Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/179

, but no English elector would consider that any reason for giving me his support."

Here we have the gist of the matter. Whatever Lord Salisbury may think, it is really to the ambitious young colonist, emulous of public honours, in many cases a distinct misfortune to belong to the "Imperial consolidating" English race. No Australian needs the bulky book of Mr. Hogan, or the magazine essay of Sir C. Gavan Duffy, to assure him that the Irish Celt is a powerful factor for good or evil in our colonial affairs. It is as true as any such general statement can be that every Irishman is a politician,—not only a voter at elections, but an organiser and a wire-puller, and what is called the "Roman Catholic vote" has become the veritable monster of the colonial Frankenstein, Let me tell Sir C. Gavan Duffy another little colonial electioneering story, the moral of which is, I think, equally obvious.

There was to be a keen contest in one of the divisions of Melbourne, and it became known, from certain unmistakable indications, that at the eleventh hour the dreaded Roman Catholic vote had been ordered to go over to the other side. In this emergency what was to be done? On the Committee was a very enthusiastic and, of course, sharp-