An Australian Native's Standpoint. Addresses
London, Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1912.
Octavo, xii, 306, [2] (publisher's advertisements) pages.
Cloth lightly sunned on the spine; top edge, first and last leaves, and the flyleaves a little foxed (with some offsetting to the latter); trifling creases to a few margins; an excellent copy.
'This book contains newspaper reports, reproduced without elaboration, of addresses uttered by the white native of Australia whose name is printed on the title page' (author's introductory 'explanatory'). Sir William John Sowden (1858-1943), journalist and newspaper editor, was associated with the major daily, the 'South Australian Register', for decades. 'Promoted chief leader-writer and associate editor in 1892, Sowden was acting editor in 1897 and editor from 1899 to 1922. In this capacity he exerted strong influence on public opinion.... Politically Sowden was a Liberal, a free trader and an "avowed anti-Socialist"; while never joining any party, he was consistently anti-Labor. He supported Federation, the South African War, compulsory military training, conscription, state-rights, the unreformed Legislative Council and the formation of the Liberal Union in 1910. "Truth"'s description of Sowden's "Register" as "the official organ of the Tory party" was barely an exaggeration' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). Provenance: John Grant Duncan-Hughes (1882-1962, lawyer, soldier, pastoralist and politician), with his ownership signature, 1914. Loosely inserted is a typed letter signed by Sowden to Duncan-Hughes (small quarto, one page, on his personal letterhead). In the letter, dated 17 December 1925, Sowden congratulates Duncan-Hughes on his 'well-deserved re-election', but he spends a lengthy paragraph getting stuck into 'an apparent defect in the [Liberal] Federation's organization ... no communication whatever was received from Headquarters or any other source by our Branch, which was not even consulted regarding the places or dates for the holding of meetings'. This would suggest that the ADB is in error in its comment regarding party membership.
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