“Here, I say, what’re you doing?” “We’re saving you from suicide!” replies Mr. Seddon.
There was genuine regret when the time came for his departure. Just before he left, he sent the following letter to the London press:—
“On the eve of my departure from the Mother Country for New Zealand, I feel I cannot leave without expressing through the medium of your valuable paper my appreciation of the hospitality that has been extended everywhere and at all times to myself, as one of the representatives of the self-governing colonies beyond the seas who visited the Old Country on the occasion of the Coronation of His Majesty. The very kind manner in which I have been treated will afford much pleasure to the people of New Zealand, and I deem the courtesies that have been extended to me more a compliment to the colony than to myself personally. I hope that the confidence and goodwill now existing between the Motherland and the dominions beyond the seas may long continue, and that the labours of the colonial representatives may result in improved imperial trade relationship and further insure the stability of our great Empire.”
One of the London newspapers headed the letter “Mr. Seddon’s Encyclical,” and another “By Royal Proclamation.” The “St. James’s Gazette,” in a happily-worded leaderette, expressed in the following words the general impression that Mr. Seddon had made upon London, England, and the whole of the United Kingdom:—
“We have, more’s the pity, lost our semi-royal visitor. Or, rather, it would perhaps be more correct to say that he has gone before his welcome has outworn itself. But he has left something more tangible than mere happy memories behind him; and for the moment we refer rather to the encyclical which has made its august appearance in our morning paper than the work which he has accomplished in the cause of Imperial Federation. For the work is more or less in secret, while the letter is written openly. ‘On the eve of my departure,’ writes Mr. Seddon, and it is the general tone of his graceful letter of appreciation of English hospitality that gives us pause at this sentence. Surely ‘my’ should have been ‘our?’ There is indeed in all the deeds, and more especially in all the words, of the splendid Mæcenas of our poor little home-grown institutions something so characteristically regal that the final proclamation issued by H.S.H. R.J.S. seems quite in character. Here in the impoverished heart of ‘our great Empire’ we have the kindliest feelings for the Premier of New Zealand, and we are glad that he is pleased with us.”
The following year, he gave effect to his suggestions at the Premiers’ Conference by introducing into the New Zealand House of Representatives the Preferential and Reciprocal Trade Act, which places additional duties on certain goods not produced or manufactured in the Empire, and imposes duties on
