QUEENSLAND POLITICS,

Otago Witness, Issue 1932, 30 November 1888, Page 7 (Supplement)

QUEENSLAND POLITICS,

By a Bananaman. Bananaland, as Queensland is familiarly called, is just now pushing to the front. "Game" I suppose is the word that best describes what to outsiders may appear as delightful impudence. With a population of only some 300,000, she is just now the "enfant terrible" of the colonial family. The Colonial Office, with Lord Knutsford at its head, seems flabbergasted to the point of demoralisation; and the Admiralty, which also has its banana-skin to chew, is apparently struck dumb with astonishment at the belligerence of the Bananamen. The objection to Sir H. A. Blake as Governor is forced to the front in telegraphic despatches by the disconcertion of the arrangements for a general shuffling of 3overnors, and by its relation to the Irish agitation. In reality it will be found to have little connection with Irish feeling. Macrossan, who holds the portfolio of Minister for Works in the M'llwraith Ministry, the team- y anF°T ent Natio °alist in Porting popm^Q^Jet ,ca^^f fc ?°P«atlon. Jfcte -.pa*^VSSSWS

monthly introduction of a large number of immigrants. Commercially that contract, which fixed, the terminus at Brisbane and obtained a regular monthly export and import trade direct to and from England at each of the ports on the eastern seaboard, has been a great boon to the colony. Queensland had begun to go " a lone hand." The next move was to put the interior in communication with the seaboard, to bring the wool and the beef and the mutton in contact with the commercial centres. l Mr M'llwraith was shrewd enough to see four things : Ist, that the system of public works was a door for all sorts of un-wholesome log-rolling and indirect bribery; 2nd, that the Gulf of Carpentaria was the most direct outlet to India and Europe ; 3rd, that the Legislature would hardly consent to borrow a sum sufficient for so vast an enterprise as a transcontinental railway; 4th, that if railway making was removed from the department of Public Works, all other public engineering should be likewise liberated. He introduced his Divisional Boards Bill, which has resalted in an act of lasting benefit to the colony — an act which New South Wales has found worthy of imitation, and which might really be said to supply the motive of Mr Kitchie's Local Government Bill recently before the Home Parliament. He was not so fortunate in his transcontinental scheme. General Fielding, with a numerous and lavishlyequipped retinue, travelled over the great plains to the Leichardt river, and made overtures which the House considered too exorbitant. The squatting party, looking rather at the dismemberment of their runs than at the contingent benefit of markets, joined with the Opposition in throwing , out the measure, and the Government. But before leaving office the Premier, under power of an old act of Legislature, ha| t opened negotiations with the Indian Go] vernment for a properly- regulated supply of , coollie labour for the sugar plantations! When Griffiths came into office he cancelled ■ these articles of agreement and repealed th| > old statute under which they were framed \ and further shattered the transcontinental railway scheme with a stroke of his pen. ! , The squatter and the white laboured . breathed more freely. They felt they had . escaped a great danger. They distrusted , M'llwraith and allied themselves with i Griffiths — " our Sam," as he was called bj i the delighted enthusiasts. During Grif1 ths' term of office a double-barrelled i scheme of Federation was laid before ! the colonies. Intercolonial and Imperial Federation became watchwords, not d ; party, but of patriotic and national sentiI ment. The Australian Federal Counci: , was formed, at which Griffiths was a pro. , minent , figure, but from which New Soutt . Wales held loftily aloof. She would havt > nothing to do with Intercolonial Federatior 3 that did not place her and her Freetrade I policy at the head ; and an Imperial federation } tion must recognise Sydney as mistress oi ' the Southern Seas. She was prepared to bic » high for the position. The Soudan contin 3 gent was her right bower, and she played it [ Who holds " the little joker ?" 5 The great wave of Imperialism that swepl \ over the colonies at this time had to b( 3 acknowledged by England. The mother o: c nations summoned an Imperial conference tc 3 deliberate at Whitehall. Here Griffiths 3 played a very creditable part, and returnee I to his native colony amid a carnival of ban 3 quets and torchlight. His attendance ai s that conference, and the Imperial Nava 1 Defence Bill, to which he had set his hand and which he was pledged to introduce ii j his Parliament, were the occasion of hii 2 doom. It was in the last session' of tha Parliament that he introduced the measure 7 Victoria and New South Wales either hac V accepted it or were prepared to accept it i. Queensland was prepared to accept it, whei i M'llwraith, leader of the Opposition, saw hi a chance, and kicked it out with the moribunt * Government. ! » It is to this point that all the subsequen r defiance of the Queensland Governmen v under M'llwraith converges. His poiifeica „ enemy (Griffiths) had held power for fivi years upon the " Queensland for the whiti 0 man " ticket. He posed as the national here c Bananaman to the backbone. But th a squatting party had now abandoned him ii 5, disgust. He had made a railway into thei a very sanctuary ; had mapped out township r and surveyed "grazing farms" and "agri r cultural villages" under their very noses s They would return to their champion o c former years. Nor did M'llwraith fail to se< • that the squatting and land question wa d not a burning question of the day. Thi squatters were drought victims. The 1 t were beginning to prefer small area a highly improved to huge blocks witl p I but little natural water. They were alsi d I beginning to realise the benefit of the erst g I while hateful railway. On the labour am - I national questions M'llwraith was preparet 0 to " see him, and go one better." " Thi c Naval Defence Bill will kill your patriotism c I my lads, by putting your defence in th< " I hands of foreign mercenaries. If you tall 2 of patriotism and national sentiment I'l y J in go you to the top of your bent. We'l 1 I keep Queensland for the white man if yoi p I like, but we'll defend it with the Queens 8 I lander ; and shame on the Australian nativ( I who would rather fetter his country to th< 1 Imperial car than strike for independent I On this ticket M'llwraith came int( I power. He has founded a National Society I which reckons several thousand members j j He has sec Victoria moving towards inter colonial federation, "provided New Soutl ' Wales will take the lead." He has mad< I r Henry Parkes dance a little tc 3 his pipe. And by a series of mosi i irreverent actions has flabbergasted th< j mother of nations. The dispute aboul I the liberation of a prisoner was really a tesi ( " of the authority of the Crown rather than oj the Governor, And recent proceedings or c j board one of the- ships of the Queensland i " fleet " seem to evince a desire to cut tht . I painter. The gunboats built to order of the 313 1 Queensland Government some years age j were, by diplomatic arrangement of Sii } Samuel Griffiths, placed under command oi 5 the admiral of the Australian station, and . allowed to fly the white ensign. This the . Governor (the late Sir Anthony Musgrave' . informed him was "no empty compfr , ment but carried' a deeper significance . behind it." The captain of one of the . boats lying in the Garden Beach of the t Brisbane river displeased the new Governt j menb. As they held the purse-strings in the , dual naval control, they dismissed him, but ; in such .a manner that he thought it his . duty to appeal to the admiral. ' He coaled . I and provisioned his ship for sea on his own : authority. The Colonial Secretary hears of ESJwk l owr l an armed force of oonstabufigafth^^f^^e^of Police in full K.N. is hoS^S^e "skipper P pennanfigno^^^g the ship, and "my

off, leaving their victim for dead. Ah Tack and a number of other Chinese who had been attracted by the sonnd of the straggle, started off in pursuit, and came up with Cuttler at the corner of Exhibition street, but he managed to free himself, and ran off followed by the crowd, which now included Constables Smith and Campbell. Finding that he was losing ground, Cuttler darted up a blind right-of-way, known as Punch'alane, entered the back door of the Early Bird Hotel, ran through the premises into Lonsdale street, and so into Leichardt street. He ran straight into the arms of Constable Walsh, who detained him unfc'l the crowd came up, when he was arrested and taken to the Little Bourke street watchhonse. Constable Campbell then went back to Market lane, and finding Ah Yong still lying unconscious in the street, took him to the Melbourne Hospital, where it was found that life was extinct. Cuttler is a bricklayer's labourer, 26 years of age, and lives at Carlton. Ah Yong was a particularly quiet, inoffensive man, and a complete stranger to the ; larrikins.