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There passed away yesterday afternoon very suddenly, aged 74, an old colonist of forty-two years' standing, in the person of Captain J. E. D. MacCarthy. He came to Victoria in 1855 as an officer of H.M. 40th Regiment. After a few years in that colony, he was sent to New Zealand to take part in the suppression of the Maori outbreak. He afterwards sold his commission, and came to Queensland, and entered into pastoral pursuits near Roma. This not proving satisfactory, he left, and came to Brisbane, where he entered the Savings Bank Department of the civil service, from which he retired a few years ago, after twenty-two years' service. His funeral will leave his residence, Karoona, Kangaroo Point, at 3.30 p.m. this afternoon for St, Mary's Church, in the choir of which he sang for many years. Captain MacCarthy leaves a grown-up family, but his wife died some years ago.
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[marginalia] Courier, Friday 14/6/'12
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DEATH OF MR. R. A.
RANKING, C. M. G.
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QUEENSLAND'S SENIOR POLICE
MAGISTRATE
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A DISTINGUISHED PUBLIC
SERVANT.
Death came suddenly and with merciful absence of pain to Mr. R. A. Ranking, C. M. G., Senior Police Magistrate, and a veteran servant of the public, at his home at Brighton-road, West End, yesterday afternoon at 4.30 o'clock. When the news circulated in official quarters it left all who heard it with a sense of deep personal loss, and it was realised that death had left a vacancy in the Public Service of the State which will be hard to fill. It is 37 1/2 years since the deceased gentleman first joined the Public Service, and during all that time he has been a strenuous worker. In fact he died in harness, having only returned to his home on Tuesday evening from Dunwich, where he had presided at a Public Service Board inquiry. At that time the deceased gentleman complained of acute abdominal pains, but his condition was not looked upon as serious. Yesterday, however, his trouble became more serious and despite the attentions of his medical adviser (Dr. Webb) the respected magistrate succumbed to an attack of heart failure. Mr Ranking was not only held in the highest personal esteem by all who knew him, but he was recognised as a friend of the poor, and many homes will be sadder by his death. His Christian character was of the highest order. Of him it is fitting to say: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." He was a man of clear, judicial mind, and keen judgment these qualities being so well recognised ...
[photo of R. A. Ranking, depicting him with a balding pate, with a centre part, a large moustache, and wearing a dark suit-coat, with a high-collared white shirt and a bow-tie]
... that he was frequently selected for important special duties in addition to the discharge of his magisterial functions.
The deceased gentleman was born at Hastings, England, on July 5, 1843, and was the fifth son of the late Dr. Ranking. He came to Queensland in 1863, and spent some years with Mr. D. C. M'Connel [McConnel] at Cressbrook, and in 1868 engaged in sugar growing at Yatala, in the Logan district. His venture, unfortunately, was not successful. It was not until November 13, 1874, that Mr Ranking joined the Public Service. On that date he was appointed Police Magistrate at Beenleigh. He held similar positions in Blackall, Maryborough, and Rockhampton, and on March 16, 1898, he was transferred from the latter place to Brisbane, receiving the appointment of second Police Magistrate in the metroplitan court. On January 1, 1904, Mr. Ranking attained to the premier position in that service --- Senior Police Magistrate in Brisbane, an office which he held until his death. This responsible position cast upon him the duties of chairman of the bench of magistrates and of the licensing authority for the city, and the arrangement of working the several benches in the districts adjacent to the metropolis. He was also a member of the Immigration Board. In 1909 he was commissioned to visit New Zealand and the Southern States for the purpose of investigating and reporting upon the administration of the liquor laws in those places, and furnished the Government with a valuable report on those matters, and also with much useful data respecting children's courts. In November, 1910, he took up duty as chairman of the Sugar Commission which visited many parts of Queensland during the succeeding months, and subsequently laid before the Premier a comprehensive report in regard to the industry in Queensland. It will be remembered, too, that Mr Ranking was specially selected as chairman of the Mining Inquiry Board appointed to inquire into the working of the Mount Morgan mine at the time of the distressing accidents in the latter part of 1908.
The late Police Magistrate was a keen student and assiduous worker, and the result of his scholarship and research shows in concrete form in the Queensland Police Code and Justices' Manual of the Criminal Law, which he produced in 1905. He was an able exponent of the law; his decisions were invariably upheld on appeal to the higher tribunals, and the Judges of the Supreme Court have, in several instances, paid a high tribute to his recognised ability. The Attorney-General, on hearing the sad news yesterday afternoon, expressed his keen sense of the great loss sustained by the State in the passing away of such an able magistrate, and the Under-Secretary for Justice stated that the late Mr. Ranking was one of the most zealous, capable, loyal, and conscientious Police Magistrates in the Public Service. In 1868 the deceased married Miss E. MacEwan, who survives him, and who was present during his last illness. The only other relatives (two sisters and three brothers) live out of the State. They are Mrs R. B. Cay, Dover, Kent, England; Dr. D. F. Ranking, S.W., London, Dr. John Ranking, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England; and Lieut.- Colonel G. Ranking, Oxford, England. The latter gentleman is Professor of Oriental Languages at Oxford University. Last year the late Mr. Ranking had conferred upon him the honour of the C.M.G.,-ship, and received his investiture in the Order at the hands of his Excellency the Governor-General.
The funeral is timed to leave Jesmond, The Residence of the deceased, Brighton - road, at 3 o'clock to-day, for the Toowong Cemetery.
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which the Prime Minister said that the movement was a justifiable one, but that the Government could not express any further advice on the subject. There is no reason to think that the promoters of the movement will take any action which is not strictly legal --- and there are many reasons why, as the governor of the Bank of England hinted, the city should be anxious to support the landlords in Ireland. But, granting that the movement is natural and justifiable, its expediency may still be questioned. Its object has been defined by those who support it to be that of "enabling landlords to collect their rents." To enforce payment of rent is always a thankless task, and it would have been better to have left it to the Government. No doubt the result may be that a larger proportion of rents will be collected, but not sufficient to cover the expense of this new organisation. That it will tend to the diminution of outrages is very problematical, while it is certain that it will inflame still more the bitter animosity which already exists between class and class. --- Tablet.
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Catholics in the British Army.
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On the 1st of January this year there were 41,335 Catholics in the British army, out of a total of 180,000. Twenty years ago there were 58,000. This gives a proportion of 234 Catholics this year to every thousand men. There are 36,879 Irishmen in this service, of whom only 1600 are in the cavalry, and 5800 in the artillery, and 294 foreigners, besides 4200 born in India or the colonies. There are only 14,400 Scotchmen in the army. There were 3800 men raised in Ireland in the year 1880. There were 83,896 cases of desertion in the past 20 years.
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SCOTLAND.
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Professor Blackie on "Christianity and the Land Laws."
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The fourth of the series of lectures delivered under the auspices of the Glasgow Sunday Society (says the Glasgow Herald of December 24) was given on Sunday night in the Queen's Rooms, Clifton-street, by Professor John Stuart Blackie, Edinburgh, who took for his subject "Christianity and the Land Laws." There was a numerous attendance, the hall being crowded. Mr. J. Shaw Maxwell, the hon. secretary of the society, presided, and briefly introduced the lecturer.
Professor Blackie (who was received with loud applause) said the reason why he had chosen the subject on which he was to speak that night was that Christianity had been preaching for 2000 years in the world, and it had not been applied to the organisation of society. ... (Applause.) ... It was no use preaching general religion about sin and salvation, about duty and neglect of duty; they must show people what they were to do and what they were not to do. Most people were slow and stupid to correct their vices, and therefore general preaching is a matter of no consequence. The thing was how to make life noble and society better, and to make the world feel that we had left it better than we found it. ... (Applause.) ... If they made any distinction between Christianity and a vulgar superstition it must be that in a superstition morality was not the essence of the business, while in Christianity it was. They must tell people what to do, otherwise they instilled into people the notion that religion was a thing for Sunday and not for Monday. He was inclined to think that they would be the better of a course of sermons on social questions. As ministers did not do so he intended to try. ... (Applause.) ... He had no intention of treating social problems in vague generalities intended to keep people in a pious sleep, but by practical advice. Religion, if it meant anything at all, should give instruction for the conduct of the whole week. He acted on that principle at the risk of being brought before the venerable Free Church Presbytery of Glasgow. ... (Laughter.) ... However, he intended to expound the land laws as interpreted by Scripture, for he held the Scriptures to be the highest laws of morality, and he took the Scriptures as a good test to measure the land laws by. In the first place, they had some very interesting notices of the land laws in the Hebrew legislation. They knew this remarkable thing, that the land belonged to the people. ... (Hear, hear and applause.) ... The land was divided among the tribes in the same way as in the Highlands the land was divided among the M'Donalds [McDonalds] and the rest, and it was the intention of the legislation to keep the land in the hands of the people. The laws were established in the interest of thrift. The great tendency of the land laws of the Hebrews was to preserve great masses of manhood and society, to prevent men from being banished from their homes. Therefore the prophets who were a kind of half-way house between Moses and the Gospel --- (laughter) --- they need not laugh and show their ignorance. ... (Renewed laughter.) ... It was most certain that the germ of the Gospel lay in the prophets, which were the laws of Moses, and if they were
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right then we were wrong. In Isaiah xlv [XIV]., 18, it was written: --- "For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it; he created it not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited; I am the Lord, and there is none else." Was that the way in the Highlands, or with rich Glasgow merchants who acquired property and established deer forests and drove out the people who inhabited the soil? Did they act in the spirit of Isaiah? Those who wrote and spoke on the land question were bound to take into account all the Mosaic enactments on the subject. Contrasting Christianity and Judaism, the Professor said Judaism was a religion of ordinances, institutions, services, and religious ceremonials; but Christianity was neither the one nor the other. It was an affair of motives, and its inspiration was to purify the fountainhead of the moral action. Therefore, there was nothing in Christianity about external matters --- nothing about the land laws for instance. Christianity did not even interfere with slavery; but they were not to suppose that because Christianity did not directly interfere with civil government it did not intend to exercise an influence over institutions. It meant to do so and did so. The fundamental principle of Christianity was to establish such motives as would produce a well-ordered state of society. The inspiration of Christianity was love, and sympathy, and the equality of all men before God. The lecturer then quoted, from Goethe's "Wanderjahre," the conversation on reverence. We called it love; Goethe called it reverence, the habitual existence not for yourself, but for your brother, and that was the thing they must hold to be the test of land laws, and everything else in the world. ... (Applause). ... Having read from the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians at the fourth verse, the Professor said he did not believe the salvation of society was to be got from political economy or any other science, but by moral inspiration, and in nowhere could they find higher moral inspiration than in the New Testament. Let a man look in the face of Jesus Christ or the Apostle Paul, and if he was not a shallow conceited puppy he would come away a great deal wiser. ... (Applause.) ... Now, let them inquire into our existing land laws and see if they acted in such a manner as to strengthen the weak against the strong, or, rather, to make the weak stronger. Study the history of the land laws, and then ask him this single question. Who made the land laws? Was it Moses? No. The land laws were made by the strong men ---(applause) --- and it would have been a miracle if the land laws had been just. ... (Renewed applause.) ... He did not blame the strong men; he blamed the men who allowed them to make them. ... (Applause.) ... The land laws were made by the strong to make the strong stronger and to prevent the weak standing upon their legs. Let them take the question of rent. How were they to know what the rent ought to be. They would say by that market it would be soon found out what the value was. But that was a different thing from poor tenants under their landlord and the thumb of their factor. Would they tell him that was making a fair bargain. It was not a free contract, it was imperious imposition. ... (Applause.) ... Laws had been made to preserve game; why were laws not made to preserve the population? ... (Loud applause.) ... Because landlords want to preserve game, and to get rid of the people. Was that love of the people? Under certain conditions he approved of deerstalking and all kinds of exercise. These were the men who fought our battles and took Sebastopol. Well, they did not take Sebastopol --- (laughter) --- but these were the men who fought our battles and made British officers the bravest in the world. But while deerstalking was allowed, the people must not have the right to allow their cattle to browse upon the braes. The deer came down among the corn, but if a word was said about it the man was turned out next year. There were, however, good landlords in the Highlands, and they must not suppose that he was a radical ...(laughter). ... There was no better man than an aristocrat when he did not go mad about deer. There were good landlords, especially amongst the Tories --- (laughter, applause, and slight hissing) --- but some of the worst landlords he knew were amongst those upstarts, those Glasgow merchants who wanted to hob-nob amongst the aristocrats. It was a firey Highland Radical who told him that the Tories were the best landlords in the Highlands, but one of the best landlords he knew, who was not a Tory, was Sir Kenneth Mackenzie ... (applause). ... Regarding leases, the Professor thought the tenants ought to have a lease if they pleased, and they ought to have security that they would be kept upon the ground to reap the fruits of their improvements, if they had any. In the Highland glens there was no passage because of his Lordship's deer --- (laughter) --- but if they were prevented from going there they should make a row in the newspapers ... (renewed laughter). ... But when a law was made to protect deer, a law should be made to enable tenants to shoot deer when they came down among the corn. If the laws had been made by poor people or even by vagabond professors --- (laughter) --- there would have been more
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justice ...(applause). ... Speaking on entail, he said the object of the law was to enable people to keep their lands, whether they deserved them or not. Absenteeism arose from an utter want of any moral sense on the part of landed proprietors. Every professional had duties, but a landed proprietor had no duties except to gather his rent with as little trouble as possible, to shoot grouse in August, and partridges in September ... (laughter). ... The factor was one of the most omnipotent despots out of Turkey. They were gods. In one parish he remarked to a woman that a factor was a perfect God, when she replied "Our factor is both God and the devil" ... (laughter). ... Touching on the Poor Laws, the professor said they were essentially bad, and in a well-regulated State there should be none. He resumed his seat amid loud applause, and on the motion of the chairman he was awarded a vote of thanks for his lecture.
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AUSTRIA
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The Australian Chancellor.
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(From the Pall Mall Gazette.)
"The constellation of the three stars rises once more above the foreign horizon," said a Viennese journalist on hearing of the selection of Count Kalnoky as Baron Haymerle's successor; and the telegrams of the last few days show that "the constellation of the Holy Alliance" is still in the ascendant. Count Kalnoky, who ostensibly went to St. Petersburg merely to say goodbye to the sovereign to whom he had been accredited, has been holding protracted interviews with M. de Giers. It does not take several hours to say adieu, much less au revoir; and the general opinion on the Continent is that these interviews at St. Petersburg mean business. The decoration of the New Austro-Hungarian Minister with a Russian order may not mean much, for Count Kalnoky was in high favour with Alexander the Third, but it helps to confirm the universal impression that his transfer from the Austrian Embassy on the Neva to the Ballplatz Palace at Vienna is nothing more or less than the outward and visible sign of the recent re-establishment of the Three Emperors' Alliance. It is not necessary to credit the sensational stories circulated of late as to the momentous mission with which he has been charged on his farewell visit to St Petersburg in order to justify the attention it has excited on the Continent. The substitution of the Triple Alliance for the alliance of Austria and Germany marks a distinct change in the grouping of the Powers, which can hardly fail to exercise a decided influence upon the future both of the East and West of Europe. Russia, no longer isolated, is under less temptation to dream of a French alliance. Germany reassured on that point, can devote herself to her international troubles; while Austria, almost for the first time since 1876, displays an anxious desire to arrange a modus vi- vendi with her gigantic neighbour. For the moment, and so long as it lasts, the Triple Alliance is the most important factor in foreign politics; and the Minister who has been chosen to arrange the imperial interview which is to apprise the world of the readmission of Russia to the Austro German entente is one of the most conspicuous figures on the stage of contemporary politics.
Count Kalnoky is amongst the youngest of the "statesmen and sovereigns" of Europe. Prince Bismarck is sixty-eight, Mr. Gladstone seventy-two, Prince Gortschakoff eighty-three. Count Kalnoky was born in 1832, and is consequently of the same age as Count Ignatieff. He is six years older than M. Gambetta, and seven years younger than Count Andrassy. Like most of the men who are now in Europe, always excepting M. Gambetta, his birthplace must be sought near the Northern boundary of the empire over which he presides. The Kalnokys are an ancient Moravian house, at whose ancestral seat in Letowitz Gustave Sigismund Kalnoky was born on the 29th of December, 1832. He was a younger son of Count Gustave Kalnoky, of Koros-Patak, who, besides his family estate in Moravia, owned large domains in Hungary and Transylvania --- a fact which contributed to fill the chorus of praises with which the appointment of his son to the Foreign Office was hailed on both sides of the Leitha. Like other young nobles, he entered the army at an early age. His first commission was dated 1849, but he quitted the army when twenty-two for the diplomatic profession. In 1854, when Count (then Captain) Ignatieff was preparing for his first experience of actual war, in the dull and dreary defiance of the Baltic forts against the allied fleet, Count Gustave Sigismund Kalnoky was serving his time in the lowest grades of the diplomatic service, as Austrian attache at Munich. Two years later, when the Crimean war was ending, he was sent to Berlin, and three years later, in 1859, he joined the staff of the Austrian Embassy as Secretary of Legation at the Court of St. James. There are very few in London who retain any deep impression of the young Austrian Secretary --- he was then only seven-and-twenty; nor could even the more far-
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[far-]seeing diplomatist have predicted that in less than a quarter of a century after he would be directing the foreign policy of Austro-Hungary. Little is known of the doings of diplomatists outside the Chancelleries, and of subordinate diplomatists there is nothing to record save their successive promotions. It was about the year 1867 that the Count attained the grade of Councillor of Legation and Charge d' Affaires. Four years later he received his first important appointment, when he was entrusted with the ad interim management of the Legation at Rome, with the titles of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. His selection for such a post at such a time --- immediately after the Italians had entered the Sacred City --- is a proof that even then, before he had attained his fortieth year, his ability had attracted the attention of the Foreign Office at Vienna. After his mission at the Italian capital had terminated, he spent two years in retreat. In 1874 he received his first appointment as Abassador when he was sent by Count Andrassy to the Danish Court, which is much more closely connected with that of the present Czar than any other court in Europe. --- He acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of his Government that, after undertaking a temporary mission to St. Petersburg, he was on the 10th of February last appointed to the first-class Embassy on the Neva.
Within a month of his appointment the political earthquake in England, for such it appeared to Austrian observers, swallowed up the Beaconsfield Cabinet and deprived the AustroGerman alliance of its chief extraneous support. Twelve months later the Czar was blown up in the streets of his capital, and the accession of a Slavophil Emperor placed Count Kalnoky in a position of extreme delicacy, which was not improved when Count Ignatieff became Minister of the Interior. Thanks, however, to his tact his address, his sympathetic manners, and his diplomatic skill, he speedily became a persona gratissima with the new Czar, and when he was selected for his present post the Journal de St. Petersburg spoke of him with admiration and regret, as "a diplomatist eminently correct and conciliatory, still young, of great firmness, but an enemy of all precipitation and commotion." The first time his name appeared prominently before Europe was only two months ago, in the famous Haymerle telegram to the Emperor-King, which, being published in the Hungarian journal Eggertetes, gave to the world Count Kalnoky's account of the Danzig interview. The despatch, after being deciphered, was flung into the Emperor's wastepaper basket at Miskolez Palace, whence it was subsequently conveyed to the newspaper office. Thus, as a French journalist remarks, Count Kalnoky owes to the Miskolez waste-paper basket the only notoriety he has hitherto enjoyed in Europe. His merits, however, had long been known to his Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, and when Baron Haymerle died he was selected, on the 20th of November, as Minister of Foreign Affairs and of the Imperial Household, amid a chorus of congratulations broken by hardly a single word of dissent.
Among the statesman popularly nominated for his post were Count Andrassy, Count Beust, Baron Hubner, Count Trautsmandorf, and M. de Kalley. Count Andrassy, however, who still plays a leading part in the politics of Austria-Hungary, nominated Count Kalnoky for the post. Count Taafe concurred, and for once both sides of the Leitha agreed in commending the choice of the Emperor-King. M. de Kalley the Under Secretary, an intimate friend of Count Kalnoky's, will, it is rumoured, succeed him at St Petersburg. Should this be the case it will strengthen the popular conviction that Count Kalnoky owes his appointment to a desire to make friends with Russia. Count Beust is not likely to return to office. Baron Hubner is a Conservative, and, like Count Trautsmandorf, the Catholic candidate, he has been too much mixed up in internal politics to be eligible for the neutral but commanding position to which they both aspired. Count Kalnoky's appointment is regarded by men of all shades of politics in Austria-Hungary as indicative of a desire to effect a rapprochement with Russia. As Baron Haymerle was summoned from Rome, they say, to bring about the good understanding with Italy which has been attested by the visit of the King to Vienna, so Count Kalnoky has been sent for from St. Petersburg to come to terms with Russia, and which is soon to be attested by an Imperial interview. The Russian press exults over the sudden transformation which has taken place in the tone of the Austrian and Hungarian papers, all sections of which hail the appointment as a pledge of European peace. The only note of uneasiness has been sounded in quarters where it is feared that the drawing closer together of the three great Imperial Powers bodes no good to Liberalism in Europe, and indicates an anxiety in the East as the the possible results of M. Gambetta's accession to power in the West. At present, however, the efforts of Count Kalnoky will be directed to preserve the status quo, to keep the peace, and probably to propitiate the Slavs.
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