DEATH OF SIR A. J. CADMAN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13240, 24 March 1905, Page 4

DEATH OF SIR A. J. CADMAN.

For the second time within the short space of 15 months it is our sad duty to chronicle the death of the Speaker of the Legislative Council. Sir Alfred Jerome C'adman, indeed, only enjoyed for less thai) nine short months the honour that was conferred upon lu'in when the duty of appointing a successor to the late Mr W. 0. Walker was discharged by the members of the Upper House. He was, as a matter of fact, not in good health when he was elected, in .July last, to the Speakership of the Council, and the illness from which he had been suffering for some months past was of such a character that no very great surprise will be expressed at the fact that his constitution, never very robust, was incapable of throwing it off, and that ho has now succumbed to it. Nevertheless, the regret that will he occasioned by the noivs of his death will be widespread and keen.. For Sir Alfred Cadman had ine faculty of making friends. Ho was by no means a man of marked personality, and it was strange nuder the circumstances that he achieved the measure of success winch attended his political career in the colony. As a private member pf Parliament he was diligent in the performance of what insiy perhaps he regarded as the routine of ,i representative's duties, but he spoke so very rarely mid so very briefly that be was to all intents and purposes u silent member. He timidly shrank from notice, and to bis shyness was added an almost womanly gentleness, as well as an invariable courtesy. But thore was in him a remarkable capacity for work, and, though most of his fellow members were probably unaware of this, Mr Ballanee. miist have detected it in him, for not even the consistent support be had given the party which came into power in 1801 could otherwise hare secured for him the offer of a portfolio. As » member of the Cabinet he applied himself .industriously, .anil even laboriously, :to the discharge of the.duties that claimed his attention in the departments under his control. He became,

in fact, a slave to his work, toiling at it from morning to night, to the serious impairment of his health. Certainly no Minister ever better earned the repose that is secured by retirement from office than Sir Alfred Cadman did. Ho was not a brilliant administrator, but ho was a painstaking and, on the whole, a. safe one, and the colony will respect his memory as that of a man. who did not spare himself in her service.