DEATH OF A QUEENSLAND STATESMAN.

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 16, 19 July 1900, Page 5

DEATH OF A QUEENSLAND STATESMAN.

SIR THOMAS. M'ILWRAITH. [press association.] BRISBANE, 18th July. The Government has received a cable message from London announcing the death of Sir Thomas M'llwraith. A ~ Sir Thomas M'llwraith was a man of great strength of character and ability, who wielded a remarkable influence over men whom he chose to make his personal friends, or whose allegiance he sought as political followers. For more than twenty years he occupied a foremost place in the public life of Queensland, und excepting Sir Samuel Griffith, the present Chief Justice, was the ablest statesman that colony had known. A native of Ayr, Scotland, young M'llwraith, then barely twenty years of age, arrived in Melbourne in 1854. With some training as a civil engineer and a liberal education, the stalwart young Scotsman had not long to wait his chance, and ifc proved a great one that he turned to good account. Cornish and Bruce, the great Victorian railway contractors of that day, had got at odds with the Government, and to young Thomas M'llwraith fell the onerous task of administering the estate and winding up the contracts. These things he did with profit and advantage to all concerned. In 1861 the young engineer turned his attention to pastoral investment in Queensland, and in 1869 he was first returned to -the Legislative Assembly of that colony, accepting office for the first tima as Minister for Works and Mines in 1874. From January, 1879, to November, 1883, Sir Thomas M'llwraith held office as Premier, being then defeated both in Parliament and the country by Sir Samuel Griffith. In 1888 the country reversed its verdict, and Sir Thomas again became Premier, but. he retired the following year owing to differences with his colleagues, whose financial proposals he later helped Sir Samuel Griffith to defeat. The old-time bitter political opponents then joined t^eir forces, and continued in office until the one becaaie Chief Justice and the other .went to Europe in quest of health. Like many another strenuous cplonial politician, Sir Thomas M'llwraith had* remaine/1 in harness too long. "The rest from labour came too late, and during the past few years he has been a slowly dying man, conscious" that his work was done. Much of that work was, like the character of the man, broad, generous, and strong. Among the colonial statesmen of his time history will accord him a higher place than contemporary public opinion, for the greatest of his public acts — as the annexation of New Guinea, his denial of the personal power of the Governor, to exercise the prerogative of mercy, and his project of a transcontinental railway — were dictated by patriotism rather than a desire to catch the public voice. Sir Thomas M'llwraith's name will always stand high in the history of Australia, while to-day there are very many men who will mourn the death of a friend.