his premiership he had been an eloquent and forceful opponent of Federation. He contended that Federation was a vainglorious manoeuvre of self-seeking politicians with 'imperial' notions, which did recognize the reality of Australia as a minor power, but succumbed to 'thoughts in our mind that we are a very much larger country in the universe than we really are'. The projected Federation would only 'vainly simulate the pretensions of another smaller empire'; an Australian empire which 'aimed at unification rather than federation', and thereby stymie the development of Queensland. Instead of the Federation that came to pass, Byrnes favoured political integration by means of the Federal Council of Australasia, an appointed body which had met biennially since 1885. At its 1897 meeting he proposed that the Council's legitimacy be enhanced by the direct election, by voters, of delegates to the Council. This proposal was opposed by leading Federationist members of the Council, and was defeated, with 9 delegates in favour and 9 against. This effectively spelt the end of the Council. On becoming premier in April 1898, Byrnes adopted a more circumspect position on Federation. On a tour of the pro-Federation Queensland north his earlier fighting words were replaced by diffuse professions of federalism in the abstract. In July 1898 Byrnes accepted an invitation by the leader of the NSW No campaign, Jack Want, to confer with the NSW premier George Reid. What passed between the two premiers at their Sydney conference remains one of the tantalizing unknowns of the federation story. The outcome of this excursion to Sydney was catastrophic to Byrnes on another account entirely. Death Byrnes' possibly brilliant future was cut short by contracting measles on his visit to Sydney in July 1898, which developed into pneumonia. He died on 27 September 1898. Byrnes was accorded a state funeral which proceeded from St Stephen's Cathedral to the Toowong Cemetery. Never married, he was survived by several brothers and sisters. Legacy Byrnes is commemorated by two statues, one in Centenary Place in Brisbane and the heritage-listed T J Byrnes Monument in Warwick, both funded by public subscriptions. The commissioning of the Brisbane statue encountered a series of setbacks. The sculptor Achille Simonetti was approached by the committee to create the statue. However, Simonetti had never seen Byrnes during his life and produced a plaster cast from photographs for the committee's approval before commencing the statue. The committee did