The Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1878.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 3135, 25 April 1878, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1878.

" The death of Judge Fellows caafc quite a gloom over the whole community, and is regarded equally as a public and private calamity. He was an able lawyer, honest politician, upright judge and estimable public citizen'" Such is the news from Victoria, and we do not doubt ita truth. It is a fair sample of the changes wrought by time ; for there was a period in the history of the neighbouring Colony when the removal of Thomas Howai'd Fellows wonld have been regarded as by no means a public calamity. Insensibly the miud travels back over four-and-twenty years to strange scenes and bustling times. Times of feverish excitement, wonderful prosperity, and great mental activity. Victoria, in the full flush of the gold mania had drawn to her shores many men, large-hearted, liberal, and of brilliant attainments. In her Legislature sab a cluster of public men who would have done honour to any Assembly in the world, and who, for eloquence and debating power, have never been equalled in Victoria since. From the Bar came Messrs Michie, Ireland, Aspinall, Wood, and Chapman. MiFellows, too, was there, a power in the Honse and in the State, but he was not distinguished for eloquence, for he had none of it, nor for any marked ability in dealing with subjects outside the range of his profession. He was a power in the Suite then and always, because , he was the squatters', counsellor and adviser. How far public opinion in those days did him wrong, we do not pretend now to say $ but it is the fact that he was regarded, and no doubt With go Jid reason, from the very beginning of his public career as the soul of the squatting oligarchy—^their oracle and guide. The author of the. "Infamous Land Bill," a measure designed to" hand over to the squatters the whole of the public lands in perpetuity, under the guise of leases for a term of years, with rights o£ renewal, pre-emptive risjhta, compensation for improve meats, and other conditions, raised against his name a howl of execration throughout the length and breadth of the land. The introduction oi this Bill may be called the beginning of the division of the Victorian community into two parties, I which subsists to this day. The late Judge in those days was recognised as the leader of one, and it was charged upon him that he had been the means of driving to other shores thousands of the bone and sinew of the country, men who had obtained a moderate capital on the goldfields, but were denied the privilege of obtaining, except at auction in competition with the runholders, a few acres upon* which to build a home. Only too ofcen the quickly won wealth was dissipated ia debjuichery and extravagance, leaving its victim a social wreck. Recalling the Thomas Howard Fellows of those days another figure rises in the memory, a comparatively vdung man with a slight liap, full of wonderful activity, eloquence and power — Air Wilson Gray. Night after night in the city and ita suburbs, with a pure and entirely unselfish spirit, did Wilson Gray expose and denounce the iniquity of a system, which handed over the whole country in great blocks to a few | men for a. mere trifle — one penny an | acre if our memory serves vs — and j practically denied a portion to the agri- ! culturisfc who was prepared to lay out j capital, bring forth a harvest, and -\ cover the land with homes. Wil- \ son Gray was the first who J preached in Australia the doctrines :

of a uniform and fixed price for land,) free selection and deferred payment/, ! which subsequently, despite tho efforts put forth by Mr Fellows and his party, became the law of the Colony. Wilson Gray declined the honour of the Bench in Victoria. He would not allow that it should be whispered that he had been rewarded for his efforts in the cause of liberty and progress by accepting such a position. His work accomplished, he left the Colony, which has never paid to his memory the debt that is due. Tested by the patriotism, the purity, and the eloquence of Wilson Gray, the light of Judge Fellows burns dimly indeed. Thomas Howard Fellows, after some rather peculiar — we dare not say indecont — haggling for an increase of another £500 in the screw, became a judge, and retited from the strife of political warfare to the sevene atmosphere of the Bench. It would not be true to say that he ever was popular with the country, but his genial good humour did him good service with all with whom he was brought into immediate contact, and his unquestioned 9tandiug as a lawyer, a Judge, and an old Colonist, entitled him to high resptct. Added to these qualities he was a man of pure life and a good churchman. The stormy past was forgotten or forgiven. But it is as a public man that he must be tried. Notwithstanding the many years he was a leading member of one or other of the Legislative bodies; notwithstanding the many Ministries of which he was the legal back bone, there is not a single measure, except that of Imprisonment for Debt, on the Statute Book of the Colony identified with his name. He was not distinguished, like Judge .Stephen, as the friend of education, nor like Judge Barry as the founder of a noble Public Library and as a generous patron of arb aud the drama. Thomas Howard Fellows leaves no good work anywhere behind him that the future historian of the Colony can point to, aud say — " There, this was done by him ; this testifies to his name and public worth. 1 ' We have no desire to speak unkindly of the dead, but it is folly to speak of the demise of such a man as a '• public calamity." No one »vill be fouud to deny that he was an able lawyer, a consistent politician, an upright Judge, aud a very estimable citizen, but there are, we trust, very, few British Judges of whom the same may not be said. To say that his' death is regarded as a public calamity, certainly sounds strangely in the ears of any one familiar with the early history of Victoria. Truly the whirligig of time brings its revenges. Well may such an one, turning to the forgotten grave of Wilson Gray, repeat sorrowfully the wordß of the poet — " And can it be, all this for him, and nob a tear £or ttiee ? "