He realised that while he could never deviate from the principles of Liberalism, he must act with caution and take no unfair advantage of the immense strength that had been given to him. He now looked upon himself as the chairman of directors of a large company, whose interests he would have to watch. Party considerations had fallen out of his thoughts.
In the flush of his victory he hinted, for one thing, that interest charges on mortgages were too high in the colony, and he foreshadowed the advances to settlers scheme by stating that the Government should, if possible, advance money at a fair rate.
The years that have passed since that victory of the Liberal Party prove that he was as ready to accept victory as defeat, and the steady and unswerving march he made is evidence of the control he exercised over himself and his party. There have been many splits in it, and members have quarrelled with it and left it, but it has remained the same party, and was as ready to follow him at the end of his Premiership as at the beginning in 1893.
Mr. Reeves was the most abused member of the Government, not excluding Mr. Seddon. He had brought himself into high disfavour with the Conservative Party, mainly on account of the persistency with which he introduced his Conciliation and Arbitration Bill after it had been rejected several times by the Legislative Council. As far as he was concerned, the election turned largely on that measure, and when he was placed at the head of the poll for Christchurch City, with a large majority above the second candidate, his success was taken as an endorsement of the measure. In the following session the Legislative Council acknowledged this with some grace, and, withdrawing its obstruction, allowed the Bill to pass, and it became law and was soon in full operation, as explained in another chapter.
What became of the “women’s vote?” There was no “women’s vote.” It is a thing that is often spoken of and discussed in New Zealand still, and it is often said that it has done many things and will do many more. As a
