QUEENSLAND POLITICS,

Otago Witness, Issue 1932, 30 November 1888, Page 8 (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 terribU* of the colonial family. The Colonial Office, with Lord Knutsford at its head, seems flabbergasted to the point ot demoralisation; and the Admiralty, which also has its banana-skin to chew, is apparently struck dumb with astonishment at the b ir?bTecC% BB o a X a T-A. Blake as Governor is forced to the front in telegraphic despatches by the disconcertion of the arrangements for a general shuffling of Sovernoil, and by its relation to the Irish agitation In reality it will be found to have S connection with Irish feeling Macrossan who holds the portfolio of Minister for Works in the M'llwraith Ministry, is the only prominent Nationalist m j the team ; and, however much there I may be Irish feeling in the colony it I probably plays but a small part in the I Cabinet councils. It would be more prope I to say that the colony generally is irritated ' I at the appointment of an inferior, or, at any ! I rate, an untried man. Recent appointments i I to Government House have, not been quite > satisfactory. As a very young colony Queens5 land was complimented by so capable and ' constitutional a Governor as the Marquis of 3 Normanby, and subsequent appointments • havTbeen rather disappointments. Queens- \ land does not look at her sparse population. Rather she looks at her capabilities for snpI porting population, and pictures hersell the s home of prosperous millions She knows > I her capabilities are second to none, and r and perhaps superior to all, of the Australian c co\ o £es Her seaboard abounds in admirh able harbours, from whence her trunk « lines to tap the interior pastoral districts. d Her coast lands are of the richest, and have ie proved their€tness for the most preciousof 3r tropical produce. Her forest lands, situate lg at a temperate elevation, will soon be- the S home of a thriving settlement. Her great m inland treeless plains only await further v- development of Artesian irrigation to corned pete with Manitoba and the Punjaub as one A I of the granaries of the world; and hei cc mineral wealth is positively incredible in its to vast resources of gold, silver tin copper *» manganese, iron, and ooal. It is little wondei be that Queensland politicians find their tern lb : pers as fiery as their sun. l !?f But the principle really behind the diplo *L oS hi mrtv To understand it we must ; g oat M'llwraith on a tour of S 9 ef f o^^ md western station, Cork. It was a fine steba ?en but isolated from a market by enormoi ias - distances. Shortly afterwards he and tt *?" Collins Brothers, of meat-freezing enterpns c bought some large stations at the mouth ■ * !° the- River Burdekin, «well np in the tropic ci?e i? and obtained the freehold of a considerab bed aiea for sugar planting, at a time wn< g a Kanaka labour from the South Seas w; ring running short, and so jeopardising the sug; lere industry. His politics, -which in Australia v ielf. know turn so much on the land and laboi jto question^, were i naturally predisposed towan

■ SS, jotaed with the Opposition m ttaowine out the measure, ana the Government Bu 1 before leavirg office the Premier, uncle] 1 bowS of ™n old act of Legislature, taac ' opmed negotiations with the Indwn So ; Xnment <or a properly-regnlated supp 70l l^G'ShJamettoXe^S The squatter and the white laboure: ! Whel'more freely. They felt they hac escaped a great danger. They distrustec Federation became watchwords, not o 1 Uartv but of patriotic and national senti • 52t* The Australian Federal Counci i wafformed, at which Griffiths was a .pro ! minent figure, but from which New Soutl 1 Wes held loftily aloof. She would ha* ' nothfug to do with Intercolonial Federate ! that did not place her and her Freetrad poUcy at the hlad; and an Imperial federa tk,n must recognise Sydney as mistress o the Southern Seas. She was prepared to bu , high for the position. The Soudan contin 1 Snt was her right bower, and she played it ' Who holds " the little joker ? I The great wave of Imperialism that swep > over the colonies at this time had to b • acknowledged by England. The mothei o ! nations summoned an 0011^^ ' deliberate at Whitehall. Here Griffith i played a very creditable part, and return* to his native colony amid a carnival of ban quets and torchlight. His attendance a tbat conference, and the Imperial Nay i Defence Bill, to which he had set his hanc and which he was pledged to introduce i > his Parliament, were the occasion of h I doom It was in the last session ot tha 5 Parliament that he introduced the measure , ™ 6 and New South Wales either ha accented it or were prepared to accept i ' Queensland was prepared to accept it, whe I 1 M'llwraith, leader of the Opposition, saw h] \ chance, and kicked it out with the moribjffl ', G Tt e is n to e this point that all the subse JI r defiance of the Queensland Go vern {§| ' under M'llwraith converges. His po"|| b enemy (Griffiths) had held power • foi JH 1 years upon the "Queensland tor ■the w|| man" ticket. He posed as the national h|| ' Bauanaman to the backbone. But J® \ squatting party had now abandoned huM 1 disgust. He had made a railway into t|| 1 veil sanctuary ; had mapped out towns!* and surveyed "grazing farms and aj| c cultural villages" under their very ■ n<M s They would return to their cjampiong 3 former years. Nor did M'llwraith fail tog ■ that the squatting and land question Jg > not a burning question of the day. jx 1 squatters were drought victims. IJ| t were beginning to prefer small aj| b highly improved to huge blocks m\ ; but little natural water They were Jb beginning to realise the benefit of the m while hateful railway. On the labour^ I national questions M'llwraith was pnpfl , to "see him, and go one better. ._ m '. Naval Defence Bill will kill your patriot® » mv lads, by putting your defence mj§ • hands of foreign mercenaries. It you m ■ of patriotism and national sentiment^ 1 lingo you to the top of your bent. W ' keep Queensland for the white man , if M • like but we'U defend it with the Quej§ 1 lander ; and shame on the Australian na|| 1 who would rather fetter his country tog Imperial car than strike for independejj I and freedom." J§ On this ticket M'llwraith came u| r,ower He has founded a National Soci|| which reckons several thousand membjj He has sec Victoria moving towards ing colonial federation, "provided New Soli Wales will take the lead." He has rijj Sir Henry Parkes dance a "ttieffl his pipe. And by a series of r® irreverent actions has flabbergasted M mother of nations. The dispute aHg the liberation of a prisoner was really a m of the authority of the Crown rather thaffl the Governor. And recent proceedings* board one of the- ships of the Queens]J| " fleet " seem to evince a desire to cutgp painter The gunboats built to order of||3 Queensland Government some years M were by diplomatic arrangement of j» Samuel Griffiths, placed under comman<|| the admiral of the Australian station, M* allowed to fly the white en«gn. Thisffl| Governor (the late Sir Anthony Musgrß| informed him was "no empty coifflj ment, but carried' a deeper sigmfi^ behind it." The captain of one o« boats lying in the Garden Reach orW Brisbane river displeased the new Goj|| ment. As they held the purse- strings iH dual naval control, they dis mMs ed hulgH in such a manner that he thought i« duty to appeal to the admiral. He c^S and provisioned his ship for sea onh« authority. The Colonial Secretary he j|| if sends down an armed force of oon«| lary with the chief inspector of police 'in m Sat their head; the irate little "skipper R N. is hoisted out of the ship, and' nr; pennant" ignominiously hauled down, thougl the sacred white ensign,£till flapped over tn< stern. Talk of the Boston tea ships : this n almost like nailing the skull and cross bones to the mast head of the colony I And so far England and England's admiral in command of the station are silent, speechless On the top of this comes the opportunity for claim, me a ri<*ht to consultation on the appointment of" Governors-a reasonable enough request in itself, but it must be acknowledged, a trifle exasperating from so peppery a colony at so troublesome a juncture. The key to the whole question, then, is that Nationalism, not of Ireland but of Australia, is M'Hwraith's card, and he means it a,o be " the little joker."