Often I noticed the
unerring bent of his mind towards the statesman's broad view of subjects
of political controversy. As a sincere Catholic he was sometimes
trammelled as he ran with liberal Protestant majorities. In the
education question, for instance, as already hinted, seeing that
Victoria stands amongst the most advanced in the rigid secularity of its
teaching, to the extent, at least, of what of instruction is
provided--and gratuitously provided--by public money. But in general he
was anxious to be reasonably accordant with public opinion--so much so,
indeed, in that "profane" direction (as Gibbon might have phrased it) as
not to be quite reckonable with the extreme of the Jesuit or
Ultramontane section of his church.
I recollect and record with pleasure one of the Goldfields Commission
incidents illustrative of O'Shanassy's high public qualities. We had
completed at Castlemaine, near the original Mount Alexander, our
considerable tour of goldflelds inspection; and as we sat round the
table of the only public room of the small hotel or public-house of the
place, the evidence completed, and all the proposed changes decided on,
there remained yet one question. Our proposed chief pecuniary change
abolished the indiscriminate, and, to the many unsuccessful, most
oppressive charge of 30 shillings monthly license fee, and substituted a
yearly fee or fine of only 20 shillings.
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