Death of William Massey
Great statesman passes.
Notable record of service.
A dominant personality.
Leader and true patriot.
Wellington, May 10: The Prime Minister passed peacefully away at 5.40pm to-day. Expressions of sympathy were heard on all sides as the people learned the news. Up till Friday last Mr Massey was able to recognise people, but for the last 48 hours of his life he was unconscious. His end came quite peacefully.
All the members of the Prime Minister’s family were present at the death bed. Besides Mrs Massey there were his three sons Walter, Norman and George and his two daughters Mrs G. Lawrence Taylor and Mrs C.W. Salmon. His brother, Mr John Massey, was also present. Mrs Massey is bearing up well in the very trying circumstances.
Sir Francis Bell received the following telegram from the Right Hon Sir Joseph Ward this evening: “With deep regret I have just been informed of Mr Massey’s sad death. The dominion has suffered a great loss, and I tender you and your colleagues my sincerest sympathy in the personal loss you have all sustained.” Mr H.E. Holland, the leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, telegraphed from Westport as follows: “I wish to convey to yourself and the members of the Government by own sincere sympathy and that of the Labour Party in the almost irreparable loss they have sustained in the death of the Prime Minister. I shall always remember him as a statesman of wide capabilities and strong determination and a great opponent who, having given his word, never once broke it. After life’s fitful fever may he sleep well.”
Sir Francis Bell, Acting-Prime Minister, said: ‘‘Though for many days I have known that the death of my friend and leader was near, the actual end has brought a sorrow which is too great to leave me capable of writing of him as he deserves from me. Year by year during his long leadership of the Opposition and then throughout the thirteen years of his tenure of office as Prime Minister Mr Massey has grown greater in the estimation of the people of New Zealand, and has won more and more the affection of those who have been privileged to serve under him. The value of his strong, patient sense of public duty will be more keenly felt now that his wise and prudent control of public affairs has ended.
"The whole Empire will mourn his loss with us, for among Empire statesmen he long since advanced to a foremost rank. A real and lasting tribute to his memory is the unanimity of all classes and sections of our political and social life in the expressions of personal affection and anxiety since the serious nature of his illness became known. The country has come to know his worth as its leader in Parliament, but even more to understand how just and upright he was in all his dealings and his happy, unaffected consideration to all alike had disarmed many opponents and attached to him more firmly his hosts of friends.”
Left a great gap
It is with deep regret that we record the death of Mr William Ferguson Massey, Prime Minister of New Zealand, in the early weeks of his seventieth year. New Zealand is the poorer for the loss of a statesman who loved her well and served her for a long term of years with strenuous zeal and high intelligence. His removal will be deplored by all classes in the community, and controversy will be hushed by the general thought of his fine qualities of mind and heart, his pure patriotism, his earnest endeavour to further the welfare, as he conceived it, of the dominion and the Empire, and his unselfish devotion to interests unconnected with his own advantage or aggrandisement. He will be mourned, missed, honoured in death as in life, and remembered with loyal fidelity.
For some months past it has been known that Mr Massey was not in good health, and the pause in his indefatigable public energy was noticed with genuine concern. The simple fact is that he worked too hard. And now, largely owing to his spirited strenuousness, Mr Massey has gone - gone almost on the eve of realising the natural ambition of holding the office of Prime Minister of the dominion for a period exceeding that of any of his predecessors. He has gone and left a great gap. — editorial
— ODT, 11.5.1925 (Compiled by Peter Dowden)
