Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and VictoriaWestgarth, William
History
Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria
Westgarth, William
Victoria -- Description and travel
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.
WILLIAM KERR, FOUNDER OF "THE ARGUS," AND TOWN CLERK OF MELBOURNE.
"I am in the place where I am demanded of conscience to speak the truth,
and therefore the truth I speak, impugn it whoso list."
--"The Argus" motto.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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