OBITUARY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 86, 11 April 1912, Page 7

OBITUARY.

MR. DACEY, COLONIAL TREASURER OF N.S.W. By TelegrADh.— Press Association.— Copyright. (Received April 11, 11 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. - , Mr. John Dacey, State Treasurer, died suddenly this' morning. He was removed to a private hospital yesterday suffering from something like acute rheumat-i&m. The fatal termination of the trouble was unexpected. The Labour cause loses one of its most prominent stalwart supporters. [Mr. Daoey, who was born in Cork, Ireland, in June, 1856, was practically an Australian, since he was but three' years of age when, with his parents, ho landed in Victoria. He settled in New South Wales in 1883, and entered into business as a coachbuilder and agricultural blacksmith, and was reckoned as one among the few representatives of Labour who gravitated into the parly, not as a workman, but as an employer of labour. His public career begtui in June, 1886, when he was elected to the municipal i council of Alexandria as an alderman. Two years later he became Mayor of the municipality, and later acted as returning officer for the electoral district of Redfern, which in those tunes returned four members to Parliament. At the advent of the Labour Party, some time in 1890 or 1891, Mr. Dacey offered himself to the Redfern Labour League for selection for one of tho four Redfern seats, for which two Labour candidates were to be run. In the ballot the present Premier (Mr. M'Gowen) and My. W. H. Sharp wore selected, Mr. M'Gowen beating Mr. Dacey by a majority of 17 votes, in a league of 400 or 500 members. When a redistribution of aeats wa« made, Mr. Dacey in 1894 offered himself for the new electorate of Botany, but he was defeated by 21 votes. Ten months later, however, Parliament was dissolved, and in July, 1895, Mr. Dacey won the Botany seat by a majority of three votes. He eat as the representative of that constituency for nine years, and then wooed and won the Alexandria present electorate. Mr. Dacey was always regarded as a good parby man, fairly outspoken in his opinions. Last November he attained Cabinet rank.}