AN HONOUR DUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 103, 3 May 1934, Page 6

AN HONOUR DUE.

DEBT TO MACARTHUR. (From Our Own Correspondent.) I SYDNEY, April 20,

John Macarthur died in April, 1834, and on the hundredth anniversary of his death the Royal Society of Australia honoured his memory in a "symposium" held at Canberra. The addresses delivered by the president of the R.S.A., Sir Colin Mackenzie, by Mr. Jas. Walker, president of the Graziers' Association, and by Dr. Wilson, of the Federal Statistical Department, provided an interested audience —which included some of Macarthur's own descendants—with ample justification for their eulogies. For it is 110 exaggeration to saj r , with one of our historians, that "Macarthur did more than any other single man to shape the destinies of Australia." The son of one of seven brothers who fought for Prince Charlie at Cullodcn, John Macarthur left the Old Land to seek his fortune in Australia, and at the age of 23, with a still younger wife, he landed here on June 28, 1700. He ranked as lieutenant in the newly-formed New South Wales Corps, and he seems to have performed his duties satisfactorily, helping to superintend public works, and farming the land which he took up at Parramatta, where Elizabeth Farm —the oldest surviving house in Australia—still testifies to the constructive skill and the fine domestic instincts of those early pioneers. In 1793 three Spanish ships, an exploring flotilla, anchored in Sydney Harbour, and some of the officers visiting Macarthur at Parramatta observed that the climate and pasture reminded them of their own Andalusia, where the finest Merino wool was grown. Macarthur, aways observant, and already casting about for some form of production that would make his new country industrially prosperous,' acted at once upon this chance suggestion. In 1794 he bought his first sheep in India—the. Bengal breed, with scanty and wiry fleece. Looking round for means to improve upon them—for Spain guarded jealously its own Merinos—he bethought himself of South Africa, where the Merino was now acclimatised, and in 1796 he secured some Merinos from Capetown. From that time onward, one of the great objects of his life was the improvement of his breed ofi sheep, and the building up of the colonial wool industry. But Macarthur was a man of difficult temper, incapable of obedience, resentful of authority, in fact equally impossible to work with or to control. His wife testifies that, when he came here, even his friends regarded him as "too proud and haughty for our lmmble fortunes or expectations." He was a most quarrelsome man. He once told Dr. J. D. Lang, in the time of Governor Brisbane, that "he had a hand in the sending away of every Governor since Governor Phillip, except Governor Ma,cquarie." Even Governor Bligh, fierce and indomitable as he was, proved no match for Macarthur, who "broke" him, and he "broke" so many others who crossed his path. He is buried at Camden, where his grave overlooks the famous cow pastures granted to him. by the Crown to give scope for his experiments in sheep breeding; and already—even in matter-of-fact New South Wales —lie has become a legend. For they say that, like liarbarossa or Charjemagne, he was buried upright, so that he might look out always upon his fruitful fields and the flocks and herds that he loved so well. With all his faults, John Macarthur was perhaps our greatest man, and Australia -to hold his-aiieiittnjr- inpicmour,