Obituaries Australia

The Premier (Mr. H. B. Lefroy) received the following cablegram yesterday from the Agent-General (Sir Newton Moore):— Regret advise Lieutenant B. J. [Bartholomew James] Stubbs killed in action September 26. Please convey sincere sympathy to relations." The news was received with widespread regret among all sections of the community, but particularly in Parliamentary and trades union circles. and the flag over Parliament House was flown at half-mast. It was only a fortnight before he met a soldier's death, namely on September 12, that he was re-elected unopposed for the Subiaco electorate in the Official Labour Party interests, and his death will necessitate a by-election. He was the first member of Parliament in Western Australia to make the supreme sacrifice in the course of the present war. Numerous messages of sympathy have been received by the widow, and the opinion generally expressed was that he died, as he lived, a clean, fearless, and manly fighter. Whatever position he held, or influence he possessed, was due to steady perseverance and a determined effort to improve the environment, intellectual and physical, of the wage-earners. In politics, although essentially a Labourite, he attracted notice for the earnestness and independence with which he expressed his strongly-held views, and both in Parliament and caucus he frequently assailed the policy of Mr. Scaddan. Withal he had an unassuming and amiable disposition and had many friends among all classes of the community.

Lieut. Stubbs was born on May 31, 1872, in Victoria, where he was apprenticed to the tailoring trade. In 1894 he came to Western Australia, and was one of the foundation members of the Perth Tailors' Union in 1896. He then spent several years on the goldfields, and while there he was prominently associated with the Tailors' Union in preventing the introduction of sweating in that trade. He assisted in strengthening the Tailors and Tailoreses' Union, and represented his craft on the Trades ' and Labour Council. Returning to Perth his efforts in behalf of trades unionism found further scope, and on more than one occasion he was elected president of the metropolitan council of the A.L.F., which office he held when the Trades Hall was opened in 1911. In the same year he was the selected Labour Party candidate for the Subiaco seat, and defeated Mr. H. Daglish, the Minister for Works, by 60 votes. At the general elections three years later he succeeded in retaining the seat against Mr. Daglish. He enlisted on February 14, 1916, and after gaining success in the N.C.O.'s schools, he went to Duntroon and qualified for commissioner rank, to which he was promoted on October 8 of the same year. He left the State on December 23 in charge of the 5th reinforcements of the 51st Battalion.

Mr. W. D. Johnson, speaking of his late colleague, said he first met Mr. Stubbs when he (Mr. Johnson) was secretary of the Kalgoorlie Trades Hall, about 18 years ago. From that time they had been closely associated in trades union matters. Lieut. Stubbs had always been a very consistent worker, and when he joined the Parliamentary Labour Party he became one of the most active and able members, and because of his consistency was greatly respected and was held in high esteem by friend and foe alike. He was associated with both Mrs. Johnson and himself in their early battles on the goldfields, and they had been firm friends since.

A vote of condolence was passed with the widow at a meeting of the Eight Hours Celebration Day committee at the Trades Hall last night on the motion of the chairman (Mr W. Roche). A number of prominent trade unionists paid touching tributes to the memory of the deceased.