Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/423

  he rendered valuable assistance in securing the adoption of a protective tariff and the payment of members. He was a strong opponent of Chinese immigration, and way one of the representatives of his colony in June 1888 at the Australasian conference hold in Sydney on the subject. The measure which he framed for regulating the immigration was adopted by all the colonies represented at the conference with the exception of Tasmania.

His name is intimately associated with the federation of Australia. In 1888, as attorney-general in the Playford government, he took charge of the bill for securing the entry of South Australia into the federal council, and after a severe struggle succeeded in passing it. He was one of the representatives of the colony at the session of the council held at Hobart in February 1889. He was a member of the federal convention held at Sydney in 1891, and assisted Sir Samuel Griffith in preparing the original Commonwealth bill. Acting with Sir George Turner, he also drafted the federal enabling bill, which was adopted at the conference of Australian premiers at Hobart in 1895, and when the second federal convention assembled at Adelaide in March 1897, Kingston was elected president and presided also over the adjourned meetings at Sydney and Melbourne in 1897-8. He was a member of the premiers' conference at Melbourne in 1899, which finally settled the federal constitution bill which was ultimately approved by the referendum.

In 1897 he represented South Australia at Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee celebrations in London, and as president of the federal convention he presented a loyal address. He was made an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford on 30 June and was sworn a member of the privy council on 7 July 1897. He visited England again in May 1900, when he resigned his seat in the House of Representatives. He then accompanied (Sir) Edmund Barton and Mr. Deakin to London to assist in the passing of the commonwealth constitution bill through the imperial parliament.

On his return to Australia he was elected (22 Sept. 1900) to the legislative council of South Australia. He resigned on 31 Dec., and at the first federal elections in March 1901 South Australia returned him at the head of the poll to the commonwealth House of Representatives.

When the first commonwealth administration was formed by Sir Edmund Barton on 1 Jan. 1901 Kingston became minister of trade and customs, and introduced customs tariff bill, impeding high duties which aroused vehement discussion. He fought it successfully through parliament, and when it became law administered it with unprecedented severity. He resigned his position in the ministry on 7 July 1903 owing to differences of opinion with his colleagues over the conciliation and arbitration bill, in which he was more in harmony with the labour party than with other members of the cabinet.

Re-elected without a contest to the commonwealth parliament for the district of Adelaide at the general elections of 1903 and 1906, he took little further part in public affairs. He died at Adelaide on 11 May 1908, and was buried in West Terrace cemetery in that city.

Kingston married in 1873 Lucy May, daughter of Lawrence McCarthy of Adelaide, but there was no issue. He had adopted a son who pre-deceased him.

 KINNS, SAMUEL (1826–1903), writer on the Bible, born in 1826, was educated at Colchester grammar school and privately. He received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Jena in 1859. For twenty-five years he was principal and proprietor of a prosperous private school. The College, Highbury New Park. Ordained deacon in 1885 and priest in 1889, he held a curacy at All Souls, Langham Place (1885–9), and was rector of Holy Trinity, Minories, from 29 March 1889 until the closing of the church on 1 Jan. 1899, under the Union of Benefices Act. In 'Moses and Geology,' which he published in 1882 (14th edit 1895), he endeavoured to show that the account of the creation in the first chapter of Genesis harmonises with the latest scientific discoveries. His next work, 'Graven in the Rock,' published in 1891 (4th edit. 1897), deals with the confirmation of Biblical history afforded by the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments. Kinns was a popular lecturer on the subjects of his books at the British Museum and in London churches, but his pious zeal was greater than his scholarship. He died at Haverstock Hill on 14 July 1903. 