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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 BONDS OF DISUNION OB E^^GLISH MISRULE IN THE COLONIES ^: B( 't.ONDOM t PRlNTr.D BY SrOTTISWOODB AND CO,, NRW-8TRF,KT SQl'ARa AND TARLIAMTiNT STRKKT A « 79 BONDS OF DISUNION OR ENGLISH MISRULE IN THE COLONIES BY C. J. ROWE, M.A. R AnmSTER - AT - LAW AUTHOH OF 'QUKST.0.V8 OF THB nAV IN VICTORIA- LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1883 •ill righti reserved CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION . . CHAPTER I. A TRANSITION PERIOD OP ENGLISH HISTORY n. IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA-- DIVIDE ET IMPERA ' III. MALADMINISTRATION OP r-AviT.r.^T Al^ON OF CANADIAN LAND-PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA ANTIPODES ' VI. INJJRIOUS EMIGRATION SrrTPiirr.o „ AXZON SCHEMES -MISMANAGEMENT OF EMIGRA- TION TO AUSTRALIA VII. DENATIONALISATION OF THE I XD IN VICTORIA Vm. WAKEFIELDISM-. THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE' XX. SYSTEMATIC FLEECING-. HIGH PRICE' I. VICTORIA, LATE PORT PHILLIP . X. PART I. THE DUAL HOUSE SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA X'AKT II. PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION XI. IMPERIAL FEDERATION -CONCLUSION • • . . PARR 1 12 5n 89 117 . 1.56 19H 227 266 310 .324 .S.30 348 2 3'} Z 5 y^ IM It sei for a ducto to be and tl appai'i M; the pi tion ii: for the objects Iti suits ^v while, view 01 of the 1 trating reasoiii] I wii at the need nc that su! BONDS OF DISUNION; OB IMPEEIAL MISRULE IN THE COLONIES. INTRODUCTION. apparent apolorfor a want T '"" ""'' ^'^ i^^tiM b; My belief, Wver I l/nrT"';""' ''^'^'^^" "'«» tUe present instate ^d '1: lerer^^ 1 T' '"' '" for tlie sake of convenience an,l oU.T ^""^^ aavanc., wl..le, on the other hand, the mere stlto „ 'of L""?"'";'' ^ v.ew ouglit of itself to suffice to ensure a cojf ^'" '" of the means used to effect it of til f ^ apprec.atioi, "■ating it. and of the cot^™ti4 v la t/t?"''"^'"' /" "'"- reasoning. "^ °' "'« general hne of Iwish, then, as shortly as mav be to »>-!,■ » ,, ' at the outset, the ffeneral'scope of a work ""i "h n" " T'"' need net fail to interest, however deflti™ * '?'' ™''J''^'' «.at su,e. may be, and howe^:; tllllll^ ^'^S ^,1°: 2 BONDS OF DISUNION. the average Englishman may nerve himself to bestow upon a work which concerns itself mainly with well-worn matters of bygone colonial history. With reference to the title of this book, it may be well at once to proffer the explanation that, in my meaning, the • Bonds of Disunion ' of which I treat are to be taken as ex- pressive of those political measures for the government of our Colonies which, while intended to weld the empire into one harmonious whole, whereof each part should derive its laws from a common centre, were, and under any circumstances would be, so many centrifugal forces tending to disunion between England and her Colonies. Every now and again we are regaled witli some elaborated scheme of quasi-legislative union between Great Britain and her Colonies wherever situate. We are told of the formidable front which would be presented to the universe by the vast Imperial Federation thus formed ; of the immeasurable bene- fits that would be conferred by it on a world prone to dis- ordered dreams of wild ambition ; of the millennium of peace and prosperity such union would inaugurate, and of the bound- less authority the federated empire might exercise and claim. Utopian theories these — wild, feverish, vague, high-soundino-, and raised on the flimsy foundation of unreasoning fancy. To those who lend themselves to the advocac}/ of such schemes, numbers- -the number of square miles, the number of people to be confederated— are everything. The greater the number brought under the influence of a central legislative body at Imlf the globe's distance from those colonies most specially sought CO be included in the .happy union, the greater is to be the might, the more real and overwhelming the power, of the united whole. The hidividual dispositions, wants, jealousies, and ambitions of particular colonies, of individual members of colonial populations, are to the Federalists considerations to be advanced only in order to be dismissed as unworthy of the high dignity they claim for their loftiness of view. And yet it is just those very individual whims, caprices, or call them by what names you will, that must ever/orm the insuper- INTRODUCTION. l\cr able hnpeaiment to the realisation of the most h>olv In i • ot tederatioii sdiemes. ""t; most lJve];y-looki The necessity for complete local self-government H,. 'i to give local expression to ii.rLv,M„„i ^"^^^""^^"^ the wish local remedies foHoca gl:;f,:^:r:f' '"^' '" P'™'"'" one of then, will over ^"^,17 -T '° ■""''P'"^'' "'=" »"y foreign le«i„utive To y ^f „S' ^ 1? "''?*7- of an," nient of wliiel, the colom- ..,,?/ u ^" '°'' ""* manage- "« body. The e:*"L: 'f :" H"* " '^°""'^'->' *'-'- is not easy to see how Ttv f '"!' "">^'Wlieli;>,te "^ (v\f'^^;™'-'' '^ P™Posed to lore n,ea„ nothing less tht: b'oj e ^ C'S" "" l""^- to mtermeddle with the internal detir„f '"*'' .'=omP''t™«y by admitted facf bVhSorn iM T^ P""''' "'"<='' ^''ow which, whether i be, ^:lTto""w,;?f' T' t^.r™-^' spontaneously supply tint 1,7 *^:, "' *'"' """^tration 3 b2 BONDS OF DISUNION. not in vain, for if there is one broad result that stands out marked as the indisputable outcome of the lir.ppily superseded experiment, it is that the more tightly each legislative tie was drawn between England ar.a her Colonies, the greater became the enfeebling strain upon it. The closer the connection attempted to be established, the more w^ealdy grew the fine- spun link between exacting parent State and indignant depen- dency, and each fresh assertion of imperial authority or of the right of imperial interference was an additional instalment of ' Bonds of Disunion.' The mere fact of the Colonies being governed from a dis- tant unsympathetic centre was of itself enough to alienate from England the affections of colonists revelhng in a sense of their own power and importance ; and even though the rule miiicted on them had been as free from fault as it was fraught with injustice and mistake, its continuance would, in all pro- bability, never have been tolerated beyond that preliminary stage which precedes the formation of local government institu- tions in the colony itself. J]ut the proceedings of tJie Imperial Government in regard to the Colonies were certainly not free from blame, nor would it be easy to point to any one of them as not be^ig in truth, at one time or another, an impolitic irritant to the easily aroused passions of jealous colonial populations. Injurious as most of them were to the colonies on whom the main burden of injudicious and perpetual home interference fell, they operated still more efficiently against the maintenance of union, or even harmony, between England aid the Colonies. \\'liat were the main errors, and worse than orrors, that formed the most noteworthy portion of the record of the imperial government of the most important colonies left to us, after our attempts to reduce the then North-American colonies to the position of London-governed provinces had pro- duced their natural results, it has been my endeavour to u'lrrate in this book. The examples I have given are those alone which appear to me most typical of their kind, for to have ?idduced a multitude of others would have done little but encumber with useless detail a chain of illustration in itself all powerful to prove, that both in Canada and in Australia, the INTEODUCTION. 5 of ae.f-g„ve,™e„t could a^et t^^C "^'°" "' "" "^"' eienS :x:tan:r:/:r arr f^^ r ^-' -«'■ farther the question of WaS^ '^''™'' " '""'-" sHeration will give a more Sir. «"■ """^ "'^ o""" I wish to be derived fro- > fw, ?"'.'^'=™'=^ *» 'h^ deductions An important'eV^X^aK^r^'^f '^ """"'^• be, that the country cWmWM ?™^f ''"■''"* ^""^^''ly authority in the ^e a ™1 "l Zld^ "" "'"^'' ^''"^ <" its capacity for conductingSiS V .T" P™°''^ »' on principles likely to be "''7'"™'' «*■<>» ol its own afiairs that from the history of its r"' '" "'' ^"'^ '■^^»'"'. ^"J to furnish a guartr [h! rwlSn" r " ^ ^"'' to be confided to it will only be used tn h! ' l'" "^P"™'' imperial domain. For this Bur»ose ^f J t f'^™""'*^ «f "'e a record of a consistent vhf V °''''' ''" """'j' to show social changes tf ex^loA n ^ 1^2:" If;' '^f' """ ^e'a^et^^:^--H3f^!— ^^^ :^SsSra^tt';v::s^H^-^^^ rotten, unjust, and hopelessly cor,™t iiHs ^ T "'"" '^ Can such assurance be fuinihed from the '™*'"'«°"^- modem domestic legislation o GrelrBr n rr^'ri'^' assumed that the future course tl,»t ,? i * i ^''" " ''<' the Colonies byEnglaTd.Tto. 'taT^frusl'Tr'^'' '"""* dn-ectorship of the Federal Counci tvou fd a ffe/inV^^f "' BO^'DS OF .DISUNION. imperial scheme, the denial of England's claim to effective precedence would ensure the hopeless wreck of the crude design. The portion of England's history that I have chosen for cursory review is one which typifies the period of transition from oligarchical despotism gaudily decked out with a false similitude of free institutions, to a time when the people of England, roused at length to a knowledge of their own irre- sistible power, made a bold and partially successful bid for the popularisation of the Constitution, and for comprehensive re- form in all departments of administration. In the former period, the country was being rapidly conducted by the glaring misgovernment of a class to the alternative between ruin and rebellion ; in the latter period, the conviction of absolute necessity had forced an unwilling ruling class to concede to peaceful revolution those popular reforms which might other- wise have been extorted by unreasoning violence, and when, like a faded leaf, the structure of privilege, corruption, and hereditary right that had uniformly opposed an audacious denial to the people's will, had crumbled to powder under the vigorous touch of the reforming hand. Unreformed England was certainly not a guide whom the Colonies would have willingly chosen. Is it probable that their experience of their government by Eeformed England would render her more acceptable to them as a counsellor and leader ? Here, again, the answer must be framed in no doubtfal negative. Clear and decisive it should be, if reason- able inference from hard facts be not altogether valueless. In this book I have endeavoured to demonstrate tliat, whether England was bound or free, whether oppressed and mis- managed by a clique or governing herself to her own advan- tage, each and all of her eflbrts to govern her Canadian and Australian colonies, or to interfere in the management of their local and general concerns, were productive of an ever-growing want of confidence in the purity of lier intentions, cf an in- creasing disapproval of her measures — of so bitter and wide- spread a dislike as to make it in the highest degree unlikply that the Colonies would ever consent to yield up to England INTEODUCTION. m the smallest share of rielit to intenno,!,!!^ domestic concerns. Not ev™ t T^' T ™"' "' "'^''^ ^vilhngly admit her into Pedera vJJ'^TT ™"''' "'^^ less, tl>en, as a Power entitM* \ ""' *'"""^«1™^ : ^^ Betwe;„ Eefo3 ir^utStXa'thr^ '''• rn"Ter^T"r=^ nation. Regeneration had been evnl,-'' '^ before and after the KefornreTa, td I^'ve^ "exttt o'fl'^ d.irerence effected at home furnishes an instn^ti "„" *> %-»'r..». t"»* mv ^iMtm 8 BONDS OF DISUNION. tary on the entire absence of alteration in our contemporary system of colonial government. From the point of view of the national welfare it seems to be as desirable aa it is natm-al that, within certain limits, people should regard their own individual interests as para- mount to those of their neighbours. National prosperity flows primarily from tho efforts of individuals to better^heir own condition, and not from a national striving after a philan- thropic interference in the affairs of other people or other countries. England would probably not have worked out her own reforms as thoroughly as she has done had she not been too intent upon them to have had either time or inclination for taking into serious consideration the wants of the Colonies. It was well for England that she did not concern herself about them ; it was well also for the Colonies themselves, for it in- grained into them the conviction that they had nothing to hope from the sympathy of the public at home, and that upon themselves alone they must rely if they would gain the legis- lative independence they so eagerly desired. It taught them, hi fact, to look closer to their own business than they had hitherto done. The bearing of these considerations upon the question of imperial federation is pertinent enough. The British public took no thought for the Colonies, and made no provision against their continued misgovernment, at a time when all other government institutions in Great Britain were condemned to radical reconstruction because of their corrupt- ness and inefficiency— excepting alone the Colonial Office, the congenial home of red-tape, corruption, and incapacity. For the Colonies the public cared nothing then, and it cares nothing for them now. Test the last statement, reader, if you will. Inquire hov/ many of your acquaintance know the political or geographical divisions of Canadian or Australasian colonies ; how many of them have the rare patience to wade through a single volume relating to colonial history, or to peruse a single newspaper article bearing on the most important colonial questions. Go to the civic or poHtical banquet where the toast of ' The Colonies ' figures last on the speech list, and wliere only a few uninterested loungers linger while tlie utterances INTRODUCTION. a of colonial representatives form nn nr.i,«„ i to tl.e delayed pleasures of ZtaMeFZ TTf""'"' knowledge of the Colonies is in parted to tt " *'"" '"'' "^ at school or at home Co wT ,n ,, f ™'°^ generation you can but conTude thi 'f / T'"'''''''" Possible, and there is amongst 't^l '^^.^ ^^ r^ B^r^^iTyresi^trr' ''"-- ^~ -"^ nlmfo ^f o -1 ^ '"^^ aesirous of a new security. The ex pioits ot a cncketing team mnv of+>.„ + j- ^na ex- future precedent a^d example tothe pa eLt Zf^T'"" '"' solitary vestige. And ./y shoJilT tC" beTl ^^wV^o: present 3 • T""' "" '""^ - "instructing our own present and m frammg our own future? Are we not in so I must ever be, as long as the nation is itL'o exercise t.; ctr t; "" «'^^""— of intnirs atteirroTtirg—;;::-^^^^^^^^^^^^^ opportunity gives rise to some freshly-born Zi ! Z T n turn The hands of a nation blessed with free nower regulate >ts own affairs on a popular basis must alwavTbe fo d7T r°/; """ '" "P^'^'-^ "^^'f '" =et its owXse ^\hy then hould she concern herself about the i iternal afla,rs o Colon.es of whose condition and circumstan es2 mass of her people know nothing and care nothir" Let ' Impenal Federalists explain this, and let them prove Tf tl v can that any attempt on England's part to d rect in th« malles degree the external policy of a colony would not b 17' '^.r, 'f«"-f -^' -'" "'^ lomesL poHcv Let tnem de,„on.t.ate, ,f they can, tliat such a course would not be prejud.c.al to the best mterests of Englaad itseras in a 5 I I 10 M BONDS OF DISUNION. !i :il ii! measure tending to witlidraw her attention from plans for the amehoration of her own condition, and that it would not furnish a dangerous irritant to the easily excited animosity of the colonial community. It is not my intention to discuss at any further length, in this irtroductory chapter, Imperial Federation schemes. Each page in this book should furnish arguments against them, £,nd reference to the subject directly would best find place m its concluding pages. The facts set forth in the following chapters are proofs of an apathetic indifference to colonial interests on the part of England's people in tines past, and of the unavoidable tendency of colonial government from a distant centre to produce the rapid severance of the tie by which it was sought to bind the Colonies in subjection to an English Government department. I have alluded here to the visions of federal schemers, because at the root of all their plans is the maintenance of the principle of centralised government. C.':.n we hope that the consequences of the application of that principle in the future would differ in kind from the ascertained results of its previous trials ? Do the teachings of experience allow us to suppose that a system that has broken down in every detail, wherever put into active operation, can ever furnish a more favourable record of success if refurbished under a deceptive title indicative of mutual co-partnership ? It cannot be that it should ; but if, on the other hand, an all-powerful ' Bond of Disunion ' is to be urgently desired, if the complete disruption of our colonial empire is an object to be attained with certainty and speed, then let us energetically promote the formation of a Federal Union and Council for matters of imperial concern. But one word more by way of introduction. The miser- able condition of England in the opening decades of the present century was, truly enough, alleged by the reformers, to be du3 to the domination of a landowning class. Every effort was made by the popular leaders to reduce the poAver of the landowners, for sneh a limitation was seen to be a con- dition necessarily precedent to the establishment of a rational INTKOUUCTiON. 11 system of popular government. Yet it was just when the nation liad begun to acquire a certain amount of control over Its former rulers that it was deemed just and wise to impose upon the Australian colonies measures for the encouragement 01 a greater and more injurious monopoly of landowning tlian England herself had been called upon to grapple with, ihe curse of England, landowning monopoly, was at a pen- stroke transplanted to the soil of the antipodes. There, alas ' It has struck deep root, and may in time furnish, in the sad consequences of an embittered struggle between the acred few ai.d the landless many, the most fitting tribute to the iniquitous lolly of English colonial rulers. Do English Ministries, to whatever extent of Liberalism they may pledge themselves in home politics, perceive the evil their predecessors have created in Australia? If so they do their best to intensify it by conferring titles and dis- tmctions upon the many-acred shepherd king ; and, worse than that, by introducing into Australia the principle of hereditary title. • Heretofore the colonial landowner has looked upon his extensive property from a commercial point ot view, as a means for the acquisition of wealth, and has shrunk from the prospect of letting his eldest son grow up in idleness in expectation of a paternal inheritance. To-morrow he may regard his acres as necessary to be kept together for the maintenance of the dignity of the title which his heir will succeed to. Eldest sons, aristocratic, customs, and class hatreds— these are the injuries which England still has it in her power to be^stow upon the Colonies, and the infliction of which affords conclusive proof that to-day, as in times past, the mother-country continues to give evidence of hopeless incapacity to comprehend the conditions of colonial life. ' I allude to the baronetcy recently conferred on Sir W. J Clarke reputed to be the largest landowner and richest squatter in Australia. ' 12 BONDS OF DISUNION. CHAPTER I. A TEANSITION PEEIOD OP ENGLISH HISTORY. Glance for a moment, if you please, at the long list of measures passed within the last fifty years for the relief of the English labouring and middle classes. Look at the sweeping nature of the reforms contained in those measures, and remember that they were extorted from Parliaments bitterly hostile to changf}. Read how concessions for the people's benefit were wept for, clamoured for, struggled for, before being finally wrested from rulers callous to the misery that they themselves had caused. What must have been the condition of the people whose necessities claimed such reforms, yet could not obtain them except at the cost of such constant suffering and agita- tion ? What must have been the character of the Govern- ment which persistently withheld the meanest instalment of reform until extracted by the force of no longer resistible ur- gency ? See, even to-day, around us a mass of humanity, fighting for profit, for employment, or only for bare existence, and un- ceasingly calling for legislative reforms. If witli untrammelled trade, with the universe pouring its wealth of produce in keen competition on an English market, with an unshackled press thundering out its mandate of ' popular rule,' in accordance with a public opinion which encourages to the full the ventilation of grievances and remedies, the Englishman of to-day is still discontented and restless, how must the bulk of the community have fared in the earlier years of the present century, before a single remedial measure had been passed ? — when, out of their scanty earnings, a narrow oligarchy of borough-mongers main- tained themselves in power and place as the ' elect of the ,! ;,! A TRANSITION PrRIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 13 people ; ' when they turned their power to account to oppress the poor to enrich themselves, to rob the public pui^le to stifle tmde, to proscribe cheap food, to promote ^-obbr monopoly, venahty, and corruption, to burke discussion to foster crime, o perpetuate and maintain, as the most sacred buhvark of the nation, the grinding religious, social and political mequahty from which for half a century or mo^e the country has been ^ rying to extricate itself " Let us make the picture as bright as possible. See then firs population increasing, borough -mongers in course of being overthrown, trade expandmg, invention in powerful swing, and the people at last on the high road to freedom and self-govern- ment ; and et the very magnitude of these changes poinUhe misery which necessitated their accomplishment ^ ^ "'"^ The population of the United Kingdom had increased frn.n 10,000,000 in 1819 to 24,000,000 in 1881. T^sTs ll up by an increase of the population of Great Britain from to 7,750,000. Between these periods, again, the gross taxable income had increased by over 50 per cent., or from 150,000 000/ to about 250,000,000/., so that the national income had in.: proved m a geometrical ratio to increase of population. More over, the cheapening of every manufactured article, brou-Iit about by the use of labour-saving inventions, by vastly fm proved modes of communication, and by the greater facilities for exchange afforded by them, had increased the purchasinir power of the enlarged income by 70 to 80 per cent. The power-loom and the spinning-jenny had taken t\e place of the hand-loom, the threshing-machine had been sub fitituted for the tedious manual work of the labourer and invention was busy in all departments of industry. Steam railways, after having been laughed out of court by all that was wise, great, powerful, and official in the land were at length faiily started in i830, and with what vast results on the peace, prosperity, and progress, not only of Plngland but of the universe, we now know. As men travelled quicker so tliey thought quicker. A closer contact was established between different parts of the kingdom, and the nation fjr the 14 BONDS OF DISUNION, first time began to discover its real condition of suffering and stagnation. Long-lauded blessings began to be regarded as unmitigated evils, and England at last positively set to work to cleanse the Augean stable in wliicli it was living— nay, even to upset the glorious Constitution of 1G8B. Long and bitter was the struggle, but the nation was getting rid of leading, strings, and was beginning to find out its own power. As soon as it did so it became irresistible, and bit by bit the wonderful framework raised a century and a half before was reformed, overturned, and finally reconstructed out of all recognisable existence. Eeligious dissent had been formerly regarded as a grave offence, and was still punishable by the exclusion of Dissenters from all offices of trust. This must be altered, and a reluctant Legislature was forced to declare that the country should be allowed to claim the services of Dissenters of all kinds, and that formal subservience to an established religion was no longer to be the tes ) of magisterial capacity. Blood relationship or family connection with those in power, had been generally held to constitute a right to live on the public purse. This, however, was not the view of the re- formers, who saw no virtue in the arrangement, and insisted that not only should public officials be rewarded in proportion to the work to be done by them, but also that highly- salaried State servants should no longer be permitted to procure cheaply- paid substitutes to do the work entrusted to them. Nor w^ere the reversions to public offices of trust to be vended in future for the benefit of the privileged few to whom the public service was a profitable gamble. The venerable Church, too, was to be reformed. Good fellowship, unclerical habits, and good birth were no longer to be the sole qualifications for Church dignities. The Church must thenceforward exist for the people, and not the people for the Church. The courts of justice in their turn were attacked, though with no great success. We all know that the laws of England represent the perfection of human reason, that they are known to all, and that there is and ever has been free access A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 15 to tlie court^ of justice for the meanest subjects of the realm. The respectabihty of these maxims was to a great extent hrown away upon the reformers who turned their attention to tlie comphcated and expensive nature of legal proceedings. They saw in them the evidence of the falsification of all true principles of administration of justice. Each court of common law had Its own peculiar nrocedure, clashing with that of the courts aroun^ it, and chaos, confusion, and glorious iteration reigned at Weshnmster ui honoured supremacy. Each step 111 a proceeding at law was so tedious, slow, uncertain, and costly, and It was also capable of such indefinite protraction that only the man endowed at once with the longest purse and the greatest share of obstinacy could hope to succeed in a lawsmt. The law should be the guarantee of liberty, and that It can only be if the poor man has the same chance of getting justice done for him as the rich man has. This it was evident, he had not. He was told that the courts of law were open to him for redress, ' but so,' said Home Tooke, ' was the London tavern-to any one who could pay.' As a consequence the risk run by a rich man in defrauding a poor one was rendered inlinitesimally small. But the justice of the law courts was speedy and cheap besides the dilatory proceedings of the Court of Chancery where the length of suits was measured by decades and half- centuries^ where people were born in Chancery, lived and died m Chancery, and left therein their descendants lor as long as there was any corpus possessing a value over which Chancery could claim cognisance. The constitution of this court, origmally devised to deal with less than a million of money, had been in no whit altered, though the property withm Its tenacious grasp amounted in value in 1831 to morp than 40,000,000^. sterling. Honest and capable as most of the judges were, both at law and equity, they had no interest in conducting the business before them either quickly or well so long as they were paid by fees and not by salary The mfenor officers of the courts, who were paid in like manner or their part had a lively interest in throwing impediments in tlie way oi expeditious termination of suits. 16 BONDS OF DISUNION.- But the system, or rather want of system, was dear to the lawyers long taught to consider legal procedure, as well as the law itself, the higliest perfection of human reason. Up to 18B2 but slight improvement had been effected in law procedure beyond the substitution of payment by salary to the judges instead of payment by fees. Venerable fictions were too powerful for the reforming spirit to contend j, gainst with success, and it was not till the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852 came into force that legal proceedings began to be conducted on a fairly intelligible basis. While such was the state of our civil courts, the evils of the 'justice' dispensed by the criminal courts were quite as apparent and far more terrible. The criminal laws were nidiscrnuinate slaughter enactments. Our legislators at the beginning of the century had but one remedy for crime. • Hang ! hang ! ' was their guiding rule, as if hanging was the best use to which a human being could be devoted. Nowadays it is thought that punishment should be but a means to an end—a process to be applied to reform a conniiunity and to discourage from crime. Not so thought our forefathers. They were, in fact, too careless of either the moral or physical good of the people to reason out schemes for the prevention of crime. One of the most humiliating chapters of our national history is that in which the House of Lords and the bench of Bishops, headed by a Lord Chancellor and supported by the voice of a Lord Chief Justice of England, appea.- as banding their energies together in the cause of judicial murder, and successfully denouncing the noble efforts' of Eomilly and Mackintosh to remove the capital penalty from trivial offences as the hallucinations of crack-brainorl ' theorists.' Till 1833 the very barbaritv of cm criminal laws 'con- tinued to furnish powerful incentives to crime by the reaction their severity produced in pubHc feeling. In the clearest cases juries over and over again refused to convict when a punishment grotesquely disproportioned to the offence charged would follow a verdict of ' guilty.' In a large number of cases they gave verdicts involving deliberate perjury— by re- ducing the amount sworn to as the value of stolen property, A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 1? in order to avoid the capital conviction. Prosecutors and w-tnesses could hardly be induced to come forward at all when their evidence might hang some unfortunate, guilty of a trumpery offence committed in a moment of weakness or under the pressure of starvation. As evidenced by the statistics of half a century ago. the chances of a prisoner behig convicted at all were only about Hix or seven to four, and the odds of the quahty of his offence being reduced by the verdict of a jury were largely in T prisoner's favour Taking, for instance, the criminal statistic or 1832 we find that the number of people committed for trial m that year was 20,820, of whom only 14,947 were cor- victed. No fewer than 1,449 were condemned to death But so opposed was public opinion to the barbarity of tJie criminal system that the death sentence was but rarel/permittedrbe carried out, and it had become a mere formal method of tennmating a tri.l for the graver kinds of offences. In 1832 It appears that only 54 people were executed, and 15 of these executions were for murder. It was evident that the criminal law had fallen into utter contempt, and nothing can furnish a clearer proof of this, and of the consequent increase onnduce ments to crime furnished by Draconian rigour, than the rise m the number of criminals from 4,G05 in 1805, to 9,091 in 181G, and to 20,829 in 1832 -a quickly ascending ;ate o" increase altogether disproportionate to the increase of ponula tion over the period. ^ The Game Laws were held up to the nation as sublime achievements of statesma^iship, and as corner-stones of the glorious Constitution. Under these laws only landed pro pnetoiy and their heirs apparent, as also tlieir gamekeepers' were allowed to kill game. Any one f xmd tranfgressing tS irame Laws was liable to be sentenced and tried by the magis trate, who was at the same time his accuser. The poacher judged and sentenced by the landowner on whose preserves he had trespassed, was sent to herd with the worst of criminals bmarting under a sense of injustice, he formed a ready tool for his new companions, and rarely did the man convicted of tlw. dii-e offence of putting his toil-worn hand on a pheasant or a c 18 BONDS OF DISUNION. partridge emerge from prison without having irrevocably committed himself to association with the gallows-birds he left behind him. But, however severe and unfairly administered the Game Laws were, they did little or nothij^g to check poaching, especially when, as too often happened, the mass of the popu- lation was sunk in the deepest distress. It was made a penal offence to sell game. This enactment naturally drove up the price of game, and acted as a further stimulus to poaching. The brains of landlordism were, how- ever, quite equal to the occasion, and erected the buying of game into a penal offence. The nation could not take this last feat of legislative wisdom au serieux. People laughed at it for awhile, and then bought more game than ever. After 1831 some of the feudal privileges attaching to a landowner's monopoly of game were swept away, and the game- licence system was adopted which is now in vogue. But until very recently poaching was still considered as one of the most serious of offences in the eye of the law, and it doubtless^ IS so rated still by many a Squire Western of modern times. A step forward in the lesseniiig of landowners' privileges was taken ere long. By 1830 the nation had become obtuse enough to be unable to see why landowners should continue to have the sole and exclusive privilege of defrauding their creditors, while ordinary debtors were thrown into prison for indefinite periods, not unfrequently embracing a lifetime. So in that year it procured the passing of an Act providing that Llie proceeds realised from the sale of landed estates should be liable to be attaclied hi payment of debts contracted on it, and in 1883 real estate was for the first time subjected to hability for the payment of simple contract debts. These reforms may soem but small ones compared with the evils arising from landowning monopoly, and which future generations, if not the present, will still have to assail ; but considering that the Parliaments of those days were composed of landlords Piid their nominees, it was then infinitely more difficult to effect trifling reforms in the laws relating to land than it w^ould be at the present day to procure complete and sweeping changes. A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 19 If by the measures above mentioned the defensive positions of the landlords were still left almost inviolate, the thin ed^e of lie wedge of reconstruction had been introduced, and, further lie oftensn^ powers of acred magnates were sadly curtailed by general legislation. ^ The time had at length arrived when landlordism i>i England was no longer to be treated as an absolutely inviolable prmciple. The standards of right were now declared to be standards of wrong, misrule, and iniquitous oppression. The people proclaimed their intention of setting up an entirely difterent set of principles for the conduct of legislation and or the government of the country. This could only be done through the medium of a Reformed Parliament, so Parliament was reiormed. It f^^\^y intention to go into the details of the oft-told ale of Parhamentary Reform, but it will be necessary to advert to i ni order to throw light upon the condition of the people and ol the government of the country at the time ^> was effected, by pointing out some of the more glarin- evils attachmg to the representation of the people which required immediate attention. ^ The position of Members of Parliament was in manv respects an enviable one. They revelled in the privile-e of exemption from arrest for civil process, so long as thev con. tinued Members, and they also enjoyed an immunity from submission to decrees and from paying the cost of suits, in the Ecclesiastical Courts. These privileges were equally agreeable to large capitalists as to the landlords, and rightly so, for they furnished to both a sate and simple relief from pecuniary difficulties. Thus a nian desirous of defrauding his creditors would often purchase a .seat m Parliament from some influential borough-monc^er who welcomed the profitable transaction. Then, as the ' elect ' of tiie people he would lift up an indignant voice against the crime ol indebtedness, and give a senatorial vote for drastic measures for filling the prisons with insolvent debtors For tiiese, however innocent or unfortunate, no punishment could be too severe. Or from the safe obscurity of Boulogne or ¥ ri 20 BONDS OF DISUNION. Calais he might resell his seat for a profit on the original transaction. Public opinion had gradually come to consider these prac- tices as objectionable ; at last they became scandalous, when in 1820 a debtor in the Fleet, for debts amounting to 7,600/., was by one of those judicio s arrangements returned for Beverley. The prison doors were opened at once to the honour- able Member ; but truth compels us to relate that, instead of adorning with his presence the Parliamentary arena, he betook hiaiself to the retirement of a Continental retreat. On the other hand, a seat in Parliament might be made the means ofliquidating a just debt, for an influential owner of a borough might hand it over as an asset to some importunate creditor. If unembarrassed, he might satisfy the claims of conscience and relationship by handing the seat over for a time to a younger son or a needy relative for whom it was incumbent on him to make suitable provision. The jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts at that time extended to grants of probate and suits for divorce. The pro- bate proceedings might involve expensive issues directly chargeable to the inefficient administration of a trustee, who yet, if a Member of Parliament, could not be called upon to pay one iota of the costs, to carry a decree into execution, or to make good damage caused by a breach of trust. Or' an heir-at-law might, if a Member, refuse to produce a will settiing aside his claims or creating a charge in favour of some one else. Wliere elections were contested, the electors became marketable commodities, to be bought up at fancy prices. The pollhig sometimes went on for weeks at a time, and the grossest bribery, corruption, and intimidation were freely indulged in and as openly boasted of. The expenses of tliese elections were enormous, and, except through the avenue of ii pocket borough, only a very wealthy man could dream of getting into Parliament. Pohtical discussion was the last thing to be thought of at election time. It was a season of drunken orgies for the iiuelligcnt freeman and the enlightened burgess. In some A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 21 boroughs the privilege of returning a Member to Parliament was confined to he Mayor and Corporation. In others, a hmited body of freeholders were the only ones entitled to exercise the franchise. In at any rate one borough, an in dividual was known to have proposed, elected, and r turned hnnself as duly elected, and, as he at the same time held the office of sheriff, his proceedings were strictly within his ri^ht The anomahes were abundant, and to us are probably inore sarthng than they appeared to a generation which regarded them as grateful mdications of the eternal fitness of things If there was any priiaciple at all regulating the distribution of electoral privileges, It would seem to have been that the larger the population of any particular place the fewer should be the number of voters allowed to it ; and that representa- tion should, as far as possible, be made to bear an inverse ratio everywhere to the numbers of the people and to the mag- nitude of their interests. Nominally, there was a House of Commons representative of the people, but actually, a House representative of the Lords. It furnished the latter with places and pensions, imposed taxes on the people to provide for these, and presented the nation in return with Corn Laws, Navigation Laws, criminal laws of midiluted savagerv and penal laws of varying hues of absurdity and cruelty B t ' the eternal fitness of things ' was now to undergo alteration even m the sacred abode of legislative incapacity, and in 1882 a House of Lords, the palladium of our Constitution, thoudi deal to the wants of the people, consented to the reform of the House of Commons in order to prevent the extension of its own privileges to others more worthy of them. Now let us look at the dark side of the picture. Hitherto we have seen progress and reform effected or about to be effected ; now we have to deal with poverty and suffering with tolly rampant and unrelieved by remedial change. The prosperity of the nation from the beginning of the centm-y up^to 1832 was far more apparent than real." Above ■ a cprtam line, v^as improvement and increasing comfort • below, grinding distress but a short remove from starvation! m a«M»> 22 BONDS OF DISUNION. The substitution of machinery for hand labour had facihtated and cheapened production. Improved agricultural and farm- ing implements were raising a larger produce from the land, b\it a rapidly increasing "population had produced a demand far more than the increased produce. In consequence, poorer lands had been brought into cultivation, and the rent of land had greatly risen. But the enlarged farming area had not sufficed to bring into employment more than a comparatively small number of the thousands of agi'icultural labourers tin-own out of work by the introduction of threshing- machines. In manufactures too, many thousands of people had been thrown out of employment by the introduction of the power- loom and the spinning-jenny, and the demand created by the cheapness consequent on facilitated production had not yet become sufficiently great to allow of the re -engagement of these destitute toilers. Amongst manufacturers and merchants, the competition engendered by the increased cheapness of production had lowered profits all round for the time being, and the fifty per cent, rise in the taxa'^le income of the country represented httle nore than a rise in the incomes of the landowners and of tlu o^reater capitalists. For a while the industrious Lancashire aen refused to recognise the signs of the times, and stuck patiently to their superseded hand- looms. At one time it was estimated that at least 41,000 of them were endeavouring to subsist on as little as twopence per diem. But this could not last long, and in the rage of infatuated despair many of them joined the bands of un- employed labourers then devoting their energies to indis- criminate rick-burning and general machine-breaking. Over this untoward state of things the powers that were resolved to triumph. They set aboui the laudable endeavour by enjoining upon the parishes to extend the operation of the Poor Law, by supplementmg the labourers' pay out of the Poor Kates. Whether a labourer was able-bodied or not, the rates were to be expended in supplementing his earnings, if in- suificient for his own support. He was to be entitled to relief, not according to the value of his services, but in pro- A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 23 portion to the number of his progeny-therefore the larger his family was m point of numbers the greater would be the amount of rehef afforded him. The effect of these provisions soon became painfully apparent. Famihes Lad become lucrative investments, givin' rates of p.ofit or livehhood increasing progressively with the numbers and helplessness of their members. For the first tnne m his life, .he labourer found himself authoritatively encoumged m extravagance and improvidence. Young people could look forward to State endowments on their marriages • the older people found the necessity for work superseded b^ an amiable State mechanism. The parishes were startled when they perceived the extent ot the growing burden thus thrust upon them. The labouring population, by degrees, came to lock upon the parish allowance as their inalienable freehold, and in consequence the emulation ot parish officials was directed to shifting on to each other their expensive pauper bills. Proud indeed of its diplomacy was the parish that could contrive to marry off some aged temale pauper to a pauper of the opposite sex in some adjoining parish. But the last parish, where the happy pair now ac quired a new domicile, was not so satisfied with this connubial arrangement. Every scheme of petty ingenuity was brought nito play to return the compliment, and pauper marriages in oi-der to transfer liabilities to other parishes, became practical jokes of exquisite humour. A pauper was estimated to cost 2ol. per annum, and as every case of doubtful settlement was hotly contested before the courts of law with all the careless profusion incidental to spending other people's money the burden caused by the local Poor Rates soon became intolerable, so much so that the lower classes of ratepayers were themselves becoming rapidly pauperised. Under the old state of things the landlords had often come forward to render temporary assistance to their tenantry and between the loftieso and the lowhest in the rural districts there had always existed a certain bond of sympathy. Absolute power on the one hand, absolute submission and obedience on tlio other, almost always coexist Avith a feeling of obligation on 24 tlie part of the BONDS OF DISUNION. )erior, of entire dependence on tlmt of thp nuenor, wind, prompts occa»io„»l ac s of benevol t dirtv from ho one to tl.e other. But the new atoinistra „ „S 00 Lau. made the tenant to a large degree independent, and whatever sympathy might have existed between the landlord and u. tena, U, or between the farmer and his laboure!^ va rudely severed. The landlord, seeing his tenant in re eip™f pansh rchef to which he too had to contribute, promptly t .rned ns tenan ont mto the cold. But, still desirous of doing some ordf hn T/'" "''?"""' "'^^'^ Hu,s occasioned, tlfe land, lo.ds, honestly enough perhaps, embraced the theory that tlm enclosure o commons, by bringing more land into cultiva ion would aflord additional employment. So they procured Enclo' "t'i tin': "" f"' ''" ""^^ "' ^""'"-""o f-- "'- l,7ol,810 acres of common land in the squires' ring-fences between 1811 and 1880. But this was in llity dimfn sThi' and not mcreasing the cultivated area. "'nishm^ On the common land, labourers had been used to live in cottages on small plots of ground which they considered as hen- own. One of these small occupiers would ha™ n h htt le domam a cow or two besides a few pigs and poultry and famdy could consume. Nay, he might often supplement h s h.s httle terram, and he was sober, industrious, and wealthv as compared w.th his after lot when these .small pro Icfe boldmgs nad gone to swell his spire's domain. The prod ee was now to find its way entirely to his landlord's behoof nd so at one blow the labourer was levelled from the posit in of a small but industrious and hopeful farmer, to that rfa lole on sufferance at the mercy of a landlord who had robbed him of Ins all. Now, instead of being an energetic producer to elnef desn-e was to be an unthrifty consumer of parish siiste nan<*, supplemented by what he could procure for the miserable pay do ed „„t to him for unwilling negligent work on hiss ott properi^y. Despite, or probably because of, the enclosure noMcv Piiupcnsm went on mcreasing, until in 1882 the Poor Kates' A TRAxNSITION PERIOD OF £x\GLISH HISTORY. 25 Of the kingdom for the year amounted to 7,000,000Z., and it was ca cu ated that the proportion of paupers to population in England and Wales was as one to seven But it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and it is certam that a considerable portion of the enormous sums devoted to pauper relief found its way into the receptive pockets of parish officials. Porter, in his 'Progress of' the Nation, 'observes :-' Plunder and jobbing of all kinds were the usual accompaniments of the system, and it is by no means surprising that persons who were allowed to benefit themselves m this manner should have become violent oppo- nents of a change which has introduced order and economy into the various branches of parish expenditure whence they had previously drawn their irregular gains.' The chanJ however, was to be deferred till 1834. ' ^ The enclosure system not having proved efficacious, the ngenuity of the squires was equal to a new remedy. « The and IS over-populated,' they said, and, with a view to reduce the fancied excess of numbers, they proceeded to puU down houses and cottages on their estates. But population was bv no means reduced by these remedial methods, for the Poor Law was far stronger in promoting increase than misery and liigh-handed oppression were potent to check it The farmers were hardly better ofl^ than 'the labourers. Threshing mr^cnmery had come to tlieir aid ; the researches ol Davy had given to farming a more scientific character • a better system of cropping by rotation had come into use a'nd improved means of communication had cheapened the carriage of produce to market, besides facihtating the means of exchang- ing it. Their produce was eagerly demanded, and the demand kept pace with the increase of population. But, despite all these considerations, farming had become a thoroughly bad business, a mere scheme for throwing good money after bad." Why this was so will be obvious enough if we briefly examine tiie operation of the Corn Laws. Previous Corn Laws having failed of their nominal object ' r, u. 26 BONDS OF DISUNION. '■'U oi keeping the price of agricultural produce hig}i and even while at t])e same time adding to the prosperity of tlie nation, the cry of distress among the owners and occupiers of land became exceedingly urgent. Accordingly, an Ac^ was passed ni 1815, under which the importation of corn was absolutely prohibited until the price of home-grown corn should have reached the famine height of eighty shilhngs per quarter. Also the monopoly of the home market was secured by the Act to the British grower, for all other grain until tlie price had reached a proportionate height. Further, the introduction of all foreign meat, flesh or fish, living or dead, was absolutely forbidden, and to give completeness to the system, it was decreed that imported butter was only to be used for washing sheep or for greasing carriage-wheels, and the revenue officers received stringent instructions to stir the butter round with tarred sticks so as to ensure its not being used as food. A notable exception, however, was made, by which turtle, turbot, and sturgeon were to be admitted, so as to afltbrd cheap and nutritious food for the million ! It was expected that these enactments would keep the price of home produce permanently high, and would prevent fluctu- ations in price. Eighty shilhngs was thenceforward to be the invariable price of corn. So likely did this appear, that the bounties on the exportation of grain were done away with. The effect of a rise in the price of produce in a settled country, is to raise the rent of the land on which it is grown if, in consequence of the rise, inferior land is brought into cultivation. In prospect, then, of the high prices promised by these Corn Laws, the farmer, if he wished to remain a farmer, was called upon to pay an increased rent for the expected value of his monopoly— an additional tax to his landlord to nullify the extra profit he might possibly derive from his business. The farmers were in 1815 promised eighty shillings a quarter for their corn, and their farms were valued on that supposition. The hope of nigh profits held out by the Corn Laws created competition for high-rented farms, and caused abandoned and inferior soils to be brouglit into cultivation. So much the better for the landlords. But the dreams of continuous A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 27 high prices were quickly dissipated. The average price of wheat in 1816 was 76s. 2d., in the following year 94s., and in 1818 it was 83s. M. With these prices came a further extension of tillage. The price of wheat dropped very materially in consequence, and continued rapidly to descend, until in October 1822 it was no more than 38s. Id., while the average for that year was only 44s. Id.^ Not much of constancy about these prices. Protection had executed its natural function of first stimu- lating artificial prices and profits, and natural competition, un- naturally extended, had reduced them again to a non paying level. ' Distress ' became again the farmers' cry, and a Com- mission was appointed to inquire into its causes. ' Depreciate the currency again,' shrieked the landlords, ' and all will go well. ' But even a landowner's Parliament at its wits' end for any impracticable panacea, could not go this length. In 1822 Lord Liverpool's Administration passed an Act allowing imvm- tation at high duties when the price of corn should reach 70s. But this enactment was inoperative, because till 1828, when it was superseded by the famous, orhifamous, sliding scale, the price never rose higher than 66s. 6a. A new set of Eesolutions, moved by Mr. Charles Grant,'* was passed and embodied in an Act in 1828. The Act provided that the duty was to be 23s. M. when the home price of corn was 64s., gradually declining to 16s. M. when the price was at 69s., and to Is. when it was at or above 73s. On this shifting principle the duties were based till 1841, when the law was altered with a view of securing a price of from 54s. to 58s. per bushel, and in 1846 the Corn Laws were at last totally repealed. Let us look at the condition of the farmers when the system of Corn Laws was in full swing. Their rents were based on the supposition of constant high prices being main- tained. As a matter of fuct, under the system prices fluctu- ated incessantly, and under its influence they were declining enormously, taking a comparison over a period of a quarter of a century. The farmer was crippled and often ruined, by the ' McOuUoch's Commercial Dictionary, tit. • Corn Laws.' ^ Afterwards Lord Glenelg. 28 BONDS OF DISUNION. conjoint operation of high rents, Poor Rates, and low prices. Kents fell agani in 1818, but not in the same proportion as prices of farm produce fell, and the farmers were therefore worse off than before. Farming had become a pure speculation instead of a steady trade. The land was of necessity cropped to Its utmost ability, and an incoming yearly tenant would too often find that the basis of his rent, previous prices and previous crops, was one which must absorb whatever profits he might hope to make from exhausted soils. He could not get a lease, so improvements were out of the question. Close cropping was everything. The distress of the farmers at the beginning of the third decade of the century was more serious than It had been in 1815, because of the increased number of farmers verging on ruin, who had been ix 'luced to rush into agricultural pursuits by the grant of a State monopoly, as it was thought to be. The shding scale of 1828 was still to secure this monopoly, but its main effect was to induce enormous speculations in foreign corn, which was always ready to come out of bond and so to depress the price of the home supplies. Foreign corn had never been entirely kept out, even under ^le most absolute form of prohibition, but now it was always lying in wait to wreck the farmers' hopes, as we shall see later on. It may be remarked here, that it was this attempted exclu- sion of foreign produce that was ever, in reality, the farmers' bane. At the period now under consideration, the length, uncertainty, and risk of sea voyages, inefficient stowage, &c.] made importation of grain by sea a very expensive and specu ' lative business. The importer, therefore, could only have afforded to sell at prices far above the home level, if that level had been a low and regular price. The home farmer would have had nothing to fear from a foreign competitor except when crops were unusually deficient at home, and when in consequence his own produce rose in value. As a matter of fact that rise would not have been a great one, because foreign supphes would have rushed in to meet a deficiency. The nation, cheaply fed, would have been able to devote to extension of productive industries vast sums which, though nominally A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 29 paid in giving encouragement to agi-iculture, in reality went to swell the rent-rolls of the landlords. A prosperous nation would have keenly competed for uicreased supplies of agiicul- tural produce, and would, by a healthy demand, have prevented corn prices from falling below a paying level. Steady prices would have operated largely in favour of a disposition to grant leases, rather than yearly tenancies, which placed the tenant at his landlord's merc;y . With the guarantee afforded by a lease, as well as with the stimulus to improvement given by average low prices returnin^n' no more than a regular fair margin of profit, would have come economical and careful cultivation, while invention would have received tlie spur it needed. Lands would have risen steadily in value. Rents would have been punctually paid. Prosperity would have gained the day over Poor Rates ; and even with all the startling contrasts between progress and poverty that dcg the footsteps of pros- perity, England might have been energetic, industrious, and contented, instead of being merely restless, miserable, and starving. Low prices and free competition were not, as was the supposition, the causes, but they were the true remedies, for agricultural distress. The legislative medicines for the dis- ease were 'ligh prices and monopolies. The competition founded on expectation": of the value of an exclusive market, was of itself sufficient to reduce farming profits below the average limit that competition, not artificially stimulated, would have driven them down to. When ' this circumstance we add the burden of crushing rents, paupei ising rates, and a sHding scale so constructed as to promote the flow of foreign grain into England at the maximum of expense and risk to the farmer, to the nation, and to the importer him- self, we can see that the lot of the British farmer, under the operation of the laws nominally devised for his express benefit, was not an enviable one. Rents had dropped in 1818 after their previous rise, but, notwithstanding bad farming seasons, fast-dropping grain prices, and the restoration of a metallic currency, they were maintained at double the height to which tliey had reached in if H 80 BONDS OF UISUXION. the earlier years of the century. In 1803 the assessments to the Income Tax upon real property in Great Britain were made upon an annual value or rental of 38,G91,394/. In 1812 the annual value was estimated at over 4C 000 000/ while in 1842 Sir Robert Peel, in bringing forward his pro- posals for an Income Tax, estimated the rents of the previous year at 72,800,000/. So that, even on his showing, rents muse havealmost doubledin thirty-eight years. But e:ir Robert must have underestimated, or the growth of rental must have been extraordmarily rapid during 1842-3, for we find that the annual value of real property assessed to the tax for the year endmg April 5, 1843, was for England and Scotland alone 95,284,497/., although properties of less yearly value than 150/. were excluded from the assessment. Deducting from this total 2,598,943/. as the assessed value of railway property for the year, we have still a formidable total left which shows an actual increase in rent of about 150 per cent' since 1803. It may readily be beheved that relatively to the other classes of the community-that is, to the people, and to the farmers m especial— tlie landlords were doing very well for themselves, and, on the principle of letting well alone were exceedingly unwilling to allow of any legislation which mic^ht produce a change for the better in the circumstances of tlie nation. Selfishly blind to their true interests as the landlords were, while striving exclusively for the promotion of their own wealth and influence, they failed to see that the orosperity of the country would give a far higher value to landed property than It had ever known before. The abohtion of the Corn Laws inaugurated a Free Trade era which the landlords bitterly opposed, and which was in nothing more remarkable than in the immensely increased value it gave to landed property Moreover, smce the adoption of free-trading principles tlie rise in the -^ilue of land has been on a far sounder and more permanent basis than previously, for it has not, as then, been caused by the increase of population faster than its me^ns of subsistence,^but by the large increase of the population in numbers and wealth, resulting from the cheapness of food a^d A TRANSITION PEKIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 31 extension of employment that followed on the substitution of a world-wide market for the local supplying ground. It is quite unnecessary to show how an already starving people failed to derive advantage from Corn Laws which cur" tailed an already existing insufficiency of food. The condition of the nation was so deplorable that, but for the effects of the Poor Law in destroying the growth of independence and manli- ness, the down-trodden population would probably have forced the repeal of the Corn Laws within a very few years after their imposition. It is only by cor.:iderhig the people as utterly deficient in spirit, and utterly wanting in the self- reliance which leads to organisation for the redress of evil government, that we can cease to marvel at their endurance of food taxation till 1846, or to wonder that they should for so long have consented to a twenty per cent, tax on their bread, whilst, according to Eichard Cobden, ' the family of a nobleman paid to the Bread Tax about one halfpenny for every hundred pounds of income.' True it was that ' pohtical dis- content, revealing itself in occasional riotings, rudely repressed by violence and bloodshed, was rife throughout the country. But in the Legislature its voice was little heeded, for it was not the people but a class \vhich was then represented in Parliament.' ^ The people had gone off on a wrong scent, clamouring for Parhamentary Eeform. That was desirable and necessary^ but the repeal of the Corn Laws was far more so. That the great mass of the nation did not altogether starve was in great part owing to importations of foreign wheat. In 1825, 1826, and 1827, partial admissions of foreign corn were made under Orders in Council and special Acts, but under .the sliding scale of 1828 a vast speculative import trade in grain grew up, which benefited the consumer if it did httle good to the farmer or to the trader himself. The sliding scale appears to have been expressly drawn up \nth a view to promote risky speculation. It certainly had that effect, and thereby diverted a great deal of commercial enterprise into a hazardous forei^^n corn trade, from channels where more regular profits mi^M, ' Montgredien's History of Free Trade in England, p. 9. !i A I M rs I 32 BONDS OF DISUNION. have been made at far less than the average of risk involved ni the importation of foreign corn. With regard to this, Mr Jacob, in his evidence before the House of Commons Com- mittee in 1833, says :— ' The supphes of foreign corn came m by jerks in large quantities; at once, not according to the immediate wants of consumption, but according to the perpetually varying duty, and according to the opinion among the importers of a probable rise or fall of the averages.' Mr. Henry Ashworth, in his valuable little book ' Cobden and the League,' summarises as follows :— ' Let it be supposed that, following an unfavourable season, the average price of wheat in the EngHsh market had become 73s. per quarter, and the hnport duty consequently Is. per quarter. This low duty would attract the notice of the merchant and induce him to refer to the prices of wheat abroad. If he concluded to send out orders, the operations had to be hastened, in order to escape payment of a higher i-ate of duty on arrival, in conse- quence of earlier arrivals inducing lower prices and higher duties, at the instance of other importers. He would not consider it safe, under the circumstances, to make his out- going remittance in manufactures or home produce, lest his delay in the sale of such produce abroad should cause his import of wheat to arrive (in an extreme case) when, inconse- quence of other large imports, it was worth only S(U ^ quarter, and when the duty to be paid would be 50s. od., makina the total cost to the importer 88s. 8d. a quarter. With such an array of hazards before him a large venture; might be his ruin. He might, however, take his chance of a profit by sending out gold— the effect of which would be to facili- tate his purchases of grain abroad, and at the same time to derange our currency, instead of increasing our exports of manufactures.' Again, Mr. David Salomons, in his ' Eeflections on the Operation of the Present Scale of Duty on Foreign Corn,' observes, after alluding to the risks run by corn importers : — * Their [the speculating importers] gain is calculated not only in the advance in the price of corn, but also in the fall in the A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 33 scale of the duty, and as the duty falls in a greater ratio than the price of the corn rises, the duty operates as a bounty to withhold sales until it reaches its highest protecting limit when the duty is also at the lowest. . . . When the averages are at 73s., the extreme limit is attained, the duty bein^^ only Is. per quarter ; so that if an importation were made that might be sold at or about GOs., paying a duty of 20s. 8d by withholdmg the supply until the extreme limit of 73s ' be reached, a gain of 7s. not only would be made by the rise in the averages, but also a profit of 19s. 8^. by the reduction of the duty, making a total increased profit of 26s. 8d. The tendency of the fluctuating scale is, not to promote', but to withhold the supply, not to keep corn from fluctuation, but to ofter a bounty for raising it to that extreme point when the mere nominal duty is imposed.' So not only had commerce been induced by the sliding scale into a risky and too often ruinous business, at the expense of more regular trade, but also at the cost of our out- turn of manufactures, which ordinarily form the medium of payment for our foreign imports ; at the cost of the farmer whose hopes for compensation for bad seasons in the shape of occasional high prices were dissipated by the certainty of a sudden glut of corn being let loose from bond on to a bare iiiarket, which immediately became fully supplied ; at the cost of the nation, whose food supplies were withheld when there was the greatest need for them ; and at the cost of tlip revenue which only received the lowest rate of duty payable when the corn was taken out of bond. In consequence, too, of the drain of gold, used instead of manufactures to pay for foreign corn, the Bank of England had at one time to borrow largely from the Bank of France ' and the rate of interest rose to the then unprecedented amount of six per cent., while many articles of produce fell to extremely low prices.' ^ On the shipping interest too the effects of this corn specu- lation were disastrous, as concisely shown in the followin- ' Ashworth's Cobden and the League, p. 9. D 34 BONDS OF DISUNION. remarks culled from Tooke's ' History of Prices : ' '— ' On the occasion of a prospect of the opening of our ports at the low duty, such is the suddenness and the extent of the demand for shipping that not only are vessels very unsuitable for corn carriage engaged, but a deficiency of tonnage is experienced, to the inconvenience of other branches of trade. . . . But the nnschievous working of the system is again felt in this very niterest, for no sooner are the ports again shut than there is a sudden cessation of all such extra demand for shippinrr • vessels are built under the influence of the casual demand and high freights ; hence, by the subsequent competition the rate ot freights IS reduced temporarily below its ordinary level, and the shipowners, who, like the landed interests, consider them- selves entitled to apply to the Legislature on occasions of any considerable decline from a previous adventitious rise in the value of their property, become loud in tJieir complaints of a decay in British shipping, and pray for additional protection as was the case between 1819 and 1822, and again between 1832 and 1883.' And yet with all its evils this foreign importation was necessary if the people were to be kept from starving— a compensation which in some degree atoned for the untoward result of trading adventures, made hazardous to a degree by the action of a beneficent Legislature. Whilst an unhealthy stiinulus was given to speculation in one direction, where the intention of the stimulating laws had been to minimise speculation and to equalise prices, an equally unhealthy prohibition was put on the development of general foreign trade by laws designed to enrich the mother- country and her Colonies. These last were the celebrated Navigiltion Laws. The effect of these when conjoined to that of tlie''coi Laws, and even without taking into account the enormous and multifarious duties imposed on every article of commerce, was t(> interpose a barrier to trade beyond which no lawful enter- prise could penetrate. The foundation of the Navigation Act was laid during tlie Protectorate, and the system was perfected in the tiine of ' Vol. iii. p. 31. A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 35 Charles II. The Act provided that no merchandise of either Asia Africa, or America should be imported into England in any but British or colonial-built ships, navigated by an Eng- lish commander, and having, at least, three-fourths of tht^r crews Enghsh. Besides tliis exclusive right conferred on British shipping, discriminating duties were imposed, so that goods which might still be imported in foreign ships from Europe were in that case to be more highly taxed than if brought m under the English flag. The reasoning of the upholders of the Act was somewhat as follows :-' The Act will encourage British shipping, and with increased shipping will come an increase of trade. Thus It wi 1 serve as a fosterhig ground for a naval marine, and a naval marine means commercial supremacy.' By this reason- mg cause and effect v/ere reversed with a vengeance. The present accepted way of looking at the matter would lead us to suppose that commerce would create a demand for ships ships for sailors, and, judging by experierje, that the number ot British sailors employed mider a free system of shipping would always bear a proportion of at least three-fourths to the number of foreign sailors. Thus a large, well-trained body of men would always have been ready to respond to the exigencies of the naval service. Nowadays we should further suppose that if European countries had been permitted to bring their own goods in their own ships at the same rates of duty as m English ships, an active trade would have sprung up between England and the Continent which woald have led to a largely increased employment of English bottoms. The comparatively quick and recurring profits of that trade, as compared with the slow and doubtful returns of distant com- merce, would have stimulate I production at home for a market of which the wants could have been sufficiently accurately gauged to ensure the minimum of waste. London would have become an infinitely larger emporium of commerce than she actually had become previous to the repeal of the Navigation Laws, and would have been enabled to do a far larger trade in consequence with her Colonics and with ilie world at large. IBI d2 36 BONDS OF DISUNION, More Bntish ships and more British sailors would have been called nito active requisition, and the nursery for our navy micrht probably have been great enough to obviate the necessity for the excessive amount of ' crimping ' put into torce dunng war time. A naval supremacy would have been acquired, all the stronger because based -ipon commercial supremacy. But these Were not the views of our rulers at the com- mencement of the century. The Navigation Laws were to be observed to the letter. With regard to the United States the consequence was that, very soon after acquiring their inde- pendence, they copied our own Act word for word, and put it m force against us. They refused to allow British ships to take produce over to their shores. For several years the con- test was carried on with vigour ; British ships bringing home produce from the States and taking back nothing in return while American slnps took our manufactures to their own ports and returned again in ballast. So the game of makin- two ships do the work of one went on— a game which ^'f un'' productive of benefit to shippers, was still more expensive to the populations on either side of the Atlantic, who found the cost of goods brought across the ocean either way more than doubled to them. The gain was a doubtful one even to the shipowners In 1815 both the Home and United States Governments * o-ave way, iaid a mutual reciprocity treaty was drawn up, putting? the shipping of either country on an equal footing with reoaitl to the carnage of goods between English and United States ports The Continental nations were not slow to avail themselves of the tactics of the United States, and extracted from England certain modifications of the Navigation Laws in 1821 and 1825 but the hardship of the previous rules, though materially re- , duced, remained in great measure unremedied. The importa- tion of European goods continued to be practicable only in British ships, or in ships of the country of which the goods \^-ere the produce, or of the country from which they were shipped. So that if a Dutch ship, for instance, could only get partially loaded in a Dutch port, she could not fill up at a A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 37 neiglibourmg Belgian port, but must come to England partly empty, freights of foreign ships went up in consequence of the perpetual recurrence of such cases as these ; the cost of nnported articles was increased thereby, and for tliis the JjritLsh consumer paid handsomely. But this mis not all. The measm-es of 1825 still prohibited he produce ot Asia, Africa, and America fi-om being imported h-om any European port, and these goods could not be bi oucdit m ni foreign bottoms except when imported direct in ship^of the country of which the goods were the produce. ' In con- sequence, though the ports along the English Channel might have been glutted with the corn and cotton of America, the sugar of Brazil and Cuba, the coffee of Java, and the tea of Chma and though all or some of these ,.,rticles might at the time have been deficient here, not one of them could be im- ported m a foreign ship unless, as was sometimes the case, it was carried back to the country where it had been originally shipped ; nor even in a British ship, unless it was first carried rom Europe to some other continent.' ' Notwithstanding the larm entai ed by these arrangements, the shippers fancied themselves benehtea by them-certainly no otlfer class was. ihey therefore strenuously opposed the repeal of the Navi- gation Laws, and not till January 1, 1850, was their baneful operation put an end to. In addition to Corn Laws and Navigation Laws there were the customs duties by which heavy tolls were levied upon every import, and which contributed effectually to prevent the ex pansion of our foreign trade. Girt in by this network of pro- tectionism, any extension of external commerce was a sheer im- possibility, and we find that while from 1801 to 1882 inclusive our imports of foreign and colonial merchandise had only risen from the value of 31,780,262/. to that of 44,586,741/., the de- clared values of British and Irish produce and manufacture,! goods expoi^ed had positively dechned from 89,730,659/. in 1801 to 30,450 504/. m 1882. It is true enough that these figures show tha we were buying in 1832 at a cheaper rate than in ^HOl, but under unfettered conditions we should doubtless ' Mcculloch's Commercial Dictionary, tit. ' Navigation Lows.' 88 BONDS OF DISfNIOX. have been able to export a gi-eat deal more of both pro,1ace and manufactures, and to buy with them a far larger propor the rl r^'f ;™''"^' ^'"'' ""« ««-' -'"4 followed t e .emoval o. restnchons -nay be shown from the fact that m 1847, the year after the repeal of the Corn Laws, we tl :f OoToOO; ^°'^rr'- -«■"' ^f -ports w^h 'le than on OOO.OOOi worth of exports. Such was the declared value 01 exports m that year, but it may be mentioned as a cunous fact illustrative of the obstinate opposition to change pervadmg our fiscal administration, that the official values of our exports had ever since 1818 been largely in excess of the declared values; the official values, until a recent period havmg been based on a scale drawn up in 1C94 and MindK persevered m ever since, notwithstanding the great fall hi pnces snrce the pea.e. The official value of exp'ortsirr 8 7 ™s therefore put down at 126,130,980i., instead of at their real value of 58,842,J;77Z. Within the period from 1801 to 1882 the volume of our iorejgn trade had been almost, if not quite, stationary Z deed, consKlenng that the population of Great Britain had I eland by about a seventh, it is evident that by comparison the volume of outside commerce had positively dimirished Estnna ed per capita of traders, independently of increase hi population. It certainly bad done so, for between 1811 lid 1832 the number of families engaged in trade increased by 27j per cent.-figures which mean that a greatlv increased number of traders had not succeeded in enlai^ing tbe vo ume 01 fcu-eign trade. Tliat many of these famili'es were e« n internal trade only, in no way affects the truth of this asser tion, smce in a country like our own internal and external tiade are merely the complements of each other That trade should decline was inevitable at a time when as Mr. Montgredien says :-• There was hardly an article obtainable from abroad that was admissible here without the payment ol import duties, always heavy, sometimes excessive and n, certain cases all but prohibitory. It mattered not WUctiier It was a raw material or a manufactured product' A TRANSITION PEEIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 39 whether it was an article of luxury or of universal consump- tion, whether it came in masses hke cotton, or in driblets like orchiila-everything foreign which an Englishman might use was withheld from him till its cost had been enhanced by a customs duty. The tariff hst of the United Kingdom presented a tolerably complete dictionary of all the products of human industry.' ' The excise laws were a fitting counterpart to these restric- tions. Not only everything foreign, but everything native, was heavily taxed. * Wherever you see an article tax it,' might have been appropriately posted up as the principle of our fiscal legislation. Wherever there was anything taxable it was taxed, and the exciseman practically took charge of our chief industrial occupations. He was an effective ally of his co-spoiler the custom-house officer. It was to the interest of both to hamper business as much as possible, since the more they did so the more they might hope to exact as blackmail from people desirous of getting their goods to market. Manufactures of woollen and cotton goods, silk and flax ; papermiUs, calico-printing, brick-making or soap-making works! every branch of industry that most effectually administered to the bare wants of the people, were ruthlessly supervised by revenue harpies. Until 1825 silk goods had to be looked after and taxed in order to keep them from coming into the country to compete with the home manufacture. Wool, too, had to be similarly supervised and taxed in order to prevent it from going out of the country. Drawbacks were here and there allowed, and, being complicated in their nature, afforded excel- lent opportunities for tampering with officials. The greater the demand for anything-that is, the greater the necessity for It— the more inquisitorial were the regulations for the supervi- sion of its production, manufacture, or importation, and the higher the tax charged for its use. It is in the distribution of the incidence of taxation that its pressure is to be found, and whatever the nominal amount of a particular tax, it must inevitably press with infinitely greater weight upon the poor than upon the rich when im- • History of the Free Trade Movement, p. 4. 40 BONDS OF DISCNIOX, M ihr heavier tlmi H ^' ""'' ""**""'• P''P^''' «"<' <^'^i «-e''e tl.e population. ^ '^'" "" '"""''*'' ™teti-atum of s .t fell onlv upon these parts of the Idnsdon to vS c" a f • ''^^^^' •^i^'^il iodO various troublesomp rli^tinn ^": :.r .'rr^- rf : '"^ ''"^'°™ -8«iatio„s r .:^^„ ui^e and small coal, between coal and culm ^nri k ^ Inmself with a dexte.ii; ,:;X:!;^^ ^"^'^''^ -'='"«' The expense of coal must have operated very powerfnllv to dnnnnsh the out-turn of manufactmed goods and t'nj^ ven the cheapening of their prices ti a l«el els y plyS k by the mass of the community, as well as contrail 1 mmnn.se m other ways the meagre comforts rf ^ 7o» htill, manufactures showed signs of nrosneritv ■ nnt . i as we should expect now w4 a wS-wdf 'mar ■"'"""' manufactured goods, but sufflc.ently m:ked T n "ati" dLrfeT" r^'""'" "'^ P'-«»Pectsof manufacturim t om n,'aU» '"""r'^"-'^ » ™->""ery and in mea^s f commumcation. The great mcrease of population t„^ c-reated an extra demand, and through the conjdnt p Itt^ of these vanous causes upon his business the manuS rer had been able to extend his works, and in some sort o f'.T . over the difficulties interposed in i.is way b7tl Le' slaZ It may be said that in the ton or fiftLf years iilCediliy assert: crease increa propoi our ca liesitaj progrei impedi antece( positiv( Tli( tions t( revenue glers. ] by the € one ant: the me imports gling V( country in a cou justly ei is the n gling its a risky b each sue held to revenue '. scruple encourag perjury v tries be r ill A TRANSITIOX PERIOD OP EXaLISH HISTORY. 41 following the peace, manufactures of all sort, n.nr.o i ere,se of English maunfactures i« not t pZ«r h^! t T ■nerease of the population of the Unit« ? iZ° n but in propor ,on to the development of the entire u,U™rse 1^ i, " our calculation, on the latter basis, then, ther^ed b o pio^iess m .lieir business before tlie Free T -arlp pro ,i^ •. .mpeding restrictions, the statistics on he it' et f! M antecedent period fail to furnish an/ ve^Th It f s «L rf positive prosperity. ■^ "eanny signs of The excessiverates of taxation aftbrded irresistible temnta levenue otticers, on the other was an imposin" navv of smn" gte. Each wasin tunr heavily subsidised by U e L i wfo by the exigencies of his p, .sition was almost forced to bribe « one and subsidise the other. Bare indeed must hate be™ tortrt'f T %:''"' '"'"^"^ '"'^'"S "- <^"«- on Ws iinpoits, lad not at the same time an hiterest in some smu" glmg venture. Sympathy ™tli smuggling in an overtrfi eomitry is as natural and general as sympatl ^ wMi piS ma country hedged in with Game Laws, because it fs th r . ly enough considered that the vocation of the smuX 1 the na ural corrective of excessive duties. Hence nnr ghng Itself was looked upon by the majority of theTeope f: a risky but far from dishonourable speci s of adveniure w rt^ each successful shift or evasion of the customs reg, ationl 'i lield to confer a badge of merit on the trans^res o of L revenue laws. ■ To pretend,' says Adam Smith? to lave ai iv scruple about buying smuggled goods, though a Z,if "! encouragement to the breach of the revenue 1^^ and to 1 perjury which almost always attends it, wo. Id ^ mil co. f tries be regai'ded as one of those pedantic pieces of hyproc : 42 bonias of disunion-. H,i which, instead of graining credit witli anybody, seems only to expose the person who affects to practise them to the sus- picion ol being a greater knave than most of his neighbours. By this mdulgence of the pubHc the smuggler is often en- couraged to continue a trade which he is taught to consider as m some measure innocent, and when the severity of the revenue laws is ready to fall upon him, he is frequently dis- posed to defend with violence what he has been accustomed to regard as his just property; and from being at first rather miprudent than criminal, he too at last has become one of the most determined violators of the laws of society.' The high tariffs were an enormous premium on smuggling and on the criminal state to which repeated violations of the law too constantly lead. The bad associations into which a man must necessarily enter when forced into opposition to oppressive fiscal laws by the hope of gain would in all pro- bability, m time, induce in him an opposition to all laws, good or bad. Even where the most virtuous men have associated themselves together for the purpose of remedying some glaring defect in the political condition of their country, ostracism and persecution have rarely failed to impart a reckless and lawless character to their after lives ; but when the smuggler enters upon the hazards of his profession, he bands himself together with men inspired from the outset with no more noble motive than that of filling their pockets at the expense ol the revenue. Theirs is not a lofty spirit of patriotism, but an Ignoble and lawless passion which leads to crime for crime's sake, and to violence as an assertion of lawful right. The wise men who imposed the duties were not only encouraging smuggling, and through smuggling crime, but they were also stimulating immorality in the mercantile classes, through them amongst the small local traders, and through these again in the people. Te defi'aud the revenue by making false declarations, which a revenue officer was bribed to endorse, had become an ordinary part of the routine of trade, and who can doubt that the spirit thus engendered would ultimately make its way into all business deahngs of whatever kind. Integrity in business matters is the test of ,41 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 43 honour and truth in all social relations. Let the first be tampered with ever so Httle, and the others are worth— well, nothing at all. We believe that to-day commercial, social, and political morality all stand on a higher footing than they did some fifty years ago, and I cannot but think that we owe this improvement largely to the discouragement given to smuggling and open fraud that has supervened upon the reform of our fiscal system. True, our newspapers are full enough of commercial and otner frauds, but it must be borne in mind that much of what is now called ' fraud ' in the world around us has been authoritatively so denominated by very recent statutes, and that it was considered as mere sharp practice half a century back. If many frauds go unpunished for every one detected, the reflection arises that the propor- tion of them that were never discovered or punished must have been substantially greater when the police and detective forces were worthless in point of organisation and competency, when railroads were in their infancy, and when the telegraph did not exist to annihilate distance between the furthest limits of the globe, and to check the craftiest combinations of calculating villany. At that time, too, only a very partial and occasional publicity was given to actions which to-day are exposed to the full blaze of public and private criticism in every detail, It was then easy to hush up a fraud or pass over an indiscretion on which nowadays che criminal courts, or at any rate popular opinion, would not be slow to pass an adverse verdict. That fraudulent practices are now more widespread in their disastrous effects cannot be doubted, but the same causes which render them so widely injurious are also those which tend to prevent their frequent recurrence. In this way increased facihties of communication act and react on each other. They augment the ill effects resulting from com- mercial immorality, while they diminish the temptations to unfair dealing by the increasad risk of exposure and punish- ment. Reasoning thus deductively, it would appear that commercial and general immorality was more prevalent formerly than now. 44 BONDS OF DISUNION. If we owe much of that spirit to the prevalence of a protectionist rdyme, to preventive laws whose severity was a premium on their infraction, we may also dehit it in part to the difficulties attending the dissemination of information. The rate of postage was then estimated by the distance over which a letter had to be carried. From 1827 to 1881 the lowest rate was :~4d. for any distance not exceedhig 15 miles ; 8d. for 50 and not exceeding 80 miles ; dd. for 80 and not exceeding 120 miles ; and so on until it rose to Hjd. for COO and not exceeding 700 miles. For distances over 700 miles the postage was lid. * It appeared that the actual cost to the Government for carrying each letter between the most distant parts of the empire was only a fractional part of a farthing ; and that to charge, as in many cases was done, more than 480 times the actual cost was equivalent to the imposition of a heavy tax upon communications of all kinds, whether carried on for purposes of business or for gratifying the sympathies of family affection and friendship.' It was well said by one of the advocates of postal reform, ' that if a law were passed for- bidding parents to speak to their children till they had paid sixpence to Government for permission, the wickedness would be so palpable that there would be an end to the tax in that form of exaction in twenty-four hours ! Yet what difference is there in principle when parents are prohibited from writing to their children, or children to their parents, unless they pay the tax under the name of postage '? ' • Until 1839, however, the high postage rates indicated above were charged on letters, and for the twenty years immediately preceding that date the Post Office revenue was stationary. It must not be supposed, nevertheless, that Parliaments particularly skilled in shifting burdens from their own shoulders on to those of a suffering people would consent to impose taxation on themselves for the conveyance of letters. We fully expect to find, and do find, that the principal officers of Government and the members of both Houses of Parliament * Porter's Progress of the NaP'on. A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 15 enjoyed the privilege of ' franking ' — that is, of sending letters by the post free of postage, and this privilege was very ex- tensively exercised, to the manifest injury of the revenue. It will be found that in 1889 the estimated number of letters sent through the post in the ordinary way was 75,907,572, while the number of those ' franked 'was no less than C,5G3,024, and thus some eight per cent, of the total number of letters, and a far larger proportion of the postal revenue, was remitted to those who ought at the time to have contributed most largely to the latter — namely, to Members of the Legislature, their friends and sycophants. Let us not disparage the charity of our legislators, where the exercise of that virtue cost them nothing. It must be admitted that ' franks ' v/ne freely issued by them to personal friends, influential voters, importunate creditors, or needy relatives.^ Nor could newspapers supply the deficiency of news caused by a dearth of letter-writing. Besides that the paper on which they were printed was heavily taxed, a stamp duty of fourpence was placed on each printed sheet. When to these taxes, postage at exorbitant rates v/as added, it becomes ap- parent that but few could aft'ord to buy newspapers, and that those few would be mostly wealthy residents near the metro- polis, or near the place of local publication. A press so lieavily hampered is hardly likely to attract or develop much ^Herary talent or thoughtful reasoning. The heavy expenses to be paid in taxes, and the risk of prosecution run by the proprietors and editors of papers for venturing to give utterance to Liberal sentiments, were considerations suf- ficiently powerful to prevent capital from being attracted to the newspaper business. The newspapers were nothing more than ' prints ' ?neagrely supplied with news, wretchedly printed, and badly got up. They afforded but little scope or ' The Post Office revenue continued stationary during the twenty years ending with 1889 ; though from the great increase of population and commerce during that period it is obvious, had the rates of postage not been so high as to force recourse to other channels, such as sending letters in parcels, the revenue must have rapidly increased from the LeriniiiaLion of the war downwaitla. it f ! I* 46 BONDS OF DISUNION. attraction to writers of ability, for neither was much to be gamed from contributing to the spiritless columns of an almost powerless press, nor did the handicapped finances of newspaper proprietors permit of their giving pecuniary en- couragement to rising talent. Consequently, violence of language too often took the place of argument ; scurrility of useful CQjnment; personaHty of criticism; and the buyer of' a newspaper did not usually take much by his high-priced purchase. It certainly could not be said of newspapers of half a century ago that :— ' The advertisements or notices which they circulate, the variety of facts and information they con- tam as to the supply of commodities to all parts of the world, their prices and the regulations by which they are affected,' render newspapers indispensable to commercial men, super- sede a great mass of epistolary communication, raise merchants m a remote place to an equality with those in the great marts, and wonder^ Jly quicken all the great movements of com- merce.' ' All these good points were notably conspicuous by their absence from the newspapers of the period. The power of combination to redress bad laws is one which can best be given by a free iid speedy circulation of news. Such a power was necessai.y of slow and halting growth when impeded by the absence of general, regular, and trust- worthy information on the affairs of the day. The long acquiescence of the people in the ascendency of a small ruling class who kept their means of information in so backward a condition may perhaps be ascribed [^s much to their want of knowledge of their own condition, and of their own power to remedy it, as to anything else. Narratives of passing events were mostly rumours culled from some letter or newspaper of possibly not too recent date, and circulated by word of mouth. Each local centre had its own opinions, no doubt, on matters pertaining to itself, but there was little or nothing of that irresistible power nowadays termed public opinion, acting in close alliance with an intelligent, carefully edited, and well- informed pubhc press. Where we find a heavily taxed press we need not expect ' McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, tit. ' Newspapers.' A TEANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 47 much excellence of national education. As a matter of fact there was no system of public education at all. It was far too resolutely opposed by those in power, especially by the Bishops, who never scrupled to quote Scripture against the pohcy of allowing the labourer to be educated into the behef that he was in any way better than a slave, and that he had a right to be dissatisfied with his situation in life. Independent efforts did a little ; Lancaster and Eaikess, Bell and others fought sturdily for the education of the people, and nobly devoted themselves and their purses to the cause, but my Lords were too careful of the happiness of the labourer to permit him to have the chance of being educated into dissatisfaction with his own condition. And yet, ' if one tithe of the expense that has been incurred to so httle purpose during the present century in punishing criminals had been employed in preventing crime by means of education, what a different country would England have been to what our criminal records show it to have been.' ' An uneducated, uninformed population may for long be persecuted with impunity. That they revolted against the yoke even as soon as they did, miserable though their condi- tion was, was perhaps owing to a considerable extent to the in- fluence of American and colonial notions of freedom wafted across the Atlantic, and gradually permeating into the remotest nooks and corners of the kingdom. I may hereafter have occasion to refer to the effect pro- duced upon the internal legislation of the British Isles by the close association with the United States and the British Colonies developed under Free Trade. At the period under notice such effect was, by comparison, almost unrecognisable, although doubtless to a certain degree operative in stimulating the growth and the strength of a national demand for popular government. With reference to education, again, it would appear to be as advantageous from an economical as from a moral or intel- lectual point of view. ' Of all obstacles to improvement,' says the late Dr. Sumner in his ' Records of the Creation,' ' ignorance is the most formidable, because the only true secret of bettering ' Torter's Frogrcss of the Nation, article ' Education.' 48 BONDS OF DISUNION. the poor is to make them agents in bettering their rlition own con- I, and to supply them, not with a temporary stimulus bu with a permanent energy. As fast as the standard of in- telligence IS raised, the poor become more and more able to co-operate m any plan proposed for their advantage, and more hkely to listen to any reasonable suggestion, and more able to understand and therefore more willing to pursue it. Hence it tollows that when gross ignorance is once removed and right prmciples are introduced, a great advantage has already been gained agamst squalid poverty. Many avenues to an improved condition are opened to one whose faculties are enlarged and exercised ; he sees his own interest more closely, he pursues it more steadily, and he does not study immediate gratification at the expense of bitter and late repentance, or mortgage the abour of his future life without any adequate return. Indigence tliei^fore will rarely be found in company with good educa- Education not only increases the scope of employments open to men and women by giving them greater power of utihsmg their opportunities, but it also augments the produc- tive energy of each worker. Hence comes greater material prosperity a just pride, reliance on oneself, and tlie corollarv a demand for a voice in the legislation of the country, follows as a matter of course. Of the tendency of education to pre- vent 01- check crime there can be no serious doubt. I agree with Herbert Spencer that it is not an unfailing panacea for crime, lor education cannot annihilate the misery from which crime mainly springs ; but as an adjunct to other means of ZnMe^ condition of mankind its efficacy is hardly In treating of the general effect of environing trade with a close-drawn network of restrictions, one refers, as a matter of course, to a few powerful sentences in which John Stuart Mill concisely summarises the necessary results of tlie main- tenance ot a system of duties and disabilities in commercial dealings. He tells us : «-' That a tax on any commodity, whether laid on its production, its carriage from place to place, ' Principles of Political Ecowmy, Book chaptc § A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 49 or its sale '—the ' tax on its sale ' being taken to include postal and newspaper taxes, the imposition of which has the effect of interfering with facilities of exchange—' or whether the tax be a fixed sum of money for a given quantity of the commodity or an ad valorem duty, will, as a general rule, raise the value and prices of the commodity by at least the value of the tax. There are few cases in which it does not raise them by more than that amount.' In order to prevent and check evasions of the tax the supervision of revenue officials is necessary, and the producer has to carry on his operations in the way most convenient to the revenue, ' though not the cheapest or most efficient for the purposes of production.' Of course these restric- tions increase the price of the article. ' Further, the necessity of advancing the tax obliges producers and dealers to carry on their business with larger capitals than would be necessary, on the whole of which they must receive the ordinary rate of profit, although a part only is employed in defraying the real expenses of production or importation. ... A part of the capital of the country is not employed in production, but in advances to the State to be repaid in the price of the goods. . . . Whatever renders a larger capital necessary in any trade or business, limits the competition in that business, and gives something like a monopoly to a few dealers.' It must be apparent that trade has, under the freest conditions, an invariable tendency to become gradually mono- polised in comparatively few hands. Until fresh areas of pro- duction are made available, competition in dealing in products from existing fields lowers by degrees the rate of average profits, until the margin of gain on small transactions is swallowed up by the losses incidental to average risks. Only on large ventures can the return bo a paying one when profits generally are so reduced. The small principals then become middle-men, and, until fresh fields of production are brought within roach, a comparatively small number will maintain a monopoly of the trade, and will tlms be enabled ' to keep up the price beyond what would afford the ordinary rate of profit, or to obtain the ordinary rate of profit with a less degreo of exertion for improving and cheapening the commodity.' 60 BONDS OF DISUNION. IS i These are tendencies distinctly observable even where trade is perfect y free, aad they must be greatly strengthened M.i qmckened m their operation where trade is fetterel on all sides by high duties and multitudinous restrictions. These duties, and tlie other expenses connected with State super vision 01 industries, had to be advanced by the seller before he could be recouped by the buyer. The price requisite fo giving a proflt to the former undoubtedly restricted u!e demand. With a small demand and a large cost to be n! curred prior to the article being put on the market, only large capitals could yield fair average profits by way of retu™ Smaller capitals would not give a profit at all without som^ found TT "i? """• <^-P'''y-»*. »d until access w": iouna to this the comparatively small number of large capitahsts would be surely acquiring a complete control and Uie Z: V^"" uf^'- ^«^'^'^«' "- l-g«- - "«"'^ capital, he moie he could hope to advance in encouraging smuggling and in bribing revenue oflicers ; ,o the u..erupulous larg! capitahst had here an additional and powerful lever for use In pushmg a small competitor out of business as a principal on his own account. Natural and artificial causes were thus combined against the .small trader, and the normal tendency to monopoly was artificially hastened, and that too with the maximum ol nijurious result. When, then, we read of the great increase m the general income of the country for several years after the peace in 1815, we may unhesitath.gly a^^r tion that part of the increase which did not go to the land- owners to a comparatively small band of large monopohsts. That as large a mnnber of small traders as possible should make fair average profits, is evidently far more de.,irable than at a inall number of men should make high profits. To allow ot the free extension of the area of production, is to rZe° r r h'^' "^. '^ '}" '^^^^ ^^«"" • '»'""'' "<-' «ea, the field of mdustry-or area of production and employment -by reducing or abolishing the infamous regulations which circumscribed the range of employment, was strenuonslv a-d even bitterly opposed by a landowners' Parhament. One" may A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 51 search in vain for any widespread evil amongst those above enumerated which were not directly brought into being and maintained, m utter indifference to a nation's misery by land lord and capitalist legislators. Equally vain is the search for any reform devised for the people's benefit which has not had to bear the brunt of fierce, uncompromising, relentless opposi- tion from the combined ranks of wealthy monopolists ever ready to hve on the people, to sponge on the people, and to persecute the people, fraudulently filching from them their hard-won wages under the false guise of the ' elect ' of the people, their ' natural,' ' heaven-born ' legislators, &c. • Had the 'unworking aristocracy,' as Carlyle' tei^ed the mass of our unprincipled law-makers, been content with the privileges assured to them at the commencement of the century by then existing arrangements, framed in accordance with the theory of the ' glorious Constitution ' of 1688, the verdict of posterity might be more lenient to the clique than it IS or will be. But the continuous exercise of unfair privi- leges must infaUibly produce, if not obhquity of the mental vision, at any rate an exaggerated notion of their own rights in those enjoymg them. The * unworking aristocracy ' be-ame more grasping, more tyrannical, more jealous than e^er of any appearance of national prosperity which threatened to interfere with their monopoly of power and wealth, and launched boldly forward into Corn Laws, Game Laws', pro- tecting laws, and what not. 'What looks maddest, miser- ablest, in these mad and miserable Corn Laws,' said Thomas Carlyle, * is independent altogether of their " e£fecton wages," their effect on " increase of trade," or any other such effect ; it is the contmued maddening proof they protrude into the faces of all men that our Governing Class, called by God and Nature and the inflexible law of Fact, either to do something towards Government or to die and be abolislied, have not yet learned even to sit still and do no mischief.' ' In the foregoing pages little has been done beyond exposing the framework of the picture which displays the misery caused by the ascendency of unworlciiig aristocrats. As for their ' Chartism Past and Present, p. 208. K 2 %i 52 BONDS OF DISUNION. J» acts and all that they did, are they not written in indelible letters even in the signs around us ? Is not our enormous na^onal debt a monument to their carelessness of national suftei-nig, of national blood and treasure, and of their callous indifference to the national thrift ? Are not our Primogeniture Laws, Laws of Distress, and the encouragements given by law to entails and perpetual settlements, still potent remnants ot their dearly-prized rights of defrauding their humble creditors ? Is not a Land Tax levied on a scale of valuation of no later date than 1692, a proof of their power to resist the burden of taxation, and to oppose the spirit of the principles oi 1088 to the progress of improving innovation ? What does a system of unfairly large proportionate repre- sentation to counties and small boroughs show ? What the acred wealth of the House of Commons ? What the main- tenance of a House of Lords by right of birth, and of a bench ol Bishops by right of State subsidy ? They show that the ' glorious principles ' of 1G88 still flourish with the vigour of a green old age, still powerful with the spirit of mischief, still a dangerous menace to the peaceful progress of the nation ; and they will continue to manifest their baleful presence amongst us so long as an hereditary and irresponsible House of Lords has the conceded right of mamtaimng evt i its outward semblance of irre- sponsible power, and so long as wealth rather than worth continues to furnish the House of Commons with a majority of legislators of strongly anti-popular sympathies. Let our Colonies at the furthest ends of the world take tliese lessons to heart. Land, the possession of land, is and ever was the only true basis of r,r. aristocracy. As population increases, land acquires a value not to be defined l)y figures of arithmetic. Social privileges, customary privileges "^ and statutory privileges therefrom arise. The smaller the number of those who acquire them, the worse relatively will be the condition of the remainder of the people, the greater the influence of the landowner. From iDfluence comes power • from power exclusive rights and ' Les droits du plus fort sont A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 53 toujoiirs les meilleurs.' Let the rising nationalities who now control their own destinies at the Ar^ipodes and elsewhere, take warning from the bitter experience of the Enghsh people. Let them grasp clearly the lesson, that a landowning monopoly is the cause of all other monopolies ; that it raises up a class whose interests are made to run in a different groove from that of the landless multitude ; and that its office is to check progress by taxing its onward movement. The growth of the landowners' power is unchecked because gradual, and for the while unperceived. The small squatter, who may justly base his claim to his 640-acre block on his right of reward as a pioneer of early settlement, becomes in a short space the proprietor of vast estates of almost unlimited extent. As he encloses more land, so he becomes increasingly jealous of his self-asserted privileges. The neighbour who was formerly a welcome guest now finds his cattle impounded for breaking through some encircling fence or for trending on straggling ill-kept boundaries. The shepherd king becomes a territm-ial magnate, and, clothed with magisterial power, judges the cause of the luckless trespasser who has violated the sanctity of his territorial limits. As population presses further forward on the virgin soil, he exacts rent and yet more rent. His scant and hard-earned sustenance becomes a princelv income, and from the fount of honour, a landowning Council at home, he receives as the reward of wealth distinctions, not for himself alone, but for Ms children and his children's children. The colonist whose great possessions have procured his translation into a baronet, transmits his honours to his eldest son. He stands in a privileged position in the eyes of the vulgar wealthy, who are stimulated into sycophancy to the institutions of a mother-country ever ready to reward by the offer of ribbons and titles the wealth of a landowning mono- polist wherever found. A landed aristocracy springs into being, and with it the curse ofhereditary privileges, hereditary legislators, and hereditary monopoly. Fervently is it to be desired that the attempts to establish a titular aristocracy in the Colonies may fail. Already the struggle between land monopolists and the great bulk of the a 64 BONDS or DISUNION. colonial populations is becoming dangerously embittered Let the Cro™ enhst itself on the side of the landowners by givW hem titular distinctions as evidence of its sympathies and^ far larger proportion than it gains the atUclm n ' of the m"nv 'tit: T ' ""r^*^ "" *'=«°"^ "' "- unrecogni td Cro™ ir ^f °™'"'''' "''"^^ *'" ''^""""^ "'at of the other Lnf nT "" P'^P'" ^■"' '''^''"fy «°« with the other, and will have none of either. IMPEl I ' When vident ri nourish to the moment could h{ who to'v upon tl] empire, establisl: Colonies rule of a power oi political advance! that arg or capac Unti colonies facilities monopo] Indian sighted i merce a Adam S hitherto ' Lord « Thia 55 CHAPTEE II. IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. — 'DIVIDE ET IMPERA.' ' When legislating for a new and unsettled country, the pro- vident ruler would lay his plans with a view to attract and nourish future populations, rather than with regard exclusively to the interests of the fow individuals who happen at the moment to inhabit a portion of the soil.' > Nothing, however, could have been further from the intention of the legislators who towards the latter end of the eighteenth century took upon themselves the management of England's colonial empire, than to found their rule on so reasonable a plan. To establish pecuHar privileges for a handful of individuals in the Colonies as well as in England, to initiate and maintain the rule of a small dominant class, and to invest it with the odious power of grinding monopoly in matters commercial, social, and political, were the principles of colonial government ignorantly advanced by tliem, and adliered to with an infatuated tenacity that argued more for their obstinacy than for their intelligence or capacity. Until a comparatively recent date, the raison d'etre of colonies was believed to consist exclusively in the peculiar facihties which their existence afforded to commercial monopoly. ' The only use of American colonies or West Indian Islands' to England, was heralded forth by short- sighted statesmen as consisting * in the monopoly of their com- merce and the carriage of their produce.' 2 To quote from Adam Smith : — ' The maintenance of this monopoly has hitherto been the principal, or more properly perhaps the sole ' Lord Durham's Report on Canada, 1839. ■■* This was the much applauded view put forward by Lord Sheffield. I 56 BONDS OF DISDMON. over W r7 ' " '^''"'"'°" "•'"^'' «'^^' J^"'-" '•^«»»" Z H . T"t ^" "'" ''"'"^'™ '■■•■"'"' ■' i^ «»PP<««'d- con- „ft . , ^^ "dvantage of provinces which liave never yel afforded ei her revenue or military force for the support o government or the defence of the mother-country The t^rS-V' > rTT' ^"■'"^ "^ "■""• ""Pudency, and it is dependncr W,f "" ''"'''''*'' ^"'^ g'^'-'ed ^om that dependency Whatever expenses Great Britain has laid out n mamtannng this dependency have hitherto been laid o m order to support this monopoly.' »t „,•=?' ""'^ ^,'" '""P'"""^ ''"" '•»'«'■« «o peculiarly apt at m:smanagmg the affairs of their own country should isplay at least equal ability of misrule when dealing'^with far d slant coloma dependencies. Fortunately it was fot within then- power to mflict upon Canada and the West Indies th^ most important of our colonies after the revolt of the Uni ed States, the extent of suffering which they inflicted upon the home population, but h, so far as in thenf lay they contrived development of the colonies, to create amongst them bitter' venT;; ffl' '' f "" "™"'"« ■"'" ^'°'-' -'^'-'-. '0 P- vent the flow of emigration to them, and to render them heavy and dangerous burdens to the nation at large ^ In pursuance of this ' monopoly • theory-the most mis- chievous groundwork of the Comedy of Errors known LX mercantile system, entaihng, as it did, a double loloi the Co omes and on the mother-country-it was decreed, that he trade between the two was to be carried on exclu ively in British or coloniabbuilt ships. By means of prot c^ve or exclusive duties, which operated toshut out any cheaper Iduce seemed to the colonial producer, and an artificial basis of bo thought the mept legislators of the day. To make of the system a consistent whole, by far the greater quantities of the produce of the Colonies, under the d^nom iationof'enumeratedarticles,'weretoheprohibitedfromS: sent direct to any foreign country. They were first to be s 1 1 IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 57 to Great Britain, and there unladen, before they could be for- warded to their final destinations. In addition, the Colonies were to be compelled to buy such foreign articles as they might require, entirely from the merchants and manufacturers of England, and all attempts to estabhsh manufactures in the Colonies were to be persistently discouraged. So essential was the enforcement of this last principle deemed to be to the just management of a colony, that Lord Chatham did not hesitate to declare in his place in Parliament, with all the fervour and indiscreetness of a harebrained schoolboy, that ' the British colonists of North America had no right to manufacture even a nail for a horseshoe ' — a braggart assertion and fitting preface to the successful efforts of the colonists to manufacture for themselves an independent Republic. One of the chief grounds on which this policy of contempt for and constant interference with the Colonies was attempted to be justified, was, that it would keep the Colonies in firmer dependence on the mother-country. It is needless to say that historical facts have conclusively belied this anticipation. So long as our North- American colonies were allowed a large share of local self-government, the loyalty of their in- habitants to England was one of their most characteristic features. The very belief in that loyalty was perhaps the main cause of those attempts to interfere in the purely domestic legislation of the Colonies which led to the disintegration of c. V colonial empire. When Franklin offered to supply Gibbon with materials for a chapter on the ' Decline and Fall of the British Empire,' he doubtless had in view the pernicious con- sequences to the imperial dominion inseparable from the logical carrying out of our colonial system. The logical sequence of endeavours to regulate the external trade of the Colonies was to be found in maladroit meddlings with their internal exchanges, with their fiscal laws, and with their in- most political and social regulations. The Americans had always been loyal, so they would always continue loyal. They had been so accustomed to have their external trade and politics regulated for them, that they would cheerfully submit to imperial dictation in all local , _*!. 58 matters. Tl BOx\DS OF DISUNION. il that U,e Ool neTle '.oTV r "■"' '"'<^'' "" '" ^'"^^''^S in order to keep II em i, .«" ^^ '^"^ ^""^ «'' Stephen's! was the embit efe, a d Z *"""" '^'f'^''^"""^- The res„] United 8tatesa,d„ I '^?"P''''' ™'<'P<«dence of the of ''t;:ir;r3;tt it'n '»«'""- maintenance tl- views of'o„r"^'„tr t I'tr t f^' °^ ""!'%-« pendencies. On tlie contrn, v t? , , '''"^'""'ng de- rigorouslyadministereT tf'e t "truTT.rr ""'^ promptly added to the list of Z '"^ ^'"''^'^ ''^^ trade of the loyal cin 15^^ "™"*"'' '*'""'^'' *» ''^'^ and exchange cento 't? "'f '"""'•'^t ''■"^ ^^'^ ™rket colonial prod^ers The tad oflf ''""'^ "'"'''"'^^ '» within a narrower zon. and l! """"'" ™' """tracted within it were now'^.^^"];™- <=«-' of monopolies tlie contrast between exnlndf I' '°°'' ^P^"""* ^y artihcial contractron of tb! f ? ™ ' '"'' "" increasing trade done, tirmonopohs n^i f 7'"' "^^ "'« ^«»'™'^d sliare, and as pe^l u t t "^ * greater proportionate tl^ey became ^^ slo X'^XTtr"'"'^' '" "'^'" from which, at unnaturally 1 eightoed t '°'^"^'>mies extravagant profits. "eigiitened prices, they reaped i«Lr:fEiaa^rtf (^f "^^^^ '^^ ^^-- fostered monopoly, ! ruV bd flv f "'''"' ^^ *^"' ^^«*^^ ^^ and typical casesi he Wp.fT^ ^ ''"'" ^* *^« prominent and the CanadL non^^^^^^^^^^ tions could be found rX f ^'' *'^^^- ^'^ ill^^tra- of the colonLl system. "' """ '"^^^ ^^^^ ^-^-^o- folly A trade in sugar was stimulated betAveen thp Wncf t ^• colonies of Great Britain and the 3] J ^ ^''^'^'' large amount of capital .n/li ^^^^^^^^^^^^-country ; and a ing by the favolb^d"^^^^^^^^ '"""^^1 "^^^ sugar-grow- of West Indian su^a' aHnn f ^''''^'^ ^" importations si-ar from for'^- '-? . .^^^^P^red with those imposed nnnn - -o-*i nom loicign countries proper. "'•"'" IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 69 For a lengthened period prior to 1845 the duty on foreign- grown sugar was maintained at 63s. per cwt., on West Indian colonial sugar at 25s. M. per cwt. The former rate of duty was of course prohibitory on foreign sugars ; although, exclusive of duty, the price of Brazilian and Cuban sugar was only half that of colonial sugar. The direct cost of this arrangement over a series of years has been variously estimated at from three to five millions per annum— an amount equiva- lent to cent, per cent, upon the totals paid for colonial sugar imported during those years. At one time, the colonial supphes of sugar were sufficient not only to supply the home market, but to afford a surplus for exportation. Not, however, that this uieant a supply at all in accordance with the home demand for sugar, as we should estimate that demand nowa- days, for Mr. Huskisson's statement in the House of Commons on Mr. Grant's motion in 1829 for a reduction of the Sugar Duties was undeniable. Mr. Huskisson alleged that, ' in consequence of the present enormous duty on sugar, the poor working man with a large family, to whom pence were a serious consideration, was denied the use of that commodity, and he believed he did not go too far when he stated that two-thirds of the poorer consumers of coffee drank that beverage without sugar.' But after the emancipation of the slaves, the supply fell to one-half of its previous dimensions. On the one hand, therefore, we had a rapidly increasing population, and on the other, we had that population confined, by an oppressive duty, to a market for sugar in which the supply had been materially diminished. ' The consequences were such as every man of sense might have anticipated from the outset. The business of refining for the foreign market and our export trade in sugar were all but annihilated, while the average price of Muscavado sugar admissible to the Enghsh markets amounted during the three years ending with 1844 to about double the price of foreign sugar, in bond, of equal or superior quality.' ^ The slave trade had been abohshed by Act of Parliament in 1807, but an active trade in slaves was notwithatauding ' McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, article ' Sugar.' \ 60 BONDS OF DISUNION. tial to tl.e deyebpLnt o7t 1 ™' T^'"""^ "-' ^^^«"- cultivation and slave.™ J^, ^^ f'T'°"'- ^"^^ the one we were nminZ • l1 T"^' ""^ '" ^n,omi,gi„g paid to coloZ "„r Z ;?, " °""''- "^''^ 20,000,OOof emancipation ma/Sefot I- , "k "^Tf ?^^''°" ^" ^'^™ five mmions an„LV;t«'^,trbt tl "T ''"'' '" sumer, in fosteriincr t]L o,; "iicctiy by the home con- the ab^Htion o sltr/llT"''"^- ■ ^^ '" "'" ^"-^^ «' know how widesprealTv-n?? ""'"""' themselves, we not been for the'^Ltdiro ,s h m'" """'''' ''^ ''• ^ad it monopoly by lellXe ^ ! ''°'f «™g "P of a large sugar been !siz':s^z:xTts:r7f°'' ™""^ "'™ trifling cost. As it ™, , i . ' "' ""^ * comparatively blow "at an art^ciallve ;."',' ."'""' " '"™'' " ''^"'"^ caused it deXd u. of °1 '"''f ''' ""'' ^-^ "'« "™ it prosperous, SLve nff ™"f -^f'"' ™^tomers, who, if for artic,es'of\;te'rn:ttt ' ^"""^ ^"'^''^'^-^ "'-'^''' The benefits (?) of monopoly were not ill t. I sule. A monopoly accorded mus coexist w,> ■'" °™ enforced. Besides the obli.>ation Z ™ reciprocity Indian colonies of sending f ^^"'"^ "" '''" West foreign countries t 7^^2j" "" P™^""« ''^««™'' for ~ging BiSsr:::i'Su-;rSn? x^-^'f migh! be imSd Ce dlw ^ "''""'"^ '"'''^^- '^'•* " from a nrffsh home 0100^11^ rr.^'^^)' '^ ^''W«^ British or colony-built shiB Tl , . '-'"^ '^^>'°''"" ™ visions was mosi ke^ ly fe ' wl! 1''"" "^ *''^^^ P™" dealt in, since ™th New O L ' Zt, ""'"'''i ^'•"'"'"' ™« States ports close at Inn, ,?n f "™°^^' ""d o'l>er United their vicinity Eveiyt i » I f?™"''«« <=«»" be taken of Indian coloLs^'lirtf to'St '"hf^r? f "'^ ^^-' Quebec or Montreal before it co„l be f/™"'^'"'' *° possessions, and trade was ha/'dici' d' .^t'^C'df '" tbe shortest and cheapest into tlie longest^ feat^r IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 61 In papers laid by the West Indian merchantg and planters before the House of Commons,' they estimated the increased expenses they thus incurred in procuring lumber, staves, flour, shingles, fish, &c., at fifteen per cent, on the entire value of these articles, or at the enormous sum (to them) of 187,575Z. a year. No part of this sum went into the pockets of any British merchants. It went wholly to indemnify the Ameri. cans and others for being obliged to bring their produce by the most circuitous route. One object of our rulers— tlie steady discouragement of a direct trade b'tween America and the West Indies— had been apparently attai ^ed, but this involved other consequences on which it was < "cult to look with absolute complacency. For the contraction of trade had the natural effect of diminish- ing instead of increasing t^^e tonnage of British and colonial shipping engaged in it, while, on the other hand, the restrictive laws had given a fine impetus to smuggling where the articles of trade were not bulky and inconvenient of carriage. The British West Indian ports swarmed with semi-piratical smu^^- glers, and abundance of profitless employment was given to the large and expensive naval establishment maintained for the purpose of preventing and checking them. The sugar monopoly collapsed as soon as the artificial protection was withdrawn from it. Widespread ruin followed, the moment the prop was taken away. The smuggling which had been fostered by preventive folly, resolved itself into piracy for want of other occupation, and for many years after the equalisation of the Sugar Duties the condition, on land, in the West Indies, was one of helpless despondency ; on the sea one of perilous insecurity. Canadian timber, wasnn article to ^tliicli especial preference was shown by our ps(Mulo-economist governors. lor some years previous to 1843, the differential duty in favour of Cana- dian timber was 45.s. per load. The effect of this preference was to encourage the growth of a lumber trade in Canada 1 No. 121. Session 1831. 62 BONDS OF DISUNION. I and to turn the agriculturist into a lumberer-tlinf ,-. . . liim from an occupation wliere thriT l7 . ' ^"^ ^"'" mdispensable to suciss, to ^ "a. ^1 f..^^^^^^^^^^^ -- so conspicuous by tbeir absencP ,. , '/'^'^ '^^'^^^^^^s became sti«.nat.se<, as tlfe ' pests oTe' t""'?^^^^^^^^^^^^^ j'^'/ demoral sin<^ tendpnpv +l,n i i ^ "^^^•>^' ^Pait from this meats in the'w ; of t fe' Mt^Z l1 """"^ ""' ""■-^i" since the cutting do vnout 1 "'''"?"' ""''« '^"'""J'. .™wtl,ofb™slu;ood:rtitttu^^^^!,^^^^^^ the ite^S^rZTr "'. "r ■'''''■^^''"«'" ""'- '0 all trade betwee?E™l d .nd V"'°'" " ^''"°^' """""•'^^'5 countries had littlet^r ttfi" 7^ retha. "'T our commodities. When nvpvo„t„,i i .if- , <*™l"»"ge for them from exporting Uto E^ d^^ttt ^'" ,' '"'"^ '^'^"^ to the markets of France and Hl'lf ■',''''"'" '" '''"'^ had formerly import "f.om„f Til "" "'"'^^ *'-^ lost a profitable market, Zi ZnZ ItT 7T'''''"''' employed by those manufacture s"- "til™ tf T''''^" meut, Avhile other countries therehv „ ? , °' "'"'''">'- and developed their own i'dus'tri f o 'Cf trse:::^"""'''' demand. The loss to ourselves i,, n i f'«an'h"avian pence was for the tin,es v y con^der'ab Vf ''"'''°"' ''"^ Sweden, which in 1814 had L.^rtedto 511 sisrr'r' '", m 1819 to 4«,C5«Z., and even in 1842 after g 4" «■ f'Tl been made to re-acjuire the Swedisl t ado , ; . tot^I N greater value than VMMSl. The like ^t't' ' "" to Norway, which fell from a total o 99 ooi/ ,"'""' '"'''' to the value of 04 74i; i„ mTn {■'•^'•>'^/^- ™l"e n, 1815, estimated to be worth morTeLnisi'Vo" .'''' ™^ ^"" ""' that of Canadian i^2.^Cni^uZ Z """"" """ amount of the diUerential dut f No „1 TT, '" ""* quality of the European timber wa; ffit^^L', 'if ''we 1 1 * McCulIocli,' Timber Trade.' IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 63 believe t]ie first Report of the House of Lords on the foreign trade of the kingdom, where it is asserted that ' the North American timber is more soft, less dm^able, and every descrip- tion of It more Hable, though in different degrees, to the div rot than is timber of the North of Europe.' And, furthers that the timber of Canada, both oak and fir, does not possess for thepurpose of shipbuilding, more than half the durabihtv 01 wood ol the same description, the produce of the North of Europe.' And yet it was of this Canadian timber that we had been foryears building bad ships instead of good ones, in order to give an artificial stimulus to supposed colonial require- ments. We had been heavily taxing ourselves and putting an incubus on the real development of the Canadas, iix order to buid of the worst materials procurable, at extravagant rates, two ships where one Avould have done better at larL^elv 'iAmhe^^ ^°'*' '^ ^^^1* with untaxed 'durable' European Independently of the direct pecuniary losses inflicted upon both mother-country and the colonies of Canada by the maintenance of this ridiculous monopoly, the indirect losses on either were certainly far greater. Each had to purcllase 111 the dearest market, and each, therefore, lost the sound un bolstered trade which might have been utihsed in developing fresh industries to which capital on either side would naturally have flowed. The purchasing power of each, not only for the products of the other, but for the products of all other countries was diminished by at least the extra cost which each had to incur for buying in markets kept artificially dear by monopoly That this ,vas a benefit to individual monopolists is probable enough, but that only in a comparative degree, and it is evident that it could involve nothing but heavy loss to the bulk of the smallor traders on each side, and that both colonial and home consumers were distinctly impoverisjied by it. The colonial system was exactly calculated to generate feelings of jealousy and dislike of imperial rule amongst both Canadian and West Indian colonists. In Canada, in especial where there was a gradually increasing European- born labour- ing population, the injury and injustice of the system was 64 BONDS OF DISUNION. of tl.e impS author '° ""''' f' ■"termeJdling despotism more cknse out TZT- T'" '"*''"' '" "'^ ""'""^'^ «"'l Br..., jd .: r::!c;:r:;r:Ltr'^ '-''- «-' of th^ii' He'r i:t'r-f " """^'^ 'o™'* «- <=>- tempted to ruleZ "in ve TdeUr; "' "ir'"'' ""'" ="" of the breadth of tlm' gL e l^fot of 7 " T' '''''"°<=« gone forth from England anilt^l^, , ™''''""' *'"> '""^ of Maryland, Mass^ch 'tt Jr''^'!!'«*'V. The charters gave to^those coloni^'rUmlte'd p^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^*-<' ment. Within tlieir own h^ i-^^ers ot local sell-8:overn- right to adn^imster L w r*"^^ T'T '""" "'« popular basis. '" "" "'" fr'*«"" and most neglect of tlfe ToL G ttnn h", "t'' "'^ ■''--«-"' became evident that they™™ InSdlv "' ''°"'™'' " and resources, England or rlthp^n ^ advancmg m wealth that had arrogated^o tetf ^^o^ ^tl^^'T^"' prompt in asserting claims tn tl,f „ miperial rule, was colonial revenues to its ol pu 1:""''"' "' "- '"-l cratic managers would perham f, t . '''"'™ "^ auto- i"to practice Sancho Pa' Ltma^m ^ee„ possible, have put for slaves, and appropriith,! . f^''« *'"' ""'"nists This being out ofT'r "ol the ^'"'7 "" P™"-"- Prive the colonists of That w'al fi fl^T ™' '"^'^^ '» -J^' municipal ri.dit • and 1 s„l . !^ '^ '"'""^ ""=''• ' 'J'^arest life and^hecilrftl c Wa, !" T'"^"™" °' '"''™'al careless, and inespo, JweTet o Iffi ? /'," ""^^'"Pathetic, of pohcy was, as I hav Lte attlm^U 7" ""^ ""^ ^-•--^^^'-"xr-srpih?:^ Club K^:;:'^!"' ''°«™'= ^™2'»"- Oo/„,.^/^^«„„. c.„bden an error IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 65 meddling and spoliation. The system was not long in costinc^ us the allegiance of the North-American colonies as an early mstalment of its natural consequences, and the shock so rudely given imposed upon the clique the necessity of caution m the nnmediate future. A penal colony was, therefore, re- served for the theatre of our first experiments in tlioroughly centralised government, and there the local or municipal form of self-government was wholly inapplicable so long as the population was entirely com])08ed of convicts and their gaolers It was deemed as inapplicable to the helpless communities in Canada which came under our dominion by conquest. To French Canada was accorded a delusive shadow of free institutions without any of the reahty of freedom ; the power of representation in a popular assembly without any of the natural consequences of representation. The central system was triumphant for awhile, and every portion of our vast colonial empire was liable to the most serious injury from an oversight, a misapprehension, a want of right information, or an error of judgment, on the part of a gentleman sitting in Downmg Street, instructed by irresponsible, unknown officials wedded to red-tape by the law of their being. Communities of which the main characteristics, indeed the elements of whose existence, were perpetual changes and ever-onward progress, were ruled by an authority as ' laborious, heavy, busy, blind,' and bold ' as the veriest Goddess of Arch- Stupidity. So long as we made no attempts to interfere with the local self-government of our North-American colonies, their attach- ment to the British connection was genuine and deep. They presented in this respect a remarkable contrast to the centrally governed Spanish colonies of America. Both English and Spanish colonies have now forcibly separated themselves from their parent countries, and both have established Ee- publican forms of government. The immediate causes of separation were in either case similar. The English colonies revolted against the attempt to impose upon them a central bureaucratic system which proposed to take fi'om tlieni the power of controlling their inmost fiscal arrangements. The gfyW'w- 66 BONDS OF DISUNION. 1 tl,»7„ ; .,. , ■""'- '^°«'«™'-. one notable difference in the coarse of the hostiUties in either ease T„ ,1,7 f education in the self-governing prL; had detlord'j !nfe .f, ""^>"»P^'1'^«<^ bureaucratic despotism Z perpetual revolution and incessant anarchy If a world-wide empire such as ours derives strength from ts Colomes, it is not through the strengthenin<. ot he ifl lative tie between them but lhrn.„rl, n„. T ^^" which the unfettered xei^s "f t'l Jf"'"™ '""'"^ implants i„ the aflections o tl^ Zt a |7T', '°"" •lust as the North-American col^ieTrtdllmth: Xi nistitutions a basis of miconquerable strenglsTdM t L Z exercise of local authority make them Inv«l 1' , n subjects of the parent coin.try tl^ 2t f 7 ! '"' ""^ versal cause of'weakness in In e^t^^eZ^::^^^^ '""" consisted in the disaffection of U. Ill """"moi lias always .c.o«rc„ of „pam. Long before the latter had been reft IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 67 of her South- American colonies she had lost all internal vigour and all her weight in European councils, chiefly because of the weakness and demoralisation her colonial system entailed upon her. On the other hand, so long as the municipal rights of the EngHsh colonic ;weio left unmolested the colonists were at all times prompt to take up arms on behalf of the mother- country. It is unnecessary to multiply instances of the political benefits resulting to the imperial State from the establishment of local self-government in colonies, as opposed to the evils to be ex^.ected from the maintenance of the central system. From the days of the Roman empire, whose chief dependence was in her municipalities, to the time when the self-governing Fuerc? of the Basque Provinces of Spain herself fought to the ast rather than submiL to a revolution which deprived their egitimate sovereign of his throne, history abounds with nstances to point the moral and adorn the tale of the guar- antee afforded by widespread, free-born local governing insti- tutions for the loyalty and cohesion of the separate parts of the State : of the inevitable tendency of centralisation to vio- lent disruption of peaceful relations between rulers and ruled. The unwisdom of our ancestors in forcing on the separa- tion of the States was still more glaringly conspicuous in their attempts to perpetuate in their Canadian colonies the policy which had given rise to the Declaration of Independence. The '•-entral system in a form which was bureaucratic as well as central was applied to Canada with redoubled vigour, and but for the utter want of training in self-government fostered by it throughout the Canadas, and the irreconcilable jealousies promoted by the system between the French and English- speaking divisions of the Canadas, the occasional revolts against our dominion by the colonists would most certainly have eventuated in violent separation. Of all the evil results of centralised government there is none more pronounced than its effect in destroying, by the process of preventing, the growth of a spirit of seif-rehance. if there is one quality above all others desirable for a young r2 I 68 BONDS OF DISUNION. community to cultivate, it is implicit self-reliance from its earliest infancy. Our centralised form of government was not only calculated to, but was framed expressly to, repress the first indications of this quality. The colonist 'vas to have no will ot Ins own, and was to have no indiscreet aspirations in the direction of bettering himself. He was a toddling infant to be kept m leading-strings to an official high priestliood. At times he might be • pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw ' but tlie serious business of trying to get along in Ins own way was not for him. ^ The Canadians wore to have representative assembhes to play with, but they were not to be permitted to have either haiid or real voice in their own government. The Colonial Office would see to that, and everything would be admhiistered Hi the best possible way. Canada was not to be governed for its own benefit, otherwise it might take the leading-strings into Its own hands and run clean away, as the United States had just done. No ! dominion over Canada was a recompense given by Providence to tlie Colonial Office, its relatives and friends, to make up for the field of patronage of which they had been pitilessly despoiled by tlie unreasoning conduct of the ' wicked rebels ' of the erst North-American colonies. Canada was divided into two provinces. Upper Canada and Lower Canada. In the latter divisv.n the bulk of the inhabi- tants were French, and between them and the English popu- lation prevailed a fierce and consuming hatred. ' That liberal nistitutions and a prudent policy might have changed the chai-acter of t],p struggle I have no doubt,' says Lord Durham.! 'Unhappily, however, the system of govern- ment pursued in Lower Canada has been based upon the policy of perpetuating that very separation of the races, and encouragnig those very notions of conflicting nationahties, which it ought to liave been the first and chief care of govern- ment to check and extinguish.' Up to so late a period as 1816, the nationality of the ' Lord Durham's ileport on the Affairs of British North America, French isolating from the they wei United ^ of the 8 governra The colonies down ini tion, ail resistam was div allotted apart foi making been ad French ficial 0] never lu was fou] vince w highway to pres€ midst oJ failure i jealous ' long m measur( special : Alterna irritatec brought into utt The briefly s ' Lor p. 46. DIVIDE ET IMPERA. GO French Canadians was confessedly cultivated as a means of isolating entirely the inhabitants of British (Upper) Canada from those of the revolted colonies. To keep the former loyal, they were to be kept from contact with the populations of the United States— a device sufficiently puerile to be well worthy of the statesmen who supported it as a sound principle of govermnent. The policy of the Colonial Office was to govern its colonies by means of internal dissensions, and ' to break them down into petty isolated communities, incapable of combina- tion, and possessing no sufficient strength for individual resistance.' ' It was with this object in view that Canada was divided into two provinces, the settled portions being allotted to the French, and the unsettled portions being set apart for British colonisation. ' Had the sounder poHcy of making the Lower Province English in all its institutions been adopted from the first and steadily persevered in, the French would have been speedily outnumbered, and the bene- ficial operations of the free institutions of England would never have been impeded by animosities of origin.' ^ But it was found impossible to exclude the English race from a pro- vince where the great rivers afforded the most convenient highways for commercial enterprise. The attempt, therefore, to preserve a distinctive French- Canadian nationahty in the midst of Anglo-American colonies and States proved a signal failure in respect of its object, but it succeeded in producing a jealous contest of races whicli was largely responsible for the long unprogressiveness of the Canadian Dominion. Every measure of the Imperial Government seemed shaped with special intent to aggi'avate the evil to the extremest degree. Alternate concessions to either of the contending races only irritated both, and, while intensifying the animosities of race, brought the vacillating and unwieldy Government system into utter contempt. The defects of government in the Canadian colonies were briefly and pithily summarised by Lord Durham as follows : ^— ' Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of Brlthh North America, p. 46. '^ Ibid. p. 47. ^ Ibid. p. 51. ■ i 1 i! • h 1 70 BONDS OF DISUNION. -.■■'t ' It may fairly be said that the natural state of governmciit in all the Colonies is that of collision between the executive and the representative body. In all of them the administration of public affairs is habitually conceded to those V^rho do not co-operate harmoniously with the popular branch of the Legis- lature ; and the Government is constantly proposing measures which the majority of the Assembly reject, and refusing its asoent to Bills which that body has passed.' In Lower Canada the practical working of the Eepresenta- tive Assembb commenced with the imprisonment of its leaders for freedom of speech— no very auspicious initiation of free institutions ! By degrees the Assembly acquired a partial con- trol over a portion of the public revenue ; and an unceasing struggle ensued with the Executive, until by 1832 the Assembly had gained an entire control over the whole revenue of the colony. « But it still found itself deprived of all voice in the choice, or even designation, of the persons to whom was to be confided the administration of affairs. The constitution of the Assembly was unworkable. It might refuse or pass laws, vote or withhold supplies, but it could exercise no influence over the nomination of a single servant of the Crown. In the selection of officials no regard whatever was paid to the wishes of the people or of their re presentatives ; indeed, hostihty to the Assembly was usually the ground of the elevation of the most incompetent persons to posts of honour and trust. The actual government of the colony was placed in the charge of officials bitterly opposed to the popular will, and who were deputed to carry into opera- tion the legislation which they most strenuously opposed. It is difficult to imagine a greater mockery than repre- sentative institutions coupled with irresponsible government The opposition of the Assembly to the Crown was an unavoid- able result of such an arrangement. The popular leaders relieved of all the responsibilities of opposition, made the business of legislation and the practical government of the province subordinate to the struggle or power, and the necessities of the community were used for the purpose of ' Report, p. 52. DIVIDE ET IMPERA. 71 extorting the concession of whatever demands they might choose to make. As to the Legislative Council, it is described in the ' Report "-as ' hardly anything but a \ eto in the hands of public functionaries on all the acts of that popular branch of the Legislature in which they were always in a minority.' This veto was used without much scruple, and the time which should have been devoted to wise legislation was spent in a contest for power between the Executive and the people ' which a wise Government would have stopped at the outset by submitting to a legitimate responsibility, and which a wise people would have ceased to press when it had virtually attained its end.' ^ This Council was vowed to secresy. None of its members were answerable for the working of any department. There- fore there was no individual superintendence over, as there was no responsibility for, any department. Still it was from the advice given by these officials that the edicts of the Colonial Office were drawn up. Considering these circumstances, it would be indeed sur- prising if it should be found that any department was carried on advantageously for the colony. While the money voted for public works was unblushingly scrambled for, the works themselves were rarely commenced, and more rarely completed. Next to the power of disposing of the land in a new country, there is no more important function than that of forwarding and controlling the public works. But unless there exist municipal authorities to interest themselves in, and see to the proper administration of, the sums voted for those works, the department charged with their execution can hardly fail to utilise its opportunities for its own private ends. It is not too much to say that jobbery, robbery, and criminal inefficiency were the most conspicuous features m the administration of the public works of Canada. There was no such thing as local or municipal government throughout the length and breadth of the Canadas. All ' Report, p. 58. ' Ibid. p. 49. 72 BONDS OF DISUNION. ! ''I egula, admrnistration appeared to cease immediately beyond he walls 01 Quebec a„d Montreal. I„ the rest of the count y there was ' no sheriff. „o mayor, no constable, no super Ir adm„„strat,ye officer of any kind.' ■ Nor we;e there Tny county, municipal, or parochial officers, either named by the to r:;;::.;"?'"""'"^ '"^ ^-P'- ^he people, accustl!ed to rely entirely on Govemment dictation, had no power of domg anytlnng for themselyes, and were but little disposed to ^ZtT ,'° "'ti""'™' """'""'^ '^'-'' presumpCs y carry ts measures mto practice. It was not deemed fitthig to to relTrr, *''"'™T"V'""''' •"'''"™'' ^o-'d ''^-"owed to be ^^r"" 7" '°™' *"'^- ^"^ >''»• "'™gh declared l,v! T ^ managing the business of a parish, they weie, with an mconsistency characteristic of the system entrusted with the power of influencing, by the votes JS rep esen atives i„. the Assembly, the highest destinies of the ftta e. It would have been indeed surprising had the self- comradictory parcelling out of duties tei'mmafed in anythhi but discontent, disaffection, and failure. duties"' Rn.T '"^'if V""™'' "•'"' " "^t™* of customs colon tt, n 1 " '1;°" "* "'^^^ ™^ ™' '^'^"■"^te'i '0 tl'e colonists themselves. None were permitted to dip into the „r. ^ff, t''""'"^'"'"' "'' "■^*°™' '''"''"^^ except the officers of the Imperial Government. This revenue again was a source of endless dispute between the two great pr""nce of the Dominion. Almost the whole of the imports of Uppe f^r n«*trf ''] ?" P"'^ "' ^°^™^ Canada, and'lhe tormei therefore msisted on receiving a portion of thereven., from duties The revenue of Upper Canada behig to a/i; .adequate to the expenditure, the province fo nd itseff obliged to raise the scale of customs duties in order to -ay the interest on its debt. These duties being levied in'Low'r Canada the taxation of that province had also to be raise 1 although It enjoyed a large surplus revenue. It may o readily believed that this arrangement did not tend to produce harmony between the two provinces-a result entirely ht ' Beiwt, p. 78. DIVIDE ET IMPERA. 73 accorflaiice with the motto ' Divide et Impera ' specially adopted by the Imperial Government for application to the circumstarii; , 'f the two Canadas. Thf pniiC!r)!o of centralisation did not stop at the Custom House. It w 18 carried into the Post Office. The Colonial Post C .."e v^is subordinated to the General Post Office hi London, anvi iiis every detail was regulated and administered by the m^ vd and servants of an establishment several weeks' sail froia (.'anada. The increased cost of the postal service was thus very great. The direct part of the cost was, in the first place, borne by the English office, and, in order to recoup the expense to that institution, the revenue from the colonial •etters was paid over to it. The indirect cost was probably, n those days of slow-going sailing-ships, a still heavier burden, and it fell chiefly upon the Canadians themselves. But this was what was intended. Much letter-writing or ex- ended business relations might have given the colonists a sense of their own importance which it would have been presump- tuous in them to entertain. Besides, what mattered the injury done, if the object of good colonial government was attained — namely, if money was somehow screwed out of the colony to pay for the cost of officialism at home ? Officials in England enjoyed the privilege of franking their letters, on presumed grounds of public policy, but then there they made their own laws. The Canadian officials would doubtless have gladly conferred the privilege on themselves, their relatives and friends, but this they were not allowed to do, for reasons of public policy were not considered as apply- ing to Canada ; and besides there was the all-sufficient reason that the postal revenue was an English perquisite. The colonial officials, however, availed themselves of a remedy ready to hand. The funds derived from the sale of Jesuits' estates had been dedicated to public educational purposes. By way of reimbursing themselves for paying postage and other vexatious charges, the Council diverted the money derived from these sales — from education, for which nothing was done — to a secret service fund by which the official members of the body were enriched, at the same time 74 BONDS OF DISUNION-. li ^lnl!l'''\"'f''''' ""^^ ''''''^^^ '''^^"^''^- The obstinate stiugg e which was for long maintained with the Assembly in vIvM n' rr""^%*^^i« gross misappropriation tonsnes a vmd Illustration of the difficulty of curtailing the powers for official! '''' ""'^^P^^^ible and therefore corrupt chque of Tlie ' Family Party ' which ruled Upper Canada had in some respects an easier task before them-politically-than had the small band of officials who administered to their own wants m the Lower Province. There were no questions in Upper Canada arising upon the jealousies of rival nationah- ties so the only problem in pohtics to be solved was how to set the different classes and interests in the community most completely by the ears. ^ The ' Family Party ' or ' Family Compact ' was composed of native-born as Well as of English officials. So the party had always a strong local connection, out of which it could in case of necessity, manufacture a good deal of support The small knot of officials who composed the ' Party ' adhered with great fidehty to the example set them by th^ parent State. Conscious that unless the whole patronage of the colony wa^ at their disposal, they could not hold together in defiance of the representative body, they divided between themselves all places of office and trust, and endowed these with salaries equivalent to their belief in their own merit A dominant Church is always one device of a ruling oligarchy for giving to its position the weight of a religious sancuon So the party .et to work to bolster up an Estab- lished Church, representative perhaps of one-fourth of the population. This move, from the point of view of their own interest, was probably a wise one, for it enabled them to count on the support of a proportion of the people which tiiough a small one, comprised the wealthiest and most influential settlers. It was tlie countenance given by these last hat permitted of the continuance of the rule of the i amily Party. Religious government is government through religious differences, and just as the Colonial Office based its DIVIDE ET IMPEEA. 75 rule on local hatreds, so the Party founded its strength on religious animosity. The Assembly repeatedly passed Bills appropriating the moneys from the sale of reserve lands which had been lavished on the Church, to education ; but all such Bills were summarily rejected by the Family Party, bent as it was in making up to the Church in endowments what it lacked m popular sympathy. The members of the Party were supreme m the cha>'tered banks. They therefore most persistently opposed any exten- sion of the banking system which might compete with their own monopoly! Most of them, too, were lawyers. The legal fraternity has invariably distinguished itself by a close trades- unionism which has made the entrance into its own profession as narrow and exclusive as possible, and the Canadian lawyers, true to tradition, secured themselves from competition by re- fusing to allow even English barristers or sohcitors to prac- tice in the colonial courts without a long local apprentice- ship, whatever might have been their standing at home. As for the conduct of pubhc works, it was of course far too abounding in lucrative chances to be permitted to be carried on except by the few individuals forming the Party, who, by getting the management entirely into their own hands, ' deliberately encouraged a system of carelessness and profusion by which they were enriched at the public expense.' ' With government in the hands of wreckers, trade must always lack confidence and enterprise. However anxious the rulers may be to promote it, its expansion will be impossible where political integrity is altogether non-existent. But the Family Party officials had no intention of encouraging the de- velopment of trade. It was, they thought, contrary to their private interest to do so, so they scrupled not to hamper the operations of commerce by imposing heavy duties, by retarding the settlement of the country, and by systematically neglecting those pul)lic works which are as the breath of life to a young community struggling into being. Had there been any system of local government at all, we ' Bejport, p. 109. •6 BONDS OF DISUNION. U f ;3 my feel cort™ that, despite every effort of the Family Party roads bndgea, and communications ™„ld have been estab: .d.ed over the ace of the country, and would have neutralLed « some extent the effects of detestable misgovernment ; but o havmg the fear of local control before its eyes, the Fa^nily Party pursued unchecked the even tenor of its way ^ . f«>-tl«' establishment and maintenance of this state of « n,gs the Colomal Office must be held directly responsible The office had created the Family Party in Upper CaiLla and Famnv P "* " '!, ^"^'^ ''"'''''"'■ ™' ''^t--" Office, SirSt.^'"'"-^''"^ ™'"« freemasonry of anti.' ofolelon""^,^''™™"' ™' "^"""y ">'= ™«-^ ''feature vey enviable or secure one. The representations of the oftcals ,n either p.-ovmce were, as a rule, accepted by the Gove':;: r ;^ "• f '^™ "' l*^ '"^*'™"<'- '» «- Cofol wo,? T;, ^.'"' '"f"""""™ which thus formed the ground- voik oi the mstructmns given to him emanated from small Knots of men systematically liostile to the wishes of the great m^orUy of the colonists. The policy he was re,un-ed t c ry out was therefore that which the colony was he least pre pared to accept. The details of the directions given to h m were models of precision, and laboriously dictated to him the course he was to pursue in every particular of his administra- ton If he did as he was told, he became unpopular with the eoloms ts who clamoured for his recall. If he acted as he Ike of the local official class, who lost no time in pi^ocurin-. .« deposition by malignant representations to tlie'cZ 1 ffice. In se f.de fence, then, he as a rule refrained from doiiT' anylhmg until he had taken the opinion of the OiHce, even in matters o a strictly local nature, of which none but tZ "S n'^'ri"'"' '""1 P""""^ '""'^*- '"'^"'■"^- Of "' CO lid be?, ,f ''"'"™' ."•»'" '"™ '» *"»'^' «'<* •>««' "-at could be said o very many of them was, that they were quite ".operative. Either they had been outran bv time and evenh IMPEEIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 77 in the colony, or from some reason, which a moment's intelli- gent consideration might have rendered apparent, they were inapplicable to things real in the colony. Thus a glance at a map might have taught the Colonial Office that it was by no means necessary to send out a cargo of casks filled with fresh water for the use of ships floating on the fresh-water lake of Ontario. ' I have seen the House of Assembly,' says Wake- field, • incapable of restraining their mirth while the Speaker was gravely reading instructions to the Governor which his Excellency had been desired to communicate to them. They laughed at the ludicrous inapplicability to Canada of tlie views expounded in these despatches.' • Such escapades as these had naturally the effect of bringing the home Government into contempt in the colony. The greater part of these instructions, however, never saw the light without being marked 'secret' or 'confidential.' The Colonies were in fact ruled by a power which had an absolute choice between making known and conceaUng all the grounds of its laws and orders. ' The most important busi- ness of government was carried on in a secret correspondence between the Governor and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the Colonies were frequently the last to learn the thing, that most concerned them by the tar,'ly publication of papers on the order of the Britisli Parliament.' '^ The Canadas were to be kept in firm dependence by being prevented from framing laws and institutions for their own local government. The entire management of the country was therefore to be centralised in a London office. It 'Jiay be interesting to glance at the imier Avorking of the system, together with some of its more obvious consequences. Supp<<-iing a distant and centralised form of c-'- nment to be conceivably necessary for the welfare of the Colonies, it would before all things be requisite that it should be admmis- lured by those ' who sympathise witli their subj. is, whose glory is in their prosperity, to whom their misfortunes are at least a discomfort, and whom . . . they can ciieck in cases of ' Wakefield's Art of Culonif l--" '''ought far below tliat of the mother-country ? Natural advantages of climate and soil were of slidit benefit whei^ enterprise was deliberately discouraged Pi fie Edward's Isle might, in Lord Durham's opinion in A," ti^e ^XadT^ Tm •"' "" ^"'■^" ^''-i- - ca"ir peope Alt ',.,'"■''?' T'^''^ '° »«PP»' ^»™ "0,000 people Although the whole island was pre-eminently rich m agricultural resources, and recjuired but little iXur t clearing while at the same time it was blessed with a mo " genial c .mate than that of the other provinces, o.lvZ fourteenth of the surface of the island had been bl-ougl t i"to cultivation. The cause of this lamentable waste of national wealth was owing partly to the possession of almost the ntire land by absentee proprietors ; but mainly to the inflneiT of the absentees at home in preventing the royal assen f om being given o reinedral Acts of the local Legislature.^ Pr n™ fcdward s Isle, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfound! land, although among the oldest settled colonies in the NcHh American continent, could only show a populatio loftt peiBon every hundred acres. Yet all the land was easT cultivable, and the coast fisheries were enormouslv™ luab i ^zzr""": 1- "^^'"' "f-'^p'-- j- to -the vicfous' ZtTl • '"'""'^'"1 bureaucratic system of government these fisheries were practically monopolised by the Mierinen of ' WakeflcWs Art o/ Colonisation, p. 156. ' Bej^oii, p. HI. "^ IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 85 the United States. Such was the depth of apathy into which colonists whom every surrounding circumstance of chmate and oppor unity combined to spur into healtliy vigour, had been forced by the unwisdom of their Colonial Office wet-;urse. In all these provinces,' says the ' Report,' • « we find repre. sentative government coupled with an irresponsible Executive • we find the same constant collision between the branches of the Government, the same abuse of the powers of the repre- " sentative bodies owing to the anomaly of their position, aided by the want of good municipal institutions, and the same constant mterference of the imperial administration in matters which should be left wholly to the provincial govern- ment. The tendency amongst all young colonies when left to themselves has been towards centralisation to a far greater extent than is desirable, but it has, on the other hand, been largely neutralised by the control exercised over Government proceedings by an unrestricted franchise and by unlimited freedom of speech. The centralisation has never taken the orm ot a concentrating of power in the hands of a small knot of officials, but rather that of grouping in the hands of a popular Assembly a great deal of the bushiess which might more advantageously be conducted by private enterprise. Where the work of the politician is mainly constructive and where, side by side with central business management a vigorous principle of local self-government is to be found the danger that looms ahead is not perceived because not imme- diately apparent, but it is nevertheless, even there, a very real one. There is always the imminent risk of the central Govern- ment entrusted with a large share of the national business, extending the area of its influence by increasing the amount ot patronage at its disposal. A class of officials is created which, as It is dependent on Government employment, so it influences the proceedings of Government. As the circle of btate employes becomes larger, so they will fetter the free action of a Ministry by claims for an increase of the area of employment for their services-claims which, with each fresh • Report, p. 139. m i iLl!]_ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /. V.x 1.0 I.I 1.25 150 '"== ^ m - S yfi ill 20 2.5 2.2 M. ill 1.6 %' ^;. 4^:^'^ /«« '/ Photogiapiiic Sdences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 145^0 (716) 872-4503 I* o V I 86 BONDS OF DISUNION. concession, become increasingly more difficult to be resisted. An official class nominally dependent on the State may thus at some future period become its controller, even in those coun- tries rejoicmg m the freest institutions. Local institutions for self-government are worth little unless invested with a full share of responsibility. The prin- ciple of responsibility is weakened if the central Government IS allowed to take upon itself any part of the local business for which the smaller authority is able satisfactorily to provide. Thusm the matter of local roads, local improvements, and local expenditure, the central Government should not be per- mitted to interfere, at least not to such an extent as to lessen the responsibility of the local officers. That principle is recognised and acted upon now in England, if not in Ireland. Unfortunately, m our free colonies the tendency is towards encouraging the assistance and interference of the central bodv in district business. It may be that the causes of this difference are not far to seek. At home a bitter experience has given an irresistible impulse to decentralisation. In some of our colonies, inex- perience of the evils of centralised government has peihaps been the cause that has prompted a resort to it. But in truth the habit was implanted in many of the colonies by the circumstances of their first foundation, as immediately depen- dent on the Crown, and the traditions of the Colonial Office may have thriven in antipodean soil unconscious of the parentage from which they sprung. There is, however, quite enough in the history of the natural development of a colony however free, to account for an indisposition on the part of individuals to burden themselves with the cares of government on even the smallest scale. They generally live far apart from each other, and concern themselves little about the business of neighbours the nearest of whom are remotely situated Ihe new settler usually considers himself a mere bird of passage-encamped, not settled-and he takes no more than a passing interest in the affairs of the country as a whole or in the local concerns of his own part of it, so long as he is left in peace and quiet. In Australia, where there has never been a IMPEEIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 87 dangerous assemblage of savage hordes fringing the borders of the squatters' run, the reasons which stimulated local associa- tion in the American colonies to prevent molestation, and which ultimately led to a degree of local organisation, do not exist. The AustraHan squatter was left in peace, and had httle inducement to associate closely with fellow- settlers in his vicinity. He had neither motive nor wish to do so, and he was still more unwilling to take long and tedious journeys to the seat of government in order to discuss matters colonial, or to arrange for local institutions in which he did not consider that he, as an individual, was personally and directly in- terested. Again, in a new colony the majority of the early settlers, especially if th3 country is a pastoral one, are fairly prosperous, and therefore are not easily worked up to political agitation. They are content to leave the rule of the country in the hands of those in the vicinity of the seat of government ; and thus it is that the leading centre of population first absorbs the repre- sentation of the colony, then undertakes through its Assembly the conduct of public works, and gradually usurps the authority of the local ruling bodies. These are evils which will, in the Colonies, doubtless find their remedies, but they must first have produced sufficiently injurious effects to make a remedy a pressing necessity. That is to say, the evils consequent on centraUsation will not be thought worthy of being cured until they have worked a good deal of harm to the colonial community. Let us not underrate the politics of a vestry. The in- terests of a nation are those of the individuals composing it. The desire to better one's own self is at the root of national success ; individual efforts in the direction of the promotion of private interests form the only groundwork of natural pros- perity, and these efforts are better capable of being seconded by small local bodies in the business of which each member is personally concerned than by an Imperial Par.Uament or a Representative Public Legislature. A system of local and municipal self-government, if 88 BONi;S OF DISUNION. I I system r~^\r?^ ^"'"^^ 7^'^^^ '^^ -"K^"! central limited Zwti: . .*'■"* °f '"''''' "•"'" be auffieiently Tym where it ^rt' •^'"' '"'°" "'" "-"''^"""^ "^ ^^^^ weU beinr P *"' "^ P'""^'- *<> P^mo'e their oim and general educaln? f'^P onward in the poUtical find the vntl • fl T^ ''''° P'''"'P^ f» *" &st time live Sn «. «™^> •" 8^1™, that if they hve they must a so let geLated wMe ;^ r, °?^^"*y' "' '«"«' "^ '"'^ration, is rSce t^^ ,\ f '"''''^ " '*'°'' "^ responsibihty and self- J-ealo« V ofanv tt!rf ''' '''■T'' "">" ^''"^'J'^''' ^° ^e nounced Vhl ."'''■^^t ""^ «*•> them becomes more pro- uuuiicea. ihe interest as well aq flio ;i„+, j? , trusted with the makina nf ; f *^ ""^ ^ People en- maintam thp / '*' '''''' ^°'^^ re^nlations is to mamtam the laws and preserve order. From hbertv tZ iff til 89 CHAPTEE in. MALADMINISTEATION OP CANADIAN LAND. PAUPER EMIGBATION TO CANADA. In new countries the business of deepest .loment to all, upon which indeed everything else depends, is the disposal of the public land. If it be doled out sparingly with niggard hana, the community, however small, may be pinched for room even m the wilderness. New-comers may be prevented from choosing the most fertile soils and favourable situations withm reach, and the society may, even at its foundation, endure the evils of an old and overpeopled State. Or large tracts of land may be lavished upon speculators and favourites, who leave their lands unsettled and untouched while they may forbid the use of them to others. By acts such as these the bond fide settler may be cut off or far removed from markets in which to dispose of his surplus produce and procure other commodities ; and the greacest ob- stacles may be opposed ' to co-operation in labour, to exchange, to the division of employments, to combination for municipal or other pubhc purposes, to the growth of towns, to public worship, to regular education, to the spread of news, to the acquisition of common knowledge, and even to the civilising influences of mere intercourse for amusement. Monotonous and stagnant indeed must ever be the state of a people who are perma:^ently condemned to such separation from each other.' • Of the two methods, the evils of the latter are unquestion- ably the greater. It may at first attract population and generate a delusive appearance of prosperity over the youthful colony, but it will certamly ultimately retard settlement to a ■ Report of Lord Durham, p. 145. 90 BONDS OF DISUNION. i f i I' !| 'I much greater degree than it originally stimulated it. Further t wm mevitably leave behind it a train of unfortunate con sequences, of which the history of land settlement in Canada t"no ^'1^ '''"P^^^- '' '' '''' '''' ^-*^^*-- ^-e L^. H.V ? Trr' P°"^y "^ *1^^ ^^"^''^^ «y«*^^ farther In treatmg of land settlement fn Australia, I propose to dis- cuss briefly the merits and demerits of different modes of aLenation of public lands. Suffice it to show, in the present chapter how pregnant with mischief was the course actually loZt 'I '"' ^T^^'" ^'"^^"^°^^^- N^ better example could be chosen and none has been more exhaustively treated by the Eeportof a high official whose interest no less than his inclination furnish a sufficient guarantee against his sweeping condemnation being dictated by prejudice or couched in terms unnecessarily strong. A lavish modd of free granting of land involves a careless dealing with it. The physical features of a new and vast country heavily timbered and abounding in every variety of natural formation, require careful and intelligent surveying in order to figure in accurate scale on the plan which points the new-corner s destination. If the boundaries of property are incorrectly described, the settlement of land may be the sig- nal for a plentiful store of htigation, which, though it may furnish an irresistible attraction to lawyers, must be prejudi- cial to the order and harmony of the settled di^^^-icts Men engaged m lawsuits with each other will be unhkely to form associations for purposes of local management of the affairs of a district or even for recreation. Moreover, the intending immigrant will be deterred from a colony where the decision of a law court may at any time divest him of the fruitful farm which he hopes to wrest from the wilderness. From these considerations it would seem that the importance of accurate surveying can hardly be overrated. Its absolute necessity, indeed, becomes apparent enough from the mere reflection that, without certainty of limits and boundaries, here can be no security of title to property in land. How the officials in whose hands was the disposal of public MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 91 lands in Canada recognised that obligation we shall presently see. Even supposing land to be unexceptionably surveyed, and alienated under the best possible system, the entire virtue of the plan may be wrecked by there being unnecessary delay in the granting of titles to land. Whatever delay takes place in perfecting the titles of individuals occasions uncertainty and consequently insecurity of property. Circuitous and expensive modes of application for titles are of themselves productive of delay, and produce other evil consequences of their own, not the least of which are those ' backstairs ' dealings so savoury to official senses and so unhkely to be practised with effect except by wealthy colonists of the speculator class. It is eminently desirable that land alienation should be conducted on a coherent plan, and that that plan should as far as possible be uniformly apphed. ' If very different methods of proceeding have effect in the. same colony, or in different parts of the same group of colonies, the operation of some can hardly fail to interfere with or counteract the operation of others.' ^ However dear conflicting differences of system may be to the legal mind, they undoubtedly operate injuriously on the dispositions of men not brought up to regard the technicahties of varying forms of land tenures as affording ready means of subsistence. The thrifty emigrant, the man who calculates his future carefully beforehand, is the one whose entrance into a colony it should be the object of any colonial Govern- ment to encourage, and it is just this class of immigrant whom an absence of system, a total want of uniformity, or a frequent change of system will most tend to discourage. On the other hand, variations of system are no bar to the advent of people of the • shovelled-out ' pauper class, equally careless of the future as improvident in the present. 'Frequent changes of system,' observes Lord Durham, 'are apt to be very injurious, not ^nly by probably displeasing those who either obtain land just before, or desire to obtain some just after, each change, but also by giving a character of irregularity, ' Report, I if ft 92 BONDS OF DISUNION. ; 1 ii uncertamty, or even mystery to the most important proceedings o Government I„ this way, too, settlement and emigration are discouraged, masmuch as the people are deprived of Z confidence m the permanency of the system and a^e miac quain ted with any of the temporary methods.' ■ A lavish mode of disposing of tlie public lands is sure to be accompanied with an extreme absence of impartiality in effecting the distribution. The authority which gives away the land in vast areas at a time will most certainly selecHI tul to It. Relatives and friends are provided for in this wav and those iniiuential and wealthy settlers whose opposiorS public estate. Thus a comparative few, and those in all pro- bab Uty with the least power a^d the least intention of t^- .1 g their properties to good account, are favoured at the expense of the mass of the community. A dangerous system of political and purely speculative landlordism is early brought into pro minence The sturdy cultivators, whose labour is the great st benefit that can be derived by the State, and who, however harshly repressed, will in time constitute the most poTerfu okkfnl", \T '* '"f tf " "'™' ""■^'""■«r''«ve share in the pickmgs. The mevitable result is a feeling of distrust of all tXTT T"'"^^' ^^"'""""8 '" "' genefrunpopu lauty of tl e ruling powers, if not in positive acts of secret or open rebelhon against them. -^""""g f more requisite to the well-being of a youna lt7^ 'V" '^'^''' °' "^ '»"« ^l'°»W be adS^ people It IS only under such a condition that the population can either demand or expect a constant and reguL' supply of new land m proportion to its wants, an equitaWe distribu' t on of It, a ready adjustment of claims, uniformity or con- stancy of system, or, in fact, any encouragement worthy of the Z'X T .^'™° '" "nmigraticn and settlement. Lord Durham s testimony is only that of one of a cloud of witnesses to the statement that ' in the North-American colonres.TL ' Eeport, p. 146. I a J. MALADMINISTEATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 93 the United States, the function of authority most full of good or evil consequences has been the disposal of public land.' ' Therefore,' he might have added, ' it should be delegated to those en whom the consequences fall.' The authorities selected to superintend that business should therefore have been composed of those individuals whose knowledge of and sympathy ^vith the people's earth-hunger was shown by the popular choice having fallen on them as being peculiarly fitted to deal with the question. Even Merivale, who certainly can- not be accused of any antecedent prejudice against the Colonial Office, where he drew an official salary, advocates the necessity of giving .up to the Colonies the charge of their own land administration. Fortunately that has been done long since, and the question once so fiercely debated has ceased to possess more than a curious interest for the present generation, but up to thirty years ago it was fiercely debated, both in the Colonies and at home. However, at the period we are treat- ing of, the entire power of the disposal of the public lands was confided to the grasping hands of a set of officials distrusted and detested by the people. Their acts furnish ample proof of the vigour with which they set to work first to deserve and then to repay that hatred by stich ruinous misconduct in the great charge committed to them that Merivale indignantly asks, • What public body after all could mismanage the lands of its o^vn demesne more than those of our American colonies have been mismanaged by the Imperial Government ever since their foundation ? ' Let us thoroughly grasp the meaning of the term Imperial Government. It was imperious rather than imperial. It was the remorseless sway of the permanent unknown official that was here tj^pified. Between him and colonial Officialdom there was a secret all-powerful bond — kept alive by patronage on the one hand, by the fruits of patronage on the other. For the official mind the vast colonial estates of the empire repre- sented only opportunities for private corruption, jobbery, and. plunder, and these it utilised to the very uttermost. We shall see how systematically every principle that we consider it necessary to observe in alienating the public land 94 BONDS OF DISUNION. i i I i • ' r i ' ! ^f ■ ^■1: was violated in Canada, to the infinite detriment of that colony and side by side we may use for comparison the pro- gress of the adjoining United States under a consistent plan based on rational, because natural, maxims. In the United States ever since 1796, the disposal of land not already appropriated to particular States had been strictly regulated by a law of Congress. In British North America with one partial exception, there never was .>,ny law on the subject till 1827. The Imperial Parliament only interfered once to enact the ' ur^happy system ' > of Church Eeserves. The Provincial Assemblies never exercised any control in the matter, so that the Lords of the Treasury and the Colonial Secretary for the time being-that is, the permanent unknown official-were the only legislators, and the provincial agents of the permanent gentleman, responsible to him alone, were the only executors. ' The system*of the United States,' says Lord Durham ^ appears to combine all the chief requisites of the greatest efficiency. It is uniform throughout the vast federation ; it is unchangeable save by Congress, and has never been materially altered; it renders the acquisition of new land easy, and yet by means of a price restricts appropriation to the wants of the settler ; it is so simple as to be readily understood ; it pro- vides for accurate surveys and against needless delays • it gives an instant and secure title ; and it admits of no favour- itism, but distributes the public property amongst all classes upon precisely equal terms.' The British North-American colonies, on the other hand suffered from the entire want of any system. Many different methods had been practised, not only in the difi-erent colonies but m every colony at different times, and within the same colony at the same time. The greatest diversity and the most trequent alterations would ah.xost seem to have been the ob jects in view. In one respect there was uniformity, and in one alone Everywhere the greatest profusion had taken place, so that m every colony and almost in every part of each colony more, and very much more, land had been alienated » Beport, p. 148. . j^,^^^ ^^ ^^g^ MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 95 by the Government than the grantees ever could have the means of reclaiming from a state of wilderness, or the oppor- tunities for attempting to cultivate. Yet in all of the colonies it was difficult and sometimes next to imposnible for a person of no influence, however willing to become u bond, fide culti- vator, to gain a title to any land against the superior claims of unscrupulous speculators. The man who was fortunate enough to obtain a promise of a land grant after much intriguing had, in addition, to undergo a harassing delay before the title was made out to him. In the United States the title to land purchased of the Government was obtained immediately and without delay. But in the British Colonies there was always a great deal of useless formahty to be gone tlirough before a complete title could be procured, even to land that had been paid for. Tiiese formalities were accompanied with expenses in the nature of fees to lawyers and costs to officials which, of course, had to be taken into account in estimating the price paid for the land. The longer th delay and the more com- phcated the formal proceedings, the greater the legal and official perquisites. It is not surprising, then, to learn that, although eight years was considered an utterly abnormal length of time to perfect the process of the completion of the title, the average period requisite for that purpose, after the whole of the purchase-money had been paid, was fully fifteen months. During all these months the purchaser would have no right to enter on the land, and the labour which might have been employed in raising a surplus produce capable of extending industries at home was exercised in dangling listlessly about in official ante-rooms. When the settler h^ I at length secured his right to take up his land, he found that in consequence of the almost ' in- credible ' 2 inaccuracy with which it had been surveyed, it was next to impossible for him to claim his supposed bound- aries without trespassing on the limits of his neighbour's properties. Or else he discovered that he was liable to be divested at any time of his holding by some later comer ' Report, p. 149. a Ibid. p. 167. 96 BONDS OF DISUNION. I 1 whose boundaries, as delineated on the Governmont plan, conflicted with his «wn. Litigation therefore became the first and most important business of each settler. It was the mterest of the official class to further the litigious spirit, for the members of it were themselves lawyers as a rule, and devious were the traps they laid for stimulating that spirit mto existence. This was effected by selling lands as nomin- ally surveyed where in fact there never had been any survey taken ; or, again, by maldng grants to different purchasers for the same lot of land. Purchasers were circumvented in every way. In some places ' the lots, instead of running per- pendicularly according to the diagram, actually ran diagonally. In others, again, tha lots dividing the ranges were so irregular as to give to some lots several times the contents of others, although all were nominally equal in extent ; and in places the area of some lots was taken up entirely with lakes which had been altogether omitted from the plan.' So inextricable was tlie confusion into which the surveying department had been allowed to fall, so inefficient was its constitution, that Lord Durham abstained from interfering with it, beUeving it to be ' incapable of any valuable improvement.' ^ It was not till 1827 that any attempt was made to super- sede the old system of free grant by that of sale. Up to that date the scandalous proceedings connected with lavish grants to official favourites had been allowed to go on unchecked. About half of the surveyed lands in Upper and Lower Canada had thus been alienated, not to thrifty husbandmen, but to loyalists— 4.(5. refugees from the United States who settled in the provinces before 1787— and to th^ir children, to militia- men, discharged soldiers and sailors, legislative councillors and their families, to naval and military officers, to barristers and solicitors, to contractors, to favourites or their heirs. To Mr. Gushing and another were given upwards of 100,000 acres as a reward for giving information in a case of high treason. In short, half of the surveyed land, comprising the most fertile and best situated portions, was given to just those very people who were utterly unfitted by their station, sex, or > Report, p. 171. . 2 2j^_ p_ i59_ MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 97 infirmities from dwelling on their grants or cultivating them with success. Many of the grants to loyalists were to un- married females. It was estimated that not one-tenth of the lands granted to loyalists had been ever occupied by the grantees. Of the remaining grants it was asserted that nine- teen-twentieths had hardly ever been approached by their owners. Had the proprietors simply been incapable of work, and so had they indulged in the practice usual with them of selling their holdings for a trifling sum or a few bottles of rum to others who could, and would work them, the in- jurious consequences might not have been so great. But the purchasers for rum were the officials themselves, who thus monopolised in their own hands most of the grants, in addition to those they had conferred upon tlipmselves by free gilt. These they held as land-jobbers in view of tJie value which future settlement would gi\e them. It has been urged by Merivale that purely speculative purchases of land arc eco: .x-ically disadvantageous only where the capital employed in the speculation has been withdrawn from some productive use.' Bat the disadvantage is, in reahty, far more serious, and consists in the prevention oiiered by land speculation to putting labour, which in new countries is the highest form of capital, to the produc- tive use of land cultivation. The land-jobbers in Canad.i not only did not work their own estates, but tliey prevented others from doing so until the pressure of increasing popu- lation made it worth their while to sell small portions. Further, they put every obstacle in the way of permitting roads or bridges to be made across their extensive wastes, in order to force up land values by restricting the colonists within a small centre, and also with the object of prevent- ing the acquisition of ' rights of way ' by the general public, which might be considered as taking away from the price that an intendmg purchaser might be willing to give. In this way alone, amongst others, land-jobbovs can effectually retard settlement, and prevent the development of the re- sources of the country. In doing so th^y eniorct the loss of ' Merivale on Colonisation, Lecture XV. 98 BONDS OF DISUNION. IH: infinitely more wealth than the capital expended on the pur- chase of land would have represented if otherwise productively employed. It must be remembered, too, that the enhanced price on the resale of portions goes entirely into the land- jobber's pocket, who thus enriches himself at the expense of the bona fide cultivator, and thereby subtracts from the power of the latter to accomplish his ends. Economically considered, land speculation is a tax upon progress in a new country which, if not utterly destructive of its prospects in the imme- diate future, is deeply injurious to its ultimate well-being. Of the moral evils of speculation, Mr. Merivale takes a view with which there can be no disagreement. To use his own words, ' it consists in the feverish excitement which it communicates to all transactions of ordinary business ; the impatience of slow results ; the restless disposition ; the lan- guid inattention to regular labours which it infuses into the spirit of all clashes ; the enormous and discreditable puffery to which speculators resort to increase the value of their lands, which is sure to raise extravagant expectations in the first instance, and then to end in discouragement and dis- appointment.' The land-jobbing class ruled supreme in all the British North-American colonies, and in no case was their influence more marked than when practically the whole of Prince Edward's Island, comprising an area of over 1,500.000 acres, was granted away to a few individuals, chiefly absentees, in the course of a single day. ' The local Executive could always calculate on the indiffer- ence of the home Government to its proceedings so long as it confined oppression and injustice to the niost defenceless members of the community. It made bold, therefore, to modify provision.-? made by the home Government for land grants to disbanded militia-men who had served throughout the great European wars at the commencement of the cen- tury. By interposing exp<}nsive and harassing delays in tlie way of the grants, which made them worth nothing at all, the local Executive, in fact, violated the instructions received * lieport, p. 175. MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 99 from the mother-country as effectively as if obedience to them had been dehberately refused. Of course, with a Governmental clique strainincr every ponit so as to adjust the systems of land alienation to the wants of Its mdividual members, the people were willing enough to nmtate their example for their own private benefit. Accordmgly, we find that provisions made after the passing of the Constitution Act that grants should not in general be of more than 200 acres, and that under special circumstances 1,200 acres were to be the maximum of each, were most suc- cessfully evaded. This evasion was effected by the system of ' Leaders and Associates,' and was managed as follows :— A petition signed by from ten to forty or fifty persons was pre- sented to the Executive Council praying for a grant of 1,200 acres to each person, and pi-omising to settle the lands ap- plied for. Such petitions were always granted, the Council being perfectly aware that under a previous agreement between the applicants— of which agreement the form was prepared by the Attorney-General of the colony, and sold pubhclv by the law stationers of Quebec-five-sixths of the land was to be conveyed to one of them, termed the ' leader,' by whose means the grant was obtained. It is to be regretted that history should abound with in- stances of the desire of the clergy of a dominant Church to extend the influence of their order by founding it on their power as landowners. A spiritual power basing its authority upon temporal wealth is but too likely to lose in reverence what it gains in worldly resources. Be that as it may, the clergy of established religions in Canada, if not possessed of the former, were certainly favoured with a fair share of the latter. The system of clergy reserves was established by the Act of 1791, commonly called the Constitutional Act, which directed that in respect of all grants made by the Crown a quantity equal to one-seventh of the land so granted should be reserved for the clergy. These clergy reserves alternated with Government reserves like the squares on a chessboard, and the effect of both was to withhold so much land from h2 > »rn^ ^ iii»»< w* p 100 BONDS OF DISUNION. jM settlement f-md to keep it in a state of wilderness. A perpetual contest was kept up between tlie clergy of different denomina- tions for the exclusive monopoly of the reserves, and the Protestant Established Church got the best of the struggle, inasmuch as the forms of its religion were most out of harmony with the views of the colonists. In violation of the Constitu- tional Act a quantity equal to one- sixth of the land granted in Upper Canada was set apart for clergy reserves, and in the Lower Province the clergy had reserved for them half as much again as they ought to have had. The method of making these reservations was as bad a one as could have been devised. Every second or third lot was reserved alternately — one for the Crown, one for the Church — so the settler found himself hedged in on either side by unoccupied wastes, across which it was neither within his ability or legal right to make roads. Even if roads were constructed by Government there was no machinery for keeping them in repair. There was not in Canada any local taxation for local works, and the modes adopted for raising funds for those purposes were, iji Upper Canada, frequent turnpikes, to which in the Lower Province was added the venerable plan of corvee, or statutory com- pulsory labour for so many days in the year. It is stated in the ' Eeport ' that, solely in consequence of the badness of roads but a little way from the great towns, it cost more to send wheat a distance of eighty or ninety miles, in many places, than it would have cost to send the same quantity of wheat from Montreal to England, and to have it ground there and returned. A barrier wider than the Atlantic itself was thus interposed between places which in these days of swift com- munication would be next door to each other, and might even then have been near neighbours. After 1821 a certain amount of consolidation of the blocks was effected, but with little beneficial result ; and although a part of the reserves were sold from time to time, the last vestige of the system was not swept away by the absorption of the funds resulting from the sale of the reserves into the general revenues of the colony till 1856. In Jiilv 1827 instructions were sent out bv Lord ijodevicb to discontinue grants of land in future, and to substitute a MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 101 nniform system of sale. This was a well-directed purpose to which the home authorities had been compelled to give their attention tln-ougli fears of rebelhon in Canada. These in- structions were further confirmed in 1831, and further evaded, to such a degree, indeed, that between 1827 and 1839 tlie quantity of land disposed of by free grant in Upper Canada in respect of real or pretended antecedent claims was twenty times that of the land sold. Two milHon acres were granted against one hundred thousand sold. In Lower Canada also, the object of the new rule of selling was completely defeated by the large number of free grants.' As a result of long misgovernment, the administration of the public lands, instead of always yielding a revenue, cost for a long while more than the land sales produced. ' But this is,' says the * Report,' 2 ' a trifling consideration when com- pared with otliers. I allude to the striking contrast which is presented between the British and American frontier lines in respect to every sign of productive industry, increasing wealth, and progressive civilisation.' On the American side all was activity and bustle. Tlie forest had been widely cleared ; every year numerous settle- ments were formed and thousands of farms were created out of the waste ; the country was intersected by roads ; canals and railroads were finished, or in the course of formation ; the ways of communication and transport were crowded witli people and enlivened by numerous carriages and large steam- boats. Bridges, artificial landing-places, and commodious wharfs were formed on the lake frontages as soon as required. Townships were grownig apace, and the stability and magnifi- cence of their buildings might have done credit to populated centres of the Old World. On the British side, with the exception of a few favoured spots where some approach to American prosperity was apparent, all was waste and desolate.'* There was but one railroad in all British America, and that one was only fifteen miles in length. The ancient city of Montreal could not bear comparison with some of the most recent American cities. The difference was, however, most ' Be;port, p. ICD. ^ j^j^, p^ j^q. 3 j^^-j p j^j^ 111 1 ''I 102 B0ND3 OF DISUNION. ■manifest in the country districts. On the Canadian side waft a widely scattered population, poor, and apparently unenter- prising, though hardy and industrious, separated from each other by tracts of intervening forest, without towns or markets, almost without roads, living in meanhoui-es, drawing little more than a rude subsistence from ill-cultivated land, and seemingly incapable of improving their condition. In the eastern townships of Lower Canada, upon the border line, it was a common practice for settlers when they wished to meet, to enter the State of Vermont, and make use of the roads there for the purpose of reaching their destination in the British province.^ Throughout the frontier the market value of land was much greater on the American than on the British side. The average difference was ' notoriously several hundred rsr cent.,' and in some c^ses amounted to over a thousand per cent. The price of wild land in Vermont and New Hampshire, close to the frontier, was five dollars per acre, and in the adjoining British townaJiips only one dollar. In Canada a great deal of land was totally unsaleable even at such low prices, while in the States property was continually changing hands. Not only was land almost unsaleable, but it was impossible to obtain money on mortgage of land, because when a sale was forced there was no certainty as to the value, since at the time there might be a perfect glut of land in the market, and no purchasers. And this though, on the whole, superior natural fertility belonged to the British territory. In Upper Canada the whole of the great peninsula between Lakes Erie and Huron, comprising nearly half the available land of the province, consists of gently undulating alluvial soil, and, with a smaller proportion of inferior land than probably any other tract of similar extent in that part of North America, it was generally considered the best grain country on the whole continent. The soil of the border townships of Lower Canada was allowed to be superior to that of the neighbouring American States ; while the lands of New Brunswick, equal in naturOjl fertility to those of Maine, enjoved superior natural ' Eeport, p. 152. PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 103 means of communication.' If there had been any difference between the two countries due to natural causes, it ought to have been in favour of Canada. The difference, such as it actually was, was the result of radically bad misgovernment, and the same cause drove a large proportion of the people out of the colony and into the United States, where the induce- ments offered to emigrants by a beneficial system of local self- government were so far superior. The theory of the day was that Colonies existed only for the benefit of the home country— an estimable theory and one worthy of being thoroughly worked out. The only way in which the mother-country could benefit by her Colonies was through their prosperity ; yet they were regarded as useful in promoting the prosperity of England by being themselves made unprosperous. Infirm paupers, of the class least capable of helping themselves, were to be shovelled out to colonies where self-help was a sine qm non of existence, in order that England might be supplied with a new and profitable market for her surplus manufactures. The rulers of the day ignored entirely the fact that witliout exchange there can be no com- merce, that non-producing colonists can never be customers at all, and consistently strove to foster a colonial market by remittances of paupers \jhysically incapacitated from earning their own livehhood, much less of raising produce wherewith to purchase even articles of necessity from home. The labour of a young and active man is worth far more in every way in a new and fertile country than it would be at home. Under favourable conditions he can soon hope to raise far more produce than suffices for his own consumption. He quickly finds himself in want of home commodities, which the results of his own labour enable him to purchase, at a handsome profit to the provider of his necessities. The more capable he is of work, the greater becomes his purchasing power, the more ambitious is his scale of requirements and the larger are his demands upon the home market. Business at home is quickened and extended by tiie new and remunerative call upon it. The area of ernployruent is enlarged, and goes on * Report, p. 153. I 104 BCNDS OF DISU^'JON. enlarging in proportion to the increased activity of labour on the soil of some far distant settlement. Whole families who previously were starving from want of employment, or im- pelled to crimmahty by insufficiency of food, now find constant occupation at paying wages, and widespread pauperism is resolved into general prosperity. Such is the true develop- ment of the theory that our Colonies ought to exist for the benefit of the home country. Let our object be to induce our most vigorous and intelligent labourers to emigrate and so to improve the lot of those left behind, if we would not make of colonisation what it has too often been-a disgrace and a burden to the kingdom, as well as a scarecrow to the workine- man. ^ But there is another benefit, Avhich, though less easily apparent, accrues with unfailing certainty to the country from the freedom and prosperity of such colonies. It is to be found m the moral effect exercised upon the home population by the constant intercourse with societies freer and happier than their own. As their standard of living is raised by more constant and better-paid work, so also is the desire stren^rth ened of securing for themselves more advantageous situations m hie. The more prosperous the condition of the working classes, the more they are likely to claim for themselves a share in the legislation which affects them as the bulk of the community-that is, in all legislation. Not by those violent measures which are the sole resort of a proletariat, to whom misery and oppression have left no other resource, hue by the gradual assertion of rights which flow naturally from the improved intelligence to which prosperity gives birth. It would be a small gain, were the working classes merely made contented with a better state of things. What is to be desired is that they should be made more active in interesting themselves in the regulation of their own affairs, as being the affairs of the nation. That this is certain to follow on ' pro- sperity ' is evident if we consider the actual meaning of the term. Greater commercial activity is productive of improve- ments in means of communication, and with them of improved iacihties for information. As the opportunities for exchan^re PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 105 of commodities are rendered easier and more plentiful, so also will Ideas and aspn-ations be more freely exchanged. Social meetings will embrace a wider circle, anomalous or unjust conditions of life will be rendered more apparent and more intolerable by comparison with those of others more for- tunately situated, while combination for purposes of redress will be more influential because more numerously supported, and because capable of being illustrated by a greater numbe ol mdividual mstances. The social meeting is the germ of the political association, and this last can now speak with an authority which lends weight to its assertions, while the knowledge of its power procures for it leaders of worth and ability htted to achieve its ends by moderation and firm- ness. For example and guidance they cast their eyes to distan lands where a free and vigorous British nationality has estab ished popular institutions and popular laws. Out ot the colonial statute-books they cull precedents for English use and laugh at the venerable fictions or convenient metaphors which once did yeoman duty for political maxims. In all these results the meaning of national ' prosperity ' is nivolved. Thus it is then that our Colonies may benefi't us by improvmg our social conditions, as also bv giving us back precedents of legislative virtue and wisdom in return for the boon ot encouraging a healthy vigorous emigration and of leaving them unhindered to manage their own affairs. Had not our rulers of a few decades back been ahke mditfermt the wants and sufferings of the people, this must hive been the basis on which they would have promoted colonisa- tion, lor their lulings were more due to an entire absence ol sympathy with national requirements than to deficiencv in reasoning powers. Not so very many years ago, however, the view generally taken of emigration is clearly enough expressed in some of the conclusions arrived at by the Select Committee of 1827 on Emigration. Eeferring to the proposal of the Manufacturers' Iteliel Committee to subscribe 25,000^. for the purpose of assisting emigration, pro\ided a further sum of 50,000/ could be obtained from other sources, the Commissioners lay down 1 11 106 BONDS OF DlSUx\IOX. t i as a rule ' that private or local contributi Ollgl shape tions m some to form tlie basis of any system of emigration to which It may be expedient for this Committee to recommend any assistance from tlie national funds.' ' But they immediately proceed to break through the salutary principle so preten- tiously laid down by recommending a national grant of .50,000/. from the rates for an ' immediate ' emigration, on grounds of the peculiar urgency of ^he prevailing distress. In truth, the Committee does not seem to have clearly understood the meaning of its own rule, for, while deprecating State assistance, it advocated the application of parish rates to ' shovelhng-out ' redundant population. That there is a distinction betsveen the two methods may be admitted, but it IS one of degree and not of kind. The one is a form of State aid as well as the other, and that of the parish was the more objectionable of the two because of the greater power and desire of the local body to make emigration compulsory. On economical grounds the exportation of paupers or other emigrants by the State is not easily defensible. If compulsory, no condemnation can be too strong for the practice ; if voluntary, it will be accompanied either by the retention of a iien on the emigrant's labour as a security for the repayment of the passage-money, or by the offer of a free grant of land as an inducement to him to pay for his own passage. In the former case he must be subjected to occasional supervision by some subordinate official whose duty it is to collect his instalments ; and usually he ends by refusing to pay them at all, justly regarding their payment as an unfair tax on his labour, while learning the lesson of dishonesty by evading the fulfilment of his contract. In the latter case the offer of a free grant is nothing short of a bonus on emigrants exactly on a par with a bonus on the exportation of any commodity. The recommendations of the Commissioners were, however, of too careless a nature to allow us to suppose that they toimded them on economical reasons. Throughout tlie Report ' Second Report. PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 107 it is evident that their object in deprecating State aid was to shift tlie responsibihty of the conduct of emigraf >n from Farhament on to local bodies. A Board of Emigration was to be appointed whose first duty would be to examine into the claims of would-be emi- grants. The man who could claim to be in a state of * perma- nent pauperism ' ' would be considered as most worthy of a passage out to the Colonies. It seemed hanUy necessary to . add that ' the emigrant chosen should be a person in con- sequence of whose removal no diminution of production would take place, although by such removal the expense of his main- tenance would be ^aved to the community,' because people in a state of ' perman^- -..t pauperism ' would, if judiciously chosen with regard to that principle, consist very largely of the aged and infirm, incapacitated from work of any kind. It was anticipated that the number of English incapable ' permanent paupers ' would not be sufficiently great to materi- ally lessen the burdens of the home population ; so Ireland as being the principal pauper field, was first to be resorted to for emigrants, and preference was to be given to Irish claims, i he Irish, It was alleged, were responsible for a great deal ot Enghsh misery by their constant influx into the United Kingdom. This stream must be diverted elsewhere, and what way could be better than by sending out shiploads of Msh as burdens for colonial backs. Now this Irish influx was of immense benefit to England and Scotland, for it furnished a cheap and abundant supply of labour at harvest-time. But for Corn Laws, this autumnal immigration would have helped to considerably reduce the price of bread. The allegation that these Irish harvesters added to the distress and misery of the population was absurdly untrue. They were not paupers who came over, and wliilst in England they made and saved money. They were, in fact, prosperous and well- to-do,. as compared with the mass of the English labourers in the northern counties. It IS fair to suppose that the Commissioners were misinformed for they emphatically declare that ' it is vain to hope for any permanent advantage from any system of emigration which ' Third Report. u S m f ' ill I I 108 BONDS OF DISUNION. does not primarily apply to Ireland, whose population, unless some other outlet be opened to them, must shortly fill up every vacuum created in England or in Scotland, and reduce the working classes to a imiform state of degradation und misery ' ' The Committee recommended that ' no assisted emigration should be anything but voluntary.' '^ The capital advanced or the purpose was to be repaid by the emigrant, but no able- bodied paupers were to be assisted to emigrate. So, with the obligation thrown on them of physical labour in order to re- pay money advanced, only those were to be chosen who werP altogether incapable of work. This was the first regularly appointed Parliamentary Committee, and its recommendations ought to be engraved on a monumental tombstone raised by some mtemgent colonial community as a tribute to the legis- lative incapacity and heartlessness of their former masters Paupers abounded in Ireland, and were to be picked up for the choosing by emigration agents, not from amongst those who had the enterprise to voyage across St. George's Channel in order to find temporary work for themselves in England and Scotland, but amongst the most helplessly debased and unthrifty earthworms of the cottier class. Ignorant and help- less at the same time, they furnished a ready prey for the un- scrupulous contractors whose business it was to make a profit for themselves out of the pauper cargoes exported. These contractors got so much a head on each emigrant, and de- spite nominal regulations to the contrary, compressed as many emigrants as possible into the smallest available ship-room. The tendency of these pauper shovellings-out was to make the common people think of emigration with dislike, nay, even terror. It was looked upon as a degradation, and its very name was associated with a feehng of shame. And how could it be otherwise when ' hundreds and thousands of pauper families walked in their rags from the quays of Liverpool and Cork into ill-found, unsound ships, in which human beings were crammed together in the empty space which timber was to be stowed m on the homeward voyage. Ignorant themselves and mismformed by the Government of the requisites of such a ' Second Eeport. -2 Third Keport. PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 109 voyage, they suffered througliout it from privation of necessary ood and clothing ; such privation, filth, and bad air were sure to engender disease ; and the ships that reached their destina- ^on in safety deposited some contagious fever together with a mass of beggary on the quays of Quebec and Montreal ' ' So abominable had the condition of the emigrant ships become before the termination of the voyage, that the Inspecti^'. ' Physician of the Port of Quebec alleged in evidence before a colonial committee, that the 'harbour-master's boarmen had no difficulty, either when the wind was favourable or in a dead calm, m distinguishing by the odour alone a crowded emigrant The death-rate on board, from typhus fever alone, at times amounted to nearly ten per cent, of the total number of pas- sengers, and from the same cause a far larger proportion were aft nvards received into hospital on shore, after having been luthlessly disgorged from their floating pent-house without a shilling in their pockets, and with clean bills of health For six weeks at a time, the witness had known the shores of the nver along Quebec to be crowded with these unfortunate people, the places of those who might have moved off being con- stantly supplied by fresh arrivals, and ' there being daily drafts often to thirty taken to the hospital with infecti^urdisease The consequence was its spread among the inhabitants of the city, especially in the districts in which these unfortunates h^ es abhshea themselves. Those who were not absolutely without money got into low taverns and boarding-houses and cellars, where tney congregated in immense numbers, and wliere heir condition was not any better than it had been on tTis'Jt^' ™' ''"'" "^ '^"'"'' "^'"''^ ^''' ^^^^">' >'^^^'^ p^-i^r According to Dr. Skey .^ a regular importation of contar^ious disease was continuously occurring. It originated on board snip and was, m his opinion, occasioned by bad management, tion' in ms. '' """ '''"'" """"" ^" "" ^°"^^ '' ^°"^-°"« on Colonisa- in , I 'ii » 'A 110 BONDS OF DISUNION. if; in consequent of the ships heing ill found, ill provisioned, overcrowded, and ill ventilated. ' I should say,' he adds, ' that the mortahty during the voyage has been dreadful ; to such an extent that in 1834 the inhabitants of Quebec, taking alarm at the number of shipwrecks, at the mortality of the passengers, and the fatal diseases which accumulated at the quarantine eslabHshment and the Emigrant Hospital of this city, involving the inhabitants of Quebec in the calamity, called upon the Emigrant Society to take the subject into consideration and make representations to the Government thereon.' These occurrences took place under the Passengers Act, which had been passed in 1825 and re-enacted in 1828. In 1835, in consequence of the strong remonstrances of the colonists, an amended Act was passed containing some excel- lent provisions, but so rarely were they enforced that under it things went on pretty much as usual. It attempted to estab- lish and maintain a proportion betwv en the tonnage of ships and the number of passengers to be Chrried. This direction was simply ignored altogether in practice. No emigrant was to be allowed on board without a sufficiency of some sorts of provisions. Beyond those of the Act of Parliament, however, they seldom took enougii on board, despite the duty imposed upon emigration agents of seeing to their sufficiency. Vessels were chartered for emigration purposes by contractors whose sole object was to make their cargoes pay, and in this laudable endee. *^our a great part of their business operations consisted in evading the Act. The Act required that the name, sex, age, and occupa- tion of each passenger should be entered in a list, certified to by the customs officer at the outport, and delivered by tlie captain with the ship's papers to the customs officer at the port of arrival. These lists were systematically falsified, especially as to the ages of emigrants, so as to defraud the revenue by avoiding the full payment of the Emigration Tax, which was levied in proportion to age ; and also for the purpose of carrying more persons than the law allowed, by . counting grown persons as children, of which last the regula- tions permitted a greater proportion than of grown persons. PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. Hi to tonnage. • This fraud,' says Lord Durham, ' is very com- mon of frequent occurrence, and it arises manifestly from want ot mspection at home.' ' In 1837, after many thousands of innocent emigrants hau fallen victims to official inattention and private avarice some nnprovement was effected in the shape of a Passen^ei' Tax, imposed m order to provide medical attendance, slielt^er and some means of transport on arrival to destitute emi- gmnts Also a quarantine station was establish at Grosso Ue where arriving ships were to be regularly detained ' as If the emigrants had departed from one of those Eastern countries which are the home of the plague.' '' Wih it be beheved that in the Report of the Emigration Agent from the United Kingdom,3 it is stated, with reference to tha emigration to the Canadas before 1832 which has been above des.^ibed by eye-witnesses of the miseries and calamities that then took place, that ' these gr-^at multitudes had gone out by their own means, and disposed of themselves through their own efforts, without any serious or lasting in- convenience '? ' A practice,' it is added, which appeared to thrive so well spontaneously.' The same Report states, with reference to the operation of the Passengers Act of 1835, that the duty of the officers employed by the Colonial Office to superintend its execution was ' to give ease and security to the resort to the Colonic and to promote the observance of the salutary provisions ox the Act ... In all that relates to emigration they constitute, as it were, in every port, the appointed poor man's friend They take notice whether the ship offered for his conveyance IS safe and fit for the purpose ; they see to the sufficiency of the provisions on board ; they prohibit overcrowding and they make every eftbit to avert or to frustrate those numerors and heartless frauds which are but too constantly attempted at the moment of departure upon the humbler classes of emigrants. Every effort is made for the ease and safety of their transit.' • neport, p. 180. 2 ji^i^^ p, 181. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, May 11, 1838, 112 BONDS OF DISUNION. Ill The Colonial Office confessed that ' heartless frauds ' had been perpetrated, that they could not have been effected except through the incompetence and venality of officers appointed by Itself; and yet it prompted this gross tissue of falsehoods as a monument to its own integrity, forethought, and humanity. These were not the views taken by people at Quebec, where the majority of the passengers were landed. After the date of this Report, Dr. Poole, who had been in cliarge of the quarantine station at Grosse Isle for the preceding six years stated in his evidence before the Commissioners of Inquiry on Crown Lands and Emigration, that ' the poorer class of Irish and the Enghsh paupers sent by parishes were, on the arrival of vessels, in many instances entirely without provisions— so much so that it was necessary to supply them with food from the shore ; and some of these ships had already received food and water from ships with which they had fallen in. The state of destitution to which they were thus brought, combined with dirt and bad ventilation, invariably produced fevers of a contagious character, and besides the deaths on the voyage numbers were admitted to hospital on arrival as suft'erin^ liom contagious diseases. The emigrant ship was almost invariably a mere sponging-house, in which the captain utihsed his position to extort their httle all from tlie emigrants by inducing them to lay in only a small stoie of provisions for the voyage, and when these supplies were exhausted he seized the opportunity to supply them out of his own private stock at 400 per c^nt. profit, until he had robbed them of their last shilling. Yet, no doubt, there were plenty of respectable cuptains employed in the lumber trade, and a proper selection by the emigrant agent at home might have prevented this abuse. Another evil which Dr. Poole pointed out-namely, that of employing as emigrant ships unseaworthy vessels, which con- sequently, behig unable to carry sail, made very long passages, might 3asily have been minimised by very little expenditure ot trouble at home, since the tonnage of vessels coming to Canada was m excess of emigration requirements. He alhides 111 conclusion to the incapacity of the medical officers appointed PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 113 to superintend the physical aihnents of emigrant cargoes. Ihe majority of them were unhcensed students and appren- tices or apothecaries' shopmen, without sufficient knowledge to be of any service to the emigrants, either for the prevention or cure of diseases. To conceal their ignorance they often combined with the captains to give false reports at the quarantine station with respect to their ships. In one in- stance amongst others, a vessel containing 150 emigrants was returned as having a clean bill of health. On inspection being made, upwards of forty cases of typhus fever were sent to the hospital, of whom nine were then below in bed unable to get up. ' Many of the others were placed against the bulwarks to make a show of being in health, with pieces of bread and hot potatoes in their hands.' Sometimes the proofs of their utter want of the first rudi- ments of medical knowledge were ludicrously illustrated by their mode of treatment. Thus one of them returned the captain of a ship and three passengers as suffering from fractured arms. These fractures, however, turned out on ex- amination to be simple bruises. The surgeon, however, in- sisted on his own mode of treatment, alleging as proof of its correctness that ' in the case of the captain ' both the tibia and fibula of the arm were broken. As is well known, the tibia and the fibula are both bones of the leg. This, however, was not a laughing matter for thousands of emigrant families suffering from many forms of disease, com- plicated by lowness of diet, and whose condition required skilful and unremitting medical attention. Under the cir- cumstances of utterly incompetent medical officers being those generally selected for these ships, probably the death- rate on board would have been even higher than it was had the proportion of surgeons to emigrants been sufficiently large to permit of anything like attendance on individual invalids. A Government which induces thousands of people to emi- grate ought to look after the means of transport, and it ought to take at least as great care of the comforts, or at any rate ---. — Li^.., .,1 s.i.v-..^, -rsioiu ii ofciiao tiuiuau ito III ieward lor faithful service to the State. But nothing of the kind was I ' : 1 ■ >i 114 BONDS OF DISUNION. » done. In the years 1832 and 1833 some 3,000 old soldiers, termed Commuted Pensioners, to whom gi-ants of land had been apportioned in Canada in lieu of their claims upon Government, were compressed into hulks and shipped away. No instructions with regard to them had been remitted to the colonial authorities, and the pensioners consequently landed at Quebec in an almost penniless condition and without any provision having been made for them. ' Many of them spent the amount of their commutation money m debauchery, or were robbed of it when intoxicated.' Many never attempted to settle upon the land awarded to them, and of those who made the attempt, several were unable to discover where- abouts in the wilderness their gi-ants were situated. Many of them sold their right to the land for a mere trifle, and were left within a few weeks of their arrival in a state of absolute want. Of the whole number who landed in the colony, pro- bably not one in three attempted to establish themselves on their grants, and not one in six remain settled there at the present time ; the remainder generally lingered in the vichiity of the principal towns, where they contrived to pick up a sub- sistence by begging and occasional labour. Great numbers perished miserably in the two years of cholera, or from dis- eases engendered by exposure or privation and aggravated by their dissolute habits. The majority of them have at length disappeared.'' Thus the ignorant tools employed in manu- facturing mihtary glory for a triumphant nation were first robbed of their earnings by an appreciative Government, and contemptuously tossed away to die in degraded misery in a distant grave. In most transactions of human life a balance between good and evil may be allowed for. In the Government conduct of emigration the balance is weighed down heavily on one side, for the inhumanity of their actions was ujicompensated by one good deed or one good result. Merciless injustice was un- relieved by one single achievement of sound policy or one solitary gleam of right principle. Enfeebled paupers were shovelled out to tej-ritories where youth and activity might ' licport, p. 18y. PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 115 have laised a golden harvest as well for tlie Old World as for themselves. If our rulers could have known anything, they must have known how large a proportion of the British popu- lation depended at the time on the trade with the United States. Without that trade what would have been the size, wealth, and population of Manchester, Liverpool, or Glasgow— in fact of all our great towns ? These were hard facts which they must have seen, and had brought under their notice day by day. Even at that time it could not have been doubted that a prosperous Canada might have maintained a large proportion of the home population. Could the Governments of the time have in fact believed that the ♦ over-peopling ' of the kingdom, while 300,000 helpless mouths were every year being added to the population, could ever be seriously dimhiished by even systematic and gigantic emigration schemes ? It is only too probable that they were suflficiently acquainted with the true principles on whicli colonies could be made beneficial to the mother-country. If so, they showed an indifference to the prosperity of England, as well as of the Colonies, a general hatred of the human race so great as to be almost incredible. They were well aware that the effect of emigration must be to increase the home population, unless the emigrants should be physically incapable of becoming producers at all. They could not hope to pre- vent the increase at home which the rapid spread of trade with the United States, portended, but within their own limits of authority they did their best- a best which was verily tlie worst— by making the Canadas as barren and unproductive as possible. Let us by preference lay t]ie discredit as much to their want of intelligence as to any other cause. Far be it from us to decry the consummate ability or the vast powers of the orators and statesmen whose names are still with us household words ; but there is abundant evidence that on the great economical questions of the day Governments had for long no wish to learn the salutary truth. It was a medicine for which they had no taste. Men learn with difficulty what they b.ave no wish tn heljeve. Economical remedies for suffering, prescribing ec^uality of rights and raising of conditions, found »3 I 116 BONDS OF DISUNION. h unwilling advocates even in those members of the ruling classes who professed a cold sympathy for tlie labouring popu- lation. To raise the condition of tliose below them was, in th-^ir view, to lower their own to an intolerable level. Educa- tion, custom, and the long assertion of a superior position had built up a barrier of pride which opposed an almost impreg- nable bulwark to the teachings of economical science. Let us admit all this. Let us fmther allow that the busi- ness of government is in the main transacted by hirelings who, whatever may be their zeal, ability, or good-will, lack the minute supervision which alone can assure attention even to the dull routine of their daily duties ; that their work is systema- tically scamped, or regulated by precedents framed for a bygone age ; that the Minister of the day is delivered over, bound hand and foot, into an inextricable web of formalism woven by the traditions of generations of incompetent official- ism. Let us allow that superior intelligence has been cramped, enterprising schemes baulked, and noble aspirations checked by the withering breath of official red-tapeism. Allow all this, and when every excuse has been made and every palliation suggested for the crimes and the foUies which made up the sum of our colonisation policy, let the responsibility be laid to the charge of those who undertook its direction. Besjjondeat sujjerior ; let each titular chief in whose name these things were done answer for them. By just so much as man is the most difficult piece of luggage to transport, does he re- quire to be handled with greater care in the transporting. Yet he was badly packed, insecurely stowed away, and with abominable cruelty shot away as rubbish on Canadian shores, to the great injury of himself, his fellow- subjects and fellow- creatures, and to the lasting infamy of his unnatural parent. 117 CHAPTER IV. CEIME RAMPANT— TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. It may or may not be that there is a time and place for everything, but it is certain that neither the one nor the other is discoverable until experience has demonstrated how mis- timed and misplaced everything actually is. It is possible that there may have been a period when the transportation of criminals might have been productive of the best results, and there may have been a locality exactly suited to develop the system to the greatest advantage. We may assert with confi- dence, however, that the history of criminal transportation to the Australian colonies does not furnish a single shred of evidence in proof that there ever was a time when the whole- sale exportation of cargoes of felons directed to them was producti- -e of anything but an infinity of evil. Transportation first began to be practised as a system by England in the reign of Queen Ehivibeth,! when it was decreed that rogues and vagabonds were to be banished. It apparently mattered little where to, for the place of exile was not par- ticularly specified. In the reign of James I. this omission was rectified by the direction that criminals were thenceforward to be sent to the southern colonies of North America and to the West Indian colonies— to just the very places where the labour of white men was least likely to be of i:se to themselves or to any one else. The great abu£3s that then arose under the practice of transportation were tentatively dealt with in the reign of George I.^ by a Parliamentary enactment, the necessitating causes of which were stated to be • the failure of 39 Elizabeth, c. iv. 2 4 Geo. I. m 118 BOXDS OF DISUNION. I those who undertook to transport themselves '—as they well might do-and ' the gi-eat want of servants in His Majesty's plantations.' They were to be taken out by contractors, who were empowered to hire the convicts out-in other Avords to sell them-to the planters at the highest possible profit. The price given by the purchasers varied according to the length of sentence which had yet to run, and the most heavily sentenced convicts, who were presumably the worst offenders, brought the best prices. Both the home Government and the con- tractors thus made handsome profits out of the worst forms of vice, and this Parliamentary slave trade flourished as a national institution till the War of Independence. As the average number of criminals so disposed of was about 2,000 per annum and as the average market quotation was 20/. per criminal' l^^Z^T""^''^ ^""^ '""^''^ ^^^''' ^^^^^ ^'' ^"i^^al Si'oss revenue of 40,000/. out of the national vices. The suggestions as to the future disposal of criminals after the revolt of the States were characteristic of the light views of their public duties provaihng among our political leaders at the time. Mr. Eden, for example, proposed ' that the more enormous offenders be sent to Tunis, Algiers, and other ports for the redemption of Christian slaves ; while others might be compelled to dangerous expeditions or be sent to establish new colonies and settlements on the coast of Af-ica and on small islands for the benefit of navigation.' Another statesman, still more sweeping in his intentions, would have It that criminals should 3 thrown ashore on the Guinea Coast -a proposition that had, at any rate, the merit of simplicity The latter suggestion was to a certain extent acted upon and it was deemed wise and expedient to make the West Coast of Africa the future destination of convicts. But the deadliness of the climate there soon awakened the spirit of humanity throughout the kingdom in favour of the lives of the convicts and procured the speedy abandonment of a system of trans- portation which, under the pretence of ' correction and im- provement,' was found almost equivalent to an indiscriminate sentence of death. •The discovery of Botany Bay by Captain Cook came just TRANSPORTATION TO -NEW SOUTH WALES. 119 111 the nick of time to relieve the Government of that date from undertaking the responsibility of dealing with its own crimhials at home. Thenceforth, the vast resources and the infinite capabilities of Australia were to be subordinated to the supposed requirements of the felonry of England, and only the most degraded forms of crime were to be allowed to confer the right to emigrate to the newly-discovered continent. The objects of transportation as put forward at the time were : — 1. To rid the mother-country of the intolerable nuisance arising from the daily increasing accumulation of criminals in her gaols and houses of correction. 2. To afford a suitable place for the safe-conduct and punishment of these criminals, as well as for their ultimate and progressive reformation ; and 3. To form a British colony out of those materials which the reformation of these criminals might gradually supply to the Government, in addition to the families of free emigrants who might from time to time be induced to settle in the convict territory. Brave words, bravely spoken, and making a 3ne show of philanthropic intention never meant to be acted up to. Gloss it over as the Government might with humanitarian senti- ment, its real object in promoting transportation to Australia was its desire to avoid doing its plain duty to the country. It was far simpler to evade all obhgations connected with the proper punishment, right discipline, and the reformation of criminals by turning them out of the country, neck and crop, to the remotest corner of the universe, from whence neither complaint nor remonstrance could penetrate home, than to keep alive before an indignant people the spectacle of defects of prison management so gross that the reform of the system would soon be imperatively required. If the convicts were indiscriminately transported, the home population would not realise the amount of vice and crime prevailing in their midst, and would consequently be less likely to turn their attention to the unequal and iniquitous laws which forced so large a ni ; J 120 BONDS OF DISUNION. proportion of men and women into criminal habits. Out of sight IS out of mind, and a colony of convicts might soon be ex- pected to fade out of popular memory ; while complaints of oppressive treatment, or of incompetent and tyrannical ad- ministration on the part of the Government. gaolers sent abroad to safeguard (and reform!) the prisoners, could be altogether suppressed, or represented as the lying tales of discontented elons. Such, in plain Enghsh, divested of its sicldy philan- thropic guise, were the objects which Government had steadily m mind when advocating the establishment of a penal colonv in New South Wales. The reformation of the transported criminals may, indeed .mve been hoped for by many of the advocates of transporta- tion but the Government, at any rate, never made the slightest eftort to achieve it. On the contrary, their aim seems to have been, as we shall presently see, to render the condition of the prisoner as degraded, demoralised, and hopeless as possible. As for the forming of the basis of a free colony out of convicts tlie merit, if any, of the intention completely disappears when we reflect that the ordained system of convict management in r>iew South Wales effectually precluded all possibility of re- form, and that the free colonists who from time to time pro ceeded thjther were neither encouraged to emigrate by the iiome Government, nor in any way assisted to do so until the absolute necessity for free emigration was repeatedly called for by the local authorities. Then a few pauper families were sent out whose advent was a doubtful gain to the settlement and all the future efforts of Government in that direction were nttul, forced, and of futile utihty. Free emigrants to Australia were, in fact, considered objectionable on various grounds. They gave trouble from he commencement by xiot being contented with the means of transport when lamentably deficient in the requisites of decency or comfort. They grumbled at this, that, and the other arrangement that was unfit for human beings; they found fault with the conduct of things in the colony, and were perpetually trying to effect alterations in every department of local admmistration. iiesides, they occasionally wrote home TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 121 to friends in England, and every now and again questions were asked in consequence which it was disagreeable for Ministers to have to answer. Free emigrants were therefore on no account to be encouraged. ' Imagine the case of a household most carefully made up of picked specimens from all the idle, mischievous, and noto- riously bad characters in the country ! Surely the man who should be mad or wicked enough to bring together this mon- strous family, and to keep up its characters and numbers by con- tinual fresh supplies, would be scouted from the country he so outraged, would be denounced as the author of a diabolical crime agamst his people, and would be proclaimed infamous for setting at naught all morality and decency. What is it better that, instead of a household, it is a whole people we have brought together, and are so keeping up ? that it is the wide society of the world and not of a single country against which the nuisance is committed ? ' • Such was the condition to which the English Government diligently strove co reduce New South Wales ; such was the crime against humanity of which England may claim the sole and exclusive credit of precedent amongst modem nations. . People may differ widely as to their conceptions of those torms of penal discipline which are ideaUy the most efficacious for the double purpose of punishing and reformmg. Still, all would agree that the essential requisites of any effective reform would comprise certainty of punishment or reward— that is, the assurance that definite consequences would follow upon particular acts or omissions— and also the mamtenance of as equable a proportion as possible between offence and penalty between merit and guerdon. Without these requisites every penal system must break down. It is desirable also that the persons put in authority over the prisoners should be those wlio, from the weight of their moral characters, are in some way fitted to give examples of decorum, self-restraint, and good conduct to the contaminated mass around them. Especially is this advisable when gaolers ' Essay on Colonisation, bv Dr. Hind. 122 BONDS OF DISUNION. HI M and tlieir charges are not brought uito contact with each other merely m the ordinary routine of prison discipline, but are associated together more closely, as master and servant for mstance ; so that the latter has continuous opportunities for profitnig or otherwise by the private a:; well as by the official character of the former. The system ultimately adopted with regard to the convicts transported to Sydney was to ' assign ' them to masters who were practically free to make of them what use they pleased. They employed them in every department of their business ; slave-drove them to their hearts' content ; spoiled some by over-mdulgence ; hardened the evil dispositions of others by unfair treatment ; and being entirely unrestrained by any pre- tence of responsibility, were quite careless of the physical pain or the moral injury their practice or example might inflict on those whose lives had been made over to their keeping. A bad system can never be made to give good results, and if the assignment system was a radically vicious one, it must be remembered that it was almost a necessary consequence of convict colonisation as actually practised. In promoting transportation the home Government had, in effect, laid down the broad principle that the most convenient way to treat criminals was to save themsehes the trouble of looking after them by getting rid of them a^iyhow. When they had sold a cargo of convicts to contractors, they considered that they had fulfilled their duty as guardians of the national rights, and It mattered not at all to thei^i that the mortality on board the transport ships was frightful, and that a large number of the survivors of the voyage landed but to find a grave. We are told that days and even weeks elapsed without their dehverance fi-om the reeking hold. * Ventilation was ignored- discipline was lax or brutal. It was to the interest of mer- chants that rations should be reduced. Every death on the voyage was a gain of so many pounds to the contractors. The officers on board were often partners in the traffic, personally interested in landing as few as possible.' • We learn from the official report of the surgeon superintendent of • Donwiek's First Twenty Years of Australia, p. 18. TKANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 123 one of the convict fleets hoAv the poor wretclies midit well have complained of hard fare and hard usage :-' Stowed below ni fetid quarters, half-clad, lying in wet places with insuffi- cient covering or absolutely destitute of it ; stripped of the few comforts which had been provided by friends, bullied by brutal officers, beaten without cause, conscious of exposure to disease and death, helpless and hopeless in their half-starved condition Did they complain, the remonstrance was made the gro^md for inflicting fresh torture. Chains and floggim? added to their horrors. ... A great number of them lying! some half and others nearly quite naked, without either bed or bedding, unable to turn or help themselves. Some of these unhappy people died when the ships came into the harbour, but before they could be taken on shore. Part of these had been thrown into the harbour, and their naked bodies cast upon the shore were seen lying naked on the rocks. The misery I saw amongst them was inexpressible.' ^ In the case of one ship the convicts were put in irons during the whole voyage in consequence of some conjecture tliat they meant to seize the ship and murder the officers; and L>r. White relates many instances of finding, on his visits to convict ships on their arrival, dead bodies below ' still in irons.' On board the ten transports that formed the second con- vict fleet there had been embarked in England 1,763 convicts male and female, of whom no fewer than 198 died on the 1^ ^age out ; and such was the state cf debility in which the sui Mvors landed in the colony, in consequence of the insuffi- cient quantity and bad quality of the food supplied to tliem during the voyage, that 116 of their number died in the Colonial Hospital shortly after their arrival.^ It is a fittmcr commentary, however, upon the inhuman recklessness with which the convict colony had been settled that this calamitous mortality actually prevented the annihilation of the inhabi tants from absolute starvation. ' Had not such numbers died * observes Colonel Collins, ' both on the passage and since the • Bonwick'e FiTHt Twenty Years of Australia, p. 195 Lang's History of New South Wales, vol. i. p. 42. 'il iiiiaiiili^.' 124 BONDS OF DISUNION. landing of those who survived the voyage, we should not at this moment have anything to receive from the public stores ; thus strangely did we derive a benefit from the miseries of our fellow-creatures.' The colony at this period had been reduced to the greatest straits for want of food— a condition of things directly attri- butable to the action of the British Government in sending out convicts of whom not a single soul possessed the smallest knowledge of agriculture. Thus it was with the whole of the system and every detnil in it— gross negligence every wlxere ; and the example so given from home was speedily followed by the Colonial Governors, who found in the adoption of the assignment system the readiest means of minimising the trouble of looking after the convicts. _ The first Governor of the colony, Captain Phillip, was fully alive to the duties of his position, and was unremitting in his efforts to ameliorate the condition of the convicts by supplying them with motives for exertion and with inducements to become thrifty settlers. To those who had satisfactorily worked out their sentences he gave grants of land, and by his firm, considerate treatment of those under sentence, tending as it did to give them an interest in their daily labour, he almost succeeded in imparting to the colony for the time being what, under the circumstances, may fairly be called — a moral tone. But the benefits attributable to his rule vanished with his departure, when the colony was left to the tender mercies of the New South Wales Corps. This was a corps recruited for special service in the colony about three years after its fomidation. Its officers were easily procurable out of the ranks of men who had failed to satisfy the by no means very stringent social requirements of those days, and whose habits and characters bore a general resem- blance to those of the felons delivered over to their rule. Like officers, like men. According to Governor Hunter, • Soldiers from the Savoy, and other characters who have been considered as disgraceful to every other regiment in His Majesty's service, have been thought fit and proper recruits TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUIH WALES. 125 for the New South Wales Corps, which in my humMe opinion my Lord, should be con:posed of the very best and most orderly dispositions. They are sent here to guard and to keep m obedience to the laws, when force may be necessary, a set of the worst, the most atrocious, characters that ever disgraced human nature ; and yet we find, amongst those safe- guards, men capable of corrupting the hearts of the best disposed, and often superior in every species of infamy to the most expert in wickedness among the convicts. Our stores our provisions and granaries, must be entrusted to the care of such men, and what security can we have in the hands of these people ? It matters, in reality, but little for the purpose of this chapter what or who were the members of the corps, except as further proof of the indifference of the home Government to the conduc of aftairs in New South Wales, because it was inevitable that even a regiment composed of the possessors of all the virtues should, from the almost boundless power with which they were invested over the offscourings of the English gaols, become, m time, as brutalised as the hardened criminals with whom they were hourly brought in contact. If the vices of the individual members of the corps had been more conspicuous than their virtues during their home career, the exhibition ot pettifogging rapacity and open profligacy afforded by their behaviour as a corporate body, from the time ot the formation of the corps till its recall in 1809, was even more noteworthy. True to its doctrine that the convict colony was not worth looking after, the home Government had neglected altogether to send out a successor to Governor Wiilhp until nearly three years after his return to England • and m the meantime the corps ruled the settlement in undis- puted supremacy. In justice to the corps, it must be said, that its members were placed m a position of great temptation to turn their opportunities . • purposes of private gain. The extraordinarily high profits frequently reahsed by speculative importers on he sale of articles of consumption were a stron<. indn.oment to tiiem to eke out an inadequate pay by speculating in com- ■ I •• '^.dafci-^^^rit^t^: w l§ Mil 'lit 126 BONDS OF DISUNION. mercial transactions themselves. However widely their dealings might be known, it was in the highest degree un- likely that any notice would be taken of them at home. They were, moreover, in sole possession of the King's stores, and as these contained whatever was necessary for the subsistence of the settlement, useful articles might be procured from that source for nothing, or at worst at prime cost, which could afterwards be retailed at enormous profits. That their duty as the guardians of the stores was to deal with them as trustees for the population of the colony was not an argument likely to recommend itself to men oblivious to the sense of honour, and, in their case, the salutary principle of securing common honesty by a high scale of payment had never even been attempted. If any of them reasoned with themselves about the matter at all, they found their excuse in irresistible temptation, and what was at first a fraudulent misappropria- tion soon acquired the strength of a recognised laudable custom. The article then and for many years after in most frequent requisition was Rum ; and in process of time it came to be established as a general rule that there should be certain periodical issues of rum to the officers of the corps, in quan- tities proportioned to the rank of each.^ Rum-selling became the whole art of government, and the officers, from being buyers and sellers in general, gradually constituted themselves the only traders in rum in the colony, and then refused to content themselves with anything short of the entire monopoly of trade in every description of commodity, whether produced in the colony or imported from abroad. When a merchant ship arrived in the harbour, the officers got the first sight of her manifest and cargo, and in the sale of the latter they diligently and successfully copied the example of that other military trading association, the Honourable East India Company. The officers, having the sole command of every connnodity tliat came into the colony, forced tlie farmers who had been estabhshed by the wise policy of Governor Phillip to bring their crops to them as soon as gathered. These crops tliey ' Lang's History of Ncio South WaleSy p. 50. TEANSPOETATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 127 ^'^iTil^^T ™'"',r'"* "'^y P--' i" exchange at tl.e la e of SI. il. per gallon, and afterwards sold the crons at extravagant prices to the colonists. The effect othe pro eedn,gs was so greatly to discourage attempts a7a" c, ItC M^:^:::z:"' "'-'- '"^ -ionr,:s hrou;;;t ":: In addition to the injurious effects resultin-. from the monopMy acquired by the misappropriation oMh p„h L stoies the whole corps furnished an example of licenhou "ess w nch must be held largely responsible for tl e Zl im morahty pervadmg the community.' Lieutenant S but shipm Sydney Harbour ' the commissioned officer, con eon boaM, a„j they stand upon deck select such fen,^esTs ar most agreeable m their persons, who generally on such 000! s:ons endeavour to set themselves ofl' to the best advan age" The non-commissioned officers then are nermittB.rf!, 1^ J or themselves, the privates next, and k^y « "e co v 1 1"' .avn,g been .n the country a considerable tin>e T.™i al"; realised some property, are enabled to procure th; Gover '? perm,ss,o„ to take to themselves a female convicr- " _ When Governor Hunter arrived, at the end 'of 179'; be tned to counteract this monopoly of commerce and women Iv urgmgthe recall of the corps. Naturally his™ om" " 5 t.™s were unheeded. After having nominally caSon t government m hostile subordination to the corps forfivel l.e embarked for England to represent the grievous tate of! co^nym person; but backstairs influencL::; 's ^ t aStittoistetrr ""™'^ ^"^'° '— w lHn?°""iT ^'!T- '"■"™'' '" "'« ""'""y t''*'"-''^ the close of 1800, and found Inmself at once imbroiled with the coins He very soon gave up the attempt • to make farmer. It ?' -^ pockets,' but the chief cause of the comna at ve °, ^'''''; ^rnnng during his reign was the effect oHC^di Zno"' my ot the corps m depriving the pickp'-i'-^^ -i- " • " meiits to become farmers. No one will work if he is cert, to be despoiled of the hoped-for reward of his labou un and tlu ill 128 BONDS OF DISUNION. I '' '• ' -u farmers who, while forced to take payment in diluted spirits for produce which, under the existing circumstances of the colony, might have been sold at a high profit, saw that those profits, raised by extortion to an enormous height, were quietly absorbed by the officers, gave up agriculture and became rum sellers on their own accounts. In thus changing their occu- pation they were assisted by the Governor, who hoped that by givmg them licences to sell rum he might set up a counter- poise to the overbearing power of tyranny which the corps derived from its monopoly. Up to this time the superior officers had carried on the wholesale, and the non-commis- sioned officers the retail, trade in rum — a division of labour supported on the ground that by no other means could the surplus stores of rum be effectually disposed of. Under the system introduced by Governor King, expired- sentence men — * emancipists,' as they were called— were to compete with the non-commissioned retailers, and licences for the purpose were given out with such liberality and profusion that the popula- tion at the time was said to consist ' of those who sold rum and of those who drank it.' Even the chief constable of Sydney, whose business it was to repress irregularity, had a licence to promote it, under the Governor's hand, by the sale of rum and other ardent liquors ; and the chief gaoler had a licensed house in which he sold rum publicly on his own behalf right oppo- site the door of the gaol. The natural result of this state of things was a general dissolution of the scanty moral feeling of the colony, and a general relaxation of penal discipline. There was now no pretence of either. ' Neither marrying nor giving in marriage was thought of in the colony ; and as the arm of the civil powei yvas withered under the blasting infiiient e of the miser- able system that prevailed, the police of the country was wretchedly administered, and virtuous industry was neither encouraged nor protected. Bands of bushrangers, or runaway convicts, traversed the country in all directions, and, entering the houses of the defenceless settlers in open day, committed fearful atrocities.' ' Several hundred convicts banded them- ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i., p. 71. TEANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES 129 at vinegar Hill. Here they were defeated and broken ud-1 tortunately, it would seem fnr +i,^ x n "^*^" "P~ mh^hii.Jj f T ' *^'^ i-espectable portion of the mhab itants, for the success of the convicts would have insured paZenToT "''t^ '""'^•^^*^^"' '^'"'^ ^^^ P-^^^^e Zom paniment of a general massacre rm,mg the affiiirs of tlie colony to a more prosperous issue he antagonism of the corps was too strong to alloTo a^J tz trr"" ^'^yT"'^ «"-°"8h; How z:L;:i m sing was the sp.nt m which his measures were counter, ^c ed by his nominal subordinates, may be gathered f-om t L arf of S r" r/'"'"'' " ™""'^'' "^ "'^ '^'"■P^ '« "'^ Secri desLtcI e t' '^«™ "' ^"^"^^We length, entrusting his despatches to an oflicer proceeding to England for the express purpose of carrying tlie comnl-iinf • I,„t i,„ express BiinuBh *„ „Ti 11 eonipianit , but he was imprudent s o7and tb'°^ the c.«umstanco to get abroad rather too ions. The despatch-box was deitly pidted of its contents i 01 tlands office m Downing Street, it was found to contain merely a number of old newspapers. ' In August 1806. Captain Bligh. of the famous ■Bounty succeeded lung. At the time of his entering upon liis dutie.; 1.0 rum-sehing practices of the corps had b^com s s'te a tised that rum had actually become the colonial curie" ;" universal medium of exchange. Officers, civil and mS-' the clergy, all sorts and conditions of people, were unde itl e necessity of paying for everything, even for labour, i, ai'l spirits ; and consequently every one in the colony was obliged ' Lang's Now South Wales, vol. i. p 71 .^ ^^Evidence of Mr, John M..Artbur „.i ,he trial „( Colonel Johnston K ■ WL^UMU. . wyn 130 BONDS OF DISUNION. tir •11 to be a trader In and for rum. Governor Bligli was specially instructed to put an end to this monstrous system. It was easy enough to make a show of morality by giving tliese instructions, but if the Home Government had been in earnest in its attempt to reform the colony, it might even then have recalled the corps, as it had been repeatedly urged to do by previous Governors and by indignant private remonstrances. To send out Governor Bhgh to curtail the privileges of a body of men who, besides possessing absolute power in the colony itself, were backed up by secret influences at the Colonial Office far more potent than could be brought to bear on the side of the Governor, was to hand over that official tied and bound into the hands of the Philistines. We need not concern ourselves with the widely varying estimates of Governor Bligh's character with which colonial historians have favoured posterity. Whether he was a monster of iniquity as described by Wentworth or the much-injured individual portrayed by Lang, by Bennett, or by himself, matters little. It is certain, however, that he was called upon to con- front a situation of infinite difficulty, ^nd the fact that, during his administration, he set himself resolutely to break down the injurious monopoly of the corps, must plead in favour of his Mction as Governor, whatever may have been his private failings. Only four months before his arrival had occurred the great ^larch flood of 180G. The agricultural operations of the colonists had been carried on principally on the rich alluvial soils bordering the river Hawkesbury. An extraordinary and unexpected rising of the waters of the river swept away at a blow the agricultural resources of the colony, and, save for the (rovernment stores, the inhabitants were deprived of the ordinary means of sul)sistence. Maize, meal, and flour of the coarsest description rose to two shillings and sixpence a pound ; the price of wheat sprang up from seven and sixpence to eighty shillings a bushel, and many families had no bread in their houses for months together. The Governor under these cir- cumstances endeavoured to alleviate the distress by encourag- ing the cultivation of as large an extent of ground as possible, TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 131 and with this view he engaged to purchase-from tlie colonists for the Kmg-s stores, all the wheat that might be dispo a" e after for in thp fir«t nl„„ ,™^<"''''»'n'3' judicious measures, lor, m the farst place, a large extent of ground which had been ennched by recent floods was laid under fruitful clwvation and^m the second place, a heavy blow was struck at tl sy m of makmg rum the circulating medium of the country Bu^ they drew down upon the Governor's head the dire vengeance acceded by Governor Kmg the pri^^!ege of retailing rum Te craft of those who fattened on the drunkem.ess o^ S fellows was endangered by these new-fangled arran.eme te If they were allowed to get fairly inte operation, theCa™ ' pated convicts might begin to take to agriculture i^^ Zes ' a.nd might possibly acquire the habits of°virtuous i. dus Z as hey would no longer have an almost irresistible temptotion do nothmg but drink rum. The free settlers, too it a lowrf pocket the profits of their own produce, wou d p ll' become prosperous, and their prosperity might attract otW free immigrants into the colony. A r e'speclble c mnn n ty bowe *™/™*'"'°.--'««e, with a gradually increasing selrs. ''™' "'' ™"" ^' too weighty for the rum The wrath of these last culminated in 1808 the nret^vt iTeT het'''' "':':! '"'""^"' "' '''■ •^°"» '"^^ '^*- seizure of the Governor by tlie corps, his imprisonment for rdr "b"; '^"""'' ""' 'r '^"""-"''"^ expuisiorftom e colony. B:.t in procuring the downfall of the Governor «.e corps was but pavhig tlie way for a hke calamity for itself Not all at once, for the home Government was too completely inMerent to the welfare of the colony to take in nS te notice of these acts of rebellion against its own representa v The commanding officer, Major Johnston, took upon him- self the government of the colony immediately on the deposi- K 6 I'-JSil fj t j ' I !|! ▼- ■liolders had no property in their slaves, nor consequently had they any motive for improving their condition. Besides, the servants had not always held the same degraded pojitions. Many had education, more ability, and the passions of all were easily excited. They were fitting enough subjects for the exercise of moral influence, had it been forthcoming either TRANSrORTATJON TO NEW SOL'TH WALES. 139 in precept or example ; but tlie discipline to whicli thev were subjected was purely physical. If the master so willed 'it, the most minute offences against this discipline were visited with further pains and penalties, and the frequent and ^-oss injus- ice of the punishments thus inflicted had as demoralising, a tendency as the spectacle of the unrestrained vices of the f^ee portion of the community. For some time after the establishment of the system, the Government undertook to clothe and provision the assigned servan s for a specified number of months in each year. Their labour was useful so long as it could be had on these terms, but it frequently happened that the master would as soon as Government support was withheld, be unde- sirous of employing all those assigned to him. If he was a farmer he would, as a rule, at that time, not care to raise a arger amount of produce than was necessary for him enc' for his family's subsistence. There was no market for any surplus outside the colony, and inside it the number of inhabitant, was too small and the bulk of them too poor to absorb the large gram crops, which grew almost without superinten- dence on the fertile soils in favourable years. The farmer would take the convicts assigned to him, partly in order to curry favour with the Government, partly because their maintenance mvolved him in no cost, and possiblv they might be useful to him as domestic servants, or in other capacities. When the time came for him to give them the miivmum of support required by law, he had a choice oi ways m which to rid himself of his burdens. Either he might return them on the hands of the Government, by brincrintr . accusations against them which, whether true or not he could always contrive to get substantiated, and so mana-e to procure them a period of labour with some road gang"^ or he might give them free indulgence to roam about 'the country-that is to say, to form themselves into predatory gangs pledged to the worst forms of lawlessness. When he got them imprisoned, it was perhaps to satisfy a grudge or ou of the promptings of a general malevolence of disposition, i^ither dislike or revenge could be safely wreaked in this .!"!? ? r 140 BONDS OF DISUNION. form. If he turned them loose to prey upon society, the act may have argued kindhness of character, but, hke many of the freaks of good-nature, this course was probably the more objectionable of the two, since those so sent abroad would be the most worthless of the lot assigned to him. The best he would probably reserve, as being worth their keep. When free emigrants began to come into the colony in considerable numbers in Governor Brisbane's time, the status of the convict, considered as a labour machine, was greatly altered. He was no longer an incubus on Government hands to be forced off at any price, but he had become an article of value of which the Government had sole possession. A quickly increasing population with a gradually extending range of wants required an amount of food which could only be supplied by the active co-operation of all the labour force of the colony. Commerce generally was stimulated by the in- cursion of the free element, and the service of able assistants becam.e a matter of necessity. The dispensers of convicts could now become coquettish, and were in a position to dis- pose of their human machines on favouiable terms, as well as to make assignment a branch of special patronage. Thence- forth, servants were only to be granted to people who could give proof of capacity to maintain them. Bo far so good ; the clearing of the gaols liad become a matter of apparent saving of expense. The difference between the new and the old methods of assignment was that now the slave was not given, but sold. This saving of expense was only apparent as concerned the community at large, for the burden of maintaining the convicts had been merely transferred from the Government to individuals, and assigned labour was estimated at not more than one quarter of the worth of free labour under ordinary conditions. But such was the disinclination to direct payments in the shape of wages that the free labour- ing immigrants could only with extreme difficulty obtain permanent engagements, the masters generally hoping that they might get a prisoner assigned to them suited to their own particular purpose, and that they mifi'ht thus save the direct TEANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 141 expense of a free servant. ' • In consequence, the free ser\-ants, who might otherwise have formed a vakiable labour force, in some cases either themselves became employers of a few convicts, or became small tradesmen in the towns, or more usually, through sheer inability to procure work, they sank deep into vicious modes of existence or into lazy dissipated habits. Their very independence was a fatal bar to their employment by masters whose rule, whether conducted with tyranny or indulgence, was based throughout on the principle of physical coercion. The free man was a contractor for a definite use of his services, and, before the law, had equal rights with his master, whicli he might enforce if occasion required. He was obnoxious therefore to men accustomed to the delights of slave-driving, and had consequently no chance afforded him of bringing his labouring power into competition with that of a convict. It must, too, be remembered that the scale of a man's work will depend upon the general standard of labour around Inm. The free labourer might have been competent to pro- duce four times as much as the convict, but, unless a man of very exceptional force of character, he would usually content himself with doing no more than was necessary to raise the value of his day's work slightly above the convict level. Be that as it may, one prominent effect of the assignment system was that it procured the discouragement of free labour and of the working power of the free labourer, besides power- fully militating against the influx of free immigrants. Both as a punishment and as a means of reforming criminals, the failure of assignment was complete. Its efficacy for either purpose was dependent upon the characters of individual masters. By just so much as these differed from each other, the operation of the system was rendered uncertain. Masters might be stern disciplinarians, ready to visit an offencR against conventional regulations with all the heaviest penalties of a penal code .so harsh that its extreme provisions were rarely carried into practice ; or they might regard breaches of disuipline with a lenient eye, using them ' Captain Maconochie's Thoughts on Convict Management, p. 13. ■If'^ ■ ^m[" u y mi *9t L.m. i g m vmm< wri3:^ 142 BONDS OF DISUNION. if only as convenient excuses for procuring the punishment of servants whom they dishked or feared. Others, again, might err on the side of over-indulgence either owing to good-nature or to weakness of character, or perhaps from a behef in the greater efficacy of easy treatment in inducing labour. The whole system was a lottery, in which the prizes, the good situations, were as often as not drawn by those least deserving of them, felons too hardened in vice to profit either by good treatment or good example. On the other hand, men more unfortunate in their fall than criminal in their habits might be assigned to masters— possibly themselves emancipists, of the lowest type, and deriving their rise from fortunate speculations in rum — whose treatment might be effectual in brutahsing their miserable dependents. The great majority of masters cared nothing about the punishment or reformation of their slaves — they viewed them merely as insensate instruments for business purposes, their object being to get as much work out of them as possible, and, whether they used the indulgent or coercive system, it was but as a means to the attainment of this end. Of the two the indulgent system was the one more generally employed, and those subjected to it might safely calculate on being better fed and clothed, and also on doing far less work than would have been demanded at home from healthy English labourers.' Captain Maconochie, in illustration of the indulgent system, mentions a case where the whole of an assigned staff sat down in a cornfield during harvest and refused to work be- cause the supply of tobacco was exhausted. Some was hourly expected from a neighbouring town ; nevertheless it was found necessary to procure an immediate supply before the men could be induced to work. Tobacco was an indulgence which the master was not bound to allow them, and the men were at the time receiving as much flour and mutton as they chose to eat, and a bottle of whie a day. Instances of this kind were not very frequent, it is true — and why ? Because masters took good care not to be unthout tobacco. When such was the pampered condition of convicts, it is ' Maconochio's TJumghts on Prison Management, p. 30. TEANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 143 not surprising to find that free men were occasionally found willing to exchange their freedom for bondage by committing some act which would subject them to the luxuries and indul gences of the latter state. An instance of this, much dwelt upon by the colonial historians, was furnished in the case of two soldiers of the 57th Eegiment in Governor Darling's time, who, with the object in view of becoming assigned servants committed a theft in such a way as to ensure imme- diate detection. The temptation was great ; and the punish- ment intended to be exemplary, was so disproportioned in tact to the circumstances of the case that one of the men convicted died within a few hours of its first infliction, and ill consequence a popular revulsion of feeling was produced alarming in its results. It occasionally happened that assignment furnished a ready means of evading the ends of justice, as where the proceeds of robberies in England were remitted out to some unsuspected colonist, under a preconcerted arrangement or trust, that the thieves when transported should be assigned to the service of the consignee confederate, who might be relied upon through fear of exposure, to make a fair distribution of tlie plunder. If the nature and extent of the punishment of the assigned servant was uncertain and capricious, his reward— namely the ticket of leave— was every whit as doubtful. It often happened that good behaviour lessened the chances of a man's obtaining his ticket when due, for the ticket was only given it there was no record of oflfences against the servant during his period of assignment. Consequently, good, useful servants were prosecuted by their masters for the most trivial, real, or fancied offences, in order that a record of crime might' be procured against them, so that, their tickets being refused them, they would of necessity be continued in the assigned service. This practice became so comnioD in Sydney that a regulation had to be passed making it impossible, by requiring all men to whom tickets were due for service to be returned to Government, whether tliey were entitled to them by conduct ' Maconochie's Thoughts on Prison Management, p. i3. lU BONDS OF DI;sUNION/ ^N a ii liii or nofc.^ On the other hand, by reason of the difficulties thrown in the way of masters parting with useless servants, men, otherwise unfit, would generally obtain tickets of leave. ]3y procuring them that indulgence, the master immediately became entitled to another servant, who might turn out a greater acquisition. So the most worthless and hardened were rewarded with freedom and entitled to spread their demoralis- ing influences through the colony as advertisements of the value of vice, while the thrifty, temperate, and industrious were made to furnish a warning against the cultivation of qualities deemed meritorious in all other communities but those of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land.' Of all the disgraceful features attending transportation, perhaps none was more glaring in its cruelty than the failure of the home Government to supply the local authorities with proper lists of the periods of transportation to which the convicts had been severally sentenced. It was thus often impossible, without a lengthened inquiry, that in those days of slow communication occupied many months, or even years, to ascertain the correctness of the assertions of the immerous convicts who claimed to have served the full lengths of their sentences ; and, though the importance of sending out such lists with each convict ship was even imploringly urged by the Colonial Governors, it was not until ten years after the fh-st foundation of the settlement that the Secretary of State for the Colonies condescended to state tliat ' in future lists shall be sent from England and Ireland of the terms of sentence.' So far as the principle of the injustice thus dorie was concerned, it made no difference whether the worst or the best of the convicts were most affected by it. It was, however, naturally felt as a greater hardship by those prisoners who had been transported for political offences, and to whom any prolongation of their sentences meant a bitterly intense degree of mental suffering, than it was by those convicts to whom transportation or imprisonment was neither a disgrace nor a punishment. The studied neglect was, hi the case of the former, a refinement of cruelty directed against political ' Now Tasmania. TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 145 opponents who had been transported for having dared to defend the hberties of their country ; and in the case of all it was a bitter heartless wrong. With respect to the reformation professed as the main object of the system, the wonder was how it could ever have been expected. Assignment was, on the face of it, as has been shown, not only slavery, but slavery in its verv worst form. The stimulus to labour or the punishment for nidolence and msolence was usually the lash. Other modes of pumshment were liberally provided, but masters generally preferred flagellation, as causing less interruption to their servant's work. Even under the indulgent system, the lash was frequently brought into use. The effect of slavery has always been in the highest degree debasing to both master and slave, and thorough deterioration of general morality has been its invariable result. The followmg is the picture of the < nvict settlements under the assignment system of slavery, d. •-,/n by a careful observer •- ' In my opinion the effect is what ought to have been ex- pected. I nrmly believe tiiat almost every prisoner who is Aibmitted to its operation ' (that of assignment) ' is deterior- ated by It. Every one of them may not be a bad man, but every one was a better one in England. I have directed considerable attention to this subject, and sought information from every available source. I have conversed with ministers of religion of various denomiiiations, with magistrates and settlers, and my opinion has been everywhere confirmed. I hear one say that the prisoners invariably have money which they cannot honestly obtain. Petty thefts are so common that all appear to make up their minds to thera. Drunken- ness seems in most cases to be only limited by oppoi iunity • and lying and perjury are so fearfully prevalent that I believe we have the authority of a Judge and Attorney-General attached to the assertion that evidence may be readily obtained to convict any man of any crime laid to his charge for half-a- crown.' » Those who had obtained their tickets or had been completely emancipated had greater inducements to work and ' Maconochie's Thoughts on Prison Discipline, pp. 38, 39. L 146 BONDS OF DISUNION. 1 . 1^1 i>- . I p. J I \<\l to revert to the ways of honesty, but the demoralising effects of the penal discipline which they had undergone were equally pronounced in their case, One of them, who since his eman- cipation had devoted himself entirely to sheep-stealing, had brought from the school of reforming discipline the maxim, ' An old thief must keep his hand in,' and this he alleged as his only motive. ' And,' continues Maconochie, * of those who had been convicted of murder within the year preceding, all were of those who had been let loose upon society as peni- tent and reformed men.' The large influx of convicts during the reign of Macquarie and the supply poured in in Brisbane's time might not have been effective in reducing the demand for convict labour had the colony been making sufficient progress to be able to give employment to the extra arrivals. But, although the sta- tistics taken at the end of Macquarie's administration com- pared favourably with those taken twelve years previously, the advance in material progress had been very small. The population had been swollen to three times its previous amount mainly by importations of convicts, and the increase in flocks and herds was the result of reproductive action in a country peculiarly well fitted for its operation. The acreage nominally under cultivation had been enlarged, but w^as still far from sufficient to feed a trebled population without large supplements of food brought at heavy expense from India and Batavia. Moreover, only about two-thirds of this acreage was actually under cultivation, a large proportion having been abandoned after having been cleared. To open a market for the employment of the convicts now rapidly accumulating on his hands, Brisbane stinmlated the immigration of free settlers. With this view he offered, through the Home Government, grants of land to those intending colonists who could procure satisfactory certificates of their possessing a capital of at least 500i., tlie grants to be proportioned to the amount of their available property. Besides which, any one who would undertake to nmnitain twenty convicts was declared to be entitled at once, aud without any further quali- ' Maconochie's Tlumghts on Prison Discq)Une. TEANSPOHTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 14? fication tc. a grant of 2,000 acres, and so on at the rate of one hundred acres for every convict he might be wilhng to take on ins hands. The result of these inducements was a lar-e and contmued mflux of free settlers, and the colonial Government soon found that the demand for convicts was greater than the supply at Its disposal could satisfy. The Government farms that had been laid out to give employment to the convicts had therefore to be abandoned. On these farms land had been cleared and buildings erected at great expense, and it is a striking commentary on the worth of convict labour— or of Government planning-that the value of the land had been but httle increased by the expensive work performed upon it, while the buildings were found to be of no value at all, and were suffered for the most part to go to ruin. These farms were now given up, and the convicts located in them were distributed forthwith among the free settlers. It seems impossible to patch up an evil without creating fresh ones. The whole system of colonising with convicts was thoroughly bad, and although the necessity for the emigra- tion of free people was at length admitted, even at home, it was promoted by means of encouragement productive of vicious results. The habit grew up among the free of getting large grants of land made to themselves by offering to maintain a larger number of convicts than the Government could supply, and they were nevertheless granted the full quantity of land proportioned to the whole number of convicts applied for. As an mstance of the stimulus given by the ' encouragement ' plan to land-jobbing may be taken the case of an individual who, having come to the colony for a short while for the benefit of his health, bethought himself of benefiting his pocket as well as his health by applying for a grant of 2,000 acres. The grant was accorded, and he immediately sold his easily-earned property, without ever having seen it himself, for the sum of 500/. This was no extreme example, for Governor Darling afterwards found it necessary to devise regulations expressly to meet the frequent recurrence of such cases. Agreeably to these regulations land was thenceforth to be granted in proportion to the property or means of the l2 ilft 'HI 148 BONDS OF DISUNION. applicant, but it was not to be granted to liim at all unless there was reason to believe that he was able and willing and likely to improve it. It may be suggested that Brisbane would have acted more wisely if he had done more to encourage the immigration of free labourers instead of confining his efforts to the introduc- tion of capitahsts. As it was, the class of men whom he in- duced to come to the colony were afterwards the strenuous supporters of the continuance of the transportation system, and by their insistance in that respect their influence in retarding the advance of the colony was very considerable. Not only were they advocates for transportation, but they uniformly did their utmost to keep free immigrants of the labouring class entirely out of the country, and thus they pre- vented the formation of a society intermediate between masters and convicts. Such a society would probably have prevented the pretensions of the former from acquiring a solidity danger- ous to the welfare of the country, and would by the force of example and association have been effectual in raising the latter from their brutalised level. The convicts had no chance of becoming reformed charac- ters under actual conditions. It was not in Australia as it had been in America, where the felon transported to the plantations found himself an insulated rogue amongst honest men. There ' he imperceptibly glided into honest habits and lost not only the tact for pockets, but the wish to in- vestigate their contents. But in Botany Bay, the felon, as soon as he got out of his ship, met with his ancient trull, with the footpad of his heart and the convict of his affections— the man whose hand he had often met in the same gentleman's pocket, the being whom he would choose from the whole world to take to the road, or to disentangle the locks of Bramah.' It was impossible that vice should not become more in- tense in such society. The most powerful instrument of reform —the public opinion of respectable men and women of a rank of life on a par with tliat of the generality of the convicts- was non-existent hi New South Wales, and was sedulously kcpL at a distance irom a community where its steady opera- m TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 149 tion was essential to the reformation which the ruhng powers professed to have in view. ^ l^^wexs The fear that Brisbane's steps in the direction of free emigration might be but the thin end of the wedge which was to open out a path for the introduction of free labourers tJok possession of the Home Government. The emancipist , too whom Macquarie's ill-judged schemes had raised up ii to a powerful class, might be always sure of a community of senti ment between themselves and the Colonial Office. Thev thei-efore pressed for Brisbane's immediate recall, and the Office gladly acceded to a proposition which gave opportunity for showmg signal disapprobation of a course whidi, if un dence of the colony. Fortunately, they were too late to prevent the influx of a goodly number of free labourers in the d!!L !.".f «°?^^S«^^"t' ^^d during the governorship of Darlmg, Brisbane's successor, the preponderance of this class became so pronounced that from thenceforward convicts a>^d their concerns dwindled into comparative insignificance, until brought prominently into notice again by the opposition of the Home Government to the demands of the colonists for the cessation of transportation. During Darling's time the emancipated convict mechanics gradually disappeared from the face of society in the towns, being replaced by skilled labour of a more reputable character from the mother-country, and being hus m the natural course of events pressed down to a ower level in the scale. The emancipist was obliged either to conform his habits to those of his respectable neighbours or to be off as an outlaw to the inhospitable interior Governor Bourke, who succeeded Darling, found it neces- sary to mitigate the severity and the inequality of magisterial sentences on convicts by limiting the scale of punishment for any one offence to a maximum of fifty lashes. He also regu- ated the practice of assignment by refusing to bestow more than seventy convicts on any single individual ; and, by Riving a second or casting vote in the Legislative Council, he pro cured the passing mto law of his proposal to make convicts eligible to serve on juries on criminal cases. These measures, f:i !?!;•■ I 150 BONDS OF DISUNION. ." I especially the one restricting the liberty to lash, brought the Government into very bad odour — a not altogether unhealthy sign in the latter case, inasmuch as it was significant of the growth of a free population. Some three years after the departure of Bourke, transportation to New South Wales virtually ceased; although, as we shall see hereafter, the Home Government was always anxious to lenew the system. If not entirely killed, it was thoroughly scotched by 1840, and it only remains to sketch some of its salient features to which attention has not yet been called. During the fifty-three years devoted to turning the colony into a reservoir of crime, no fewer, than 59,788 felons had been transported from England to this distant shore. Of these only 8,706 were females — only about seventeen per cent, of the whole number— a fact which speaks volumes for the professed desire of the home Government to reform the morals of the prisoners. This arrangement prevented the natural increase of the criminal population by births — possibly a fortunate cir- cumstance — but the fact must be debited to the culpable care- lessness rather than credited to the good intentions of our rulers. This inequality between the numbers of the sexes was for fifty-three years the ready cause of the grossest forms of vice that civilisation has ever been called upon to reprobate.' And who shall say that felons, untended and untaught, inured to vicious lives, and brutalised by habit though they were, were to blame for .liese atrocious immoralities, rather than those Pharisees in high places in England whose measures were devices for depraving the depravity even of the noisome lierd selected with care from the bestial offscourings of British gaols. The expenses of the transportation system were enormous. The evidence given before the Transportation Committee in 1816 showed that the price paid for the mere transport of con- victs had been on an average 37/. per head, exclusive of food ' The women who were sent out from time to time are described as being the most polluted of their sex ; as ' far worse than the men, and at the bottom of every infamous transaction in the colony.' — Letter from Governor Hunter. TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 151 and clothing cw roiUe ; and it appeared that in 1814, lOSl. per man were paid for the transport, food, and clothing of 1 OIG convicts. Up to 1815 the total direct cost of the settlement to the mother-country had been 3,465,983/., and whereas the annual expense of maintenance of each convict was calculated at 33Z. 9s. 5d., the value of his labour was stated to be not more than 201. per annum. What a reversal of the trae functions of colonisation was shown m these figures. Instead of being the means of en- richmg the home populations. New South Wales has been made a sink for the national wealth as well as for the national iniquities. The local Governors were being continually urged to reduce the expense of maintenance, until they were harassed into the pernicious system of granting ticl-iets of leave to convicts pro- miscuously, without any inquiry worth the name into their title to the indulgence. There was thus let loose a set of men who had been solemnly pronounced to be improper and dangerous members of society, and unrestrained opportunities were thus afforded them of committing fresh enormities before they had made the atonement affixed to their original offences. Such was the extension of the ticket of leave system, that although 4,659 convicts were transported between January 1812 and January 1817, the expenses of the colony for the latter year were 6,445/. less than for the year 1813. This violent and unjusti- fiable mode of retrenchment, however, was not put into such extensive practice with impunity ; it was attended with its natural and inevitable results— proportionate increase of de- moralisation and crime. Robberies and other crimes of violence became so frequent that the Governor deemed it expedient ' earnestly to recommend to persons in general to travel only during the daytime.' The ' ticket of leave ' system may be made beneficial enough in its operation ; for, if carefully administered, it may consti- tute a means of exceptional value for stimulating criminals to an industrious course of conduct which may ultimately be- come the habit of their lives. In a community composed ex- clusively of convicts, the adoption of the system is practically V a! II I 152 BONDS OF DISUNION. i I I mi a nec3ssity ; but just in proportion to the need for it is the danger lest carelessness in its appHcation should furnish a pre- mium to villany. The home Government must have known that when they were insisting on the granting of tickets of leave as a device for economy, they were in fact directing the local authorities not to make good conduct the condition of granting. They were simply to use tickets of leave to diminish the number of convicts, so as to cut down the cost of their mainteaance. The local objections were contemptuously set aside, and the home creed forced upon the colony. Tickets were dealt out with lavish profusion and the grantees very soon required an increased poHce force to watch them or to take them into custody, unwilling though the authorities were to take any grantee on their hands agaiii. For how were they to save expense if they had to re-arrest men as fast as they let them go ? Under the circumstances they pursued one or other of the two inconsistent courses of either waiting until the out- rages perpetrated by the releasees became unbearable, or they kept up the stream of circulating criminaHty by fresh indis- criminate issues of tickets. The felons released on tickets had not even the chance of obtaining an honest hvelihood so long as the pohcy of the Home Government prevented the opening of fresh avenues of employment; and this prevention was, as will presently appear, a cardinal feature of Downing Street rule. So- matters went on from bad to worse. Crime increased in a proportion higher by thirty or forty per cent, than the growth of population, for criminal cases trebled while population scarcely doubled itself; and notwithstanding that, at times, the practice of assignment provided very largely for the ex- penses of convict maintenance, it was ascertained by a Trans- portation Committee of the House of Commons that up to the end of 1836, when transportation virtually ceased, the total average cost of maintenance had been for each convict 82/. The average cost of conveying each one to the colony during the whole of the transportation period had been 28/. Against this last item there was nothing to place on the other side of TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. IHB the account, while, on the calculation given above, for every 33/. 95. 5d. expended on his maintenance, the convict could only show work to the value of 20/. It follows that the pro- bable net loss incurred by England, taking simply cost of transport and loss due to inefficient work, in establishing and fostering this one convict colony for fifty-three years, amourte^I to no less than 2,500,000/. exclusive of interest. This is indeed in striking contrast to the prosperity that might have resulted both to the colony and the mother- country had free emigration earlier taken the place of con- vict transportation. The estimated annual value of a free labourer's work in the Australian colonies is usually taken at 200/. Over and above the necessary cost of subsistence, a good part of this represents the value in exchange to the colony 01 the surplus produce which he annually assists in raising. As this surplus is, as a rul.% exchanged for home goods, the value of the free labourer is almost as great to the mother-country which supplies him as to the colony in which he resides. Suppose the conditions of the community, where labour is so economically profitable, to be suddenly reversed. The labouring man ceases to produce a surplus, or even has to depend upon subsidies from home for the means of existence. How many families at home would, in such case, inevitably be thrown out of employment and driven ^o a criminality of life on which in happier times thov looked with abhorrence ! By seeing what a loss pecuniarily -i.-l morally such altered conditions would involve, we can in a measure appreciate the injury inflicted on the home community by the devoting of one of the fairest portions of the universe to the exclusive occupation of a society of unprofitable consumers, fed, clothed, and lodged at the expense of the British taxpayer. Every convict sent out increased the burdens of the English poor ; and so in turn transportation increased the propensity to crime at home. Transportation, as actually conducted, was as a punish- ment most unequal in its operation. ' Generally speaking, it was most dreaded by those ot ■ iders against the laws of their liAdi -vrT*"" i li 154 BONDS OF DISUNION. I country who might be called accidental criminals ; by persons who had not made a trade of crime, but wdio had been induced to commit crime by the impulse of the moment, or by some accidental combination of circumstances, or by some all-power- ful temptation, and who might in many cases be possessed of good moral feeling.' i It fell with terrible effect on those who were least deserving of it, wliile hardened criminals viewed it as a golden opportunity for running riot in vice and lawlessness. The distance of the Antipodes from England made transportation, for most, a sentence of perpetual banish- ment, and that to a colony where, thanks to atrocious political and economical mismana,genient, -■■ successful exercise of honest industry was next to imposs. ^e. Some by force, fraud, or successful speculation in rum, managed to do well, and to find their way home again, to renew once more the criminal associations of' their youth, or to furnish an example of the prosperity to which villany might attain in a place specially designed for its signal punishment and complete reformation. A few of those who remained behind, by strength of character or resolution, acquired for themselves wealth and regained the respect of their neighbours ; but the vast majority lived on, hated, despised, degraded, and ever sinking lower into the darkest depths of helpless drunken imbecility ; or, by indulg- ing boldly in criminal adventures, remained a constant source of annoyance and danger to the community until their gradual extirpation by rum or the gallows. Probably many of these last had, when transported origin- ally, been of the class most easily accessible to reforming influences. They were the ' accidental offenders ' most keenly alive to the degradation of their situation, and most easily goaded to desperation by a sense of the unmerited degree of their suft'erings. In one way or another the convicts dwindled away with remarkable rapidity under the influence of a free emigration. Home were assimilated by the advancing wave, but generally they dropped out of sight and out of mind, much as the aboriginal witliered away when brought into contact with » Eeport of Committee on Transportation. TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 155 civilisation. But the taint remained for long in dissolute habits, in the disposition to look upon vices with a lenie"nt eye, in the fashion of dependence upon the fiat of the ' some- body's cousin ' who ruled the colony as the nominee of the Colonial Office, and last, but not least, in the disinchnation of labourers to emigrate from home to a place associated in their minds with every circumstance of infamy. During all this time, the facilities aiforded by the trans- portation system for getting rid of criminals had prevented any attention being given to criminal discipline at home. Alike at home and in our dependencies, the rule of a landowning oligarchy had promoted the growth of crime, and the draft of a few thousands of convicts annually to Australia seemed to have increased, rather than diminished, the call upon the foul accommodation of the English prisons. This was natural enough, for the prospect of transportation was attractive to the EngHsh criminal, and even without that inducement, misgovernment was there, too, an all- compelling cause of crime. The chapter of transportation records a period of English history as disgraceful as any that obscures her annals. But it is with the impolicy rather than with the wickedness of the system that I am noAv mainly concerned. To make a colony look back with shame upon its origin is certainly not a likely way to promote an entente cordiale between it and the parent- country, or to generate a feehng of pride in the mutual tie that nominally binds them togclher. If ever there was a system certain to be reprobated by a free colonial population, it was that of the transportation of con- victs. Nothing was so calculated to give reality to the rising threats to ' cut the painter ' as the blindly persistent attempts of the home authorities to give the system fresh vitality ; and until wispr counsels induced the abandonment of that policy. New South Wales was a formidable hotbed of rising disaffection. M-i« ^il Hi 156 BONDS OF DISUNION. • CHAPTEE V. UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA— IMPERIAL MISGOVERNMENT AT THE ANTIPODES. Whether we go back in search to remote periods of antiquity, or trace the course of history to times as recent as our own, we shall find that the prosperity of individual nations has ever been dependent on the freedom of their institutions rather than upon fertihty of soil or benignity of climate. On the other hand, centralised and anti-popular forms of government have invariably had the effect of neutralising the benefits to be expected from the possession of natural advantages. It mattered not at all that New South Wales was so plentifully endowed by nature that, even under the withering blight of convictism, she might speedily have become pre- eminent among our colonial possessions, so long as the des- potism of the Colonial Office extended over her an influence more deadly than even convictism itself. Canada possessed the shadow without the substance of free institutions. New South Wales, although inhabited entirely by Englishmen, could not show even the semblance of free- dom. This was a condition of things which, however much it might have been warranted at t)ie original foundation of the convict settlement, was totally inexcusable in its continu- ance as soon as the numbers and energy of the free non- convict population became capable of administering to local requirements. It is not easy to lay down a rule for the point of time best fitted for handing over to a young community, composed largely of a convict element requiring constant supervision, the management of its own destinies. Where the colonists are j|]#?'r^iFj|t UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. I57 free men and women, they will probably fare best if left to themselves from the outset. Self-government ab initio is there the best, mdeed the sole, means of developing local resources and of acquirmg local strength. The absence of leading, strmgs undoubtedly gave rise to the great energy and vitality of our North- American colonies, and enabled them to contend successfully, not only in their war with the wilderness and the savage, but at a later period against the imperial power which would have ruthlessly robbed them of their hard-earned heritage. _ With regard to New South Wales the reasoning is more iivolved. The case was unique in the history of English cuiomal possessions, and it is therefore only by looking back to the time when the evil effects of the general regulations applied to her first exposed the incompetency of the Home Government to legislate for her that v^e can point to a date when her free inhabitants should have been entrusted with the mouldmg of popular institutions. If it can be shown that after a certain period the free settlers formed a considerable proportion of the population, that their industry was retarded by their absolute subjection to the decrees of a distant govern- ing body, and that remonstrance was useless to avert or miti- gate the course of injurious legislation, it may with reason be asserted that that was the period at which local self-govern- ment became a necessity if the welfare of the colony was an object to be considered. But, as we know. New South Wales never was governed by the home authorities with a view to its welfare. It was to be repressed, not developed, and therefore the emigration of free settlers, the sine qua 7ion of the uprising of free local institutions, was to be perseveringly discouraged. Had means been taken to further the prosperity of the colony, it was but too probable that free emigrants would have been attracted to it ; that they would ere long have asserted their right to refuse the cargoes of felons so freely exported ; and that the accumulation of such a mass of de- pravity at home might have directed a di.iagroeable amount of attention at home to the misgoveniment of England herself. [m '"^.j mf 158 BONDS OF DISUNION. I ' IM m m 11 From the official point of view, then, it was not desirable to make the colony prosperous, so any measures tending to its benefit must be decisively tabooed. The subject of the most advisable time for granting a certain degree of local self-rule cannot, therefore, be treated from the point of view of the Home Government, since they had no wish to see the colony make forward progress at all, but must be considered by the light thrown upon it by the page of history. The fact that about the year 1804 the free and the indus- trious freed inhabitants of the colony began to feel the weight of oppressive imperial restrictions on the every-day business of their lives, and that these settlers then bore a fair proportion in number to the general mass of convicts, would seem to mark out that year as an epoch when a measure of self-rule might have been properly accorded. It was then that agri- cultural produce had become in excess of the quantity required for consumption, and that farmers began to look around them for fresh openings for the exercise of their energies. A local representative governing body would doubtless have made vigorous efforts to help them by refusing to give effect to the monstrous restrictions with which the imperial rulers had environed the colony ; and the immediate future of New South Wales might then have been as full of promise as has been its subsequent career. As it was, the prayers, remonstrances, and arguments of the colonists fell upon listless ears ; the old restrictions were tenaciously adhered to, and until they were removed, many years afterwards, the colony remained in the stationary stage. Never was there a country more fitted for diversity of occu- pation than New South Wales, and never was a better oppor- tunity afforded to the home Government of stamping out enterprise than was aftbrded by the circumstances of the colony in the opening years of the century. This opportunity was utilised to the uttermost. The means adopted were duties and disabilities. The duties were levied on all articles imported and on all articles exported, the tariff of duties on exports being, in the case of coal and timber, double the amount of the duty on the same articles UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 159 when imported. It made no difference that the imports liable to duty came from ports in the same colony, for the coal and wood on which a double export duty was levied came to Sydney from other portions of the colony itself. That duties on these articles should be levied equally on exportation as on miportation, and in two of the most material instances doubled, was, says Wentwortli,i ' so manifestly absurd that it would be quite superfluous to dilate on the system. It is a system of policy which, it may be safely asserted, is unknown in any other part of the world ; and nothing but the indubitable certainty of its existence would convince any rational person that it could ever have entered into the contemplation of any one en- trusted with the government of a colony.' Surely he would have been justified ip asserting that only those entrusted with the government of a colony could ever have conceived such fiscal measures. Two great industries were thus nipped in the bud. But for the duties, both coal and iron would have been largely exported to India and to the Cape of Good Hope. As it was, the vessels trading between those countries and the colony had always to return from the latter in ballast, though the owaiers or consignees would have gladly shipped cargoes of bark, timber, and coals, if they could have derived the most minute profit from their carriage or sale.^ The colonists had, in con- sequence, to pay, in the increased price of imported articles, for the double freight entailed by the importing ships having to return empty. Will it be credited that a succession" of Governors should, under instructions from home, have perti- naciously adhered to a system of finance so monstrous and absurd '? The rising trade in coal, cedar- wood, and wattle bark was thus extinguished — as a trade ; and survived only in the profit- less form of an occasional fitful speculation on a limited scale. There were, however, still more potent forces applied to crippling any incipient development of hidustry. The home duties on colonial produce were made to exceed the local ' VVentwortli's Description of New South Wales p ^89 ■' Ibid. p. 290. 160 bonijs of disunion. duties in severity. Tlie southern coasts of Australasia abounded with fish, and within a few hours' sail of Sydney were extensive whale fisheries capable of being worked at a great profit to the colony. Here was a new lield of employ- ment lying ready to hand, and at so o^rea ^ a distance from England tliat the object of the Navigation Laws— tlje fostering of an English naval marine— cou id not possibly have been interfered with by allowing the colonists the run of their own fisheries. But it did not suit certain London merchants con- cerned in the South Sea fisheries that spermaceti oil should be introduced in large quantities into the home market. At the same time, so totally uninterested was the Home Legislature in the welfare of the colony that, at the instance of the mer- chants. Parliament passed an Act virtually prohibiting the colonists from the right >vhale as well a-s from the sperm whale fisherv. , The local duty on whale oil was heavy enough — being 21. 10s. on a ton of sperm oil, and 21. on a ton of black whale or other oil— to act as a partial discouragement to the prose- cution of the fishing ; but, by the Act, the duties on oil im- ported into England, taken from whales caught 'by His Majesty's subjects usually residing in ' Austraha, were raised to 8^. Gs. Sd. on the ton of train, and to 24/. ISs. 9d. on the ton of sperm oil. The duties thus imposed were twenty times greater on train oil and sixty times greater on spermaceti oil tiian the duties levied on similar substances taken by British subjects residing within the limits of the United Kingdom. There can be no doubt that these enormous rates were devised specially to prevent the Australian settlers from even attempting the whale-fishing, and the proof, if proof were needed, is strengthened by the fact that the English import duties on oils brought from any other colony were a small fraction of those charged on the like matters imported from the Australian colonies. All the efibrts made by the latter to utilise the whale fisheries for their own benefit were rendered futile by the enormous weight of unjust duties imposed upon their produce on its introduction to the only country where it wouid otherwise have found a ready and remunerative market, UNPROaRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. IGl while ships, manned by EngliRh crews, might explore the Southern Seas iii pursuit of a valuable property which the residents hard by were forbidden to touch. These Englisli crews only found their way thither at rare seasons and in- tervals, and thus vast resources were rendered unavailing a struggling community was reduced to idleness, and the British consumer was victimised, in order to prevent the convict colonies from becoming enterprising and respectable, and so that the pockets of a few grasping London traders might be comfortably filled. Had the colonists been encouraged to prosecute the whale fishery on their own shores, a direct trade might have sprun- up between the mother-country and the Antipodes, which might have called into existence a fresh demand for British shippmg, and which would have furnished a natural fostering- ground for a mercantile and naval marine. For other reasons, too, it was distinctly to the interest of England herself to encourage the local prosecution of the whale-fishing. The ropes, canvas, and gear of every descrip- tion necessary for the outfit of the colonial vessels for these fisheries would certainly have been furnished from home for some time to come. Moreover, the supply of sperm oil in the market would no longer have been so deficient as to keep the price at famine height, or to afford an excuse for the bounties lield out by the Legislature for the encouragement of whale- fishing. To argue thus, however, is to suppose that the Home Government were capable of preferring the interests of man- kind to those of small cliques of monopolists whose poli- tical influence was worth buying ; or to suppose that they troubled themselves to reflect upon the inconsistency of giving bounties to individuals to promote whale-fishing, and inflicting duties upon a whole community in order to prevent any such fishing being carried on at all. The duties created disabilities, but there were disabilities proper in addition. By a clause in the East India Company's charter it was provided that no vessel of less than 350 tons measurement, with the exception of the Companv's packets, should be allowed « to clear out from any port within the M iiii f'i ■ ■• i i'l j: ' ■ "a. I(S>I i^ I 162 BONDS OF DISUNION. United Kingdom for any place within the limits of the said Company's charter, or be admitted to entry at any port of the United Kingdom from any place within those limits.' ^ Un- fortunately for the Colonies, ' those limits ' included Australia, and thus a death-blow was given to the Australian colonists' chances of bettering their position. For the smallness and poverty of the colonial population did not allow of a demand sufficiently great to absorb cargoes of such magnitude, and experimental shipments out there resulted in loss to the owners, who very soon discontinued the hazardous specula- tion. Before the passing of the Act, merchants had been in the habit of shipping cargoes in smaller vessels for the colonial markets, but now they were compelled to abandon their connection with the colony, which therefore had to depend for its supplies of British manufactures upon the captains of the; vessels engaged in the transport of criminals. ' These supplies therefore naturally became unequal and precarious; sometimes being unnecessarily superabundant and cheap, and at other times being so excessively scarce and dear as to be entirely beyond the reach of the great body of consumers.' 2 The tendency of this Act was not less injurious to the colonists with regard to the few articles of export which they were enabled to produce or collect for the English market. These were three in number— namely, wool, hides, and sealskins, and their quantity was inconsiderable. These articles represented a value for export to England of about 15,000L annually. 'It may therefore be perceived,' says Went worth, ' that the whole of the annual export of this colony would not suffice for half the freight of a single vessel of the size regulated by the Act in question. It happens in consequence that the different articles of export which the colonists collect frequently accumulate in their stores for a year and a half before it becomes worth the while of the captains of any of the vessels which frequent the colony to give them ship-room, and even then they do it as a matter of ' 53 Geo. III. c. 155. 2 Wentworth's Description of New South Wales, p. 313. UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTKALIA. 163 favour, not forgetting, however, to extort an exorbitant return for that kindness and condescension. The owners, indeed, of the vessels are so well aware of the inability of the colony to furnish them with cargoes on freight that they generally manage before their departure to contract for freights from some of the ports in India— a precaution whicli mcreases still more perceptibly the difficulty which the colonists experience in sending tiieir produce to market.' • It was not until some forty years after its foundation that the colony found itself able to build and use, on its own account, vessels of the dimensions of 350 tons. Con- sequently, during the whole of that period they were pro- hibited from navigating their own vessels on their own seas. Of what possible benefit could this have been to the East India Company ? At the best it could not have advantaged the Company so much as the operation of similar restrictions on vessels built at the Cape of Good Hope would have done ; and yet, by an Order in Council in 1814, the Cape was ex- pressly reheved from the disabihty, while Australia was still kept grovelling under itfe burden. There seems to have been a wantonness in our dealings with the Australian colonies, a doing of mischief for mis- chief's sake, which is not accountable for solely by reference to the contemptuous tone in which it was customary for the Downing Street officials to set at nought the necessities of our Colonial Empire. Either the English statesmen who successively made absurd and injurious regulations for Australian colonies were careless enough of their duties to allow themselves to be kept in utter ignorance of the effects of the measures endorsed by them, or else their actions must have been dictated by a spirit of general malevolence. Mated at every turn, the condition of New South Wales was indeed deplorable. The agriculturist, for whose produce there was no demand, might not have the capital wherewith to become a grazier. If he went to Sydney he could not get employment, and it was useless to set up as a ' Wentworth's New Soutfi Wales, pp. 313, 314. M 2 ^p "■•«» *■ 164 BONDS OF DISUNION. if 11 I .a I M I tradi , for himself, except seller. ntry when a coun there was hardly any other trade than rum selling. To do even this he required capital, for he not only had to pay a heavy duty on the imported rum, but he had to bril.o the authorities heavily in order to obtain a licence ; and being sub- jected to severe competition in his adopted calling, he could not hope to do well except by selhng a very large quantity of spirits. Thus he was driven by pressure of foolish fiscal measures and by the arts of favoured Government officials to stimulate widespread intoxication as his only means of makmg a livelihood. A certain amount of external commerce was, it is true, carried on, and, strange is the irony of events, wdth China— a country A/liom we afterwards forced at the cannon's mouth to open her ports to foreigners. While England was playmg the very part which she afterw^ards declared to be so immoral when practised by China as to deserve exemplary punishment, a small trade was being maintained between the latter country and a few colonial merchants by means of American and Indian-built vessels. But this channd of industry, as well as that furnished by the discovery of the Seal Islands, soon became profitless, and they were consequently far from providing a remedy for the unprosperous condition of the agricultural body. The distress, therefore, of the colony continued increasing in proportion to its increase of population, and rum selling grew more and more into favour as an indispensable and natural vocation. The necessity of permitting the erection of local distilleries was repeatedly urged upon the home Government, and appa- rently with excellent reason. The principal agricultural soils of the colony along the banks of the Hawkesbury river usually produced far more grain and vegetable produce than the colony could consume. In consequence the crops were left rotting on the ground for want of purchasers, and farmers were ruined by the very fertihty of the land. Every now and again, how- ever, came an inundation of the river which swept away all he agricultural resources of the colony. No produce had been stored up, for there waa no use for it, and of a sudden the UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 1G5 community was reduced nearly to starvation point. Then recourse was necessary to foreign supplies, and these had to be procured at famine prices from India and elsewhere, and very large amounts had to be paid away in freight duties and shippers' profits. Moreover, the colonial consumers were com- puted to have paid over a period of fifteen years, from 1804 to 1819, some 25,000^. per annum for rum, more than half of which amount went in payment of incidental duties and charges ; and if the amount thus disbursed benefited English and foreign distillers, it certainly did no good to the colony. If the colonists had been allowed to erect distilleries, an immediate use would have been fomid for surplus grain supplies, an induce- ment would have been given to store them, and so the risk of famine, with its attendant heavy expenses, would have been minimised, while farming would have received a healthy stimulus. It might have become a profitable business, and many a resourceless convict might have taken to it as an occupation preferable to vice and drunkenness. It seems more probable than not that the liberty to distil would have tended to diminish intoxication, for there can be no doubt that part of the heavy consumption of spirits at the time in the colony was owing to the exceedingly high price at which they were retailed. Tliis may sound paradoxical, but it is none the less true. It was afterwards found, when the importation of spirits was practically freed from duties, that general drunkenness diminished in a marked degree, and that too at a time when increased sobriety could not well be ascribed to superiority of education or condition among the classes forming the subject of the comparison. The reason of the difference effected by the fall in price may perhaps be found to rest on much the same ground as does the almost unvary. ing sobriety of natives of wine-producing districts ; but a more potent cause of the sudden improvement may be suggested as arising from the natural lessening of desire in men "to get full value out of a cheap common article than out of a dear one of comparative rarity. The purchaser of rum at two guineas a bottle would possibly conceive himself under a sort of obliga- tion tf irink the whole of it and to get the full result out of it 166 BONDS OF DISUNION. i w as ail intoxicant, but lie might not consider it necessary to brutalise himself over a bottle at four shillings. Besides the probable moral l^. 1 'hat would have resulted from the cheapening of spirits, it was in the highest degree likely that the stimulus ^. en to agriculture would have favourably reacted on all c i^c cceupations, except perhaps rum selling. A certain measure l/ prosperity would have been imparted to each when the pn'n -ipal one was prosperous, and people would have had otht r tii.ngs to do besides drinking. The community would in all probability have attained to a height of respectability which would have given it no in- terest in maintaining drunkenness as the normal phase of existence. Apparently the colony had only to ask for a thing from the home Government in order to have it scornfully refused. The proposed scheme would affect the customs revenue, and beside that consideration the welfare of the colony sank into insignificance. So the colony was not to be permitted to employ and improve itself by distilling spirits. It has ever been a characteristic of Colonial Office rule that the officials of the Colonial Department, though themselves utterly ignorant of perhaps even the geographical positions of the countries over which they exercise irresponsible sway, should steadfastly endeavour to regulate the manners, cus- toms, and occupations of the inhabitants of the remotest dependencies after their own fashion. The Office was possessed of I he idea that agriculture and nothing else was the true vocaticn of the Australasian colonist. Starting with that belief, !t naturally went just the wrong way to work to con- trive that it should be so. Instead of encouraging agriculture by fostering such a growth of population and general occu- pation as would have put the colony in a position to consume its own available produce, every obstacle was interposed to the growth of either population or occupation, so that every one might be forced into the losing business of farming. Magnificent crops were rotting on the ground for want of purchasers, farmers in despair were seeking for other pursuits; but the instructions from the Office were to induce settlers UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTKALIA. 1C7 and expirees to take to nothing but farming by offering tlieni free maintenance for themselves, their wives, famihes, and servants for eighteen months, on condition of their cultivating the soil. Of this offer, newly-arrived settlers, despairing of finding other employment, and many expirees, availed them- selves ; and as soon as the helping hand of Government was withdrawn, the distress amongst them became as pronouncec^ as it was among the original farmers, and they were reduced to the necessity of seeking the same expedients for relief. Of course, if these measures had been directed to attracting population, the maintenance of a large number of free settlers for so long a time might have afforded some excuse for the offer thus made of inducements to new arrivals to subsist in idleness. Jiut even this excuse, bad as it would have been, as altogether uncalculated to effect its object, was altogether wanting ; for, despite all professions to the contrary, the home authorities made it clear by their acts that they wished to render the colony as unattractive as possible to free emigrants. The measure was never more than an • Outdoo- Belief Act,' and was about as well devised to promote prosperity as was the celebrated Poor Law in operation in England during the epriier portion of the century. It was indeed productive of such wide- spread distress in the colony that the period of Government maintenance had after a time to be re'luced to six months. But the mere alteration in the number of months effected no change in • a radically bad principle, and, after having been productive of an infinity of misery, the regulation was allowed to lapse into disuse. The promotion of agriculture in a country possessing, in many respects, such peculiar aptitudes for it as New South Wales possessed on many easily accesf '^le soils in the neigh- bourhood of Sydney was undoubtedly a pohtic object ; and had requisite opportunities been afforded for its natural development, agriculture would speedily have become the most favoured and general of pursuits. Those opportunities would have consisted in allowing free exercise to the trading instincts of the community, but these were denied. The colony was ' cabined, caged, cribbed, confined ' on every side ; m f-' ■■ ^UiLiifi*^'- '■ \ 11 -^ 168 EONDS OF DISUNION. In its population was kept down ; its purchasing power reduced and agricultural production altogether surpassed the local powevs of consumption. The soil was too fertile, too easily responsive to the ' tickling of the hoe,' to permit of farmmg bemg profitable so long a. the colony remained stationary, and thus a series of unjust laws had made of fertility a cur^e uistead oi a blessing. The unsatisfactory results of farming turned attention to grazing; but cattle and sheep were scarce at that early period and only men possessed of a certain amount of capital could become graziers. Those who did so found their occupation a lucrative one. They increased their acreage as their flocks and herds multipHed, and as they became possessed of land and wealth, so they acquired influence and unreasonable views of their own importance. They set themselves up as a separate order from the rest of the people, as an aristocratic body with peculiar privileges. These ' squatters,' as they were called, afterwards constituted themselves the bitterest opponents of all popular demands, and in no respect was their opposition more uncompromising than to the claim of the people to a fair share in the public lands. Whatever may have been the squatters' rights, the long and bitter struggles for their asser- tion between them and the people materially impeded and still impede the progress of the Australasian colonies. It is probable that there would not have been so many largely-acred squatters if the profits of farming had kept pace with those from grazing. Those who succeeded in the last would, under circumstances favourable for farming, have persisted in their tillage over comparatively small areas, md so the commencement of the landowning monopoly of the squatters might have been delayed until free institutions had come into being, when such a monopoly would certainly not have been possible of acquisition. Let us briefly review the chain of consequences. Duties and disabilities, by their injurious efiects upon population and commerce, procured the ruin of the farmers. The latter would not have become graziers, or squatters let us call them, if they could have continued farmers working at a profit. As UNPEOGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 1G9 it was, they became squatters because tliey were getting rumed as farmers. In the former capacity they attained to an exceptional prosperity which attracted all the spare capital of the colony mto their calling, and they thus possessed themselves of a monopoly of land and hifluence which was opposed to the popular interests. An irreparable injury was thus mflicted on the people, as the indirect but obvious conse- quence of the duties and disabilities imposed by the superlative wisdom of Downmg Street. It may with confidence be asserted that a colony in its infancy is peculiarly unsuited for the establishment of manu- factories. Neither the requisite plant or skilled labour can be procured without great difficulty, and the labour of the description required must for long be so limited in quantity that the manufacturers must inevitably be dependent upon the good-will or caprice of employes well aware of the im- possibility of replacing their services, rather than upon a carefully carried out system of superintendejice. Even when initial difficulties have been surmounted, the articles turned out are almost invariably inferior in quality and dear in price In consequence of the disabilities which prevented the home manufacturers and merchants from sending out cargoes of the most necessary manufactures, except occasionally and in very small consignments, the colonists found themselves obliged to erect small manufactories in order to supply themselves with the most ordinary articles of clothing. A certain amount of capital was invested in these concerns, which, through the medium of exorbitant charges, kept up a moderately prosperous existence until it became worth the while of the home shippers to supply clothing enough for the colony, when the competition from outside procured the ruin of the local manufactories, together with the loss of the capital sunk in them. Ordinarily, the policy of the home Government was directed to the most uncompromising opposition to the ostablislimpnt of colonial manufactories. In the view of the imperial authorities Colonies were chiefly useful as consumers ■¥ ' i ! ll . r 11 if' 'J 170 BONDS OF DISUNION, jlll 1 1 i 1 ^ : i r ; W H Mr' til of home manufactures. The prohibitions to manufacture imposed upon Colonies were probably ineffectual in promoting the sale of a single article of English make in the Colonies, since the English markets were naturally the best and most obvious centres for the supply of manufactured goods to the Colonies. But through the monstrous restrictions imposed upon trade with Austraha, the settlers in the Australasian colonies were absolutely disabled from purchasing home com- modities, and were forced to make for themselves on the spot articles which the home manufacturers would, in the absence of restraints and disabilities, have gladly exported there. A review of the evils resulting from Imperial rule can hardly furnish any other conclusion than that it was in all respects the form of government least desirable and most in- jurious to the colony from the moment when she gave the first signs of liaving outstripped the conditions of a purely penal settlement. No hostile invader could have wrecked the country more effectually than did the measures of the British Government during the first twenty years of the century, during which the nominees of the Colonial Office, uncouns3lled, unchecked, and uncontrolled by any local body, lorded it over the destinies of the colony under the sole and irresponsible direction of the Office itself. Utterly unfitted for his post although more than one of the Governors was, it is evident, from the urgent remonstrances repeatedly sent home by all of them against Imperial measure^?, that if left to themselves they would not have inflicted upon the colony a tithe of the damage due to ignorant home Government hiterference. The Governor was left unfettered so far as regarded his power to hiflict injury, for the oi.iy court in which his actions were cognisable at law was at a distance by sea of sixteen thousanJ miles from the colony ; and while the expense of proceeding against him would h-!.v been quite beyond the means of any member of the community, an adverse verdict for the plaintiff was almost or quite a foregone conclusion. J^ut his power to do good was most jealously watched by the scribes of the Colonial Office, who exhausted the ingenuity of otliciai red- UNPROGEESSIVE AUSTKALIA. 171 tapeism in the elaboration of rules for the suppression of virtue and prosperity in the Colonies. The Governor might impose what duties he pleased, in violation of the fundamental maxim of British liberty that no one shall be taxed without his own or his representatives' consent ; nor, until Macquarie voluntarily undertook to furnish quarterly accounts of the pubHc revenue and expenditure for public information, had those who paid the duties the satis- faction of knowing how any part of the proceeds were applied. From the secresy thus observed it was natural to conclude that a goodly portion oi ^he funds so raised found their way hito the Governor's private purse— a ^supposition which, whether just or not, was cr-tainly entertained by the majority of the colonists. The power he t' us possessed wa,s enormous, for, though lie was sufficiently sensible of his own interest to con- fine his duties to articles which in the then pauperised state of the colony might be considered luxuries, it was open to him to tax every article of consumption, and, on the plea of public contributions, to undermine the whole prosperity, such as it was, and happiness of the community. Gradually, as the free element in the colony acquired stability, the growth of an influential public opinion imposed an unwritten though very practical check upon the unjustifiable levying of taxation at the will of an individual -a check on tlie caprice of the Govexiior for tlie time being of far greater weight and utility than was the advice of the nominee Councils appointed, after IMacquarie's time, to regulate the course of local legislation, Arnin, the Governor had nearly absolute power over the lives and liberties of the colonists under his charge. Criminal ofi-^Gs .^rere tried, not befo'3 a jury, but by a court-martial com- V 'Od of military officers selected for the purpose by the Governor. Civil officers were rigidly excluded from these court-martials, and the accused was left to the mercy of judges wiiose professional training left little doubt that they would not be likely to run counter to the known or supposed desire of the Governor for the conviction of any particular prisoner. Macquarie wisely abandoned the priuciple of selecting- tho members of the court-martial himself, and during his time ii ■rf-'H 172 BONDS OF DISUNION". lili 'h W ill officers were made to serve in regular rotation ; but it was open to him at any time to revert to the old practice of choos- ing as judges either those most easily amenable to Government influence or those who were known to have private reasons for punishing prisoners whom it was thought desirable to con- vict. In the time of Governor Bligh, his chief legal adviser, the Judge- Advocate General, was found incapable of advising on any point of law whatever. He had obtained his office as the relative of an influential man, though he had not even re- ceived a legal education. Such was the legal guide provided by a thoughtful mother-country for a Governor of naturally arbitrary disposition, and possessed of almost unlimited local power. He was, however, soon discovered to be useless for any purpose, so the services of a local attorney who had been prosecuted in the colony itself on a charge of swindling had to be called into requisition. Anomalous as it Avould have been anywhere else, a quondam convict of notoriously bad character was considerccl the fittest person to advise laws for a community of which even the free members were declared to be incapacitated by reason of the taint of convicti^m from exercising the usual right of British subjects— that of sitting on a jury. But in New South Wales it was quite in the order of things that an infamous swindler should pull the strings of justice, and prompt the selection of military judges— against whom, be it remembered, no ground of challenge could be urged by the accused— to work his own private purposes. With the unchecked control over the purses and property of the colonists, joined to the right of disposing at pleasure of their li^ .'s and liberties, the power for evil of the earlier Colonii'l Governors resembled more tliose of an Oriental despot than of the vicegerent of a free nation. In no English- speaking conmnmity of modern times would the continuance of such unnatural authority have been tolerated for an hour had not every energy been paralysed by the closing of all avenues of enterprise to a people forced hito a hopeless state of crime, idleness, and drunkenness. If, on the other hand, a Governor wanted to contribute to the progress oi the colony he found himself powerless, for in UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTEALIA. 173 his good intentions he was checked at every turn. Macquarie was sincere in his desire to inaugurate a period of prosperity, and his adoption of measures which tended to prevent it were certainly due more to necessity than choice. He urged the allowance of local distilleries ; he wished to develop a taste for agriculture among the emancipists ; he endeavoured to raise the physical and moral status of the convicts by giving them higher aims. True, his main principle, the keeping up the colony as a penal settlement to the exclusion of a free popula- tion, was a false one ; but in the main his views would, if put into operation, have largely promoted the reformation and respectability of the convict class. But, as has been seen, the fetters which had been riveted on the commercial enterprise of the colony had crippled the agricultural interest ; the ex- pirees had no inducement to settle down as farmers ; and in order to give them employment the Governor was obliged to Institute public works in Sydney. His scheme for dispersing the expirees had failed, and the concentration instead of the dispersal of tlie criminal element was thus in great measure forced upon him and upon the colony as the direct conse- quence of the commercial pohcy of the Colonial Office— a policy which met every attempt at reform or improvement, at the outset, with an obstinate negative. Until Brisbane's time the administration of affairs was confided to the care of Governors who, as utter strangers to the colony, could know nothing about it, and yet who from the moment of t)ieir landing were under the necessity of carrying on the government without any advisers, except those whom, in their ignorance, they might choose to encour- age. Nor were the Governors bound to act upon the sugges- tions of these if not disposed to do so, but they might, if they so inclined, pursue a course of their own from the outset, in defiance of all local advice. We may imagine, if we cannot altogether realise, the numerous intrigues for private influence brought to bear upon a Governor who, according as he inclined to one indi- vidual or another, might ensure tiie success of private schemes or promote the discomfiture of an adversary. Bligh, as we -'f! a 'wl i [ I 174 BO>iDS OF DISUNION. have seen, guided his policy by the direction of a transported attorney. Macquarie evinced a decided preference for the counsel of convicts, when he sought for advice at all. Both were enclosed in a circle of corruption, intrigue, sycophancy, and dissatisfaction ; for none but those in power for the time being at Government House could partake of the loaves and fishes ; and the knowledge that favour was dependent on caprice stimulated them to help themselves as plentifully as possible during the short period of their ascendency. This state of thmgs, however suitable to the morals of a reforma- tory, became mtolerable when the first considerable driblets of free settlers began to arrive in the colony. This was in Brisbane's time, and it was then that the first Legislative Council was formed. It was at best a bad apology for a check on the proceedings of any arbitrarily-disposed Governor for It consisted o»ly of the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, the Chief Justice, the Archdeacon, and the Attorney- General- a crew of officials whose guiding principle was to pull together m subservience to the meddlesome decrees of the home Govern ment. During Sir Ralph Darling's administration the numbers of the Council were extended to fifteen members, hicluding the Governor and other officials, together with seven other meinbers selected exclusively by the Crown. Naturally this nominee Legislature failed to command the slightest respect in a com- munity m which the free element now figured lar-ely It was of considerable assistance to the Governor in aiding him to pass ' Gagging Acts ' for the colonial press, and in counte- nancing numerous acts of petty tyranny and a system of espionage which produced a universal state of distrust sus- picion, and consternation throughout the colony. Darlin-'s admimstration has been styled the ' Eeign of Terror ' in New Sou h Wales, and, thanks to the opportunity given him of shielding his responsibility behind this flimsy device of a Council, he was enabled to give full vent to the promptings ot a singularly arbitrary nature. During the whole period of Darling's government there was a constant agitation kept up, in the shape of public meetings m the colony and petitions to the authorities at UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTEALIA. 175 home, on the part of the majority of the colonists, for the concession of free institutions. ' But these efforts were uni- formly and successfully opposed, chiefly in the way of secret communication with Downing Street by those whose personal mterest lay the other way, and who professed to believe that the colony was unfit for such a boon.' ' A very simple but useful test of the fitness of rulers for their posts is to be found in the degree of willingness with which they lend their attention to the well-estabHshed com- plaints of their subjects, with a view to rectify grievances or to punish flagrantly unjust dealings. Judged from this stand- point, the home Government during Darling's reign proved itself thoroughly unfit for the task of governing New South Wales. Although reiterated complaints were sent home against Darling's measures, it was not till 1835, four years after his return from the seat of his government, that a Parliamentary Committee was appointed to investigate the charges against him, although various attempts had from time to time been made to procure one. Even then the Com- mittee was only granted on the condition of its not dealincr with the case of Captain Eobison, which was the prmcipal item in the list of accusations. The conduct of a British Governor at the other end of the globe must be peculiarly flagrant if it cannot be sheltered from tlie condemnation of a Parliamentary Committee in London, and Darling was not only honourably acquitted, but he received the distinction of knighthood as a mark of royal favour on the occasion. Had the Committee been appointed four years earlier, when the circumstances were still fresh in men's memories, when the sense of injury was strong, and when the evidence had not been weakened by the lapse of years, the conclusions of the Committee might have been different. But, however that may have been, the delay in investigating complaints of so serious a nature was of itself sufficient to show how necessary it war that the colonists should not be governed from home. The greater the extent and the more absolute the degree of power possessed by the Colonial Governors, the smaller was ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 2il. 176 BONDS OF DISUNION. the importance attaclied to their personal characters by those who selected them. ' Who having lost his credit, pawned his rent, is therefore fit to have a government,' seems to have been the principle on which tlie supply of Colonial Governors was provided, so long as their authority was unbounded and unchecked. If one of them occasionally happened to be the right man in the right place, this could not be laid to the credit of a careful choice ; indeed, such a man would have been looked upon as likely to prove troublesome if his good qualities had been known beforehand, and he would have stood small chance of becoming the chosen vessel of the Colonial Office. And yet no njition can be safely indifferent to the characters of its representatives abroad any more than it can afford to blind itself to the imperfections of its own political chiefs. 'If,' says a leader in an old Sydney newspaper, > ' we wished ill to the personal character of our Queen, and to the stabihty of her claims on the affections of her subjects, we should promote, not resist, the wicked injuries of the Colonial Office perpetrated in her name, and the appointment of im- moral Governors to corrupt tlie people. A better mode of undermining the moral respectability of Her Majesty's name and the security of the throne we can hardly imaghie than the modes adopted for the government of most of the Colonies of tlie Empire, and the appohitments so favoured in Downing Street.' After Darling's retirement in 1835 the influence of the Governor of the colony was not so important a factor in colonial pohtics as it had been. Wakefield had at leng-th re- ceived a hearing at home, and his suggestions as to the dis- posal of land by sale instead of by gift were to be put hito practice in New South Wales as well as in the projected colony in South Australia. Governor Bourke, who succeeded Darling, therefore found himself differently situated to his predecessors in that he had no land to give away as a means of dispensing patronage, and as ' land is everything ' in a new colony, he was by no means so supreme and important a personage as the holder of his office was wont to be. But ' The Sychiey Empire UNFROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. I77 although the range of his power was thus curtailed, it was stil compe ent to the Governor to interfere very prominently m tlie methods of disposing of the land by representing to the Home Government the necessity, to his mind, of the modification of existing rules to suit his own pecuhar views, and he might always be assured of the support of the nominee advisers who yielded sycophantic obedience to the expression of his opinion. This mattered httle under such a ruler as Bourke, who, except in one instance-that of his pet scheme tor a lowmg emancipists to serve on criminal juries, when, alter his vote had equalised the numbers for and against the proposed measure, he gave a second or casting vote in favour ot his own proposition-was content to act the negative part of strictly conforming to his instructions from time to time • but It signified a great deal when the Government was in the hands ol his successor, Sir George Gipps. How actively ho made his own peculiar tenets influential in regulating the supply of land in the market will be treated of in another ciiapter, and the reader must turn to that if he would see how potent was still the authority of the local Governor over a matter that gravely affected the interests of the entire com- munity. It IS sufficient to show here how, by the help of the Home Government, despite the nominal check of a Council the Governor continued to pose effectually as king-and certainly not to the benefit of the colony. Acts of a despotic nature on the part of an individual ruler are more provocative of indignation when done counter to the wishes of a controlling body to a certain degree repre- sentative ol the people, than when carried into operation either in opposition to, or by the assistance of, the vote of a mere nominee Council, so framed that the pubHc reposes no confi- dence in Its ability or willingness to counteract high-handed measures. The tendency of the legislation may, in either case, be the same ; but popular feeling and expectation is more thoroughly aroused where the dicta of the people's repre- sentatives are contemptuously set aside than where there is no pretence of popular representation at all. Further v/here the legislative body is partly elected by the people,* questions N •'iiteiii ■ I 178 of poli BONDS OF DISUNIOJC. keenly M^mm discussed by men who know tliat their future return by constituencies depends chiefly upon the thoroughness and bitterness of their opposition to despotic legislation ; and the assertion of supreme authority nuiat therefore be carried through with a harshness proportioned to the degree of resistance olfered. Where, then, the popular party possesses a numerical majority in the legislative body, its resolutions can only be overridden by proceedhigs of a highly despotic character, such as outrage the feelings of the connnunity, and drive its representatives to a resort to the most ready means of obtaining their objects. Obstruction, vilification, and demagogy in its most extreme form take the place of the useless system of debate and vote ; and while the country has to bear the burden of laws imposed upon it in de- fiance of its own protest, it has also to bear the blame of the scandalous excesses too often laid to the charge of the local politicians. Yet the real responsibility for the intemperate course occasionally conspicuous in colonial politics must lie with those who promoted it by rendering none other possible, or at least efficacious. The very extension of the Legislative Council in 1842 was calculated to discredit political strife by embittering the rela- tions between the Governor's party and the bulk of the people, and so dri^^ng the popular representatives to avail themselves of every means at their disposal to check the exercise of arbi- trary po^yer. The Legislature, as then constituted, was to consist of thirty-six members, of whom six were to be Govern- ment officials, six to be Crown nominees, and twenty-four to be elected in the proportions of eighteen for New South Wales and six for Port Phillip. The qualification for these elective members was to be the possession of a freehold property valued at 2,000Z. or rented at 100/. per annum. They were to be selected by men paying a 20/. rental or owning a freehold of 200/. value. That is to say, that the counterpoise to the twelve official and nominee members who were welded to- gether by firm bonds of a mutual self-interest necessarily coin- cident with the maintenance of the existing regime, who were in the possession of the confidence of the Governor mid of UN PROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 17* i/^ % I 180 BONDS OF DISUNION. Council as reformed in 1842 stimulated ihe political dissatis- faction of the colonists far more quickly and in a greater degree than a more smoothly working Constitution would have done ; and so hastened on the time for the establishment of free re- presentative institutions not only in New South Wales, but in all the Australian colonies. At the same time the reflex action of conviction gradually permeated the minds of the home authorities, and made it evident to them that the un- natural combination of elective and official members in one deliberative body was better calculated to promote the violent reparation of the colony from the mother-country than to strengthen the natural tie between them. These results furnish some consolation, but they were far from compensat- ing for the evils with which the official system had saddled the colony. A fev/ examples will be sufficient to illustrate the impotent position of the'elective members in the Council formed in 1842. Their first struggle was to cut down the enormous expendi- ture of the colonial Government. Beginning with the Governor himself, one of the elective members brought in and carried through a Bill having for object the reduction of the salaries of all future Governors from 5,000Z., the amount at which it had been fixed by the Secretary of State, to 4,000^. a year. Although the salary in question was charged upon the colonial revenue, this Bill was disallowed at home ; the inten- tion of the Colonial Office being that the Governor of the colony should receive as large a salary as the President of the United States. This was a bold attempt on the part of the colonists to secure the services of the Governor for themselves, and to sub- ject his actions to their own control. The Colonial Office, on the other hand, was well aware that by allowing the colonists to take upon themselves the onus of paying the Governor's salary, sanction would in effect be given to the principle that the Governors should be responsible to the colony instead of remaining the mere tools of the Office. The obligation to pay the Governor conferred the right to direct and to remove him. It also gave him a direct interest in conciliating the 1 TJNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 181 colonists— a consideration intolerable to the English official mind, and enough of itself to secure the rejection of the Bill. When Hutchinson, the last royal Governor of the colony of Massachusetts, informed the Legislature of that province that 'he no longer required a salary from them, as the King had made provision for his support,' the Assembly informed him in reply ' that the royal provision for his support, and his own acceptance of it, was an infraction of the rights of the in- habitants, recognised by the principal charter, an insult to tJie Assembly, and an invasion of the important trust which, from the foundation of the commonwealth, they had ever con- tinued to exercise.' This was the language of men reared to independence and self-help, and contrasts strongly with the acquiescence of New South Wales in the Downing Street veto. Another grievance calling for immediate remedy was the withdrawal of a large portion of the ordinary revenue to the extent of 81,500^. a year—nearly half which was yearly appro- priated for the support of religion, and the remainder for official, including the Governor's and the judicial salaries-^ from the control of the Council. The local Government, ' whose powers of absorption were somewhat extraordinary,' »' having found the reservations in certain cases too small, ap- plied to the Council to make good the estimated deficiency. This the Council refused to do unless every item of the expen- diture should be submitted for their revision, and this condition having been acceded to, they went to work to cut down the salaries of certain officers. Immediately upon their doing so, however, his Excellency promptly checked their action, on the ground that the Council had no right to interfere with salaries fixed by the Colonial Office. The result was that the expendi- ture went on as before. The duties on wines and spirits were, in Sir George Gipps's time, so exorbitantly high that great encouragement was Virtually given by them to smuggling and illicit distilla- tion, « both of which were carried on on so large a scale as to give rise to extensive demoralisation.' 2 A large minority of ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 329, « j^^^. p, 350^ ^■Vllil ■MP 182 BONDS OF DISUNION. the Council was strongly in ifavour of reducing these duties, but the Governor's specific consisted in passing more stringent measures to put down breaches of the revenue laws, and in instituting a most abominable system of espionage, under which the excise and revenue officers were instructed to re- ceive bribes from the principal distillers and to betray the fact to the Government, so that the police might be on the watch at the proper times and places to effect seizures. Despite the protest of the Council, these regulations were put into active operation, ' but they failed egregiously of their desired effect, smuggling and illicit distillation being practised more extensively and openly than ever.' ' The fact that the officials were always in opinion, and sometimes in voting power, in a minority in the Council pro- duced no difference in the contemptuous treatment of that body by the Go^vernor. For example, the Council by its vote declared itself strongly in favour of the adoption of a general system of education on an unsectarian basis. A Bill was passed through for the purpose of effecting the new arrange- ments, but the Governor, having an mdividual preference for the denominational system, refused his consent, and education had to be continued on the old limited lines. A measure for the extension of the electoral franchise to squatters and tenants, strongly recommended by a Select Committee of the Council, met with a similar fate, and a proposal to establish a uniform twopenny postage rate throughout the colony had to be withdrawn in consequence of the Governor's opposition. So, whether the elective members secured the passing of a vote or were left in a minority, no alteration in the course of legislation was effected. The officials, not being responsible to the colony, kept their places and offices whether triumphant or defeated on any question, and everything went on in the Council as before. The farce of representative legislation went even further. A popular measure, even if assented to at home, had still to penetrate through the pigeon-holes of the Colonial Office— ' Lang's Neiv South Wales, vol. i. p. 350. unproghessive australii. 183 receptacles where colonial aspirations and royal assent might find equal oblivion. This was becomingly exemplified by the fate of the petition for the separation of Victoria from New South Wales. The Port Phillip members were unanimous in favour of the object of the petition, and it also received the support of Mr. Eobert Lowe (now Lord Sherbrooke), who was at the time one of the New South Wales elective members. It was, moreover, acquiesced in by the then Secretary of State for the Colonies (1845). The favourable reception of the petition was a source of inexpressible delight to the inhabitants of Port Phillip, but they would have done well to reserve their transports till 1851, for it was not until six years had elapsed that the pigeon-holes gave up their prey and suffered Port Phillip to be at length proclaimed as a separate and distinct colony under the name of ' Victoria.' No matter what the object that those members of the Council who wished well to the colony might have in view, it had apparently only to be pressed and backed up by c /.onial public opinion in order to be opposed by the Colonial Office, and by its pliant tool the Governor. Geographical discovery in Australia was, m 1845, in a very backward state, as a glance at more recent discoveries may render evident. At that time the Council recognised the importance of discovering an over- land route to Port Essington, and addressed the Governor in favour of that object, pledging itself to vote whatever funds might be necessary for its accomplishment. ' But his Ex- cellency, who was doubtless somewhat incensed against the Council at that time from the opposition he had himself experienced from that body ' (in the matter of the official and judicial salaries), ' and who probably wished to mortify the Opposition members, with whom the idea had originated, refused to place any amount on the Estimates for ti. ■• purpose without the previous sanction of the Secretary of State. Such was the miserable state of thraldom in which the colony was then held under Downing Street domination.' ' Despotic, ignorant officialism had still to resort to a measure which exceeded in its unreasoning arbitrariness • Lang's Ncio South Wales, vol. i. p. 340. I i m ii 184 BONDS OF DISUNION. almost anything that had been done before, aad that in tlie way best calculated at the same time to lower the charax^ter ot the home Government for ordinarily fair dealing, and to ^ imula e the hatred of the colonists for the comiection with the mother-country. This was the manner of it. By an Order m Council, dated May 22, 1840, for which Mr. Glad- stone as the then Secretary of State for the Colonies was responsible, it had been announced that a penal colony had been designed in the north-east corner of Austraha, north of thetwemy-sixthparallelofsouthlatitude,towhichcomictswere m future to be sent instead of to New South Wales AD the necessary arrangements had been made for this change when Earl Grey succeeded to Mr. Gladstone's office. His lordshin at once repudiated the idea of the new penal colony, anJ set himself to work with migh. and main to revive and re- establish transportation to New South Wales. ' The colonial Government, of course, lent itself to the accomplishment of this favourite object of Earl Grey's in every possible way, and every species of influence was exerted in the cause to satisfy his lordship. Indeed, till the final settlement of the question, the colony exliibited the edifying spectacle of the local Government pullmg one way and the great body of the people pulling another, as if their interests had been contrary and irreconcilable.' ' *^ A small but influential body of squatters was in favour of the resumption of transpo^ cation. These squatters were men of the aristocratic class of colonists, who held vast tracts of country m temporary occupation under the.r squatting hcences-m not a few cases at the yearly rent of one-eighth of a penny per acre-and they had therefore no permanent tie m the colony. Very few of them were married ; they had no mtention of becoming permanent settlers, and consequently had no great interest in the moral welfare and social advance- ment ot the colony. They dishked the idea of the growth of a middle class of free emigrant settlers, which would be the inevitable result of the cessation of transportation, and much preferred the old division of dominant and slave castes to one » Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 357. UNPROQRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 185 where general equality might have the effect of permittmg any one to raise himself by hard work and good fortune to as lofty a position as their own. The Governor, Sir Charles Fitzroy, and the squatters employed themselves in sedulously misrepresenting to Earl Grey the feelings of the colonists en the transportation question, and that nobleman was only too willing to give ear to suggestions which accorded with his own wishes. Accordingly he announced in a de- spatch of September 8, 1848, ' that he proposed at once recommending to Her Majestj' to revoke the Orders in Council by which Now South Wales was made no longer a place for receiving convicts under sentence of transportation.' At the same time it was announced that a ship laden with convicts was about to be sent out from England to Sydney. The indignation of the colonists on receiving intimation of this breach of faith was intense. Crowded meetings were held in quick succession, at which the suggestion of 'cutting the painter ' was enthusiastically received ; and it is highly probable that, had the colony been brought up on that self- reliant system wliich was so influential in moulding the independent character of the early American settlements, the landing of the convicts would have been opposed by armed force. As it was, on the arrival of the oonvict sliip m 1849, the landmg of its criminal cargo was only effected under cover of the guns of the man-of-war in the harbour brought to bear upon the masses of people assembled on shore to protest against the disembarkation. This, by far the largest and most influential public meeting ever held in the colony, was described by the Governor in a despatch as ' an insignificant assemblage.' Upon the accidental discovery of this document a year later, a crowded meetmg of the colonists unanimously resolved * that, considering the faithless manner in which tlie colony had been treated by the Eight Honourable Earl Grey, the meeting humbly prayed Her Majesty to remove that noble- man from her comicils.' A petition to this effect and in protestation against the continuance of transportation was signed by nearly 40,000 colonists—an enormous consensus of opinion when the population of the colony, its sparse distribu- 186 BONDS or DISUNION. Ill tion, and the consequent difficulties of getting signatires are taken into consideration. The petition, too, was only one of several similar expressions of opinion, and in one of the principal of them the petitioners, in praying for the removal of Earl Grey from office, stated that ' they would not disguise from Her Majesty the persuasion that what was lately but a grievance was ripening into a quarrel,' and professed their opinion that ' the continuance of transportation in opposition to the united resolution of Australasia leagued together against it would imperil the connection of these colonies with Great Britain.' The wrathful, even insurrectionary, spirit of the colony had become too serious to be any longer treated with utter contempt, and on an Address to Her Majesty bemg moved in the Council in 1850 demanding the cessation of transportation, the squatters and official members, making a virtue of necessity, retired from the council-chamber, in imi- tation of a notal)le home precedent, and the Address was voted unanimously by the Liberal members. The consent of Her Majesty was given thereto, and the transportation system was settled by the ignominious defeat of the home Govern- ment. Earl Grey had not the grace to put up with his discomfiture manfully ; but as tlie logical consequence of the victory of the colonists had not been followed up, in his case, by his being deprived of office, he was still able to inflict considerable annoyance, and accordingly he vented his spleen by every now and again threatening the resumption of trans- portation during the remainder of his period of authority. However, the effect of the discovery of gold in May 1851 was to put a stop to all such efforts. There appeared to be no further necessity for any anti-transportation agitation, but the fears of the colonists were again aroused in 185^^ by the in- temperate language of his persistent lordship. The four colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Van Diemen's Land, and South Australia • had formed a league for the discontinuance of transportation, and Mr. King had been Bent home as the delegate of the Victorian Government to lay before Parhament the views of his colony. An official report, » Queensland was not then in existence as a separate colony. UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 187 corrected by Earl Grey himself, of a conversation between himself and Mr. King, furnished a full display of his obstinate infatuation on the transportation question, while his offensively contemptuous remarks on the occasion proclaimed his extreme unfitness for exercising even the most limited control over colonies super- sensitively alive to their own importance. In that interview, after expressing his belief that Pentonville and Portland convicts ' would in many instances be found to .bear a very favourable comparison with the free emigrants who went out under the bounty system,' his lordship added that ' he could hold out no hope that transportation to the origin- ally convict colony of Van Diemen's Land would be abandoned, nor that the Government would not continue to send trans- ported offenders to such other of the Australasi^.n colonies as had consented, or might consent, to receive them.' On the receipt of this information in the colony, crowded meetings were held to applaud the idea of ' cutting the painter,' LAd but for the belief that Earl Grey's declarations were merely blustering ebullitions of temper, serious consequences would have certainly resulted. The insult directed at the characters of the colonists was not one to be easily overlooked. It prominently revealed a want of tact which of itself ought to have incapacitated Earl Grey from ruling the Colonies. Young communities are apt to be peculiarly sensitive, and are only too likely to interpret out- side criticism or suggestions as gross insults. Nothing more powerfully contributed to the disaffection of the North- American colonists than their contemptuous treatment by the home authorities. To take only two individual instances. Franklin when in London was laughed at, snubbed and cut by officialism and society ; and it is probable enough that the first feehngs of disloyalty were planted in the breast of Washington by the contempt accorded to his position as an officer in the Provincial army. Earl Grey's expressions were scarcely less forcible and hardly more polished than were those of an Attorney- General of William and Mary's reign, who, being urged to prepare a charter for a proposed clerical college in Virginia, replied to the contention ihrA the neople !i 188 BONDS OF DISUNION. Of Virginia as well as the people of England had souls to be saved, Damn your souls-make tobacco ! ' But Earl Grev's language was infinitely more impohtic, because made in an era when official language was usually studiously courteous and ambiguous and because it was certain to be known through the length and breadth of the colony almost as soon as published It stood out by contrast to ordinary official communications as a deeply meditated insult, and it was addressed to a people 01 rapidly-rismg power and importance, cherishing a healthy and to a large extent well-founded belief in their own supe- riority to colonists anywhere else. And yet this man, who ruled the colony by alternate threats and insults, wag kept on as England's chosen colonial chief, and no succession of proofs ot his hopeless incapacity could induce his removal to a ta'l^tl'' ^ ''''''' ^"^^^^ ^"^ *^'' "'"'''''' °^ ^"' P"'"^^^^ Earl Grey's administration of the Colonies was eminently successful m promoting the accomphshment of the obiect to which he was most bitterly opposed-the estabhshment of local representative institutions in the Australasian colonies on the present basis, with only a nominal, perfectly harmless.' because' moperative, subjection to the mother-country. But he credit was not wholly his. On the contrary, the fact that the home Government kept him in office despite the colonial remonstrances was perhaps the ultimate exciting cause of the herce mdignation that gave strength to the demand for com- plete self-government. Between the one and the other, how- ever, sufficient cause of discontent was generated to make the Constitution Act of 1855 a necessity, and it accordingly was passed and came into operation in 1856. By that Act it was provided, inter alia, that the actual members of the Govern- ment should retain their respective offices until outvoted and reheved by a Parliamentary majority, in which event they were to be entitled to pensions or retiring allowances equal to the full amoimts of their respective salaries. But the new Governor Sir William Denison, was an instrument specially selected for his despotic tendencies by Earl Grey, and because of the umversal detestation which his pro-transportation UNPROGRESSrVE AUSTRALIA. 189 principles had procured for him during his rule in Van Die- men's land. He was just the man to labour most sedulously to counteract the free worldng of the newly-acquired Constitu- tion. His first act went far to justify the confidence reposed in hnn by his pohtical sponsor, for, without subjecting the members of the Government to any Parliamentary trial at all, he reheved them of their offices at once, on his own authority giving them their pensions forthwith and appointmg to the Ministry men entirely of his own choice, who had no other claim to the distinction than that they had uniformly voted for the resumption of transportation. During the whole period of his government Sir William Denison showed an utter indiiference to the requirements of the colony. He made no attempts to acquaint himself with the actual condition of things by actually traversing the country • but he was never weary of writing didactic despatches thereon to the Colonial Office, who in return posted out equally instructive documents of like tenor to his own. His power of making mis- chief was, however, minimised by the strong popular determi- nation to work the new Constitution on a thoroughly liberal and micontrolled basis. But, Uke the boy who chalked up ' No Popery ' and then ran away, he distinguished himself at the close of his administration by yet another arbitrary act. This was in connection with a question as to whether the Great Seal should be appended to a certain document, by which a wealthy emancipist of the name of Tawell, who had been hanged in England for the atrocious murder of his concubine, had conveyed his property to his widow. The Ministry unani.' mously refused to append the Seal to the document, and re- signed their offices rather than comply witli the Governor's oncers to that effect. His Excellency, being thus left alone in the Cabinet, went down to the Colonial Secretary's office and appended the Seal himself— after doing which he left the colony. He was succeeded in 1861 by a very different stamp of man— Sir John Young, » who wisely left the machine of • Afterward Governor-General of Canada, and subsequently Lord Lisgar. ^ J « ' I \S 1 m I 190 BONDS OF DISUNION. .Tovernment to its own unchecked operation, and who conse quently earned in a high degree the confidence and respect of the pubhc. Tlie important Land Bill passed during hia period of rule will be treated of in an ensuing chapter. It is only necessary to mention it here to point out an instance of the unhealthy working of the system of two Legislative Houses from the very commencement of their institution in New South Wales. The Bill passed the Assembly, but was rejected by the Council. The country was in a fever-state of ferment for ' the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill.' In this emer gency the Ministry took the bull by the horns. There was no law hmitmg the number of members of the Legislative Council m New South Wales any more than there was for restrict- ing the number of Peers in the House of Lords, so the Mimstry nominated a number of gentlemen of Liberal views to take their seats m the Council, in order to swamp the Opposi- tion. The history of the closing scenes over the Refom Bill m England was repeated with scrupulous fidelity, for the President and the Opposition members of the Council walked out from one end of the House while the swampers walked in at the other prepared to take their oaths and their seats. No actual swamping took place, thanks to the virtual suicide of the Council, but that body had been effectually frightened into consenting to the Bill. That the working of free institutions in Australia has been attended with considerable friction was only what was to be desired as well as expected. The Constitution Act was studded with anomalies, better suited to the temper of an old country aboundmg in well-established social distinctions than for countries where the fabric of society was to undergo constant and radical modification. The main blot was that two Legisla- tive Houses were estabhshedby the Act where one would have done far better. Artificially restricted quahfications, partly pecuniary, partly educational and professional, were alone to confer the right to membership or to the privilege of electincr members of either House. The elective bases and qualifications were speedily lowered by the colonists, but, notwithstanding, UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 191 the conflicts between the two Houses have been bitter and hating, and will become more so the longer the dual system lasts. So far, it has served the purpose of raising up and fostering distinct class prejudices, and its function in the imme- (Hate future will probably be to excite still further the hatreds of contending factions. The Upper Houses in all the Colonies have perseveringly and persistently thrown out, blocked, or mutilated the most important measures passed by the Lower Houses, in furtherance of their mission as the champions of the satisfied few agamst the discontented many; and the Lower Houses have, with periodical regularity, hisisted on the total alteration of the constitution of the Upper as requisite to the carrying on of legislation at all ; and so, unseemly wrang- ling has become the prominent feature of colonial politics until at length is reached the necessary point where agreement is possible or compromise miavoidable. Ever since 1856 the colonists have had the undisturbed control of their own affairs. The vetoing power of the home Government was restricted by the Constitution Act to certain well-defined cases, and even where exercised it has been made to give way to any evident re-expression of colonial feeling. It is in the highest degree improbable that the nominal right of interdicting Colonial Bills will ever in future be insisted upon. Should it ever be made use of as in times past, as an instrument for checking, to any considerable extent, the passing of measures seriously demanded by the mass of a colonial population, the consequences are not difficult to forecast. So soon as the legislative tie becomes oppressive to any Australasian colony, so soon will it, and the other members of the group, in sympathy and in apprehension of a similar result to themselves, assert the right to settle for themselves their own course of legislation in every detail, freed from every vestige of parental control. The experience of our troubles with the early North - American colonies is at length beginning to make itself apparent m counsels wiser than of yore. Sounder and more generally diffused economical knowledge, subversive of long- established heresies as to the functions of Colonies ; the growth ijy If; ii 192 BONDS OF DISUNION. of popular institutions at home, and of British popular feeling m sympathetic admiration for the sturdy colonists working out for themselves problems not yet considered in England s being withm the range of practical pohtics ; above all, the fastincreasmgbehef in the present immense power and wealth as well as m the probable future of almost illimitable prosperity ni store lor Australasia-all conspire against the likelihood of home mterference with colonial legislation being actively exer cised. It is on the contrary, far more likely that even the nommal right of veto will ere long fall into desuetude, and signs are not wB,nting that England will, ere long, readily turn for precedents to colonial statute-books instead of furnish- mg them herself Already we see how valuable to us are the lessons taught by the cont^'naal struggles in the Colonies between wealthy land monopolists and nations ranged in opposition to tl^eir extravagant claims ; how the operation of manhood suffrage at the Antipodes has paved the way for a similar extension of the suflxage at home ; how the woiLgof the erst forbidden Deceased Wife's Sister Bill is called forth in evidence by the Enghsh advocates of a hke measure ; and chiefly we see how the bold experimentalising spirit of the colonists, m treating grave social and political questions, is insensibly permeating the thoughts and actions of every section ot society at home. 193 •r.', •L'T'u-'^eSl^mXsiiSSrr^^ CHAPTEE VI. INJUBIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES— MISMANAGEMENT OP EMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA. Some of the writers on systematic colonisation liave not scrupled to express their desire to put into operation a scheme of colonisation which sliould present as great attractions to the upper as to the lower classes of the home population. In their opinion the most ideally perfect colony is that which, from the outset, imitates most faithfully the manners, customs,' and social gradations of the mother-country. Just as the old Greek colonies were sent out ready-made and complete in all the requisites of the older society— philosophers, musicians, ancestral images, and gods inclusive— so the moder i colony, we are told, ought to start on its career with upper, middle! and lower classes carefully pre-arranged and distinguished from each other by regularly defined differences in their respective scales of rights or ranges of duties. To a colony thus furnished with all the inequalities, evils, and anomalies that in the parent State have been the slow growth of countless ages there need be no delay in imparting the privilege of self- government, of course on the home model of Sovereign, Lords and Commons. The Colonial Governor is to represent the first, an hereditary legislative body is to be established in imitation of the second, and the Lower House alone is to be elective. It is assumed that such arrangements would suit the wishes of the vast majority of emigrants, and would most powerfully conduce to the welfare of the colony, as well as to the future growth of emigration. These speculations might have earned an honourable posi- tion for their authors at the University of Pa"-oda, as ( ! O rynig Hi I II 194 BONDS OF DISUNION. I out he plan of housebuilding from the roof doTOward Th»,t Enghsh CO oaies may in time furnish almost exacTZnterp^ of the mother-country in their social usages and poS nstitufaons .s probable enough, but that they shoud be "bir^Tirc r'r^ ^ ™^" '^ «'^ '^*"- ' impossibihty The colonial copy, too, will never in any case Zl,LI ^ '"'"''" ''^^^^- '''™' ""'' institutions will ave undergone contmuous and radical changes derived frmn the teachmgs of the colonies themselves The history of the first emigration movement of any impor tance from England is that of small bodies of men and women who made their way acres, the Atlantic m order "o secure for themselves that religious and political ascend ncv winch was denied to them at home. Far from seeldng to per petuate m a new coimtry the likeness of the old, each o tC bodies or sects at once set to work to organise itself on tie most essentially democratic basis. Many rf ,e mi„ran were men who, ,n the country of their birth, conld have h med rSs t !* '\'"""°^'""'"*« professing a strict equality of rights. The aristocrat, as siwh, ceased to exist from the might at hrst be made to the superiority of position he mi<.l,t have c aimed at lionie, by emigrants not^et emaX d £ the fetters oi habit, but his after-maintenance of superior ri™ ability. """ '"""'^ "" *'" ^"™- °f '™ own thrift a=;!d The North. American colonies were the most vLrorous and flourishing that the worid has ever seen. And 1^1" they were founded on no pb..i or system; because they w" left to then- own device,, ; because, in effect, they reco-niscd ™ .hstmctions of class, and because they held out L Mu mei ^ aus Ti Zt^ir'" ""'" *'"" P'^'^^''"' "--."ran~ which Teitaintl'^- ?".""'"".''' '" '^''^ °"^ 0' "» ™«"™ Which ceitam theorists have laid down as essential to the proper conduct of colonisation. esseimai to the . Accordhig to these, the emigration of a superior class- INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 195 superior either in point of wealth, social standing, or educa- lon— ought to be encouraged, and special inducements should be held forth with that object. It is certain, however, that the most successful colonies of modern times owe their pros- perity entirely to the adoption of the very opposite course- namely, to the encouragement given by their institutions to the emigration of a lower rather than to that of a higher class. Between the free emigration to the early North -American colonies and that to Austraha, there are many wide points of difference. The former owed its origin to principle; the latter to cupidity. The American settlers were associated together before their departure by the strongest bonds of religious or political sympathy. The members of each body of emigrants were well acquainted with each other, and joined themselves together in companies for the purpose of seeking new homes where th^ir own peculiar tenets might be pre- dominant. They looked upon emigration as a species of perpetual banishment to a country where life would be beset with peril and difficulty ; where individual resource must be called forth to supply the means of existence, as well as to furnish an organisation for mutual protection and assistance. Whatever form of government they might ultimately resort to was one which must of necessity be fashioned by the pressing requirements of their position. The enxXy free Austrahan emigrants, on the other liand, were men who went out on their own individual accounts! They set forth with high hopes to a fondly imagined El Dorado, where slave-driving would be their hardest task ; where they were not to be called upon to devise schemes of government • where their sojourn would be brief, and their occupation easy,' profitable, and devoid of danger. That the nature of these in- ducements was likely to prove attractive to men of the upper class can easily be understood. Convict labour and free land to any one who would employ the one by cultivating the other were the baits held out by tlie governing powers. Until free emigration began to be conducted on a large scale, a large proportion of the emigrants were of a rank above that of the labourer or mechanic, and many of them were men of good o2 III i 1 196 BONDS OF DISUNION. b rth and education, indeed, tlie very considerations which attracted these last were powerful to repel ' labourers ' in the ordinary sense of the term. A despotic fonn of govern mnt was unsuited to their tastes ; the great distance from England which forbade the prospect of return ; the uncertainty of em ployment ; the necessity of having to compete with convict abour ; the association in their minds between emigration and transportation, which to their thinking made the one as un palatable as the other; the very fact that their betters in social position were wending their way thither-all conspired to check any aspirations they might have for going to the penal colonies. With the gentleman or .mall capitalist th case was different. He saw that in Australia he could at once secure a position beyond that which he might hope to attain to at home. As a landowner and slave-master at the same tnne he would find things made tolerably easy for him Immediately on his arrival in the new country. In comparison witl America, Australia appeared to him a very Utopia He would not there, as in Canada or the States, have to rub shoulders with men from the lower walks of hfe, who perhaps from greater physical power or from a more natural aptitude for rough-and-ready conditionsof existence, might soon surpass him m the struggle for wealth, and take up a position superior 1 n r""; f f ''' T""'' ^^'' ^*^"^^*^^ ^'^ «^^^all 4ital would have to be devoted to paying high rates of wages to men over whose service he had but an uncertain and Hmited con- trol, while any advantage that his command of capital might give liim at the outset would almost certainly be quickly neutralised by the power which every labouring man possessed ol becoming himself a greater capitalist. In Austraha there need not be any wage-paying. A beneficent Government was ready to supply servants and labourers at the expense of the nation, and he had but to work them, or to exchange them for others out of whom he could force more work, in order to realise a frrtune and return to England. The despotic form of government was far from disagreeable to him, for by re- pressing men of the lower classfrom rising higher, it secured tnc monopoly oi his own set. Then, too, he had no intention Jll'iv,,,.. INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 197 of becoming a permanent settler, and had therefore no interest in tlie system of rule except that it should not be subjected to disturbing influences such as might depreciate the value of iiis colonial possessions. A set of free labouring immigrants would be certain to be dissatisfied with things as they were, and would agitate for representative institutions. The despotic system deterred such people from commg to the country, and in so far as it had that operation it was highly convenient and useful. These were the chief reasons which determined the emi- gration of men, of far higher social rank than that to which the ordinary colonist can pretend, to Austraha. Many of their hopeful anticipations were rudely upset by painful reali- ties of experience, but in the main their expectations were in a great measure frlfilled. That this class of emigrants was not the one most capable of advancing the progress of the colony is apparent enough from the stationary condition of New South Wales during the whole of the time that the squatter class predominated in propor- tionate numbers and influence over the rest of the free popu- lation. The reason is not far to seek The squatters wished to keep themselves as a separate caste in the land, while they were absolutely indifferent to the welfare of the colony. Acting on this guiding principle, they ranged themselves on the side of the home authorities in endenvouring to render the colony yet more unwelcome to the Enghsh working classes. They had good reason to be satisfied with their own posi- tion and to be undesirous of change. They could run tlieir stock over unlimited areas, and they were too few in number to compete with each other in bringing dovm the prices of beef and mutton. Their wool, too, was acquiring a rising value which promised soon to be productive of great wealth. Whatever the depression from whicli the colony was sufl'ering, they could always make sure of a good market for their pro- duce, and until wool and tallow became staple articles of com- merce, some thirty years after the foundation of the colonv, they troubled themselves little about the removal of the onerous restrictions upon trade which environed the colony. 198 BONDS OF DISUNION. \k I Few of them had wives; and in their dealings with the fema e convicts they set an example of depravity to the com munity which gave rise to the most hideous forms of vice Let It be granted that immigrants of good social rank ard position are not midesirable acquisitions to a new colony Let It be even asserted, in the most unqualified form, that men possessmg these attributes ought to be welcomed as emigrants oy reason of the ameliorating effect which association with «iem may cause in the manners of colonists of the usual type 13u such benefits can only result %m the admixture of such men with the ordinary tide of emigration. A large pro- portion of the early American colonists consisted of men of superior position, and there their presence was as conducive to good as m Austraha it was productive of harm ; because in America social distinctions were altogether sunk in the struggle for existence, and because the energy and ability of the gentle- men colomsts was devoted to the cause of the 'commori weal and not to the acquisition of exclusive rights and monopohes' In America It was to the interest of every member of the immigrant body to frame a system of government wh d should allow to each and all the freest exercise of their powers tor relative positions were continually shifting. The maste; of .0-day might be the servant of to-morrow; the penniless labourer might become the local capitaHst. aid this las L woi^'e^L r 1 '"'' '^^S.* ^'^^^^^ '^ somemoretdS yoiker Labour, too, was difficult to get, except on condi- tions of mutual advice and assistance-' log-roUincr ' in it. primitive and best form. The colonists were' thus fore d by their circumstances to mingle freely with each other, and on equal terms, with the result that the gentleman inst nctively acquned the sturdy quahties and industrious habits of hS In Australia there was no such community of interest between all sorts and conditions of men. The few labourer immigreu^ts who made their o^vn way out from time to time were not wanted by men who could get labour for nothing, so there INJURI0I3S EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 199 was no mutual commingling between the free inhabitants of the colony. The squatters kept themselves apart as a holy caste whose special function it was to maintain its own sacred rights, at whatever cost of injury to the community. How the nnmigration of the squatter class alone affected the pros- perity of New South Wales may be ascertained by comparing, the respective rates of progress before and after Brisbane's time. No immigrants could have been so useful to the colony in its earher days as peo )le of the working class. Not the shovelled- out paupers who have ever been the pet colonists of the Colonial Ofifice, but men capable of undergoing hardship and toil. They would have been of special value to Austraha not merely as workers, but as the most efficient instruments for reformmg the convict population. Had large numbers of free labourers been mtroduced, the convicts would have had before them the spectacle of persons of a rank of hfe not inferior to their own working, prospering, and rising by honest toil to wealth and influence. Between the convicts and these immi- grants there would have been a certain degree of association for social and business purposes, such as must have powerfully contributed to stimulate the better disposed convicts to aim at bettering their own condition. It may be said that the reverse effect would have been produced—that the free would have been contaminated by association with the bond— but even with every impediment cunningly devised by Government to prevent men of the labouring class from becoming anything but convicts themselves, it was not found that any large proportion of the one descended to the level of the other. On the contrary, the most adverse conditions failed to altogether check the tendency to moral improvement actually shown among the convicts as the result of the introduction of a mere handful of free labourers. If the colony had been freely supplied with such immigrants, it cannot be doubted that the bulk of the criminal population would have been won back by honest habits to their lost position. Of the importance of the labouring class of immigrants fi-om an economical point of view there can be no queition. til r«1 200 BONDS OF DISUNION. lated that labour and capital should bp nlp^f^ri f^^^+i , .mu.ta„eo„.,,o„the v^in soilfl tj::'X:^'^:Zt definite proportionate quantities, and who maintnin tW ti permanent di.arrangen>ent of these pro^Cfrust "f ossity invo ve a young colony in hopeless disaster It : ^possible, however, to treat this arguLi. seriou I^ for r a ons or proportions between capital and labour in a v rgh te ntory are tlie very thmgs which no human ingendtv ca tay ac ordintr/l "" "'"'""^ '"^'"^^° "^^ '^ '"-' vary according to local reqmrements or develonment T„ endeavour to estabhsh such relations beforehandTto 'eal^ \vai^eheld and his followers, while bitterly and iustlv in P Spies and n" T".'?'' ""' ''^^'^ °^ '■''^■^^' «'^' «™n^ ,, S J .^."""^ eacii other. It is m these speculations tbat we find visionary pleas for the establishment of anteceden n^how :rr''''''' *"' '^'""'^' '"'^ '•^'-- '-" -^« o UiesTrrst nZ^ ""''ii''''' '=°™^'">™-« »* «'e reductiei cZec ed ; th tiff ;■'/ "PPf " "■'=^'"'8 °f tl"^ q»^^'»™ connected with the foundation of South Australia. hJ A '^ '° "*''■'"" "^P"'*' '» a new colony the Lt tZtt ;'o ^ "c'cr 'ur^'^' ^ '-^« °^ Sif^;H?^-%^i=,^ a pientitul influx of free labourers had been encoiiraM^ Ti,. opposite policy was, however, adopted, anfa "on'cUabourin: onrCfhlt™'.:'"' ''' ™'^ ''- modicum of ZK s,d;J.rfr " • ',°«"'"' *'"> ">« taskmasters who con- INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 201 I have spoken of the mducements given by the forming of the convicts into a labouring staff as being ' natural ' induce- ments. . They were so only in the sense that the home Government, bj maintaining the settlement as a penal one only, had closed the way to the more powerful inducement that would have been offered by the early and continuous introduction of free immigrants of the labouring classes. It was the natural result of a forced non-natural syst' m of colon- isation, and of the home policy which was responsible for having created conditions which could not produce a mixed colonisation of men and women of all classes, but only of one class. It was a natural inducement as regarded the small or large capitalist, but it was an unnatural one as regarded its formation. From the very outset the home authorities were urged by the first Governor of the colony to send out free labourers. More labour, he told them, would have been performed by a hundred free labourers from any part of England and Scot- land ' than had at any time been performed by 300 convicts with all the attention that could be paid them.' In conse- quence, a few pauper families were let out to contractors and transmitted out in driblets from time to time. The lot of these emigrants was not, as a rule, a happy one. The produce they raised had to be exchanged against ' property,' as it was called — that is, against rum, tea, sugar, or such other goods as the purchaser, the Government, might choose to offer at an enormous over-valuation. These labouring settlers were objectionable to the squatters, hateful to the emancipists, and obnoxious to the Governor who exercised absolute power over the colony for a longer period than any of his predecessors or success' jrs.^ His Excellency's maxim was, ' New South Wales is a country for the reforma- tion of convicts ; free peop'e have no right to come to it ; ' and, in accordance with this maxim, Ik diligently struve to disgust free settlers with the colony by elevating emancipists to magisterial offices and special privileges. The dislike of both Macquarie and the emancipists to free immigrants of the ' Governor Macquarie. ii :il< h ^iii m k i I 202 BONDS OF DISUNION. I.roco,,s to whid, ho resort d so 111 I " f, ""7"™'"" tho close oi l,>s pono,I of administration. Even tl,e sv tem nf Snn,s free passages and free grants of land to III .mnngrants l,ad been discontiLed since 81« tl™ fe t Mac,i„a„e-s action. Nevertheless, or rather h con tee o greatly ,vas Ins policy appreciated at home that he ZS 111 power for twelve years P' capawiSesVM' "T 1 ^"l""'^'^ "'cl.ninistration the capabihties of the colony became better known, and the tide east oOOZ. by each mtendmg colonist was insisted upon by i.™ i:™'"s"; ', ''r""" """ "-"^"^ ^™^^ p.-ecludenZ me, of ^'''™-''"™'-« ^'-^^ "en cut instead of working. len Of course a good many of these who failed to p-ospl labouriri if ^ '"• '" ""'y '■°™'^'l «« »»<='«"« of a labomnig body which was of immense benefit in forming a counterpoise to the pohtical preponderance of tl e co"v"L and hey did more by their influence to pave the way forfe institutions than could have been done by a more' l"gh ^ ofthe'llon-flf ™'n™' *''' "■•«* ^^Pr^««ion in the history ot the colony of a pubhc opmion which regarded tlie interests Gra tli;°tZT""'' "' """"^ "' P^™"-"' -port! as tl.t of the frJe wo^rkh ^^l^e^for Int'^ .Ze fi^ ^ ^: "aifd^t -f '"""^-f "^■— • -p-terbridi: makers and the ),ke-w,.re brought out from home ; and, although m consequence of the bitter feeling that had grown INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 208 up against them among the emancipists generally, under the fostering care of Macquarie and the Colonial Office, they were for months after their arrival subjected to gross abuse and to every form of petty annoyance , their patient and inoffensive demeanour gradually disarmed hostility and conciliated general respect. The example of these immigrants worked wonders for the moral improvement, as well as for the material advancemrnt, of the colony. The more meritorious of the emancipists now began to compete for an honourable position in a society now for the first time launched on a career of commencing pros- perity. These in turn attracted others to industrious courses, while the success of the Scotchmen, together with the im- proved aspect their exertions and influence imparted to colo- nial life, was instrumental in procuring the emigration of many more, respectable, skilled labourors from the mother-country. From this emigration dates the progi'essive rise of the country, and it seems almost unnecessary to remark that it was not assisted in any way by the Colonial Office, but that the labourers were brought out at the expense of private individuals anxious for the welfare of New Soutli Wales. True, Lord Goderich, who was tlien at the head of the Colonial Office, ordered the advancement of a small sum of money from the Colonial Treasury to part pay the expenses of ship- ping out the first batch of the Scotch mechanics ; but even this much was done under protest, and by enforcing the con- dition that a like amount was previously to be expended for the purpose by the private promoters of the undertaking. This was in strildng contrast to the readiness displayed by the home Government in shipping out cargoes of convicts sunk in the lowest depths of depravity. The year 1831 was, as has been seen, a great epoch, or, perhaps, it might be more appropriately termed, ' a landmark,' in the history of Australia. It was then that the Wakefield theory of selling instead of granting land, and of devoting the proceeds of land sales to the promotion of free emigration, began to be put into practice. The change was eminently disagreeable to the Colonial Office, for it deprived that institu- tion of a large amount of the patronage which was made to 204 KONDS OF DISUNION. I left in the hands of tlie ImnprflTr! . emigration was "V iJiOAen. iMot more than onp-fiftl, r.f +i i i revenue was applied to emigration at a and tf f "'' was devoted tn ni^l.:.,„ , ' """ ""'' amount world,o«se T^r medTtfT''' °" '""^ '^™^ f™" «- New Soutl Wales tZr '''^P™?"'""" of «'« sexes in lists "S=-X:t\KZS quence the streets of Sychiev an/r/ n i^ "' '°''''' colony swarmprl ^vUi ? ^ '^ Pubhc-houses of the eities'orZdl^D b r aTS'tr'""'^^ ''"'" "'<' P^ei.aa .ee,; ae^atm^t t d^" j'X was still hankering »ft„r the fo-tert, f Government -„ _....r iiie looteiiug of a peuai settlement in INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 205 preference to consulting lor the good o^ New South Wales. The Secretary of State for the Colonies therefore determiued to appropriate this balance for the maintenance of the police and gaol establishments of the colony, thereby diverting the funds which ought to have been applied for the furtherance of the colonial prosperity towards the perpetuation of its low and degracied condition as a sink for the criminality of the empire. The resolute opposition of the colonial population to the proposed measure was ineffectual to prevent the nominee Council from passing a vote in favour of it ; but as the ordinary revenue of the colony proved sufficient to meet the whole expenditure of the Government during the last three years of Sir Richard Bourke's administration, that vote was in reality a dead letter, and the balance of the land revenue remained untouched. Yet the wants of the colony for several thousand additional free labourers and mechanics were, at the time, exti'emely urgent, and the absoUite indifference of the Home Government to the necessity of promoting their emigration was extremely prejudisial to the colony. 'It checked the march of its general '"mprovement by preventing the impor- tation of the large amount of skilled labour which might otherwise have been secured to it ; it retarded the progress of Its moral advancement by virtually repelling from its shores the numerous industrious, virtuous, and free emigrant population winch would otherwise have been attracted to its territory ; and u a time wlien the colonial treasury was over- flowing with funds available for the promotion of emigra.'-aon, but locked up from the public under the hand of the Govei'nor,' it virtually compelled the colonial proprietors, very shortly thereafter, to enter into associations for importing, at their own private expense. Hill Coolies from India, Chinese labourers iTom Canton and Amoy, South Sea Islanders from the New Hebrides, and expiree convicts from Tasmania to fill the places that might otherwise have been occupied so much more advantageously for the colony in every respect by thousands of the redundant and comparatively virtuous population of the British Isles.' » ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 254. I I 200 BONDS OF DISUHION. The indignation of the colony at this shameful misapnro pnation of its funds had now grown into so much posit ^ discontent, especially on account of the expressed detfriZiI tion of lie Home Government to apply the local reve™" to extend the comfort and accommodation of the convicts! tha n 18S7, Lord Glenelg, then Secretary of State for the Colon e organised an agency in England for the promotion of emiora toi to New South Wales at the expense of the lanlfon " ior a while emigration was carried on on a better system but the old evils crept in again ; and though, on the whole I'al shipments of a m.-re reputable class „■ colonists were export f he pauper and immoral element still permeated the mass in' no small degree. Colonisation was still looked uponTs a convenient means of freeing the mother-country from the destitution her own laws had caused, and, under the preten e of philanthropy, the Highlands of Scotland were ransacked for Hie lowest types of pauperism procurable for export The dissatisfaction of the colonists with these arrange- ments became at length , , deep and widespread that the Home Government found itself obliged to virtually relinqu h the conduct of emigration. In consequence, the < bounty ' system, as it was called, was inaugurated. If this change had been made simply with a view to meet the wishes of the colonists, and If the working of the details had been left to the gmdance of the colonial pubhc, the bushiess of emigrat n might have assumed an improved character. As it was the adoption of the bounty system was due to the hue and ciwg up by a few mercantile houses in London and Sydney who perceived that, if they could get the exclusive maimgenf i Uf emigration to New South Wales mto tlieir own hands, they could easily turn the large revenue available and expenditure ca ^t 7, ™' r" '^''^'^"^ '" *''^ unsc'-upulous care of the speculators, wlio were to receive a certain fixed payment as a bounty for every emigrant of the whole bv ot'lnSr" '™'^'"'f '"" ''«<> been previously authorised oy tlie local Government. The Home Government, dm-ing tlie time that emigration Wcas |i INJURIOUS EMIGEATION SCHExMES. 207 carried on by it, had occasionally, as has been seen, gone to some expense m ferreting out paupers from the most distant parts of the kmgaom. The funds for this purpose came from the colony, and it was as well to find some employment for the numerous staff of fussy Government emigration agents. Therefore, remote districts were sometimes drawn upon for emigrants The syndicate, however, to whom the business had at Its own suggestion, been assigned, thought only of working on the most unexceptionable commercial basis As with commodities, so with emigrants ; they were to be bought in the cheapest and sold in the dearest market. The cheapest market was undoubtedly the south and west of Ireland, and thither the contractors despatched business-like agents or ' whippers-in,'^to collect the refuse of the rural and workhouse population. The characters or capacities for work • of these wretched creatures was a matter of complete miimportance ihey were to be got on cheaper terms than sturdy unemployed Lancashire operatives or able-bodied but destitute Hi3ob was utterly out of sympathy with the wants of (he INJUEIOUS EMIGEATION SCHEMES. 211 great majority of colonists, and was merely the complement of the Colonial Office. Contemporaneously with the bounty system, the practice grew up of prepaying in part the outward passage of some nominee selected by the colonial payer. This ' remittance system,' as it was called, was a vast improvement on the bounty system, for the home nominee was in many cases the individual whom the colonial nominator knew to be fitted for colonial life. On the othe?' hand, it was liable to be grossly abused by fraudulent or worthless nominees, who first in- trigued for nomination orders for themselves, and, having got them for nothing, so^d them to the highest bidders. Or, again, speculators in ' orders ' would, by practising on the fears or creduhty of bo7id fide nominees, induce them to part with their orders for a trifle— a transaction which left a chance of a good profit on the resale. As this sort of thing grew into a regular trading operation, systematically indulged in by the numerous firm.s of shipping contractors, it followed that a goodly proportion of those who came out with assisted passages were not those for whom the colonist had gone to the expense of prepaying a passage ; and as the essence of the system was that the individual shipped out should be the one actually chosen by the nominator, its actual working was provocative of much dissatisfaction. Under the circumstances, remittances were not sent home by many colonists who would willingly have done so had they possessed the assurance that the money deposited by them would be expended in bringing out their nominees; but still the system grew into general favour, as was evidenced by the numbers of the persons for whose passages remittances were made. These rose from 20 in 1848 to 4,159 in 1853, and a total sum of between 15,000/. and 16,000/. was the value of remittances sent home from New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia in the latter year. This does not at first sight compare favourably with tlie 1,439,000/. remitted home from North America in 1853 for the purpose of prepaying emigrants' passages out, even when the difference between the respective populations of the States and Canada, as compared with that of Australia, is p2 212 h I I BONDS OF DISUNION. taken into account, for tl>e Australian settlers were more re cently from home, and might tlierefore be mmo<^A ^y. many more home relatives and friends ^^.oJS f wt dt desirous of assistmg to emigrate, and the avera™ imK^;^ , means of the Austrahans were probably atT' „ :t"eZ ptLXtre.:^ '""'''- -'-'- - " --poS; A large proportion of the Austrahans were, in 185S nier» rovers, who had gone out to dig for gold, and had n i'dZ residmg permanently in the colony. These men I'f f trouble themselves about introdudng em^rrts so I remmances came from a very limite'd num'be of ".: t trtL' lit "'"' T' "" "^" ""» --ideratfont estimatmg the comparative results of the remittance svstem m America and Australia. Nor should it be forgo teifttaT side by side with the remittances system, a large te passt ' Government emigration was being briskly carried on ^ otthe ITratTon a's [r^r""''™ -^ '''"' "P°" «^^ ^''^^'^-'^r 01 tne emigration. As the Commissioners tellus:— 'Thelabonr mg classes were in former years driven to emigration onlyX Jie pressure or the immediate fear of destitution they a^I now mduced to do so by the hope of advancemenL' ■ 'tIi change of feeling and of the standpoint from which emigrat ™ was regarded was undoubtedly owing to the proofs S by he remittances, of the previous emigrants' prosperitv Tbn, by means of the system, an induc^ insteaVoTa compdt« ause was made the medium of promoting emigiatZ " d that wiich Government had striven to press fo ward as a necessity for paupers had through the action of pSe enter prise become an advantage to be sought after by tt be" o the artisa-is and labourers. ^ There is nothing more instructive in the records of the remittance system than the prominent part played ntbv subjects Of ,on,plamt against the home Government and the Lome Commissioners was that they sent out an undue pre! . ponderance of Irish emigrants to Australia. That the ' Fourteenth Annual Report. i INJUEIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 213 iiU , I colonists were justified in so complaining need not be doubted. At the same time nothing can more fully illustrate the advan- tageous efifects produced upon the most ignorant and helpless of men by introducing them to a thriving colony than the fact that the major portion of the remittances for passages came from Irish settlers. Both in America and in Australia the Irish have ever been a disturbing element. The Bowery Boys of New York and the Larrikins of Sydney and Mel- bourne are unquestionably of Irish origin, and, as the rowdy and criminal class in both divisions of the globe, their pro- ceedings have naturally excited comment far more than have the orderliness and industry of the large numbers of Irish by whom so much has been done to advance colonial and American prosperity. Let it be remembered that the large sums remitted home every year represent an available sur- plus of earnings after all the necessities, and probably many of the small luxuries, of life have been provided for by the re- mitters, if we would see how tangible a proof is supplied by the remittances of the improved condition of the emigrant Irishman. The comparison in favour of the emigrant as compared with his previous impecuniosity and worthlessness while in his native country is strengthened by the consideration that the great mass of Irish emigrants from whom the remit- tances came were at the time of their expatriation sunk in ignorance, poverty, and slothful habits, untrained to skilled pursuits, and totally devoid of th<^ sense or habit of self-de- pendence. Yet these same people, when transplanted to American or Australasian soils, are quick to furnish examples of industrious thrift fully equalling those displayed by English or Scotch emigrants of far more cultivated intelHgence, and are found powerfully to contribute by their conduct and pros- perity to the welfare of the home population. Great indeed must be the magic of colonisation, if it can produce results such as these out of the worst materials. That a considerable number of Irishmen should become the life and soul of rowdyism when suddenly transplanted to new and freer conditions of existence ; that, unaccustomed to self- yestraint, they should at once become pliable, willing instru- 214 BONDS OF DISUNION. Ml I only qualities thS^ ^f e' M X'' '^"""r' ^"-^ ""^"'^ endeavoured tl,oro„S to dl'lf • "7" '"^ '" "^^"'""^^ be wondered at. BuUt^a mat/eTn f ™>-ely not to Bl.ould so effectually curb tLJ^ "''?:'"' "'" ™'™'«'''ion into tbe cl,aracter/o7r::: SH Tr' iT:' t^^^^^T" the vast majority of iudolent ^nn,1 7 .. '° ''^'°'™ industrious citizens good-for-nothings into orderly gh-in' nCt'tlT '''T '"■"' "'" «'■'"" '^"ommendation of to f V a lirirr i':- ?„ irei^ioi^^^^ ^^ ?™" can fairly be mXte-'ned Z 'T °" °" ^"""omical grounds out innnfgranrpartivItT ''"™" '"'li"*"'!^ bringing that not '« tr* b'ut he riw^f ™'^ ^''^'' ""'^^ " "' tion sho,Od be bo™ by tton °' *'" "^^P-^^^ of immigra- the ™:i:ttf;.srTa: if r-'.^-'' '?, "r "*"'^^ ''---* of immigrants, a'nd tbaf a «: Z^ [ t ntf ?"' " »"'"' enough labourers to supply the W„. , / '" ""''"S out was fitful and irre-.ulaS ? '»''*et-in short, that it nating rushes of oxt iov , f ^°' "™' "'I'^'^^y »>ter- vitabfe reacti ™ tourr^r r"™'; '°""™" ''^ "^ "- itself ; n,oreove;, the am~^^^^^^^^^^^ ^>-tem periods a feature of both «!«7 ♦ j ^ "'''''■'' ™^ "t these b;r?:x:e\t;if;;rn:LrT ^^^ frr^s eiy got up by colonial l^r ^' ™"'"''^'' "^ P'-otectionist class from oufsidefrl 7 '"' '" P'"™"' '">^" of their poly of h gh "vage^ ZTTI '" *° '"''"''' ''°™' "'«^ ■>'0"o- the • glut • crv^d „f7 . • "' ''^'""P'''' ""••' '» 1857, when victori:^ A ^e";t'":tr'" p'T'"^""^- ^^ """on in ti.: County, 'inord^r osave^b. ' "'f'^ "^ '»''°" '» ^iHiera noiaer to save the crops,' was carried in the House. INJUP.iOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 215 The terms offered by the local fanners were thirty shillings jicr diem, and seven glasses of grog per man, besides the pay- ment of the labourers' expenses from Melbourne and back. Yet we find Mr. Childers * objectmg to the motion, on behalf of the Government, on the ground that labourers ought not to be forced to go to Villiers. Imagine a country ' glutted ' with labourers, where they had to be forced to accept thirty shillings and seven glasses of grog per man per diem, besides having all expenses paid ! At that time, too, a great deal of philanthropic discourse was expended over the • unemployed ' in Melbourne, and the Government, after taking the tenderest care of them for a few days, had to announce to the Assembly that some of the unemployed were still out of work. Here was evidence of a ' glut,' had it not been for the Ministerial explanation that the ' unemployed ' still left on their hands were men who refused to work for less than sixteen shillings a day. It may be added that the whole of the original ' unemployed,' about whom the devotees of the 'glut' theory were so soHcitous, were freshly landed immigrants, and that many of them, having been improperly selected at home, were quite unfitted for work of any kind. But perhaps the strongest disproof of the ' glut ' theory is to be found in the following letter :— Belvedere Hotel Lodge : May 27, 1857. Gentlemen,— In answer to the notice issued by you, intimating your intention to lower the wages of the men now in your employ, we beg to say it was duly submitted to this Society for its considera- tion and discussed in all its hearings. It was resolved that a proceed- ing so unconstitutional and so repugnant to the feelings of the Society be strenuously and determinedly -esisted; and it was also further agreed that no member resume your employ without an advance of one shilling per day, should you persist in your intention by keeping the men out of your employ for more than three days, thereoy incur- 1^ 1 Now the Bight Hon. Hugh Childers, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1883. 216 ring expenses on {'•r. We »re, gentlemen (Signed) BONDS OF DISUNION. Society, and which - ""ns'der entirely uncalled obedient servants, The Pkesideni and JIbmbem or ihb To Mess™. M 4 Co., BuiHersZCo!!!? " """'™^ wood and drawing water T.!! ^"^^ ^°'' '^P'^ ™«i"S tl»e Legislature tlmt tlie colony ^J2Zi \^ J"?''"*^ "^ reason of the thing was in favour of tot ™"' .'"'"'". *« expensive^uWic^orlf Wond 7. ""'"^" ^"S"®^" °" colonists caused the r^ten'iofnf *''^ '^'J'"'-«"'e»tB of the the capital towns ; and tht "usLT^ f °T' '" ''"'' '"^™' their eifect of tur ih,; tl,P ll '^' gold-fields, besides the supply of labour 1 he fTr T " "'™^' «»'™h««. ' ""^ ""^ examination, likely that th.e con^SntTvouTd hr\'"\°'' '^^'^'»' " '^ •»>- tl>e colonists, ir ^^1852 M f™ '" '"''"'^'" f"™"^"! ^X totally unaccounted for and that t." T, "^ '''''"^"*"- ^"^ «.e end of the followW year-1 t "''f ' T"""^ '"""^''^ abundant opportunities fofi^Jf/r '""<"' 8"™ "m admit that • respecting the suTof m 0^7^ ' ^:'' '"" '" mittee described as t„t- -i, ^•'''.OOOi. which the Com- information is Irded to aLHr"''' ''"■' "° ™«-"' The responsibility to a P„ 1 ^T^ T^ *""■ »«*«•' ' the slightest interest t "J."'''^'"^"' '^'"•'h manifested not stockphraseinureTto '"f„I 8 " '""^ ''^ <''^™i««^'3 "« a *l^e tl^e greate. Po^tS^Srh^^^ colomsts,. yet,- they add, -the m^^^i^^TZ ' Paragraph 6 of Despatch. INJUEIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 219 moment could not be properly nepflected, and we were bound to remember that these exigencies rendered it of paramount im- portance to send out large numbers of persons possessing the now all-important qualification of unfitness for the gold-fields.' Instead, therefore, of sending out ' active, industrious, and healthy' emigrants, they despatched cargoes of weavers, spinners, and the like— men whose inferior physique would prevent their resorting to the gold-fields or dispersing them- selves over the colonies. This was the application of the grand principle of conducting emigration for the best interest of the Colonies— to send out cripples incapable of enterprise. Could anything more conclusively show than this one fact does how utterly incompetent the Commissioners were to manage the momentous business of emigration ? It was of itself complete proof of their extreme ignorance of the real condition of the Colonies, and throws considerable doubt upon their vaunted solicitude for the prosperity of Australia. But it was also indicative of a deep-seated beHef in their official minds— a belief worse than mere ignorance— that emigi'ation should be conducted in the interests of only the small squatter class of colonists, consisting though it did, at that time, of men who had not bought their lands, and who there- fore had contributed nothing directly towards the expenses of emigration. Further, it was significant of the attention given to squatter suggestions by the Colonial Office. For these invar 1 emigrants were selected with a view to their being physically incapable of wandering beyond the limits of their squatter-masters' sheep-runs, and thus it was hoped that a supply of shepherds might be always secured to the squatters. It seems almost incredible that this emigration of invalids should have been actively carried into practice, but it was so, until the colonists raised up their voices against the continued inpouring of men physically unfitted for the rough usages of colonial Hfe. Then the Commissioners naively gave their reasons is above quoted, and actually concluded by expressing their surprise at the widespread dissatisfaction of the colonists with measures conceived 'in their best interests,* et cetera. Where the Commissioners had grievously erred was in mis- A' 'A 220 BONDS OF DISUNION. ^^ whom and the landownPrTtl "ommunity, between feeih^g o„ -.t'::t:traf~fr:ir 'r°'-^°' when considered in connection with *! f^ 'J'iscnption young countries of a proper unde'. "'", ™Portance to wants on the part of those to whtnt ct^ffidtdlr"" r'"™^' emigration. contided the charge of woit'^SroVtl;:'''""'"'''™" ^^ especially note. passed at their suggest mfn!?, P^f <""«« of an Act inaugurate a systeffof Ifr '^ ""P"'"' '% endeavoured to The Act proved d that at! '''''?"''■ ''^P"^»''8^-°'°™y- expense shouU before eml 7?™" ''"' ""* "' ""^ P^Wi" with the Land and Emi"atront™ "'" '"'" *" ''^'•'^^'''^»' the amount still remaTmt du" fZaZT "*" '" "^^^ where a part had been XZlZ^^Zn'-'^T^'-'^^"'^' after their arrival in the coW or t t" ^""'T ^''^' years with an employer who Z'-n " ^^™« f"' two amourUoutof theirLTruinlwal ButtT'" '" "^^^ *'"' to the emim-flnf « +^ f . ^* ^ P^^®^ was reserved twelvLoXby g wX': 7^^""""^'^ *^ "^ «-' the unpaid instaif ^t ^.f LL ""'"'' ""'' P*^'"»" "P vided that the ntoure !-? T''*^^"""'"'^- " ^"'^ "''^ P™" at any time on U.e -- "'""' *"»''i ^e tenninablo ing up thdruntM 7^' "P°" *'"^ "'«' '"'"'Jitio™ of pay- person to whorshe wa " , "' f ™y. feir approval of the Wherever a^idwir ^f .'"''^'"'•e'' ^lould be obtained, -or as i nracnln ■■ "™ P^'ple of deferred payments instaCn s-1 d tL":ie7wh:;f ^ °' T' '" "^ '^^^"^ "^ pops a pLf it:vereh::.etl~ ^^^^^^^^^^^ o ""-^ utiuieapa^iueiit hirce going again. .^ i: * INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 221 Mr. G. W. Rusden > thus characterises the working of the system in New South Wales :— ' On the subject of promoting immigration en the principle of loans to intending immigrants, the exp( rience of New South Wales seems by no means encouraging. . . . Immigration was to be provided of a partially self-supporting character— immigrants assisted under its terms engaging to pay the whole or a fixed proportion of. the cost of passage out of their earnings in the colony. . . . In 1854 the experiment was tried, ... but the Act must ere long become a dead letter. So averse were employers to engage servants under the bond, ... and so little were immigrants inclined to respect those bonds, that as regards female immigration the Act was in a short time superseded with the hope of clearing the Government depots and of in- ducing a more useful class of immigrants. ' It appears to me that it cannot be expected that a large number of promises to pay can be enforced against either themselves or their employers. . . . Then, too, the palpable absurdity of putting the community into court to sue for the balance of the passage-money against every recalcitrant immi- grant shows that the defects of the system are not profitably to be evaded in the colony.' Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe also states as his belief 'that in this colony [Victoria] such engagements are so much waste-p-'^er ; that in many cases the emigrants are not aware of wh..i .hey have signed, and that experience has proved the futility of any attempt to enforce such undertakings.' ^ The system was found unworkable, as it always had been and as it always will be, under similar conditions, to the end of the chapter. Had the Commissioners been allowed to have their own way they would have applied it to all the Colonies. Then every immigrant would have been the indentured slave of his master, every master would have been a Government debtor under bond, and in addition would have had to do the poUceing of his entire working staff to see that none of them ran away to prospect for themselves. In the end, after a vast deal of > Report on Immigration to Victoria, paragraph 32. a Letter to Sir George Gipps, January 21, 1853. 222 BONDS OF DISCNION. ! :li. \W ,■; vexation and aespatcli- writing, either the home authoriti., woaldby pressing for payment have forced the severance of ? ment would have had to consent to erase all pecuniarv ol it! tions on account of deferred payments, at a sfngleTen-str It must be confessed that the path of the Commls oner, was m some respects a thorny one Tp»In,,» T , irritable colonial p^u.ations wer^ p« ;tua iTcXn^tr^ immigrants, and then volubly condemning ihe increased T pendrture per head necessary to procure the extra suppll I IS not to be supposed that the Commissioners were naiticuis.l. economical in their distribution of funds for wZe appS they were not responsible to the providers. No one fs v^Z Bueh cn-cumstances. But there can be no doubt that lie co of oonyeymg immigrants was enhanced by the necesdtv fot extra slnp-room with every increase in their numb s Hot ever, the attraction of the go.l-fields furnished a far more" efficient cause of expe.-.se, for not only was a voluntary Tm' hldaTt; .T '"VV'" ''-—y of sold, but inTssa 1 had attained to such dimensions that immigrants landed in Melbourne alone, at the rate of 300 a day. This gigantic iT to t morTIh " "T '' 'Y ™'""'' ^'^''^^ ■' ""'what ad d to It more than anything else was the fact that no sooner did ships arnvein the colony than their crews deserted.", for the gold-diggings. In August 1852 there were no fetvert^ n ^e^n y four vessels lying in Hobson's Bay emptied of a hand The sailors scarce consented to remain on board till tliecargoe we e discharged before rushing wildly off to the digZs usual signal for a war between the captain and his unpatient crew, who must be forthwith ashore in order to proceTd to the diggnigs and who were neither very nice in inSg* 1 L w shes, nor very long, of some fashion, of carrying them out feued to prison to be again put on board when their sliin was about to leave the port.' > Or else-when tired of S guig, or havmg spent in drink their n»wl''-a ■•--■' w-Ki ' Westgarth's Australia Felix, p. 166. INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHESIES. 223 they could with difficulty be induced to re-engage for the home- ward voyage at 501. or 601. for the straight run home, and this was demanded to be put down in gold upon the capstan before a hand would be put to the cable. Under these circumstances freights, of course, rose. Tenders from contractors for the emigration business went up from lOZ. per head in 1851 to 23Z. in 1852— a sudden increase which excites little surprise when placed side by side with the increase in the numbers of emi- grants to Australia from 5,744 in 1851 to 57,268 in the follow- ing year ; the numbers of Government emigrants out of the whole having risen to 20,313 in 1852, as compared with 3,724 in the preceding year. There can be no doubt that the task of procuring the best descriptions of labourers and artisans for the Colonies was one of some difficulty, for home employers were unwillmg to part with their good workmen, lest their example should be conta- gious, and so should produce a rise in wages all round. Em- ployers, therefore, were sedulous in circulating false statements prejudicial to the Colonies amongst their labourers; and the Commissioners were, by their official constitution, but little fitted to dissipate the prejudices aganist emigration carefully fostered by artful masters. Indeed, it is certaui that the Commissioners did not possess that intimate knowledge of the Colonies which was necessary to enable them to rebut damaging statements privately circulated, and their efforts to do so were neither vigorous or well-directed. Still, even if the difficulty is admitted to the fullest extent claimed, it can- not excuse the conduct of the Commissioners in selectmg the worst emigrants because they could not easily procure the best. There appear to be, then, a formidable list of reasons for excusing the Commissioners from charges of paying unduly high prices for costs of passage ; and indeed it is likely enough that this matter of cost was one with which a body of men at home could deal more satisfactorily than could the colonists themselves. The functions of the Commissioners should have been confined entirely to tlie oliartering of ships— a business which they had peculiar facilities for transacting on more 224 BONDS OF DISUNION. »^5;!*( ">1 m t^ favourable terms for tLe colony than could have been mufl. i any agent sent home, at that time, by any of 1 1 T ^ because of the superior credit graktert7t tv ^S Department by vn-tne of its position. But, as has blen"^ aey were emmently unfitted for the more delicate and S' ev more important business of gauging the real wishes of the coloms's, a^d of selecting, out of the multitudinourapnlf cations before them, the emigrants most hkely to be of serri e to the coony. The incapacity of the Department was pTr ce.ved w.th g..owmg d stinctness every year, and when in I857 Victoria notified her intention of sending home her own emi gration agent to supersede the Commissioners-so far as ",e herself was concerned-her action in the matter was in perfe agreement with that of New South Wales and South Australia. At that time the voluntary emigraarts were coming forward m considerable numbers, and the comparatively small sums placed on^the Estimates of New South WaL and Victria r immigration were almost entirely for the purpose of m" lating female emigration so as to equalise as fir as possible"^ great disproportion between the sexes. There can be no question as to the' disadvantages which an exceedingly great proportion of men to women entails upon^ community. After the gold-field rushes the disproportfon became more marked than ever, and vigorous eflbrts wire made to send out single women. Here, again, the old iniquity of faulty choice becaMie painfully conspicuous, and it was trusted with the se ection of the single women was so culpably great that, until the colonists became seriously angry with hose who sent out immoral viragoes, and carried out the resolution to take the matter under their own control it s probable that the female hnmigration left but small balance ot good as the result of its vigorous prosecution. For several years after the colonists had begun to conduct the immigration business themselves, the introduction of smde women mto the Colonies was the chief business of the Imnii- gration Department, and the appointment of coloni J agents at home, specially selected for their supposed aptitude INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 225 or tlie purpose, and immediately responsible to their em- ployers, was instrumental in procuring a good-class female immigration. Now, instead of prostitutes being brouglit out at the expense of the Colonies, the women assisted with pas- sages were respectable and useful either as wives or servants, in°both of which capacities they were eagerly snapped up. The rapid social improvement consequent upon this extensive well-chosen immigration naturally stimulated the voluntary immigration of women of higher social position, and so by degrees the relative disproportion between the numbers of the sexes was reduced to a wholesome equality. It is not within the scope of the present work to dwell upon the improved suavity of tone between man and man that re- sulted from the gradual filtration of female influence through the rough young colonial communities. Manners were softened and improved as a matter of course, but probably the greatest and best effect was that it induced rovers to become settlers. Men married, found themselves surrounded with increasing social and domestic comforts, and took thought- ful interest in the new colonial home, now furnishing attrac- tions previously only dreamed of in connection with that ultimate return to the old country for which every colonist devoutly prayed. As their families increased, so the novel allurements "towards colonial life resolved themselves into ties to the soil. The man who had to work for his children now set to work in earnest if he had never done so before.^ Australia had at length grown to be his home, by force of circumstances, and it had become his business to do the best for it and for himself. This, then, was the chief good effected by the reduced disproportion between the sexes, that it made the colonists settle down and work hard for the prosperity of Australia, instead of roaming over the face of the land Micawber-like, trusting to something ' to turn up,' or dashing headlong into any fresh scheme that might suggest itself to a fevered 'imagination as likely to lead to immediate fortune with the minimum of toil. , ^ , . -. In order to confer beneficial results on the Oolomes, it wa« above all things necessary that the female immigrants should Q I it 226 BONDS OF DISUNION. be respectable and virtuous, capable of becoming intelligent helpmates to men and to themselves in countries where self- denial and physical and mental activity were required for the enjoyment of life or even for procuring an axistence. The combination of qualities required for the formation of a society is of a far higher order than that which should be possessed by those who administer the regulations of an exist- ing community. The pioneer female immigrants to the Colonies had before them the task— which Governments cannot hope to achieve with success— of welding into a homogeneous whole innumerable discordant elements ; of investing social relations at once with decorum and attractiveness ; and of making respect for social observances a bond of cohesion between colonists of whatever grade. To pitchfork into the Austrahan colonies the most ignorant and abandoned females of the British Isles was not only to delay, but seriously to injure, the structure of society. Where the beet women obtainable should have been chosen,' the worst only were accepted as emigrants by Commissioners better fitted for the utterance of moral sentiments than for the work of carrying them into execution. It would be superfluous to attempt to prove that to fill a colony from home with immoral and unintelligent characters ' of either sex is the most unlikely means of generating mutual feelings of esteem and confidence between the colony and the parent State. The conduct of emigration by the British Government never failed to excite the wrath of the colonists, and had not the former wisely relinquished its claim to control the management of emigration, wrath might have grown into hatred, and hatred into violent antagonism. 227 CHAPTER VII. DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. It has been seen how the home Government, where it en- couraged emigration to New South Wales at all, evinced a marked preference for emigrants of comparatively high social position over those of the labouring and artisan classes. I have endeavoured to show how, under the peculiar circum- stances of the convict colony, the aristocratic settlers were but ill fitted to secure the prosperity of the colony in comparison with the capacity and willingness of free labourers to attain that end; and thai because the aristocratic class strove to maintain itself as such, and succeeded in establishing itself as a caste apart from the mass of the community. In its own exclusive view, therefore, its interests were identified solely with the pecuniary aggrandisement of members of its own body, and it was consequently generally to be found in alli- ance with those who devoted themselves to crushing popular aspirations by a consistently despotic poHcy. These aristo- cratic settlers had procured considerable grants of land to themselves, and by devoting themselves to grazing pursuit? had gradually built up a foundation of wealth and possessory rights which, ,vhen added to their superiority of social rank, necessarily gained for them a far more overpowering influence with both the home and colonial authorities than was due to their small proportionate numbers. Their influence was un- fortunately but naturally thrown into the scale which weighed down the counteracting balance of popular demands, except on the occasional questions in which they conceived their own interests to be identical with those of the population. All- powerful for good or evil, they were assured of governmental q2 »«;,Ml«iai.-»~-l'»«^MMa»!gaeBgg 228 BONDS OF DISUNION, I I h ii Hf I ir support in contesting any popular demand, Avliile they were equally certain of gaining the respectful ear of Downing Street and Government House whatever might be the object to be attained. When free immigrants began to pour in at last, their power as a separate distinctive caste became gradually less and less in the ascendant, and although their existence as a body, separated from the people by class feelings and by their position as landowners, was at all times a menace to the welfare of the colony, the growth of wealth and freedom amongst the mass of increasing population would in all pro- bability have effected the assimilation of the squatter class with the body politic as part and parcel of it, had the natural course of events been allowed an unimpeded issue. But it was not to be so, and the why and wherefore it is the object of the present chapter to narrate. Previously to 1886 men had squatted where and as they listed. At thfet time the demand for agricultural produce was very limited as compared with the demand for wool, of which there was a large and growing export, and all the waste lands in the neighbourhood of Sydney were greedily taken up for the purpose of grazing. Attracted by the facilities for plunder afforded by large unfenced tracts sparsely overspread by sheep and cattle, runaway convicts and expirees soon began to ' squat ' on their own individual accounts, having in view the ready possibilities of sheep- stealing and sly grog sell- ing. To admit the legitimate graziers on the lands and to drive away these bad characters was Governor Bourke's object in framing the ' Squatting Act,' as it was termed. By this Act, no one was to be allowed to depasture live stock on the Crown lands unless he had procured a licence for that pur- pose from the Crown Lands Commissioners. A 10/. fee was payable for this Hcenee, which was renewable annually at the pleasure of the Crown, so that an official check might be im- posed upon the character and doings of the licensees. Besides, small semi-annual assessment was, at the instance of the squatters themselves, imposed upon the live stock, in order to defray the costs of a bcdy of police for the squatting districts. It cannot be dinied that sheep and cattle-farming first DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 229 brought the Austrahan col nies into favourable notice with the outer world, and contributed enormously to secure the prosperity of the colony ; so that regulations fi-amed with the view of giving fair play to the squatters were fully deservnig of the best consideration. In so far as grazing was instru- mental in developing the resources of the colonies, and m attracting population thither by giving proofs of the great wealth-producing capacity of Australia, the pastoral mterest was synonymous with the general interest. That it was so was in the sequel strangely unfortunate, for the first move made in the matter of Crown lands occupation was of such a nature as to bring to the aid of the squatter class the whole of the popular sympathy of the country. In 1844, Sir George Gipps, the then Governor of New South Wale's, either with the object of replenishing an empty Treasury, as is alleged by Dr. Lang, or with the view of giving he squatter a permanent holding in the land, such as might operate as an inducement to him to ' settle ' instead of merely to ' encamp,' and so that at the same time the monopolisation of the surface of the country by licensees might be prevented, issued a set of regulations under which it became obhgatory on the squatters to purchase a small portion of their runs every eight years, at a minimum price of 1^. per acre. Also they were required to take out, not one lOL licence to cover their occupancy of tracts of land, however large, but a separate lOZ licence for each area occupied by them which possessed an esthnated capacity for carrying 4,000 sheep. The stmg o these regulations consisted, not in the extra amount imposed by them on the pastoral interest, but in the fact that they were fmined and gazetted without concert, consultation, or even prior intimation to the Legislature. , . , . ^ i The colonists had for long been loud in their claims to ad- minister their own land and the revenues derived h-om it They were daily becoming more self-assertive m their demand to be permitted to regulate their own affairs in every respect, and therefore regarded with extreme jealousy any action on the part of the Government which savoured in the slightest dearanteed principle of action, could thus impose changes upon a great colonial interest involving an important body of the public. The object therefore was twofold-iirst, to obtain a guarantee against such arbitrary changes in luture and Becondly, to secure the occupants of the pastoral lands agamst the un- certata and unconstitutional influence of the Commissioners of Crown Lands, who had already been enactmg some vexatious and fantastic proceedings among their nunjerous enan ry. But the views of the squatters enlarged with the pros- perity of their cause. By the original understandmg, they he d their lands until these territories were otherwise required i^ thp ogress of the colony, making of them in the mea.it.me ^hat advantage they could, and being subject to no cliarg <,ave the trifling one for licence and assessment To render hese hold ngs more satisfactory they had asked for pro- ecln a ainst the arbitrary power of the Crown a^' W the Commissioners. They now resolved the still superior position of holding the lands, not only agamst Commis. sionersa^d fellow-squatters, but agamst the colonial public When it was resolved to agitate the question before Pari— aid the home Government, the squatters had a ready deter- ana uie no. aefinitive and exclusive leases ot ,„uied to make a stand to ae ^^ fourteen years. irgh rtst' sS^rof some sceptical merriment, hecamfat length a famihar theme ; and as they arrayed the forcTth y coud bring to bear upon the home Govemmen tZ battle, hope graduaUy dawned upon the hori.on. and eventually became reality and victory. The home Government had through its representat.« ♦1 ™,t tbrentire colony in antagonism to itself. It had by rarbtrt; ml of iting identified the squatters' cause w th tha of the community. By so doing it had stimulated with tliat, 01 ui J aeemed worthy ot uncriticismg pretenUous claim , a hr t deeme^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^ ^^^^ "byS^^^- '-'--• '' " ^''' "^ *° ^''^""^ . Westgarth's Vidoriu, laU AuBtralia Felix, pp. 103, 104. 232 BONDS OF DISUNION. It m I action for the purpose of procuring for itself alone, to the in- I'xpressible nijury of the community, a set of privileges as un- just to the colony as unexpected by tiie squatters themselves. Takmg advantage of the political support which the pocuhar complexion assumed by the land question had for the time assured to them, the squatters pressed their claims upon the home Government with renewed insistance, and, largely by dmt of private backstairs influence, they procured for them- selves in 1846 an Act of the Imperial Parhament, followed up in the succeeding year by the famous Orders in Council, by Which an amount of injury was inflicted upon the colo'nial population, especially in Victoria (then known as Port Phillip) which no excuse can palliate or lapse of time thoroughly obviate. The chief features of the Orders in Council of 1847 founded upon the imperial Act were, first, the division of all the Crown lands into three classes-namely, the settled, inter- mediate, and unsettled districts. The settled lands comprehended that small part of the colony already divided into nineteen counties, and all lands witlnn certain distances of chief towns and other valuable parts of the country. In Victoria, for example, a circuit of twenty-five miles round Melbourne, of fifteen miles round Geelong, and of ten miles round Portland, was to be considered as being within the settled district, as were also lands within three miles inland from the sea-coast. The intermediate dis- tricts comprised the other counties then established or to be estabhshed prior to December 31, 1848. The unsettled districts embraced the remainder of the territory. Secondly, leases to the squatters. The local Government was empowered to expose the runs situated within the settled districts to auction for a lease for each year. The occupants of the intermediate lands were to have eight years' leases sub- ject to sixty days' notice at yearly intervals, regarding' such parts as were required for sale, and those who had runs in the unsettled districts were to be entitled to fourteen years' leases with a right, if the lands were still unsold, to a second term' of fourteen years. No one in the colony objected to the squatters having DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 233 leases made out to them for definite terms of moderate length. It was clearly enough perceived of what vast importance the pastoral interest was to the development of the colony ; and it was recognised as being for the welfare of the community that, especially in remote regions, the squatters should have a fair measure of encouragem.ent given them to improve their runs to the best of their capacity ; but it was hrmly held by the people as an axiomatic principle that the leases should confer nothing beyond the mere right to graze. In the popular view the occupant under lease was not to be invested with rights of an exclusive nature over the timber or stone quarries of his run ; nor was he to be empowered to prevent the public from searching for minerals thereon, or to impound at will such cattle of neighbouring cultivators as might stray into his domain. The right to use the grass for a certain fixed period was the only right that the people were willing to give, or that the squatter, who had paid highly for his live stock but nothing for his land, could in reason expect. His property was in his sheep and cattle. With them he had been accus- tomed to wander on from one grazing ground to another until he found unoccupied pasture to suit him, when he built him a homestead and settled down, but all merely as a stock, not a land proprietor. ' Let him keep his stock,' said the popular voice, 'as a property which belongs to him -^n every principle of right and justice. Let him even have a recognised ex- clusive right to depasture his flocks and herds for definite periods of time over such lands as may be necessary for the most profitable production of wool and tallow. Let him keep what he has got by purchase ; let a right be conferred upon him to feed his flocks over particular areas in return for the benefits derived by the community at large from the successful results of his occupation.' Thus far the people were in favour of leases, but no further. They wished to encourage the squatters in the successful prosecution of the business of grazing, but they were resolved not to give more than was necessary for the purposes of that business. The grass and water tcere necessary ; the soil, the timber, and the impound^ ing rights of the landlord luere not ; for, as the entire popula- 234 BONDS OF DISUNION. , iS> tion of New South Wales was in 1847 le., than lOnnnn while that of Victoria was scarcely over 42 000 thl ' ' possible risk of trespassing beingVa™ ed on oVa clklr cient to impair the grazing capacity of any run^^d Uierl here was no ..ason why the s'uatt'e r sho^d" te^! powers given to lum. Moreover, the .ast majority of he " spective populations of the two divisions resided in'sydleVo; Melbourne so there was not the slightest reason to appiSnd that any mjury would be done to the squatters' business bvTn eroachnien s on the boundaries of their' runs (or uZyeLl ZZj^Zr' "r ""P"'-™™.-!-' were those of 1 squat ei»? Strange to say, they were precisely the samel As will be seen, the injurious eflects of the Orders in V™ were far more felt in Victoria than in ^^S^^l^T^ yet the Victorian squatters had had no hand in the agi Itil and misrepresentation which procured t' e Orfe s At be ve.7 outside they wished for mere grazing leasest'ieu <^f th :— rbor ''' "''''' '" '"--' ™- '- «- - But ha,d it been merely a question between leasin^ a gazing right and leasing the land itself, it is possible en„,..h la t». rf r^'^*''"™ ''""^''"ted to the latter modeTf that had stood alone, m the hope that tlie acquisition of sel tiiem to coirect any injurious results. But the leases wpvp .•n 1 : ^ff "-foundation for the regulat^^nlat b^ i' idit '""'f "'t '" "'" ""^^"'^-l ''i^'™'^ "'e lessees might, at any time during the currency of their leases li. per acre. Tins pre-emptive right was the keystone of the sys em promulgated in the Orders. A few hundi' d men we e to be permitted to monopolise tliree-fourths of the who e available territory of New South Wales and Victoria ^1; per acre, while m the settled portion, where the pr I'ptivt .■.ght was not exercisable, the price of land, under th h S™ ot the competition forced on purchasers by the narro nesHf he limits open to free bidding, would average maiiy.fold the price of twenty shillings per acre. DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTOMA. 235 It may be as well now to consider the whole q^^stion in its most typical form as affecting Victoria rather than the oldercolony ' In New South Wales the mterspersed areas tatnalea land were either too sterile or 'oo renaote o b the subject of much contention, and ti^<' ™V td tl the beyond the boundaries might be g^'«>^f ^ f 7*^ '" •« same effect ' In Victoria, on the other hand, the country m nearly every direction was beautiful, fertile, and available for Zf and the land sales had been only c^-^f" quantity previously sold being a very inponsiderahle tiaction ""Accordtagto the latest computation, the "vea of Victoria is 87,884 square miles, or 56,245,760 a«^«- 7/* '" ' ~ sUghtly less than that of Great Bntam. Of this extent be land contained in the settled district coW an area of ather more than 2,000,000 acres, and the intermediate and un " tied dLtric'ts therefore extended over 56 000,000 acres, only a part of which was occupied when the O'^ievsji issued but the whole of which was then made subject to 'he opera tion of pre-emptive rights. Within the oomparativ y smaU limits of the settled districts were centred nearly tlui who e population of the colony, grouped together, prmcipally m the largo tows of Melbourne. Geelong, and Port ani For reasons of convenience, the land returns made to the Victorian Legislature of the lands sold up to July 1851 -y be u ed to illustrate the principal pohits in the situation. By tliat re turn it appeared that of holders of 25,000 acres and upwaids there were : — ^ Acres _ < squatters, Nvho P^y^^S f^' l 3,470 'Ssuml 4-599.304 1 nually in the aggregate ^ ^thissuiu ^^^^^^^^^^ 11 do. do. S20 do. _4^670a08 Totals^O do. do. £8,200 do. 2U,404,240 Besides these there were seven persons who refused to return • the quo.ntities of land they held. This shows an enormous disproportion hetween the lands occupied by the squatters, . The t.tal amount of stock returned as depastured over this immense i- ; 236 ■ ■' ' f W'M I IS- I BONDS OF DISUNION. growing population could o5tiT"db: "'■ ' "''"^■ by free lidding against each " efthe'whow';"" twenty.nine millions and a half of acres-mow *'■'* of the lands of the colony-tlLI pfin " """'^ pre-emptive rights, and 1 .tint buTT' "'" «™" under the Orders takp ur, fl,! • , ^ '"™ '=<'"'<'. unsettled distrSts, d T 1X3:, Tt'" "^ *'"* paying a small licence f w uTd' en ttlel'rt':;"^ '", ""^ purchase the land at 11 per acre T ! ■ ^' "«'" '" a vah.t,on should be ma^d: Tthe 1 ' t™ Ste ^ emptn-e nght was exercisable, but good en erta let » . It cannot be denied tliat the Orders were in oreat n«rf .!„ ands of the colony were utterly worthless. Thus Po t P Lll n ri^::^-:rt^™rrs/:i£2 SsSe^di:? j^ ;ra.:d ti:r ""''y" the culpable recklessness of tlr^u Ini" oXf tb '"' H°' way n, which these reservations were d titled LeT D^ Lang give us an example:— -L.et Ur. territory, exceptionally rich ai b, Ini-oo „„...• . •■ grasses, and Lt affected by enVhenddn'\. '* ^'' ^" ""*'"^*^°"^ 6,550,000. In Hayter's FZcL^vf/f F^l V H ''''' ""* ^^«^^ "^^" 18 pnt. down ot -7 nnn 000 ft "^ ^'^''^ ^^'^^ *«*'^' quantitv for 1 Hr.9 vvl^theraccu'atro^no 11 eC' ^n"^' ^'^^ "*"™^ ^'""^^^ DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 237 From Sydnov to the Tropic of Capricorn— that is, for ten degrees of latitude," or nearly 700 miles along the sea coast— there are not fewer than twelve rivers, all available to a certain extent for steam navigation, on one of which, the Richmond river, in latitude 28^'' south, and on its principal tributaries, there are not fewer than 300 miles 'of navigable water. Now, I suggested that a clause should be inserted into the Orders in Council, exempting all lands within four miles of navigable water from the operation of the Squatting Act. A measure of that kind would have encouraged and promoted the settlement of an agricultural community in the very locality in which the land, while unavailable for squatting purposes, is usually best adapted for cultivation, and in which the facilities for steam naviga- tion render the settlement of such a population highly desirable. But the Emigration and Land Commissioners, refining upon my ideas, as they thought, but in entire ignorance of the subject, made it an Order in Council that two miles on either side of the Richmond river down to its mouth should be reserved from the operation of the Squatting Act fur the settlement of an agricultural population. Had my suggestion been simply embodied as it stood in the Orders in Council" numerous families of cedar-cutters then on the river, who were left unfortunately to a life of vagabondism, dissipation, and ruin, would have purchased small farms by its navigable waters, transfer- ring the country into a perfect garden and themselves into an orderly and virtuous population. But the Richmond river, running parallel to the coast line, for twenty miles from its mouth is still within five mil^s of the sea, and the whole of the intervening land on either side of it is a dismal swamp affording no means of sustenance either for man or beast. ^ According to tlieir own computation, the squatters paid in the aggregate for their enormous holdings the amount of 30,OOoI imnually, partly in payment for licences, and partly in payment of an assessment of one halfpenny per sheep. No other payments were made by them to the colony for the privilege of depasturing, and everything, over and above the cost of carriage and superintendence, that their flocks could produce went into their pockets as clear profit. As the price of wool then averaged from 3s. to 4s. Gd. per pound, while each sheep might be expected to give two or three pounds of wool, to say nothing of the proceeds of sales of young stock, > Lang's Nciv South Wales, vol. i. pp SO-l, 305. J: •HIB*'-"-'^- ■«Rs*«3*lfi'^^?»««ES2B!f^^^^^ ■ 238 BONDS OF DISUNION. I which even m these expensive days of wire-fencing and land taxing usually cover the entire yearly expenses of a station" and not to mention the gain from boiling down into tallow' the profit must, to say the least, have constituted a handsome return lor an average annual payment of 11. per thousand acres. In comparison with the thousandth part of a pound paid yearly per acre, the purchase price imposed as a condition of the pre-emptive right may seem high, and, so far as regarded great part of New Soutli Wales, and every here and there small tracts in Victoria, it was undoubtedly so high as to be prohibitive to any purchaser. But the major portion of Victoria was considered to be worth far more than 11. per acre to any man who had the means to stock or cultivate it. Up to July 1851 the average price realised for lands sold in the colony by public auction had been over 3/. per acre ; and taking private sales together with the otliers, the average had been 21. per acre. Of course the high price of lown and suburban lots m and about the principal towns had helped to raise the average, but against this must be set the fact that large quantities of land had been sold in blocks of 5,000 to 20 000 acres at upset price in the days when the upset price was 5s. and afterwards 12s. per acre, and at the time when tlie population was a mere fraction of what it was in 1851 Further, in the intermediate and unsettled districts were many localities where land forming part of squatters' runs was, by reason of its proximity to a township or market centre in eager demand at prices varying from 51 or 81. to 100/. per acre. Although, therefore, a squatter holding several thousand acres might, through want of capital, be unable to purchase his holding outright, his lease and pre-emptive right together might be the means of keeping land locked up for which many bidders would be anxious to compete. The squatter, too, could almost certainly procure an advance on his ' clip ' to the full value of it from bankers and agents, and could purchase portions of his run in chessboard pattern, enclosing the water frontages so as to render the remaining portions of it worthless to a purchaser. He had another advantage given DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 239 him which was quite as operative as the actual payment of money to keep his run in his own hands. If he improved his run a purchaser would have to compensate Inm for improve- ments by paying an increased price. So by diggmg a few water-holes, forming a rough road at small expense, or by fencing in part of his outlying boundaries, he could get Ins whole run valued at a price far above the capacity of any but the wealthiest capitalists. Or, again, he might purchase at the Government price a few acres in an excep lonally advan- tageous position, and so force an unwilling purchaser, to whom the land was a necessity, to buy those acres at ■'n enojmous advance. ' This,' said Mr. John Bmgley m a letter of com- plaint to Earl Grey, ' is no hypothetical case but one which to a certain extent has been already realised. A squatter in the neighbourhood of Colac had, as he l.imsel reports, ac nuired by his privilege of pre-emption a section of land adjom- r that township, and commanding all its supply of water at thoGolernmei/ minimum price, while the nex adoommg section, being divided into small portions, was sold at prices varXgfromSi. to 20i. per acre a few days previous to his puraiase, and within a week after he authorised an agent to oferHa 5L per a^re to persons who had attempted in vam to pu release it direct from the Crown at a regular land sale These facts, incredible as they appear, I am prepared to prove on the spo by the oath of the gentleman whose application purchase was refused and to whom the 1-^ has since e^ offered by the purchaser at 51. per acre. Mi. Bmgley s Aim tiai on went to the very root of the general popular complaint 4dtypUied a condition of things which was not only usual butwrchw,as the necessary consequence of he perfunctory drawtg up of the Orders in Council. Why this should have 184f and regulations were made under them directing claims orLses by existing occupiers to be handed m within six for leases oy b oversight, however, which '"°t h ' c be!!; ex—iai' had not the fault been that of raoveniment' department at home which luiew nothuig :!■! i !te«5SSWS*!fH«-SS*rj 240 ' ' t >"' ^rt I BONDS OF DISUNION. about the Colonies, and was absolutely careless as to what complications might arise from ill-considered legislation ,^ provtston wJmtevar had been made for establisMng propel boundaries between the several districts, and no sui^ey had ever been made of the limits of the several runs. In the sparsely-peopled, uncleared, and largely unexplored territories over which rights of lease and pre-emption were given to a handful of men, no survey had been made, and approximate areas or supposititious boundaries could not be made the basis of descriptions of particular runs even to the satisfaction of the squatters themselves. The whole of an immense area nnght have but a small water frontage, and no squatter would tamely submit to a mode of description which mi-ht include within his neighbour's run the cherished portion" of water frontage which he considered essential to the success of his own grazing business. By the end of 1849, more than a year and a quarter after the local publication of the Ovders Che classification of the settled, intermediate, and unsettled districts had been determined ; but the far larger matter of the limits of runs was still left undecided. The applications for leases having been sent in and gazetted, a local Act • was passed in New South Wales under which Commissioners were appointed to examine into the boundary claims. About one-seventh of the total n auber of applications were disputed by the lodging of caveats against tliem, and the Commissioners had every prospect of plenty of work. Surveys were now to be made at a cost pre-ordained by the Governor of 2/. per linear mile, a rate which was so ridiculously excessive that six months later— after full time for a consideration that might have been accorded beforehand -it was reduced to ten shillings a linear mile, a rate as far below as the existing one was above existing requirements. Ihis low rate was of itself sufficient to ensure indefinite pro- traction of the surveying operations, and, independently of that. It was soon found that no practicable extension of the survey staff could eftect the object without interminable delay Shortly afterwards, it being evident that a considerable time 'Disputed Boundaries Act, June 1848. Hi™ DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 241 must elapse before leases could issue, oven under the most favourable circumstances, the Governor issued a notice Sanc- tioning the purchase under pre-emptive right of certam por- ■ tions of runs, beyond the ' settled ' districts, for which proper apphcations for leases had been sent in. In the meantime two additional Orders in Council ' had been issued authorising the squatters to transfer their leases^ under certain conditions, and extending the privilege of limited pre-emption to occupants of Crown lands beyond the settled districts for other than pastor?! purposes, as well as to certain squatters whose runs had been unexpectedly included by the Orders within the settled districts, and also authorismg the issue of annual leases to occupants of Crown lands for other than pastoral purposes throughout the colony. The regulations ultimately issued in Victoria, after separation, to carry out this Order, bore date December 9, 1^51. The nature of the main hindrances which were necessarily opposed to the prompt issue of leases may now be briefly stated in Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe's own words :— ^ Tbe nature of the legal instrument contemplated, and of the con- ditions under which it was to be held, demanded, in the words of a (ioverument notice on this subject, 'that the boundaries should be sufficiently defined to satisfy the rule of the law which holds any cn-ant or conveyance from the Crown to be absolutely null and void & the property to be conveyed be not described with certainty and correctness.' Of the 820 claims first enrolled up to June 30, 1848, it is not probable that one-eighth part assigned boundaries of this cha- racter The great majority were neither accompanied by a clear definition of boundary or area; and even where attempts were made to crive the former there was every probability that one hue or other mi^ht be disputed. Many were of the vaguest description. When the^ circumstances under which the country was so recently taken up are considered, this can scarcely be matter of surprise. Moreover, before any detailed surreys of runs preparatory to the issue of leases could be undertaken, it was necessary, not only that the general features of the p rovince, which includ ed many rugged and ' July 18, 1819; published in the ^-olony in Ap"il 1850, Second notice, June 19, 1850 ; published in the colony in lebruary 1851. ^ Despatch of September 3, 1852. 11 .').! 242 BONDS OF DISUNION. mountainous tracts, should be correctly laid down, but that the pro- posed reserves to be exempted from lease should be clearly defined Every practicable extension of the Survey Department made to this end could only secire a certain progress. The latter duty involved a far closer knowledge of the details of the country than could be possibly obtained without much time and labour. Tb. disputed Boundary Act of June 1848, and the trouble and expense which it entailed upon both the Government and individual, was not productive of the advantages which might have been antici- pated. In fact, as far as Port Phillip was concerned, the time had hardly arrived when it could have been made generally effective. It 13 true, as I have before stated, a certain number of caveats were entered, examinations made, and decisions given. But a great number of these were felt, both by the Commissioners and the parties con- cerned, to be inconclusive and unsatisfactory, from the fact that no actual survey of boundaries or of lines in dispute had been made, or could be achieved under the circumstances. Further, it was gene- rally conceded; that a very large number of questionable boundaries were never brought forward for supposed adjustment, in many cases because one or other of the parties really interested would not take the trouble to come forward, and in others because until actual survey of what was really claimed on either hand the existence of any cause tor dispute might remain unsuspected. There are large tracts of country in the province without any marked phvsical features what- ever .sufiicient to form or clearly indicate boundaries of runs, not only oil the plains but in the ranges ; and where this is the case nothing but actual survey will obviate discrepancies and overlappings and render the limits of runs undoubted. ^ To make matters worse, and to throw yet greater doubt upon the effect of the measure, and the decisions arrived at bv the Caveat Com- missioners on examination of disputes, as tar as might be, purely upon their merits and bearings upon the Government regulations and pre- scriptions, divers of these decisions were reversed by actions at law. Thus it happened that the Home Govenimeiit, by their Orders of 1847, had given away territories wdiicli the terms of their own notice » had precluded them from dealing with either by way of lease or grant. They were pledged to issue leases to the squatters, and yet they could not carry their pledge into execution until vast regions, of the physical features of which they were for the most part totally ignorant, ' January 1, 1850. DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 243 had been accurately surveyed by a very limited surveying staif, Without the very slightest knowledge of the capacity or resources of the country, without having made the smallest effort to ascertain either the one or the other, witli not the most remote conception of the topography of the land beyond the outskirts of Sydney and Melbourne, the Home Government had promised the whole of it to a few hundred men, and ig- norantly regardless of what might be its value in the imme- diate future, they had placed upon it a fixed, unalterable price. Even the mode of sale urgently pressed upon the colonial authorities by successive Secretaries of State as essen- tial to colonial prosperity- that by public auction— had been made to give way to the system of sale most condemned by them— that by private valuation between the Crown and the vendee. And all this merely to gratify the wildest dt-eams, as they themselves regarded them, of a small clique, whose hope in asking much had been to obtain a little, and who were now to be rewarded with a more than ample recognition of their demands— a recognition which was certain to place them in bitter antagonism to the vast majority of the population, and to provoke a spirit of uncompromismg hostility to the Home Government itself. And for whom was this monstrous injustice perpetrated? 'For a few men,' said John Pascoe I awkner, ' who have not done any one act for this colony or for this people to entitle them to such undue advantages as they claim— namely, to hold possession of nearly 60,000,000 acres of land, a great part of which is rich agricultural land, for which to the extent of from SI. to U. per acre would have been given at public auction, had not the squatter interfered and prevented the sale after the lands were advertised, and people collected at the auction-room from fifty miles distant prepared to buy these lands.' ' The squatter,' he adds, ' has not done any act to entitle him to hold his eight or nine hundredth part of near (50 000.000 acres for his proportionate share of 14,000^. a year'— the extreme total amount paid for hcences, on the " Letter to the Governor in 1852. b2 '111 /^f'Jilf 244 BONDS OF DISUNION. I Jl' squatters' own sliowing— ' and it is a well-known fact that the land cultivated hy the squatters is worth far more than this sum yearly, 56-. per acre being the lowest sum annually paid ni the interior for poor land to graze stock upon— tliat is to say, wherever the lands are sold. ' The squatter has not made any roads, nor paid for making any ; the squatter has not paid any money to import emigrants from Great Britain or Ireland, but he has done so to import pagans and savages from China, from India, and from the South Sea Islands.* * The present squatters, with very few exceptions, did not explore the country, did not venture their lives amongst the simple aborigines ; and the early squatters who did assist to found this country and open up this colony received no reward or encouragement save a yearly licence to graze their ilocks and herds ; and the men in truth and sober fact who have ousted the earlier settlers have been rewarded with what should have fallen to the real squatter settlers who explored the country.' Principally owing to the initiative of Mr. Robert Lowe,^ a measure was passed disenabling the Governor from issuing leases until the boundaries had been properly determined in accordance with the notice of January 1850. A few days subsequent to the promulgation of the famous Orders in Council, but before the six montlis within which applications for leases were to be sent in, proclamation had been made of the sale by pubhc auction of certain lots of land in the county of Grant. These lands had been surveyed, and marked out for general sale when occasion offered, five or six years pre- viously. Under the regulations then existing it had been competent to the Government at any time to bring them into the market, although until they were sold they were left in the occupation and covered by the annual depasturing licence of the licensees ; and this was their position at the time when ' The importation cf yellow-skinned and dark-skinned labour does not appear tome at all reprehensible. However, it was odiouB to Mr Fawkner whose letter is expressive of the popular feeling of that day. [Author 1 - Now Lord Sherbrooke. DESATI0NALI3ATI0N' OF THE LASD IN VICTOEU. 245 thev were, at the request of private in.livirUmls, applied for to be sold. These lands, as it happened, turned out to be ni the intermediate district, and therefore the licensees applied to have then, withdrawn from sale on the j,'rouud that they were entitled to a lease of them. The opinion of the ''^ ofRcera of the colony was in favour of the sale bang held, but he colonial Government, aware of the home bias in favour of the squatters, decided to avoid the chance of possibe censure by withdrawing the lands from auction. No doiAt it was ques- tionable in the extreme whether, under the Orders m Council, the land could legally be sold, hut a strong local Government, if its own sympathies had been with the popular cause, would never have consented to a withdrawal fraught w.tl. consequences certain to be fatal to the immediate prospects ot the settlement of the colony. For the withdrawa was a pre- cedent which, if acted upon in other cases, wou d have he nev table eff;ct of locking up from sale all the lands m the iermediate districts for which leases nught be cla.me, . Several other cases, precisely similar to tins b-t »-• f - wards occurred. In all ot them ,t was contended by the Advocates of popular rights that untd the --s had bee actually issued outside purchasers were entitled to bid fo tods in the intermediate district, while it was mamtamed on the other side that the conditional promise of a lease was equivalent to its actual issue. , „,.,ii„ That the promise was h. no case unconditional can haidly admit of a doubt, for the Go- .mor could, under his powe.;s, excise some discretion as to the persons to whom he should :r.nt leases, and he had an unfettered authority as to t,. duration of the lease within the maximum limits specified n. the Orders. If, then, under any conceivable circumstances, t lie Governor had a discretionary power of withholding a lease no man could assert a right to one untd the discretion lad i en detennined in his favour; and until the Governor ad irrevocably fixed the duration of a lease, no man could ,ay as matter of law, that he was in the virtual position of a ess'ee for a definite term, and that at the particular moment at which a sale took place he was possessed of rights para- i?W'raf 246 'I 'I i BONDS OF DISUNION. mount to those of the vendor-tlie Government-so as to obhj.0 the latter to withdraw the land from sale. Moreover the opinion of the Attorney-General of Victoria • was that ii did not admit of question that the Governor mi^dit make sale ot these lands if they were required ' for facilitating the settle ment of the colony.' On the first point the law officers sub' sequently gave another opinion contradictory of their previous* one now stating that ' we are of opinion that until a lease of the land has been granted and has either expired by lapse of time, or been determined by notice as provided in the Order- no portion of it could be legally put up for sale.' Action was immediately taken in accordance with this opinion, and, says Mr. La Trobe,^ ullf '°^'"1"^'^«« ^'^' been unfavourable to the interests of the ^ The Government has considered itself disabled from effectin- sale. in every mstahce where the individual, whose teu.porarv intere ^ un^rht be supposed affec-t.d, thought proper to exercise the ri^ht thu concede.! him of keeping land out of the market for what ii^h be an indefinite period, " Not only has individual enterprise received a check, but the o-radual development of the resources of the country, in one quarter or^other lias been seriously retarded, the public interests and requirements being temporarily set aside and made subservient to what must in Truth, be considered the private interests of individuals. This state of things has been productive of considerable dissatis- faction, and 1 think that the concession now made in favour of the squatter, enabling him to exercise a right whicl, he could, in strict irl' ?1 ; :r^''Vr "''"'''•"' '^*"* '^^ '''''' "^ ^»« ^'^''' ^t the same time that the public remains strictly shut out from the exercise of the privilege of purchase of land in the 'intermediate' district which would be secured to it by the provision of tlie Orders in Council after that lease were issued, may form a veryjust subject of complaint. . Ihere are localities marked as reserves, portions of which are urgently required for the public use, were it only for the establish- ment ot inns and other facilities to the settlement of the countrv dis t.'icts, which the gradual growth of the province requires, but which • under the circumsta nces stated , cannot be made available for sale for ' Mr. W. G. Plunket's opinion in 1848. * Despatch of July 22, 1850. this DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 247 an indefinite period, at the same time that the obstacles which stand i,i the way of the issue of occupation licences disables the Government from attending to the public wants by that temporary expedient. This was the expression of the opinion of a Governor by no means celebrated for his popular sympathies, and wlio by his position was bound to criticise existing regulations with mild- ness rather than with acerbity. The people were prevented from getting at the land outside the settled district except by purchasing at an enormoiis advance on 1/. per acre the land, or the rights to it, secured to the squattersat that price. But how fared it with Uie squatters ? The situation was productive of the greatest dissatisfaction even to the members of that specially favoured class. ^ . ^ ,. Let us take their own view of the position m which the Orders had placed them. They divide the effects following from the delay in the issue of leases under two heads, diametrically diftering from each other in kmd, as follows .- 1 By reference to Lord Grey's despatch dated Nove»nber 29^ 1846 it will be seen that the special object contemplated by the new o'de;s in Council was to present inducements to the settler to make prmanent improvements on his run, so as to accommodate a larger arunt of stock; but it is notorious that few persons have engag d Tsuch ent«.prises, from the uncertainty of their pos^on, and the ToXtvhich'they'have justly entertained as to the issue of leas , and consenuently they cannot be said to have enjoyed all the pmi 1 1 intended to have been conferred upon them ; neither have they Sn able to dispose of their stock and stations to the same advantage rthe publ^mrrk^^ of the colony as they would have done had the f.nfh nf the Government been fulfilled. '" ; O l,e other hand, there are persons who have placed a more rrarrnf :::-ed e^nJo,n.ent for a nnmW of .ear. S«.. 1. „,.v.a nf vpstt^d interests created on the laitn oi xne r r:™ oS" t' - ^"— d on an, consideration of .ere expediency, without an e.juivalent compensation. Such, then, was the result so tar of the unjustifiable mi . Minute of arguments addressofl to the Lieutenant-Governor at an audience aiJorded by a number of squatters on August 3, 18.2. at 2iS BONDS OF DISUNIOjf. nf tl,e colony. Neverwas^ It "' '" ''"'''"'""^' »' "'^ '™''^ mem of State many thousa.Kfe of m les St T," ''"P"'''' in. colony ™;S:;rcZ;:ror :f ar ■•■ It was barely a decade since Batman and P„„ i inaugurated the settlement of Victorir w , ""' ''*"' little was kno^™ of the interior of h" T '".'"* "°^^ ''"^^ ten or twelve years, for ^^i^Z^'^'^^: t'^' remote parts of it sf..rr.«K. ''^";^^^"aJs liad penetrated to experiences for the be fi/' f "'""f ™^ *» ""ord their official InrowleLe waTc™ en " '"""'"^ P"''""' «" '■>"■ '« of the broad S^ ZZ'^r^X^^tr^'^rT interior nobody did o. cn'nld *" T''' character of the iuuuu_y uiu or could know anvtliino- wi.^+i xi colony rejoiced in golden treasures an ' ^'otW ,n ," were matters as to which nnn.«„„ ii j minerals conjecture. This dl^th 1 wTed'tSr "7,'"*^"'' '' •ieredthe official mind fearfu loTf > *^ 7'" Imve ren- .mtil at least .o,ue inf' ™^ ^ *.I,et 'iT "'r^ formation of opinions as to wl,„7 ti , *"" """''' "'""^ and what mig^t ^el^ll^Jri^Jt^T^T home Government rushed into lerishtio^ t^ . r' ."" Port Phillip, not legislation of a t'S '"J d ttTatn^ winch was to regulate at once, decisively and m^trlbly, the 1 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 210 whole future of the colony, and such as, if they had possessed a small share of local knowledge, tlie law-makers would them- selves have condemned as the extreme of lunacy. The Orders m Council satisfied nobody. They had raised up hopes on the one hand which could not be satisfied, and had, on the other hand, excited sullen discontent capable of ripening into a more active form by taking from the people that which they regarded as their own property. ' The further acquisition of land through great part of the colony was thenceforth to assume the aspect of an incessant battle with parties in actual possession, who either set then- disturbers at defiance by pre-emptive mgenuities, or challenged them to prove an adequate public necessity for the inter uce with their rights in the ungracious task of destroying a. vocation that had been the mainspring of the colony.' ^ How vast were the evil consequences which might be pro- duced by the carrying out of the Orders in their integrity was not fully perceived until the discovery of gold brought a sud- den and vast rush of population. The gold-fields were almost uniformly in those intermediate and unsettled districts where the public had been forbidden to trespass. Now was confusion worse confounded. The surveying staff went off to the diggings like all the rest of the world, so no surveying could be done, and the prospect of the issue of leases became more remote every day. But the tension of the situation became greater, for although many diggers were successful, a great many were remarkably unfortunate, and these last felt keenly how greatly the locking up of the lands contributed to the cost of livmg on the gold-fields. A tent full of stores was second in value only to a tent full of the gold itself. Flour, which could be purchased in Melbourne at 20^. a ton, was sold in Bendigo at the rate of 200/. a ton. These high prices were largely mstru- mental in causing, even whilst the yield of gold remained un- diminished, a substantial subtraction from average gams ; and they were to a large extent due to the chaotic state to which tlie Orders in Council had reduced the country during the past four years, so that no proper roads iiad within tliat period » Westgarth's Victoria, late Amtmlia Felix, p. 120. Mt ■»rt4a4*ri6»jA*i».i?f, ^M \' • ■«*■. 250 been BONDS OF DISUNION. constructed even in the settled districts. In June 1852 tlie rates ot carriage rose to 120Z. per ton, and contracts were said to have been ireely made at 150/. per ton. The squatters afterwards tool, to themselves great credit for having supphed an abundance of beef and mutton to the crowds of gold-di4rs but It was a virtue that brought large profits in the w-ay of enhanced prices of meat, and it opened the eves of thp di.L.. the vast capabilities of profit rendered possible tothose^'who had the exclusive possession of the land, inspiring them with a wish to possess themselves of a portion of it, while it also orcibly impressed them with the fact that pastoral settlement iiad prevented agricultural settlement, and that consequently agricultural produce was only obtainable at vast expense flow important it was that agricultural produce should be supplied from the neiglibourhood of the growing towns rapidly arising in the mining districts will at once appear from the consideration that during six months of 1852 no less than three-quarters of a million sterling were paid for the mere carriage of the necessaries of life to the gold-fields-exclusive of beef and mutton, which were supplied, so to speak, on the premises. Besides this, the miners found themselves obliged to pay 80s. a month each for a piece of ground measuring sixtv- four square feet, in the midst of land for which the squatters were paying less than a farthing per acre, with the right of buying the fee simple of the whole, enhanced as it mitrht be in value by contiguity to the mining township, at the ridicu- lously low price of 11. per acre. It has been seen how under two additional Orders in Council » the squatters had been empowered to transfer their leases, or rather their rights to leases, under certain conditions, and also to exercise their pre-emptive rights over a portion of their runs independently of the after issue of leases. It was therefore open to them to deal with their lands pretty much as if they had been made over to them. For they might either sell a portion or the whole of their riglits to 'lease, or ' Published locally on April 20, 18o(), and February 1851 re- spectively. ' ^is sa^tsffijaMaA.-^t^> : re- i 1 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 251 they might, where not entitled to do so, lock their lands up from purchase ; or, again, they might huy up a part of their runs at 11. an acre, and sell it again to a competing crowd who could not get a large supply put up to public auction, m small driblets at a gi'eat profit. These pre-emptive rights had been exercised to a considerable extent over the 'more fertile lands in the neighbourhood of the gold-fields, and miners or farmers wishing to acquire land in these districts could only do so by buying it direct at fancy prices from the squatters who had just got it at the minimum price. Every one at the gold-fields— that is, nine-tenths at least of the whole popula- tion—was interested in getting cheap tillage and an immediate supply of produce in the vicinity. The money derived from the sale of lands prior to the Orders of 1847 had been expended in great measure in introducing labour for the squatters, and very little of it had been devoted to purposes of road-making or other internal improvements ; hence; the extravagant rates of SOL, lOOL, and even 150Z. per ton, charged to the miners for the carriage of agricultural produce and other requisites of existence ; and, as one way of reducing the cost of mining so as to make it a profitable occupation, it was absolutely necessary to hiaugurate extensive farming around the gold- fields themselves. So men were found willing to pay the high prices for agricultural lands about Bendigo, Mount Alexander, and Ballarat demanded by the squatters. But when they had got the land they found that farming was by no means such a profitable speculation as they had anticipated. For every farmer had to possess a certain stock of horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs, requiring pasturage over a considerable acreage. The commonage reserves for this purpose were absurdly inadequate, and the stock had to be fed on the pro- duce, which otherwise would have been eagerly bought ni the market. Around the dearly-purchased farm lay rich pasture land on which, as yet, no sheep had everfed-for, as has been observed, the flocks and herds in the possession of tlie squatters were totally insuflicient to cover the worst grazing land m i-asses of the western district in Victoria, while ffi which lay the principal gold-fields, could have suppHed food fe ■ -^'-^imMj ^h i |ii -SU i 252 BONDS OF DIScNIOX. for many times the number of head depastured on them. But the Orders m Council were strict and precise in preventing the buyers of land and their tenants from grazing on any un! bought lands. The farmer, therefore, when he put his work ing team, for example, out to graze, had either to undergo the expense and labour of fencing his boundaries around, and of supermtendnig their proper repair, or he had to run the risk ot his team straying on to the adjoining ' waste lands ' so called I lie squatter, on his part, was prompt to pounce on these tour-footed trespassers and to charge fourpence damage, and trequently from one shilling to ten shillings per head for (irivmg the plough-horses and oxen to the pound, even where It was less than a mile distant. These proceedings being profitable to the squatter, but ruinous to the farmer, en-^en dered constant disputes ; and as the magistrates before whom they were determined were themselves of the squatter class and annnated by feelings of uncompromising hostility to tarmers and miners, the decisions in these cases tended still turther to aggravate the bad blood between the different sets 01 colonists. o n Jr! nnn **^''^ ^''*'''*' contained, by computation, rather over AUOO.OOO acres, and it was contended by the monopolists that the land situate witliin them were those that should be sold if reqmred ' for facihtating the settlement of the colony,' before the lands in the intermediate and unsettled districts could be touched. But a great part of the settled district was sterile and utterly unfitted for agriculture. Besides, it was far from the region where the conflux of miners had formed the chief centres of demand. It would indeed be a novel rule of political economy that should lay down the advisability of production being conducted at the most remote distances from the pur- chasing market, if baldly stated ; but it was attempted to apply It in all its literalness to the colony of Victoria The consequences were such as might without difficulty lip ve been foreseen. In one part of the country, where the customary barrenness had given place to an area of rich well-watered soil, crops were rotting on the ground, partly because of the immense cost of procuring labour from the distant gold-fields .'^>«Jli^«*..*.*.-.,^.=^^^.; -L DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 253 to harvest tliem, partly because there was no market imme- diately adjacent to which the farm produce could be taken without the risk of spoiling in the transit. In another part were closely-packed masses of men craving for agi-icultural food, and who, unable to procure it cheap and fresh from the fertile waste around, had to pay enormous prices for it when, stale and unnutritious, it finally arrived at the gold-fields after a lengthy toilsome transit. So the districts which did not want farmers were full of them, and in those where farmers were urgently wanted farms could not be got except by private contract involving so large an expenditure and such harassing restrictions that would-be purchasers were frightened oft', and it resulted that the supply of farm produce from the neighbourhood could rarely suffice for the local demand. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people-shepherds, miners, and persons of all sorts-had frugally saved their earnings in the hope of buying land on which they could set up as farmers, and in the reaction of their disappointment at finding that they could not acquire land in the only parts of the colony where farming could pay, they recklessly set to work to 'knock down their cheques,' as the expression was, m one long bout of drink. These proceedings on their part were welcomed and encouraged by the squatters, who saw that by this improvidence men of small means were again ob iged to earn a livelihood as labourers, and they congratulated them- selves on the circumstance as ensuring to them an mifailmg supply of labour, while at the same time givhig them mcreased facilities for extending their own monopoly. Thus the limita- tion of the purchasable area of land contributed to the forma- tion of habits of vice which it was directly to the supposed interest of the squatter to stimulate by insistnig still further on his privileges. i . i.^ ' Extend the settled districts,' clamoured the people, to parts more settled than the settled districts theinselves.' But this ex..nsion would have endangered the application o the economical rule-of discouraghig production except at the .rreatest possible distances from markets-to winch tlie home and local Goveniments had given their adiiesion ; sj the plan l* 254 BONDS OF DISUNION. II lUiz: ^m went no further than discussion and adverse vote in tie squatter-dnven Legislative Council of the day. Besi.les to extend the settled districts would have been lo encroach on he prmciple sanctioned by the Orders in Council, and such a thing was not to be contemplated with equanimity The necessity for such extension was becoming more apparent every day. The demand for land in the interior was rising with the advent of each fresh emigrant shipload, and while a larger number of people than ever were on the gold- fie ds, a larger proportion of the whole were beginning to find gold-mining an unprofitable pursuit, and were iooldng%agerlv around for the opportunity of acquiring small blocks of land on easy terms m the unsettled districts. The squatters' terms rose responsive to the demand. They could now lease un- stocked areas, for rentals varying from 100/. to 500/ a vear to other persons desirous of taking to the grazing business' and could sell or let small lots for agricultm-e at .L^rn-' aelylnghrates Also by reason of the enormous quantities of land that had been thrown open to them for purchase at the minimum price of 1/. per acre, without competition, the vahie of lands of a similar kind which had been purchased at public auction at a much higher rate had been sensibly depreciated, to the great injury oi the proprietors. And this because, on the thing of most fluctuating value in the colony, the land, the Government had put a value fixed as between itself and a few nidividuals, while those few in turn might retail it as what it was-//., one thing in the colony that was most susceptible to extreme variation m value. uJV^ ""u ''^^^''^- '""''''^'^ ^^'''' "^'Sl^^ ^'^ comparatively ittle difficulty m estimating the value of land over a short erm of years ; but even there any attempt to settle before- hand the price that land might be worth a quarter of a century on, could never be more than conjectural. Within the ^ast wenty or thirty years the variations and the ultimate rise in land values m many of the most thickly-populated districts of England have been such as no prophet could liave ventured to predict at the beginning of the period, and it would be equally impossible to forecast any future value with confidence. But in a new of unexai extraordii certain tl 'It is value of which n< The land a month' territory, could by and wliic tained as upon the moment' delighte( of the vg a liandfi generatii Not thai ment as of the C living ir represer petitioni ing the Afe will bet relative aiford c issue. positior Only vince ves iu peace. My a 1 ."'*''? DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 255 in a new country situated as Victoria was, undergoing changes of unexampled rapidity and subjected to the influence of an extraordinary course of events, nothing could be more un- certain than the value of land property. ' It is impossible,' says Mr. La Trobe, ' to value that the value of which has never been tested, and for the estimate of which no certain and fixed data of any description exist. The land which to-day is valued and fixed at 11. is seen before a month's end to be estimated at 50L' Yet it was this virgin territory, teeming with wealth of nil kinds, of wliich the value could by no possibility be conjectured <'ven for the moment, and which a slight preliminary examination might hav<' ascer- tained as excellently fitted for the future borne of thousands upon thousands of English men and women, that, without a moment's hesitation on the part of a he ac Government which delighted to pose ' as trustee for the inhabitants of the empire ' of the vast colonial possessions, et cetera,' was made over to a handful of squatters, in defiance of the rights of future generations as well as of those of the then scanty population. Not that plenty of warning was withheld from the Govern- ment as to the gross impolicy and injustice of the application of the Orders to Victoria, not only by the oldest settler then living in that colony, John Pascoe Fawkner, but by their own representative Governor— to say nothing of numerously-signed petitions forcibly presenting the true situation and foreshadow- ing the more immediate inevitable consequences. ° A few extracts from the correspondence in the Blue-Books will best exemplify the nature o.' the warnings conveyed, the relative positions of the squatters and the people, and also afford cogent illustrations of some of the salient points at issue. Nor will the language be found intemperate or the pro- positions on the popular side at all illiberal :— Only fancy [writes Mr. Fawkner'^] tlie fee simple of this fine pro- vince vested in one thousand persons—a countvy capable ol supporting iu peace, plenty, and contentment many millions ot the human family. My advice is, and it is the counsel of an old colonist, one of the ' Despatch from Earl Grey in 1851. » Letter to Earl (irey, written at commencement of 1851. 'I x^:^,~i-"ir-r3G:JSS;-;, ''h; 256 BONDS OF DISUNION. m if' t it year 1803, that in no instance shall a lease be given to anv man f„P more than fifty thousand acres, and that no man shall hold more than one lease. Facts are good weapons I trust, and these are facts, mv Lord. In 18.S6, a poor but industrious man came over to Port Ph=llip to settle, shortly after I had founded Melbourne ; t!iat is, he brought with him fifty-three sheep, as he himself then told me, of his own and a flock of some hundreds of wi.ich he was onlv overseer. Shortly alter his arrival, say in 188(5, another stockholder landed with four hundred sheep. The man with the four hundred sheep was shut in and kept closed until he had only about seven thousand to eight thou- sand acres of land on which to run his flocks and herd ; but the man of fifty. three sheep, as I find by the returns published in 1848, claimed m the unsettled districts no less than four runs, each of fifty thousand acres, and another run in the settled districts of say twenty to twenty- five thousand acres. ' Thus you see the wisdom of tlie officers holding power here and the grasping spirit of the monopolist. ' I have no hesitation in saying that one of those runs of fifty thou- sand acres was quite competent to the agistment of all the sheep this man then had, and that the other four runs authorised by the local Government to this forestaller were not occupied by sufficient stock to consume the grass ; consequently a serious loss was inflicted on the colony, for many persons were prevented from becoming stockholders and from benefiting themselves, as well as providing, for and iuduciii-' their friends to emigrate. ^ If these people get their leases of these vast quantities of land they will stock them very leisurely, or eke they will partly ruin the new- comer by selling or letting him parts of these runs at very high, nay at enormous, rates as compared with the sums they pay to the Crown. This is daily taking place ; the squatters when thev sell their right of gi-azing, a ten pound a year licence, frequently charge from one to five hundred pounds for their right. What right ? how acquired^ Let them show, I say-a right only got by favouritism upon monopoly. Then, if leases are granted, great care must be taken tiiat the right of the leaseholder only extends to the use of the land for the sole purpot^e of grazing. Already, my Lord, it is whispered amongst the class squatter, that they will not allow people to cut timber on the lands they thus claim to hold ; and now it is a fact that may perhaps astonish vou, but the local Government let a piece of land known as the (Stringy Bark Kaages to a squatter for ten pounds a year. DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 257 These ranges are covered with timber fit for house and ship huild- inir, and each pair of industrious sawyers and woodcutters have to pay the sura of fifteen pounds a year for the privikge of cuttiug any of the timher. , . . , i j j I ' itely presented a petition to the local authorities here, handed to me for that purpose by a committee of the body of sawyers and woodcutters, in which they assert, and I believe it to be true, that these industrious men pav about one thousand a ye&v for only a part nf the same land for which the squatter pays simply ten pounds a vear And the squatter and the local Government forbid these working-men to feed the cattle that draw their timber to town on the wild grass of these land— a monstrous injustice. This my Lord, is a great fact, and plainly points out to you the vast good you have done by holding the authority over these lands m vour own hands. _ , • i ' But look at this question. The woods and mines and minerals, and all other rights over these lands, must be withheld from the squatter ; all, all except the right of grazing his stock, and residing thereon ; or how are we, who bought our lands and paid from one to four five, aye, to sixty pounds an acre-how are we to obtain timbpr, &c for our various wants ? Why, solely by buying of the squatter, who pays less than one halfpenny an acre of yearly rent; whereas we landholders have paid from twenty shUlings up to above sixty pounds (in villages) per acre to the Crown. Mr Fawkner goes on to show that the total amount of the squatter's hcence and assessment fees is not equal in the year to the interest on the amount actually paid for their small holdings by the ordinary agricultural settlers, and he asks :— Who has the most right to privileges and immunities ? The man who, for every square mile of land he holds, pays from six hundred and fortv pounds and upwards, or the man who only pays ten pounds a year for the use of twelve thousand eight hundred acres, upon which he exercises all the rights of ownership ? Now Hsten to Mr. La Trobe : ^— The propriety of granting a lease to the occupant of the wa,ste lands of the Crown for pastoral purposes within the ' unsettled dis- tricts ' for the long term of fourteen years need not in itself be subject to question, provided due care were taken that such continued licensed ' Despatch of September 3, 1852. S 25 8 BONDS OF DISUNIONT. I occupation carried with it no other advantage, which might prove sooner or later, mimical to the general interests. But Action 2 orders that during the lease the land shall he saleable only to the occupant ; and this brings me to the question of pre-emptive right With a certain class of colonists the concession of such pre-emptive right of purchase, under any circumstances, i8 held to have been un- called for, and opposed to the general interest ; yet I have never been led to quastion the propriety of such concession to the stockholder to the extent of the purchase of one or :,.u sections containing home- steads or bondjide improvements; and for the purpose of raismir what 18 required to supply the wants of the station, even thou-h it might to a defined and limited extent involve a departure from^ the general system of open sale by auction. But beyond this I am not disposed to go, and I think the ar-u- ments that may be adduced, under a full acquaintance with the local circumstances of the colony, against any such wide extension of the pre-emptive right ' as that contemplated by the Orders in Council whether in the ' intermediate ' or ' unsettled districts,' are not to be lightly disposed of. I think I shall be borne out in asserting that beyond a firm assurance that he would not be disturbed in his occu- pation of the waste land of the colony for pastoral purposes so lon<. as the land comprised in his run was not really required for sale or other appropriation in due regard to general interests, and further the acquisition, without the necessity of open competition, of the land containing homesteads and improvements, the settlers of this province as a body, had formed neithe • wish nor expectation. In fact that the extension of the 'pre-emptive right' over the whole of the' land covered by their lease, whether in the ' mrermediate ' or the ' unsettled districts,' with the exception of such portion as the Crown may be considered legally empowered to reserve from, or withdraw from occupation under the 9th section, &c., was neither asked for nor dreamed of m this colony, either by the settler or by the Executive Government. I speak for myself. At this very hour, I believe that if the truth were told the acquisition and maintenance of such a privi- lege, unless claimed now as a matter of conceded right which mav 5eem to be attacked, would be a matter of indilTerence to the great najonty of the class in question, and that, if even left undisturbed he caees in which the privilege would be exercised to any extent Tould be very few m number ;-always taking it for granted that maintenance and better carrying out of purely pastoral pursuits, vbicli T a.ssume was originally intended to form the primary, if not he sole, object of its exercise, were the boiiajide end which the pur- p. 'r^m^li^^-»"«i':^*.e«fi«^ IF 'I »ugh it DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 259 chaser might have in vir .v . As matters stand, however, no provision has been made to secu.e that this shall be the case. I think I shall be borne out in asserting, that beyond such home- steads, sections, &c., land purely and solely fitted for pastoral pur- poses, wherever situated, would not be in one instance in* a hundred purchased by the lessee, and in the instance wh^re it might be pur- chased it would be with other views than the mere advantages which its acquisition might lend to pastoral pursuits, and because the extra- ordinary or ordinary march of events gave that laud a present or pro- spective value which would render its aciuisition desirable. The question arises then, if such be the case, why should the lessee of the Crown have the advantage of that purchase under a pre-emptive right ? I cannot, for my part, assign a satisfactory answer. ♦ I am constrained," he adds, ' to look upon the whole question as one of a v'ery serious character, and to conclude that the revision of the Orders in Council of March 1847, as far as it may legally be practicable, is most undoubtedly called for.' And how were these representations received at home? To Mr. Fawkner came a contemptuous reply from Earl Grey, while the views of the Lieutenant-Governor were not allowed to influence the latest official decision— which was, to make the commencement of the term of each lease run from the future date of its actual issue, instead of from the date of the promulgation of the Orders. The request of the squatters, made in the latter part of 1852, for the extension of the date of commencing the lease, was, in the state of the colony at the time, about as impudent a proposition as could have been put forward. The squatters could hardly have dared to hope that it would be granted, and yet granted it was in the terms of the petition, while all representations in the popular interest were completely ignored. The leases were not, in fact, actually issued ; but a legacy of claims to leases, which met with bitter opposition and with a counteracting wave of sweeping anti- squatter legislation that has often threatened to run to a height of unreasonable- ness in some measure approaching to that of the Orders in Council Uiemseives, was handed down to the first representative Victorian Assemblies. The Orders to a large extent failed of s2 m'- ' ) If ■ :i3 260 BONDS OF DISUNIO:;. their immediate object, as measures of glarii,™ injustice m,„t ..ev.tably in a community vigorous^enou^blthn Sh of self-government at a very early period of its care uttbeythoi-oughly succeeded in turning the inhabitan sof the young colony mto t™ hostile bodies, and in importi,,. euul 1 fe of the colony. Instead of all the colonists worI<. ".g toge her for a connnon object, the one class has uuiformlv sought defeat or delay the constructive and refo.W pohey of the other. This last has in its turn persistent^ endeavoured to ride with roughshod violence ovefthe priS leges and prejudices of the party still in possession of the ands under the natural circumstaaices of forward progress would have been an nTesistible, gradual, and peaceful process ml, r/ !?" \° '"™'"' *'" "'1'"'=* "'■ -"f""' encroachment « «|tobhshed concessions. As the pressure of population upon obtaniable space has increased, so the dividing line between the landed proprietors and the bulk of the people has become n>ore strongly accentuated ; and the growing numbers ot each succeedmg generation can but furnish a fairer reason and a fresh excuse for the modification of the land system in a popular dn-ection. The evils of the monopolisation of land in a comparatively few hands become daily more apparent, as population grows apace and gives greater preponderance to the power of the growmg masses, with whom increasing rent decreasmg wages, and an envious regard of the luxurio™ posi-' tion occupied by a small caste of landowners, operate as induceiuents to endeavour to secure for themselves the posses- SKUi of the soil which almost hourly confers great and appa- leiitly never-»nding advantages. The bitterness of the strife is ye to come. A country fitted by nature for the support of mlhons has as yet acquired but a small modicum of popula- tion m proportion to its undoubted capacity. The boundaries withm which industrious cultivators of small capital can settle theniselves at triflmg preliminary cost are speedily becoming msuBicient for existmg demands. A vigorous population it for the time being almost stationary in numbers as compared DENATIONALISATION Or THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 2G1 with the rapid rate of increase in adjoining colonies, where large quantities of available land are obtainable on easy terms.^ Rents are rising, while wages and the purcho^ing ^^owers of wages are diminishing as the inevitable resw.t oi' a monopoly of landholding in a few hands, such as :i.'.:st wt e.ully cramp the energy which would gladly devote itf-- f to 'lie develop- ment of Uie vast resources of the councry. " ; New South Wales, to South Australia, to Queensh.ad, '> o emigrants in plenty— all in the well-grounded confidence tiiaL the reward of their labour will be for them the acquisition of a remunerative block ; but to Victoria they go not but in scanty shiploads, and tiie emigration from that colony more than balances the immigration to H. And why but because, in Victories alone of all the colonies of the Australasian group, none but capital- ists can hope to purchase a share in the soil ! Victoria is still prosperous, but relatively to the other colonieL less prosperous than she was. It is no longer to her that her neighbours must concede the right of virtual headsliip, at one time acquired for her by the energy of a population not circumscribed or hedged in by artificial bounds. That it is in her power to regain her position of supremacy there need be no doubt ; but it can only be by recourse to more efficient methods of legislat^'on with regard to the masters of the land than have been resorted to so far. So far, the many-acred landowner still bears with ever-increasing weight on the broad backs of the Victorian people, and every effort to dispossess him of his moi opoly has reacted injuriously on liis necessitous assailants. May the experience of the past give better direc- tion to the endea. un-s of the future, so that by temperate measures of orderly pressure on the one hand, of timely con- cession on the other, the evils of the struggle which violent proceedings .nay en;/endpr may be happily averted ! It may at so::ne time be my task to trace in extenso the long-continued struggle between the landowners and the people of Victoria that has strewn the path of legislation with obstacles ever since the boon of self-government was accorded to the infant colony, and which for many a year to come may invest with virulent animosity the poUtical struggles of the more m h m li ^:i li ' . 262 BONDS OF DISUNION. Orders ■„ Council had come to be realised; h ^1 of el; at, „g he>r own land policy was handed ;ver to tlf coLnS: themselves. Popular indignation now found a safl ve„ t constitutional agitation, and the Orders were denrived .fT. s^r 'd 'Vrt '" '''' ^"'"^ -S"f th td system Had the Orders been maintained in their intem-itv Z «.e distant imperial authority, the waning loyalty^^u,^ i.«.. ''•^'''' Government in Australia liad begun by pro- pag. . cnme and n.famy throughout it. dependency it Cl nded by perpetrating one of the most glaring acts of i;.] st^^^^ which the annals of England give recital. Be^ii^M a sti-enuous attempt to fashion Australia into an Xfum o vice for hardened criminals, the supreme effort of Go„n to c ose the chapter of imperial rule over the older colon^ by estabhslnng the curse of a landowning monopoly was in con sistent keeping with tne accustomed t'enor oT^f w" F I first to last no system could have been batter devisld'to en u e he forcible disseverance of the relations between ourseh es and the lands beneath the Southern Cross "^"^eues and exeiciseot careful supervision, watchful forethou-ht and rendv attenion. The task of effecting the settlement o a c^^^^^^^^^^ infinitely more d fficult of satisfactory accompHshn en than IS he business of transporting emigrants to dltant coWs bo difticult IS 1 , in fact, that the qualifications necessary Ten to nntiate settlement, cannot by any possibihty be possesi d I !^. DENAl by any fa ance with tures; 65 new com knowled^ and custc counterei an absor progress qualifica settleme Governn local G( prosper! ment to liable tc In a to be t] only be largest knowle( can be princip: ' plenty ment c its bes greater on the colony that t' popula script! colonii cious ] Sosoc for in mere! forme ■''*Mlt*esf*-U*.'KA' DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 263 by any far distant body of State officials. Intimate acquaint- ance with local, geological, geographical, and topographica fea- tures ; extensive knowledge of the probable resources ol the new country, and of the readiest means for developmg them ; knowledge of climate andof chmatic influence upon themanners and customs of the colonial population ; of difficulties to be en- countered; of individual and general requirements; above all, an absorbing interest in, and complete identification with the progress of the youthful community-these are amongst the qualifications which legislators bent upon framing a scheme ot settlement for a country ought to possess, and such as a remote Government department cannot possess. Nor can even the local Government, however zealous in the cause oi colonial prosperity, be fitted to plan out any but a temporary arrange- ment to suit the necessities of the hour, and that, too, one liable to be varied from day to day. In a new country, individuals certainly ought to be allowed to be tlie best judges of their own requirements, and it can only be by giving the freest play to the expression of the largest number of individual wishes that the preliminary knowledge for even the most temporary scheme of settlement can be acquired. Wakefield tells us that what a colony principally stands in need of at the outset oi its career is 'plenty of good government.' Granted-if goc>d, but goyern- ment can never be more than comparatively good ; that is m its best form it cannot pretend to perfection, but only to a greater degree of efficiency than in its worst form It seems, on the contrary, to be greatly to the advantage of the young colony to have as little Government direction as possible, and hat Uiat Government should rest on the widest and most popular basis. It is only a Government of this popular de- scription that can pretend to prescribe for the wants of the colonists, and that can be prevented from mapping out auda- cious plans to control the arrangements of future generations. So soon as a Government does this last, it becomes dangerous ; for in inventing legislation for the future it takes as its guide merely the experiencP. and facts of the day, and the plans formed by it for the settlement of a sparsely-peopled territory h f 264 BONDS OF DlSUNIOi^. h I ^^^tZ^'^^^^^'-r^ .«•'- elbow, must present powerful .thJfT^^ n '° '"''''"'*'" °° » P'« for the whole, and to follow it witl,n„r f ™ ""' P'"" tion to varynig speciaJ circumstances caUin„ 1? , treatment on new lines. The less tl,„t 1 1, '^^f'"'' Colonies, the bolder is the plan and f T"'] "^ "'^ obstacles to its practical workh'; '"' ""* ^"^"^"^ «>e local wha^s'rLt:' wittt/'f '^ ^™'-^*'""- ""^ '» -«>e " bwong, lest it sliould so mirram ifsplf iii+« ^i ■ t nf a nprf ,^f +1,^ 1 -, "^o^'^^^' "Sen into the preiudices outer V fni' r^^,.„i 1 F^^viieges agamst an iiicreasiiiff law. Tr ^ ^ ; """'^ ''"'"i^"'^ modifications of the la d t.ou cio^vd. closer a^amst U.e boundimes of the acred magnate. I DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 265 so will his lot appear more enviable to the thickening mass ; so will the value of his possessorship become more actual and more visible to himself, and so will he claim for himself a closer-bound network of legal protection. No forms and no amount of legislation can prevent this tendency, and its development must be awaited with patient apprehension. But in the ordinary course of events, in a popularly-governed country, the evil will not be an all-absorbing one until a matured and prosperous commonalty has advanced far on the stage of progress, and has arrived at a height of poHtical intelligence, based on the lessons of experience, which may enable it skilfully to unloose, instead of violently to dissever, the environing cords of an oppressive land system. To fetter the rising life of a people with a pre-arranged land system is but to stimulate from the outset the worst passions of the people ; to goad the community into unfitness for thoughtful, organised political action ; to raise up opposing classes throughout the country, and to pre-ordain bitter, intem- perate conflicts between them. Let it be remembered that there is not in Australia a supreme despotic authority against whom all sorts and con- ditions of men must be banded together in common cause. In England, noble and vassal were united in joint antagonism to ovei;weening kingly power. This is not the case in Australia. There, no universal cause of freedom induces sympathetic for- bearance between the large landowner and the working-man. There, each has to oppose the other, and each strives to do his best for himself and his worst for his opponent. Each day lends increasing bitterness to the conflict between them. The flame may lull for awhile, but it may one day burst forth into fiercer volume, which in its spread v.iv involve the universe in vast disturbance. ■i| m j l: i 266 U It !| ,( BONDS OF DISDNION I'i Si i CHAPTEE Vm. WAKEFIELDISM— • THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' Apology is unnecessary for putting before the reader a Memorandum drawn up by Governor Sir George Gipps as an mtroducfon to tbe comparatively few remarks'l tZl make on the subject that his observations almost exhaust Th Memorandum as strong evidence of the penetrating, caustic o N wr.l W ?''™'Z"'" ™'<*^ '''' «■- -ited'c font of New South Wales and Port Phillip at a very critical perfod of the,r Instory, and who, had he been able to bring his fo ce w^e^Tf '"'■'^"'™*'''" °' '"^ contemporaries as a wise and fearless admmistrator. But the chief value of the document consists in its exhaus of unsatisfied discussion, and which at the time were hotly contested between those who advocated or opposed til doctrmes of Gibbon Wakefield. '^'^^ It is rarely given to any one man to identify his name with he successful promotion of more than one great rncMe numbt^'ti ''*"? "f,^"'"™-""" ■ endeavouClTa Tat number of things which never can be done on system, and he he whole whenever and wherever it might be p„t into prac- tbtl P" ™ K *" ""*" "' colonisation an exact science, .• i which human bemgs might be treated as numerals with defined and invariable values from the moment of tl-"- ^-i- ™- - " on colonial soil, instead of regarding it as a'haplZrd process, e as one wli as possibl But a] in view oi These we viously, t sliould be priated tc would th would rec accordan charge o undoubtc their imj to other of some, of definU there wa the best from cvi were pul the forn results. One should 1 price pe out by I the thei the text it has n those &e whose 1 this an( tenure V WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 267 process, even under the most careful superintending rules, and as one which could best acquire vitality by being left as much as possible to itself. r • 1,4. But all these fanciful speculations may be left out of sight in view of the great and useful principles underlying the whole. These were, that the land in new colonies should not, as pre- viously, be recklessly granted away, but that every acre of it should be sold, and that the funds so derived should be appro- priated to the purpose of introducing emigrants. The colony would thus be made self-supporting, and emigration itself would receive a certain degree of systematisation, regulated in accordance with local interest by being placed under the charge of the colonists themselves. These principles were undoubtedly of great value, but it unfortunately happened that their importance was almost obscured by the prominence given to other principles, not only of no value at all, but, in the case of some, of positively injurious tendency. The estabhshment of definite ratios between land a.nd labour in a country where there was neither the one nor tlie other, and the discovery of the best means of restraining a vigorous young nationahty from overstepping a narrow boundary which did not exist, were put in the foreground as the chief ends to be attained m the formation of a colony-and with singularly disastrous results. , „ , -, XI J. 1 J One of the main contentions of Wakefield was that land should not be sold by public action, but at a fixed uniform price per acre. The question has been vigorously threshed out by many a colonial Legislature, where it has been m turn the theme of the orator, the stalking-horse of the demagogue, the text of politi.'al factions, and the study of publicists. But it has never been more lucidly or vigorously criticised than in those sentences of the master of epigrammatic despatch- writing whose Memorandum may now be allowed to speak for itself on this and on other subjects connected with the history of land tenure in Australia. H 'H 268 BONDS OF DISUNION. I'i > IN ;ii I Memorandum on the Disposal of Lands in the Australian Provinces.' Tl,e disposal of lands in the Australian <-olomcs has become a mtter of s„d .mp„rt«.ce, not only to the colonies themselve Jut , the people of the United Kingdom, that any information on he s„^ ject derived from authentic sources must, it is presumed C^nouZ', of interest to Her Majesty's Government ' •>"" or r,l' ''"Tl?" "! "'^ "■"* '" ^^''™'' "-^ >«»'J« »l'»»i'i Ije disposed of frU ttt : t tr ."^":°.^ "'."-P--^ «f them, is vei/distlnc nom that of .he way in which the money derived from the ^ale nf them shall be spent. On this latter qnesiion there is litU eirln portion of the proceeds ought to be spent m the importation of aboni^rs from the United Kingdom to the colonies. The d"™ that t should be so spent is certainly not less intense in New SouthWa es than m South Australia; whilst, on the other hand, the pretens L » b inj able to apply the gross proceeds of the land sales to t le p Zse sal TfTetTl ™; '"" "'""'"'' '"^ '^f-- °f "- -" originated. It might perhaps very fairly be even further argued ihat whilst the money derived from the sale of agricultural of ™ t ™ lands should be applied to the importation of later, he Cd derived from the sale of lands in towns should be app led t^Tuliic nortiZ;';, '"™^ '^7^'^''' '^^ """ -» i" '™ conntr/ m portion of the proceeds should be applied to the making of imds or the erection of places of worship; but this is a quesTon on the di^ cnssion of which it is not proposed at present to enter. The dfe methods m which lands may he disposed of may now be conlid reT reduced to two-one is that of sale by auction, the other ttat of di posing of them at a fixed price. in mi Tile """'"^ ""^ "■"""" "'"" "'■•°'l''«d into New South Wales This mmimum price was deci ledly too low • but «M11 lit*!., if „„ evil would have resulted from it if ,4 distii^ion etitn the n^ mum price and the upset price had been sulliciently p'rrved In practice, however, th e minimum pricej vas made almost' univer- ' Sir George Gipps lo Lord John Kiissell^cemlier 19, 1840. WAKEFIELDISM. ' IHE WAKEFIELD GAiMBLE.' 269 sally the upset price ; and such large quantities of land were brought into the market at that upset price, that there was a complete glut of it This glut was considerably increased, if not entirely occasioned, bv the pra'ctice of allowing land to be brought to sale on the demand of anv one who chose to apply for it, without even the precaution of forcing such person to buy it at the upset price, if no one oflFered more. i j i. x- Under such circumstances the laud seldom produced at auction more than 5s. per acre, and the impression became general in the colony that the Government did not desire to get more for it. \t a trial in the Supreme Court in 1830, it was even deposed that the Government officer under whose direction the sales were conducted had declared that the Government did not wish to get for it a higher mice than 5s. per acre. ' In 1839 the minimum prico was raised to 128., and the practice introduced of varying the upset price according to the presumed value of the land, making it, as a general rule, from 10 to 20 per cent, less than the last selling price of land of the same quality and in the same locality ; and in the Port Phillip district, land was only brought to sale at the discretion of Government, applications from individuals not being- received or attended to. Under this improved system, the rise in the price of land was very rapid, and the productiveness of the land sales proportionally m- The average price of all land sold in the old parts of the colony ^vas, in 1838, 5.. 7id. ; in lb40, 1/. Os. C^rf. In the Port Phillip district, the average of all lands was— £ s. d. 17 n 2 12 10 In 1838 In 1840 The total amount of land sold was, in the old parts of the colony- In the year 1838 . . • 278,508 acres. And in 1840 .... ^■i»S68 „ and in the Port Phillip district— 1838 38,694 acres. 1840 ®-'®^^ » I'lifflli 270 BONDS OF DISUNION. i! o o H A ?-. a y. H CO . CO o I'. •* o 00 I-' #1 rC UO OS ««■ H* C5 <» 00 00 O lO C T-^ J 00 50 ■* 1>I 00 t>. lO '-H O 1-H § •H -H o" A l>. ^^ > 1— I «5 ;-H eo l> ^ 00 r-l CO (N rH (1 O (M 1(5 (M pjJO - Tfl lO I-* 1-1 rl «rt' CO 00 00 o CO CO CO 00 o w 1>1 eo eo '^ ^ r-t T-^ li 00 CO eo r-< rt eo ^ (M CO C0_^ 00 00 C5 -1 00 oo*" OS OS CO «o QO" CO CO 05 » (N (N l>. Oo" (N 03 00 00 CO 00 CO 00 00 CO 00 00 CO 00 05 eo 00 o 00 iCuo[oo 8^.1 ud p[o djIUqj 1J0J WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD In explanation of this return, it is, perhaps, proper to observe that the rise in the minimum price of country land from os. to \2s. pro- duced for a time an indisposition on the part of the public to purchase such land, and that a great deal of money which might otherwise have been laid out in the purchase of ordinary land came to be in- vested in town allotments ; in fact, a sort of rage for speculation in town allotments ensued, the consequence of which was the great in- crease in the price of them that is shown in the return. _ Tlie practice of selling land at a fixed price was introduced m South Australia in 1836 or 1837, and the system was based upon a theory of which the leading points appear to be— 1. That there is some assignable ratio between land and labour, and that therefore the price of land should be regulated by the cost of conveying labourers to the country where the land is situated. 2, That the occupation of land should be made difficult, instead of easy, in order to ensure the combination of labour, and to prevent the dispersion of the settlers ; also to prevent persons from becoming proprietors or cultivators on their own account who properly belong to the class of labourers. 3 That in order to secure the early cultivation of good land, or, in other words, to secure the cultivation of lands in the order of their natural advantages, all land should be disposed of at the same The South Australian plan of disposing of lands was moreover marked with two pecuUar features, which contributed greatly to make it acceptable to persons intending to emigrate from the United King- dom •, one was the system of special surveys, the other the disposal of building allotments in new towns by means of a lottery or raffle, the tickets of which lottery were given gratuitously, or next to gra- tuitously, to the purchasers of a certain number of country acres. The first of these inventions secured very great advantages to early settlers. The second added to the attractions of the scheme some of that excitement which is produced in the human mind by gambling. That both acted powerfully in the first settlement of South Australia cannot be doubted; but as it is not proposed to introduce either of them at Port Phillip, it may be, perhaps, concluded that they are no longer to form a part of what is called the South Australian system. Nevertheless, in the settlement which has recently been formed on the South Australian principle at Port Nicholson, the same plan has been pursued : to each purchaser of 100 acres of land a lottery ticket was "iven, by which he had a good chance of obtaining a prize of a h^ 272 It: i_aii} \> i ] ) m \m I Jfi- BONDS OF DISUNION. tliouaandpounrla; indeed, it is assfirf..,^ nn i , orthopn..si„ this lotte;A vTa^,^^^.^,^^^ ^-^ 100/, to 1,000/. ^ '"''* ^'•' '^""^'^ varying from The invention of SDooinl snrvovu ™„„ . • , it IS well known in New Snnfl. W'^.i *i . , iVontace on anv vJr Z^^ ^^'^'^^^ 'I'atwJ.oever has the water <.a„k ;,■ a rive™;*: bCo 1 """ "T "' '""" «'»"^ "■" these f^. s,ua?e mil J i;'S, :r;;;;'';''''''''" "■'» 'l''"''"™'!"™. ^■■e than one mile of wa.e; fi„"C "''™ "'"' "'"' "'^°' When laud was no longer ixivena^vnxr K„f c 1 1 *i • fhe Government ™ eonsMem% " ,™d ,, ' " T''"""" ."' of a mile. ° *'"= '''""■ '" ""i «^'«"t at least at a!:zi; :.:'~:i:rx:; ir "• -:' '^ -* '' 384/. ; but for itood land „ fT ^ . , ^" ""'''' ''« ""'" P"? have lo pav at au^L^Valt X" '" "•"""' " "" '>'°'»''"''>-' , mi^lit get tl,o »ume e.Ylent of water frontage for 1«0(., or ho WAKKl'TELDISM. 'THE WAKKl'IELD GAMBLK.' 27:i niifjht hiiv(:t() pay for il ''>2i)/., ucconliiiff h.s his .spHcial survey had bfjen meaHurcd for huu by a friendly or uii friendly surveyor. In New South VVahss he would have to buy th«! whole square mile (A) ; in South Australia ho would liave to l)uy either the two sections ahutting on the river, as sliown in (I'.j, or the four, as shown in (( '), (A) CO (B) ~^- . - It iter ■AC la to cordinf^ as the surveyor had divided the land. In either (;a.'^e h^^ will g'et it cheapir than he could in New South Wales ; it wouhl therefore b minimum ])rjce of land was 5s., feel secured in their possession of it for years without purchase, now that the mini- mum price is raised to 12.v. per acre. The theory of forcing persons to cultivate, or even to occupy, lands in the order of their natural advantages, seems altogether to fail i-i Australia, where not the hundredth part of the land sold by the (Government is purchased with any intention of cultivating it, and where scarcely one acre in a thousand is cultivated of the laud that is occupied without being purchased. The Australian wool-grower or grazier cultivates very little, and desires to cultivate no more than is necessary to feed his herdsmen or heplierds ; bis great aim is to secure water, the scarcity of water being, as is well known, the great characteristic of tiie country. T nil M li -0^ ...ok ^, .V^a IMAGE EVALUATION TS3T TARGET (MT-S) 7 // <, .^^^<'. f??.' :/. ^ f/i ^ fA ^^^ 1.0 I.I 1.25 M 2.2 us U u ^ UUu us 1^ III 1.8 U lil.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation 4s, -iSa ^ ;V - --p'« : i-sew oouin v\ales. A person arnvino- in Npw Rnntv, Woi -., order for land fro. the'com.is.ione^s ^X^nd J^^t Tn prT tnneofgrattutous grants) arrived with an order for land f^om J Secretary of State ; also in the sa,.e situation that military and na ^ settlers were m up to the end of the year 1838, permission havinXn granted hem to select land at 6. an acre, precisely on the'sam grounds that it .s now proposed to give it to emigrants general v a 20... per acre-namely, that they might avoid the delay an! inconveni ence of wa.t„.g for an auction. So great, however, in eitir case Ws the de% winch usually occurred in their making their choice, that it wa found necessary to prescribe a limit within which thov were required to choose; and, though the period of four months w;s fixed as the limit, applications lor an extension of the time were very Irequent a d generall5^ complied with; whilst amongst military or navai settlers the practice of late became almost universal of selling their right of selection to persons who had more experience than themselves As It was with one class of men so will it be with the other , it is in wM^r^ °^;^'^"f .t^'^t ^' «^«"ld be 80, for the selection of a spot on which to hx for life IS a matter of too great importance to be done in from one or other of those difficu]ties it seems impossible to escape ; if small districts only of the colony be opened successively to purchasers at the lixed price of 1/. per acre, all the good land will be thought up by speculators on the spot ; if extensive districts be opened a new-comer must be so perplexed in making his selection that he will lo^e as much time or more than he would do if he had to buy at au.tion, where though he might be opposed, he would not be so hliely to be misled. If it be sought to meet this difficulty bv reserv- ing entire districts or parishes for settlers from the United Kin-dom, and by not allowing persons on the spot to select out of such parishes or districts, the regulation would be very easily evaded by the employ- ment ot agents in England ; and it may probably be pretty safely assumed that, however prudent, politic, wise, or ingenious may be the regulations laid down by the Commissioners in England, the specu- lators or land sharks in New South Wales will be ingenious enough to defeat them. ^ It may lurther here be remarked that it is by no means desirable WAKE^IELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' "277 for per-sons on their Brst arrival in Australia to become purchasers of land The settler who has only a few hundreds of pounds at com- mand will, in general, tind on his arrival that he was wrong ni think- ■afr to invest any portion of his capital in land, and his first endeavour will probably be to disembarrass hiuiself of his land order by selhn- it for what it will fetch. So long as land is rising in the market he will be able to sell it at a premium, and if land orders are to take pre- cedence according to their date, the buying of them will become a source of very profitable speculation. The newly-arrived emigrant may not be able to wait for his land, but the speculator, or land shark, can wait, and of course he will wait until land that he likes be opened ; if, on the contrary, the priority in choice be not in any way dependent on the piiority of date, then a real scramble will ensue, i)i which it ja also only reasonable to suppose that the experienced land shark will have an advantage over the inexperienced and newly-arnved emigrant; in fact the whole scheme seems, as Jt was before said, to be conceived in the delusion that it is possible by pny artificial means, such as regulations of Government, to put the one upon a par with the other. It has hitherto been p sumed, that the lands open to selection at a uniform price are to be limited to such quantities as may from time to time be proclaimed by the Government; also that no land is to be opened that is I'-Ot surveyed. . , ^ •„ If this be the case, a fresh source of pressui-e from without will be opened to the Government. Persona will not be content to buy refuse lands, as they wiU be called, after the best lots of any district have been culled out ; but the opening of new lands will be constantly demanded, and the authority of the Secretary of State will be adduced to prove that it is the intention o" Her Majesty's Government that nobody is to buy inferior land. , , ^ It may be reasonable to ask, will the local Government be strong or steady enough to resist such demands, and if not, will any survey- i„.r staff that can be sent out from England be strong enough to supply th^e demand? If- on the contrary, unsurveyed lands are to be open to selection, the Hiaotic confusion into which the colony will be thrown is beyond c -nception. <. ., A very large proportion of the land which is to form the new district of Port Phillip is already in the licensed occupation of the squatters of New South Wales, a class of persons whom it would be wrong to confound with tliose who bear the same name in America, and who are generally ^rsons of mern repute and of small means who have taken unauthorised possession of patches ot land. Amongst the squatters of New South Wales are the wealthiest of the land I ■Ml I 278 BONDS OF DISUNION, h Kn^land, officers of the ^LvTJI '^^ '""* ~""«i™« m greater :- ' ^ pobably the real quantity was much Sheep .... Horned cattle . Horses 1,334,503 371, COO 7,088 The number of acres in cultivation was also returned as 7 287 of which ou. squatter/are in the^lpn! ; '"^'^^^.^^^^^ ^" ^he lands their eat.,; ^l; CcetrtL t ZZlrl"' T" '''' ""'' ~ W t>.a. the, to the La^^^lt^ "^Ve- ""1 1 a;^ the... H . ..tr^ir^atLtrt t:tr:,rr; the squatters have at present no secured possession of tlWiT' taken fr»"t;;'ifh: t^'L;: o'r', -"■, r'-^"-^ "^ vanced nriop K nf fl,. i, "^ , ^° purchase them at an ad- to ;fpartLn"L^z^^^^^^^^^ r '^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^-« the Government would Itae" a t un n' t1 " ""^'"^' ''^* has been so Ion, in use, and tLt 'he li; ZZi:'Z: f''' i"^ to the Government the value of them 1 1 . "i "^"""' P"^'" (ifit be to extend to unsurveved a w"l ,f V "^^"T^'^^'^"^ unhappy squatter may see h^f land Id h . 1^"^^^^^^ ^^"^«> ^^^ ^Vo.n bim by his nearest nd^hb,^ o by i ^"7"'' "'""''' himself reduced to ruin, unles^ he can in hk t T '"^^^"^' ^"^ tl^ Will not e;en h^l^r^rclr " .^^o^^ the pubhc revenue is a gamer by his la«s. The lands for wh'ch iL WAI would (if al sold for twe The ma1 therefore, ca the new sys First. ' labour, ar.c! price at w profits devi proposition the folio wi] (luce from in the ratic must have cultivate 1 persons nii But th acres ough at once au tlie sufficic little. If the be sold fo may seem can bb jb It mij have a bl and any supplying therefore With land, wh cultivate part of 1 chased f Aust for upres Alio land pu: quired ^ same pi A s WAKEFIELDISM. ' THE WAKEFIELD OAMBLE.' 279 would (it allowed time to do «» willingly give 2W per acre, will be J,( for twentv shiUings tjefore he can look around him. ■,'he matter is of too great importance to be In.t.ly d.sm««d ; ,„er:fore even a. the risk of some ^petition, the principles on wh.eU ,l,„ npw system is founded must be again examined. Zt There is, it is said, some deflnable ratio between land and Kbou a- ^therefore the price of land rhould be regulated by be '^ee It v^hich labour can be supplied, in such quantity, t^ia. the ;Z deriv^d from land »'f J^^^^^^rnrvha't TfllrtZ I °or b,ra maximum quantity of pro- rcJtra;r;nanatyofiabou.t,at^l^^^^^^^^^^^ ■:rir,:: rgrrie^tX::; e^ : x. consequently, . persons must be sent from the ^"^^^^. ;" - .. therefore the 100 Tint the nassa^e of these people will cost 100/., thereiore lue i ,.r:^:l^Jo,dforloS.and.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ :LT«:;::°"r -rnrml^t: t^o much, anything less is too "'*'lf the assumed farts be true, the conclusion that no land should ,, M fL the nunjose of cultivation at a less price than II. per acre be sold f";\F»2'''; °'^^^ „„„, should be sold for more, if more may seem to 'f "''.■''''* 7'' ",,,„ .^^ so satisfactorily proved, can be obtained for it, docs "Ot «ni qu ^.^^^ ^^^ It »KUt be convenient t^^tbr^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^.^ „,i„Ubourho«l , . Without at aU qr''°r/noia) acres when that land is to be 't' tf it'ir^ -" nVtVrfperthat scarcely one-hundredth ;:a!:7;&':oid by the Oovemment in Australia la ever pur- X A fnr thft Tiurnose of being cultivated. . '""Ius«IlU isCe-itially a pastoral country, and must remain such for upres. . . , ^^ „^q^ ^q respect to rT'TZZ prrpt 0° li^^tion it remains to'^be in- ;':XtrL-cl!::"p':lof p.stor.l land w„uld be„pon the ""I'ittod in New South Wale, commonly takes care of ftom 280 BONDS OF DISUNION. r .'«''■! ' '^) to 1,000 sheep ; but as 600 are considerA,! .i, " Hock, no more tl.un GOO shall be assumed ! i "^'T' ""^^^ ^'^^ To obtain a maximum retu „ of 'oT T ""^'' ^'' '^''''^'' it is nece.ssary that an extenfof l/a roT J"'T 'l"" ''' «"^'^' acres for each flock, should be allowed """'^ '^''^' ""' ^^^OO The shepherd must have (or ouirht at le«.t f ^ i x .^equentlyit will be necessary to provide fL 7 *'''^ "" ""'^^ > ^«'^- from Europe, instead of oue Their n ^''f ^^ "^'^'^* P^''^^^^ consequentl^ughttobethrpricfoTthrToorc'^ T/','' ^^"^•'' tbre the sufficient price of lani is 4d. Z lore an!th "' ' *'""" 4^. IS too much; anythinglessthan J" tooli'tt? "^^ "'" ''''' By introducing different elements inf^ fi , ,' probability of either the a.ricu StVoTsl , r'^'""' ^"^' "« '''' well as wives, and by affording ~^^^^^^ Y'""' ^'l"'"" ^"^ ance of carpenters, blacksmith!, &e anTsL iw ^^'"" *^' "■^■^^^^- as well be called the sufficient pice'reVhr^ttor "^^''^ ^"'^^ eon •r;:utririt^ruM :i^^^^^^^^^^ - be market; and ahy attempt to cont" ; 1 .ro,^: r^'^ 'T'^ ^^ of things in the market was but latelv conJ d °^ "' '^'' ^"^"^ clearest principles of political economy! ^ "^ ''''''''' '' ^'- The lands at Port Phillip are now bouH.f .. t . . ing from 12.. to 500/. ; and^urely i^^ S' Tf f 1 ^''''' ''''^'- sona are found to buy them at sue . ^ , '"'^ ^^'^' ^^^" P^'" indiscriminately at 2il P^ces, they should all be sold Plad Port Phillip bef>n opened on the «nn+l, a . ,- loss would alreadv have been sustained of 1 "nnfv''° '^'*'"^' ^ which has been realised. If the recent Ordl' 1 Tl '"' '^ ''''''^^• without waiting for further instru:Z f^ m 1 1' V^ ^"^ f/'^^ a farther loss of 800,000/. and upwa^-ds 1 u ""7 ^^ ^^^''' -timate formed by the chief officers If he r"^^' '"'"''^^"^ ^*^ ^i- Wales, have been incurred in iX-bab y' tZr""' ^'^7 '""^' promulgation of the Oi-der. ^ " *^''^ ^^'^-^ ^^^^ the Amongst the numerous articles of which « ««« *o need, there are perhaps very few which it wo M !l '' '''"^' "^ advantage to have at a fixed prTc than 7 . T' ^' ""'"' ^'' ^^« tageous in any part of Austra^Vr a, ^fj;;. ^^^^'^V' ^^-"- become a proprietor of land, unless hLcUaTi;'. T^''"' '' It would be far more advantage's to 1 ?T"'' sheep or oxen at a fixed price or onjl% / t^^ '"PP^^^^ ^^^'^ price of his lodgings sho^M r:; r;ltr""^^ " '^'"^^^' ^^^^ The second great object of the South Australian system is to acres in c WAKEPJELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 281 ensure the cultivation of the lands in the order of their natural advantages ; and thia is supposed to be secured hy means of th»j uniform price. That the uniform price secures the appropriation of the test land first is pretty evident ; that it secures even the occupation of them is doubtful ; that it secures the cultivation of them is very much more than doubtful. If there be any great advantage in selling ail tlie good land first, then the system of special surveys ought not to be abandoned. It is true that the system requires the survey of 15,000 acres in order to secure the sale of 4,000 ; that it increases the dispersion of the agriculturists, and tlierefore renders combination or co-operation amongst them difficult; that it lays each small settler under the necessity of making a road for himself; but still it seems to secure the object of selling the best land first, and therefore it should, according to the new theory, be good. The third gr^at principle of the South Australian system is that of checking the dispersion of the settlers (and therefore at variance with special surveys, the tendency of which is to create dispersion), so as to enable them to combine their efforts ; and this is acknowledged as far as agricultural purposes are concerned t« be most desirable ; but Australia, it must be once more observed, is not an agricultural but a pastoral country, and dispersion is essential to its prosperity. Whatever the inconveniences (and without doubt they are many) which dispersion brings with it, the country must be content to bear with. In order to prevent dispersion the South Australian system pro- poses to put a high price u- on land when it is sold, and either to pre- vent the occupation of uns.^ld land (squatting) or to render such occu- pation difficult. That land should be sold at a high price, or at a much higher price than it forraerlv was, is equally tlio argument herein maintained as it is the argument of the South Australians. In fact, the main obiect of this paper is to ensure a higher price than can be obtained in South Australia by getting rid of the South Australian maximum, a fixed price being evidently a maximum, as well as a minimum. That the occupation of the unsettled lands of the colony should be rendered difficult instead of easy is a very ditierent proposition and a^ it is directly opposed to the squatting system of New South Wales, some further explanation of this latter system may be necessary. The occupation of the unsold lands of the (h-own was, probably, in the first instance made easy because the Government in the early davs of the colony scarcely thought it worth while to prevent it. Under i 1^' 282 BONDS OF DISUNION. the Has.v permissive occupancy thus introduc.dju.wever the flo< U and herd, of New South Wales now stray over an ertlt f Z:fs'^^''''-''^ -^^^ -y^:;:;ytTr\,:tTh: u^ hin tl «"^'^';-"-"^ -o"W not suffice to brin. them ba k H ithin the narrower hmits.^ One jrreat advantage fpossiblv an^. J seen one, which has grown out of this system fs rafp io ' m^^^^^ money beyond the boundaries, with which they afterwal Tur chase land w.t^.n them. The desire to be possLedTa trdon of the sohd globe IS strong in all men ; and the additional in'porta^c; which IS given to a man in New South Wales, as elsewhere, b7w ranked ^s a lauded proprietor is found quite sufficient to ensu e the sate of land faster than in all probability it could be sold if the price to be paid or It were not produced on the land itself. AnoSer 1" aclvan age of this extensive system of authorised oquatt'ng Ts that the flocks and the herds of New South Wales ha^t "eased under it to a degree that is almost unprecedented. The older ettl- ments have under it, become the hive from which swarms of sh en and cattle hav, been driven, to give a value to the lands of Pen PhUhp and South Australia which, without them, would to this da^ have been an unprofitable wilderness. " avoid ihettr^T ""^Z^ ^"'i" ''^^''^ ^""^^^^ ^°"*^ A^^tralia to nioie than Swan River, it is principally, if not solely, because it is nearer to New South Wales. The enterprising colon stsX fir redtVclnTr:!^^^ ''^''^'' '-^' --- of unt r, f ''' '' 'r^^'' "^"^'^' ^^^'"^^^ ^-"^^^ ^ -tt^-ne t' services To' G TlT^ "' ^''' ^^"1%' - ^ow rendering similar Zealand. '"^ '''""°^ '° ^'^' *^" islands of New Before this paper is brought to a conclusion, it will be necessary to say a few words on the subject of town allotments tn 2^ 7f "^^ P^*" in South Australia was, as has been observed, let'ri J 'f tf' I '''™- ""'^ ^"^ '^^" ^^^^" "P = -<^ - -der to get rid of the embarrassment which the disposal of them in any other way (except tne prohibited one^auctio^Q^vo^ occasion, they are • Mr E. G. Wakefield, when examined before a Committee of fliP House of Commons in 1836, said, in answer to Question Z 634 ^Thl he considered it not more difficult to prevent squatting in the Colonies than It IS to prevent it in the Principality of (Old) Wales ' WAKEFIELDISa. ' THE WAKEFIELD SAMBLE.' 28D ,0 te got rid of altogether; in other words, the formation of »U Lor towns is to he left to private enterprise As *■' " " f ""^ "^ the natural order of things, and to the way m wh^h most owns m the Old World have been formed, the proposal .s objectionahk only u, as far as it tends to reduce the average priee of lands and conse^nent^v lessen the revenue derived from the sale of land m the colony It has already been shown, that in the old parts ol New South ^^ ales, thou<.h the average price of country land was only for the year 1840 \l\id. per acre, the general average of all knd was, by means of town allotments, brought up to 20a. ejd. . • . j^ .„ m the new districts of New South Wales, U is not mtended en- tirely to do away with Government towns, though very &'' »« Z"^! founded, and such only as are liliely to become the seats of d^trict °*t t^e t"owns land is to be sold at 100(. per ^re, whilst beyond the town the uniform price is to be U. per acre. Whatever limits, therefore, may be assigned to the town, here must be a boundary within which aU land .s to be sold at lOOi. per Tor and beyond it at U. per acre. A state of things wdl therrfo«, Te produced somewhat of the same nature as would arise "■ If"!"", i/a' guWion could by possibility he enforced that " J^f^* Hvde Parli Corner should be sold for the one-hundredth part oi the ;^ce of land in Piccadilly, and that all the land east ot Hyde Pa^h Oorn.,r,from Piccadilly to St. Giles s, should be sold at the same P™«- I have, &c. Sydne,: Doc. 19. mo. (Sig-a) G. GiPPS. To attempt to concentrate the population of a new^°l°"y within narrow artificial limits is to endeavour to mflict the most serious injury upon the young <=°7"™5 , ^^J'^^n duction from the liberty of man as a free agent is, in an economica sense, a diminution of his power; and to restram heltoal enterprise of colonists by contog then- action wUhin limited bounds is to minimise working power oy^ ventmg energy trom having the free scope which, m the o « coins' of events, would develop it to the highest extent. The mere effort at concentration is well calculated to repre the natural inclination to wander far afield in the tope of bettering one's condition-an inchnation w"d..t un- restrained will in all certamty he productive of the best 284 BONDS OF DISUNION. if results. Forced concentration obli.'es tliP m„r« „„i • • portion of the settlers to .-elinquisirthe ' v~ TS priatmg the most fertile land within their reach in oT, secure the real or supposed benefits of conme'Xn It oHV " the pioneer to war with the wilderness amund an< to k ever enlarging the area of settlement, u' t7ponuhti " ^ crept close to its restricted boundary, a ul t egS " Z proximity of a vast uninhabited territory to uXTtf Z experience of an old and over-peopled SUte "Sb t """ »^d«cea to be the slave of a certain s.t of regulations deved with a vew to curb Ins enterprise and activity and to destrov hissense of self-reliance by the exercise of his capabil tie be „' made dependent upon Government direction; and Urns State vacllatmn, mcompetency, and hesitancy are substituted fo individual energy founded unon tl.o ,„i, - """■""uiea tor self-interest. whoiesome mstmcts of »nd?""Vf-'' "" ""*°'""' ^''"^ ^•''»'''' t''^ «<^«Ier works, and to make him put up with a less fertile instead of a more fertile machine is to diminish his productive power. The con l:"ucte^;ower " '^"'' ™' ''"'-'-' '» ^'~*^ It is strange indeed that so vigorous and acute a thinker as Gibbon Wakeiield should have advanced so palpab y erroneous a heory as that artificial concentration of coloni t^ could be productive of other than most disadvantageous on sequences. I, is still harder to conceive how, with his varied colomal experience and great critical ability, he could ever have reasoned himself into the belief that forced coneentrabn people. '" " ' "'''"""• " ' ^""^ ^°"P°^^^ °f fr™ A certain amount of herding round a common centre there will always be amongst every people and in every locality under the sun so soon as mankind has advanced a stlp-brod tl pas oral stage, and has begun to recognise the advantag"s derivable from combination and division of labour ; and day / u\^\ gregarious tendency more prominently asserts Itself. But, together with this natural process of concentration! WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 285 an overflow of population is surely dispersing itself further and further from the common centre ; for natural concentration is in itself the promoter of dispersal. Dispersal is a con- sequence, and if checked, the concentration becomes forced and unhealthy. It was to prevent this natural overflow that Wakefield directed his efforts. It need never be feared that any considerable number ot persons m a new colony will acquire the habit of wandering far or at all, beyond the bounds of location, so as to place themselves out of the reach of markets. Some men there are, of the celebrated Daniel Boone type, who, for reasons ot their own endeavour to interpose a wide intervening margm between themselves and civiHsation, but neither do they count lor any- thing in the economical life of a nation, nor are they amenable to laws intended to regulate the more settled society. It was not in truth, against the wanderings of men r idi as these tliat Wakefield directed his ' concentration * policy, but his was a subtler, if an equally visionary, aim. He had seen capital lying idle and valueless for want of labour to give it vitality, and he hastily lumped to the conclusion that labour should be bound down as a servile handmaid to capital. In his view, if labour were confined within a definite area, capital would be attracted to it and so the greatest development would be aflorded to local resources. He thought that the convenience oi capita- lists ought alone to be consulted, and that labour was to be regarded as the mechanical tool of capital. In accordance with his theory he devised a fantastic set of rules providmg for the introduction into his ideal colony of capital and labour in certain whimsical quantities, pre-arranged as ' due propor- tions ' To ensure the ' due proportion,' it was necessary to have a ' sufficient price ' for laiid-a price just eno-agh to pre- vent the labourer from leaving his employer m order to settle on a block of his own, and just enough to allow of the sum naid for any block being exactly equivalent to the cost ot im- porting the right amount of labour to work the purchased land in the most efficient manner. He attempted, m short, to organise that of which no organised plan is possible out- side the limits of a State bound over at once to slavery and I m ;-4 286 BONDS OF DISUNION. h i: fci l»'< ::4 despotism ; where prices, wages, and the whole social existence of a community may be predetermined by the undisputed fiat of a meddlesome absolute ruler. The truth is that this careful elaboration of ideas uas due to an extraordmary co.xfusion of thought which, in Wakefield's case, must have proceeded rather from persistent attachment to a cherished prejudice than to his perception of a balance of reason m its favour. If, he thought, capital was being wasted lor want of labour, it must follow that labour was suiferinc from absence of capital. There was a reciprocal action between the two, a co-relation, which rendered the operations of the one profitless without the aid of the other. Therefore, he argued, that as capital might employ many labourers, while impecunious labourers could not employ the capital which they had not got, capital was necessarily the more valuable member of the co-partnership, and that consequently its possessors ought to be p,ut into the position of being able to use it to tlie best advantage for themselves. The theory when worked out came to this -that a new colony ought from its earliest founda- tion to be handed over to the fostering care of speculative capitalists. To enter into the questions so vehemently disputed be- tween rival schools of economists as to the relations between capital and labour, or to argue for or against the strongly- held but as strongly-reprobated creed that wages are in- variably advanced out of capital, is foreign to my immediate purpose. Without trending on that debatable ground, it may be observed that in a virgin territory the chief, at first the only, means of producing wealth is by physical toil. Hardy labourers, inspired by the stimulus to exertion arising from the conviction that they are working for their own individual benefit, are the colonists who, in the first stages of settlement, are best fitted for mnking the most of tJie material resources' of the colony, (h'adual development, gradual settlement, form the elements of t)ie society into which capital naturally flows to give direction and cohesiveness to the efforts of the labourer. Capital tlien sets itself to attract labour as the only means of acquiring for itself a value ; and so in the WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 287 earlier stages of the formation of a society we find the capitaUst seeking for labour rather than labour seeking for capital. The first developing power is labour ; and therefore to commence the process of settlement by placing it in forced subordination to ca.pital is to discourage the immigration of labourers, and at the same time to place labour in a position in which it can afford no aid to capital except as a fettered, and consequently a more or less miwillmg, inefficient agent. On the other hend, to encourage the expenditure of capital on a virgin soil before the work of the labourer has laid the foundation of future prosperity is merely to court the operations of ' land sharks,' who make no effort to cultivate or improve the land, but who use their capital for purely specula- tive purposes. The more encouragement there is given to the latter course— and it is the only course certain to resnli from the plan of giving over a new colony to capitalists— the more speedy and overwhelming will be the ruin of bona fide settlers. Let us summarise the leading propositions advanced by Wakefield on these points. First we are told ' that the pros- perity of new colonies depends mainly upon the abundance ot available labour at the command of capitalists in proportion to the extent of territory offered ; ' or, to adopt Menvale's rendering of the proposition, ' that it is desirable to provide colonists requiring land with a greater supply of labourers to work on their own account than their capital would naturally attract.' I have tried to show, in the foregoing pages, that the pros- perity of new colonies is dependent upon exactly opposite considerations ; and if Merivale's translation is the true rendering, it is hardly necessary to say more than that capitalists could never be provided with an amount of labour beyond the attracting power of their capital, unless the labour was forced and the country reduced to a state of slavery- contingencies which Wakefield certainly did not contemplate as desirable.^ > Of course Wakefield never really meant to initiate slavery as the principal ieature of hia model colony ; but it is not easy to see how a M '; BONDS OF DISUNION. The second proposition is ' that this abundanoP of ^.u IS to be secured by introducing labourers from fl ^"' country and other well-peopled reLrionsardh. t ''''^^'''' keep them in the condLn of laborer^ some considerable time.' ^ ^^ '^^""« ^^' Taking the two propositions together wp fin,i fi . equilibrium is to be established between the Ln it fl 'l purchased, the amount of capital seeking erpoymen Ind capital. If labour would not be emnloved ihar. u . ! fo.ed into e.„p,„,.ent, an,, ,et the ^^1^ .^ Ztl agent The single proposition thus formed seems as intricate a difficult of correct statement, and as impossible of beilg piact cally apphed, as could well be desired It is a problem for which there is no apparent solution but rejection! foi each step 111 Its examination is beset with increasing difficiilty 1. human beings were mere implements of trade to h» stored up ready for future use against the call of he all power ul capitahst, and to be put aside as inanimat too s «*en the work expected from them had been accomplished 01, to put 1 m another way, if a number of human be m/s' mcapable of acting or thinkmg for themselves, w re to te forced to emigrate and to give their services to Miy capitalist who might come forward, the possibility might be iwfn2, oi estabhshing the e.uilibriuni between latd 1 boui 'a„1 he advent of new comers without capital, but gifted with aa on, a„d allowed unrestrained power of access to fertile and e sily available lands. The equilibrium would thent mimediately disarranged, and beneficially so for the co ony or can any one doubt that the labour of these free immTJr ft ' would, ma brief space of time, yield far more valuable C Inrfr^larr'™"' '''''-'- -^i-ationol^S ready-made labour force for capitalists can be formed and ,.„,-.. • i in a npw muntt-^ „ -t' -i lumiea ana mamt.iinpd WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 289 If, then, immigrants are to be introduced just in propor- tion to the wants of capitaUsts, it follows that no immigrants should be allowed to come in, in excess of the proportionate number, for fear of disarranging the equilibrium. That is, the supposed wants of capitalists and not the real requirements of the colony are alone to be provided for. Again, as the labourers obtained and planted on the land, in pursuance of the system, were not to be prevented from land prospecting after a certain time, there was every chance of capitalists losing the services of their labourers ajler that time. The funds for the introduction of labourers, so far as any one man's land was concerned, have been exhausted ni bringing on his land the labouring immigrants first placed on it, and who have now, we will suppose, left him. If he could not afford to get more labour himself out of his private resources, he would probably find himself with an estate which, in view of the contingency of his labourers leaving hnn at the end of the ' certain time,' he had worked to its utmost producing power, and which consequently now required more labour than ever if it was to afford him a living at all. The chances of his being able to get labour out of his private re- sources were at least doubtful, for the ' certain time ' allowed— two or three years— was probably not more than enough to give him a partial return of his expended capital, even under the most exhaustnig mode of cultivating the soil. It is hkely enough that he would, instead, claim a fresh supply of labourers as an obligation due to him from the State, and that a number of men combining to make such a claim would procure its concession-at the expense of the community. Thus the system of ' State aid,' or ' protection ' to the landownmg capitalist, would be further extended. ^ , , . The other alternative before him was to buy fresh and further afield and to leave his first purchase neglected behind him This, if ' protection ' was withheld from him, would be the alternative nearly every fresh settler would be forced to choose unless his land had been so ren .rkably prolific ot produce, and his produce so capable of being exchanged under altogether exceptionally favourable circumstances, during the u lU; n 290 BONDS OF DISUNION. ti I', •certain time ' as to have left him a large surplus of av<.iI»M funds wherewith to procure fresh laboLrs to «P ace t ! who had deserted him. Again, another alternative was th he should submit to be taxed for the purpose of iml to " tresh labour; but the experience of the history of new colonfe^ only shghtly peopled does not favour the supposTtion tl dn-ect taxation would be endured. The positi^'t ^f «^' vast majority of landowners would be this-they wo dd nol be able to import fresh labour from their private salgs he natural increase of population to the colony during fl e certain time ' would be totally insufficient to supply gaps m labour occasioned on the whole aggregate of nro perties ; and their owners could not afford, or would refuse' to be taxed directly to the full extent that would be requhS If a fresh supply of labour was to be imported. So tl ev would have to disperse to fresh fields, repeating a sin lar process so Ipng as they had endurance enough to .ut up with :o:crXn.''"'^ '''''''-' ^^-'^ ^^ ^--^ - ^--^ o' There are, of course, other means of procuring a fresh labour supply, of which th« most obvious one is by raistog a later^on"" ''"'"'"'' ''"'^ ""' ""^°^ ™" ^ ^'^^^^^ot Even in the oldest and most settled countries, an equili- hnum between land, capital, and labour, such as Wakefield and Colonel Torrens based their prtociples upon, is a term ,vithout a meannig For such an equilibrium to be possible, land, apital and labour must bear a certato fixed and constan ratio to each other so that any one of them can always be ex- pressea m terms of each of the others ; but that is a conditimi which never has existed, nor ever can exist, so long as fresh labour mcreased efficiency of labour, or an extens.L of Z held of employment, daily produce fresh wealth capable of employment as capital. '^ Wealth is the product of the development by labour of nf 'l«K~nnv fi ■ ! . ^^ '"'^''^ Unlettered is the action ot labour, the greater is the production of wealth. The less ^ free scope of wealth furnisiies \ else of sp channels, from the i between tl becorpe th to a large presented to constiti Be th other and plan of tl capitalist, Thep expense i capitalist local res( self-inter capable c the prosj productic supply fc colony fc attracted botn fre( land— tb worth tb fered \vi1 felt by colony > to the c; stant su country, renderec class, ai for exar I WAKEFIELBISM. *THS WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 291 free scope there is for labour, the smaller will be the amount of wealth produced. Capital is that portion of wealth which furnisiies the power of combining the operations of labour, or else of specialising and subdividing labour into particular channels, and so of procuring a larger remuneration for itself from the mcreased efficiency it gives to labour. The relation between the two, then, and between land which has not, as yet, become the subject of rent, is that of parallel and aUied forces to a large extent mutually interdependent ; but it is not re- presented by the balance between opposing forces necessary to constitute an equilibrium. Be the technical argument worth what it may, there are other and more serious objections to be advanced against the plan of the compulsory subordination of the labourer to the capitahst. -^ i wi The plan am.ounts to a f oposal to ' protect capital at the expense of labour ; that is, to hicrease the profits of the capitalist by preventing labour from applying itself to develop local resources under the far-seeing stimulus of individual self-interest. The effect of such a restriction, if it were capable of being enforced in a new colony, would be to retard the prosperity of the young society, by preventing the natural production of infinite wealth, in order to locahse a labour supply for the capitals from time to time introduced into the colony for purposes of speculation. But labour would not be attracted to a country where it was forcibly locahsed, because boin freedom of action and the hope of acquiring a block ol land— the two chief incentives to the emigration of labourers worth their salt-would be, to say the least, considerably inter- fered with • and also because of the distrust that would be felt by the would-be emigrant labourer m the future of a colony whose first legislation was in favour of ' protection ' to the capitahst. Ergo, the plan which would ensure a con- stant supply of labour to the capitalist would necessitate the country where such a state of things was contemplated, being rendered unpopular with the best individuals of the workmg class, and would require a staff of forced labourcrs-convictB, for example-to be recruited in order to satisfy the require- u2 m 292 BONDS OF DISUNION. it s' , i i i; ..lents of caprtalmt.. So we come back again into the vicious c, cle of slavery m some form or otl.er if a country is to , at ts busmess witli an established ready-made equilTbrti between land, capital, and labour. "qa.iibnum In the longest-settled countries it is quite impossible tc strike even a proportion between capital and labour de hn.te ly. The ratio between the two is always a varyrone" «nd this no one could see more clearly than did Wakefiel j amse f vhen he prominently put forward the proporiS that the rate of wages is regulated rather by the eLnsio, ° c'ontractjon of the field of employment than'by :„;„":!: or actual proportion between capital and labour. He rq'eeS he idcaof a^™;,ort.„„, but he schooled himself into behef ,, n equilibrium although equilibrium must of necessity b .(■-■pendent on adjustment of proportion be thit''!!!" ^''t;* """; ?'' ""'^ P°^^"^'^ """"'"^i™ «<«">« to Wt lout ''1"''.'^'™°V ''^'*^«i capital and labour is a term uthout a meamng,and that the 'most convenient propoi m, ifm or w, 'f "'■'''"'' .° f '""i^l' a proportion, an equi- librium or what you will, by previous regulation is to demolish he whole basis of natural formafion on which wo^ CO ?^".^-"""^ "*■ '^'"f^ ("--i-couU alone e would conclude this portion of the discussion by remarking tliat If It IS impossible to establish, by previous arrangement lupossible to pre-arrange one between land, capital and S^Vaitrrbo?^ "'^ — ^ »'■ "'^ — ^^ Unless then, forced labour is resorted to, the supply of abourers in a new country where capital is ' protected ■ is Lkely to prove insufficient and inefficient. Under the e circmns ances the introduction of masses of capital is certain most\t:d1 '■"■]'" l'"" '=™^^^™""- "-' ^»"« nost wished to avoid. Fur the capitalist, unable to fnd abour when he bought land, would do so merely as a Leu later m its prospective value. He would buy the best lands m contiguity to the centre of settlement, 'and e wol WAK enfleavour give liim a land as ' v means of < or the grei their lands the bona J self. Sett rule with immediate pm'poses life-blood wish to se away froi would be But tl \vould be by leavini the dispel Dispe considera result thi possessec area bet"w would b( cultivatoi likely occ their Ian new pure be dimin profit wc therefore fresh imi basis, wi would til to the h commun It is in WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 293 enfleavour to keep it out of the market until his resale would give him a large profit. In the meanwhile he would keep his ianfl as ' waste,' uncultivated, unimproved, and without any means of communication across it. The longer he so kept it, or the greater the numbers of capitalist purchasers who kept their lands in this state, the further would it be necessary for the bona fide settler to go in order to find a block for him- self. Settlers of limited means, but who, as is the invariable rule with new colonists, have resolved upon acquiring land immediately on arrival— not for speculative purposes, but for purposes of cultivation and residence— these men, the very life-blood of the young settlement, must, if they would really wish to settle down and develop the riches of the soil, go far away from the common centre ; and thus again dispersal would be promoted instead of concentration. But this would be a forced, not a natural dispersal, and it would be effected in the most expensive way for the colony, by leaving interposed an uncleared, unroaded area between the dispersed cultivators and their market. Dispersal, as has been said, will never proceed on any considerable scale beyond the range of markets ; so it would result that when the best land outside the uncultivated area possessed by speculators had been taken up, the value of the area between outside cultivation and the centre of settlement would be greatly increased by the demand of would-be fresh cultivators, unless new markets had grown up mland-an un- likely occurrence. The speculators would then be able to sell their land at enormous profit, and that, to the injury of the new purchaser, whose pecuniary means for cultivation wouhl be diminished by just the extra price paid for his land. This profit would go into the speculators' pocket, and would not, therefore, be available to the State for the purpose of procuring fresh immigrants. The introduction of capital on a favoured basis without provision made for a staff of forced labourers, would then have resulted in forced dispersal, in great gam to the land shark, and in incalculable economical loss to the community. It is possible enough that Wakefield foresaw these conse- 294 i BONDS OF DISUNION. quences, and that it was with a view to avoid them that he endeavoured to provide labour on a quasi-compulsory footing But he did not see that compulsion would be ineffectual in a new country unless supported by a complete system of slavery ; a.id as he did not contemplate or provide for that every detail of his plan broke down utterly and hopelessly- t\Tknf ' '''''"^ ^'"'''^^' ""^ ''""'^' '"'*'^^ ""^ ^'^"^ '^^^>^' The reign of the capitalist was to be secured by a ' sufficient price ' being put upon land. The sufficient price was to be one that would answer two conditions. First, it was to pre vent the premature purchase of land by individuals of the labouring class ; second, it was to be a price that would enable the purchaser of land to command the necessary quan- tity 01 labour. In old countries, the purchase price which land bears is regulated by the capitalised amount of its rental value over a short period of time. The yearly rent derivable from the land IS a thing that it is comparatively easy to estimate trom time + ^ time. But, at best, the value so taken is but an arbitrary one, and does not hold good for periods of any considerable length. Even in the oldest and most settled countries rent varies from day to day, according to improve- men s m existing modes of production, according to th- development of some new centre of industry, to discoveries ot mineral wealth, to increased facilities for exchange and to numberless other causes. Whatever basis of valuation may be taken is therefore, even there, evidently a very shifting one. ^ But the value of wild land in a new colony is, properly speaking, nothing. The purchaser only hopes that by the apphcation of labour and capital it may be rendered otherwise, lo endeavour to make its price suffice for the two objects in view must, then, be either to ignore its value altogether by placing on it a price fixed without reference to the supposed value of the land, or to fix an arbitrary value for the lan^ for ail time, without having any guide to indicate what its present value may be. The only rough test that could be given- namely, tl was forbid the price 1 described. This \\ tion that i certain ni] taking as sary to pr Now I no such a cover su( requisite capabiliti and varia affect, nc tions; tc to do. Furtl is perha appareni follows : land mu that, an of labou to culti"\ induced as to tl presumi worth ( landow portion serious suffiiie: much 1 waging import Th If 1i»»£ WAKEFIELDISM. * THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 295 namely, the average price bid for land over a period of time- was forbidden by the system, so it is necessary to suppose that the price fixed referred merely to the attainment of the objects described, and not at all to the value of the land. This was actually the cas^. Proceeding on the assump- tion that a certain number of labourers were required for a certain number of acres, Wakefield fixed his sufficient price by taking as a basin the quantity of labour presumed to be neces- sary to produce the best working results. Now nothing is more certain than that Nature permits ot no such ascertained proportion of labourers to acres. To dis- cover such a proportion, even approximately, it would be requisite to gauge accurately qualities of soils, as well as the capabilities of every individual labourer, climatic mfluences and variations, and every circumstance that might m any way affect not only land cultivation, but general mdustrial opera- tions '; to do, in short, what no one in hir, senses would attempt ^"^ Further argument against so impossible a systematisation is perhaps not called for. The weakness of the theory is apparent enough from the mere statement of it. It is as follows — ' The quantity of labour necessary for a.n acre ot land must determine what is the sufficient price for that acre ; that, and no other price, is to be given for it, and the quanti y of labour by which the price is determmed must be imported to cultivate that acre.' The labourers are to be forced, or induced, to stay on that particular acre, and as nothing is said a to the rate of wages to be paid in such a case, it may be presumed that Wakefield did not think the question of wages worth consideration. It might well be however, tnat the landowner called upon to receive a number of labourers pi o- portioned to his acreage would regard .^^g^-P^^^S ^^^ serious light ; for his IL per acre-supposmg that to be tiie suffinentpric;-would involve not only the acquisition of so nuch laii, but also the obligation o^/-^-^' r:"f,i:f, waging the ' proportionate ; amount of human flesh and blood '''''Z'X^^onMen.. to take of what ought to.be a mimi : i* 296 BONDS OF DISUNION. ' ) . I .»■' Tl.is could only be ascertained b^ lie at „„bl c "'l ^'"^^ able, and if the ' sufficient ' price theory is still inshtll n ' pnee fixed should be based on the a-h-isab 1 1; f " a ^ settlement as ast and as far as the natural condition rf! . country will allow of with bon&fide settlers ■ as also Ll v.ew of collecting a revenue, from sales of l^nd ' £; ^^ "preluir «Penses of government and ofo^S This was the view afterwards taken bv the mnrp r..^ i section of colonial legislators, who in advoVatlLH Led':^' iorm pnce system were desirous of seeing it In operate " because they bdieved that it would induce laboui.rmro become purchasers of land, and would at the same tirne dis courage the land speculations of capitalists. To the n J capitahst, Wakefield's delight, was ar, object of ave s on I donotmamtam that the colonists, if tl.ey had adited'the proposed system, would have succeeded in discoml,tg land jobbmg and encouraging settlement, but it is a cutiou X nsfa.uct,ve commentary upon Wakefield's line of rlaS that, although the system was, in fact, Wakefield's own he Xr wlfieM ,''7f'.'''"""'™''"^''PP-^d *° each other Wakefield wished for it in order to encoura™ land because they believed it would be the readiest means of putting stringent laws devised to check him '""'"''^"^ '" ^^^^^»g the most WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 207 The Wakefield colonisers were in too great a hurry. They wanted to establish in new colonies an exact reproduction of the economical condition of old countries. In the Old World, capital was a more gainful possession than in the New, because it could always command an unfailing supply of cheap labour ; therefore it was supposed that capital could be made vastly more profitable in the Colonies if labour could there be secm-ed to it. Undoubtedly so ; but the ' if was a fatal bar to the theory. • The relations between capital and labour, at home, were tlie results of gradual growth over a period coeval with that of the life of the nation itself ; and to import those relations, m the shape of regulations, was to attempt to supersede the pro- cess of natural development by clapping the oldest head on to the youngest shoulders, in the hope of its fittmg there. , Naturally it did nothing of the sort. A country must go through many initial stages of adversity before it can attain to the height of prosperity fondly imagined by Wakefield as its necessary starthig-point. Any eflorts to anticipate the evolutionary process by previous regulation ot the grandmotherly despotic type must ultimately delay the attainment of prosperity just in proportion as it forces it on for a time. Supposing labour had been compulsorily concen- trated within defined limits in servitude to capital m Melbourne or even on the squatters' runs (if capitahsts had been allowed to squat anywhere-a license hi opposition to the strict theory, but permitted as a supplement), when would the^old dis- coveries liave taken place ? and for how long would the rush of population consequent on these discoveries have been delayed '> Nay, would not the rapid development of Melbourne itself have been sensibly retarded, the settled districts them- selves prevented from progressing, and cultivation limited to a very small area ? , , i-, •, # The example of South Australia has shown the danger ot accumulating immigrants on a newly-occupied spot to find employment, instead of encouraging them freely to disperse until an effective demand for labour stimulates a certain degree of concentration. ill; 298 BONDS OF DISUNION. ' It was from the coiwiction of tli» ,i;a^ u i. be exelusivel, appropriated to immi^ ^npl " ^'rajt' preven tl.e poorer immigrants from at,,„iri„g'a7om 1'^ '^'r t e »oil on too easy terms, and from becLning occuml ,^ ::■ ^:rL.:2 ^"™" -^ "^^ -•*- »-" ritt to Je;Str/m'mrr" "" -"'^""™^^— -, 1. Tl.at tl,e prosperity of the Colonies mainiy depends nnon te abundance of available labour at the command of TpT tahstsm proportion to the extent of territory occupied *" i. That tins abundance is to be secured by introducing labourers fi-om outside, and taking care to keep thZ in H " eon Uion of labourers living by wtges. for"sotT con ma": Trrre";:s " ™ " """ '""'' .^"-'^'"g *° C'olonel tl,„f' 'j;''*'*'',"?.'"""''"™'^ '■■<"" "'^ sale of new land is thefun^doutof winch the cost of introduch.g them is be:! i. That the most convenient way of preventing them from Sender;' V"" "" •'™''"*^^° of Ibourers'intoTh "" high pric^" '™''''™'''^ "• '» ^^" «'« '"n-J =•* a sufficiently be devoted to the purpose of obtaining immigrants" and that only by devotmg the wLc, and not anv portion S slcured ''" ''™"' ''*""' ■' '^^ ■''•"'"'• -d -P"al"e 6. That the sale of land should be at a fixed uniform price r^ctior ^""""'^ ""'^ "" "'"^''™»' """ "«' "y 7. (Which is not necessarily connected with the others, and ,s rather a dednct.on than a principle.) That this system ' Merivale on Colonisation, Lecture XIX. WA] will tend Inconveni colonies. Thep system, o tlie chain This the virgi Imperial for the c( tuted to manager to be ap] No s] 50,000^. fmid, foi of found powered colonial coilaters The support: money i ever, th an unb] Only 3{ when facilitie securit; the ger any on land fu Th to me( whole leal bi WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 299 !« will tend to concentrate the population and to check that Inconvenient dispersion which is apt to take place in new colonies. , The projectors put these principles forward as a connectea system, of which no link could be injured without rendering the cham valueless. This bundle of red-tape was energetically wound round the virgin territory of South Australia. By an Act of the Imperial Parliament, a Governor and Council were appomted for the colony. Also a Loard of Commissioners was consti- . tuted to regulate the disposal of land and to arrange the management of emigration. The whole of the land fund was to be appHed to emigration. No specific provision was made for preparatory works, but 50 0001. was to be levied on land, on the security of the land fund for defraying the necessary ' costs, charges, and expenses of founding the colony.' The Comrnssioners were also em- powered to raise 200,000Z. on the security of the future colonial revenue; while the future land fund was to serve as a collateral security. „ The settlement was to be self-supportmg, and the seit- supporting principle was to be initiated by the borrowing of money in anticipation of future revenues. In practice, how- ever, the notion of raising 200,000Z. on the futi re revenue from an unbroken soil, even at 10 per cent., was found impossible. Onlv 39 OOOZ. had been borrowed under the power up to 18d«, when a new Act was passed giving increased borrowing facilities.' By it, all the funds of the colony were to be made security for loans ; nevertheless, so that the total debt due from the general fund to the land fund should never, at the end of any one year, exceed one-third of the whole amount of the land fund for that year. «■ • i. The general revenue was almost certamnot ico be sufficient to meet even local requirements for years to come so the whole system rested on the veriest speculation. ^Nothmg was .eal but the land fund, and that was appropnatea. Ihereiore » 1 & 2 Victoria, c. 60. 300 BONDS OF DISUNION. ' I. ^^ W^fi the general revenue must be forced infn . ■ , ti.o land fund larger. To effet «! :;^;: Tnt 0/ "*","" tion was resorted to. ' Tlie ori..n,^l Z f ' "P"™'"" Adelaide was 12s. per acre o2 1 1 ^ T " '°™ '""''« "' Pletion of the pi Jof Zt^lJ^^^:^^^ f^ "™"- average of 61. 83. per acre ; and in IsS T !, '"''' '^ ^ twin the .est T.^tion; wet^^i.^oTrX'S 12. to n. Nearly 50,000/' ! ad b en ,t^ed C T"' l'""", in i»dj, the colony was apparently in fliP fnii c • prosperity. Over 5,000 in.n.iglts ar^ V ^11,: Un^d lungdom m^that year, while 50,000 acres of the la d o i colony were sold in England, and some 100,000 n I einv tself, at 11. per acre. Up to the end of 1839 l4 000/ H been borrowed on the crpd,> ^f f + ^--',000/. had '200 oon/ .1 ^^ ^^^^'^^^ I'evenues out of the 200,000^ authorised to be raised mider the Act ^ T ! S'lr'"'"' on the amount borrowed was 10 ^r cen" while the revenue was inadequate to meet even tbp In J M3 to give high bounties on tS^^d^L' ^''^rr.' Adelaide must at all costs be made a mod nnvf i j ' !v surveyed and sold as fast as it eofrbt" , ri 'off "'w"']: tl ! j[J<-j (lUie. inousanrts of Gmmrnnfa q,.,„\ ^ -I a heavy burden on the 0n tins colony w.lhout convicts as in New South Wate WAl Everythin gance. A Within fc expenditu actual re'' on the ( missioner a t^eneral refused tc became 1 August l! Parlif meat to i colonial i scheme. Meri-^ South Ai become (roading cause "VV8 encoura^ compani wasted £ operatio sheep -fa 'A c they (th cannot 1 ful, thoi by high evils wl that ca} employ] field. '- for the: WAKEFIELDISM. *THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 301 Everything was done on a similar scale of reckless extrava- gance. A Government House was erected at a cost of 25,000^. Within four years from the foundation of the colony, the expenditure was at the rate of 140,000/. per annum,' on an actual revenue of 20,000Z. In 1840 the Governor drew bills on the Commissioners for 123,000/. The original Com- missioners for South Austraha had been lately superseded by a general Board of Land and Emigration Commissioners, who refused to accept the bills. Then came the crash ; the colony became bankrupt, and emigration and land sales ceased in August 1840. ParHament interfered, and empowered the home Govern- ment to advance a very considerable sum on security of the colonial revenue. So ended the ' self-supporting ' part of the scheme. Merivale accounts for the collapse— firstly, because South Australia was not a country calculated by nature to become suddenly rich ; secondly, because no ' preparation ' (reading, bridging, &c.) had been made; thirdly (and this cause was the most injurious of all), because of the unnatural encouragement given to speculation, and to its inseparable companion— extravagance. Further, he says :— ' Time was wasted and the interest of capital sacrificed in land-jobbing operations which might have been profitably employed in sheep -farming and agriculture.' ' A community urged on by the spirit of speculation, which they (the Commissioners) sought in every way to encourage, cannot be morally or socially healthy. The one thing need- ful, thought they, is to encourage the rapid hiflux of capital, by high bounties, . . . and they never thought of the tide of evils whicli flow in along with a rapid influx of capital, when that capital is not gradually attracted by the opening field of employment, but comes in hopes of finding or creating such a field. The wealthier immigrants, finding no useful occupation for their means, took to land-jobbing, i.e. gambling, while waiting for it. The poorer immigrants, attracted by the hope > In the last quarter of 1840, the Government expenditure was at the rate of 240,000^. per annum. ^i! f lilt 802 BONDS OF DISUNION. ; I- I); ^i ■1 ) of large wages, were disappointed by the high prices and fonn^ even the high sums which they acLlly r^ea.S hrsuffiS to satisfy their anticipations.' ^Limcieiit In 1840, 8,000 people, nearly half the population of the colony were congregated at Adelaide. ' At the end of 1842 one-third of the house, in Adelaide were deserted ; thef; enants, the surplus population created by the land-jobbers had turned to the cultivation of the soil. Now, instead of paying 270,000^. in one year (1839) for the necess;!." of lif' 9l'af^rff^^:' ''^'"^'*' ^^' " '''^'^'^- ^vlieat was at 2s 6d a bushel ; sheep were fattened with it. Communication witli the other Australian colonies soon rectified this ' ' The land sales fell from 170,000 acres in 1839 'to about 600 m 1843. The new Governor, Captain Grey, reduced tne expenditure m a single year from 90,000Z. to 30 000^ and nearly 2,000 persons were thrown on the Governor's hands as absolute paupers at the ond of the first year of his administration. ' In a year or two more the colonists were poor indeed • but they were out of debt, and working their way to prosperity ; for the Governor by his sturdiness and far-sighted economy had redeemed their financial position-though not until the self- supporting system appears to have cost the mother-country about 200,000/.' 2 ^ Never was there a system more fraught with all the elements necessary to failure ; the whole of it was a reckless gamble. From its very foundation the whole colony was put m pawn, and its first struggles were efforts to free itself from pre-contracted debts. To do this it had, by previous arrange- ment, to plunge headlong into the wildest speculation, and tnancial ruin was achieved before the infant settlement had got a iair start. At the same time the policy of the system was towards concentration to such an extent that individual prospecting, the great agent for the development of the country was completely paralysed. Thus the only possible means of ' Report of the Land and Emigration Board for 1840. "^ Merivale on Colonisation, Lecture XIX. WAK making tb was prever The CO and the be get money was made by people where ma] unsurveye emigrants and broug zeal. No tliemselve the pieces advance, returns ; ' rights in while a r( Thee at least a outside tl evil con^ framed t( Thus, sa' purchase Instead i price of 1 the miiK price reg Memora further 1 • siifficie: to procu advertec uniform referenc derived and sep WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAWBLE.' 303 making the country quickly rich, and so of paying off debt, was prevented from operating in that direction. The colony was, as has been said, to be self-supporting ; and the best way of achieving that end was thought to be— to get money anyhow. In pursuance of this view, every effort was made to encourage the purchase of the lands of the colony by people at home, and agencies were established in England where maps of South Australia— plans of an unknown and unsurveyed territory— were displayed, in order to attract, not emigrants, but speculators. These last came forward in shoals, and brought up the vacant spaces on the maps with fervid zeal. Nothing was further from their intention than to go out themselves to the colony, and their sole hope was to resell the pieces of paper they had marked out for themselves, at an advance, as soon as possible. 'Large profits and qmck returns ; ' such was the principle on which the landownmg rights in South Austrahan soil were jobbed about, and for a while a roaring trade was driven merrily along. The collapse that speedily took place was probably owing at least as much to this plan of selhng land to speculators outside the colony as to any other cause ; for, apart from the evil consequences of the speculation itself, the system was framed to encourage speculation to the utmost possible extent. Thus, sale by public auction was not to be permitted because purchasers at home could not be present at auction sales. Instead thereof, the land was to be sold at a fixed uniform price of IL per acre. Other reasons, doubtless, were present to the minds of the promoters in advocating the fixed uniform price regulation, but they are dealt with in Sir George Gipps's IVIemorandum in a way that absolves me from the necessity oi further treating of them. The price fixed was, of course, the • safficieiit price,' and under that name, its evils, when directed to procure the dominion of the capitalist, have been already adverted to at considerable length. For and against the uniform fixed price theory when standing by itself, without reference to Wakefield's views in regard to the results to be derived from it, there is enough to be said to require Icngtliy and separate treatment, but the discussion would be foreign to '•" m \ ' i I 804 BONDS OF DISUNION. he purpose of this work. It is enon,^h to venture the observ. tion- tliat sale by pubhc auction, where the purchaLr .2 under conditions, and where tlie laws are St ' fn ^ against illegal combinations to raise or low pS. a "od of disposing of land far preferable to that f^:^^ I 7^1 nmforin price Also, that the latter system, as a^phld . " the definite object prescribed, to South Australi^ wa^ mo ductive of grievous misfortune to that colony ^ Nothing could be more objectionable than the proposition o devote the entire proceeds of the land fund to the introduc tion emigrants. If the land fund should be devoted in is entirety to that one purpose in any colony, the q es io arises, ou of what fund preliminary surveying roadhg, an other public works are to be carried on. Taxation on impo" 01^ exports must be resorted to for providing the means else the colony must raise a foreign public loan. The advo- cates of the;equiHbrium' theory could not propose X ormer expedient, because they did not approve of indirect taxaaon ; and the carrying out of their theory forbade the imposition of direct taxation. Direct taxation wS, t efiect, have been an addition put on to the price the pur- chaser had paid for liis land. The price, then, would iLe been mo., than sufI ient to estabhsh the ' equilibrium,' and as the 'equihbrim. " was very delicately balanced, the s ightest addition to the price of land would have upset it altogether, beyond the reconstructing powers of the most ingenious designers. So the Wakefieldians were driven to raise a public loan byway of initiating the colony into the practice of ' self-support.' Injury upon injury. The failuro of the loan policy in South Australia was undoubtedly assisted by the general i-amework of the system on which it was founded, more than by any extraneous cause ; but even though, under more favour- able circumstances, it might not have been so signally un- successful, there can be httle doubt that the mere fiict of a colony s arting on its career pledged to a loaning principle furnished an unfavourable augury for its future prosperity. 10 a young country, strong in its confidence in its own WAI resources, wealth, hv enable it most ecor high— or general oi that lende well then and there The re but how g The ii in the co may be i: burden is fresh loai to pay of! expedient Furth tolerably communi sciousnes soil can early set colony, a position bine to p proceed t uiinecess order tlr works m ment an sider as and fille quences. A G. to exper future, i WAKEFIELDISM. * THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 305 vesources, and believing itself the possessor of inexhaustible wealth, but wanting an immediate supply of ready-money to enable it to open shop, to borrow money abroad seems tlie most economical way of getting it. The interest may be high— or low, what matters it ? If low, it is a proof of t)ie general outside belief in the credit of the colony, and a sign that lenders will not readily recall their principals. If high- well then ; both principal and interest will soon be paid oft', and there will be an end of the business. The reasoning is hopeful, and creditable to local patriotism ; but how stands the case really ? The interest on the loan may be less than the rate current in the colony itself, and the actual charge on that account may be insignificant. So much the worse, for the less the burden is felt, the greater is the danger of encouragement to fresh loan transactions, which the colony will not be wilKng to pay oft" at maturity except by the time-honoured, injurious expedient of raising new loans to pay off old debts. Further, the knowledge that money can be borrowed is tolerably certahi to generate spendthrift habits in young communities, already disposed to extravagance by the con- sciousness of the ease and certahity with which the virgin soil can be made to yield a fortune. A great many of the early settlers, too, are totally regardless of the future of the colony, and regard purely their own welfare, whether in op- position to that of the community or not. All causes com- bine to promote careless expenditure, and soon the colonists proceed to the erection of public works on a scale altogether unnecessary— but which in time becomes almost necessary— in order that the large numbers of labourers engaged on the works may be kept provided with the Government employ- ment and Government pay that they have now come to con- sider as their due. The picture may be indefinitely extended and filled in with an extraordinary train of indirect conse- quences. A Government will think twice before committmg itselt to expenditure, however likely to prove reproductive in the future, if it has only to rely, for the purpose, upon funds I'! f ill- '1 i M , 1;! 1 1 Li m 306 BONDS OF DISUNION. ij aised m the colony itself; but it will scarcely hesitate if anv temporary extravagance can be made good by a ban which can ■„ all probabUity be raised at far below the av~ate of interest prevaihng in the colony. On the contraf^ Z eclat consequent on successfully floating such a loanl7bett te ms than then predecessors has the eflect of indulg com retition m loan-mongering amongst responsible mi.'ister Estinr^'' of the people, too, the effect is demoraS ' Estnna es are not criticised by ihem with any great severit; except for party purposes, when it is known that mo. y m Syfn rr^'' abroad to set everything right; anl 0, countiy in ts ignorance points with pride to its high credit aWoad, and to the stability of its position as evid need by the h gh rate oi indebtedness per head. The new loans are looked upon as certain panaceas for distress, and as certain guarantees of prosperity. People laugh at tl.; burden of „" r to five per cent when for their own personal borrowing., they pay mtei^st at the rate of eight or ten per cent. Extra™! e and waste become the inevitable rule in the department of pubhc works, and decay and corruption become inseplabl rom the conduct of the pubhc service. A steady opp'os tion to direct taxation is gradually set on foot, and sLngthe leS ^Mth each fresh proof of improved facility of loaning power Local bodies, in turn, begin to borrow from the centrai SiZTh ■ r .,"" f\' "' "" ^^«'«'" '"■^ disseminated luouoh the length and breadth of the community ; while as but not least, is the imminent risk of the colony resor. in! o heay indn^ct taxation and protective duties, in order to at empt the clearance of the growing burden of the yearly mterest on its loans. J ■' J Even the application of a;f:r,ri portion of the land fund to emigration purposes is objectionable. The sum so applied may amount, m bad times, to far more than suflicient for its purpose, and yet, unless conscientiously administered, it mav m great part, find a mysterious path into the capacious pockets of shipowners or agents. This risk must always be run but It may be to a certain extent minimised, if the fund allotted to emigration purposes is one based on actual emi-^ra- WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 307 tion statistics, or on tlie view of the local demand for emi- grants taken by the majority of members of the colonial legislature in discussion on the estimates. If actual statistics ot'' past emigration be looked at in considering the amount that ought actually to be expended on emigration, the sum necessary will be found, since 1852, to bear a very small pro- portion to the average annual revenues from land sales in each and all of the older colonies. Moreover, since that date. State-assisted emigration has only accounted for a fraction of the total number of emigrants. Also it is a matter of no- toriety that a great part of the fund devoted to State-assisted emigration was lavished in a variety of ways in ' pickings and stealings,' and much of the remainder was expended m re- lieving the mother-country of paupers, criminals, and infirm people. 1 • X No system, however ingeniously devised by the colonists themselves, deeply interested as they were in procuring full value for immigration funds sent home, ever yet sufficed to prevent fraud, and misappropriation of the money, from bemg largely carried on, and we may find that in Victoria, at a time when she possessed a population barely as large as that of a fair sized provincial town at home, one of the earliest expres- sions of the popular will was directed to the material curtail- ment of the scale of State-aided emigration. Even under the limited scale under which that colony consented to contmue the system, it was thought expedient to exact from the emi- gration agent sent to England the enormous security ot 10 OOOZ., as a guarantee for his proper administration of the funds entrusted to him. And yet this was an agent selected by the colony for iiis presumed integrity and fitness for the post. It almost seems then, on the whole, that the smaller the proportion of the land fund allotted to immigration, the better for the colony ; because the expenditure of small sums is capable of being more rigidly checked, while giving less opening to peculation, than would be the case with a larger amount. Whether this be so or not, however, it is clear that the amount should always be carefully scrutinised, and that to sanction a vote for a larger amount than may be called for by x2 VMv ,*ll 308 BONDS OF BISUNION. \i'> wXfi 1 '^'?""'^'"^"*« ""'y P'-ove a serious blunder. Tl.at Wakefield s v.ews m appropriating to immigration the whok the mdefimte revenue derivable from land was anerrorot It only remains now to briefly refer once again to Wake- field s desire to prevent the labourer from rising too rapidlv to a supenor position. He was to be prevented from risS lum. That IS to say, he was to accept State superintendence o dictation as the rule for his direction in his private aims The labourer who had traversed half the globe to seek for free- dom, was on arriving at his destination, to renounce even the degree of freedom that he had experienced at home. s"re Iv r,V' , «™."'"'™"-''«°" 'Icvoutly to be wished,' and least of all « m t'of\r "''^\-»"*'->'. -1'^- vigorous independence on ?.n > !, ^™*'"S:»™ '« «'e most important factor in Its political and economical progi-ess. How are mdely disseminated centres of local and municipal government to grow up, if the labouring and artisan cla.sses- those most actively mterested in decentralised self-government -are confined withm narrow Umits and subjected to Govern- ment dicte 10,1 m the conduct of their private affairs ? The spim of mdepend.nce dies out under the withering bli-^ht and with It decays, not only the hopeful vigour of the en rge ic worker^^ but also the healthy interest which he would if lef to Inmseli, throw into the consideration of all question conn cted with the government of the colony. couneetea Is it unreasonable to hazard the suggestion that it was in t alloTof r ' T" ' ''"" "'^ ''°"^ Government consented Aus lahal Tt "™ "f °" f "''f-^^Sem theories to South Austiaha? It is certam that for some time the Imperial Governors would not consent to their being put into pract^e no bu because the whole system seemed to aim at efiecting too gieat a transfer of power to the colonial population. When at lengtli they conceded to Wakefield an opportunity of tiyinr]" WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 309 .vstem in a modified form,tliey had previously satisfied them- selves that the principles on which it was hased were m no ,lP<^ree calculated to stimulate political activity m the mmds of "the colonists. Their supposition as to this was correct m one way, hut at the same time, it is likely enough that ha be written down as artificial. It was in Governor l^ourke's reign in 1831, that the system of selling instead of granting land in New South Wales was first initiated. Former Governors had beenm the habit ot giving away land as they pleased, and charges of impartiality and injustice in the distribution were freely indulged in by disappointed applicants, and in many cases with good reason. The right of giving away land involving, as it did, an onerous responsibility, was a weighty charge to be given up to the keeping of Governors completely irresponsible to the colony, and it furnished them with an overwhelming power of patron- age which, if they had not to some extent made it available for the furtherance of their own private whims or predilections, would have argued in them integrity almost more than human. By orders from home, Bourke was deprived of the power ot glinting land in any quantity or to any person whatever, except to a specified extent for schools, church< ■ glebes or other public purposes. Crown lands were now lone sold by public auction, and none were to be sold at all unless applied for by an intending purchaser. A minimum upset price ot five shillings per acre was fixed for country lands. In 1889 the upset price was raised to twelve shillings, and a-ain in 1843 to twenty shillings per acre. ' At the time wdien the change was first made, from grant to sale, a pledge had been virtually given to the colonists that the revenue from tlie sale of land should be appropriated mainly towards the encouragement and promotion of the emigration ot virtuous i'^' II III ■y\' ■ \ I i 312 I I' r, BONDS OF DISUNION. and mdustnous families, and individuals from r , p ■ ■ and Ireland ; and consi.Ierin- the o, !,, . f ^"''^''"' colony as a general .•oceptacle''fJ; ,.e"e™l,f rT'" "'■ *"'" of the empire, no appr„,friation of tt ™:^ ^i, T™'"'''/!^ i.ue been more judicious on the one hand n ! '^"'"'''^ I" the eye of enlightened plnlant . J^T/ t 'tntr'"''."'' tl.ere was thus provided the n,eans of h fu n tot . "'' conceivable extent, the salutary ingred e t of ', v' '"" ""^ n>dustrious population h.to the n,as ot a convL I'™' "'"' of thereby elevating that colony, in a plod of tm'"' "'"^ t-ely short, to the rank of an intern, estlir"""," religious coinniunity.' ' respectable, and This promise was, however nnffni«n^i s- of Sir Richard Bourl e's govern™ ,""f' f" "P '° ""^ «"1 from land during the six y a o, jf^ rt/"^ ' "''' '''''""^ rSdith^i^i^r^^^^^^^^^^ of the convict origin ^^'^^^^^""1^ '"T time to atMliate the free inmn„r.nt t? , '" ™' ""^ giving him the opportm -l^f s^ 1 ^^f;;: ' ^"f -^ -■>• "^ "■as just the time chosen by the Im, erial Vl 'r'^- """ posing ditMculties in the way of 1 J i^" H„^t 7'' n '"'"- was axed at a minimum of 11. per a" e in t.lf ''"'' by no means prohibitive. The objec of , » r " P'"-"' to have been to iill the Treas rv and tn "'T'"""' ''™« Ws stewardship upon th hZ' a" ,n t "?'' "' ™'™ "' largest possib/revLne J^m ;! ::*r;;Xtr He^ played the part of the • land-shark ■ to perfection „„7. , as he could show an overflowing balancr^wT ' '™8 n.et with the applause of i:^:Z^^^''"'"^"'' adopted was to throw a very limited q^t y of ^ll!:^'!l'" market at one time, and competition amongst a lot o"! buyers soon ran prices up to heights more Tti Jactor -toX ' Lang's Neio South Wales, vol. i. jj. 262. governing ] at that tiin population desirable n\ means of h The im land in the aiitbrtunat( land or bui price of lai: in their n hopelessly around the win went ( who left t finding tha all the elei policy of tl waste lane bitter exp( will find exaggerate Anotlie a high up this were but they p tants of cl map. Th the establi the tax th settler, he speculativi Says I policy, in grants by fold. Fir ' First L 2 Lang's SYSTEMATIC FLKECING. 313 froverning powers than to the purdiasor. Port PliilHp was, at that time, a part of New South Wales, and the rush of popuLation thither indicated to Sir George Gipps tlie most desirable spot in all Australia for tieecing the early settlers by means of high land prices. The immediate consequence of limiting the quantity of land in the market to a very small amount was to compel the anfortunate immigrants, who were almost obliged to obtain land or buildhig allotments, to bid against each other till the price of land rose to fancy height. They were thus ' crippled in their means, involved in debt, and in many instances hopelessly ruined, while millions of acres of the richest land around them were lyhig utterly waste. Mr. Richard Howitt, win went out amongst tlie first emigrants to Port Phinip,but who left the country in disgust after a few years' trial, on finding that he had been all but ruined in the very midst of all the elements of prosperity and plenty, through the absurd policy of the local Government in regard to the disposal of the waste lands, pubhshed a work • in which he details his own bitter experiences on the subject, and in which the reader will find that these statements have been by no means exaggerated.' ^ Another favourite device of Sir George Gipps was to place a high upset piice upon all town allotments. The evils of this were heavily enough felt in the towns already formed, but they pressed more grievously upon the would-be inliahi- tants of chose inland towns which as yet only existed on the map. There labour and necessaries were far dearer than hi the established chief towns on the coast, and in addition to the tax thus entailed upon the slender resources of the local settler, he had to pay high rents to recoup their outlay to the speculative purchasers of lots in the unformed town. Says Dr. Lang : ^ ' The evil consequences of this injudicious policy, in addition to the serious evil of crippling the immi- grants by depriving them of their available means, were two- fold. First, the allotments actually purchased in the towns • First Impressions of Australia Felix, by R. Howitt. 2 Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 287. ' Ihicl. p. 287-8. "!i;.' ,.<^l I' 'iH 314 BONDS OF DISUNION. 1 were in numerous cases cut im h^r +i> 11,. . -ho purchased them i» o"ti^i/ea" u™:^'"- '"» ^f"""'- to a h„„>bler cla. of pu..eha.:"s t. eSC' ^t ^'t numerous narrow lanes a lul ^„7o 7 "^'J^tdu. pioht ; and -■Inch the labour "g pop ht;bv" T ''T '"•"""■ '" erected on these ft^gnX "v Slotn, '?"" "" ''""'""Ss habited, were ve,, sooC^^t t ^i; Z^led't'^;"' as .„ some of the largest capital cities or ml„ ac^ 1,^ f disease' tZ T .°"'"' '""" "' ™"*''«'''"« » ^pidem £Pntfr;:t,s=entS^^^^^^^^^ cent™ ...th a number of s^^ les al ^rd rintb" ab liW rf !Z " /''''''''"'■^"« «P»«e, and the consequent re site "bb" "*""'' '° "^"''^ f"' " ^^'-^ -^ tl, cos t,.r ""f°™™™'« ^t a comparatively trifli,,, cost-weie ost on the one hand, while all the disa» 100 Table II.,. Price at mat Value, 20 mi 40 60 80 100 120 140 SYSTEMATIC FLEECING. 321 To the economist the following tables will be full of interest, as showing at a glance the effect produced upon the cost of transport by improved means of communication. It snows how preferable the lot of the agriculturists might have been compared to what it actually was, during a period when communications were hardly opened at all between Melbourne and the farming districts not more than a hundred miles distant. The comparison in the tables is between railway and road prices. To estimate the true position of the Port Phillip farmer in and about 1840-2 it must be borne in mind that then there were few or no roads, so that the length and difficulties of transport were far greater than in 1857 ; and so also was the risk of loss or damage of the produce carried. Table showing the comparative effects on prices of produce, IN 1857, BY transport over roads as contrasted with TRANSPORT OVER RAILWAYS. Table I., slwidng effect on prices of produce by transport over Roads. »- s •^ Ji fa fe a a §2 12 |2 SS Poti per la bo !- w £ s. d.\ .1. d. £ s. d. £> s. d £ ,v . a. Price at market . 22 8 6 10 40 8 Value, 20 miles from market 19 6 8 6 69 3 16 8 37 6 8' 5 6 8 M **" M 1) 16 13 4 5 1^' 1 3 4 34 13 4 2 13 4 60 „ „ 14 3 8* not given 32 not given >» 80 ,, ,, 11 6 8 2 3f >« 29 6 8 M 100 8 13 4i 9| n 26 13 4| „ Table II. , shoumtg effect on prices ( if produce by transport by Hail §2 "3 II .V. d. Potatoes per ton O .w H P. p. £ s. d. £ .1. d. £ ,v. d. £ ,«. d. Price at market . 22 8 6 .1.0 40 8 Value, 20 miles from market 21 13 4 7 9f 6 3 4 39 13 4 7 13 „ 40 „ 21 6 8 7 7f 5 16 8 39 6 8 7 6 8 n 60 „ 21 7 5| 5 10 39 7 M 80 „ 20 13 4 7 32 5 3 4 38 16 4 6 13 4 „ 100 „ 20 16 8 7 If 4 16 8 38 6 8 6 6 8 M 120 „ 20 6 111 4 10 38 6 M 140 „ 19 13 4 6 9,', 4 3 4 37 13 4 5 13 4 ill; '•J 1 1 i;; 322 BONDS OF DISUNION. II i The tables ' furnish an excellent illustro fmn r.f f i • benefit derivable by settlers in a yotf c !„, Tm'lf matenal quickening and cheapenin'g of 'exTs^ '^^J^^ ransport, and poant with equal force to the immlse di" advantage under which the country labours when supnli , with niferior means of communication. We find frZ *, first table, that in the case of some articleMhe tctritv of havmg to transport them in drays over roads, fo" eveX short distance of from twenty to twenty-five mil s, was enout bnng down then- value to one-half of the ' pric at mS and ,f we may draw an inference from the omissions "nti; table . would appear that at a greater distanc t Z "ort miles the expense and delay of sending: potatoes and hay o market was sufficient to prevent the attempt being made II a 1-by road. On the other hand, it is evident from Table II tha better modes of transport were instrumental in sti ri„!; up the energies of farmers at remote distances from Melbou e raise and to send thither produce which otherwise wol' have een either not raised at all, or else left to rot on tl ^■ound for waiit of a market to which they could be eonve d with pront. It IS obvious from the tables that the best means of encouraging agricultural pursuits would have been bv making good roads, and had a considerable portion of the large revenue derived from the sale of land been applied to it purpose of making good roads at a time when there weit no or of improving bad ones later on, the high price of land Z t have really benefited the colony. As it ^as the land rev S being de™ted to no other purpose than the introductllno nnmigr^rts, the new arrivals found no resource open t leu -aftertheirfirsti-ushtothe diggi„gs-in the remote rural dis- tries : for the want of roads prevented the possibility of th r working there profitably as farmers, and they had therefore to return to Melbourne, to swell the multitude stuggl „g f room m the already unnaturally distended metropolis! The ' high price ' system as practised in Port Phillip was a I SYSTEMATIC FLEECING. 323 but too successful effort to fill the Treasury, in order to import additional crowds to replenish it more vigorously at greater expense to themselves. Those venerated appearances of pros- perity, plenty of money and plenty of people, were to furnish the world with proofs of the thoughtful wisdom of the colonial Governor, and everything was to be strained to subserve this end. No matter that the money was extracted from people who beggared themselves in paying it, and that the fresh immigrants were fleeced, as soon as landed, by the grasping policy of the Government land shark. Plenty of money in the Treasury, plenty of people in the colony : that was the text of the perpetual self- laudation of the Imperial representative, and which procured for him the esteem of an enraptured Colonial Office— until the crash came, and with it an empty Treasury, a bankrupt colony, and a sharp contraction of prices to nothing at all. In the history of tne mad speculation, the reckless extravagance, the impeded industry and the total collapse of Port Phillip, read the necessary sequel of ' high price ' and the bitter converse of Meri vale's mistaken eulogy. y2 m, I 324 BONDS OF DISUNION. th: 1 CHAPTER X. Part I -the dual house system in Australia. Part IL— payment of members and colonial corruption. Part I. In a foregoing chapter,' reference has been made to the unsatisfactory results to which the establishment of he Dua W House system m the Australian colonies, under their paper I constitutions, has given rise. It may be worth while here to allude to the system at slightly further length, mainly wTtli « view to mdicate the obstacles which interfere vi^t'smo , working in the colonies, and which give colour to tirioea objections to the system. ^^^ In England the House of Lords is representative of a long-established and influential caste which, while the cause of the people against the encroachments of monarchy was its own, did yeoman service for the national liberties. The ridit wof^i' *7'' "^^P^^'t^^^t share m the legislation of the country 1 jas therefore recogmsed as being the natural outcome of f efforts made by them to curtail the powers of despotic authority, and there was thus some reason for the existence ot the House of Lords ab initio, although there may be none for Its continuance on an hereditary basis. But in Australia Jiere was absolutely no reason, beyond English precedent, for he establishment of Upper Houses. There was not, in the Australmn colonies originally, any recognised separate class demandmg for itself special legislative rights or even desiring burden itself with the cares of legislation. Unfortunately the effect of setting up Upper Houses there has been to foster amongst wealthy and influential colonists the belief that thev - — J ■ Chapter Y.,ante, occupy a p necessary t( possible bet body of th Upper Hon of a class \ leaders ; in justify the their estab of a class si for itself. It may begun on tl it on that f a part of a to remedy by the nece injuriously evident enc now divest* By slow I beginning 1 work liard( For the w( still a pan thought fo normal coi And why ? peruse the which has read a tale of Educatii of long- cor tained, of \ the anti-pc of Lords oi lias striver people, by A.. ;o the Dual paper ere to atli a looth local THE DUAL HOUSE SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA. 325 occupy a peculiarly lofty position as of right, and that it is necessary to conduct themselves as if there is no identification possible between their own prosperity and that of the general body of the people. In other words, the institution of an Upper House, in the one case, was due to the pre-existence of a class whose members occupied the position of popular leaders ; in the other, there were no similar circumstances to justify the erection of Upper Houses, but the consequence of their establishment has been to procure the rise and growth of a class straining after an exceptional and privileged position for itself. It may be well that colonial self-government should have begun on the Dual House system, for the difficulty of working it on that footing has been exposed from the outset ; and being a part of a ready-made paper constitution, it will be far easier to remedy or modify it than if it had been gradually evolved by the necessities of the nation. That the system has acted injuriously for the immediate interests of the colonists, seems evident enough. Life in Australia, and notably in Victoria, is now divested of much of its former ease for the working class. By slow but certain degrees, the struggle for existence is beginning there to assume acuter phases. Men and women work harder than they used to do and for smaller returns. For the working man, any one of the Australian colonies is still a paradise, but a paradise where exhausting toil and thought for the morrow are gradually trending upon the normal conditions of ' a fair day's work for a fair day's wage.' And why ? Let anyone who cares to supply a ready answer peruse the parliamentary records of Victoria, the colony which has been foremost in political activity. There he will read a tale of Eeform Bills rejected, of Land Bills thrown out, of Education Bills mangled, of bitter class hatreds engendered, of long- continued commercial depression produced and main- tained, of universal discontent and trouble, caused mainly by the anti-popular action of the Legislative Council— the House of Lords of Victoria. Consistently and constantly that Council has striven to limit the rights and to depress the condition of tlie people, by favouring the opposing claims of a small class, J,!;:.M 1 • ! 326 BONDS OF DISUNION. characteristic of the colony 'nrT*;! "' ""* ™™'»l ' ^«?:s;r ' • ^'— -" -^ t!;rc:s'.Xi i- Upper Houses to embrace tlTe,.nnnii' "^ "'" '<'"''«'«y of strengthened by pbchrt „ ^^ 7 ™"'' '^ ""'^oubtedly Houses represel'tiv::! Z^^U TT^" >^'^ ^«-' hetween the functions of the two i,.r ''"''""""n '« "'ade rivah-y of enmity-foHows as of Irurse "' "'" '"''"■^-"- remL'Sretin^vtto^ra?^-^^^^^^ T '' "-»' ^-. and conseouent indust "dVresrn i, ' ^'r ''™""'» the purely selfish action of 'on o^ tie U "r"'*" ^^ we may fairly conclude from nn«t ! • ^°"^^''' "'"' the nature of the case tl t T Z'"''' *' ^'^" ^« f™'" will be the most poI^'tttarfX"'"" ""^^''"^- colony, will be the one that It ■'"■°^'''' "^ ""^ measures designed for the ex L otof tl '"■ T°'"'™ '» people. At the same time tl e ? i^ ' P""'«8'^ "^ the -has been and prob bH-iU ont h™' toT "~"',^ '^"^'""^ merest spirit of opposition to the clc , andS' ''' '^ "'^ make its legislative Dronn«,l<, r. , ""' ^^ »" »ts works, to rather than moderate Zbl f '™™e^'" ""^ «m-easonable, Dual House s^s m is res'ltk TTT''"- """ ""« "- derived the tendency Vvfl,' * *'"'" "' ""«'«"" i^ legislation a me^ st ug! r"' '""''' "^ *''^ """''^^ »' Houses, and to Ipp al f ,; !' /"r'"'^ l'^'^'^^" the two passions than to the g J sts rf Ibf'""^' ™'"^'- '° "- ^suaiiy advoca^d ^ ^'::l^;;tii::J':;:i '- ttre's:.;L^!-tf ir'^ ob^rved. a notable rptltXriTnttpl-:: TH tcnour of i the benefi Council. Houses on the unworl the bitter i so essentifi other impi Council an prevalence it to be oth to be due 1 perity of i Council in argument For the he little beyo of Protect: the minds the Assem pursued b;; the advers land legis] mastery o this case t vinced of i proposals come to ai into two wrong, th^ There ing of the to bear in between t England, would be accord to Commons THE DUAL HOUSE SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA. 327 tcnour of its legislation ; still the fact need not be credited to the beneficent intentions or to the greater wisdom of the Council. On the contrary, the difference between the two Houses on this particular point is little more than evidence of the unworkability of the Dual House system. For it is probably the bitter antagonism between the two Houses that produces so essential a difference of view ; and with regard to many other important questions, divergencies of opinion between Council and Assembly are to be largely accounted for by the prevalence of Uiis feeling of mutual hostility. But assuming it to be otherwise ; supposing the Free Trade-ism of the Council to be due to a pure and intelligent desire to forward the pros- perity of the colony, the f^^t, if fact it be, may place the Council in a more favourable ligl.^ • ut it does not advance the argument in favour of the Dual blouse system any further. For the hoisting of the Free Trade banner by the Council does little beyond exciting the Assembly to an extravagant extreme of Protectionism ; and Protectionist poHcy, being associated in the minds of the people with the maintenance of the power of the Assembly as long as the Council is anti-Protectionist, ia pursued by them with an insistance fervent enough to override the adverse vote of their natural enemy, the Council. So with land legislation ; each House strains every nerve to gain the mastery over the other, only in a more marked degree. In this case *he breach is wider, because each side is firmly con- vinced of the justice of its own cause ; but, in either case, the proposals foi* legislation and the opposition to them at length come to assume an extreme form, and the colony is divided into two hostile camps, one for the Council policy, right or wrong, the other for the Assembly policy, wrong or right. There are one or two considerations which affect the work- ing of the Dual House system -"ii Australia which it is necessary to bear in mind, as constituting an all important difference between the system as practised there, and as established in England. Let me begin my allusion to them by asking what would be said in England if it were seriously proposed to accord to peers the right to vote for members of the House of Commons ? Surely the majority of the nation would scout the mikV 1^ i !*. ■ I ^i 328 BONDS OF DiSUxNION. * f proposition as intolprahin o i tl'eir own. Ye „ C ^d th^S ""■ ""^ ^^"^ '""' " H«"«e of to vote formembersof pS 'tr u °" "' "'^ "«''* ^Pee.^ Httle or no direct effect ^I'r"^;;^;'?™'''^^ because the number of peers is too lirj/!''^''"''Ho>.se. exercising any numericalinfluenceowr™^ '*''""* <'^"'^'^ But in the Colonies, the electorrX avt r^f"' '""'""•'■ vote for members of tlie Council wT 7 ''""™ ""*" '^ n.embersof theAssembly.Zi IwH "" "f " '» ^'^^^ for the Council forms a large pZSrT.'f f ^'^'"'■^ so, as they can duplicate tlleir votes bvv^r , " "''"'"""'^ ^ well as for Council members, t i evitauS" ^"'""^ "^ a preponderating share of power wli!'^"''^'"''"^^ influence over the election %,f fi •^/^'*"''™'S " S^eat direct choosmg membe,^ t that hou t 1'T"^' ^ '"^^'^"^ '« peculiarly representative of ther„j:^'* '^ ^"PP"^" ^ be tion of this system of voting th ZJT\ ^^ "'^ "P'^™" certain number of sunpor tefs' in tlf i I', ^"™''""" ^'^^^' » for in- sting ^ on its o^ " ^^^'"My. and its position sufficient to'eStheTslirofV ^Tf '^-^'J- » --It aJl ";e right of voting forttntl ' ^b^tT^ -'^ wbzoh appears to tliem to trick them out' of H , T'™ ~ is tfa^ ' -^-ral^dlt'-^^' - are not, as in England men of a ji ,^:f:'f' ™ C°'>-'fe l)emg, m point of social stand;„„ t , ^ recognised as There is none of that nsH^^ ^ ^' '''"'™ "'" <^«'»monalty. Council that the a^e^g^l' ; 2™^^;"/" " '"''"''^'- »' fowhest in the land do^s not frp T u *"■ " ^^'- "^^'^ most highly placed bv»,> ^^ m'"" '--Ta'-ated from the England, ami I m/mb rTfcr^"""' *^'"'' " '« "<>- » peculiar respect, eiU,er bv re!-. T " ""' "'^'"^"^ ""'"^ positioninsLe y Wl erLuel? '"^^T''"'^'''? ™' "^ ''is of level are found T com™ r""""™'^ ™''" ''iff'^'-e™es -render e.ceptii:?X— t lytr ^ ,—"»" '» »YiiLai spccxai privileges have been given. T] On th suspicious each asse ference w of the CO poHtical I cause at interests ( It is i the benefi governme: popular b promises, open to c] is all thai system in an errone( the dual s greatly m( duce rjsul Victoria t felt. It n in the oth in them t( the consec arrangenK Ruleb the worst popular w ago ; it is which do ] and on wl the House until the legislative opponent ( England, ta: THE DUAL HOUSE SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA. 329 On the other hand, tlie privileged class casts an equally suspicious eye upon the community, and is quick to stigmatise each assertion of popular claims as an unwarrantable inter- ference with its own rights. Hence, the extreme bitterness of the contests between the two Houses in colonies where political activity is great, and where the magnitude of the cause at issue comprises directly and palpably the dearest interests of the entire population. It is far from my intention to enter into a discussion of the benefits or evils that might be expected from a system of government by one House. All schemes for government on a popular basis are little more than so many make-shift com. promises, and are therefore necessarily highly imperfect and open to criticism. That any scheme should work fairly well is all that can be expected. The opinion that a one House system in the Colonies would fulfil that condition may be an erroneous one ; but there can be httle room for doubt that the dual system, as it prevails to-day in the Colonies, must be greatly modified if it is to continue to exist at all, or to pro- duce rjsults satisfactory to the mass of the colonists. It is in Victoria that its unworkability has, so far, been most keenly felt. It needs only a greater pressure of population on space, in the other Australian colonies, to stimulate political activity in them to a high degree, and to bring home to each of them the consequent necessity for radically altering the Dual House arrangements in their existing constitutions. Rule by two Houses is too often a convenient synonym for the worst form of rule by one alone — the one that thwarts fclie popular will. It was so wholly in England not so very long ago ; it is still so to a very pronounced extent on all questions which do not command a very large share of public interest, and on which the Lords believe they may safely differ from the House of Commons. On all Irish matters, for instance, until the interest of the public is fairly aroused, tlie sole legislative body is the House of Lords— the uncompromasing opponent of the progress and prosperity uf Ireland. As with .England, so with the Colonies. The Council in any colony 830 BONDS OF DISUNION. the House of the few—can af nil +; • , functions of the House ofTe'^^^r^.^P ^ tie legislative be successfully met, the intermZw ' '"'Acuity is to House to defeat or mZTm^ \'^°^'' "^ 'he Upper House, must be stricTly bound d bv' "' '™'" "'■' "^"^^^ Ifit be thought wise toitZZXZ^iTTl^''"''- •Ystem, provision must be made 'that te Im of'' ^°"^^ tionate majority of the neonle', r.„, "f .™" of a propor- the W oAhe^and^SfLr^rreZt" ^tT Council ; or that a twice or thrice na«ed T , ■""'''" been rejected by the Council as fe?aTpi"d;T^ ToLT '' ^^'^^ -'-'^^' '" "^^ critLroSttri;^- thete1'in'Sttt?inTt1™f ,f' ^^^^^ ""- 'hat they will be effected xl.^f''"' '^"'K™* improbable a- social ^^^'^:tTZ^^c::-^:^- Pabt II. PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL COBBUPTION Le«islature:'i::S,i t'hjrwtlfo;:™ '^? " '"'°"''' all departments of colonial ^47 ha aT' ''-■"'."'' "" the subject which mav fp,,,/? , " exammation of reason of the p a t"e ™d 1 ,'' "' *"/ '='^"^' ""'" '»>« nection between H and n!vr"°' "^ ""^ "'"'''^^a'-J' <=""■ enough introd^ed^rat nrS"''*; ""^ "^ '''' w.th various incidents attaching to o^onti el/°'"' ''''"'' At any rate, the interest t„t i ™'™"'' self-government. in th/ sui,;:; •:" j^:^ ^ ^^f ^- -. w.te. serve as a sufficient excuse for dea^:; tilT !t here. " "'' that'S::;.rtCTi "' ^v^^ ^^ '^^ --p^- iioULslic. the .vurking of self-goveniment iii the PAYME Australii for all g corrupti( perfectec ruption i when br parliame back. J ceedings compare! of His ( memory, nance, corruptic those of of Euro] instance sian des] despots, with col random and refo with th( lofty sta] countries courtesy guage, tl colour t( enough t meagre £ proof of absence absorptio the amei participal country, earnest n It was PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION. 33l Australian colonies. It is certain that it is present there, for all governments must pass through certain stages of the corruption malady before the process of fermentation has been perfected and the mass works itself clear. But colonial cor- ruption is integrity of the brightest and most conspicuous type, when brought into comparison with that which distinguished parliamentary government in England up to some fifty years back. At that date, too, political and parliamentary pro- ceedings were model expositions of immaculate purity, when compared with the jobberies actively assisted by the advisers of His Gracious Majesty King George III. of ever blessed memory, and infiuentially supported by the royal counte- nance. If we wish to find more recent examples of gross corruption, let us turn not to colonial or American history for those of greatest magnitude, but to the recorded proceedings of European States administered by individual wills. Let us instance the late French Empire, the past and present Eus- sian despotisms, the rule of a Spanish Queen, of petty Italian despots, of a Turkish Sultan ; let us place them side by side wutli colonial illustrations, or even let us cull incidents at random from the last general election in our own purified and reformed country, if we would see that by comparison with them colonial and American corruption furnishes a lofty standard of morality, to which less popularly-governed countries have as yet failed to attain. Of courtesy, the courtesy that obscures the plain meaning of ordinary lan- guage, the veneer that conceals the hidden thought and gives colour to a false sentiment, there is in European States enough and to spare, and in the Australasian colonies a very meagre supply. But these esthetic refinements are scarcely proof of excellence in political arrangements, or even of the absence of corruption. They are rather indicative of the absorption of power by a leisure class, versed exclusively in the amenities of discourse, than significant of the healthy participation of the lower orders in the government of the country, through the medium of popular, energetic, and earnest representatives. It was during the period when parliamentary eloquence in 832 BONDS OF DISUNION. venient substitutes' tp/ofi'':ft^^ sympathy with popular needs fat eo'll^ It^^i "' ran their greatest riot. La„g;age, nor^ Uo^ asst S of pmilege, not peri:orn>ance of a delegated duty' werf ? ch>e requisites for parliamentary succes's ; and c« „ ^ all tlnngs not correction of abuses, was the invariS lee^ Hnw" ,^!l*™^^'" °^ "^^yl^y P««««al life were direc ed How could It be otherwise when all power and »1 i^fl were monopolised by a small but rapa'dls ch^ue ' """"^ limil d i^^Jr 1 *^ '"'^'^ "^ representation, the less wealth aL,"''""f' °^ *.™''"8 "'""^^ <"»"P«^ed of men wea th and leisure, whose guiding principle is the preservatin, of he,r own narrow monopoly of the right to mis , TV ..esC "^f :t.t^rrfof — r ait^tr menT'thriT- 'p T"""*""™ ^'"^""^ ?"'*« of emoh,- of the people was unheard in the House of Commons and arjr:;7titt:X"rt«^^^^^^ ad the wants of the lower orders found forcibl ewes "ion tid;:.';:'':'^ ,f'^^'r'.°™*°- ^^-^ found :Sf aescending to a depth of abusive and incendiary lanenLe .viH, which colonial debaters would with difficnhy ^e^nd nH would not be tolerated in any colonial legishitivo Hous" 1 PAYMENT The ti language, are indica ditions, a towards r is done r recognise( the peopL with bus: aristocrat mahce, £ assembly, control, disposing money ac Who can be utilise! own bene the strenj appreciati 'In a ruption e; by a num possible "v for the pi diverting of a rulir and wen retain it.' cause of c politician perhaps t these con( ductive oi it everyw] Durin were poli class ? I PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL COERUPTION. 333 1 t The truth is, that general suavity of bearing or polish of language, when characteristic of a popular legislative assembly, are indications of a spirit of contentment with existing con- ditions, and of a general desire to do as little as possible towards reforming them. What business has to be transacted is done mechanically, perfunctorily, and badly, according to recognised forms. Such a body can never be representative of the people at large, for if it were so, it would be overwhelmed with business, and that of a type that, where there is an aristocratic opposition, is eminently productive of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. A courteous legislative assembly, therefore, must be one which is not under popular control. It is, therefore, practically unchecked in its power of disposing of public offices, or of appropriating the public money according to its own sense of the fitness of things. Who can doubt that power so unlimited and centralised would be utilised by the possessors of it entirely or chiefly for their own benefit ? that the habit of doing so would, m time, acquire the strength of an organised system, to be branded by an un- appreciative posterity with the name of — Corruption ? ' In a democratic comitry,' says an Australian writer, ' cor- ruption exists only as a parasite or adventitious disease, caused by a number of dishonest men trying to live by pr atics in any possible way. In England, it existed as a system established for the purpose of poisoning the springs of government, and diverting them from their several channels solely for the benefit of a ruling caste, wh-^ saw power slipping from their hands, and were ready to resort to the most degrading means to retain it.' The reasonmg seems to be, that the prominent cause of corruption is Australia is attributable to the fact that politicians there make a trade of their calling. But one may perhaps be permitted to doubt, while agreeing generally with these conclusions, whether the cause assigned as peculiarly pro- ductive of corruption in Australia is not equally the cause of it everywhere where it exists. During the period of English history just glanced at, what were polities but a trade— and that too the sole trade of a class? Bargain and sale of of&ce, of places of trust, of I::- I : i 834 BONDS OP DISUNION. ■I 1^ parliamentary boroughs, of church dimiities nf „n mentsgreator small, whether m th^ A,^ \t ''PP""''- the Church, or the Civil Se^i " Tnd t7' "'■. !Y' "'" ^'''^' sale, go far to establish poTt' :fg::lt7t "?"'"" T' The wholesale dealers were the Lord ?!,„„ n Pn^eiples. of departments; the retail deal rswlthrb^ 7 T' """'' members of Parliament, minor offiS, aL Tfcf 7' ordmate agents. A roaring trade was ^XtL but ts nr*"" days are over, and the self-seeking colonial S,V "' T'^^ canbutl^peto do a httle undefirnd KS: il" ^ local trade of politics, in feeble imitation Jf*i^ "'" mm.erative, and extensive deali™"orEnLtb' "''"' "" fortunate m their time and opportunity ^"^'"'"^^'' ^ore Between the trading politician and the profession»l .MV c:an there is this world-wide diiference tlmttlT ,-'^ ',''" politics, the other for them AsTnw'/ °°' '""' ^^ scale, the first is L oZue:olX:X\Ti'"T no means necessarily immoral in hiTJL ., . '' " ^^ the colonies generally doerbeZ^'r^bl' Sdt' 'f the charge imposed upon him hv liia « A ^^^^^^^^^ of sional politiciaL are CL" nougirtre^T^^it"^"!?- fashion both to crv doxvn ih. ^ f • ' ^ ^* ^^ *^^e interestedr^ess or capadrand to7t ^rt,"' ™f '" "'«■ calling to the payments tLey der^ f mo,t rthe T °' " as members of one ,; both of tlJiZT, V, "^mes, doubtedly many of ther^ould ' ! ! w™ ^°T '• ^"■ they were not rLunerat'dr 1 trser"! IfiM "t^ '' to the fact that the majority of them are Zt'l.i T'™'^ to be public wrec.ers^fa^ertainrbr''f"r^^^^^^^ seeking men are attracted to politics m fl,o „m . , ''^' ^^'f" ambition on trade principles, it is bc^us of ttT' ^""'^ of patronage unfortunately t ,v',wn into th„ . .'f "f ™"' hensive in its scope, and the mn«t wMo.!!! ? I '''"'" Of all businessos,-is to be carried on ;ttt':fp:r:f'r: PAYMENT centration we arrive Houses to do it comj in adding, individual chosen to lation be line of rea is difficult srppositio wrong in ; use ma}' b one may I In leg] men cliOS( should fin than as a delegated stick to it, the better be procur sense of a tition for attractive House of ' the lists does not consists means un as the tesi very few ( Westmins room, but plenty of i sort, the a about the the model PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL COERUPTION. 835 centration of energy and specialisation of function, if, in brief, we arrive at the conviction that it is better to have two Houses to do legislative business badly than to have one to do it comparatively well, we shall have little or no difficulty in adding, as an additional article to our creed, that the less individual members care and know about the matters they are chosen to transact, the more wisely and effectively will legis- lation be conducted. But if imagination fails to gi'asp the line of reasoning by which the major premiss is supported, it is difficult to follow out the conclusion, except on the general srpposition that everything that is right in private life is wrong in public life. That that is a principle consecrated by use may be unhesitatingly admitted ; but that it is a sound one may be stoutly denied. In legislation, as in ordinary affairs, it is desirable that the men chosen for the purpose of moulding the national laws should find their chief interest in politics as a busmess, rather than as a recreation. The more they know about the business delegated to their charge, and the more they are mclined to stick to it, as one calling for unremitting attention and thought, the better for the country at large. But how are such men to be procured in sufficiently large numbers to constitute the sense of any legislative body, unless inducements to compe- tition for membership are held out to make political life attractive as a profession ? Look at the personnel of our own House of Commons. If the recurrence of the same names in the lists of members year after year, election after election, does not mean that a majority of the House of Commons consists of professional politicians, what does it mean ? It means unfortunately just the opposite, if work is to be taken as the test of the applicability of the term, for it is certain that very few of these members can pretend that they come up to Westminster to practice pohtics. They come, not to a work- room, but to a playground, where there are few workers and plenty of playfellows. They are professional politicians of a sort, the worst sort ; for they neither know nor care anything about the duties of their profession. More corresponding to the model professional politician are the men who live but for r itMIl 336 BONDS OF DISUNION. J-ally meagre a^inoHty o^Lll^fol^te^bt 1^3^ '• feasors represent. The rest were better ouTof thp H "?" make room for others anxious for and interested in^I T' *? but more earnest politicians from supplanting Xm ' "" An unpaid legislature,' says John Stuart Mill' . j mipaid magistracy, are institutions e se„t"a Iv^S ''f '" that is, in the worst possible wav^n Z "^" ''"''''^' driven, rich legislatL. And wTno't ^ff T^^i "'''''• -ption, and treat!., are the we^lr rw ^ legislators can rely in the last resort if so dispo ed ^ aTd f no equally certain that without those means'of Irs", and fostenng venal boroughs, corruption, in the stvTe Te «^p accustomed to in England, would bp in^.o^^l^ '^ Let It not be supposed that bribery represents merely the PAYMENl power of much as i of anothe: efforts to refusing t but bring: form of b] The prese variety of members foreshado ' opposite suppositic connectio: be dismisi If it I should it tion ? Ys offices be men of c fession, ii that it wc but politic exactly th bank cler available : assiduous] dependeni end? If the due ei very well, ceive, not them to SI Lord Cha subsidised parties ? qualiiied i "1* PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL COERUPTION. 337 power of wealth to secure the return of a. member. By just so much as it secures the return of one does it prevent the return of another. When, therefore, wealthy legislators unite their efforts to keep less wealthy politicians out in the cold, by refusing to sanction the payment of their services, what is this but bringing the power of wealth to bear in the most extended form of bribery, aimed too at the suppression of popular rights ? The present system affords a fino field for the exercise of every variety of corruptive influence, but to say that ' payment of members ' would probably eventuate in corruption is to rashly foreshadow an agreement between what Paley would call ' opposite improbabihties.' The hard facts are against such a supposition ; deductive reasoning is opposed to it ; there is no connection between one and the other, so it may safely enough be dismissed from consideration. If it be wrong to pay those who make the laws, why should it be right to pay those who carry them into execu- tion ? Why should the money-prize attached to Ministerial offices be so great as to constitute a potent attraction, even to men of considerable wealth, to make politics their sole pro- fession, if the objection to payment of private members is that it would induce them to turn their attention to nothing but politics ? The principle of payment to the Executive is exactly the same as that which regulates the payment of a bank clerk — that is, to secure the services of the best men available and to make it their interest to attend faithfully and assiduously to their duties. Is not the carrying out of laws dependent on their being framed efficiently to secure their end ? If so, then why should it be necessary to stimulate the due execution and not the right framing of a law ? ' All very well,' it will be said, * but high Ministerial officers re- ceive, not payment for their services, but salaries to enable them to support high social positions.' Is it really true that Lord Chancellors, Prime Ministers, and others are heavily subsidised in order to give a round of balls and garden parties ? If so, then Lord Chancellors and Ministers should be ijuaiified for their posts by their capacities for social dissipa- z il! ,.■1 nil' f1 m\ 338 BONDS OF DISUNION. tion, and youth and volatility should eonfpr fl.. - w . administer the high departments of State "^^^^ '' We know that this part of the ronQf,+,,+- i ^i not yet sunk to so low a leve . We Cw "1^ ^1'''' position requires a laigh expenditure to sTppr;fL°!^f":; dutjes, but these duties are official, not soe^ nd IpaH fo as benig all in t le day's work HiM, «ffi„- . 7 ^- paid partly for the maLternce omiisS sTloT" ''' respectable footing, as an official, not Z^t:^ ^2 1 cse salar.es carry with them the obligation of advtclnl tl e natjonal business The drawing-room work is bul a pa"? of the office work, and is paid for as such. Leave hairrnHH as to te™>s on one side and it is evident tl "hetw ■emunerafon, payment, or what you will, is given t. aecu^ efficjent service-not only to secure it, but to attract fo he latter as nnphed m the former-to attract men tl at / pohfcs as a profession by the offer of a large m"; v Iv n ent. It n„.y be said that these payments do have t 'effect of st„nulatn>g the best efforts of individual members or tta at any rate they are devised so as to operate in that d reet on If that IS the case, it must be admitted that the Constitutilri theory ,s not averse to the payment of members bit hat t n^ention IS to mduce every member to devote liUndf ef We know that members of' the H^sTo^C .nmoi stS be paid m order to secure their attendance, and as Conslu t onal theories seem never to wear out thiwgh d crepTtude" trz r:?2'r?rf ""' ""^' -as'oners bt Iff Z : .^ Constitution ,s so still, only with the difference that Mmisterial salaries are no^ subltiluted i' inducements to political work instead nf ;„^;, .,,™f ""'^'' as being made with^that object. CXt™ : L^S with the expectation, but it is clear that only a very ftw me , of exceptional talent and industry, can hope to an/™ aUhe highest dignities of the State, and that the nffieie mvmen are no premium on Uie exercise of the talents and"ry PAYMEJ of the ] member however would-b Office. a very li professic very larj any inte come pi them. memben without the priz( of actual In a paying i. apparent prevent requiring distances therefore is the sej 1858, oul fewer tlu Australia great ma resident i country I sentation to compe superinte tire condi by a knot But i members it not th prevents ; PAYMENT OF MEMBEES AND COLONIAL COilEUPTION. 339 of the nineteen members out of every twenty wlio cherish membersliip as a privilege instead of regarding it as a duty however much they may stimulate intrigues among the would-be official individual ' outs ' to grasp at the sweets of Office. The working of the system proclaims, in effect, that a very limited number of men are to be encouraged to become professional pohticians for the sake of place and office, while very large numbers of men are to be discouraged from 'taking any interest in current questions by the inducements to be- come professional luorking politicians being withdrawn from them. This last effect is produced by the exclusion from membership of all who are not wealthy enough to le-islate without being paid for it, quite as much as by the fact that the prizes are hopelessly beyond the reach of the vast majority of actual members. In a youthful and widespread community the necessity for paying the members of the local Parhament is most easily apparent. Liferior means of locomotion and communication prevent the candidature of men pursuing busy avocations requirmg constant personal supervision and residing at remote distances from the place of assembly. The representation is therefore chiefly confined to men living within the city which IS the seat of government. It was found that in Victoria, in 1858, out of a total number of sixty members of Assembly' no fewer than forty-five were residents in Melbourne. In all the Austrahan colonies, as well as at the Cape or in Canada, the great majority of members of the respective Assemblies were resident in the several capitals and knew little or nothing of the country beyond the urban limits. To secure adequate repre- sentation for the country district, it was absolutely necessary to compensate comitry members for having to employ paid supermtendence for their private concerns ; otherwise the en- tire conduct of affairs would have continued to be monopolised by a knot of metropolitan lawyers. But is not the reason for the advocacy of payment of members in England the same as it was in the Colonies ? Is it not the cost of representation in our own country that prevents representation from being representative ? Distances z2 I lilt 840 BONDS OF DISUNION. may be short and easily traversi"hl« ,'„ « • i but m the fact that JoTmentnZ Z TT^ '™"'' duties to others, in order To enteT on nnvf '. v" P".™'^ incurring heavy additional expense reduce Th """"" one of cost just as is the case I new coties """"" '" bupposing a wealthy class, eniovine Dkntv „f i.- be established in the youthful coloiy'; s^S j ~ other modes of communication to be brouriit tn „ 1 M . of perfection then it may be said that f ^':4 f Xon t!TTnT"''"'°'f' '°'™"''^ ^^Sislatu.; fansZ the pnncple-the extension of representation ovr^he^'dls possible area to all sorts and conditions of men so as tot e^J^Zt^r-' '-'""'' '-Uigencel^oldV;^? A paid member must, it is said, be a delegate Tf 1,,. ti • .3 meant a delegate with a ,e,>cral mandft ,Tl y no^^. 'l' disgraceful to redeem pledges given on the hustings o to confonn o the wishes of a constituency with whichl^e el conscientiously sympathise, preferably to becom^Tg the tool of a party leader? Those who declaim against the e^s o delegation seem to think that it is better for LTi.T/ dekgate of his o™ political chief i-l^ef tCo the en' s ituency to which he stands pledged. The mind obed lU the crack of the party whip is all honour and purl according to them; while he who, in accordancrtith h! convictions and promises, keeps faith with the majoZ w^o eleced him to serve a purpose is the personiiicatiCof I, honest sycophancy. He may wreck his own hopes of personal advancement by so doing; and yet we are told Uiat the mem ber who regards the interests of his constituents as of ^Z srorr.'' °™ '^ ''~'^ ^-"^^ 0^ "'« «-t S- It is usually assumed— why it is imDosc,ih]« f^ n x dele^pteqwh-^— ^rl,^ -vi "npossibie to say— that aeie^atesTvh. .ould endeavour to give effect to the instructions PAYMENT of tlieir cc private jud means an i of moralit of Commo judgment, the exigen notoriously measures, lives of 01 them, prin an intrigui able men. may,' says mere delej are free nc be prevent dition the, Parliamen the nation payment o But is become de The proba Ministers nearly a I propositior by virtue c become de^ they woulc of which they woulc constituen: more hkel general sei of a delega himself m stituency ; PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION. 341 of their constituents must necessarily surrender their right of private judgment. Even if so-and the supposition is by no means an admission— how would delegates compare in point of morahty with the present unpaid members of the House of Commons ? Do these last never surrender their private judgment, nay, even their firmest convictions, according to the exigencies of party tactics ? Is it not constantly and notoriously the case that party, not principles, moves, not measures, convenience, not conviction, regulate the political lives of our blameless senators ? Pledf^es may be broken by them, principles trampled on by them, to suit the whims of an intriguing party leader, and yet ' are they all, all honour- able men.' 'Let the system of representation be what it may,' says John Stuart Mill, ' it will be converted into one of mere delegation if the electors so choose. As long as they are free not to vote, and free to vote aj tlioy like, they cannot be prevented from making their vote dependent on any con- dition they think fit to annex to it.' In effect members of Parliament will become delegates if it suits the convenience of the nation that they should be such, whether they receive payment or not. But is it certain that paid members would of necessity become delegates either in a general or particular sense? The probabilities are not all in favour of such a result. Ministers in receipt of payment are not delegates, however nearly a Premier, who has to submit the outlines of every proposition for the approval of the country, may resemble one by virtue of his position. Why then should private members become delegates as a consequence of being paid ? Whether they would so become or not would depend upon the fund out of which they were paid. If out of the imperial revenue, they would probably be much on the same footing with their constituents as they are at present ; if out of local funds, it is more hkely that they would become delegates, but only in a general sense. At any rate, a member so paid would be more of a delegate than he is at present, for he would certainly feel himself under a greater sense of responsibility to his con- stituency ; while the latter, in turn, would be more jealous of 842 BONDS OF DiSUiMO.N-. funds wo^M p,„bablyi„ to,e IZTlie &!?«; f* ""^f results-a principle which it mi.,l,t br.f; i! ^^""^ ^^ politics as in other thi„» LTe 1 f f '" '''""'* "> To speculate thus is to wander off intn „ f, V , • , be far distant. I„ those .ollTZ^^^ ^:^""'' Amencan, or colonial, where meml»r« ^f T, , ^""I*™. receive payment for hJrt ™™"''"" "^ "'« legislative bodies yet become tl Lw ' /, L j T"'' '^^ '^'P'''^™"'"^« ^' "« - inconvenience of s„Th a sy t f "l^"^'''"^™^- '^^^ Parliamentary terms woltt ""' '"""'^ ^'"'^'^»^'' practical applicatiorrf, eta method of "' '^ ""»" °^ ">^ members of the States-G n ra of t^f n frTlff °°- The were delegates of the most mrficiT ^f""* ^™""<'<'« times such an arrange^ a'^ SXti o^'clT: T for mstructions on everv nn;„t „f ■ • ? eonstituents would be out of tie qSorr!, "'T^'' """ ™^'^' ""^^ munication may be ou ct, ;, ^7™"°" «"'! ™eans of com- been quickened so mil i> T T"'"' '^"* '"^^ ''"^ "»' mte.liL,ee and ^ti'tT f^l^t TtLT 'r "^ 'f''' date renewable pericdionllv n.n i ""^f ,''^- ^ 8"e»eral man- but a particuia>'::::a<:x ;s':f ';? t^'^^^-''"^' be found unworkable in practice ^s mt '^S'^'"''™ would venience and politicil frn t ''^ '"™lvmg constant ineon- and expense on the'the " ' °" "" °'" '""''• ^»-'-' ™k A Parliament, the members of which are mid . i , by iniy means be a nci-fo„t „ ,, "™ f e pajd, need not probability contain a far Irl "'*''' "''" " '^"l '» »" purpose than are bffo^^ ■ ^"'"'"'T °^ "'^" "^ «^™"' It might possi^; llto- lit Xm t.r''''""?'''''"''^^- would be amatterof small c:Z^:^^Z:^Pr'^ It would throw open the entrance to po Itlal tfe " » k """" mere dicad of oemg supplanted by a large number oTpossMe PAYMEl rivals w of meml to preve: incapabl obstruct political exliibitic Payn Nothing expected worst, the one ^ worked a high pra its fair ^ cessive c undertali enterprig political * paymen and effec able for ( but wliic people, member distribut pettiest ; Union, i jobbers, ; the Legij It is associate! impairinj unhampe founded nating m belie VG. of memb( PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION. 343 rivals would stimulate the energies and the liberal instincts of members, however wealthy. The system, too, would tend to prevent the re-election of men who had shown themselves incapable of work or unwilling to undertake it, of those who obstructed legislation for obstruction's sake, or who turned the pohtical debating-ground into an arena for the continual exliibition of private animosity. Payment of members is not an ideally perfect system. Nothing is in political arrangements- The most that can be expected of the best is that it will not work as badly as the worst. But this system of paying members is not so bad as the one prcvaihng m England to-day. It has, on the whole, worked well the countries in which it is in use, and that is high praise t -jidering the adverse conditions interfering with its fair working. In the Australian colonies in especial, ex- cessive centraHsation in tne hands of Government of business midertakings usually conducted in other countries by private enterprise has introduced an element of corruption into political dealings which is usually placed to the account of * payment of members ' by people too careless to analyse cause and effect. In the United States the system is held answer- able for evils entirely uncomiected with it as a consequence, but wliich permeate through the political and social life of the people. The immense area of patronage thrown open to every member of the Legislature, as the result of the periodical re- distribution of every official appointment, down to that of the pettiest post-office clerk in the most remote corner of the Union, furnishes an incentive to men to become political jobbers, incentives such as the small salaries of membej s of the Legislature could never furnish. It is unfortunate that a vicious principle can neve** be associated with another, however harmless in itself, without impairing the benefits that might have flowed from the unhampered operation of the latter. Good and bad are con- founded together in sweeping condemnation by indiscrimi- nating mankind, ever ready to accept what they are willing to believe. In Australia, and also in the Uiuted States, ' payment of members ' and * manliood suffrage,' the two bugbears of wise I 344 BONDS OF hlSVNlON. can fail to be satisfied [hat the ZXd cauts'of ^'f "" by themselves, at once beneficial and necerarv to h""' prosperity. iiecessarj to their inte''snh™:srcot:tva:tf^ possibility of entrance oZ L gi Lt^': "rT °''" "' "" nied by wealth to all mpr, „f i, r. , "''"' "na^compa- manner and poli h of dTtln rf ^' "7™"^ '^'^"^ "^ S^^'' '»f features of aE y rof l^ '^''' "'"^^''"'"y that it has intSeftoTubh r''™^^^^^ " ""^ ^"'"'^^ home, would proSy l^efi; ' iL"™"''^'' "' '"<*" ^^■'«'- <" audience outside tlfe 1 Im drf "^ 7"'™"^ "^ ^" acquaintances That tl,.r , """^ mmediate work; tlut they We t Sile"- T.'°"^ "'=^"^"'' -*' forming acts wlL LrW, "'''"' ''"™ '" "" "'^ S-'^at re- colonial legilionT "'^'^"'''™ ''''^™^" ^"""^ and Hansards Lfttlocardi^S^^tf if "T '' ""' '"^^^ class which is Dart an/^ i ? , " ''«<=ause men of a people mal.e7pt Se'prptti n":f Ilf '"'" T^^^ 1 '"^ colonial Assemblies that ferislaln il H ''"'' °^ "'^ Australia has always been I ' " """'""" P""' "' drastic, popular, an7otlTe;o,nt ZT™ ^'"' "" °™' working men membersbrnf . "" P"*'"' ™P''<"' "' the multitude a^d^XTSmTif*': '?"""'"^"'^ °^ notably absent from tZ F„ i . t ,"'""' "-cmedies, is outside^gitatio^Zctse" str::r;ertr^^^^^ members who, i^TTonr: TZIctS^r 7' i'owe^er earnc.. m support, must lack the "imowledge which paymen: practical However significan life, to til rendered and cons workable. Colon: efficiency them are Colonies better. 1 are prese ready and finality — : but so as is the stai ing itself the aim c legitimate upper claj laws be n pertied cl country, a men who assert, in those whi( Is it in SLB as interest Which of ing upon 1 need anti the worst brings see different t toiler, fev€ lation tha subsistenc PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL COERUPTION, 345 practical experience of working class life can alone give. However well informed, these last are never more than an in- significant minority which may give shape, but cannot impart life, to the measm-es it advocates. So, popular legislation is rendered slow, partial, and shifty ; ambiguous, too, in meaning and construction, instead of being terse, clear, and easily workable. Colonial statutes cannot claim an absolute degree of efficiency or thoroughness, but the materials for improving them are always to hand, and it takes but little time in the Colonies for a badly-framed measure to be superseded by a better. The men whose chief interest is in forward progi-ess are present in force in the Legislative Assembhes, and are ready and eager to push on reforms to completion. Not to finahty— for such a state is neither to be expected or desired, but so as to comprehend the popular wants of the day. This is the stamp of member of which every legislative body term- ing itself representative stands in the greatest need ; because the aim of legislation should be to give as fair play to the legitimate aspirations of the lower orders as to those of the upper classes. Many will differ in toto from this view. ' Let laws be made,' they will tell us, ' for the behoof of the pro- pertied classes, as those who have the greatest stake in the country, and let the law-makers be of the " great stake " class, men who have everything to lose and nothing to gam.' They assert, in effect, that the wealthy interests of the kingdom are those which are most in need of privilege-conferring legislation. Is it in any sense true that those who have nothing to gain are as interested in good legislation as those who have all to gain ? Which of any two men has the greatest stake at issue, depend- ing upon the course that Government may take ; the man who need anticipate no more than decreased luxury, even from the worst of measures, or he to whom bad government brings scanty food and low wages ? — the man of leisure, in- different to the wish to better his condition, or the humble toiler, feverishly anxious to avail himself of every slice of legis- lation that may by possibility afford him a fresh avenue for subsistence? The answer is too plain for argument. The % i 346 BOHDS OF DISUNION. best or worst form'of go „":/",''" f'f '-'-«>' of the al to gain, and whose notW to T ™'^°"'"««y I'e who has L.ste„ to Jeremy BenthanKl^l: ^'*" '™ '"elihood. IS the only bond of pled.'e an,! JZf^' ' ''' ""ntoially said, it, indeed. Want of nfon^l ff "^"1 '» "'^ '=™"'^/ No who has property can el ^ shal" of f "T' ''°<^- ^e I'^ to another country whenever hT^I '",'' ""''y " ™«> property can do no sucl t^ \l\t '' ,^^ "'"> ''"«"<' by the labour of others tZl' * ! '^'' "^ *'"'«'^ ^ho live «-y live is indee of no vXTt'"" '""'"'^ ''*''''" abourers themselves. IhITlTIV ""' '''' "' «>« tban to labourers, and their oil ? ""'''' '" y"""""" in which they can so mnZ:Zr,Ztl '%"" ""'^ """"'^^ of them are no ten exccntionc tl *i ^mongahundred Which is tho chsT^J^ ' „ "'• ^''" *"' find.' «>estate. Th;::::::^;^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ *» national wealth and prosperitv „, of t T'' '"<"•"*»<* "'e to either ? Should ParMn,^ , , "'' '''"' "'''J nothmg bread-wasters or°::;tlt™til't^^^:!■ '^ "e-eiit of ferenti.al ? of idle consumers or „f t 'f ''""'«" »'«< be pre- -^'0 have the means of pZu i.l I ^^''^'^^'-^^ »' nien who must struggle and toi ^^.^^ ,5 '"'"•^' °'' "' "'O^e 'bo eayoy forUmes or f tho^e™, """"*'''"■ "' «'^ -"^n sources of the natio. by sliv^'f ''' '"'*"^ '° "'^ '^- ^ Heaven forbid that tl ershou d\""''T"" ' for one set of men more thaTfo „"lfu ' 'f '"'"'^ '^gi"'""™ centuries of it_but if it mus it,- ?"*'"* """""'^ ''^« '»'' it lean in favour of tl n L^v ! " """ ''^^ "' 'i'« other, let belp themselves, rat e:1rartn'"'7"!;"*^''"' '^"^^ ^"^ '« wants that they ^annotl^Tl T"* '"""'^ *''0 have no working-man C ° ul i'"''''^f '°"' "'^'"^'^'^'^- ^et the cannot be looped™ forwLrnbrrrlf''?- -^ "'^^ IS tabooed to all save the repreTetlZ ^?[ ""." ^"gi^i"'™ no preponderance of rep e eXu™ 1 ? *' ™''' ^'''' ™^<' Sive theworMng-manalo2:m;;t:r:;;: '^ "» '» If It cannot be done so long as mem W ™ '"''"'^■>'- n.eans let them be paid, i rb^ re^leS,- PAYME all free in the I globe d the wor of meml The footing ■( represen terest. G political social di where tl] undiaput equitable > The Review foi PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL OOBEUPTION. 347 of members ^ ^'"''^^' ^^ "'" 'y^^'^ "t payment where the paid member the Z" "' P'-^™°>Ptaous ; bat u„disp„te/swarSm!rri^,rrre zrr*'""^''"''' equitable claims of property chiefly re:pected.' '"'"™' ""' 348 BONDS OF DISUNION. CHAPTER XI. IMPERIAL FEDEEATION-CONCLUSION "ew to demonstrate how ea^ch'^one „f tL'™ f""'' "'"' " furnish >ts all-compeUing ' Bonds nf n '°'°'""' '^'"'W dents of its direct subordinaUon t„ ^ "T" ' '" "'^ 'n<^i- with England. For my „' rt T , '^"'"''™ '=»'™««» treating of those only of our colonieT ^f ""^ "^^^'^ '» most typical for the purposes of tCh f "='' W^*'' 'o me a comparison ready ?o hand h.tw ."^ '■'"'*"'"'='' P''^^*'"' under self-goven.m'n , aM but TL "" ^""''"o" '-''"^ direct rule of the impe ialpowe O^r''', •''«° ""'^^^ '"« ministration of our Crown clZ'- t ,, ' '"■'J'"* "^ "'^ i** however injurious to th™ n ^^^0 th? "r "°"^'"«' ^"^^ principle of government from a Lt'f '^PP''<'ft>0" of the tions relating to them muZ^t^Xi^^'fr' "'r°"^'''«- are suggested by the exneri™" •'^. '"™ """"e which colonial communis crnnr. T^ ^"•^mstanpes of free race. ^'' ™'"I"'^^<' "^ Populations of British of I Wtd:rat^andt^^^^^^^ '''^^'^' '» «- luestion work that it would 1l :;tu^ ^^^''li^, -.*imed for this dency of centralised im Jli?' ' ^''"°° "'a' the ten. colonies was to ere Te'Te hng^ Tr'; T"'^'' »"''^'' mother-country and her 11 *^ ''"'™'' '""ween the imperial system had Ll persist?;"' '^' "O""' 'f "« positive hostihty on eithe, <,S t '"' ''*™ '<«' 'o acts of iiave resulted i„^;vrup:;ror hSn^" e,""r'' ixie x^mpirc. i have tiiere also giv liowevei of impej concerni fair gro attempt( the CoL share oj more doi find herE part in ii foremost scheme -^ If cer in times ] of gO( d ^ it would question further w federatior nothing s the federa It ma^ immediate House of ( that eitht being put :olonial r( most popu of the day sufficient o the experi] might poss order to I members n panding po representat ^^-/.^ysjai^A-. .. . ... ^>^ ... IMPERIAL PEDEEATION. CONCLUSION. 849 ofimperialconcl could fe,l''"f""\'^;g''t be to matters concerns of the clS All itrl'f 1"' "" '"'^™'" fair ground for sMmZl n , v ',' ^ *™''' «*Wished a attempted to b tZTSisioJifT :,"""""' ™" *" ">' the Colonies would be wiLrtn '" f^ ^"'^'^e whether share of authority in t to EnlT'.f ! * P^Ponderating more doubtful whether „!n^?.-' "'"' '* ''°"'<' ''^ «'"» find herself «nl ulXf t i"' """f"' ™"'^ "°' part in its deliberations audita ^v^TX " ?'"»^'""^t« foremost position should be r led f r ''^T '° '''^ sche.ue would fall to the groLd ' ™ '^''*''""°" If centralisation of colonial rnlo ,s-, t^ ^ i question to wliicli T wnnU ^^ , ^"^* ^^ *^^e that either England or t,rCo7on"/d el"::: toT" ^snepi-^s:: uSttuni th ~S« oT:L7a;;iTtrri^^ migl. possibly be foun7:seMlo"pt;tr;„ltr'br'"^ order to be really representative the nambeT rf In' ■"! members must periodically increase in proper L „ tl 7 pandmg populations of the Colonies if i'°? ! ^. "^ "'','"- representatives despatched fromthe' Anti^i^rfl^lta"! I il m i! S50 BONDS OF DISUNION. Legislatures. ^""^ """ controllers of English n.e.trsC™S;grileSr «'^ t™ "'«« colonial nUolerakle,a„dtl,atSST limited to criticisms on coo fa nl ''"''' "<""" ^°°" be the House of Commons ^'Z^rr'"^^ '" "'-^ and ignorant attention that woul, T ''"^ ""'>' " ="*»' colonial populations the rteZ Ic "I T"''"'''"^ "'^f^e of their affairs at home Tl Cnir '^ *° *'"^ ''''"''"^"t proportionately more imp'erio, »1,. T"', '"' '^""^ ''^"""ing any one in Ins senses sZri^U,,^"^'''";^ ''.^''^^''> ™^ ''^n niembers of ParliamentThe pow L 7 ™" /''" '" ^"^''^h relating to the Colonies whLX rilt f "*;"« ™^ '"'"*«« felt in English politics was denied t? ■ T^"'« "'^'^ ™'^« TLosewho think so mistake"rtirS ^r"'"'^"^^^^ colonists. ^^iueea uie dispositions of free can trco^ust^ tZZ" '" ""'' "^ ™- ^"'"'''^ Legislature for dealii^ ranilu'r''''T'^/' *'"^ ^"Slish than does London le^ilSo " ^ ''f 'f ""^^^^ liave but to be sincere in fl,o -''eland. Irish members acquaintance with'r "a e Sr'ofM.'t'^f T''' ™ abusive epithet at the commn,,^ !f ^'"' '" ''"^^ <^«ry press indignantly si.:, "dt ^ tll^'^r t'" ^"«''^^' be mipassioned in defence of h , , T J'^ '"'™ ""'^ '» country to be treated witl coi^d °:!i f "'"" "^ "'- the foulest motives. They have W * " ^'^""^ation of ndispensable, drastic mea'sur of^'reform in ZTT'? denied access to the House nf r^™ °"'^'' to be party has been t.as temporarL ^ ^™ ' '"'' ^^''«° "'« I"«h ing coercion, such as unde 1-0^'°""'; "'''™^ "^ "'"^■■'«»"- to be applied to Eng a"d are „ "'"7;""""=^ ™ul'l be allowed sion of the sense 5 the' UiiteTpa:, '° ''f'"" "^ "'^ ^P^- and Ireland. Even w en in ,1 ^."''^"^™t of Great Britain the House of Com nonS t^TZ ° ^'"'""^ "^^^■'^''^' the very reforms for insisti:!;'^::;^ 1"::^':^ the Iris arbitrar eion by may be features does tlii Channel either ii that En| requiren from El intervals paralysis another, would sf the coloi the Britis Irish. 1 more ace and the conflict b( worst feat be reprodi treatment The p it is reject That nobl the coloni House wo advisers o powerful ( have addei the questi( the Goverr State, and some time such a caj 1 .Q See Ear IMPERIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 851 the Irish members have suffered contemptuous expulsion and sin b7thr"';T'' " "'" "'"'"""^ *'- P-" °f '1- °o" ces sion by the comfortmg assurance that the House of Lords may be safely relied upon to cut to shreds whatever beneficia features any portion of Irish legislation may contain Wlmt does tins show but that the narrow barrie'r of St GeoS CmnneLswide enough to prevent Irish matters from bjng ttrPn" r ^" '=<'™'"-''teIy t«ated in England ? Z that England is quite unfitted to legislate for any but its own from'Tf ". Then how would it be with Coloies separated from England by the lialf-distanee of the globe " Lon» paralysis of interest between countries remote from one another, and ignorance coming to the aid of lack of interest the coll ^ '"™'' " '^P" °' ^*«'^'*«°" '^ unpalatable to the colony whose representatives would be in a minority in rislf Tt!t '"".^ "f"""^'' Irish legislation isto «.e Irish. The stronger the colonial opposition the harsher and more accen uated would grow the hostihty between the home coilv b^ *,'"7'''™' ™'^ *''<* ™™ embittered the conflict between the home and the colonial press until tlm worst features of Irish mismanagement would bTatterpt d to be reprodneed m our deahng, with the Colonies-a mode of treatment that the latter would certainly not tolerate The plan breaks domi hopelessly under examination, and It IS rejected even by so ardent an imperiahst as Earl Grey ■ Ihat nobleman gives as his main reason for its rejection, that aie coloma members when on the Opposition side of the House would be debarred from free communication with the advisers of the Crown-a technical point of its kind but powerfu enough of itself to be a fatal bar. He mig have added, had he been disposed to deal more broadly with the question, that it would be open to colonial members on the Government benches to attain to the highest offices of the State, and that it might happen that those members might at some time form the majority of an English Ministry In such a case the interest and the business of the colonial ' See Earl Grey's article in the Nineteenth Century for June 1879. 352 BONDS OF DISUNION. members elevated to office wnni^ u Colonies, but wouW be n^tyeoXuoF" y7f ""'"' "'^ a condition of tlungs tliat wouM K ,^^'"'' '«g"''"on- l>oth England J^^T'clll" """f'-^-^.-l'-^We by members must be introduced h to the hon!% ""' '"'""'"^ "HM^ive basis, or they must 111 I ^f """«'« »» "> former plan would be Lr , . °"' """g'^l'er. The tl.o Colonies,Ind the adCuon oTh Tf ""^ ""°'«'»"^ '» become necessary "f^l "^ -""'d ultimately tors'':u;lM!;TeSrp^^^^^^^^^ "^='"^"'- °f '^^-'a. possible, to the conce„:l^f;,~^^j:::f,- of"'"''' " at best but an inefficient machine and its nlffi"''"' '^ measured by its opportunities for feXa o " t''"'^ ,'f '" ''^ area which any governins hnHv I,, f f ■ ^'"' '™''"«'" *he js the ehance^o'i mT^^'nt ra 7r;'''o;' tr"":r hand, the greater the multiplicity of h eri.t f ^'' '' governing body is to be nroviL,) fi , ^"^ ^'^'''^' * government wUl be a se "s tf u «!t'"r7''°''''"'^ " '^ "'^' must surely be admitted ?i ♦ ""'"''^^'"""■•y mistakes. It of the besf descrton 1 I .T ■•'"P"'"' Governments legislation a serfes oT 1 /* ^"'"''^ '^ '^<='' ''"^d "{ P>™nises based Tviews^f ten"'"""' '™"'''™"=^^-»''">- makeof Actsof pIria™jV7"r^^^P<''^'»"^y; 'bat to immediate life in vkw f '"'''"■^ machh.es for any mtelligence,'attSon an CO rre^rrtl ""^ r"^'^"'™'"' a nation for long antecedent periods and JLTf T"'"' °' -=^=^nSirS"f = eolr/^cltX ^S^nr^^^^^^^^ *"^' ^ to devote its attentiof to ,ts ImLX l^."'' '""T- '*''"''' local concerns. impeudl lather than to its own Not so, however, thinks Earl Grev T„ l,;„ „ ■ ■ .i Imperial interest is first and foremo'sT H^ t^TZ^ employ interfer order t Free Ti of most EnglaiK can be ] with Ea tion froi a mome contrary end wil excesses nomical pressure — demar conditioi until it \ for the p€ that broi necessity So long i do, so lo Trade wi with thei would ad a vigour j a remedy advice co and very aggravate! ourselves. Again, England i agents at ] imperial c poses to M advice of mm IMPERIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSIOX. 353 employ the valuable time of the advisers of the Crown hi interfering witli the commercial regulations of the Colonies in order to assimilate Eiigli3h and colonial customs tarilis on a J^ ree Trade basis. According to him, the protectionist tariffs ot most of our colonies are antagonistic to the interests of iiiiigland as well as destructive of their own. Of this there can be no reasonable doubt ; but it is impossible to believe with Earl Grey that either remonstrance or dictatorial legisla- tion from a Council at home, or from the Crown itself, witl for a moment tend to bring the colonists to wiser views. On the contrary, any proceedings on England's part directed to that end will only stimulate colonial protectionists to greater excesses. Nationalities rarely or never arrive at sound eco- nomical principles for their own government until internal pressure— the growing contrast between progress and poverty —demands Free Trade as the only remedy for a distressed condition. In England Free Trade was scouted as an absurdity until It was seen to be the natural, the sole efficacious antidote tor the people's emptiness of stomach. Sheer starvation it was that brought conviction of the folly of Protection, and sheer necessity alone will bring conviction to protectionist colonies. So long as the masses of the colonial populations are well-to- Uo, so long will we find that English exhortations to Free Trade will be regarded by them as impertinent interferences with their rights of internal legislation, and the hand that would administer the healhig medicine will be repulsed with a vigour proportioned to the strength of the intention to force a remedy upon them. No amount of imperial legislation or advice could make the Colonies Free Traders, but it might and very probably would lead them into the adoption of °an aggravated system of Protection specially directed aoainst ourselves. '^ Again, Earl Grey would cement the political tie between England and her Colonies by forming a Council of colonial agents at home with power to advise the Crown on matters of imperial concern. But let us ask his lordship how he pro- poses to work out hiB project. Is the Crown to act on the advice of the colonial agents in Council or not? If the A A ill, 354 BONDS OF DISUNION. former, then the imneria) r,.r.- eitl.er be regulated bfthevo'e'^';:"' ""'■ """ -""""^ "»«' of the Oouncil-howL unpalltle ri" °' ""* "'^""^'^ -"ay be to the colony affected a'dt ^"T"" ''"''"^ "' the composition of tl.e ml oritv 1 K " '""^ '" '*' "«"« will be enabled to e- erdse f Z' .~°' "'^^ «'^ «™w„ »n-oeate to itself the rijh L 1^- T" ^'"•''*'™ «"d «o *o -n be no doubt wha evi th t t"r' ''°'"^- ^''-« consent to place any part of ^ * ,"" """""'^^ ^ould "Large of a Colonia/comtil formed Z™"' ""'"^ "'"'- "« 'e Colonies for a mor^tpZuhTcJ^'l"^' ""' '^^W tl>em matters of which they would h ?T" '° '''S''''"'' ^r selves the most competent fudges "^"^ insider them- for 'CXitSt.,:::'™ '^l-onventlonal te™ *fterent parts of tC^v ifeSf: ?f ''': '""'" P*'- "^ "' raperial policy is 11^1?!' f '" ^^^"^ ^ ""^■■ation ««tion in the local ^W of etch f '" ^^-'-^ a modi- qmredforthe new departure F T'""^ '" ""^ ^"'ent re- of commercial policy t^^ichVlT'' "' ^""^'^ ">*«» attention, it rnlt be vide t ,iat„ 7 '"'"''''' '""'-' throughout the empirelouM !, f '^"™ "^ ^^'''^'^ Trade a't-ing the fiscan^rgem "t f '"""f ^"»"' ''a^'-'ly •colonies. Or take the qS " of "'"''^ '^'^ °°^ "f our offensive and defensi^e'pu™! Tt"' ^""'^'»" f»' proposition relating to thatT tW ^^ '''"'"='' °f tiie should furnish its Cpo tt, „; T'^ ^'"^ "* 'i"** empire hnperial armament 7foo" I T ' *° "'' ^^P^°^^' »' the revenue must year y be "id f *? P""-*'"" "^ each clonial only be done by local lattio ^ ' f "P"'^' ^""^ '^at can oolony; in other iords local co? Tf "^ ''"^'"" ■« ^-"h be the groundwork of m„ r^T ""' r ''^■'''"'''" °"'^' *■">- letter upon the Colols Zm .'^"'"''y: ™'^ '» '™PO«e the 'Vom them adaptations of ZLloc ,''"•'*"* '" "^^"'andh.g to imperial requirements P""'*''*^ «^ '«^g«lation colon- 's^S;; ;:,-■>• *- «!. that any one of the -Vised by the CoLcil or s^anlrerb^ t:': d^ S ny must nembeig 'I'ived at its taste 3 Crown I so to There 3 would 3er tile ' would late for them- ;]ie res IMPERIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 855 Grey imagine that the rest of tlie Confederation is to set to work to coerce the recalcitrant member into submission'? hiL7f ""'7 n ''' ""''' "^ ^^'' ^'^y^ ^^1^^" Earl Grey Inmself ,..i.e., lally attempted to make the Colonies the catspav. G D.wnnig Street; and it cannot seriously be 8uppa.dth.t coercion in any form or shape would ever be resortc j. If coercion were to be attempted, the unwieldy confederal.... must infallibly fall to pieces. The Australian colonies, y,me years ago, were frank enough to inform us that t ley woalu no longer consent to have their hands tied by clauses m their Constitution Acts binding them down to a specified course with regard to differential duties betweei colony and colony. We pocketed the affront and let them do as they pleased, and so we would have to do again under similar circumstances. Whatever course might approve it- selt to the Crown or to a majority of the Council would, then, be merely the declaration of an abstract prhiciple hicapable ol being enforced except at the risk of the certain disintegra- tion of the empire; and being, m fact, unaccompanied by a compe hng sanction, would be as valueless as the resolutions ol a village debating club. Worse than that, the assertion of a policy which could not be imposed on any dissenting member of the Confederation would certainly brmg the decrees ot the central consultative body, as we may call it, into well- merited contempt, to the loss of the dignity and real power ot the imperial Government which endorsed those decrees as tlie embodiment of its own imperial policy. -Federation and centralisation ar^ convertible terms. To lederate the empire for particular purposes would be to rule its constituent members from London for all purposes • tor, as has been shown, imperial and local pohtics are the reciprocals of each other, and interference with the one is intermeddhng with the other. The colonists themselves are qmck enough to perceive that this is so, and this is promi- nently the conviction in the Australian colonies, no one of winch has yet been able to agree upon a plan of inter-colonial tederation with any other colony in its own group because of the impossibility of separating local from inter-colonial aa2 S56 BONDS OF DISUNION. ™m'«rity, and in botl, of vh " C ""'^ '^ "^ ^-^ Senerai artvantages derivable from 1 ra In t ''/'""''"^ ''^"^* *" '^e l"Kl a t,ia ™,rfi^ for a loose fefW„ *''™ "'™. «annot -.ppose that iar-distant :,t lb?;:"' "^ " ^^^'-We to mother-country there is no apparent '1 '''""" "■"> «'e «-|'Ose laws differ widely LT^"- T™''^ »' '"*<''-est ; England; whose h.hab L a ^ Sdf V^""' "" '''-^ "^ Pi.ys.cal type from the type of H,!'^ ^ f"""'^"^ ""'" in satirfaction with their Jesen t,/"""/'''"' ""'' ^''"^e ".te..silied by contrast between t fe "^ S°™™>nent is ""<'«• self-rule and their pa t Tnn 1' T''"' '=''-<'«™''tances to the domination of Dow f„ g reT''"M''^" ^bo^dinated , consent commit themselve to 'nv , ""' °^ "'''' "" «'"!. E..gland which mil t "l" "//!'""" °' ^"^^'^^ «..ion made the sport of the , Soft"' .'"™ ""'" ^^^^ *" be Karl Greys ? "' ""^ ^"S'^l" offlcials-or of future Some colonists there inidoi,bt„;ii oo..«e„t to any plan wl ic Itht „^ T "'''o ^"'■''3 willingly '•io«er contact with the tS oTT'"' I"™? «'«n^ in" .>'a....er of men are these ' W Tn r "'''■ ^""^ ^l''" would crown the edifice of , , ^™''-"°™P"I.sing colonists who 'i..ctions which sy ot , L cT/u"'' ™"' ""^o "'"'ar possessions may expec to c.J^^ ^^' '""^""''^ ™"' '^W Mi..isters, and who s'ee heir opZtr 'T""'"-^ '^"'-'■ '•o.mecth>g link „,;(,, EnMand ' 1 f '' '"i ■''.''''""8 '''°''«^ '1.^ "iter marks of imperial fav™ . ,^ f ^ Politicians hankering -;'ay the appearan r ofa eT :: ' ;"T «-"'' "'»> to dis' characters cannot supply a!,A7'"'*'"'''>' wLich their own "..^ srnall castes w fo t' ea b 1 """""■^'''^ °*' "» <"»nPo«in? opposition to the as ° r: io^, ,' ;tl7„ir/ "'T''*^^ """«- "'■e .nen the excess of whose vam^fe, P?P"'»"«ns- These '""""» i« a proof of tJ,ei d s :;: ft'oT''^ *" Enghshinsti- '"""■ty in which they hve asweT„? !° ""^ '"ws of the com- » ".e reahties of Eng ri * ^ 7;,''"'"^ "^ «'«^ ^no-'ance alone aniong colonists give a'stt and rT/"'' "'^ ""^ *''» .'.We schemes for hni^rial M H*" ^^"^"^ "go" to impos- Hi( the fe( long m except extravE here fo miglit miglit. purpose bihty. merit's need of butions content! reservin quota ; nient tc the obje and that out mtei any of t for the J one it is i and matt funds for expenditi form its ( ment of 1 It is would be colonies- she can le order to n ments to 1 must be n The m tions wou] felt to be "•^. I ft. IMPERIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSIOIT. 357 tl,»^'f'^;°^°''""''^ P'"™*' "f "'<" power and magnificence of l"t ma'tltr'''" ''" 'l™^^ P'^"™*^ '° the SawT nd excenH 7 T T' , ^"' '' '^ ^P"^"'"^ '» ^^Sard them llere for n Tv it '^?, ™* ^" '="P«'<' «»»W "<>* "0- mi«h Brod„t '"« ™edle.s to examine the effect its existence 2 ^r ' T'™"' subordinated to its federated might. But suppose for the moment tliat federation for my""i"r,"f *""' ^"' ^^'^^'^ "- "-me aTos^i^ ment s sal i tf '!,"«'", "'.^""'"'^»™^ thepayment of its quota tlia eacli of the colonies is willing at the commence .nent to submit to the dictation of the Ither-cortrras to and that the separate contributions maybe yearly raised with at ';f ttr ""' 't, """fP'^ "' '°^«' 'elf-gLr^t: ' , any ot the colonies. The schemes most plausibly advanced lor the purpose of federal armament are two m number In one It IS suggested that England should furnish the men ships and».,,„.Zofwar,and that the Colonies should supply ofe funds for the purely colonial portion of the miUtary and ,mvd fo^'^ti "" '" "" T' ■' '^ '"'''*^ "-' -»'' colony s"«li fZt t bT n^ 'f ""'^' "'"^ '''"'"''' """w «f "'e employ, men of both by England for imperial purposes. ^ It IS evident that under either plan tlie mother-countrv colomes-at .mst the very pomts in her armour, in fact, which Z:Z :r''' '"''"'■ " ""^^ ="- ""^ evident hat „ Older to make the empire invulnerable at any point, the arnia mens to be kept on foot must be of enorn.o/s prop rtiLs and must be maintained at enormous expense The military danger would be great, the mihtary prepara- on., would at length become intolerable, and woujVbe first Iclt to be so by the colonies inihtarily most secure. The 358 BOxVDS OF DISUNION. colony which by reaqnn nf ,v had contribute/ tl,e Wes amCH 'Tf°" "' ^^"--^ fund, or which, under the mZT. ' ^"^'""^ ''™'"nent argest local armament forTtse™tnd ^''^'; '"^ P™"''^'! «« the strongest of the colo.nes wLd t^rf 'f'' *'"' '» ^e fim to complain of any add^tfon to 1 h PJ^^Wity, be the pose of defending a weak and 1 ] ''"''<'"« ^» the pur- ;" afford either ienoTtn:;' Tes ST *^" ->" that the imperial armament must be L?h ff^ "' "' '=''"«'' B'ons, and so the defensive power of .'" "' '" ''''"™- weakened ? or else, that the oblctinl , ""P™ """^t he release itself from the federal 27 w, "^'""^ "'" Promptly could result ? And vet the i ! , ™"" ""'"^ consequence »-n the submission'of't 'e leaTer ?«;^°'/™.-»'« -uM tation of one of its parts, and wouH "^^ I' ''■''''™ '» "'^ *c. dictation from eveiy otlier of .>r ? P'^ "" amenabihty t„ endless confusion into h 10^0"'' ™* ^^ ^■°"" »"-od^.ce ;inp ,■ while the withdrataltf /e S "' 'T™' '-^-■ federation would mean the addition f^^ ''°'°">' fr«m the he hst of our possible e Ltf andl^T/T""'^^' «°'™y '» tensive armament than ewr 1 T'l''^ "''""''"<' ™re ex- The strength of a II fliat orf "'^ '"-'■"^ed danger, cumstances that led to t^e fir t 1^!^^''? * ""'< - ""= eii- tition speedily force on other ft t" ™."''' ''^ --^P- necessity of strengthening the 1 t ^ ' "'^ "'™ "'« would wreck the schemed to^ '"''''' '''^'''^ "f the empire f ontr^^^i'eir ;Satr'\^-- '^■•"™- to proportion its armaments tn * ^ ""'' '*''<''f "entitled and altiiough it has be"n assumed' f ''" "PP'^''^"™" of risk, the Colonies might consent r» t/' '"•K"™^"''^ "^ake, that armaments on a'sealSied fiZ. t""*" "' *" P''^' >'<" It would be contrary to lllZTZv.^ '"P™"' authorities, wouldforanylengthofti™ Ir^ 1^ '" ™PP°«^ "'"t 'hey on a scale which wll " r"';""f/"P™"d«™e„ ormouey In the end the fedemlitnTme /sW '" """~-ily high' that each colony would a rlTf 7'° """''' """^ '" this, imperial requirements ^"^ "' "^ ^nd not for IMPEKIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 859 But notwithstajiding what has just been said, let us once more make an extreme assumption. Suppose the fede al scale. It 3 difficult indeed to see how the strength of the empn-e could fail to deteriorate under the weight. The m™ and money given up to the mihtary exigencies of the emph^ fTom ; . f '"''• '°™"'"'^ *" '""P"^'*"* subtraction om their productive powers. The direct economical loss Urns perpetually bemg incurred would perhaps do more o weaken the Colonies than vast armaments would do o c iTofs r ""'■ , f f '"''""' '"' ''^^"- «- direct econm^ cal loss there would be a still more serious disadvantage con- sequent on the maintenance of federal forces for imperial purposes, and this I would here advert to ^ If a colony is justified in believing that it can always rely upon impenal aid to extricate it from a difficult position, it is tolerably certam that it will neither show any very serious disposition to avoid unnecessary risks, nor hesitate to call upon the impenal forces to extricate it from the danger it has courted preferably to stirring a finger in its own d en e How often have our African colonies, relying confidently c^ our assistance, rushed headlong into quarrels which, if ihey had had o provide their own means of defence, they would have avoided or peacefully settled? How often has the cer- amty of speedy mihtary aid from England impelled them to some fresh advance mto a hostile country, or incited them to some reckless outrage against a friendly neiglibour? How lar, m consequence, have the frontiers of those colonies b. .n advanced oeyond the abihty of the colonists themselves'^ maintain or defend them ? On the one hand, Uie self-dependent prodivities of ae colonists have been repressed by their uehef m the •■. ■■ ; inty ofimper.... backing, and they will never be develc^.U while England is ready at hand to help them. On the other hand tieir greed for more territory than they can pretend ; . ^uard ^1^ been aggravate.1 by the frequen. opportunities afibrded them by British mihtary assistance of gratifying their gi-asp- mg propensities. They have been taught hy the unwise 8G0 BONDS OF DISUNION. lostenng of Erigland to advance not np„„ f „ subs antially, not by pressing fonvard t , ^ ^ ""'' ""^'■^*°''« loot .„ the manner of the h-4ist We „^ l^omrfaries foot l,y settlers from the Atlantic to t p1 jfif rf,""!'^ ^'"-'^•-' and unstable process of militarv 1„ ' " ''^' "'« ""'•'ertain «.e British African eoloni t p'fjrtoT: Z, '':' ""'^'' ™" tile unassisted Dutch Boers fhrnW m "'" "^"'e^Wlity of "ot. because they have tirh^^''^"?--- ^"^^»"- trammg-scliool of self-heln rnn f, *" "^ "' ""^ «">"ly successful progress to compai^'',vi ^^[.aTortt '" " f" °"' "^^ Amencan colonies over a oorresnondi 1 . " ""''^ ^''«'"'- l«set though the latter were wSfnen/* "T^ "^ settlement, '»e»t ? Again they cannot IdZTV^'^'^^'' '" »'l™™e- the African colonist have ne'rbe" ca^" "■'""" """' ''"" own battles as the Americans were T i "*"" '° '^S'" "'"'■ so freely supplied to South Africa has h^i "Ff ■™' assistance ous results. It has left hJZ] 7 ^ T^"' "^^ '"''"■ tl.e harvesting, an unnatural extension T ?"'■"''■*'" "P^ ''<>' unaided power of the colonhts < 'f '"'"^ ''«J">«' '''e straggling boundaries begirt whtrh^r"" ^^'^"«'°" '<> po icy has rendered w-ariile a, dX'"^^ T'"" °"'- »"''""•>• .t has been effectual in retX^^^^^ 'f ' '"" "<" '-«t, rehance amongst the colonists themseC " '""" '"■"^'"■■ How was It with New Zealand 9 if of the imperial forces was ac! ::^L, f" ^^ "T"''^'™- con,pa.-at,vely slight forward progres t °"^ ""'* Zealand colonists were thrown on t ,! ' " "' "'^ ^"^'ew to fight their own battle "srif^K'r'r"'^"""'''*^^ ''"'1 'rf' of existence effected the ri to ' w™, 'f"^ "" "" "«<-'««-'y could not achieve. When tlt^ ' ""^ ^"'■«'' soldiery tlie colonists had to ma,: ^ ^ STtheT T'"^'"-™ "'"' selves, the efforts of the Maorif '"'""""' '°'' ti'en.. volunteers, not more valoro, St nth''' T'"' 'J"^"«' '- ■"terested in a satisfactory so ,tio; of 1 l"''^'' ^"* '"'■ '"'""^ from thenceforth connnenced "if I' "'""" '^'^"*y' >""^ prosperity. New Zeala", ,: ' '^^^'ff .^™ "''extraordinary Instory, have in,, resse I upon s „»^! '•"; '" ""'"' '"'ent value in our future clealf^^ ^th 'cr " ' '"'^ ''^"'■»''«' =■ '"" ""^ Colonies, and they are "°"'^' — n- > foot by inericaii icertaiii iaJ, ca?) Jiiity of eycan- sturfly 'ord of Nortii- smeiit, vajiee- 11 tliat t tlitir stance iijuri- pe for d tJie 311 to litai-y east, IMPERIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 3G1 these :— Leave a nationality, JioAvever vomur nn.i ,-, fight its ow battles, and it vill si 1^^" ?'"'^ nnnature, to destinies GivP it fV. 7 satislactorily work out its own prosperous advance Ue ZZL'7iU " ""' ■™™"" "'' industrial n.ight wLiel aM^l^l^^C it l^'r ^^^f Jl;: bordL s 'h X ""'""■^ '""" ""'""""«! -""" t ooraeis sucli as it never gave evidence of wlien Enalanr] ,„, ever ready to rush into a quarrel on belnif If °''""' ""^ colonial necessity; and the'cape Cotnist" till ., 7' ""?' spirit when they are compelled t rX n^" ! T '" sources, but not till tlien. ^ ' "'"' °™ ''''- Consider, again, the periodic disturbance each fresh militn w expedifon niflicts upon the peaceful march o oMi " ^ he Colonies ; look at the inducements tin 4™ 1 ™ V o7 :;"■''' '° ^™™'^ unscrupulous contrac ors" fo tl L S »d at Z Zr""'':, "' '™'"P~-' '» "- expedition ; loiee, and at the tendency thus unparted to the colonial mind regard wars as blessings productive of grca and n earned pecuniary profit. Hence, the colonics come to l" come war as an excellent commercial speculation i„ which heir risks are small, their personal re ponsib hU- o h^i and their gains enormous. Into what per licious course "^ eelmg. i widely spread, may lead a young commrtTi leedless to inquire. Suffice it to say 'that ft does o ;, a South Ainctt, for example, can ever be peaceful so In Its colonists get handsomely paid for citjftinl l, , ° which they are not themselvL LledXr to tLm'm:;: "'"'^ B B h' S&2 i;ONDS OF DISUXIOX. -.a tl,oiefore popular; and CZn "uolll'" ''''■' ''''''''''''' -eapo from tl,. conclusion tha foU '°So T '"'""■'""' '» ""penal armament would involve a cm .*! ' T'^'""" °^ local wars as long as any mvtnfiLTi '"P'"''*' "' ™^" "surplus of troops to b ' to tl ! I f '°" '""'" f™'='' ;-nber. But.'moro in. mto b/t ir^uir '""'T temporary utter extinction nf n,„ • ""''' '"••'»" "» and self-help w.thou i „ ' Toii"™;?'"' "'' "^"■'•^"-"^^ We are sometimes assured that federation .f ,i for commercial purnostq wn„?,i ■ j '^'""^"0" of the empne i" the trade of ^he emnh-pf ^ '"''™'' "" ""'™"«e increase How . when ? and ^^^^^rilltr::.: ' '?:•'; ''""""'^ "- «^""-' pose that trade seeks the mn-tZ b , , "™"eous to sup- tl.e market where ech^: CI ft V'r' """' '"'"*^'- «afest terms, whatever the ft ' ! ,'^'"''' "" ""= ''^s' and M' ships are the Jl e ean'er, ot °? ''™'' " ' »' >="«■ private English ship ™ J.^ ZX .f" '' f " ""' '^^»'™- '1.0 carriage of cargoes /pSj^^l^'f' f-'^'-s for peat ; for it is since Britioh ?; ."^''f »'' shtponmcrs, I re. fron, the weight crregt „ ^hii/rilh" T""""=^'^^ terost as a kind of t Rt.t„ • i . ' '"" sl"Pping in- tl.o State and u°ade Ue nitf" P^'" "'°^<' "^"''"^'">«^ on f-tion of EnJ^ Z^rVt:.'"""^ "' ^""'^ tlie development of our preC' ! . •commencement of 'lates. The emphases is i,?^ ff ''"■^"'" '^'''^ f«My -"■yiug trade is L CO Z: " T, ''•'"""" ""« "- "'•.'^ on our ships, but tha^rd ' to ca "f '"! *'" ^"''^" « connected with the cover nf .,, . , ^"^ ""' "eeessarily ;!- activity ana e^^ ^^ M^ts f^r^lT ^^^' ^^ ^ ^--^PPo«etl.eonte.tio.I.,.i^tr::^^^^^^ Jet 1 fact sIiiliF must trade T if the Were able V by sicl parts to the to Eiii Fii low th becaiis read in period ( coiiside United large i I'outes. thought tliere t reason emigrat] plain foi Fron primary influence main ob that the folloivimj be otherv of federa vance, if t opposed ti I BIPEEIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 868 ships as c.rncr/inZekZe^'l'''' "»''<>"« «»Ploy our ™ust be that . trade cloetrilw ^ fl™ n t^''™"'^ '' trade a „.„re than for the purpose ^i^^l X^^^'^' if th'e l^^itthJlHi^;;;!^^ ^°"™" ^-p-'^ «"" -tio„s Were the United SHt'l^thtr'"'"'T """' ''^'''y 'o"""-- able wealth read ^l^::^SZ^S:i "^""T bysidewitli the Stnr-< ■,,„! «f . "'v'*^" -liade banner side parts of the most dosllvl f ?'!' ''™ ""''''"'''' *™» "U to the Statesl peSrJrtf ' t ""''"■" ™"^'' "-'' to England's opr>'arke!s ' """ """ " ™^' ^«- --' periodof fort ;:;!sLrf 40 to So':;tr""s .«^-^'- ">' considerably more than two fl, !i * . ' "scertamed that United I^-lon/wtr rcMfti:' L^E^ ^ -f large numbers who made their \^Iy t telL bv' r "T^'' routes. Tliev wpnf fn fi.^ q^ / "^i ''^""^^^ ^7 Canadian ti-ghtthe/i^ri ertSs^rr-"'^^ ^^- "'• there than anywhere else nml « / "" *'"='"'^'™'^ reason wdneh w4 aTw%:1X:lftrof%:i^ From a very early date in Enghsh emi^rntinn 1,;„* ., pnmary desire of emigrants was to escane fr'„ h ^^'^"V^'" that the majority of them do no em "Le ' ? b 1 " '"''"'" /o OKinti the British n-,,, t . T "^late with the view of i other4i.s:^fr:he'eSpilff d' ^Tej'^f "''■ "'^' " ™""1 of federation-those on whom hf the ", " ^r''?-"^™^ vanee, if they can. a single reas nah L torn for'^t'"'''"^"'' opposed to the suggestions of all previ^is , :L:4™"'''''" 364 BONDS OF DISUNION. patiently labour out scC^, ^JZ ^f""'"'', '""■ ^'' »« of tlio powcful ties of mut.n , ^^ ^'""' ""■' 'li«™Ptiou finnly linkiug togeter the t^/'f ''"''. ""'' "ff^ction now Let us be warned b; tl ^vi ' l'':;'':": Vl ^"■'"- government in the past to nvn ,1 » ^n'ral'sed colonial re-introduction of the nrilnriV,'"';'''''' ^'"""''"<=^ «f "'^ Only by leaving tl rfr^e Snies".T "'f"' ""^ '" "'« f"""'^- destinies can ^e ex, to r tit"' '° ™* °'" "'«'• ««•" with ourselves. But ^f ^,1 ' ' nf ,'" •" "'■''™"™"' "'"O" winch experience and ta on lu,d '' ?i"'"" ""^ '"'^^"•'' P^"'' «l.ould attenipt to interitre ^1^11, I '""°"''^'' '^"S'""'' "or the power to inter, eddlo To ', ™'""''' "'^ rig'" elain, to obodience^S S; tH^^ "'"™ ^''^ '■-■"> P"t her decrees into exec Uo tlZ, T- "" "'" "''""^ '° the Colonies into firmer d!?T" "'""'"■ '" «'""•», ' to bring each fresh endeavt" o Sf ri^^ ': T" T'''"™^ «"^ •lisunion between herself .n^ T '"''f "''™ '« permanent governing Colonies. ''"' '''■^■'"' ^'"^ f"<="'>Iy self- I.OXDON- : PniNTED DY -A.I^I^HJ 1883- GENEKAL LISTS OF NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY Messrs. LONGMANS, GEEEN & CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. »o}«Coo— HISTORY, POLITICS, HISTORICAL MEMOIRS, kc. JLmoId's Lectures on Modern History. 8vo. 7s, 6i. Bagehot'8 Literary Studies, edited by Hutton. 2 vols. 8vo. 28*. Beaoonafleld's (Lord) Speeches, by Kebbel. 2 vols. 8vo. S,'*. 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