Within a very few days or hours of each other two men have passed away—both of considerable interest, and, in his way, each of value to Australia. Senator E. D. Millen had been the subject, more than once, of comments in these columns. The was trained politician, with a wide local knowledge. He was, one might almost say, a-transcendent dialectician, or, as his opponents would cry, a logic-chopper. He started in the atmosphere of a country newspaper in the far, far west. He knew every-one, and every-one knew' him.. The local carriers sent him down to Sydney to voice their ideas, and after that for over 30 years he was in the State or the Federal Parliament. But he was killed by his honesty. 1t fell to his lot to. start the Repatriation work towards the end of the war—the vocational training, the convalescent homes, the pensioning and so forth. Then came the - trouble that, owing to the prolonged semi-socialistic-antagonism and_laziness of builders' labourers, the returned working man—grown older by years of war as well as the calendar—could not get a home. Millen tried the impossible, and was swamped by critics from all sides. The soldiers for whom he tried to do so much killed him by insisting upon running the business, and then doing it so badly that he got all the blame, and the results were disappointing. While he lay dying yet further inquiries were being made, and he fretted himself because he could not give evidence. If ever a man was killed in the exercise of his duty it was Edward Davis Millen.
State Governors in Australia, unlike those of the United States, are not supposed to have any politics. They "are appointed from Britain, and represent a rather incongruous fifth wheel in the diplomatic coach, being independent of the Governor-General, who is the true link between the Imperial and the Australian governments. Consequently when Sir Walter Davidson, Governor of New South Wales, rather unexpectedly died the other day it came as something of a surprise to find that he was all round
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.