CHAPTER XII.
A GROUP OF STATESMEN.
SIR JOHN O'SHANASSY—ORANGE OUTRAGES— RIOTING IN MELBOURNE—ST. PATRICK'S SOCIETY—SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY—HIS ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOME TO AUSTRALIA—THE FATHER OF AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION—SETTLING THE PEOPLE ON THE LANDS—THE DUFFY LAND ACT—A SERIES OF STRIKING LECTURES—SIR BRYAN O'LOGHLEN—HIS RAPID POLITICAL PROMOTION—WILSON GRAY, PRESIDENT OF THE LAND CONVENTION—MICHAEL O'GRADY—THE GLENVEIGH EXILES—A BENEFACTOR TO HIS RACE—THE HON. NICHOLAS FITZGERALD—WILLIAM CHARLES WENTWORTH, "THE AUSTRALIAN PATRIOT."
The somewhat remarkable and frequently quoted fact that Irishmen attain the most exalted positions in every country save their own, has been consistently exemplified throughout the Australian colonies, and nowhere more strikingly than in the career of the late Sir John O'Shanassy, thrice Prime Minister of Victoria. For more than thirty years he was the commanding figure of Victorian public life—brilliant in speech, ready in debate, able in administration, skilful in organising, a popular leader of his countrymen, and an ardent defender of Catholic rights. His first appearance on the scene of his future energetic and useful life is thus graphically narrated by his old and intimate friend, Mr. W. H. Archer:
"When John O'Shanassy sailed from Plymouth in the 'William Metcalf' on July 26, 1839, he never thought of settling in Melbourne. A near relative of his had already emigrated to New South Wales, and had induced him to go out to Sydney. The voyage was a long one, and it was not till nearly four months afterwards—that is, on November 15—that the ship cast anchor in the bay of Port Phillip. The young emigrant, who had barely reached man's estate, was noticeable not only for his fine manly bearing, but for his peculiarity in dress. It was also observed that among his several hundred fellow-passengers he was very reserved, and that, book in hand, he generally kept retired from all. His favourite practice was to climb up high in the rigging, and thus secure his studies from interruption. He was arrayed in a blue swallow-tailed coat adorned with brass buttons; and his garb and position must have often stimulated the curiosity and the gossip of those beneath him. Among the first of the visitors to the ship was a Catholic priest. As soon as he stepped on board, he called on all who might be Catholics to come forward. The most stalwart of the group of emigrants advanced at once and grasped the hand of paternal welcome held out by Father Geoghegan. That meeting was the commencement of a lifelong friendship. The discerning eye of the wise ecclesiastic took in at a glance the promising look of the new arrival; and his satisfaction was not lessened when he learned that the young emigrant had brought with him a young wife. Long years afterwards Dr. Geoghegan told me how he was struck by the appearance of them both. As he gazed upon the young man, who was tall, athletic and of intelligent appearance, and on the young girl, who had more than an ordinary share of good looks and whose face was beaming with hope and gladness, he felt instinctively that those two were cut out by nature to help in making a new community prosperous, and he lost no time in trying to persuade them to cast their lot on the banks of the Yarra Yarra. He told them that Sydney was overdone, and Melbourne would prove a richer field for young folk such as they. In the end he prevailed, and they permanently united their fortunes with the few hundred persons who had already settled in the straggling township which is now a great metropolis."
He had no sooner settled down in his new home, than his success in business and his innate capacity for public life made him a man of mark. In all the great movements of the early days, such as the agitations for the legislative independence of Victoria, and the abolition of the transportation of British criminals to the colonies, he bore a leading part; but it was not until Victoria was granted a parliament of its own, that an opportunity was afforded of bringing his great statesmanlike abilities into play. As one of the members for Melbourne in the first Legislative Council, he gave abundant evidence of his intellectual qualifications for popular leadership. He was one of the committee who drafted the constitution under which the Government of Victoria has ever since been administered, and to his wise suggestions many of its most admirable features are to be attributed. As soon as it came into operation, he was elected to the popular chamber by Melbourne and Kilmore simultaneously. He chose the latter seat, to the great delight of its warm-hearted Hibernian electors, who continued for years to return him whenever he presented himself for re-election. O'Shanassy was the first Victorian member of parliament to hold office as Premier by a vote of the majority of the people's representatives. The three governments, of which he was the head, have been credited by friends and foes alike with placing on the statute-book some of the most beneficial and enduring pieces of legislation, notably the Local Government Act and the Crown Lands Act of 1862. To O'Shanassy himself belongs the credit of successfully negotiating the first public loan (eight millions) that the young colony asked from the capitalists of the old world. He was mainly instrumental in securing the simplification of official oaths, and the recognition of the equal rights of all classes of colonists, irrespective of religious belief. As an Irish-Catholic leader, it could hardly be expected that he should escape calumny and misrepresentation. At the very outset of his public career, the report was industriously circulated that he was working to become President of an Australian republic, and that he was in reality a Jesuit whom the Pope had allowed to marry, a a convenient cloak for the concealment of his diabolical designs. The Orange Society in Melbourne assumed a first a very aggressive and deliberately offensive attitude and it required the exercise of all O'Shanassy's personal influence, together with that of the zealous and patriotic Father Geoghegan, to prevent bloodshed. Collisions between the insulted Catholics and the overbearing Orangemen were not unknown; and at one Twelfth-of-July demonstration serious rioting was the result of a premeditated display of Orange banners and emblems from the upstairs windows of the hotel, in which the disciples of King William were toasting the "pious and immortal memory." Impulsive Irishmen indignantly heard the news, and hurrying to the scene from all quarters, surrounded the hotel, and succeeded in forcing admission. In the meantime Father Geoghegan had been informed of the disturbance, and, dashing into the hotel, he endeavoured to separate the combatants, who were by this time fighting in close quarters. One scoundrel deliberately fired at the heroic priest. Providentially, he missed his aim, but the bullet struck and wounded David Hurley, who, with O'Shanassy. had just rushed in to the protection of the Soggarth Aroon Eventually the military put in an appearance; the combatants were separated, and the Orange leaders arrested. The Catholics withdrew to the north of the city, and the Orangemen to the south. Martial law was proclaimed, and the military encamped for the night in the heart of Melbourne, midway between the two forces. Fortunately, the influence of Father Geoghegan and John O'Shanassy prevailed, and the exasperated Irish Catholics were induced to return to their homes and their distracted families. The result of that day's work was disastrous to the influence of the Orange Society in Victoria. It never raised its head in public afterwards. The Peace Preservation Act was passed for the express purpose of proclaiming the illegality of displaying Orange flags and emblems, and, though attempts have now and again been made to repeal that wise enactment, they have all deservedly failed, because the common-sense of the community was opposed to giving any secret society the power of making itself offensive and provoking breaches of the public peace. By a strange irony of fate, the hotel which was the Orange head-quarters, and the scene of the riot just described, is now, and has been for several years, known as the "Harp of Erin," with a pronounced Parnellite as its proprietor.
On only one occasion afterwards were these arch-disturbers permitted to resort to their traditional tactics. Forbidden by law to show themselves as an organisation in public, they built a Protestant Hall, and within its walls they were, of course, free to meet, drink, and talk as much and as often as they chose. But, on the evening of November 27, 1867—twenty-one years after the riot just referred to—all Melbourne was illuminated in honour of the visit of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria; and the followers of King William, under the pretence of demonstrating their ultra-loyalty, seized the opportunity to once more outrage the feelings of Irish Catholics. Outside their hall they exhibited a most offensive design, which naturally provoked a counter demonstration This was resented by the Orangemen within the building and the murder of an inoffensive boy was the result of their indiscriminate shooting amongst the crowd below. By a regrettable miscarriage of justice, the ringleaders in this disgraceful affair escaped the punishment they so richly deserved. The Protestant chaplain who accompanied the Queen's son, was himself deeply disgusted at the misconduct of the Orangemen on this occasion. At the 245th page of his narrative of the Prince's travels, he thus severely comments on the occurrence, and shrewdly philosophises on the evil results of the Orange organisation from its beginning:
"A serious disturbance, resulting in the loss of life, too place in front of the Protestant Hall in the course of the evening. On the night of illumination the front of the hall had been decorated with a large transparency, representing William III. crossing the Boyne, with a figure of Britannia on one side, and the motto, 'This we will maintain.' This exhibition of a design of such a decidedly party characters had been generally condemned as likely to provoke the animosity of an opposite faction, and the authorities tried but without success, to prevail upon the Orangemen not to exhibit it. On the night that it was lit up a few of the more excitable Ribbonmen loudly expressed their indignation at the party emblem, and threatened to destroy it, but contented themselves with throwing a few stones and slightly damaging it. On Wednesday night, however, a large crowd collected in front of the building, abused the Orangemen and their picture, sang 'The Wearing of the Green,' and ended by throwing a shower of stones at the obnoxious device. The people within the building immediately fired an indiscriminate volley in amongst the crowd. Two men and a poor boy were seriously wounded, and the boy eventually died from the effects of his wound. One man was arrested as he was escaping from the building, and others were subsequently captured who were known to have been inside at the time when the shots were fired. They were tried some weeks afterwards, but, for some reason or other not ascertained, were acquitted. Nothing can excuse the Orangemen for having in the first instance exhibited a party device, which they knew would provoke retaliation and lead to a breach of the peace. Amongst the numerous causes which may have combined to produce Fenianism, it becomes a question whether the constant irritation and annoyance inflicted on their enemies by Orangemen, in their noisy celebration of the 'Battle of the Boyne,' for the last two hundred years, have not had a much greater effect than all other grievances, fancy or real, put together. It is scarcely possible to conceive that even less excitable people than the Roman Catholic population of Ireland would tamely submit to incessant taunts and most provokingly contrived devices and emblems to remind them of defeat and subjection."[1]
Reverting from this digression to the career of Sir John O'Shanassy, it has to be recorded of him that no man in his lifetime laboured more earnestly or more successfully to build up a new Ireland at the antipodes. Seeing around him a wide expanse of rich undeveloped country, he wisely encouraged emigration from the oppressed old land to the free and hospitable soil of Victoria; and, as Prime Minister of three Victorian governments, he facilitated, by every means in his power, the transit of Irish families over twelve thousand miles of water to the homes and homesteads that awaited them in the land of plenty. Thanks to the system of open competition for appointments in the Civil Service, thousands of young Irishmen were enabled to out-distance all competitors at the prescribed examinations; and, whenever John O'Shanassy was in power, they had not long to wait for the prizes to which they were entitled. Nothing pleased him more than the satisfaction he felt in being instrumental in advancing young Irish-Australians who exhibited ability and promise. One of the last acts of his busy life was to preside at a convention of delegates (of whom the present writer was one) which was held in St. Patrick's Hall, Melbourne, for the purpose of drawing up a scheme of federation for the Catholic Young Men's Societies of Victoria. All who were present at that gathering could not foil to be impressed with the deep sympathetic interest evinced by the veteran statesman in the welfare of the young Catholics of his adopted land, and with the sound practical advice embodied in his presidential address.
No higher compliment has ever been paid to an Australian statesman than the large gathering, representative of all classes and creeds in the community, which entertained Sir John O'Shanassy in St. George's Hall, Melbourne, when he was about to revisit the land of his birth, and seek the restoration of that once robust health which had become shattered in the service of his adopted country. Accompanying a munificent public testimonial was an address, signed by the foremost men of the colony and couched in these most appreciative terms: "Whatever differences of opinion may divide us—differences perhaps incidental to the working of constitutional government in a young community—we must all concur in testifying our admiration of a gentleman who has dedicated to the honourable, but arduous and unthankful, labours of political life, great abilities, vigorous thought, anxious study, and long experience, unquestionable honesty of purpose, indomitable energy, and a resolute devotion to what he believes to be the true and permanent interests of the country. In proportion to the rarity of such efforts as these must be the sincerity of our acknowledgments. To have spent the best years of existence in the service of the State, and to have done so at a time when innumerable avenues to fortune were opening on every side, and when comparatively few were found capable of exercising the self-denial implied in remaining faithful to the duties of a political leader, would alone constitute a strong and lasting claim on our esteem. As one of the principal framers of our constitution, and of a system of administration on the gold-fields, under which disaffection was replaced by loyalty and order; as the strenuous opponent of transportation to Australia, and the earnest friend and zealous promoter of the principle of local self-government, and of every undertaking calculated to advance civil and religious liberty, sustain the reputation and accelerate the progress of the colony of Victoria, we offer to you this sincere expression of our regard, and express the hope that we may soon have the pleasure of welcoming your return to a country which can ill afford to be deprived of the services of such an experienced and able politician."
From the earliest period of his colonial career we find Sir John O'Shanassy consistently fostering the sentiment of Irish nationality, and eloquently advocating the claims of every philanthropic movement that was originated in the old land of his birth. As one of the founders and first members of the St. Patrick's Society, he was the moving spirit in organising one of the strongest and most representative bodies of Irishmen in the world. His thoughtful, racy speeches at the banquets that have been regularly held by that society for many years past in St. Patrick's Hall on the evening of the national anniversary, have a high educational value for his countrymen, and would, if collected, form an appreciable addition to our already rich stores of Irish oratory. Of his services to Catholicity, and the great cause of Catholic education many pages might be written, but it will suffice to summarise them in the words of the Rev. Thomas Cahill, S.J., as spoken, in the presence of an immense and sorrowing audience, over the mortal remains of Sir John O'Shanassy as they lay in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, on the morning of May 7, 1883: "I deem it unnecessary to speak of his career as a politician, as a legislator, as at times the head of the government in this colony. His name and his merits are well known, and throughout his whole career not only his friends who agreed with him, but those who differed with him, found a man faithful in all things, faithful to his principles. But it is when I think of him as a Catholic that the words, 'Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life,' are in a more marked manner verified. When I look back, to the past I see him, as I heard him sometimes describe himself, standing on the spot where now stands St. Francis' Church, forming one of a congregation of three, when for the first time the Holy Sacrifice was offered in Melbourne. I see him bear the banner of St. Patrick's Society, as was his pride and privilege, when the first stone of this great cathedral was laid—that banner a symbol of the faith which he loved and kept to the end. I see him throughout life faithful to his duties as a Catholic. In every year, and throughout his life, he was the true and consistent Catholic, a man who gloried in his religion and never had the weakness to be ashamed of it."
Sir Charles Gavan Duffy is a familiar name in both hemispheres. As the founder and editor of the Nation; the lieutenant and coadjutor of Daniel O'Connell; the organiser and biographer of Young Ireland; the compiler of the "Ballad Poetry," and himself the author of a number of vigorous popular poems, Gavan Duffy belongs to Irish history; but as Victoria's successive Minister of Lands, Prime Minister, and Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the founder of her National Picture Gallery and the most earnest worker in the cause of colonial federation, he stands in the front rank of the representative Irishmen of Australia. It was in November, 1855, that Mr. Duffy, heartsick at the numerous defections from the Tenant League, and seeing no ray of hope in the political future of Ireland, voluntarily expatriated himself and sought a new home thousands of miles away at the antipodes. To use his own mournful language on bidding farewell to the familiar scenes of Dublin, he left Ireland "a corpse on the dissecting-table." On arriving in Melbourne, in the early part of 1856, he was accorded a most enthusiastic reception at the hands of his fellow-countrymen. He was entertained at public dinners in Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat and Sydney. At the time of his arrival, the election of the first Victorian Parliament under the new constitution was in progress, and there was a universal desire to see Mr. Duffy returned as a member. But a property qualification was necessary, and immediately committees were formed throughout the colonies, and, in a remarkably brief space of time, the sum of £5,000 was raised. With this a property in Hawthorn, a pretty suburb of Melbourne, was purchased, and Mr. Duffy entered the first Parliament of Victoria as member for the combined counties of Villiers and Heytesbury. The presentation of the title-deeds of his Hawthorn property was made the occasion of a grand demonstration in Mr. Duffy's honour. It took place in Melbourne on August 20th, 1856. Mr. (afterwards Sir John) O'Shanassy presided, and made a graceful reference to the enthusiastic manner in which Mr. Duffy had been welcomed to the colonies, and how he had been everywhere spoken of as a valuable acquisition to the ranks of their public men. The large gathering of that day was meant to testify their regard for genius, talent, honour and fidelity shown in a good cause. It was their object in making that presentation to endeavour to attach Mr. Duffy to Victorian soil. All parties, all creeds and all classes had united in doing honour to their guest, and wishing him many happy days in his new home.
The speech that Mr. Duffy delivered on this occasion is of historical value, as it sounded the key-note of his future honourable and lengthened political career in Victoria. He said, and said truly, that such a generous gift as a freehold estate to a man in his position had no parallel for munificence in the history of Australia, but its weight in solid gold was not its chief value. The immense constituency it represented, in upwards of 100 districts of Victoria and New South Wales, made it a political demonstration of peculiar weight and significance. He trusted he would never forget, as a stimulus to worthy courses, that he had had the happiness to possess, and must be careful not to forfeit, the widespread confidence of which it was the token. His new home would remind him habitually that he could not become slothful or selfish, or embark in any slothful or selfish cause, without base ingratitude to the men of many nations and creeds who had opened its doors to him. He accepted the gift as frankly as it was given; he would accept it as a noble retaining-fee to serve the interests of Australia according to the best of his abilities. He had hoped that night to speak of the future destiny of the Australian colonies, not only of the political liberty in store for them, but of the precious opportunity they enjoyed in the new social experiment of adopting whatever was best in the habits of kindred nations, and rejecting whatever was deleterious or dangerous, till a national Australian character would grow, which, once created, would probably prevail on the shores of the Southern Ocean after the last stone of the city of Melbourne had crumbled into dust. They might imitate the energy and decision of America, which exhibited themselves as much in the arts of locomotion and commercial enterprise as on the battle-field, and their love of simplicity, which had given them codified laws and cheap effective government, without adopting the servile fear of the majority and the indifference to spiritual aims which seemed to be the dry rot of their system. From the old country they carried whatever was best, and, he feared, often whatever was worst. Let them be careful not to revive its parliamentary system steeped in corruption, its government by one favoured class, its bigotry which taught men to hate their neighbours and to love themselves, nor to perpetuate its northern life under southern skies. What good was it to them that their soil teemed with gold if it would not purchase settled liberty and the rational enjoyments of life? These were the topics on which he had proposed to address them that night, but he had a nearer duty to discharge. One of the duties he owed to the mixed community from whom that splendid gift had come, was to protest against the attempt visible in several places to introduce religious feuds and distinctions. He could not see what any man, high or low, wise or foolish, hoped to gain by setting Protestant against Catholic, and Catholic against Protestant. They might destroy peace and prosperity in their country, but they could not possibly destroy one another. After a generation of bad blood and wasted energies, the struggle would end in leaving every one who outlived it in a worse position than if it had never taken place. The rival creeds had quarrelled in Canada for twenty years, and with what result? The prostration and the provincialisation of that fine country. But they gave up the contest, united on terms honourable to both, and the country commenced to outrun the neighbouring great republic in growth from that hour. In the name of common-sense, what justification was there for raising the anti-Catholic cry in Victoria? If the Catholics were aiming at some undue or unreasonable power, he could understand it, but no one could pretend that such was the case. Since he had landed on Australian shores, he had constantly urged that it was the interest and duty of all classes to fuse into one common Australian nationality. No men were better disposed to do so than the men of his own race and creed, but they were not members of the Peace Society, and if they were misrepresented and assailed without cause, they would naturally stand on the defensive. If they were threatened with political extinction, they were entitled and bound to answer, and all fair men of whatever creed would applaud them for answering: "To make Helots of us is what you cannot do and shall not do." A fair field for each man according to his capacity was all they demanded. It had been insinuated indeed that Catholics should be deprived of political power, because political and religious liberty had been denied in Catholic countries. That meant repealing the Emancipation Act. For his part he would as soon sell his children as slaves, as allow them to live in a country where such a doctrine prevailed. But was it true that political and religious liberty had been denied in Catholic countries? It was as true as that witches ride on broomsticks, that one Englishman could beat five Frenchmen, or any of the hundred other fables of ignorance and prejudice. There had been bigotry and cruelty wherever uncontrolled power had existed, no matter to what creed it belonged. But he could answer unhesitatingly for the Catholics of Ireland and affirm that they never denied civil and religious liberty. When anyone spoke to an Irish Catholic of his creed being the symbol of persecution, and Protestantism the symbol of liberty, he might well think the speaker mad. Why, in the reign of Queen Mary, English Protestants fled to Dublin and were sheltered in that Catholic city, and in the reign of Queen Victoria, a large number of Catholic constituencies elected Protestants as their chosen representatives. For 300 years the Irish Catholics had been robbed and oppressed because they were Catholic, down to that very hour when they were compelled to support the richest church in the world for a handful of the population.[2] It was realising the fable of the wolf and the lamb to raise the cry of intolerance against those who had not inflicted but endured the pains of ascendancy. A ludicrous charge had been made against himself, that he had come to Australia to promote sectarian triumphs. He would not descend into the kennel even to defend himself, but let his life answer it. There were ten thousand Irish Protestants in that country, who were his contemporaries at home. They were to be found at the bar, in the church, behind the counter, and in the workshop. Let them answer it. Their opinion, whatever it was, would infallibly prevail in the end, and he was content to abide by the verdict. When canvassing in the west a few weeks previously, a local bigot had raised the same cry, and he answered him by appealing to his career in Ireland. Three gentlemen, then unknown to him, at once came forward and confirmed his words. The first declared that he was one of the young Protestants of Dublin, whom the Nation had won to nationality. The other two were the resident Presbyterian ministers, who declared that they were among the Ulster clergymen who had acted on the Tenant League, of which he was one of the founders. He was perfectly satisfied to leave his character to witnesses of that sort scattered over Australia. They could tell how the main part of his life in Ireland had been spent in combining hostile sects into a national party, and how in furtherance of that object he had co-operated with men of honour, wholly irrespective of creed. They must not shrink from the work before them, if they would not have that fine country swayed by the narrow spirit of a parish vestry, instead of the generous ambition of a young nation.
The above is only a summary of a very notable speech—the forerunner of many others based on the same theme, and preaching similar noble sentiments—compiled from the newspaper reports of the day; but it is sufficient to show that, even at this early period of his colonial career, the grand idea of a federated Australia was occupying a large place in Sir Gavan Duffy's thoughts. For the practical realisation of that idea, he worked consistently and well for many years at the antipodes, and, though he has not yet had the satisfaction of seeing a second Dominion of Canada established in the south, he has the satisfaction of knowing that, through his instrumentality, many preliminary difficulties have been removed, many intercolonial jealousies smoothed down, and the way paved for a United Australia in the near future. In a special manner has he exerted himself to put down that curse of all new countries, the revival, or the attempted revival, of those bitter feuds and religious prejudices that have worked so much mischief in old and historic lands. Mr. Duffy's arrival was most opportune and beneficial to the newly-born colony of Victoria. He was the only member of its first Parliament who had sat in the House of Commons, and the knowledge and experience he had thus acquired naturally gave him a preponderating influence and prestige. It was owing to his advice and suggestions that the Victorian Legislative Assembly was made almost an exact counterpart of the House of Commons. The painful recollection of the terrible evils of unbridled landlordism in Ireland, determined Mr. Duffy to do all in his power to prevent the possibility of such inhuman scenes being re-enacted on the colonial soil of his adoption. From the first he was a vigorous land reformer, and he laboured with might and main to destroy the monopoly of the pastoral tenants, and settle the people on the lands. To him the colony was indebted for its most liberal land law—the Land Act of 1862—a measure which, if it had only been accorded fair play, and administered in accordance with the wishes of its framer, would have opened up the country in all directions, and planted a prosperous agricultural population on the soil. But, unfortunately, the monopolists' gold and the cupidity of the people whom the Act was intended to benefit, defeated in a measure the statesman's magnanimous design. Bribery was resorted to on an extensive scale, with the result that a large part of the finest agricultural land in the colony—the western district—fell irrevocably into the hands of the monopolists. In the east these unworthy influences were less actively at work, and the success of the Duffy Land Act was unequivocal in that quarter. Describing, in April, 1877, a tour through the vast and still undeveloped province of Gipps Land, which occupies the south-eastern portion of Victoria, Sir Gavan Duffy thus spoke from the platform:
"I travelled from Briagolong to Maffra, and thence to Cowwar, a district justly called the granary of the East; I afterwards visited Bruthen and Lindenow Flat, at the other end of the electorate, which rivals the Farnham Survey in fertility, and in all these places I had the inexpressible pleasure of being assured by legions of prosperous farmers who possess the soil, that they obtained their homesteads under what has been named the Duffy Land Act. All the unaccustomed toil of a long journey was repaid by the picture I had imagined long ago, realised under my eyes — the picture of happy homes possessed by a free, manly, yeoman proprietary. And why have we not Maffras and Lindenows in the West as well as in the East? Because the very class for whom we legislated, sold their inheritance for some paltry bribe."
As a leading member of the three O'Shanassy Ministries, Sir Gavan Duffy proved himself an administrator of the first order, and when, in 1871, he became Premier himself, he formed a government that would have indubitably exercised a lasting influence for good on the progress of Australia, had it not been stopped short in its career by an unprincipled parliamentary combination. The Duffy Ministry held office for a year in the face of such virulent and factious opposition as was unparalleled in the political history of Victoria. A perusal of the parliamentary debates of the period will afford ample corroboration to every unprejudiced mind of the truth of Sir Gavan's remark: "They hated the Ministry mainly because I was an Irishman and a Roman Catholic." These rabid opponents of a clever Irish-Australian Premier pretended to believe, and tried their little best to make the public believe, that the patronage of the government was exclusively conferred on Fenians—a name that was as continually in their mouths as the catch-word of a play. One appointment in particular—that of Mr. John Cashel Hoey to a position in the office of the Victorian Agent-General in London—was made the battle-ground of a most bitter and acrimonious discussion, for no other reason than that the gentleman appointed was at one period of his life connected with the staff of the Nation. According to the logic of the bigots, he was therefore necessarily a self-condemned Fenian. On a motion of want of confidence. Sir Charles exploded this ludicrous charge, and thus narrated the circumstances under which he first became acquainted with Mr. Cashel Hoey:
"It is said by the hon. member for Williamstown: 'Was not Mr. Cashel Hoey engaged in stimulating rebellion in Ireland?' Sir, for the Nation newspaper which existed before the attempted insurrection in 1848, I may be held responsible, and I never did shrink from the responsibility. But for that insurrection Mr. Hoey is no more responsible than the hon. member for Williamstown, because he was then a boy at school or a lad at college. I never set eyes upon him till 1850, when the Nation, under altered circumstances, had to apply itself to what it was possible to hope to accomplish then—the disestablishment of the Irish Church and security of tenant-right for the Irish tenants. One day in that year I had the good fortune to secure the co-operation of three young men—none of them being over twenty years of age, Mr. Hoey being the youngest—as writers for the Nation. Mr. Cashel Hoey was one; another was Mr. Edward Butler, who was last week sworn as Her Majesty's Attorney-General in the colony of New South Wales; and the third was Mr. James Doyle, who died in the employment of the identical journal which is now assailing Mr. Cashel Hoey."
This speech was throughout a masterly defence of the policy of the Duffy Ministry. It represents one of the highest flights of political oratory recorded in the pages of any "Hansard." It proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that no Victorian government administered its patronage or conducted the national affairs in a more honest and unexceptionable manner than did the Cabinet presided over by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy. But it was thrown away on the bigoted majority who selected "abuse of patronage" as the most convenient excuse for ejecting an Irish-Australian statesman from power. A subsequent parliament made some amends for this unjust and contemptible conduct, by electing Sir Charles to the high office of Speaker of the Legislative Assembly—a position which he continued to fill with great credit to himself and to the general satisfaction of the House, until he determined to re-cross the equator, and spend the evening of his busy public life in peaceful retirement and the cultivation of that literary leisure which is denied to the active politician.
In any review of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's Victorian career, it would be an unpardonable oversight to omit some reference to his unique and sparkling lectures, which, after having amused and instructed large audiences in theatres and public halls, continue, in their published form, to amuse and instruct later generations as well. Theirs is not the temporary interest of the superficial address, but the abiding popularity of the thoughtful essay. Hence their happy incorporation in the literature of the colonies. "Why is Ireland poor and discontented?" was a trenchant analysis of those preventible evils that transformed one of the fairest and most fertile spots in God's creation into an island of misery, destitution, and periodical famine. This lecture was eminently serviceable in dissipating the many erroneous impressions concerning Ireland and Irish affairs, that were current in the mixed Australian community of the time. "The National Poetry and Songs of Ireland" was a congenial theme to the early friend and familiar of Thomas Davis, and it is needless to say it was treated with sympathetic force and feeling. "Popular Errors Concerning Australia" was addressed to a London audience, and it was efficacious in dispelling a host of strange delusions that pervaded the British mind with respect to the political and social status of the colonies. "Something To Do" was the suggestive title of a lecture that took a comprehensive and statesmanlike view of the possibilities of future colonial development, and clearly indicated the means by which these possibilities could be turned into potent realities. The sound advice then given has since been partially adopted in several of the colonies, but much yet remains to be done before Sir Gavan's ideal can be said to have been realised. "The Birth and Parentage of Colonial Rights," though delivered as a popular lecture in all the leading centres of Victoria, is really a most interesting and instructive chapter in the history of colonisation in the nineteenth century, and as such deserves to be as well known and as widely read in the northern, as it is already in the southern hemisphere. Though Sir Charles Gavan Duffy is no longer a resident of Victoria, he is represented there by two worthy sons of their sire. The eldest, the Hon. John Gavan Duffy, after a distinguished University career, succeeded Sir Charles in the representation of the county of Dalhousie, and, having served a few years' parliamentary apprenticeship, was promoted to the office which his father had filled a quarter of a century before—that of Minister of Lands. He still retains his seat in the House, and is one of its most effective and accomplished speakers. His brother, Mr. Frank Gavan Duffy, has so far eschewed politics, preferring to devote his time and attention solely to his extensive practice at the Victorian bar. Both have gained honours in English literature, the former by carrying off the prize offered by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne for the best essay on "The Death of Cæsar," and the latter by winning the first prize presented by Sir George Bowen, Governor of Victoria, for an essay on "Captain Cook and his Discoveries."
Sir Bryan O'Loghlen, Baronet, the third and last of the Irish Premiers of Victoria, only entered public life quite recently, and the rapidity with which he ascended to the top of the political tree is almost without parallel in colonial history. For a period of fourteen years—from 1863 to 1877—he was only known as a most industrious and successful Crown Prosecutor for the Melbourne district. In the beginning of 1877, on the eve of a general election, he resigned that office, and surprised everybody by offering himself as an ultra-Radical candidate to the electors of North Melbourne, a division of the metropolis in which the Irish vote is particularly strong. Although he polled 1,470 votes, he failed to secure a seat on that occasion, being in a minority of 16. Not long afterwards, however, a vacancy occurring in the representation of the neighbouring electorate of West Melbourne, he was returned after a brisk and exciting contest. He had in the meantime succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his eldest brother. Sir Colman O'Loghlen, the representative of the County Clare in the House of Commons for fourteen years. The generous men of Clare paid Sir Bryan the high compliment of electing him in his absence to fill the seat that had been vacated by the death of his brother, but he never went home to take the seat, and it remained unoccupied for a lengthened period, until the House of Commons interposed and declared a fresh vacancy. Sir Bryan had the choice between a seat for Clare in the House of Commons and a seat for West Melbourne in the Legislative Assembly of Victoria. He chose the latter, and passed in quick succession from the ministerial office of Attorney-General to that of Acting Chief-Secretary. In the middle of 1881, Sir Bryan received a commission from the Queen's representative. Lord Normanby, to form a government on his own account. Thus, in less than four years of public life. Sir Bryan O'Loghlen had attained the highest office to which any colonist could aspire. In the new Ministry he filled the offices of Prime Minister, Treasurer, and Attorney-General. Two of his colleagues, it may be added, were Irish Catholics like himself, viz., the Hon. Henry Bolton, Postmaster-General, a native of Galway, and the Hon. Walter Madden, Minister of Lands, whose early days were spent by "the pleasant waters of the river Lee." The O'Loghlen Government ruled Victoria for nearly two years, and its career is now invariably referred to as the era of "peace, progress and prosperity." Sir Bryan's policy was the exclusion of all burning questions calculated to disturb the peace of the community. He sought the progress of the colony at large, the development of its manifold resources, and the prosperity of all its interests. Though he is not now at the head of the State in Victoria, Sir Bryan has the satisfaction of seeing the policy he initiated accepted and maintained by his successors in office.
"When the political history of Australia is written, I believe Moses Wilson Gray, or, as he was familiarly called, Wilson Gray, will occupy no mean position in its pages." These are the opening words of Sir Robert Stout's sympathetic memoir of one of the ablest and most magnanimous Irishmen that have adorned the public life of the antipodes—Wilson Gray, the man to whom Thomas D'Arcy McGee dedicated his "Gallery of Irish Writers." He was the brother of the late Sir John Gray, and the uncle of the present editor and proprietor of the Dublin Freeman's Journal, Mr. E. Dwyer Gray. Born in Claremorris in 1813, and educated at Cork, he graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in company with his friend, Isaac Butt. Soon afterwards he visited America with the object of studying the formation of the new settlements on the western prairies, and the results of his observations are embodied in a thoughtful essay entitled "Self-paying Colonization in North America." In this publication, whilst advocating emigration as beneficial in the main, he was careful to point out that it was not in his opinion the true remedy for the evils that afflicted his native land: "In closing, allow me to say that I am not one of those who look to systems of emigration as likely by themselves to prove in any considerable degree an efficient corrective of the evils of this country. Such systems can plainly be made vastly advantageous to the parties emigrating; and whenever, upon really overcrowded estates, it is desired to procure larger accommodation for men (and not for cattle), emigration can be made the means of serving the parties who remain behind, by facilitating such re-arrangement of farms as may be necessary for the purpose. In the case of an individual proprietor, whose estate is not sufficiently extensive to afford the means of living to all the population who now occupy it, it is plainly the only remedy that, as an individual, he can use. Single-handed, he cannot stimulate general trade or manufactures so as to absorb his people, but he can help them to emigrate. I am anxious that it should not be inferred from this, that I join in the cry of over-population. Overpopulation was accounted the great source of evil in Ireland when she numbered little over two millions of inhabitants. If her present eight millions were reduced back again to two, it would be a remedy for over-population strong enough to satisfy the most drastic practitioners; but what would it do, after all, but put the country back a century? I believe her disease is constitutional, and that other remedies than emigration are required for its eradication. I believe, however, that emigration may be made a most effective topical cure for certain topical sores."
Wilson Gray sailed for Australia almost simultaneously with Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, and, very soon after his arrival in Melbourne, he was found in the front rank of the land reformers— the democratic party that had for its watchword the expressive phrase, "Unlock the lands." When the Victorian Convention met in Melbourne in 1857, with the object of securing a reform of the land laws, Wilson Gray was chosen one of the delegates from the metropolis, in company with three brother Hibernians—Michael Keeley and Stephen Donovan, city councillors, and James Doyle, one of the men of '48. At its first meeting the Convention elected Wilson Gray as its president, and it had no reason to regret its decision, for during a session of three weeks he guided its deliberations with gentlemanly tact and skill. Liberal land legislation was not secured without a protracted struggle with interested wealthy monopolists, but the ultimate success of the people was due in no small degree to the impulse given to the movement by that historical body—the Convention—and to the stirring addresses of its president, Wilson Gray. An agricultural constituency—the county of Rodney—gratefully returned him to Parliament, and he entered that higher sphere with fond hopes of advancing the popular cause. The crooked ways of politics, however, did not accord with his simple honest nature, and it would perhaps have been much better if he had continued to fight outside the Parliamentary arena. The measures on which he had set his heart were not passed into law; politicians on whom he had relied for co-operation proved faithless; and so, with a heavy heart, the popular tribune resigned his seat, bade farewell to Victoria, and made the distant colony of New Zealand his home for the remainder of his life. He never again interfered in politics, but, accepting the position of District Judge of the province of Otago, gave himself up to the conscientious discharge of his official duties until his death on April 4th, 1875. His statue has an honourable place in the Trades' Hall of the capital of Victoria, and his portrait hangs on the walls of the University in the principal city of New Zealand. As illustrating his extreme conscientiousness, it is a fact that he insisted on going circuit whilst almost too ill to walk. At Lawrence, the last town in which he sat, he was carried from his bed to the court, and having performed his last judicial act, was carried back, never to rise again. As a judge he had a great detestation of mere technical defences, of which the following is a humorous instance in point:
There was a case in which a plea of infancy had been put forward. He wanted to know why such a plea had been advanced, and asked if there was no other defence to the action, which was one for goods sold and delivered. The facts were explained to him, showing that the technical defence was set up on the ground that the plaintiff was not morally entitled to recover, if he were legally. The next case on the list was an action for calls due. After hearing the evidence, the defendant's counsel raised a large number of nonsuit points—the company had not been properly registered, the calls not duly made, &c. Turning to the defendant. Judge Gray said: "I want to know why all these technical defences have been raised. Why do you not pay as other shareholders have done?" The defendant replied: "Well, I have never had any objection to pay with the rest; but when the secretary of the company called on me, he said I was a puppy, sir! A puppy!" "Oh," quietly remarked the judge, "another plea of infancy, I see. I must nonsuit. Call the next case."
Sir Robert Stout, Premier of New Zealand, thus admirably sums up the career of a man, of whom Irishmen all the world over may well be proud: "His distinguishing characteristic was his extreme conscientiousness. This made him doubtful of his own powers and ever prone to underrate himself. He had been offered a seat on the Supreme Court bench of New Zealand, but this he refused. When the Liberal party in Victoria got into power, to their great honour, he was offered a county court judgeship, and this also he declined. Another of his characteristics was his entire unselfishness. At one time, when the business of the court was light, he thought it wrong for the government to keep a district judge for such a small number of cases, and he wrote offering to resign, notwithstanding the fact that, if his resignation had been accepted, he had no means and no business to maintain himself. His benevolence was unbounded. No one in distress who requested aid from him ever met with a refusal. Here then was a politician—radical in his opinions, pure in his life, unsullied in his character, not a self-seeker, and ever modest and humble. Is it not the duty of Australians to cherish his memory? Amidst all the turmoil of party warfare, no one doubted his sincerity. Am I wrong, then, in thinking that, when the impartial historian comes to record the early struggles for Liberalism in Australia, the name of Wilson Gray will stand high amongst the statesmen and politicians of the past? I know of no one's career better fitted to inspire our young colonists with enthusiasm and with a desire so to act that their lives may not be forgotten. Gray strove to so frame the laws and carry on the administration of the government, that the evils which had afflicted? European countries might be unknown in these southern lands. He was a Liberal; he was poor; he was conscientious; he was modest; he was able; he was learned. Let our young colonists, remembering him and his life, ask themselves what idea inspires their lives, and what have they done, and what are they doing to elevate their country?"
In the most pathetic and powerful chapter of "New Ireland," the one recording the fate of Glenveigh, the late A. M. Sullivan penned a handsome recognition of the warm-hearted, practical patriotism of the Hon. Michael O'Grady, the man who, when scores of poor families in Donegal were evicted from the homes of their fathers, under the most harrowing circumstances, by a landlord of infamous memory, came at once to the rescue, organised the Victorian Donegal Relief Fund, and succeeded in bringing out in a body to the sunny skies and fertile fields of Australia, the unhappy victims of a grievous old-world tyranny. With Michael O'Grady at their head, the Irishmen of the south gave this little band of persecuted emigrants a reception fraternal and cheering in the extreme. Everything that a sympathetic patriotism could suggest was done to efface the memory of the bitter wrongs of the past, to lead the newly-arrived immigrants to look forward to a bright future in Australia, and to settle them in good agricultural holdings on the soil. This policy was successful in every respect, and it is admitted on all hands that no body of immigrants ever gave more satisfaction to the land of their adoption, or reflected greater credit on the land of their nativity, than did these persecuted exiles from Donegal. What Mr. O'Grady reported of them to A. M. Sullivan twenty years ago is just as true to-day of them and their descendants: "They are all doing well, a credit to the old land." But this was far from being the only occasion on which Michael O'Grady exerted himself for the benefit of his emigrant countrymen and their families. Not only in his own colony of Victoria, but, scattered all over Australia, there are thousands of sturdy Irish yeomen, planted firmly and prosperously on the soil, who owe their success primarily to his helping hand and sagacious counsel at the critical moment of their arrival in a strange land. He knew well the dangerous propensity of the average Irishman in a new country to linger about cities and towns, to thoughtlessly cultivate chance acquaintanceships, to give too free a rein to his convivial temperament, and possibly to fall into the terrible gulf of drunkenness, which is the bane of his race. Hence, like the true philanthropist that he was, Mr. O'Grady spared no effort to get his countrymen out of the city as speedily as possible, and to establish them on the 640-acre land selections that were awaiting them in the country. The amount of good and abiding work that he thus achieved in a quiet way will never be known, but it is sufficient to entitle the name of Michael O'Grady to the lasting respect of the Irish in Australia. Though he successively represented South Bourke and the counties of Villiers and Heytesbury in the Legislative Assembly of Victoria, and also held office as Commissioner of Public Works in the Ministries of Sir Charles Sladen and Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, he was never a prominent politician, and never pretended to be such. When his faith or his race was assailed in parliament, he was always ready with a vigorous defence; but his true vocation was outside the political arena altogether, the trusted adviser of his countrymen, the peace-maker in their little differences, the reliever in their distresses, and their best friend in all conditions of life. Springing himself from the people—he was the son of a Roscommon farmer—no one knew better their virtues and their failings, and this knowledge he utilised to the very best advantage for his fellow-countrymen in Australia. An Irishman distinguished for the unblemished integrity of his political life, his sound common-sense, his honest, practical, open-handed charity, his deep attachment to the land of his birth, and loyalty to the faith of his fathers, Michael O'Grady was a typical Celt of the first order, and he died all too early, at the age of fifty-four.
One of the foremost Irish orators of Australia at the present time is the Hon. Nicholas Fitzgerald, the son-in-law of the late Sir John O'Shanassy, whose mantle, it is admitted by colonists of all classes and creeds, has fallen on no unworthy shoulders. For more than twenty years, Mr. Fitzgerald has been an active and leading member of the Legislative Council of Victoria, occupying a place in the front rank of its debaters, and contributing greatly to the promotion of useful legislation by his keen logical insight into the measures devised by successive governments. Gifted with a fine presence and a voice of unusual power and flexibility, he is at his best when addressing a vast gathering of his countrymen and countrywomen on some subject that appeals to their national sympathies. Few will forget it, who witnessed that grand and cheering spectacle on New Year's Day of 1885, when ten thousand Irish-Australian men and women assembled in the heart of the city of Melbourne, to see the first stone laid of a new central Hibernian Hall, and to hear from the eloquent lips of Mr. Fitzgerald such noble sentiments as these: "Yet another object of the Hibernian Society has to be told, and without it our rules, however sound, wise and benevolent, would have their completeness tarnished. I need hardly say I refer to the duty enjoined on our members to cherish the memory of Ireland. We, men of Ireland, claim no monopoly of patriotism, but we do say no country is more loved by its people than our dear old Ireland, whose brave generous children have at all times regarded their country with a loyal love second only to their love of God, and never with greater intensity than at the present time, for assuredly we look forward to a serene and happy future beyond the tearful clouds of this troubled present. We as Australians delighting in the glorious climate of this favoured land, rejoice at, and, with all our energy and all our strength, standing shoulder to shoulder in muscular rivalry with our fellow colonists, assist in every work for the advancement of our adopted country, loyally striving for and proud of its progress, the report of which reads like a chapter of romance. We feel in our hearts that we do not waver in loyal genuine attachment to this our home—the birthplace of our children, the land to which we owe so many and so weighty obligations, when we, as Irishmen, look with eyes of fond loving interest to the land of our birth. To the women of this country—Irishwomen and their descendants—I make a special appeal to nurture and cherish this patriotic sentiment. I ask them to instruct their children never to forget the land that gave their fathers birth, to rejoice in her prosperity and condole in her sorrows, to watch with keen sympathetic eye her struggles, and to pray for her deliverance from her troubles; and her woes."
"The Australian Patriot" is the affectionate title which accompanies the name of William Charles Wentworth along the stream of colonial history. And whoever studies the lengthy career of that remarkable man, and estimates at their right value his persistent and eventually successful struggles to rid Australia of a hateful military system of government, and to replace it by one worthy of the confidence and the allegiance of free-born men, will at once admit that the title bestowed upon Wentworth by a grateful I people was indeed well deserved. The son of Mr. D'Arcy Wentworth, an Irish surgeon who received an official appointment in the early days of the colonies, he visited England in the dawn of early manhood, studied at the University of Cambridge, and published in London his "Statistical, Historical and Political Description of New South Wales"—a work that did excellent service in dispelling the ignorance that prevailed in the old world with regard to the actual conditions of life in the newly-settled southern continent. On returning to New South Wales he threw all his efforts into the struggle for the liberty of the press, and, having achieved this first great victory, he established the Australian newspaper, and entered with patriotic earnestness and vigour on his career as a reforming journalist. In carrying out his mission of freedom, he necessarily came into collision more than once with the military autocrats of his time, whose sole desire it was to maintain and to perpetuate the gross abuses of irresponsible power and that detestable system of governmental despotism, against which Wentworth directed a galling, unceasing fire of rebuke, denunciation, and sarcasm. As an orator too, the mother-colony of Australasia has never had his equal. The leader of the Patriotic Association, Wentworth, by voice and pen, laboured unceasingly for the recognition of the right of his countrymen to the possession of the self-same privileges as were enjoyed by the subjects of the British Empire in other parts of the world. How he succeeded in his patriotic endeavours is best shown by his own nobly-pathetic summary of his career in a speech to the electors of Sydney towards the close of his public life, when an unprincipled combination made a desperate effort to prevent the return of the veteran statesman to the legislature of which he was the father, the emancipator and the guardian:
"When, five-and-twenty years ago, I devoted myself to public life, I knew full well the vicissitudes of public opinion to which it was exposed, and I was prepared to encounter them. I knew the proverbial inconstancy of the popular gale, that the breeze which filled my flowing sheet to-day might become a head wind to-morrow. I had learned from the unerring history of the past that, whilst the misdeeds of public men are graven on brass, the records of their virtues and services are traced on sand. I had been instructed by the same stern teacher that the lauded patriot of to-day—the benefactor of his country and his kind—might be the despised exile of to-morrow. I foresaw, too, that in a shifting population like this, where circumstances and interests were in a state of rapid transition, I should be particularly subject to events of this description. But with all this knowledge of the fate to which public men are so often subjected, I now fearlessly submit myself a second time to the ordeal of your opinion. From that tribunal I know there is no appeal; but I am content to rely on the merits of my public life. If you consider that that life has been devoted to your service, if you consider that my labours have not been unfruitful of good to this our native and adopted country, you will not on this occasion forsake me. (Cheers and cries of 'No, no.') But whatever your verdict may be with regard to myself, if it be the last public service I am to render you, I charge you never to forget your tried, devoted, indefatigable friend, William Bland. No man has ever served a country in a purer spirit of patriotism; no man ever more deeply deserved the gratitude of a generous people than he has. You may cause it to be written on the tombs of my friend and myself—Here lie the rejected of Sydney. But I will venture to prophesy that in juxtaposition with these words posterity will add—Who gave to those who deserted them the liberty of the press, trial by jury, and the constitutional right of electing their own representatives. (Tremendous cheers.) You may put it out of my power to serve you again; you cannot erase from memory the services of the past. I can truly say the love of my country has been the master passion of my life. No man's heart has ever beat with a more ardent love of his country than mine, and it is on my native soil that I here stand. From boyhood up to manhood, I have watched over its infant growth as a mother over her cradled child. Its welfare through life has been the object of my devoted love and affection, and now, when my days are in the autumn of their cycle, that welfare is the object of my highest hopes and most hallowed aspirations."
His unscrupulous opponents on the same occasion industriously circulated the report that Wentworth had spoken disparagingly of the land of his forefathers, and this was his indignant reply to that malevolent aspersion:
"It has been said that I have misrepresented and slandered the Irish race. Why, some of the best blood in my veins is Irish, and who will venture to tell me that I am bold enough or base enough to calumniate the land of my fathers?"
It is a pleasure to place on record the fact that the people of Sydney did not at this juncture exhibit the proverbial ingratitude of the fickle populace towards its noblest and most unselfish benefactors. Wentworth was returned at the head of the poll.
The Australian Patriot's last service to his country was the framing of a constitution based on the British model, and extending to the colonists the amplest measure of political freedom. Though marred considerably in its progress through the legislature of New South Wales, and still further varied from its original purpose by the Imperial Parliament, some of its best features were retained and have worked admirably ever since. The only regret in after times was that Wentworth's statesmanlike proposals were not more closely adhered to. But it was his fate to be systematically thwarted by little-minded men who could not sympathise with his breadth of vision, understand the generosity of his nature, or rise to the loftiness of his aims. The peroration of his final parliamentary speech on the bill for the introduction of the new constitution is well worthy of quotation, as a typical specimen of the Grattanesque character of the eloquence of Wentworth:
"Sir,—I will trouble the House with but a few more observations. This is probably the last occasion—at all events, the last important occasion—upon which this voice may be heard within these walls; and the time cannot be far distant when this tongue will be mute in death. In the short interval which must elapse between me and eternity, on the brink of which I now stand, I would ask what low motives, what ignoble ambition can possibly actuate me? The whole struggles and efforts of my life have been directed to the achievement of the liberties of my country; and it is with this constitution, which I now present for its acceptance, that this achievement will be consummated. Sir, it has not only been my misfortune, but it has been the misfortune of all my countrymen, that we have not lived in troublous times, when it became necessary by force to repress domestic faction or treason, to repel invasion from without, or perhaps to pour out our chivalry to seek glory and distinction in foreign climes. This is a privilege which has been denied to us. It is a privilege which can only belong to our posterity. We cannot, if we would, sacrifice our lives upon the altar of public good. No such opportunity has occurred, or probably will occur, to any of us. Yet, Sir, there is one heroic achievement open to us, and that is to confer upon this country that large measure of freedom, under the protecting shade and influence of which, an ennobling and exalting patriotism may at last arise, which will enable the youth of this colony—the youth of future ages—to emulate the ardour, the zeal and the patriotism of the glorious youth of Sparta and of Rome, and teach and make them feel that ennobling sentiment which is conveyed in the line of the Roman lyric, Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori. Sir, this is not our destiny, but I trust it will be the destiny of another generation who shall arise with larger feelings and, it may be, purer aims. Sir, this great charter of liberty, which I believe will be pregnant with these results in after ages, I leave now as my latest legacy to my country. It is the most endearing proof of my love to that country, which I can leave behind me. It is also the embodiment of the deep conviction which I feel, that the model, the type, from which this great charter has been drawn is, in the language of the eloquent Canning, the envy of surrounding nations and the admiration of the world. Sir, in the uncertainty which hangs over the destiny of the country—in this awful crisis of our fate—I can only hope that the deliberations of the country may be guided to a safe conclusion upon this vital question, and that by a large, a very large majority of the House, and of the community beyond it, the constitution will be gratefully and thankfully received."
The contemporary records declare that during the delivery of this speech there were enthusiastic bursts of applause from the spectators in the crowded galleries, and, at the orator's pathetic allusions to his past career and the probability of his public life being brought to a speedy termination by the hand of death, many of his fellow-members were moved to tears. When he resumed his seat, the Speaker was unable to suppress the tumult of applause that broke forth from all quarters of the House.
Wentworth lived to the patriarchal age of eighty-one, and his remains were honoured with a public funeral by the decree of the Parliament of New South Wales. A noble statue of the "Australian Patriot" is one of Sydney's proudest possessions. "Wentworth's great public services must never be forgotten. He who obtained for his country trial by jury and other free institutions, including the blessing of Home Rule, which Ireland even now cannot obtain, will ever occupy a prominent position in the history of Australia."[3]
- ↑ "Cruise of the Galatea in 1867-8," by the Rev. John Milner, chaplain of the expedition.
- ↑ Happily Sir Charles Gavan Duffy has lived to see that monstrous injustice swept away by the disestablishment of the State Church in Ireland, thirteen years after these words were uttered.
- ↑ Sydney Town and Country Journal, June 15, 1872.