Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/319

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NOTABLE IRISH-AUSTRALIANS.
305

over the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London. A large picture of "The Australian Contingent to the Soudan" attracted Her Majesty's attention, and she paused in front of it for several minutes. Noticing a portrait affixed to the frame, Her Majesty inquired the name of the gentleman it represented. "That, Your Majesty," said Sir Alexander, "is the portrait of Mr. Dalley, which I have placed here to-day, because, though I am the Prime Minister, he it was who actually sent this body of men and officers to the Soudan." "An Englishman, I presume," remarked the Queen. "No, Your Majesty; Mr. Dalley is a native of New South Wales, and a man of Irish parentage, and a Roman Catholic, and there is not a more loyal subject of Your Majesty in all the British dominions." The Queen said no more, but Her Majesty may possibly have thought a little on the causes that operate to make Irishmen poor and discontented at home, but loyal and prosperous citizens abroad.

Speaking at the celebration of the national anniversary of 1886, at Sydney, at a time when Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues were engaged in drafting their scheme of Home Rule for Ireland, Mr. Dalley, in proposing "The day we celebrate," observed: "There has been perhaps no period of Irish history when this festival day of national and patriotic memories has been celebrated amid circumstances of such absorbing interest, widespread anxiety, and I may also say, of reasonable hope of a final and satisfactory settlement of the Irish question by the Imperial Government, as it has been to-day. That question is at this moment the one upon the solution of which the genius, the wisdom, and the liberality of Imperial statesmen are employed, for the twofold purpose of tranquillising Ireland and consolidating the Empire. It is admittedly a question