"Corfield."
"Yes, is that so? What are you?"
"I am one of the new members of Parliament." Then the blarney came out.
"Pass on, Mr. Corfield, your face would carry you anywhere, sir."
And so ended the incident.
In 1888, £50,000 was put on the Estimates for sinking artesian wells, and a contract entered into with a Canadian company to sink 7,500 feet at certain specified places. Wellshot Station was selected as one, to encourage private enterprise, to try for water at great depths.
When at Winton, early in 1889, I was handed a telegram from Mr. Henderson, the Hydraulic Engineer, advising me that the sinking of the well at Wellshot had to be abandoned, and as carriers were not procurable at Barcaldine to take the plant to Winton, it had been decided to send it to Kensington Downs.
I immediately called a public meeting, and laid the matter before it. The meeting decided that I should go to Barcaldine the following morning. Owing to accidents to the coach, and want of sobriety at several of the coach stages, we were very much behind time in arrival. I found that I could obtain carriers to take the plant to Winton at a reasonable price, and wired the Engineer, but, although I remained a week in Barcaldine, I did not get even an unsatisfactory reply from that officer.
I now received a hint that there were influences at work to prevent the plant going to Winton, and to send telegrams through another place. I arranged a long explanatory wire to Sir Thomas McIlwraith, to be sent from . . . . the operator at that place cutting off Barcaldine while the message was being sent, and the following day I was authorised by the engineer to arrange with carriers for the transport of the plant to Winton.
It was very pleasant to witness the chagrin of the local people when they learnt how their engineering was defeated.