Local Politics
Seddon's first real involvement with politics was with various local bodies, such as the Arahura Road Board. He was later elected to the council of Westland Province, representing Arahura. Gradually, Seddon became known along the West Coast as an advocate for miners' rights and interests, and he was frequently consulted over various political issues.
In 1877, Seddon was elected as the first Mayor of Kumara, which was to become a prominent goldmining town. He had staked a claim in Kumara the previous year, and had shortly afterwards moved his business there. Despite occasional financial troubles (he filed for bankruptcy in 1878), his political career prospered.
Read more about this topic: Richard Seddon
Famous quotes containing the words local and/or politics:
“Back now to autumn, leaving the ended husk
Of summer that brought them here for Show Saturday
The men with hunters, dog-breeding wool-defined women,
Children all saddle-swank, mugfaced middleaged wives
Glaring at jellies, husbands on leave from the garden
Watchful as weasels, car-tuning curt-haired sons
Back now, all of them, to their local lives....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“I have come to the conclusion that the closer people are to what may be called the front lines of government ... the easier it is to see the immediate underbrush, the individual tree trunks of the moment, and to forget the nobility the usefulness and the wide extent of the forest itself.... They forget that politics after all is only an instrument through which to achieve Government.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)