Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/209

 It was a thing well done on your part for the good of Australia.

Your account of matters and the relation of men in the House of Commons is full of interest to one who has had such limited means of seeing the inner life of the great body to which you belong. I am, as you know, a sincere admirer of Mr Gladstone: it takes much to lead me to change in my hero-worship when my faith is once formed. But I can admire strength and devotion to duty, wherever I find those noble qualities in public men. Mr Balfour is certainly making a name for himself throughout the Empire.

Just now you will be noticing our new movement for the union of the Colonies. In this country we have all the best minds on our side, and I think the cause is thoroughly popular.

I send you under separate cover a batch of papers on the subject.

Apart from his imperial policy Sir Henry Parkes is famous as the originator of that felicitous phrase "the crimson thread of kinship." It is curious to remember that Sir Henry was the chief opponent of the now forgotten Bill to create a Colonial Hereditary Peerage which was brought forward by the Legislative Council of 1853, and met with almost universal condemnation.

Perhaps the man who above all others guided the political aspirations of H. H. was Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, the famous Irishman. His extraordinary personality, his picturesque speech, and his wide reading had a powerful attraction for H. H.'s enthusiastic nature. Sir Charles had had a wonderful career. Born in Ireland in 1816, he, in 1842, started