Obituaries Australia

The death of Mr. Norman A. McLeod at Mareeba, Q., has caused feelings of intense regret amongst Labor people throughout Victoria, and indeed wherever the deceased journalist was known. He had been in an unsatisfactory state of health for the last six months, and a few weeks ago let up from his editorial work on the 'Labor Call' to proceed to Queensland to recuperate. It was felt that the more genial climate of the Northern State would mend his condition, and filled with joy at the prospect of his early return to Melbourne, a few of his more intimate friends quietly saw him off by boat one recent Saturday afternoon. Letters which came to hand seemed to indicate a change for the better, and in one of them McLeod spoke buoyantly of addressing a public meeting on a political question dear to his heart. The high hopes set on his return, however, were dashed ruthlessly to the ground on September 21, when a telegram was received announcing his death, which was no doubt hastened by an old pleuretic trouble and the attack of influenza which gripped him in the Victorian capital.

Norman McLeod was a man of fine appearance and had developed into an attractive speaker in the Labor movement. He was born at Waipu, New Zealand, studied for and was admitted to the bar of the Dominion. Always on the fighting side in politics, and having many gifted qualities as a writer, he went to Melbourne and assumed the editorship of the shortlived 'People's Daily.' He threw himself valiantly into the struggle which that journal had against adversity, and when it went to press for the last time he took up the editorship of the 'Tocsin,' which had formerly been run by that virile thinker, J. A. Andrews. Whilst under Mr. McLeod's control the 'Tocsin' was merged into the 'Labor Call,' and to its columns he contributed many able articles. In the organization of Labor, Norman McLeod soon took a foremost part, and from various offices held by him he rose to the presidency of the Victorian Political Labor Council, to which he was unanimously elected at the last Easter conference. His legal skill and searching analytical mind made him a splendid asset to the Labor movement, in which he was destined to win high Parliamentary honors had he lived. But Death, not content with garnering in those who have run their allotted span, takes from us both young and old — those whose life's work is done and those whose sphere of usefulness in brightening the lives of their fellows lies still before them. Norman McLeod could ill be spared, and though he be dead his good name will be cherished amongst men and women in the annals of the Labor cause.