most famous “stonewall” of the New Zealand Parliament, and the Bill went through all its stages without further opposition. The fine, it may be stated, was paid by the people of Nelson.
Mr. Seddon endeavoured to have inserted in the Bill clauses abolishing the freehold qualification at the election of members of Parliament, and affirming the one-man-one-vote principle, but he was defeated, in the first case by 31 votes and in the second by 10.
He searched for something useful to do, and for abuses to be stopped. In all his actions in this direction, however, he was cautious and far-seeing. He had no wild schemes of regenerating mankind. His reforms were practical, and mostly affected conditions that came under his own notice. Neither ridicule nor abuse deterred him from his purpose, and if he failed to gain his object one year, he was more persistent in his search after it the next year. Patience and labour were his watchwords in those early days of his career. The West Coast and its requirements continued to occupy most of his attention. That part of his career is marked by motions, questions, and applications for a post office, a bridge, or some other public work. In later years he looked back, with some degree of surprise at his own patience, to the time when he struggled for Westland’s needs against his fellow members and obdurate Ministers. In every way he showed that he was an ideal member for the constituency he represented; and his healthy, happy optimism made him the very man for work in the Parliament of a young country.
Outside of the demands of the West Coast, he busied himself mostly with local government and with legislation that directly affected the special interests he represented. Reports of his speeches covering more than the first twelve years of his Parliamentary life may be searched without the discovery of any trace of the great imperialistic sentiments he expressed in later years. The humanitarian spirit, however, is always present.
The unemployed found in him a practical friend. He often expressed a dread that the conditions from which he had fled in England would be brought into the new land. He was strangely
