chairman of the Victoria Plains Roads Board, and chairman of the local Board of Education, while at the same time he has never failed to manifest an active interest in every movement which had for its object the advancement of that division of the colony or of the people of every class who reside in it. Almost from the date of his return from England he had been looked upon as the coming representative of the Moore in Parliament, but until the introduction of Responsible Government, Mr. Lefroy showed no disposition towards legislative life. When in 1893 Mr. Randell resigned his seat as representative of that district in the Assembly, Mr. Lefroy yielded to the solicitations of his friends, and was elected. The constituency of the Moore is one of the largest in the colony, covering no fewer than 10,000 square miles of territory, and occupied by farmers and graziers; the Roads Board has to accept the responsibility of making and maintaining roads traversing 4,400 miles of country. In the Legislative Assembly Mr. Lefroy made so good an impression that, although he is one of the youngest members of the House, he was asked to represent the colony, with Sir John Forrest, Sir James G. Lee Steere (Speaker of the Legislative Assembly) and the Hons. J. W. Hackett and Silas Pearse, at the Federal Council which was held at Hobart in 1895. Not long after his return from that important embassy he exerted himself to put upon a satisfactory basis the defective fencing law of Western Australia, which the Government had made several abortive attempts to improve. Mr. Lefroy tabled a motion for the appointment of a Select Committee to enquire into the subject, and to frame a bill that would be suitable to the conditions and requirements of both pastoral and agricultural properties, and in the course of his lucid and practical speech in submitting this proposal to the House he exhibited such a mastery of his text that the Assembly unanimously appointed the Select Committee, of which Mr. Lefroy was made chairman. The Committee having sat through the recess submitted a Fencing Bill during the ensuing session of Parliament, and at the time of writing the measure had been read a second time. Although it is more than twenty years since Mr. Lefroy handled a bat on behalf of Rugby, his love of manly sport burns as bright as ever. It is said that wherever two or three Englishmen are gathered together they will play a game at cricket. Mr. Lefroy has shown that wherever an athletic Australian and ex-collegian can find only blackfellows as batsmen and bowlers he will mould them into a very serviceable team. The dusky eleven Mr. Lefroy has from time to time brought to Perth and Fremantle from Bishop Salvado's New Norcia Mission Station have, under his captaincy, given a good account of themselves in the presence of large and fashionable gatherings of spectators. The quickness of the hand and eye and the agility of the coloured races make them apt pupils on the cricket field, as was well exemplified in the last tour when the Australian Eleven found one of their most redoubtable opponents in the Indian Prince of the long name, which the world found life too short to pronounce at any greater length than "Smith." The performances of Mr. Lefroy's ebony players further proved that in stopping a shooter or cutting a ball to the boundary the children of the soil are fully the equal of the white usurper.
In politics Mr. Lefroy is a conservative if Sir John Forrest may be said to be one, but conservatism of this complexion may be said to be liberalism that stops short of communism. The member for the Moore is a strong supporter of the Forrest Government, although, at the opening of the 1896 session of Parliament, when he was called upon to move the address-in-reply, he, at the first sight of the vice-regal speech, seemed to think that the Ministerial programme of public works, which at one stroke asked the House to double the public debt was one that called for a good deal of reflection. However, he was in due time convinced that the bold and progressive policy of the Cabinet was a wise one, and he has accordingly assisted to carry it into effect. At the same time, in the debate on the second reading of the Waterworks Bill, he exhibited a commendable breadth of view in thanking those who were opposed to that measure for so fully expressing themselves against the scheme. Having the evidence of both sides before him, he had been able to weigh it impartially, as such momentous issues demanded, and come to what he felt to be the right conclusion, that it was imperatively necessary that the goldfields should be provided with an adequate and permanent supply of water. Mr. Lefroy's conscientious sense of duty and regard for the public interests is known. He is a brother-in-law of the Hon. Edward Horne Wittenoom, Minister of Mines, through his marriage with Miss Rose Wittenoom, daughter of Mr. Charles Wittenoom, J.P.; but in spite of this relationship, or perhaps by reason of it, the member for the Moore is always, as his thoughtful speeches show, scrupulous in regard to every vote which he casts in favour of the Forrest Government.
[In May, 1897, Mr. Lefroy became Minister of Education in the Forrest Cabinet.—Ed.]
