Farmer Bill - William Ferguson Massey and the Reform Party
First Edition Publishers, 2008. Good secondhand condition with slight signs of wear.
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.