and round Golden Valley and Parker's Range. When Coolgardie's auriferous discoveries became known, Mr. Craig journeyed across the eastern desert and established business premises in Coolgardie.
His interests in mining are numerous and extensive, and he, like every true Westralian, believes that we are still at the waking dawn of this colony's auriferous prosperity. He has personally inspected the colony's resources, and is a man on whom reliance can be placed as to conclusions from his observations.
Mr. Craig has been a member of the Agricultural Bureau for several years, and has contributed in a praiseworthy degree to its present success and influential position. His knowledge of agriculture, associated as he has been with it all his life, warrants him speaking with authority on points that affect that great industry's weal or woe. He sits as chairman of the committee of Tattersall's Club, where the leading sporting confrères of the colony meet in harmonious union. Mr. Craig has always been a true lover of sport. In his early days he was secretary of the Jockey's Club at York, and since then he has remained an ardent devotee of the turf. An important Government position was conferred on Mr. Craig, namely, valuator under the Agricultural Lands Purchase Bill. The appointment, although more of an honorary nature, entails a considerable quantum of work, in addition to Mr. Craig's many other important official and private duties. For his useful services to his district and colony, Mr. Craig was created a Justice of the Peace in 1894.
A man of pleasant temperament, with a ruddy glow of youthful spirits still lingering on his cheeks, with a look that betokens easy personal access and assures comfortability in his presence, Mr. Craig is one whom even the greatest misanthropist could not fail to be affected kindly by his tones and his presence. Generous and warm-hearted to an unexpected degree; equitable, fair, and just in his dealings and relationships with mankind; stern, impartial, and scrupulously conscientious in his capacity as magistrate on the bench—these are his ennobling virtues, which none can wrench from him, and which, too, have signalled him on for special commendation and unmeasured praise.
ERNEST CHAWNER SHENTON.
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Photo by ERNEST C. SHENTON Greenham & Evans. |
IS man the fashioner of his own destiny, or is he a mere creature in the hands of that unknown quantity, Fate? Determinists would be bound to uphold the latter clause of the interrogation, though undoubtedly they would reduce it to a modified form of fatalism. To adhere dogmatically to the former, while denying that Fate can be a link in the chain of events, may entrap one in a network of fallacies. In the region of the objective world, where periods of fluctuation are only too prevalent, the metaphysical mind, driven to enquire for a deeper meaning, is prone to bring on the scene an unknown actor.
From the verge to the base, let the eye run along the grade of ascent, with its multiple variations, and one will be amazed at its roughness. But in explaining away these variations and fluctuations, some little incident connected with each, explicitly or implicitly, bespeaks personal responsibility. When this is so, the mede of honour and praise is worthily due to him, born, like others, with no mental furniture, except an indefinite number of potentialities stamped on the mind, who develops these innate data in a superior measure, and makes them subserve a noble end. With these criteria, Ernest Chawner Shenton has fared well.
This gentleman can well afford to rejoice, when, looking back on the course of his past life, he beholds the number of barriers and impediments surmounted and removed. Such pure egotism is beneath the dignity of one whose mind is not centred in a narrow self. Mr. Shenton is the youngest son of the late George Shenton, who was for many years one of the leading merchants of Western Australia, and ranks among her most worthy pioneers; and is the brother of Sir George Shenton, President of the Legislative Council. Ernest was born in Perth in 1862, and received his early education in the Ley's School, Cambridge. His career there was marked with diligence, and success, not only in his studies, but in the college sports, the young Australian being a member of the first eleven, and also its captain for some time. He returned from the old country in 1881, having been about nine years in England at that time. Those valuable commercial instincts which his father possessed in a rare degree seemed to have been imbued in the son, Ernest. He, therefore, naturally preferred the sphere of commercial enterprise, and entered the firm of George Shenton, carried on by his brother, then Mr. George Shenton. For three years he laboured away in this business till he had acquired a thorough knowledge of every petty detail, and thereupon entered into partnership with Sir George, and the name of the firm became G. and E. C. Shenton. They were large general merchants then as always, and kept in stock everything in
