A Great New Zealand Prime Minister? Reappraising William Ferguson Massey.

• Author: McGibbon, Ian
• Position: Book review

A GREAT NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER?

Reappraising William Ferguson Massey

Editors: James Watson and Lachy Paterson

Published by: University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 2011, 172pp, $45.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENERAL

New Zealand's World War I Commander Major-General Sir Andrew Russell

Author: Jock Vennell

Published by: Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2011, 338pp, $39.99.

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William Massey and Andrew Russell, two of New Zealand's most prominent figures in the second decade of the 20th century, had several things in common. Both were North Island farmers, both were conservative in disposition and both had a key role in New Zealand's approach to its first great national test, the Great War of 1914-18. One led his country as prime minister, while the other commanded his country's main military effort in the crucial theatre of the struggle, the Western Front in France and Belgium, the bloodiest campaign in New Zealand's history.

Neither has received his due from historians. Massey's reputation as prime minister was negatively impacted by the long dominance of left leaning historians, who unfairly portrayed him as a dull conservative. Russell, on the other hand, suffered from neglect: historians have not given him attention comparable to that accorded his counterpart in the Second World War, Sir Bernard Freyberg, the subject of a number of biographies.

But these distortions and omissions are at last being remedied, as the two books under review demonstrate. A Great New Zealand Prime Minister? is a collection of papers delivered at a conference held at Massey University in 2006, which set out to reappraise Massey's role as a politician and statesman.

The papers cover a variety of topics, including the role of Massey's wife Christina, and as is usually the case with such collections they vary in quality. Only a few examine or touch on Massey's role in international affairs. Among them, Erik Olssen, in tracing his changing attitude to Massey over the years, focuses in part on his performance as a war leader. Other chapters cover the attitude of troops on the Western Front to visits by Massey and his coalition partner Sir Joseph Ward and Massey's approach to economic affairs.

As Olssen notes, Massey's role as war leader involved him in the conduct of imperial affairs, and he spent long periods in the United Kingdom attending meetings of the Imperial War Cabinet and Imperial War Conference. In this involvement, and later...