PM Transcripts

TRIBUTE TO THE LATE MR. -CAHILL
BY THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE HOUSE OF REPRES8N-
-TATIVES ON THURSDAY, 22ND OCTOBER,. l9a9
Mr. Speaker, honourable members will be aware of the
fact that after an illness which it was hoped was purely minor
and temporary, Mr. Cahill, the Premier of New South Wales, died
this morning, I think none of us would wish this unhappy occasion
to pass without reference to it being made! in this House.
Mr. Cahill was, of course, much too young to die, but he had for
many years worked with great devotion and great energy for the
causes that he believed in and for the State over whose political
fortunes he was called to preside.
During the time I have been Prime Minister I saw a
great deal of Mr. Cahill. I will always be pleased to remember
that I had the greatest respect for him, and that we lived,
though on opposite sides of politics, on terms of close personal
friendship. I think he was a man of integrity and a man of
devotion to the cause that he understood and which he did so
much to lead. When one knows a man of that kind one inevitably
expresses sadness at the news of his death.
It may perhaps be of some comfort to those he has
left behind to knew, as they will know when the record of these
few minutes is produced, that though he was strongly attached
to his party, and never unwilling to break a lance in the political
lists, he died, nevertheless, holding the respect, and, I
think, the affection of everybody in this place. I make only
those few remarks. It is difficult to say very much. I have
been shocked by this news; so have we all.