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My Reminiscences

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My Reminiscences My Reminiscences Reid, G H George Houstoun (1845-1918) A digital text sponsored by New South Wales Centenary of Federation Committee University of Sydney Library Sydney 2000 http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/fed/ © University of Sydney Library. The texts and Images are not to be used for commercial purposes without permission Source Text: Prepared from the print edition published by Cassell and Company, Ltd, London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 1917 First Published: 1917 Languages: French Australian Etexts autobiographies political history 1910-1939 prose nonfiction federation 2001 Creagh Cole Coordinator Final Checking and Parsing My Reminiscences by the Right Honourable G.C.B., G.C.M.G., P.C., Hon. D.C.L. (Oxon.), Hon. LL.D. (Adelaide), K.C. First High Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Australia, Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, London. London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne Cassell and Company, Ltd 1917 to Preface I DO not think that a Book of Reminiscences should resemble a graveyard. At any rate, I have tried to link up the past with the present and the future. GEORGE REID. London, 1917. Contents CHAPTER PAGE 1. PERSONAL ....... 1 2. FIRST DAYS IN AUSTRALIA ... 8 3. I READ FOR THE BAR .... 20 4. FIRST EXPERIENCES IN PARLIAMENT .. 30 5. MINISTERIAL OFFICES AND INCIDENTS .. 44 6. FEDERAL BEGINNINGS .... 50 7. FEDERATION TAKES SHAPE .... 68 8. LABOUR IN PARLIAMENT .... 82 9. I SUCCEED SIR HENRY PARKES ... 90 10. THE GREAT BANKING CRISIS ... 98 11. GETTING NEARER FEDERATION ... 109 12. THE '95 GENERAL ELECTION ... 119 13. THE CONVENTION AT WORK ... 133 14. IN ENGLAND FOR THE DIAMOND JUBILEE . 140 15. THE CONVENTION RESUMES ... 160 16. THE SECOND BRITISH FEDERATION .. 176 17. GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ... 189 18. BIRTH OF THE COMMONWEALTH ... 196 19. EARLY STRUGGLES IN THE FEDERAL PARLIAMENT ....... 214 20. PRIME MINISTER ..... 235 21. SOME LABOUR LEGISLATION ... 247 22. MR. FISHER BECOMES PREMIER ... 258 23. TO LONDON AS HIGH COMMISSIONER OF THE COMMONWEALTH ..... 267 24. GEORGE V. ASCENDS THE THRONE .. 280 25. VOYAGING AGAIN ..... 298 26. THE CENTENARY OF PEACE ... 316 27. IN AUSTRALIA ONCE MORE ... 327 28. ON THE BRINK—AND OVER ... 345 29. I BECOME A BRITISH M.P. ... 365 30. THE FUTURE OF OUR EMPIRE ... 373 INDEX ....... 383 SIR GEORGE REID .... FACING PAGE 22 My Reminiscences Chapter I Personal THE active influences that bear upon the fortunes of a human life reach backwards in point of time to a past as mysterious as the most distant future. The mental beginnings of each individual life are shrouded in a mystery which no expert in any science or art can explain. It is quite easy to invent terms under which guesses aimed at the unknown can be catalogued; but in the case of “heredity” and “environment,” as in every other case in which psychology is an element, the greater the penetration of science the more remote the prospect of a complete revelation becomes. It is perfectly true that psychology, which is the science of the soul viewing the soul as a fact quite apart from its operations, has never had a fair chance. Physiology has had a better following, and has made great strides. But its final word is spoken, as to the nature of the soul—or mind—or life—call the sovereign lord of animated function what you will—when it points to the cellular substance within a man as the medium, for who can believe it to be the origin, of thought feeling and volition. Of all the delusions of which human ignorance is capable, one of the most common is that which gives a man full credit, or the entire blame, for what he is, or what he does. The line at which censure or praise should discriminate in summing up a man's good or evil deeds is always vague—it may become infinitely so when the effects of parentage are considered. The view I am submitting brings no sort of comfort to me so far as my own origin is concerned. My father and mother were Christians whose outward professions were transcended by the nobility and beauty of their conduct in the family circle. They tempered the standards of principle and conduct by which their own lives were governed with boundless reserves of charity and compassion for those who fell short of their high ideals. An industrious relative has compiled a chronology—the perfect accuracy of which I accept without investigation—which shows that I can claim descent from a shadowy sort of Scottish chieftain who flourished many centuries ago. To come down to more recent times, and a humbler state, my grandmother, Jean Ronald, was the daughter of a Laird of Bennals, in Ayrshire, of whom Burns wrote: “There's ane they ca' Jean I'll warrant ye've seen, As bonie a lass or as braw, man; But for sense and guid taste she'll vie wi' the best, And a conduct that beautifies a', man. The charms o' the min', the langer they shine The more admiration they draw, man, While peaches and cherries, and roses and lilies They fade and wither awa, man.” Born in 1800, my father, John Reid, was the son of the John Reid, of The Burn, near Mauchline, who married Jean Ronald. Like ever so many Scottish farmers' sons, my father passed through a University course, and he became a minister of the Established Church. Scotland has no page of history brighter than that which records the spread of education, in the Lowlands at any rate, from the time of John Knox down to the present day. The wisdom which produced in England the Education Act of 1870 was practised in Scotland more than three centuries ago, and just before the Union with England each Scottish parish was compelled to support a school, and although the parish school was under the Kirk Session it is one of the glories of that time that the expiring Scots' Parliament established the schools on an undenominational basis. It is not at all surprising to those who know anything of the human mind that, as successive generations passed through the parish schools and the secondary schools (established on a Parliamentary foundation in 1496), parental ambitions, aided by religious fervour, sent at least one son to the University, often at the expense of severe hardships. The success of Scotland's children at home and abroad would have been less remarkable, when remarkable at all, if the statesmen of England had begun in real earnest, a few centuries earlier than they did, to educate the children of the other parts of the British Isles. In my father's days in Scotland the preparation of sermons was an arduous task. The preacher had to address a most critical audience, and was not allowed to refer to notes. Irrational though it might be, people expected such deliverances to be as carefully expressed as the last revise of a literary production. This involved two written sermons weekly, committed to memory, besides scrupulous attention to parochial duties. No better evidence of my father's pulpit gifts could be adduced than this: after his ordination he received six “calls” to churches in various parts of Scotland, including one to Edinburgh. Wisely closing his ears to more tempting openings, he accepted a call to Linlithgow. Many years afterwards my brother, Mr. H. R. Reid, founder and managing director of the Melbourne Shipping Company, visiting Linlithgow as the scene of our father's first charge, chanced to arrive on a day when the people were saying good-bye to Lord Hopetoun as the just- appointed Governor of Victoria. My brother was invited to the luncheon and made, as he could well do, a fine speech, which formed the beginning of a friendship with His Excellency, which later Lord Hopetoun extended to myself. In 1843, when the Free Church was formed, a very interesting vacancy occurred in the pastorate of the Tron Kirk, Glasgow, owing to the retirement of Dr. Chalmers. My father was within two votes of succeeding that great man. He was known at the time as “Chalmers Secundus!” I was born in Johnstone, near Paisley, in 1845, on February 25th. My name-father—English people say godfather—was the Member for Renfrewshire, Mr. George Houstoun. Two months after my birth my father accepted a call to the Oldham Street Church, Liverpool, which many of the leading Scottish ship-owners attended. He suffered frequently from bronchitis, and upon medical advice he emigrated to Australia, landing in Melbourne in May, 1852. The family consisted of my mother, five sons—I being the youngest— and two daughters. I think it was well for us all that our chances in life were thus transferred to a new land containing so many resources, and offering so many advantages to those who could only inherit a good name. The doctors proved true prophets, for the genial climate soon banished my father's ailment. Voyaging to settle down in the Antipodes in those days was a most courageous step. There were no steamers in the trade save one—the Great Britain. Sailing ships were thought to make a fair passage if they crossed over in 120 days. There is no land surface on the face of the globe —and that of Australia is so old that it basked in the sunshine before Europe and Asia emerged from primeval waters—which, before the arrival of the white man, had so few traces of human occupation as that vast island continent to which we voyaged. There were no traces of cultivation, or of industry, or of permanent dwellings.
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