William Ferguson Massey and the Paris Peace Conference, 1919.

Abstract

William Ferguson Massey assumed the office of Prime Minister of New Zealand on 10 July 1912 and he held this position until his death on 11 May 1925. Throughout this long period of office, he never had the good fortune to steer New Zealand through smooth waters. War, which Mr. Massey regarded as the most awful calamity that could afflict the human race, broke out on 4 August 1914. For the next four years he had to apply his policy and administration to its prosecution and thereafter to reconstruction. It was hard for a man with mainly agrarian interests to have to think in terms of war, yet Mr Massey did not falter in what he considered to be an Imperial duty. Asked on the night of 31 July 1914 whether, if in the event of Britain being involved in war, the government would offer an expeditionary force to be sent wherever the Empire needed its services, Mr. Massey made a prompt and dignified reply that it would. On the declaration of war, he immediately telegraphed the Home Government, 'All we are and all we have are at the disposal of the Imperial Government for the purposes of carrying on the war to a successful issue.'