It is typical of the main motives which actuated Mr. Seddon even in those advanced days of his career, that when the Tariff Bill passed its last stage he explained that he had voted against the duties on both tea and sugar because he believed that they were opposed to the interests of the miners. The West Coast still loomed largely in his mind. Had he lived a few months longer there would have been very important amendments in the present tariff. One of the great principles that had been instilled in his mind by Sir George Grey was that the people should be given a free breakfast table. It had always been Mr. Seddon’s ambition to give them this great boon, and he believed that in 1906 the time had come to go at least a long way in that direction. In that year he spent many days over the tariff, revising and altering it, and went sufficiently far to announce that large reductions, representing £350,000 a year, would be made. It was his conviction that the breakfast table should be absolutely free that led him to strongly oppose Sir Harry Atkinson’s tea-duty and induced him to break away from his party leaders for a short time in 1888.
The Continuous Ministry, weak and disorganised though it was, carried out with remarkable success the protective policy Sir Julius Vogel had twice failed to bring into operation.
The action of the Liberal members in coming to the assistance of the Conservative Government in the session of 1888 is one of the brightest events in the history of the Liberal Party. The House had never been so dislocated. Owing to protection having been dragged into the very front of politics, parties had seldom been more mixed. The Liberal Party was subjected to a strong temptation to turn the Government from office. It could have done so at almost any moment, but as it had pledged itself to help to enforce the policy the Conservative leader had taken in hand, it effaced itself and sank all party considerations in its desire to attend to the colony’s business.
For a second time the colony was amused with the strange spectacle of a Conservative Government holding office, not because it was supported by a majority of members, but because its opponents would not unite to turn it out; and it laughed
