SIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2915, 26 January 1910, Page 89

SIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR.

AN APPRECIATION. One of the most remarkable men in the Imperial service of Britain to-day (says A. Meston, writing in the Sydney Daily Telegraph) is Sir William Macgregor, K.C.M.G., who succeeds Lord Chelmsford as Governor of Queensland. He stands alone. in the diversity and magnitude of his work for at least the last 21 years. Queensland has been singularly fortunate in her Governors, all of whom, from Sir George Bowen in 1859 to Lord Chelmsford in 1909, have been able men of strong character, distinct individuality, and personal qualities which commanded the respect and esteem of all classes. But Sir. William Macgregor appeals to the Northern State by additional qualities, j practical and sentimental. Hie experience of Polynesia and Papua dates back to 1877, when he became Receiver-general of Fiji. He had begun his official career as Government medical officer in the Seychelles and Mauritius, with a change to Aberdeen and Glasgow. After 10 years of and splendid work in Fiji, he succeeded Sir Peter Scratchley as Governor of New Guinea. It was a singularly felicitous appointment. In the British Empire there could be no other man better fitted by both natural and acquired qualifications to occupy the position. Before his advent we knew comparatively nothing of that_vast, wild, cannibal, head-hunting island of Papua. In the whole Empire there was no territory in more serious need of the strong man capable of evolving civilised order out of that savage chaos. Besides his many years' close daily study and experience of the Polynesian races, Sir William brought what was even of far higher value, and much more effective._ _ He came possessed of the delicate intuitions, the just sympathies, the inflexible sense of fairness, and the lofty purposs of a born ruler of men. In dealing with the Papuan savage he was patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to punish. And ho understood and sympathised all the more with primitive man, who is the nearest to Nature, because there is within himself the blood of the old wild, warlike Macgregors whose battle slogan, like that of Lochiel, was heard on many a gory field where Scotland's foes were given to the wolf and the eagle. To understand the savage, you must feel as the savage feels, and realise what you would expect from him if your positions were reversed. The Papuans soon learned the nature of the man with whom they bad to reckon. They came to iknow him as consistently kind, inflexibly just, and stern as death if the occasion arose. Time after time ho went among the wildest and most suspicious tribes with perfect confidence in himself, facing all dangers and fearing none. He organised an effective PapuAai constabulary, and with these men he taught the Tugeri head-hunting cannibals a lesson, of which the tribe, still retains a scarletcoloured recollection. It was the wisest and most merciful thing to do, for it saved hundreds of lives. There was a "slump" in head-hunting for the rest of Maegregor's reign. The amount of work he did in surveying, exploration, anthropology, and. philology was truly marvellous, and all wa3 done with the thoroughness characteristic of the man. His despatches to the Queensland Government were voluminous and complete. And! while compiling Papuan dialects and studying comparative philology, he was perfecting himself in French, German, and Italian. For 11 years Sir William lived in New Guinea, 'and laid the foundations for white settlement on a solid basis. In the terms of his agreement with the Australian States he sent all the botanical specimens to Victoria; all the natural, history specimens to the Sydney Museum; and_ all the ethnological collection to the Brisbane Museum. He discovered much that was new among the fauna and flora of New Guinea, and for the"first time made the world acquainted with the trees and plants and rocks and climatic conditions of the lofty mountains in- the interior. His wife and family resided in Brisbane, and he only saw them, once every year. Then he was transferred to the Governorship of Lagos, usually known as the " White Man's Grave," on the West Coast of Africa, the most notoriously unhealthy of all British possessions. For five .years he lived there without his family, making 16 years without a home. The English language has not sufficiently, forceful expressions, to describe the unfathomable stupidity and gross unfairness of sending Sir William to such a feverhaunted Purgatoria as Lagos, after 11 strenuous years of hard and dangerous work and much sickness, isolated in New Guinea. It may have been intended as a compliment, on the plea that a strong man was wanted at Lagos, but Sir William could have done with less compliment and more comfort. At the Queen's Jubilee he was specially honoured, and no British Governor ever deserved it more. From' Lagos he was sent to Newfoundland, probably to get cooled down after 28 years in. the tropics. For the first time in 16 years he was joined by his family. While • there he was specially requested to examine. " the frozen snore of cold and pitiless Labrador," and his report on that dreadful region of snow and ice, reindeer, codfish, Esquimaux, and

mosquitos, is the most valuable arxl intereistiiig publication on the subject. His longcherished ambition to be the Governor of that State has at last been happily, realised. His wife, whom he married in Fiji, will share his popularity, for by her the prefix " lady " is justly merited and becomingly worn.