1930: Death of Joseph Ward

July 8, 2019

By AHNZ

Today, 8 July, 1930: Death of Sir Joseph Ward.

Only about a month before he had been Prime Minister/Premier of New Zealand. Seriously ill though, “falling about the passages” of Parliament, as bereft of momentum as his Government. Another of our very many politicians who only let go of their office after they die.

The verbose old dandy started out as a minor Godfather¹ in Bluff, Southland. He hit the big time with the Liberal Government and was able to form a double-act with Seddon; Premier and Treasurer. While King Dick charmed and swindled the working man, the title-chasing and moustache-waxing Baron Ward sucked up to the wealthy. The resulting coalition of two groups that didn’t actually like each other was unbeatable until the pair were broken up by Seddon’s death.

Ward bailed out the Bank of New Zealand as an act of self preservation. It was too big to fail, it had the Government accounts! He out-Vogeled Vogel with his ‘Keynsian’ tricks of throwing huge lolly scrambles to be paid for by putting Kiwis into debt. One huge example was his unilateral election gimmick of commissioning a battleship called the HMS New Zealand and gifting it to Britain- all paid for by putting taxpayers into more debt (£2,000,000) for a bit of political glory.

The geriatric con-artist’s return to power in his last term was pretty impressive. The closest we’ve come in modern times was when Sir Roger Douglas came back to The House in 2008 but Prime Minister John Key absolutely ruled out that he should be Finance (or any other) Minister. The two men have fairly parallel lives.

“Farewell, Sir,…Thou, who in thy lifetime, wert the main pillow supporting the house of knowledge, the Parliament of New Zealand.”- Kuhukuku Edwards to Sir Apirana Ngata²

I don’t know what’s funnier! Edwards saying that Parliament is “the house of knowledge?” What a crock! It’s the font of bullshit.

Or saying that Ward was its pillow?³

The pillow snuffing out any knowledge, perhaps? Just like Kevin Spacey did in the Superman movie to the old woman, or the villain of Jurassic World the the old man?

—

1 Godfather– as in the movie. Mafia type jazz. Al Capone, Tony Soprano etc etc

2 Archives New Zealand; Flickr; Same via Facebook

3 Possible 1930 typo- did he mean pillar of the house of knowledge?

Image ref. Ward’s statue in his mafia home turf, Bluff; AHNZ Files, May 2018

Image ref. Robson and Boyer (1928); Alexander Turnbull Library

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