Queensland Times 20 May 1880: An extract from the speech given by John MACFARLANE M.L.A. in his advice to young miners, at a meeting at Tivoli, in connection with the Miners’ Accident Fund.
“Success in Life, and how to obtain it”
- Keep good company; don’t fritter time away about the streets in idle and worthless talk of frivolity.
- Make the best of your time, and don’t waste your spare hours, but spend them in a manner calculated to give edifying instruction and information.
- Save your money – that is don’t spend it foolishly nor be miserly. Money is a great power for good if properly used, and those who saved most had generally most to give to good and fitting objects.
- Don’t wait too long before you get a wife. They might laugh but it was a fact that they should get a good helpmate to take care of themselves and their money, and none should wait much after they are twenty four. But if you do not have £50 in the bank, they should leave marriage alone. Better still it would be better that they had saved £150, and could take a wife to a home of their own.
- Make up your mind to succeed in life, and do not be content to remain a mere workman all your life if you can do better.