(13) SIR J. R. DICKSON: Oct. 1898--Dec. 1899. (14) HON. A. DAWSON: 1st Dec. 1899--7th Dec. 1899. (15) HON. R. PHILP: Dec. 1899--Sept. 1903: Nov. 1907--Feb. 1908. (16) SIR A. MORGAN: Sept. 1903--Jan. 1906. (17) HON. W. KIDSTON: Jan. 1906--Nov. 1907: Feb. 1908 (still in office). [Illustration] PART I.--OUR NATAL YEAR. CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH OF QUEENSLAND. Issue of Letters Patent and Order in Council.--Appointment of Sir George Ferguson Bowen as First Governor.--Continuity of Colonial Office Policy.--Instructions to Governor.--Munificent Gift of all Waste Lands of the Crown.--Temporary Limitation of Electoral Suffrage.--Responsible Government Unqualified by Restrictions or Reservations.--Governor General of New South Wales Initiates Elections. Fifty years ago an emphatic expression of confidence in the self-governing competence of the people of North-eastern Australia was given by the British Government of Lord Derby. On 6th June, 1859, Queen Victoria in Council adopted Letters Patent--which had been already approved in draft on 13th May--"erecting Moreton Bay into a colony under the name of Queensland," and appointing Sir George Ferguson Bowen to be "Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the same." On the same day an Order in Council was made "empowering the Governor of Queensland to make laws and provide for the administration of justice in the said colony"; also to constitute therein a Government and Legislature as nearly resembling the form of Government and Legislature established in New South Wales as the circumstances of the colony would allow. This meant that representative and responsible government had been granted to the people of the new colony to the full extent that it was enjoyed by the people of New South Wales under the epoch-making Constitution Act of 1855. It meant also that the whole of the unalienated Crown Lands of the colony were vested in the Legislature. Next day, the 7th June, the annual session of the Imperial Parliament was opened, and four days later an amendment upon the Address in Reply was carried in the House of Commons, whereupon Lord Derby and his Conservative colleagues forthwith resigned, and were succeeded by a Liberal (or Whig) Ministry under Lord Palmerston. The new Government included men of such distinction as Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Lord John Russell, and the Duke of Newcastle, the last-mentioned assuming the office of Colonial Secretary. The change of Ministry, however, caused no interruption in the continuity of Colonial Office policy; and no time was lost in despatching Sir George Bowen to discharge the highly responsible duties imposed upon him by the Queen's Commission.