"Altogether directed by an Irishman; a very valiant gentleman, i'
faith."
--Henry V.
One of O'Shanassy's oft-repeated jokes, told with the humorous twinkle
of his eye, was that "All men are born free and equal, AND MUST REMAIN
SO." He was wide as the poles asunder from the radical leveller, as this
joke of his might help to show. Indeed, he was decidedly conservative,
in a general socio-political sense of the word. While in strong sympathy
with the mass of his countrymen, he might have limped at times alongside
even of Parnell, to say nothing of Davitt and O'Donovan Rossa. He had
more than O'Connell's dread to pass irretrievably outside the law,
although he might not have scrupled to drive the proverbial carriage and
six through law's usual dubieties of expression, particularly in certain
sections of the Victorian Education Acts.
As one of the earliest Irish colonists from the old country, he soon
rose to the leading position amongst his fellow-colonist Irishmen. His
qualities, alike in physique and mind, easily gave him that position.
His tall, massive form, with the imperturbable good-humored smile that,
even when annoyed by an opponent, he could hardly dismiss from his face,
except, perchance, by a blend of the sarcastic; his deliberate manner in
speaking, and his sonorous voice, gave him this surpassing influence.
But in colonial public life, where he had to encounter greater
competition and sharper criticism than in his own smaller Irish world,
he lay under some disadvantages. Like his friend and occasional
opponent, Fawkner, he had an ungainly gait and rather mannerless
address; he had, too, a rich Clonmel brogue, and certainly he had not
enjoyed an education at all commensurate with his great natural
endowments. But, all defects notwithstanding, he steadily rose in
political estimation, and for the simple reason that his views of public
affairs were characteristic of the statesman more perhaps than those of
any others associated with him.
He first entered public life in 1851, as one of the three
representatives for Melbourne in Victoria's first Parliament. But,
doubtful perhaps, with his anti-radical temperament as to the fickleness
of large town populations, as well, possibly, as the dread of his
liability to get compromised by the over-zeal of supporters, he changed
the venue to the small semi-Irish town of Kilmore, where his seat was
always secure, until, in his advancing years, he condescended to the
less laborious sphere of the Upper House.
I saw much of O'Shanassy at the outset of Victorian legislation, when he
and I, in 1851-3, sat together as colleagues for Melbourne in the single
chamber of that inaugurative time, and afterwards when we were
associated in the Goldfields Commission, 1854-5. 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. And what was this, or the
documentary receipt that represented it, to be called? Reduced as the
amount was, it was still a tax, and any ingenuity that could dignify or
otherwise reconcile a tax, was worthy of the best statecraft. As
chairman, and not having at the moment a suggestion of my own, I had to
knock at the heads of my co-members. I turned to one, then another, and
yet another, but without response. Even the original brain of Fawkner
sent forth no sign. At length I came to O'Shanassy, who happened to be
at the far end of the table. He had been waiting his turn, and the
answer came promptly, "Call it the Miner's Right." It was but one out of
many instances of his statesmanlike turn. The Miner's Right, of course,
it was called. The name passed on to many other goldflelds. I noticed it
in British Columbia shortly after, with its new gold discoveries; for
the Commission's report had attracted much attention, owing to the
forefront position which golden Victoria had already assumed in the
world.