Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/302

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
288
THE IRISH IN AUSTRALIA.

Bolton, Postmaster-General, a native of Galway, and the Hon. Walter Madden, Minister of Lands, whose early days were spent by "the pleasant waters of the river Lee." The O'Loghlen Government ruled Victoria for nearly two years, and its career is now invariably referred to as the era of "peace, progress and prosperity." Sir Bryan's policy was the exclusion of all burning questions calculated to disturb the peace of the community. He sought the progress of the colony at large, the development of its manifold resources, and the prosperity of all its interests. Though he is not now at the head of the State in Victoria, Sir Bryan has the satisfaction of seeing the policy he initiated accepted and maintained by his successors in office.

"When the political history of Australia is written, I believe Moses Wilson Gray, or, as he was familiarly called, Wilson Gray, will occupy no mean position in its pages." These are the opening words of Sir Robert Stout's sympathetic memoir of one of the ablest and most magnanimous Irishmen that have adorned the public life of the antipodes—Wilson Gray, the man to whom Thomas D'Arcy McGee dedicated his "Gallery of Irish Writers." He was the brother of the late Sir John Gray, and the uncle of the present editor and proprietor of the Dublin Freeman's Journal, Mr. E. Dwyer Gray. Born in Claremorris in 1813, and educated at Cork, he graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in company with his friend, Isaac Butt. Soon afterwards he visited America with the object of studying the formation of the new settlements on the western prairies, and the results of his observations are embodied in a thoughtful essay entitled "Self-paying Colonization in North America." In this publication, whilst advocating emigration as beneficial in the main, he was