The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Wise, Bernhard Ringrose

1461955The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Wise, Bernhard RingrosePhilip Mennell

Wise, Bernhard Ringrose, M.L.A., B.A., is second son of the late Mr. Justice Wise (q.v.), and graduated B.A. at Queen's College, Oxford (of which he was scholar), in 1881. He entered at the Middle Temple in Oct. 1879, and was called to the Bar in England and New South Wales in April 1883. Mr. Wise married, on April 2nd, 1884, Lilian Margaret, third surviving daughter of John Forster Baird, of Bowmont Hill, Northumberland, and of St. Aidan's, Hampstead. He entered the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales as member for South Sydney, and was Attorney-General in the Parkes Government from Jan. 1887 to Feb. 1888, when he left the Ministry. At the general election in 1889 he was defeated for South Sydney, and was also an unsuccessful candidate for the West Macquarie district. Mr. Wise has contributed a number of articles on Australian subjects to the English magazines. He is very eulogistically referred to in Sir Charles Dilke's recently published "Problems of Greater Britain," and was re-elected for South Sydney in 1891. In the following year he published "Industrial Freedom: A Study in Politics" (Cassell & Co.). Mr. Wise was a friend and associate of the late Arnold Toynbee, and approaches industrial questions in the spirit of that stimulating thinker. His latest work is dedicated to Sir Henry Parkes, "an honoured chief and friend," and has been suggested and inspired by the circumstances of the free-trade controversy at the Antipodes. "For seven years the writer has been engaged by the side of Sir Henry Parkes in the forefront of an active political controversy with the protectionists of his native country, until he has gained an exceptional familiarity with the modes of thought and expression that win favour for protection among voters. The aim of the work is to make use of this special knowledge of protectionist arguments to put together a complete and scientific statement of the free-trade case, from the point of view of one who is addressing himself to the voters of a democratic country."