Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/300

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286
THE IRISH IN AUSTRALIA.

of the colonies, but much yet remains to be done before Sir Gavan's ideal can be said to have been realised. "The Birth and Parentage of Colonial Rights," though delivered as a popular lecture in all the leading centres of Victoria, is really a most interesting and instructive chapter in the history of colonisation in the nineteenth century, and as such deserves to be as well known and as widely read in the northern, as it is already in the southern hemisphere. Though Sir Charles Gavan Duffy is no longer a resident of Victoria, he is represented there by two worthy sons of their sire. The eldest, the Hon. John Gavan Duffy, after a distinguished University career, succeeded Sir Charles in the representation of the county of Dalhousie, and, having served a few years' parliamentary apprenticeship, was promoted to the office which his father had filled a quarter of a century before—that of Minister of Lands. He still retains his seat in the House, and is one of its most effective and accomplished speakers. His brother, Mr. Frank Gavan Duffy, has so far eschewed politics, preferring to devote his time and attention solely to his extensive practice at the Victorian bar. Both have gained honours in English literature, the former by carrying off the prize offered by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne for the best essay on "The Death of Cæsar," and the latter by winning the first prize presented by Sir George Bowen, Governor of Victoria, for an essay on "Captain Cook and his Discoveries."

Sir Bryan O'Loghlen, Baronet, the third and last of the Irish Premiers of Victoria, only entered public life quite recently, and the rapidity with which he ascended to the top of the political tree is almost without parallel in colonial history. For a period of fourteen years—from 1863 to 1877—he was only known as a most industrious and successful