The Queenslander, Saturday, 24 October 1896, p. 790
Men We Meet: HONOURABLE JOHN DOUGLAS.
The Hon. John Douglas, C.M.G., is one of the few surviving
Queensland citizens whose public record dates back to the period before
Separation from the mother colony. English by birth, the year of his nativity
being 1828, he received his education at Rugby and at Durham University. He
arrived in New South Wales in 1851, and almost immediately entered on an
official career by accepting an appointment as goldfields commissioner.
Subsequently he became engaged in pastoral pursuits, and sat in the Parliament
of New South Wales for Darling Downs and Camden successively. After Separation
Mr. Douglas took up permanent residence in Queensland, and in 1863 was returned
to the Legislative Assembly as member for Port Curtis. In 1866 he accepted the
portfolio of Postmaster-General in the Macalister Ministry, with a seat in the
Upper House. Returning to the Lower Chamber soon after as representative of the
Eastern Downs, he became for a short season Treasurer under Mr. Macalister,
subsequently resigning in order to return to the Council as leader in that
place.
In 1869 he went to London as Agent-General. On vacating the
London agency he returned to the colony and to a seat in Parliament as member
for Maryborough. In the year following (1876) he was appointed Minister for
Lands in the Thorn Ministry; and the next year, on Mr. Thorn’s resignation, he
became Premier, but resigned on the defeat of his Ministry in 1879. In 1885 he
was appointed Government Resident at Thursday Island, and later Acting High
Commissioner for New Guinea on the death of Sir Peter Scratchley. In New Guinea
he remained in charge for about three years, until, in fact, Sir William
MacGregor in 1889 replaced him in the administration of affairs, when he
returned to his former position at Thursday Island, where he still continues in
command.
The story of his life and labours in the “sentinel island”
was told before an appreciative and distinguished audience in a lecture
delivered by Mr. Douglas himself in the School of Arts, Brisbane, on Monday
evening last. Mr. Douglas, who, by the way, is now in the south on a
well-deserved furlough, had for the subject of his discourse “Australian
History for Fifty Years—a Retrospect.” He told how he had laid the very
foundations of the Torres Straits islands by annexation in 1877, long before he
had ever dreamt of being the Resident at Thursday Island. He recounted how the
cry for annexation of New Guinea arose through the scare aroused by anticipated
aggression in that quarter from Germany, France, and Russia; and it is
satisfactory to learn from his own lips that from first to last the annexation
proceedings were carried out in a manner the most honourable and satisfactory
to all concerned—to the natives themselves, to the British Government, and the
Governments of Australasia, who had undertaken the responsibilities. And no one
who is capable of correctly gauging the possibilities of such a possession will
fail to attach due importance to the mode and system of Governmental
development which the requirements of so splendid a province may call forth.
No notice of Mr. Douglas would be just which omitted
reference to his connection with the foundation and fostering care of that
School of Arts in which he spoke on Monday night. He is one of the very few
still living to whom we owe it that there is a School of Arts and Technical
College now in Brisbane. So far these institutions have served creditable
purposes, but the time has arrived, as Mr. Douglas pointed out in his address,
when, if they are to assume and hold their natural places in the field of modern
education, something towards expansion must be undertaken. £5000 would provide
the needed buildings and paraphernalia, Mr. Douglas thinks, and of this sum it
is not too much, he insists, to ask the public to contribute half—the
Government being, as by precedent in such cases, so rendered liable for the
other moiety. There is little room for doubt. If Mr. Douglas’s present centre
of influence were Brisbane and not Thursday Island, he would galvanise public
spirit into such activity that a reconstructed and largely extended People’s
College would soon become an accomplished fact.
Howbeit, all those of the older and younger generations who
knew or worked with the John Douglas of one decade, two decades, or even four
decades back will be pleased to hear that he is still in the enjoyment of
vigorous mental and bodily health; and they will wish him a happy prolongation
of both in his far Northern home, where he keeps faithful watch and ward beside
our ocean-gate.
