives to the Peace Conference, but New Zealand had only one. Both New Zealanders felt this to be very unsatisfactory. Ward talked openly of coming home,36 and Massey called it ‘a sort of slap in the face’.37 Fearing that Ward might indeed return home and take over the government as senior Minister, Massey talked to Lloyd George and asked that Ward be considered for membership of the Commission dealing with financial matters.38 Both men joined the British Empire delegation to the conference which met twice a week, Ward smugly claiming to the press that he had been made an honorary member of the British Cabinet.39 They found these meetings much more constructive than the plenary sessions which in the end Ward was able to attend with ‘full powers’. Neither man developed much respect for President Woodrow Wilson. Massey resented the ‘dominating influence’ he seemed able to exercise over the conference (a sentiment shared by Ward) and much preferred the company of Clemenceau.40 Their principal contribution to proceedings was on the subject of mandates over former German possessions. New Zealand’s frequent requests to exercise control over Samoa after the war were satisfactorily answered, and Massey managed to prevent both the British Phosphate Company and Hughes, for whom he developed distaste, securing an exclusive mandate over Nauru Island’s phosphate.41
The final round of tough negotiations with Germany’s representatives in May and June 1919 led up to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June. Ward took a considerable interest in proceedings. On 1 June he had a talk with Lloyd George and next day wrote him a long letter setting out his views. Ward made it clear that while he would prefer not to ‘concede an inch to an enemy responsible for the war’ he saw no point in continuing the blockade against Germany, let alone marching into Berlin. The Treaty should be signed quickly, and Germany brought into the League of Nations as soon as her armed forces had been reduced to 100,000. At that point the occupation of the Rhineland should cease. Ward’s principal concern was over reparations. The proposals currently before Germany were ‘not workable’ because they contained only ‘an unknown liability’. An alternative demand for £11 billion should be offered to the Germans ‘out of which the cost of restoration by Germany should be deducted’.42 There is no evidence of any reply from the British Prime Minister, but Ward’s advice about quantifying the sum required in reparations was not taken, and Massey’s claim of £100 million as the cost of the war to New Zealand which should be paid by Germany seems not to have been taken seriously either.43
As the conference dragged on, both Massey and Ward became restless. Conditions in Europe were far from comfortable, even for visiting dignitaries. Theresa noted the constant industrial trouble which spread to hotel workers in London, leaving guests to look after themselves. Home would have its problems too. With the finale to the war nearly enacted, and an election in the offing, politicians were beginning to jockey for position. Would the wartime political cooperation between the Reform and Liberal parties become a merger or a coalition? In both parties there were some who favoured this. While relationships between the two caucuses had not been close, they had learned to rub along, and in November 1917 had held a combined caucus meeting. Moreover, the sight of Ward and Massey sharing an election platform during the by-election campaign in Wellington North early in 1918 raised some hopes that a permanent political truce might emerge. The Reform Party caucus at a meeting in November 1918 declared its support for a party merger.44 Several Reform MPs kept the pressure on the Liberals. W. D. S. Macdonald, who acted as leader of the Liberals in Ward’s absence, called a caucus of his MPs on 22 May 1919 without first consulting his chief. At this meeting a majority of Liberal MPs favoured an end to the National Government on Ward’s return to New Zealand.45 Macdonald, who was not certain his caucus had chosen wisely, cabled Ward to tell him of the decision, but advised him not to make up his mind on what action to take until he could assess the situation for himself. Macdonald also told Sir James Allen to whom the Liberal decision came as no surprise. Allen had often mentioned to Massey that Russell in particular, and of recent times Wilford as well, seemed to be maneouvring for political advantage.46 Over the weeks before Ward’s return his Liberal colleagues worked on a radical manifesto.
Meantime the prospect of an end to the National Ministry inspired hopes of promotion in many a Reform MP’s breast. Younger members of caucus felt the wartime compact had kept power in the hands of the old guard and were restless for new faces and policies. Some had approached Sir Andrew Russell, the popular commander of New Zealand’s forces in France, with a view to his entering Parliament at the next election. Fortunately for Massey, Russell was not interested.47 Allen, however, was finding his party difficult to control and by June was anxious for Massey to return.48 He issued a statement to the press which read simply:
The Reform Party will continue strictly loyal to the compact entered into at the time the National Government was formed, until the separation of the two parties to the compact takes place. On the return of the leaders … to New Zealand, should it be decided to end the compact, a progressive programme consistent with the requirements of the country and its position as an important part of the Empire will be issued.49
To Massey he sent a coded message warning him not to let Ward come home earlier, thus taking over control of the government and deciding on the parliamentary timetable.50 Massey managed both to sign the Treaty and keep an eye on his ‘twin’; the two of them left London on 29 June, Massey disembarking for a few days in Canada, the Wards going on to New York before they all teamed up again in Vancouver. There at a Canadian Club function Ward told the assembly that it would only be justice if the ex-Kaiser were lynched, a sentiment indicating the extent to which he had been consumed by patriotic fervour. He also expressed doubts about whether the League of Nations would work in practice, although he seemed more optimistic by the time he reached Auckland on the morning of 5 August.51
It was anything but a triumphant return. Allen had warned Massey: ‘As far as you and Ward are concerned I am bound to tell you that you may find yourselves not very popular on returning …,’52 Some boos met the two even as their ship docked.53 Ward parried questions about the future of the National Government until he had had a chance to consult his colleagues, but he did say that ‘nothing would give him greater delight than to send out a greeting and a rallying call to all the political supporters of Liberalism’.54 Once he had held his consultations and paid a quick visit to his children in Christchurch he then, without warning to Massey, resigned from his portfolios on 21 August, only days before the parliamentary session was to commence. Four years of political partnership involving unparalleled physical closeness without personal warmth or much mutual respect had come to an end.
The evidence does not exist to let us know exactly what was going through Ward’s mind as he so summarily jettisoned the wartime working relationship and struck out once more on an independent course. While in one sense, as many sympathisers noted, the National Government had run its course, there were many olive branches being tendered the Liberals, not least by Sir James Allen, who was adamant that the two old parties should combine to face the growing Labour ‘menace’.55 However, Ward made it clear that he had found the compact very trying. It seems likely that he was heartily sick of his partners and had no appetite for another round of pre-budget compromises. The National Government had given him office, but not the kind of unfettered power he had grown used to in previous years. He seems to have hoped that ending the truce would give him room to maneouvre, freedom to chart a more successful political course. Still full of optimism at sixty-three, he hoped to build a new political force based on a fresh dispensation between capital and labour. The world, he said, ‘is passing through a new era’. Labour as well as capital had legitimate rights. ‘It is the bounden duty of both to take a fair and reasonable view of the reciprocal needs and responsibilities of each, and of the State as final arbiter.’56
The lengthy policy document which he issued with his resignation was certainly Ward’s most detailed and radical manifesto, surpassing even the promises of the Governor’s speech in 1912. There will always be doubts about how much of it he really supported. It was probably more a reflection of his colleagues’ views that nothing short of a labour manifesto was needed if there were to be any chance of re-establishing the old Liberal-Labour pact. Even newspapers normally friendly to the Liberals described it as deliberately vote-catching.57 The manifesto received wide publicity. The Lyttelton Times printed it in full, devoting hundreds of column inches to it. A state bank would be established with the Bank of New Zealand having first option to assume that role. This move, according to Ward, would minimise profit made from exchange of currencies and give the state an opportunity to influence domestic interest rates downwards. Coal, ‘the most essential commodity in the daily requirements of the people’, would drop in price as a result of a Liberal Government nationalising all mines. Then, after promising no increase in taxes, Ward went on to outline a spending wish-list of huge proportions. School buildings needed £3 million spent on them, school books should be free, and there would be free dental and medical services for all children, as well as free transport to school. Remaining Crown land ‘must be roaded and opened for settlement at the earliest moment’; £1 million per annum of extra money needed to be spent on land settlement; all working flour mills should be purchased by the state and bread prices fixed by the Board of Trade. The state should give ‘financial assistance’ to new industries and ‘foster’ those already in existence. An extra £1 million needed to be spent on new railway construction, and ‘fast and cheap’ suburban trains would be provided. The ferry services would be purchased and integrated into the railway system while the state would obtain modern motor lorries which would be supplied to local authorities ‘as required at cost price’. In particular, the Board of Trade would be given greatly extended powers to control prices, the government helping it by reducing ‘as far as possible’ duties and taxation on all commodities. The Board of Trade would control freight rates, and some form of commission control should be established on the waterfront so as to ensure a permanent workforce of watersiders. The means test for old age pensions would be scrapped and other pensions raised. Over four years a sum of £4 million should be spent on erecting additional workers’ homes.
To those who might think the wish-list expensive, Ward concluded with the claim that all the items mentioned, except pensions, education, roads and bridges, were revenue-producing and ‘will more than pay their own way’. He ended with a rhetorical flourish, appealing to ‘the moderate section only of all classes … and not to extremists of either side’.58 Echoes of this amazing document were to be heard politically for another sixty-five years before it was conceded by virtually every politician except a maverick ex-Labour MP from Christchurch that the public do not necessarily derive the greatest benefit from having the state involved in business enterprise.
The Labour Party, at whose swelling support the document was aimed, was somewhat nonplussed by Ward’s manifesto. At the same time as Labour was building many aspects of Ward’s policy into its own policies the party could not appear to take him seriously. E. J. Howard called Ward’s policy ‘farmers’ socialism’. ‘We have distinct recollections of a revolutionary … policy brought down by the Liberal Party some years ago. They “nailed it to the mast”, but the mast itself was cut down within a few days.’ James McCombs noted waspishly that no one could take Ward seriously on the cost of living since he had so recently failed to control it when he had the power to do so. The Liberals’ standard-bearer, the Lyttelton Times, however, was cock-a-hoop. The manifesto was in the Liberal tradition of ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’.59
Having seized the initiative in such a spectacular manner Ward now let it slip from his grasp. Many pointed out that there was serious doubt whether Massey had enough parliamentary support to see through the session, let alone set an election date of his choice. The Lyttelton Times felt that a testing of strength was desirable.60 Knowing that the Peace Treaty was yet to be placed before Parliament, Ward could not bring himself to try to topple Massey immediately. It is possible that he could not have mustered the numbers in any event, although the Labour MPs reluctantly conceded that they had no option but to support him. Not to try, however, was a political miscalculation. On 29 August Ward announced that he would not ‘harass’ the government, and would not seek to precipitate an early dissolution. The tension in political circles, something on which Ward could have capitalised, eased immediately.61 The initiative passed back to Massey, who restructured his Cabinet. In place of Ward as Postmaster General he appointed Gordon Coates, a much decorated, handsome returned soldier. Two other younger backbenchers were elevated to Cabinet rank as well. Possession of office was enabling Massey and Allen to prepare for the election with a generous budget, taking a few leaves from Ward’s programme as they went along.
Despite being out of office again the Wards had little time to relax. An election was in the offing, and much domestic travel was necessary. With the trappings of office gone once more, Ward took to using the trams when going up town to the Royal Oak Hotel. On one occasion he found all the seats taken. As he stood for the short journey a friend joked with him to the effect that he hoped Ward’s lack of a seat was not a warning of things to come.62 Nothing could have been further from Ward’s mind as he threw himself into the few weeks of parliamentary activity and the election campaign. His attacks on the government for ‘overspending’ in the budget carried little conviction, however, from one who had so recently issued such an extravagant manifesto. Comments of this kind only raised doubts about whether the Liberals’ leader really accepted the manifesto that had been issued in his name. Under criticism from his opponents, especially from one of the new ministers, J. B. Hine, all Ward’s injured vanity resurfaced. There were several unseemly shouting matches as Ward rose to Hine’s bait. The old coolness under provocation had long gone. He had grown overly consequential and brittle.
Ward opened the Liberals’ campaign in Christchurch on 10 November. It was a city where the Labour Party had made much headway during the war. He spent little time defending his radical platform although he produced a novel defence for nationalising the mines: in times of industrial unrest they and their workers would be easier to control under the state’s eye. His refusal to take questions at the end of his speech produced uproar, and there was as loud a cheer for Labour as for the night’s speaker.63 Next stop was Winton and then Bluff—places that had not seen him for more than eighteen months and to which he had made only the one previous visit in more than three years. Throughout Southland Ward kept up his criticism of Massey’s Government for spending too much, a line which surely confused the voters of Awarua. They were being invited to re-elect someone who throughout his thirty-two years as their representative had never been renowned for fiscal parsimony, who had recently issued a manifesto where money seemed no object, and who now seemed to be preaching financial caution. Inconsistency was not Ward’s greatest problem, however. The Reform Party’s morning papers kept headlining extreme utterances by Labour Party candidates. They would then demand from Ward unequivocal assurances that, should there be an inconclusive election result, he would not attempt to form a government with Labour’s help. For a time Ward refused to answer these demands but they became hard to ignore.64 Eventually he declared in Temuka that if he had to depend on the votes of ‘extremists’ like Holland and Fraser he would not try to stay in office.65 The political scene, it seemed, had become too large for him. No longer did he aspire to lead everyone to the left of Massey. All he wanted, he told an audience in the Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber, was the votes of ‘sane labour’.66 And yet the press kept up their attacks, alleging that Ward was prepared to court the votes of ‘Bolsheviks’ and the Industrial Workers of the World. Such accusations were calculated to touch Ward’s raw spot. He spent much time at meetings defending himself and vainly trying to define a position for the Liberals between the emerging polarities of Reform and Labour.67 He had long since lost the art of effective campaigning.
On 17 December 1919 the Liberals took a quantum leap towards oblivion. Ward suffered the indignity of losing Awarua to J. R. Hamilton, the Reform Party candidate who had first tackled him in 1911. Boundary changes slightly altered the seat to Ward’s disadvantage, but nothing could disguise his big losses in Winton, Makarewa, and Waikiwi, all of them townships that had been loyal to him for most of his career. Even in his home town of Bluff Ward came in less than 50 votes ahead of his rival.68 His overall loss in Awarua by 757 votes was as comprehensive and humiliating as it was surprising to every observer. ‘Nothing that has happened surprised me, except the defeat of Sir Joseph Ward’, P. J. O’Regan wrote to an Australian friend.69 ‘Unless we are much mistaken [Ward’s] political career has closed’, said the Sun with a hopeful air of finality,70 while the Press added: ‘It will not greatly matter, we think, whether or not Sir Joseph succeeds in re-entering Parliament at some future time, for the day has gone by for him …. It would be … idle to pretend that he is any longer a useful force in the public life of the Dominion.’71 The Liberals slipped to 19 seats. From among their former ministers they also lost Carroll (who had entered Parliament with Ward in 1887), G. W. Russell, Buddo and Ell. Managing neatly to divide his opposition, Massey won 47 seats with a bare 37 per cent of the nation’s votes.
Politics is surely the least secure of professions. Disraeli said of his success in 1868 that he had ‘climbed to the top of the greasy pole’. Ward’s time near the top of the pole had set records for agility. But there was no disguising that he was now at the bottom. Ward talked of accepting his position in the spirit of sportsmanship, and claimed not to regret being out of politics.72 He announced that he would not try to re-enter Parliament during the current session. This facilitated the election of the ailing W. D. S. Macdonald to the leadership of the sadly depleted Liberal Party. But it is clear from Ward’s comments that he was deeply hurt. The press had treated him unfairly and people had circulated ‘lies and allegations’ about him, he told a Wellington luncheon in his honour. He referred to ‘shameful’ literature that had been put about, adding that if such tactics were to become the norm then ‘the other party’ was welcome to power.73 He was referring to the activities of the Protestant Political Association which had targeted him ever since his very public fight against conscription of the clergy in October 1917. The PPA agent in the Awarua electorate circulated a pamphlet alleging once more that Ward had stuffed the Post Office with Catholics, and suggesting that Ward supported Irish extremists in their fight against the British. The pamphlet contained a cartoon with the Pope in the middle holding Ward on one side and Harry Holland on the other. It was captioned ‘Wardism—Romanism—Bolshevism’. The cartoon was reprinted in the Nation, the official organ of the Orange Lodge, one week before the election.74 On the day before polling the PPA inserted an advertisement in the Southland Times explaining why it could not support Ward’s reelection. On polling day itself there was another advertisement that stated ‘The Protestants of New Zealand are waiting for the Protestants of Awarua to destroy Rome and Wardism in politics by returning a Protestant’. Today’s more strict rules about electoral conduct owe something to such earlier breaches of fair play.
There seems little doubt that the campaign against Ward had Massey’s blessing. A document exists which, if it is correct, confirms that the campaign began in Massey’s office early in 1918 at a meeting involving the Prime Minister, William Earnshaw MLC and the person who became the PPA’s Awarua agent against Ward. Massey is purported to have said that Parliament was ‘riddled with Roman Catholic spies, stuffed into the Civil Services by Sir Joseph Ward’, and to have labelled Ward ‘the absolute tool of the Roman Catholic hierarchy’. The agent gave his promise that he would ‘unseat’ Ward, ‘and we shook hands on it’; every elector in Awarua, it is asserted, was visited by the agent’s helpers and a ‘band of young ladies interviewed all the farmers’ wives, offering to baby sit or go and stay … while the mothers took holidays’. Protestant literature was distributed widely.75
Many of Ward’s supporters believed this campaign against him was a significant factor in his loss, although some Liberal papers expressed the view that Ward would still have lost without the issue of sectarianism.76 Ward himself was convinced that he lost solely because of foul play and spoke of the tactics adopted against him in Awarua on a number of occasions.77 Historians are equally divided over the extent to which the PPA campaign was a key factor in Ward’s surprise defeat. Peter O’Connor is inclined, with qualifications, to accept that it was.78 Harold Moores is less certain. He points to Ward’s declining strength in Awarua over many years: ‘Ward had lost touch with his electorate over the years. The old stalwarts who had kept the flag flying in his absence had died out. A whole new generation had grown up which did not know its member.’ Moores agrees with the more sober reflections of Truth on 17 January 1920: ‘Ward’s defeat was due solely to Ward. As luck, good or bad, had it, the PPA was for once on the winning side …,’.79 The Dunedin Evening Star, which had been friendly to Ward throughout his political career, felt that Ward had been defeated more because of his own policy indecision than by unfair tactics. ‘Too often, and always without reason, did he lower [the flag of Liberalism] in order to escape political squalls. Ward’s leadership at times was a strange mixture of courage and caution.’80 Psephologists may, one day, be able to give a more authoritative conclusion about the importance of sectarianism in the Awarua result. One thing is sure, however: Ward went to his grave believing that it was anti-Catholic bigotry that put him out of Parliament in 1919. Attacks and counter-attacks by Ward and the Reverend Howard Elliott were to go backwards and forwards for years to come.81
The retirement of an ex-prime minister can never be completely private. Most remain active, some politically, years after they have left office. The happiest of them in later life have usually planned for their years after politics. Ward had not had time to do this. So suddenly did enforced retirement come upon him after a lifetime in the limelight that he was unprepared for it. Over time he and Theresa learned to enjoy Heretaunga. There were trips back and forth to Christchurch, their second home these days, where Eileen and her growing family lived not far away from Cyril and his steadily expanding household. Theresa, whose active role in public life was rewarded in 1918 when she was made a Companion of the newly created Order of the British Empire, was beginning to experience health problems. For years now her circulation had been causing trouble. She disliked the cold and had found the mineral waters of Rotorua therapeutic. Ward himself suddenly started to show his age as well. A photo of him in Rotorua in May 1920 shows him immaculately dressed, as ever, but thinner, his jowls almost gone. Fortunately they had enough money to live comfortably. The affairs of J. G. Ward and Co. were still in the ‘cautious and able’ hands of Robert Anderson, and by March 1915 in the early stages of the agricultural boom Ward’s bank manager estimated him to be worth £50,000 over and above the business. Ward’s share of that was said to be worth a further £27,000. After five years of wartime prices the company was in an even healthier state; in the financial year 1919–20 it made a profit of £99,409.82 There was nothing surprising, therefore, in their decision to travel once more. In March 1920 the Wards were off to Australia and were only briefly back in New Zealand in time to accompany the Prince of Wales to Rotorua before setting off to England again to enjoy the northern summer. At a ‘valedictory dinner’ in Christchurch on 10 May Ward was praised lavishly by George Witty, MP for Riccarton and one of the surviving Liberals. Referring to Ward’s forthcoming trip he said that he doubted the British would let such a good man come away from British politics. Ward, as ever, basked in the praise and told the guests that he had had a letter from two Englishmen offering to help him if he was willing to stand for the Commons. Notwithstanding, Ward promised to return to New Zealand, but ended with the equivocal comment ‘who knows what the future holds?’83
London was London, a city that over the years had become their retreat. Vincent and Pat, who was now twenty and had just left Downside, joined them for a while as they visited old friends and relived memories. Ward assisted with the public float of a loan for electricity generation in Southland. He also visited Germany. Together with Pat, they returned to New Zealand through the United States, arriving home to a warm reception in Wellington from old friends and colleagues on 21 November 1921. Ward’s health had not been good in England; a reporter noted that he looked much thinner. Others remarked that he ‘appeared to be in excellent spirits’, and he declared that the return voyage down through the warm Pacific had restored him to something like his old self. The Wards spent a day or two with the new Governor-General, Lord Jellicoe, at Government House, the Governor being eager to hear about developments in the ‘home’ country.84
Meantime the Liberals had been languishing. Their new leader, Macdonald, died in August 1920 and they lost the consequent by-election to the Reform candidate, counter-balancing a gain they had had in the South Island earlier in the year. There were constant rumours of disharmony in the sadly shrunken Liberal caucus and it is clear that the unpredictable Thomas Wilford, who took over the leadership, never commanded total support from his colleagues. This was a situation on which Massey was quick to capitalise. At first he had some setbacks of his own when he lost Allen soon after the election, his loyal deputy going to London to succeed Mackenzie. However, the Ministry was quickly reformed and discussions were held throughout 1920 between the Prime Minister and a few of his supporters on the need for better ‘propaganda work’. E. A. James of the Manawatu Standard joined Massey’s office and was soon ‘working up information on various subjects for Ministers’.85 A Reform Party agent in Auckland paid for out of a party fund at the disposal of the Prime Minister was also appointed, and Massey’s friend, J. P. Campbell of Arney Road, Remuera, became involved in a partly successful move to oust the old Liberal-leaning editors of the Auckland Star.86 Liberalism seemed to be a dying force.
Ward’s health continued to give trouble. His heart was playing up, and he was also diagnosed as being diabetic. Vincent returned home and lived with his parents in Heretaunga until he married. Ward appointed him to be his political secretary, these days not an onerous job except that there was always correspondence to attend to. Ward recovered well but had lost some of his former vigour and optimism. P. J. O’Regan met him in town on 29 March 1922 and had several minutes’ conversation with him. He noted in his diary: ‘Glad his health has improved, but he has aged a good deal. Decidedly pessimistic about ousting the present Government, but do not altogether agree with him. Told him the Empire was crumbling before his eyes, and to my surprise he agreed.’87
In fact, O’Regan seems to have made a shrewder assessment of the political scene at the beginning of 1922 than Ward. The Reform Government began to look more vulnerable as post-war economic prospects became uncertain, especially for farmers. Soon after the end of the war the British commandeer of New Zealand’s agricultural produce ceased. Prices received by farmers slid early in 1920 and the amount of money in circulation contracted by more than 30 per cent over a twelve-month period. Land prices fell away. Many newly settled farmers and returned soldiers found their mortgage commitments exceeding the income now received from their produce. Stock and station agents were soon in trouble. The steadily rising prosperity of the period 1895–1920 suddenly went into reverse. It was only the fact that Labour and the Liberals so neatly divided the forces of opposition that kept Reform’s optimism high. But what might the two parties together be able to do? The Liberals found themselves tugged between those who wanted to revive the possibility of a deal with Reform, and those who preferred to remain independent, possibly in a loose electoral pact with Labour. Talk began again about proportional representation.
Ward was off the stage. His absence from Parliament, his trips and illness removed him from the scene of action. There is no indication that he tried to interfere, or even that his advice was sought. Occasionally there was speculation about his political intentions. Early in 1922 there were rumours that he might stand for Christchurch North should L. M. Isitt choose to retire. Others talked of his contesting a Wairarapa seat. The Dominion thought he might contest Wellington North. The PPA made it clear that wherever he stood they would fight him ‘for the good of the country’.88 Ward made no direct comment on any of the speculation, although the press tended to downplay talk of his re-entering politics before he was physically well and strong again.89 Interestingly, there was no talk of him going back to Awarua. Clearly he had done with his former constituents. The seat of Invercargill was a different matter, however. Ward had always had a major presence in that town, and it is clear that some locals nursed hopes that he might agree to represent them. When several Liberals who were disenchanted with the sitting member, J. A. Hanan, approached Ward to see if he might contest Invercargill in the Liberal cause, Ward finally broke his silence. He thanked them profusely, but politely refused. ‘After full consideration, I very much regret I cannot see my way at the present time, and under present circumstances, to accept the invitation to contest Invercargill.’90 The election of 1922 was the first in thirty-five years for which he was not a candidate. Ward was now nearer to seventy than sixty, and the public could be forgiven for thinking that at last his political career was over.
