Farmer Bill: William Ferguson Massey & the Reform Party

Description

Bill Massey was New Zealand’s second-longest running serving Prime Minister yet, apart from essays written by WJ Gardener in the 1960’s, no one has every attempted a thorough analysis of his life and work.

The author contends that the reason for this neglect is because of a left-wing interpretation of New Zealand history casting Massey in the role of an oppressor.

Massey assumed office during growing industrial strife, the anarchical aspects of which posed a grave threat to law and order. Thereafter he led the country through the Great War.

In direct and uncluttered prose, the author has written and important biography of a man who dominated his times and commands respect as a Prime Minister of the first rank.