For the first time in our history a purely Labour Government is in power in New Zealand, and its head is a man who within a few months has won fame as a vigorous and courageous leader of a great forward political policy. Michael Joseph Savage, Prime Minister since the end of last year, was practically unknown outside the bounds of the Dominion. He is now a great Empire figure, who has done much in a few months to shake up the dry bones of Government in this country. In last month's number of this Magazine I sketched the character of Mr. Savage's lamented predecessor in the leadership of the Labour Party, Harry Holland, whose career was cut short by death. Mr. Savage took up the burden where Mr. Holland dropped it, and carried the party on to a sweeping victory. Now with a clear mandate from the citizens of the Dominion, he is carrying on the duty of giving the country the administrative and economic and social reforms for which it has waited since Richard Seddon died. As he has made manifest, he is taking many stages onward the humanitarian labour legislation which Seddon and his party began. He is a Prime Minister with high ideals, and in the effort to put those excellent ideals into practice he has the help of a band of brothers who are students and thinkers and men of action, and men with a courage and an enthusiasm and an energy as great as his own.

Michael Joseph Savage has been a citizen of New Zealand for very nearly thirty years. His birthplace was Benalla, in Victoria; and, like more than one of his Australian-born colleagues in the present Cabinet, he toiled in mines in his youth. The Hon. P. C. Webb was a fellow-Benalla lad, and it was he who first turned young Savage's attention to New Zealand. Savage tackled many jobs; he held a certificate for driving a winding engine in a mine. In this country he saw something of work in a flax mill. Finally he entered the employment of Hancock and Co., the great brewery firm in Auckland, and he was there when he engaged vigorously in politics and before many years was elected to represent Auckland West in Parliament. Like all his eager Socialistic colleagues of those days, he read omnivorously; there is no greater and deeper reader than a Labour politician, who is usually an idealist with a diligently acquired knowledge of social science and economics and the theory of government. Michael Savage is best described as a practical idealist; a man who is a builder, not a destroyer, with the objective of a happy and contented nation ever before him. His religion has been summed up by a great and intimate friend of his in the words: “His religion consists in doing his duty towards his neighbour; his guiding principle is charity to all.” Now, I have not the honour and pleasure of personal acquaintance with Mr. Savage; my appraisal of his character and his gospel of life is based wholly on the testimony of those who know him well and on his public career, his accomplished work and his announced programme of work for the public betterment to come. Those who have known him in his day of small things, say that he was the most generous of men. When he became a member of Parliament he gave the greater part of his honorarium away in charity. On his initiative it was decided by the Parliamentary Labour Party that when the Party came into power, all the Ministerial salaries should be pooled and equally divided.

Mr. Savage's pleasant face is a happy index to his character. Yet that genial, easy smile can give place when occasion demands to a firm lipped air of determination. Resolute and downright and earnest, he can hold firmly to a course of direct action. He has gathered around him a band of tried and staunch comrades entrusted with the charge of the various Departments of Government, and it must be said that he has made an excellent choice in every one of them. I do not know one of them personally as yet; that is my loss; I can only offer my humble judgment upon them in terms of praise for their courage, their obviously able grip of the special business of their Departments, and their determination to use those Departments for the public betterment. I judge them by what they have done already in the short space of time they have had control of the machinery of State. The hammer strokes of Mr. Robert Semple, who can be described as in very truth the man who gets things done, have captured the fancy and the sympathy and hearty appreciation of the people. The work of Mr. Peter Fraser, Mr. P. C. Webb, and their fellow-members of Cabinet is already manifest in the stimulus given to departmental activities. The team spirit appears to be perfect, the soul of loyalty and co-operation. Mr. Nash has a task of enormous difficulty and responsibility as Minister of Finance; who would envy him his job? I am told that he toils at his desk day and night till the early hours of the morning. My only fear is that these great and conscientious men will wear page 10 page 11 out even their sturdy frames too soon. There is consolation in the knowledge that most of them are by healthy colonial instinct and upbringing, outof-door men, with a cheering taste for sport.

It has been well written of Mr. Savage that “he is an idealist whose whole political life has been a fight for the ultimate objective of a world where all men and women will live together in happier relationship; and he is practical in that he has never allowed that ideal to cloud his vision with fanaticism.” This good practical balance is reflected in his speech. He is not impetuous; he weighs his words, speaks leisurely, with often a whimsical kind of a drawl.

We have heard words poured forth, tumbling over each other, from the mouths of impetuous ones of the past. Anything that came into their heads; that haste often went with want of thought. Mr. Savage is an exemplar of the other kind of public speech.