political engagements occupied much of his time. Under the Act which authorised the appointment of secretary, the office was in the gift of the Agent-General and his Board of Advice. Mr. Cashel Hoey was one of the Board of Advice. He was a young, vigorous, capable man, eminently fit for the office of Secretary, and as I had recommended him to Sir James McCulloch for his position on the Board, there was no possible reason why I should not recommend him to Mr. Childers. I did so, and Mr. Childers appointed him. There were many men in the Assembly who would gladly have gone to London in such an employment, but there w;is an Act of our local Parliament which forbade the appointment of any member of the Assembly to an office of profit till six months after he had ceased to be a Member, and this was an appointment which must be filled up at once. I told the House when the subject was mentioned, that the appointment of Secretary was one without which Mr. Childers could not be retained as Agent. The correspondence last year had amounted to over 11,000 letters. The Postmaster-General, the permanent officers of the Colonial Office, the contractors who furnished firearms, railway plant, and the like to the colony had to be seen from time to time, and this was not a work which an Imperial Cabinet Minister could be expected to undertake. I added that the appointment would not cost the colony a penny, as the selection of Mr. Childers saved the payment of a pension larger than the salary of a secretary. But gentlemen who wanted office, and gentlemen who wanted to save their squatting interests were not open to reason. Mr. Hoey had been formerly editor of the Nation after my departure for Australia, but subsequently became a member of the English bar and resided in London. Articles in the Nation years before he became editor were attributed to him. It was declared he must be peremptorily removed from office. The vote against the Government was carried, and after a time he was removed.[1] The fall
- ↑ When the debate on which the Government fell reached Mr. Hoey, he wrote in a spirit worthy of a man of honour:— "You know me well enough to dispense me from telling you with what keen anguish I found I had been the cause of your fall from power, and not all the tenderness and consideration with which you express yourself on the subject can ever lessen this grief. You well know that what has
