He sought work unsuccessfully in the tin mines at Stanthorpe before finding employment as a store clerk in Toowoomba, later returning to Brisbane.

He subsequently moved to the Daily Northern Argus (Rockhampton) and then returned to Brisbane to work on the Telegraph and Courier (as leader writer).

Although membership of the Legislative Council was a life appointment, he resigned on 13 May 1901 in order to pursue a career in newly established federal parliament.

[1][6] After Federation on 1 January 1901, Edmund Barton formed a caretaker ministry with James Dickson as Queensland's sole representative.

He was generally regarded as a competent administrator,[2] although his appointment of Queenslander Robert Scott as the inaugural head of the Postmaster-General's Department led to accusation of state bias.

He held the position for only six weeks, as Attorney-General Alfred Deakin replaced Barton as prime minister the following month and appointed Drake as his successor.

He presented the Commonwealth's arguments in D'Emden v Pedder, one of the first significant constitutional cases decided by the High Court of Australia.

The Argus reported he had told an election meeting in Sydney:[7] It was undesirable that educated gentlemen who had been in gaol, or coloured men who had been shipwrecked, should land in Australia in defiance of the law.

He was not invited to join the Second Deakin ministry, although in January 1906 he established Commonwealth, a broadsheet designed to counter anti-federation feeling in Queensland.