HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA FROM THE EAELIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY WITH A CHAPTER ON AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE BY ARTHUR W. JOSE \ \ AUTHOR OF "THE GROWTH OF THE EMPIRE Fifth Edition, Revised and Enlarged SYDNEY ANGUS AND ROBERTSON Ltd. 89 CASTLEREAGH STREET 1913 T^B Printed by W. C. Penfold & Co. for Angus & Robertson Ltd. Sydney London : The Oxford University Press Amen Corner, E.C. First edition 1899 ; Second edition (revised) 1901 ; Third edition (further revised and enlarged) March 1909, reprinted October 1909 ; Fourth edition, from new type, with additional chapters and illustrations, August 1911 ; Fifth edition (revised to the end of 1912) Februari/ 1913 eoucATrow uEPr, ax. PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. As in the first writing, so in the repeated revisions of this History recourse has been had as far as possible to original documents, and to sources of information con- temporary with the events they describe. Advance sheets of the first edition were submitted to Mr. David Scott Mitchell, in Sydney; to Professor Morris, in Melbourne; to Sir A. C. Gregory, in Brisbane; to Dr. Hocken, in Dunedin; to Mr. J. B. Walker, in Hobart; and to Messrs. Thomas Gill, I.S.O., and John Bagot, in Adelaide. For subsequent editions I also consulted Messrs. R. R. Garran, C.M.G., on matters connected with Eederation; Walter Jeffery and Ernest Scott, in connection with exploration lLOmma. by sea; and Bertram Stevens, as regards the chapter on^\^ ^ Australian literature. These gentlemen have, of course, ' ' ' no responsibility for statements made in the following pages. I am, nevertheless, much indebted to them for a good deal of information and for full, frank and helpful criticism. I must also acknowledge my debt to the statistical works of Messrs. G. H. Knibbs, C.M.G., and T. A. Coghlan, I.S.O. The greater part of Australian history is still less than a century old, and there are yet alive many who have personal knowledge of matters mentioned in this book. Should any reader find in it a statement not in accord with his personal knowledge, his criticism will be welcome. Corrections, however slight, are always worth making. In 544:148 viii. PREFACE this regard I wish to thank Mr. Edwin J. Welch, second in command of Howitt's expedition in search of Burke and Wills, for the opportunity of studying his diary. I hope that other readers will give me similar opportunities. Perhaps the greatest difficulty experienced in writing a history of Australia is that of keeping the interest con- tinuous while discussing the separate but interwoven stories of the different States. New Zealand, fortunately, can be treated in a single narrative with cross-references to the main story; but the life of the Australian States is a single life, however detached some of its episodes may seem to be. Those who wish to follow out the story of one State at a time will find help, it is hoped, from the marginal notes throughout the book, and from the special index on page 320. The originals of most of the illustrations are in the Mitchell Library. A.W.J. Sydney, January, 1913. TABLE OF CONTENTS. I. — The First Visitors . . A. Foreigners B. The English {leSS-mO] II. — The Penal Settlement A. Plans and Preparations {1783 1188) B. The Bahy Colony {1788-1804) C. Riot and Mutiny {180^-9) III. — The Colony Expands . . A. A Neio System {1810-1818) B. The Troubles of Government {1810-31) C. Exploration and Settlement {1822 1830) IV. — The Days of Bourke . . A. Political Agitation {1831-7) B. The Opening Up of Port Phillip {1835-7) C. Land Regulations {182^-31) D. The Settlers and Their Surround ings V. — ^The Daughter Colonies A. Tasmania {1803-36) B. Western Australia {1826-40) C. South Australia {1830-41) VI.- 15 22 33 37 43 49 59 60 68 70 78 86 90 -The Coming of Self-Government A. New South Wales {1837-51) . . 96 B. Tasmania {1836-56) . . . . 107 C. South Australia {1841-51) . . 110 VII. — The Gold Discoveries and their Results A. First News of Gold {1849-51) .. 114 B. The Troubles of Victoria {1851- 1855) 117 C. Settling into Shape {1853-9) . . 128 1-14 15-36 37-58 59-77 78-95 96-113 114-132 X. CONTENTS. VIII.— Filling in the Map . . . . 133-152 A. Coastal Districts {18S8-U) .. 133 B. The Inland Wastes {18U-58) .. 137 C. Grossing the Continent (1858-63) 145 IX. — Constitutional Government . . . . 153-165 A. New South Wales (1860-85) . . 153 B. Victoria (1860-85) . . . . 160 C. Tasmania (1860-89) . . . . 165 X. — Constitutional Government (Continued).. 166-183 A. The Waste Lands (1861-63) . . 166 B.Queensland (1859-90) .. .. 168 C. South Australia (1860-90) .. 173 J). Western Australia (18Jf0-95) .. 178 XI.— Australasia 184-204 A. Europeans in the South Seas (1803-19) 184 B. The Period of Annexation (1882- 1895) 187 C. Federation (1850-1910) .. .. 190 XII.— The Story of Land Settlement . . . . 205-222 A. Crown Grants . . . . . . 205 B. Land Sales and Pastoral Leases 209 C. Selection Before Survey . . . . 215 D. Experimental Reform . . . . 220 XIII. — The Growth of Industries . . . . . . 223-235 A. The Pastoral Period . . . . 224 B. The Influenx;e of the Gold Dis- coveries . . . . . . 227 C. A Crisis and the Recovery . . 230 D. Railways . . . . . . . . 234 XIV. — Australian Literature . . . . . . 236-259 A. Introductory . . . . . . 236 B. The Beginnings: Wenttvorth, Lang, Earpur . . . . . . . . 237 C. The Immigrant Observers: and Kendall . . . . . . . . 243 D. The Work of the Xative-horn: Pater son, Lawson, <6c. . . 252 E. Literature in New Zealand . . 258 CONTENTS. xi. XV. — New Zealand in the Eaely Days . . 260-274 A. The Maoris and Their Land . . 260 B. Early Discoveries (1642-1174) . . 263 C. Missiorvaries and Chiefs {1775- 1830) 266 D. British Interference (1831-9) .. 271 XVI.— New Zealand, 1839-1851 275-294 A. Colonel Wakefield (1839-40) . . 275 B. The ScramUe for Land (1839-43) 278 C. War with the Maoris (1843-6) . . 284 D. The Administration of Governor Grey (1846-50) .. .. 291 XVII.— New Zealand since 1850 295-311 A. The New Constitution . . . . 295 B. The Maori War (1856-65) .. 296 C. Troublous Times (1865-68) . . 303 D. Peace and Progress (1870-90) . . 309 Index I. — General 313 Index II. — History of Separate States . . . . 320 ABBREVIATIONS. For the convenience of readers who wish to follow up the history of separate States consecutively, the following marginal signs are used throughout: — (At the end of sections) Continued on pat (At the beginning of sections) From page- MAPS. Australia, showing Inland Exploration and Coastal Discoveries . . . . . . . . Facing Title Page The Western Hemisphere as known in 1589 . . . . xiv. The eastern Hemisphere as known in 1589 . . . . xv. Tracks of the Early Explorers . . . . . . . . 42 Tracks of the Explorers of South-Easteen Australia 55 New South Wales in 1842 . . 69 Tasmania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Goldfields in 1852 .. .. .. .. ..119 Tracks of the Trans-Continental Explorers, Etc. . . 144 Australia, Showing Proposed and Present Boundaries 167 New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Facsimile (slightly beduced) of Title Page of First Book on Australia xvi. William Dampter 6 Abel Tasman . . 6 Ship of 17th Century 7 Captain Cook 8 Reduced Facsimile of Sir Joseph Banks' Description OF THE First Landing in Botany Bay (from his Journal) . . . . .... . . . . . . 10 Sir Joseph Banks 12 Cook's Ship Careened at Endeavour River 13 Viscount Sydney 18 La Perouse 18 Governor Phillip . 19 Sydney Cove in August, 1788 21 Governor Hunter 25 Governor King 27 George Bass . 27 Matthev;^ Flinders . 29 Captain Murray 29 Sydney from the West Side in 1800 32 Governor Bligh . 35 John Macarthur 35 Governor Macquarie 38 Gregory Blaxland 40 John Oxley 40 Hamilton Hume . 41 Allan Cunningham . 41 Sydney in 1824 . 46-7 Signatures on Batman's Treaty . 63 Governor Bourke 65 John Pascoe Fawkner . 65 Melbourne in 1839 67 Currency Note . 72 Holey-Dollar and Dump . 73 HOBART IN 1820 79 Lieut.-Governor Collins 81 Governor Arthur 81 ILLUSTRATIONS Early View of Fee mantle First Sketch of the Site of the City of Adelaide . William C. Wentworth Governor Gipps Victorian Gold License Melbourne in 1854 . . Dr. John Dunmore Lang Sir George Bo wen Edward John Eyre . . Captain Charles Sturt Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt Sir Thomas L. Mitchell John McDouall Stuart A. C. Gregory . . Robert O 'Hara Burke W. J. Wills Sir Henry Parkes Sir John Robertson . . Brisbane in 1860 Sir Robert Torre ns . . Sir Charles Todd Sir John Forrest Alexander Forrest . . Diagram Illustrating the Effect of Land Legislation on Cultivation . . Reduced Title Page of First Book Printed in Aus TRALIA Reduced Facsimile of Australia's First Newspaper Henry Clarence Kendall . . Adam Lindsay Gordon Marcus Clarke James Brunton Stephens . . Thomas A. Browne ( " Rolf Boldrewood John Farrell . . Andrew Barton Paterson . . Henry Lawson Will H. Ogilvie Victor J. Daley A Maori Chief Signatures to the Treaty of Waitangi . Early View of Wellington, N.Z. . . Sir George Grey Rev. Samuel Marsden A Maori Pa . . 88 94 100 100 122 127 131 131 136 136 140 140 146 146 148 148 158 158 168 176 176 182 182 219 238 239 247 247 251 251 253 253 255 255 257 257 277 277 280 289 289 302 The Western Hemisphere as known in 1589 The Eastern Hemisphere as known in 1589 RELACION DE VN memorial que ha preicntado a fu Ma gefVad el Capitan Pedro Fernandez de Quir , (bbre la poblacion y defcu* brimicnto de la quarta parte del mun dojAuftrialiaincognitajfiigran rique -za y fertilidad:dcrcubierta por el n^ifmo Capitan. Conlicaiciadel Ctjnfejo Realde Pamplona, ImprcflTi por CajrloJ dc Labaycn. Af o i<.t;cv ^vtA-<^^/<-f K_>,-p-^ O-J JtToy^ ,v< fco-t aJ' ^o o^ J^A-u-^tAr *v^ "^rl^*^ Vkv«.ov>-l*>- M^«. Ax. k^J^ Eeduced Facsimile of Sib Joseph Banks' Description op THE First Landing at Botany Bay jPVoi7i his Journo-l THE FIRST VISITORS. 11 Gippsland. Of what lay to southwards Cook knew a little, for Tasman had been there. The north was a pure mystery. So after a couple of hours he headed the Endeavour north- east along the coast, watching the shape of it, as it changed from day to day, for a harbour where his ship might lie in safety. A southerly wind carried him past Jervis Bay, and the rough surf frustrated an attempt at landing near Clifton; but at daybreak on the 28th he sighted the opening into Botany (which he at first called Stingray) Bay, and by afternoon the Endeavour was at anchor inside it. A full week was devoted to exploring the landing neighbourhood and trying to make friends with the natives. Both enterprises turned out unlucky. The blackfellows ignored the strangers as far as possible, and either ran away or threw spears at them when any communication was attempted. As for exploration, a book published later in England under his name, and with his authority, talked about "great abundance of grass " and " the finest meadows in the world," besides " a deep black mould, fit for the production of grain of any kind;" and it was largely this description which afterwards made the British Government believe a young colony in New South Wales would almost immediately be able to supply itself with food— a belief which nearly resulted in the wholesale starvation of the first settlers. On May 6 the Endeavour sailed again, keeping as close to the shore as was safe. Cook charted and named all the striking features of the coastline as he passed, some- times from their appearance— Broken Bay, for instance— sometimes after his friends or superior officers at home— e.g., Port Jackson and Port Stephens, after the two Secretaries to the Admiralty. Once round Sandy Cape, he found himself among the shoals of the Great Barrier Reef; and a little north of where Cairns now stands the ship ran suddenly on a coral reef, stayed there for twenty-three hours, and sustained such damage that she was barely carried into the mouth of a little river, which Cook named after her. It took two months to patch her up and make 12 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. ready for a fresh start; then, with exceeding care, Cook threaded his way in and out of the reefs till he had rounded Sib Joseph Banks Cape York. And there, being at last certain that he had been sailing along the eastern side of a continent— since he 14 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. had now connected his discoveries with those of the Dutch nearly two hundred years before— he landed on a little Aug. 21, island in the straits and, with hoisting of flags and much ' firing of musketry, took possession of the whole eastern coast for the King of England, giving it— then or later— the name of New South Wales. One of Cook's companions on this memorable voyage Banks was stirred by it to take a strong and lasting interest in the lands he had helped to discover. Joseph Banks had joined the expedition as botanist at his own expense, and from first to last was the most active of explorers when- ever a landing was made. It was the number of plants which he and his fellow-botanist, Solander, collected there that suggested to Cook the name, which he afterwards adopted for his first Australian landing place, of " Botany Bay;" while the heads of that bay still bear the names of the botanists. When the expedition returned to England, Banks' journal was used as much as, and perhaps more than, Cooks' in compiling the authorised account of the voyage. Later on, when there was talk of making a settlement in New South Wales, Banks was consulted again and again. It was more his work than any other man's that the settle- ment was in the end made ; and from the time of its making he helped the settlers in every possible way. He sent out plants; he obtained sheep from the King's own flock; he offered to engage the African explorer, Mungo Park, to make discoveries inland ; he heartily backed up Flinders, the greatest of our explorers by sea; he was in constant communication with many of the Governors, especially p. 34 Governor King, whose successor he practically appointed. To him, in fact, more than to any other man, it is due that, in spite of many early misfortunes, the English colony took firm hold on the soil of New South Wkles. CHAPTER II. -THE PENAL SETTLEME>^T. A. Plans and Preparations (1783-1788). Cook had no idea of the importance of his discovery; indeed, he was rather apologetic for having done so little. Both he and those who sent him out were much more interested in the Great South Land, whose whereabouts was still a puzzle. It did not seem to be anywhere south of Tasmania, certainly. But it might lie further to the east, between New Zealand and South America; indeed, there was another legend that a Spanish pilot, Juan Fernandez, had discovered a fertile country with large rivers in it not very far south-west of Chili. So on Cook's second voyage 1772.5 he let Australia quite alone, and went sailing here and there all over the South Pacific; he ransacked it thoroughly from Tahiti to the Antarctic ice, and from Tierra del Fuego to New Zealand, and after two years went back to England quite satisfied that there was no Great South Land worth looking for. A third voyage which he began in 1776 was given up to explorations in the North Pacific, between Alaska and north-eastern Asia; Cook just put in at a Tasmanian harbour and at Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand, but did nothing more in our part of the world; and in an unfortunate quarrel with the natives of Hawaii, where he was spending the winter of 1778-9, the great and adventurous seaman was killed. So for several years Australia was left to itself. But in War of the those years England was occupied in fighting several other BemuluoL, nations; and one result of all this fighting was to set men i776-i783 thinking of the new land in the southern seas. In the first place, we were fighting our own cousins, the Americans. Or, to put it more correctly, we were helping some of the English colonists in America to fight the rest; those we helped were the fewer in number, and in the end we and 15 ]6 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. they were defeated. So bitter had been the fight that it became impossible for our friends (who were called "Loyalists") and the men who had conquered them to live in the same countrj^, and we were in honour bound to find some place where our friends could live in peace. It occurred to some Englishmen that such a place might be found in the land which Cook had discovered; and James Matra, who had been a midshipman on the Endeavour, drew up a scheme by which the Loyalists should be set down in New South Wales to found a colony there, with labourers brought from China and the South Sea Islands to do all the hard work for them. But there was a .great difficulty in the way, which arose from this same "War of the American Revolution." England was fighting also with France; in fact, it was the •/ help of France which had given victory to the Americans, and that help had been possible because France had at last a strong navy. Now the French had been quite as much p. 30 interested as ourselves in southern exploration, and part of Cook's work on his second and third voyages had been to follow in the tracks of some French ships and find out what they had discovered. So it was not unlikely that, if the Loyalist colony was formed^ as Matra proposed, a strong French fleet would come down upon it and seize thd country. He therefore went to the English Ministry and 1783 asked for help; if the scheme was carried out under the direct orders of the Government, there would hv no fear of a French attack. Before the Ministry would do anything it had to be clearly proved that England would get some advantage out of this new settlement. Again the recent war provided u&eful arguments in its favour. We had been fighting Spain and Holland as well as France; if we had to fight them again, New South Wales would be an admirable centre from which to attack the Dutch and Spanish islands in the Malay Archipelago. But the argument which in the end prevailed was much more pressing than that. It was. THE PEiSTAL SETTLEMENT. 17 Trans- portation that New South Wal es would be a most suitable place to which to send<^onvict^ For more thanaliundred years we had been in the habit of shipping off certain classes of prisoners to America, to be used there by landowners as labourers on their plan- tations. When the American war broke out it at once became impossible to do this anj^ longer, and the English prisons soon became full; for before the war a thousand used to be transported every year, and room had to be found for all these. Parliament in 1779 discussed several plans for getting rid of the extra numbers; and when Matra's proposal was brought before Lord Sydney, the Home Secretary (who at that time looked after our prisons and our colonies, too), it struck him at once that all the people whose disposal was troubling him— convicts and Loyalists and all— might be arranged for together in the new country. The Loyalists could make use of the convicts in Australia as they had done before in Virginia; and the Government, if it got rid of its convicts, could afford to protect the colony from a French invasion. The plan seemed a good one. But the Government took a long time to make up its mind. Australia was a very long way off, and a ship was sent to search for some nearei- place along the west coast of Africa. When after all it became clear that Africa would not do, the Loyalists had grown tired of waiting, and had settled down in Canada; and thus it came about that the new colony, when it was founded, had no free settlers at all, but was made up of ^convic|S) and the marines sent out to keep them in order! C)n the 18th of August, 1786— almost exactly sixteen years after Cook had annexed the Australian coast— Lord Sydney gave formal directions that a fleet should be got ready to take out 750 convicts. Two years' food was The First to be put on board, as well as plenty of clothing and tools for house-building and farming; cattle and hogs and seed corn were to be obtained at the Cape of Good Hope on the way out; and a good stock of glass beads and pocket looking-glasses and ^^ real red feathers" was laid in for Fleet 18 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Phillip's Task trade with the South Sea Islanders, besides some Dutch money and beer to bribe the Dutch agents in the Malay Archipelago. Lord Sydney himself chose the man who was to command the expedition— and there was need of a very careful choice, for on the first Governor of the new colony everything depended. It would be his business first of all to convey more than a thousand people, three-quarters of them prisoners, safely on an eight months' voyage across seas not very well known to a country of which no one really knew anything. Arrived there he would have to Viscount Sydney La Pebouse make for himself everything that men need in a civilised settlement; he must build houses, cultivate crops, raise cattle, make roads, and do all this by the labour either of prisoners who did not want to work, or of marines who had quite enough to do in looking after the prisoners. He would have to maintain the laws, and to make a great many of them, because there were very few already made that exactly fitted the situation; most laws assume that the majority of people prefer to obey them, but in the new country three people out of every four would be likely to THE PENAL SETTLEMENT. 19 break the laws whenever they could. It was a difficult position to hold, but Lord Sydney found the right man. Captain Arthur Phillip had fought in the Seven Years' War, and in the more recent war against France, and in both had gained promotion; but his governorship of New South Wales was the best work of his life. Governor Phillip For eight months he worked incessantly at all the details of the expedition— the food, the clothes, the stores, the tools, even the razors. The slow-moving departmental officials could not keep pace with him at all; they were accustomed to making arrangements for a six weeks' trip to America, 20 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. and would, but for Phillip, have made exactly the same arrangements for the voyage to Australia. As it was, May 12, 1787 y^g ^^^^ Sailed with very little ammunition on board, and so little spare clothing that it was proposed to use floursacks for many of the convicts. But at last, after calling at Rio Janeiro and the .Cape of Good Hope for provisions and livestock and seeds, Phillip on January 18, 1788, reached Botany Bay. A few days on shore convinced him that no settlement could flourish amid the swamps that bordered on it, and he went round by boat to Port Jackson, where he " had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in the world." Returning to Botany Bay, he gave orders that the fleet should sail at once for its new quarters. What followed has been thus described by an eye-witness: — " The Governor, with a party of marines and some artificers The selected from among the seamen of the Sirius and convicts, Found- arrived in Port Jackson and anchored off the mouth of the ing of Sydney cove intended for the settlement on the evening of the 25th; and in the course of the following day sufficient ground was cleared for encamping the officers' guard and the convicts who had been landed in the morning. The spot chosen for this purpose was at the head of the cove, near a run of fresh water, which stole silently along through a very thick wood, the stillness of which had then, for the first time since the creation, been interrupted by the rude sound of the labourer's axe and the downfall of its ancient inhabitants— a stillness and tranquillity which from that day were to give place to the voice of labour, the confusion of camps and towns, and the busy hum of its new possessors Jan. 26, 1788 jj-^ ^j^^ evening of this day the whole of the party that came round in the Supply were assembled at the point where they had first. landed in the morning, and on which a fiagstaff had been purposely erected and an Union Jack displayed, when the marines fired several volleys, between which the Governor and the officers who accompanied him drank the healths of His Majesty and Royal Family, and success to the new colony." The transports which anchored in Sydney Cove that same evening were unloaded within ten days, and »^i-^ ' j ' *rw» 22 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. on February 7 the new colony was founded with all due formalities. B. The Baby Colony (1788-1804). Governor. ^'v^^ harbours Were not enough to feed a thousand 1788-1792 people on, and the land near Sydney was soon found to be very poor. Phillip explored the country as well as he could; he discovered Broken Bay, with its two wings, Brisbane Water and Pitt Water— more fine har- bours—and made an attempt to strike inland towards the distant Blue Mountains. First, however, he had done something of more immediate practical use— he had sent one of his ships under Lieutenant King to occupy Norfolk Island; and the accounts of it that came back went near to causing the abandonment of New South Wales in favour of this fertile little spot. Troubles of all kinds soon came to vex the Governor's heart. The sheep died. Trmiljiies "^^^ Cattle strayed and were lost. The convicts were lazy. The officers of the guard quarrelled among themselves. Major Ross, Phillip's second in command, declared the colony would not be self-supporting for a hundred years. " It will be cheaper to feed the convicts on turtle and venison at the London Tavern than be at the expense of i''90 sending them here." When the Sirius was sent to the Cape for flour, she could only bring back four months' supply. All public works had to be stopped, and the food allowance made as small as possible. Phillip's private store of flour went into the common stock; the Governor refused to fare one whit better than the convicts. He despatched a couple of hundred people to Norfolk Island to relieve the distress in Sydney; scarcely were they landed when the Sirius went ashore, and a quantity of stores was totally lost. Mean- while two ships had been sent from England with help, but the one that carried most provisions was wrecked near the Cape of Good Hope, while the other (which had some stores aboard) had also two hundred convicts; and within the month another thousand convicts were put ashore, with news of yet a thousand more to come. THE PENAL SETTLEMENT. 23 Phillip was at his wit's end. He had found fair agri- Farming under cultural land at the head of the harbour, where Parramatta difficui- now stands, and had marked out a township there, to be *'** called Rosehill. But the first fleet was quite lacking in farmers. His own butler was found to know a little about farming', and was given charge of a hundred convicts to do the best he could. Letter after letter went to England asking for free settlers, or for men who could give instruc- tion in farming and carpentering and tool-making; but free settlers were few and far between, and out of five "experts" who arrived in 1790 only one was in any way qualified for the work. The natives, too, were hostile. Phillip did his best to treat them kindly, but few of the settlers followed his example; stragglers from the township were killed by way of revenge, and the bush was set on fire whenever the white men turned their stock into it for pasturage. As for the convicts, the workers with whom this new colony was to be built up, their condition was most pitiable. Phillip's own contingent had been brought out in good health, owing to his personal care; but the second fleet lost 270 out of its thousand passengers on the voyage, and landed nearly 500 sick. The third fleet did better, but even so landed nearly a third of its convicts too ill to work. In spite of all the Governor kept heart, and by 1792 had reason to think the worst was over. In July of that year the danger of a permanent famine was past, although for a long time there were recurring periods of scarcity. The Rosehill settlement had grown apace, and had a popu- lation of two thousand, of whom sixty-four were farmers working their own land. Sydney had more than a thousand inhabitants, and Norfolk Island about as many, with a hundred and fourteen farmers among them. The Hawkes- bury Valley had been explored from its mouth to the Grose junction, and good land found at many points along it. The guard of marines was replaced by a regiment of ^g^^J}^^ soldiers specially raised for the work, and there was hope Wales of strict discipline in future. So after much labour Phillip '^°''P' 24 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Grose and Paterson Acting- Governors, 1792-5 persuaded the English Government to give him leave of absence, and at the end of the year left his governorship in the hands of Major Grose, the new regiment's com- mander. This unfortunate step gravely imperilled the success of the colony. Phillip's desire had been so to use his convict material as to make New South Wales before long a settle- ment attractive to free immigrants. But Grose brought in military rule; for the next seventeen years the New South Wales Corps was the real governor; and few of its officers were inclined to let such a chance slip. They had, indeed, joined the corps in order to make their fortunes— men who went a-soldiering for renown and the joy of fighting would have joined some regiment for home service, where every day another war with France was coming nearer. But the Eastern seas were still for Englishmen the home of great wealth to be suddenly acquired. Poor men had gone to India and returned millionaires: why should not Australia, people thought, give similar chances'? Landing with such hopes, and finding them so grievously disappointed, most of the officers set themselves to make what money they could; and under Grose's rule they were given every chance. They allotted themselves large areas of land and the pick of the convicts to work it. They took over from the civilian administrators all control of affairs. Being almost the only moneyed men in the colony, they very soon became the only merchants, and sold goods at exorbitant prices. More especially— for this was the quickest way of becoming rich— they imported and sold large quantities of rum. Wlien in 1704 the Hawkesbury Valley was settled, and grain from its farms became plentiful, they soon found that it was more profitable to turn the grain into spirits than to sell it for food— and the rum* industry thus estab- lished was for many years the bug-bear of governor after governor. For some time the home Government refused to accept * " Bum " was the name used in those days for an form of spirits, just as 'gin " is now used in West Africa, THE "PENAL SETTLEMENT. 25 Phillip's resignation, in the hope that he would return to the colony and take up again the work he had done so well. In the end they sent out another naval officer, Captain Hunter Hunter, who had been Phillip's second-in-command on the 1795.18O0' first fleet. After five years he was succeeded by a third Governor Hunter seaman. Captain King, the officer who had first occupied and ruled Norfolk Island. Under both Governors the colony increased slowly in size and prosperity. The same troubles beset both. Provisions were always running scarce, for the fertile farms were found to suffer badly from floods. Free 26 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. immigrants were slow in coming, and free settlers with money were rarer still; so that the ring of officers gained power every day, and was able to defy openly the Governor's edicts. Rum-selling and rum-distilling debauched the convicts and their guards. The soldiers rioted; the officers quarrelled with each other and the civilians. Discipline was, indeed, so hard to maintain even within the small area actually occupied— which consisted of a strip east and west along the Parramatta, a strip north and south along the Hawkesbury, and a slant strip connecting the two— that neither King nor Hunter much encouraged Expiora- explorations inland. Phillip had pushed to the Hawkes- iniand bury-Nepean line, and there his successors stayed their hand. When the Cowpastures were discovered in 1795, they were rigidly reserved from settlement as a grazing ground for the cattle found on them— the descendants of those that had strayed in Phillip's time. The Blue Mountain barrier was attacked three or four times through the Grose and Nattai Valleys by private enterprise; but when in 1799 Wilson, a convict, struck south-west across the Mittagong tableland and reached the Lachlan, Hunter refused to make any use of this rather embarrassing discoveiy. Even the Hawkesbury, he said, was so far away as to be scarcely manageable— hew could he hope to maintain discipline if settlement spread a hundred miles off? The mountains, in fact, were for these early governors— all seamen— rather a useful fence to keep their prisoners from straying than a cramping barrier to be broken through as soon as possible. The sea was their element, and to its shores they clung. Along its shores, indeed, much exploring work was D?^cov- ^^"6, both north and south. It began with two young eries. officers of the Reliance— the ship that brought out Governor Hunter— George Bass, the surgeon, and Matthew Flinders, one of the midshipmen. These two were great friends, and ready to face any dangers so long as they could make discoveries. They secured a boat eight * feet long— aptly * So says Flinders' book, published in 1814 ; possibly a misprint for 18. THE PENAL SETTLEMENT. 27 christened the Tom Thumb— and after a preliminary trip round Botany Bay, started in March, 1796, down the coast southwards from Sydney to look for a large river of which there were rumours. The first night they stood in to land, expecting to find themselves near Botany Bay; but the current had taken them down below Bulli, a steady north wind prevented their return, and they had to run for the Five Islands, and at last to land near Wollongong in order to get drinking water. Here they were met by natives (who were inclined to give trouble till Flinders amused Governor King George Bass them by clipping their beards with a pair of scissors), and thought it better to get back Sydneywards. So, rowing their hardest against wind and current, and camping on the beach near Coalcliff— too tired, though, to notice the coal — they narrowly escaped boatwreck in a sudden " southerly buster," and in the end found their " large river " to be merely the inlet of Port Hacking. Next year it happened that a store ship was wrecked on an island in the Furneaux Group, and some of the crew, getting to the mainland in boats, tramped along the coast 28 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. three hundred miles to Sydney, which only three of them reached alive. On their way they passed Coalcliilf Bass and saw coal lying- on the beach. Bass was sent to 1797 investigate, and found a layer of it six feet thick running for eight miles along the face of the cliffs. The news brought by the shipwrecked men stimulated him to a bigger voyage of discovery. Flinders was away at Norfolk Island, but Governor Hunter provided a whaleboat with a crew of six and six weeks' provisions, and Bass went south on his old tracks. He passed Wollongong, and the Illawarra coast, and a shallow harbour with a river running into it, that he contemptuously called Shoalhaven; touched at Jervis Bay, which was already known, discovered the picturesque Twofold Bay, and, slipping round Cape Howe, ran south-west along a coastline that was quite unknown. Off Wilson's Promontory he was driven by a storm t) shelter in Western Port, which he explored thoroughly; but the delay there of thirteen days nearly exhausted his stock of provisions, and he had to make for Sydney as straight and as quickly as possible. This voyage made him more eager than ever to continue his discoveries. If his calculations were correct, he had got so far in behind the coast discovered by Tasman that it was almost impossible for it to be part of the mainland of Australia. Tasmania was an island— he was sure of that— but to prove it he must sail right round it. And the next year (1798), Flinders being back from Norfolk Island, the two friends obtained a twenty-five-ton sloop (the Norfolk) from the Governor, ran down to Cape Barren Island and thence to the Tasmanian coast, and traced the coastline westwards steadily (exploring the Tamar estuary on the way) till they rounded its north-western corner, and saw open ocean in front. They sailed com- pletely round the island (Flinders making careful maps as they went), explored the Derwent as far as their ship could sail, and then returned in triumph to Port Jackson. Hunter gave Bass' name to the straits- in which he first had sailed. And tlien Bass drops out of authentic history. It is THE PENAL SETTLEMENT. 29 generally understood that he was persuaded to join a com- mercial expedition (some say it was a smuggling venture, others that he was armed with Governor King's passport) to Chili, and no more was heard of him. Flinders was more fortunate. In 1799 he took the Flinders Norfolk along the coast northwards and mapped it out care- fully as far as Hervey Bay. When he took his maps to England their great value was acknowledged, and the British Admiralty gave him a ship of his own, the Investigator, with which to make a thorough survey of the whole Aus- Matthew Flinders Captain Murray tralian coast. He struck it near Cape Leeuwin, put in at King George's Sound, and then sailed slowly round the Great Bight to Kangaroo Island. No man had ever landed there before; seals and kangaroos lived on it quietly together, and allowed themselves to be killed quite tamely. " The seal, indeed," said Flinders, " seemed to be much the most discerning animal of the two, for its actions bespoke a knowledge of our not being kangaroos, whereas the kangaroo not infrequently appeared to consider us to be seals." Just beyond the island the English ship fell in 30 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. with a French ship, Le Geographe, commanded by Captain Baudin, which had been surveying the coastline westwards from Western Port, and the two captains exchanged news of their discoveries; Flinders, however, went on with his survey and, using greater care than Baudin had done, dis- covered and sailed in through the narrow entrance of Port Phillip, which the French had not noticed. This, however, turned out to be no new discovery, since Murray of the Lady Nelson had been in the bay ten weeks before. When Flinders arrived in Sydney, he found there another French ship, Le Naturaliste by name; and not long afterAvards Baudin came back to refit and get pro- visions. It is curious to read of this friendliness at a time when England and France were fighting hard in Europe. The French, moreover, were the one nation whose enterprise we might fear in Australia. They had been interested in Voyagers i^ almost as early as we were. De Bougainville sailed in the neighbouring seas two years before Cook, and Marion du Fresne two years after him. La Perouse reached Botany Bay only a week later than Phillip. D'Entrecasteaux in 1792 visited Tasmania. This very expedition of Baudin's resulted in strewing French names all over southern Australia— the whole south coast was called Terre Napoleon, and Spencer's Gulf became Golfe Bonaparte. But we can understand that the trade of Sydney already made the French explorers envious, when we read their description of it. In the harbour of Port Jackson, only fourteen years after its discovery by Phillip, they saw coal-ships ready to sail for India and the Cape of Good Hope side by side with well-armed smugglers bound for Peru; other ships were on their way to China, to New Zealand, to the South Sea Islands, to Vancouver; American vessels were never absent; and the whalers, the sealers for Bass Straits, and many smaller craft added to a constant bustle of shipping which Baudin's crews had not expected to find at the other end of the globe. '^aearr[* Flinders' work was not yet finished. He next went northwards, and continued his survey of the Queensland THE PENAL SETTLEMENT. 31 coast from Hervey Bay round Cape York and the Gulf I802-3 of Carpentaria to Arnhem Land, where he connected with the surveys of the old Dutch maps; so that at last the whole coastline of the continent was clearly known, and he could contentedly return to England. Just then began a long series of misfortunes. His own ship, the Investigator, was found to be unseaworthy, and he took passage for home on the Porpoise. This ship was v/recked on the Queensland coast, and he had to put back in an open boat to Sydney for help. Starting again in a small schooner, the Cumber- land, he found it necessary to put in at the Mauritius, which then belonged to France. The Governor, Deeaen by name, was suspicious, and detained Flinders, who was carrying among his papers some despatches from King to the British Government; Flinders stood on his dignity as a peaceful explorer, remembering how well Baudin had been treated in Sydney. This lengthened his detention until, when in 1806 Napoleon sent orders from Paris to set him free, the Governor felt he knew too much about the defenceless state of the island to be let out of it while the war lasted. He was at last released in LSIO, shortly before an English fleet took Mauritius, and on his return to England published his journals; but in the meanwhile the journals and maps of Baudin's expedition had been published in France, practically claiming for it the first survey of the southern coast, and covering Flinders' shoreline with French names, as has been already mentioned.* When Flinders' book was published, his names were rightly restored wherever he had preceded Baudin; and the name "Australia," by which the continent has since been known, comes from a suggestion he made in his introduction to the book— a previous suggestion of the same sort, 21 years before, having passed unnoticed. Flinders, of course, had not the whole field of coast other exploration to himself, though he was by far the greatest * The charge against the French of stealing and copying Flinders' charts while he was imprisoned, which has been nniversally believed since 1817, has recently been disproved by Mr. Ernest Scott {Terre Napoleon, 1910). Discov- eries 1803 THE PENAL SETTLEMENT. 33 of our discoverers by sea. Vancouver in 1791 had entered King George's Sound. Siiortland in 1797 discovered the Hunter River, and coal was brought from it as early as 1799. Murray, as we have seen, was first inside Port Phillip, though only by a few weeks; and Murray's ship, then under Lieutenant Grant, had surveyed the Victorian coast a year or two before, so that Baudin's French names are left only on a small strip of coast from Cape Northum- berland (the first point seen by the Lady Nelson) to Encounter Bay, where the French ships met Flinders. On the west coast, beyond the Leeuwin, French names reappear, for English ships had not yet visited these parts. From the year 1800 onwards Captain King was Governor of New South Wales. It was he who had received Baudin so kindly, but he knew well enough what the French had in view. As soon as he could, therefore, he organised two expeditions to secure the country about which the French had been most inquisitive. Lieutenant Bowen being sent to the Derwent, and Colonel Paterson a year later to the Tamar ; while a third expedition under Colonel Collins, one Oct., 1803 of Phillip's men, was sent direct from England to occupy Port Phillip. Unfortunately, Collins, who camped near the mouth of the bay, in the Sorrento district, was deterred from further exploration by magnified reports of the number of natives at the head of the bay. Instead of thoroughly exploring the coast-line, he obtained permission from King to move his party to Tasmania, and settled at Sullivan's Cove on the Derwent (where Hobart now stands), Bowen's camp across the river at Risdon being moved to join his later on. As for Port Phillip, it was left alone for many years. C. Riot axd Mutiny (1804-9). It was not only fear of the French that moved King to The make these new settlements. The convicts had been °"^'^ * getting harder to manage of late years, partly because of the quarrels among their rulers, partly because a new class of convicts— political prisoners from Ireland— was being 34 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Bligh Governor, 1806-8 John Macar- thur sent out, and these men were not inclined to be treated like thieves and criminals of that kind. They were already stirring up the others to revolt, when Tasmania was occupied for the purpose of sending them there to be kept in isolation; and in 1804 an attempt at rebellion was actually made. It came to nothing, because the best of the Irish prisoners would have nothing to do with it, and the rebels so lacked organisation that a couple of dozen soldiers were able to disperse three hundred of them by a single charge. But it kept the Governor on tenterhooks, and made him feel (as he hated to feel) how much his authority depended on the unruly New South Wales Corps. In 1806 he resigned his position and left the colony, being succeeded' by a fourth naval officer. Captain Bligh, whom Sir Joseph Banks had strongly recommended for the post. Bligh, who had by his overbearing conduct already brought about the famous " Mutiny of the Bounty/' and by sheer pluck and judgment had extricated himself from its very serious consequences, came out with the full intention of putting down all disorder and disobedience with a strong hand. Of course he at once fell foul of the New South Wales Corps, more especially of its ringleader, John Macarthur, a man whose influence on the young colony was so important that it deserves a separate paragraph. Macarthur came out in Phillip's time as a lieutenant in the Corps, and obtained his share of the land which Grose distributed among its officers. But he was a man ©f ideas, and the trafficking and rum-selling in which his friends in- dulged did not content him at all. He used his farms for experiments, and at last made up his mind that sheep would thrive here better than any other stock, and that the colony was admirably fitted to produce good wool. He fetched sheep from the Cape, where Boer farmers had a few flocks of the much-prized Spanish merino breed. When in England in 1803, he obtained from King George some much better sheep of the same breed, and so interested the British Government in his projects that he took back to the colony a grant of ten thousand acres of land wherever THE PENAL SETTLEMENT: 3^5' he liked to pick them. He was a man of hasty tempej* and great obstinacy, and repeatedly came into collision with both Hunter and King; for, while doggedly pursuing his own schemes, he was always ready to back his less worthy comrades of the Corps against the naval governors. Con- sequently King was by no means disposed, when Macarthur produced his grant, to let him have all he wanted, especially as he wanted the pick of the Cowpastures, that jealously- guarded reserve for the herd of Crown cattle. Still, it was certain that Macarthur had the good of the colony at heart, and King compromised with him : he got land in the Governor Bligh John Macarthur coveted district, but only 5000 acres of it, which he called Camden, after the Secretary of State who had obtained him the grant. In all directions he was active; his crop-^ flourished like his flocks; he bought a whaler; he made preparations for vine-growing and wine-making. To Bligh, however, the progress of the colony was not so important as its discipline, and he ruled it as he would a man-of-war. Macarthur's enterprise and public spirit .affected him little compared with the belief that Macarthur 36 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. was insubordinate and a supporter of the rum-sellers, "What have I to do with your sheep, sir?" he burst out at the offender. " Are you to have such flocks of sheep as no man ever heard of before? No, sir!" The Corps' privi- leges, which it had so abused, were fiercely attacked. Macarthur's Camden grant was threatened with confis- cation. The more important free settlers stood by the Corps. The smaller settlers and the emancipated convicts, whom the Corps despised, sided with Bligh. At a critical moment Macarthur was arrested and brought before a ^^\*^^^ civilian judge who was well known to be his bitter enemy. Mutiny He appealed to his military friends, who released hira. The same afternoon Major Johnston (following up a letter in which he demanded the Governor's resignation * ) Jan. 26, 1808 marched his regiment from the barracks to Government House, and arrested Bligh and the civilian officials; the next morning he formally deposed the Governor, and took the administration of affairs into his own hands. For a year Bligh was kept under arrest in Sydney; then he was shipped off to England by Colonel Paterson, who had come over from Tasmania to supersede Johnston.' About the same time Johnston and Macarthur sailed for England to explain their conduct, and the colony settled down to wait, rather uncomfortably, for the Home Government's decision. • The requisition to Johustou now in the Sydney Art Gallery was probably drawn up after Bligh' s arrest. 1810-21 CHAPTER III.-THE COLONY EXPANDS. A. A New System (1810-1818). This time the British Ministry put its foot down. The Corps had procured Hunter^s recall and King^s resignation, but it could not be allowed to depose a Oovernor at its own will and pleasure. At the end of restored 1809 Colonel Lachlan Maequarie landed in Sydney, and at once announced the will of the Imperial authorities. Bligh was to be reinstated as Governor for a day, before handing over his position to Maequarie himself. Everything that Governor^ had been officially done in the colony since Bligh's deposi- tion was cancelled— all appointments, all land grants, all trials; though Maequarie afterwards took care that this decision should not be rigorously enforced. Finally, the New South Wales Corps was to become one of the ordinary regiments of the British army, and was to be sent back to Europe at once.* Another regiment came out with Mae- quarie to supply its place, and others were to follow in rotation, so that none should acquire any special intimacy with the population they controlled. Bligh, who had hung about the coast of Tasmania instead of going straight to England, did not arrive in Sydney in time to be reinstated, but when he got home he was made a rear-admiral, while Johnston was dismissed from the army, and Macarthur prevented from returning to New South Wales for eight years. Macquarie's arrival was the beginning of a new system of administration in Australia. Up to this time the Governor had been an officer of the navy, whereas his authority had depended on the military; and between army and navy in those days there was a good deal of jealousy. Moreover, the military officers were permanent residents and landowners, and had very large private interests, * It was disbanded a few years later. 37 38 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. which made them oppose the Governor's measures in- stead of loyally supporting them. Now for the first time the Governor was an army officer commanding troops whose interests and duty were the same— to carry out his orders and support his authority. This gave Macquarie far more Governor Macquarie power than his predecessors had possessed, and enabled him to alter completely the status of the colony. It had been a prison for the confinement of bad characters; it was now to be a home for their reformation. Phillip had asked for free settlers to found an empire; his successors, getting 1811 THE COLONY EXPANDS. 39 none, had abandoned the Imperial idea; Macquarie was ready to take up Phillip's task with the materials he had at hand, and to carry out in full the half-neglected theory of transportation, according to which it gave prisoners a chance of atoning for their faults by living an orderly life in a new country. Settlement, therefore, was to be encouraged in every way. Macquarie made a tour through the territory he governed, visiting the Hawkesbury first, then the two posts in Tasmania, then the chief harbours on the New South Wales coast. Everywhere he marked out townships and roads, and encouraged the settlers to im- prove their farms and houses bj^ a promise of Govern- ment help. Everywhere he urged them to explore the country further. As a natural result, the great problem of the Blue Crossing Mountains was soon solved. For twenty-five years this Blue petty range, nowhere more than four thousand feet high, tains' had confined the colony to a strip of coast not forty miles wide. It is, as a matter of fact, a detached tableland, cut off from the main dividing range by one deep valley and intersected by several others, all edged by cliffs four or five hundred feet high. The earlier explorers, following European precedent, had tried to make their way up these valleys, and had invariably been blocked by the cliffs. Bass, who had once or twice on his journey scaled the cliffs, seems to have as soon as possible descended them again and renewed his journey up the Grose only to be blocked once more. In 1813 Gregory Blaxland, who had visited the lower Cox Valley with the Governor and dis- cussed matters with him, determined to try a new plan. With Lieutenant Lawson and a young colonist named Wentworth he went straight up the side of the ridge that overhangs Penrith and deliberately kept along the top of the hills as due west as he could go, avoiding every gully, and so piercing the heart of the tableland itself. After seventeen day's hard work in thick bush and rugged country, they found themselves on the point of Mount 40 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. The Western Table- land York, looking down on a beautiful grassy valley, and the next day made their camp amid grass three feet high on the bank of a fine stream— the Lett. Having pushed on to the hill now called Mount Blaxland, they returned with the news to Sydney. Macquarie was delighted, and sent one of the Govern- ment surveyors, G. W. Evans, to extend and report on the new discoveries. Evans pushed on three weeks' journey beyond Mount Blaxland, over the main range, down the Fish River, and across a splendid stretch of open country Gregory Blaxland John Oxley known later as the Bathurst Plains; and in a second journey not long after crossed the rough country beyond, and came upon a second large river. A road made in hot haste along Blaxland's track opened up these grazing grounds for settlement, and in 1815 Macquarie rode across with his wife and laid out the new township of Bathurst on the river since known by his surname*— his Christian name, Lachlan, falling to Evans' second river. * The Macquarie is formed by the junction of the Fish River with another called Campbell's River. THE COLONY EXPANDS. 41 These two rivers were a great puzzle to the geographers. Both flowed inland, but in different directions; it was natural to suppose that they would get larger as they went on— yet along the whole coastline of the continent no estuary of a really big river had been discovered. Macquarie determined to send the Surveyor-General, John oxiey Oxley, to find out what did become of his two namesakes. In April, 1817, Oxley, with Allan Cunningham, the botanist, and ten more in his party, started down the Lachlan. A fortnight's journey brought them to a vast Hamilton Hume Allan Cunningham swamp; they got round that, and presently reached a second; through that, and into a third, larger and more impassable than the others. In despair Oxley turned back; two days more would have brought him to the Lachlan's junction with the Murrumbidgee. He now struck northwards across country to find the Macquarie; when he reached it provisions were running short, and he had to make his way back to the settlement. But next year he was off again with Evans and a new I8I8 party to Wellington, where he had met the river in 1817, v» "•ulll(l(.lTI^il^ 'S:S, <^ ^ j Torrens ?77^1 •^ \i^ HUME^ M ITCH ELL m Tracks of the Explorers of South-Eastern Australia 56 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. reach, with a swift current, and while they were everj^ moment expecting to be upset among- the snags, they were iMurray Suddenly shot out into midstream of a fine river more than a hundred yards wide, that flowed through well-grassed country under the shade of noble trees. This, Sturt knew, must be the stream fed by all Hume's other rivers, from the Hume to the Goulburn; and he at once decided to track it to the sea, feeling it impossible that so great a body of water should lose itself, as the Macquarie had done, in a marsh or desert. Day after day he followed its windings, landing every night to camp in spite of danger from hostile natives, of whom he saw large numbers. Once, where a long spit of sand narrowed the stream, his party was in imminent peril of being overwhelmed by a huge mob of blacks, who were dancing and howling in full war-, paint on the spit. Sturt had his finger on the trigger of liis gun— for he hoped that by killing one black he might frighten away the rest— when four men came racing doAvn the opposite bank of the river, and a couple of them plunged in, swam to the sandspit, and with violent lan- •guage and gestures checked the hostile crowd. The four Avere blackfellows with whom Sturt had previously made friends, and their interposition saved his party from certain "death. A little below this memorable sandbank another broad river was found coming in from the north. Sturt suspected it to be the Darling, although its waters were fresh, and his Darling had been unmistakably salt; but he had no time to verify his suspicions. The main river (called by Sturt the Murray) still ran on west into much poorer country; then there was a sudden turn to the south, and in a day or two the boat was borne into a broad lagoon. The river channel at the lower end of this was so shallow that Sturt left the boat, and clambering over a number of sandhills, found himself on the shores of Encounter Bay. Now began the worst difficulties of all. A vessel had been sent round to meet them in St. Vincent's Gulf, although Hovell had actually named Encounter Bay as the THE COLONY EXPANDS. 57 point where they would reach the sea. They were too worn out to cross to the Gulf by land, and a heavy surf made it impossible to fetch the boat home by sea; the only thing to do was to go back by the way they had come. For a thousand miles they pulled wearily upstream, some- times rowing for ten or eleven hours at a stretch to get clear of hostile blacks. When they reached the first depot and found it abandoned, the strain began to tell. Often men fell asleep at the oar; some fainted; one lost his senses; but not a man murmured in Sturt's hearing, so devoted were they to their great leader. At last two of them were sent ahead by land to a second depot, and the rest waited in camp a long week for their return. All hope was gone, when the two faithful fellows were seen coming with a supply of provisions; as they reached the camp they sank down with limbs swollen and quite unable to bear them. When Sturt at last arrived in Sydney he went blind, and did not recover his sight for a long time. Such explorations as these, of course, went far beyond Minor the bounds within which settlement was probable for many ments years. But the colony was filling out all the time. The district of Illawarra, for some years past a favourite haunt of cedar-getters, was formally occupied in 1826 by the establishment of a military station at Wollongong. Wellington had been similarly settled in 1824. In 1826 large tracts of land round Port Stephens were handed over to the Australian Ag-ricultural Company, which had been formed in England to caiTy on woolgrowing and the cultivation of the vine and olive in Australia. Its pro- moters were drawn from the head officials of the Bank of England and the East India Company, as well as from the British Ministry, and the enterprise promised well. To this company the Government coal mines at Newcastle were transferred in 1831. In these years also there were renewed rumours of a French proposed French intrusion; some pointed to Westernport, some to the western and northern limits of the continent. Accordingly steps were taken to seize the threatened points 68 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. before the French could reach them. Melville Island, in the north, was occupied in 1824, but abandoned five years later in favour of Port Essington. In 1826 three ships landed a party of convicts and their guards in King George's Sound, where they founded the township of Albany, As for Westernport, to which Hovell was sent with a similar party, the French had been there first, and had abandoned it in disgust, and the English expedition was soon only too glad to follow their example. It will be convenient to note here the process by which the whole of the continent became British. Cook annexed merely " the whole eastern coast." Phillip's commission, as Governor gave him authority over " the country inland westward as far as 135° long. E., as well as over the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean " within the latitudes of Cape York and South Cape in Tasmania. At the end of 1826, as has just been said, the district round King George's Sound was annexed, as Melville Island had been two years before. Next year— the Melville Island news having meanwhile reached England— the western boundary of New South Wales was extended to lat. 129° E., that parallel consequently becoming the eastern boundary of Western Australia, when in 1829 it was added to the British dominions. CHAPTER IV.-THE DAYS OF BOURKE. A. Political Agitation (1831-7). Darling-'s successor, Sir Richard Bourke, was a stronger q^^"^^,. and wiser man, though even he at last was entangled in a 1831-37 dispute which arose out of the same old exclusive-emancipist question, and resigned his post because of it. For six years, however, he succeeded by great tact and absolute justice in holding the balance even between the two con- tending parties; and both sides, while they attacked each other and the home Government sometimes very bitterly, had little but praise to bestow on the Governor. During his rule progress was made towards a settlement of three important questions. In the first place, the English system of law, which had been introduced by an Act of 1828, was incomplete as long as the old colonial jury system was retained; and a persistent agitation was kept up by Went- worth and his friends to obtain juries after the English fashion. There a man accused of committing a crime was tried before a jury of twelve civilians ; in New South Wales, until Bourke's time, such a trial took place before seven military men. Bourke passed an Act giving the accused man his choice, and the military juries were swept away altogether soon after the next Governor arrived. But Wentworth was fighting for a more important reform than that. The colony was still very much in the power of whoever might happen to be Governor. During Darling's rule the Legislative Council had been altered so Reform as to consist of seven official members and seven non-official, council with the Governor as fifteenth; but all the non-official members were nominated by the home Government, and the colonists had thus no voice in appointing any of the men by whom they were ruled. This was now an anomaly, since the money which the local Government handled was no 6U HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. longer provided by England ; and Wentworth revived an old and famous watchword of the English Commons, when at meeting after meeting he advocated " No taxation without representation!" The people of New South Wales, he said, by paying taxes and in other ways provided the money which the Council disposed of; they, then, were the people whose votes should elect that Council. The granting of this reform also was delayed till after the arrival of Governor Gipps; but it was during Bourke's time that the movement attained strength and practically won its cause. The third question was the most vital of all: Should transportation be abolished? The leaders of English politics at this time were men who had set themselves in every possible waj^ to make people humane. They abolished slavery throughout the Empire; they greatly improved the condition of English prisons; and their attention was naturally directed to the treatment of prisoners in Australia. A rising of convicts near Bathurst in 1830, and a serious mutiny at Norfolk Island in 1834, caused very close investigation into the whole system, and in 1837 the House of Commons appointed a Select Committee to make full inquiries, which reported fhat transportation did not do very much good in England, and was as bad as it could possibly be for the colonies. B. The Opening Up of Port Phillip (1835-7). None of these questions were finally settled in Bourke's governorship, which is best remembered by events of a different kind, and notably by the explorations of Sir Thomas Mitchell and the founding of the colony of Victoria. The discoveries of earlier explorers spread out from the settled districts like the rays of a starfish— Cunningham's to the north, Oxley's and Sturt's north-west, and Hume's Sir south-west. Mitchell, the Surveyor-General, determined MitcheH *^ connect all these rays, and so obtain a clear idea of the whole country within four or five hundred 1831 miles of Sydney. His first expedition mapped out more carefully the districts north of the Liverpool Plains. His second followed Sturt's tracks towards the Bogan and 1835 THE DAYS OF BOURKE. 61 Darling, but found the country in a very different state; the river banks were well grassed, and the Darling was no longer a salt stream. Mitchell was so delighted with what See^p, he saw that he established the depot of Fort Bourke, and traced the river's course for some three hundred miles further. As he had already made sure of its connection with the Namoi, Gwydir, and Condamine, the one thing left to do was to make sure whether it ran into the Murray or wandered away somewhere west. This task he undertook the next year. Following Oxley's route down to the 1836 Lachlan valley (most of which was now occupied by thriving cattle stations) he traced that river to the Murrumbidgee, and proceeded to and along the Murray till he reached the broad river which Sturt had taken for the Darling. He made »ure, by going some way up it, that it really was the Darling, and then turned back past the Murrumbidgee- Murray junction with the intention of making his way to Hume's tracks and finding the connection of the Murray with Hume's series of rivers. But near Swan Hill he came upon the Loddon, and was led to climb first Mount Hope and then Pyramid Hill; and the view threw him into raptures. "Fit to become eventually one of the great Australia nations of the earth," "Of this Eden it seemed I was the only Adam," "The sublime solitude of these verdant plains"— these were some of the phrases in which he expressed his delight. The Murray valley was at once abandoned in favour of such splendid regions, and the expedition struck across the Loddon and Avoca to the head waters of the Wimmera through "exuberant" soil that choked its dray- wheels iVl they made no more than three miles a day. Once past the dividing range, Mitchell hir on the broad Glenelg, and was even more enthusiastic and poetical in recording its many beauties. It led him, however, only to a shallow estuary and a sandy bar; he turned eastwards and, coming down upon Portland Bay, found himself in a settlement of white men— a farm and whaling station established not long before by two brothers (32 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. named Henty, from Tasmania. The Hentys were con- siderably alarmed. Mitchell's party was a good deal bigger than those of former explorers, and marched very much in military fashion. Five-and-twenty men in such guise, appearing suddenly from the unknown bush, put the little settlement on its defence, and a four-pounder cannon was bi'ought to bear on the suspicious-looking strangers. Ex- planations followed; the expedition was welcomed and supplied with provisions, and Mitchell determined to make for Sydney as straight as he could. He crossed the Pyrenees and camped near Castlemaine, making a journey thence to the top of Mount Macedon, from which he could look across forty miles of grassy plain to the great bay of Port Phillip; then, returning to his camp, he hastened to the Murray a little below Alburj'', crossed it, and reached Sydney in triumph after a seven month's journey full of exciting and important discoveries. This expedition, in opening up the fertile inland districts of what is now Victoria, did but complete an enterprise that was already in hand. In the settling of the waste lands of the world a strange series of accidents delayed beyond its time the colonisation of Australia; in Australian history the colonisation of Port Phillip was delayed by accidents no p. 33 less strange. Collins had pitched his camp at Sorrento, and the dreary sandhills drove him in disgust to Hobart; p. 53 Hovell's mistake in 1824 had misled the party he brought round later into making a vain attempt to establish them- selves at Westernport. The British Government, anxious to avoid a too great scattering of settlers in a land where order was kept non'^ too easily, discouraged all unofficial occupation of a coastijne so far from Sydney. But in 1834 the Hentys, of Launceston, made a permanent settlement on the western shore of Portland Bay, cultivating the ground and running large herds of cattle there for the pro- visioning of their whalers. Their success roused another Tasmanian to action. John John Batman, born at Parramatta in 1800, was in 1834 already one of the best known of Tasmanian settlers. He Batman THE DAYS OF BOUEKE. 63 had captured singled-handed the most daring of Tasmanian bushrangers, Matthew Brady. He was one of the few who had at all distinguished themselves in the Black War. In 1827 he vainly petitioned Governor Darling for leave to run sheep and cattle at Westernport. The example of the Hentys determined him to carry out his project, leave or no leave— not at Westernport this time, but on Port Phillip, of which Hume had given a glowing description in a Sydney newspaper of 1833. He formed an association to c^^^^^ ^ 'y^'""M ^^^ Signatures on Batman's Treaty undertake the enterprise, including in it five officials and the nephew of Governor Arthur. The Governor himself privately approved of the scheme, though he found it con- venient afterwards to write against it. On May 29, 1835, Batman landed at Indented Head, well within the great bay, and found the country all that a sheep-owner could desire. Four days later his ship lay in the mouth of the Yarra, and he started on a walk that took him up past pp. 64 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. The ^Batman Treaty,' June 6, 1835 Sunbury, across country eastward, and to the Plenty River, in the district now occupied by the village of Eltham. He had met some blackfellows near Geelong, and made friends with them; here were more, a tribe of fifty, with no less than eight chiefs, from whom Batman, with many ceremonies and a great deal of explanation, pur- chased a huge block of land. There were 600,000 acres iu it; stretching from the main range to Geelong and past the head of Corio Bay so as to include the Queenscliff Peninsula; and the price of it, set forth solemnly in trip- licate agreements, was 40 pairs of blankets, 130 knives, 42 tomahawks, 40 looking-glasses, 62 pairs of scissors, 250 handkerchiefs, 18 red shirts, four flannel jackets, four suits of clothes, and 1501b. flour. Cheap land, certainly, although there was still a rent to pay— more blankets and knives and tomahawks and looking-glasses and so on, and seven tons of flour every year.* But at least the flour and blankets were really valuable to the land-sellers, which is more than can be said for the glass beads and rubbish for which natives in other parts of the world have often bargained away their country. On his way back from the blackfellows' camp Batman came upon a lagoon full of wild duck, the site of to-day's West Melbourne; and on June 8 he took a boat up the Yarra to the falls (now destroyed— they were just below Prince's Bridge), and "this," said he, "will be the place for a village." The village was duly set there, and is now called Melbourne. But it was not of Batman's setting. H6 left the Yarra the same day and returned to Launceston, stopping at his first landing place. Indented Head, to erect a hut for the men he left in charge, to command a view of the entrance bay and to warn off intruders. A fortnight more saw him in Hobart, urging upon Governor Arthur his claim to be confirmed in the possession of the land he had just acquired. And while he was thus busied, a second party of settlers sailed from Launceston across the straits, Fawkner examined and abandoned Westernport, and, passing into * The cash value of this rent was about £320 a year. THE DAYS OF BOURKE. 65 Port Phillip, skirted its eastern shores unavailingly until they, too, anchored in Hobson's Bay. After a useless row up the Saltwater River, they, too, discovered the admirable village site at the Yarra Falls— "the velvet-like grass carpet, decked with flowers of most lively hues, most liberally spread over the land, the fresh water, the fine lowlands and lovely knolls around the lagoons on the flat, the flocks almost innumerable of teal, ducks, geese and swans and minor fowl, filled them with joy," With great promptitude they brought their ship right up to the desired Governor Bourke John Pascoe Fawkner spot and landed their live stock. Two days after, on September 1, 1835, the first hut was put up ashore; and one of the Batman party, arriving next day from Indented Head, was astonished to find a strange ship in Batman's river and a busy party of strangers building, mowing, and ploughing on the Association's land. This double occupation, of course, caused many quarrels. Fawkner, the promoter of the second enterprise, was a townsman, not a farmer like Batman. He had practised as a lawyer in the Launceston courts, had kept a hotel, Protests 66 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. and published a newspaper. In the end, therefore, it naturally happened that he became more closely identified with the town his enterprise had founded, while the earlier occupiers devoted themselves to pastoral work in the sur- rounding districts, and eventually spread their flocks over the country between Geelong and the Hentys' station. But Melbourne itself in those early days was the merest hamlet. Emerald Hill was a sheep station, and Prahran a cattle run. The residents had the greatest difficulty in getting supplies from Launceston, because every ship was fully laden with live stock, which paid better. All these parties— the Hentys', Batman's, and Fawkner's — had deliberately taken their chance of being repudiated by the authorities. Governor Arthur, although he made Ofnciai complimentary remarks about Batman, said the country was beyond the bounds of Tasmania, and he could do nothing. Governor Bourke, within whose jurisdiction Port Phillip lay, issued a proclamation denouncing all parties alike as trespassers. The Home Government was appealed to, and stood by its old resolution not to expand the bounds of settlement. Then Bourke, who had only done his strict duty in making the proclamation, interceded with Lord Glenelg, the British Colonial Secretary. He pointed out how useless it was to forbid an enterprise which had already been warmly taken up; the settlers were actually on Port Phillip, and would stay there whether the Government recognised them or not; if left to themselves, they would scatter more widely than ever; it would be better to establish definite central townships and ports, and to control settlement by leasing the land in moderate areas and by appointing magistrates and -other necessary officials. Bourke was given his own way. When Mitchell looked down from Mount Macedon, he may have seen the ship that brought into Port Phillip its first ad- ministrator—Captain Lonsdale. In March of the next Melbourne y^^^' Bourkc Came himself, and confirmed the laying out of i'ljMMrfed, Melbourne and Williamstown. Before the end of that year ninety acres of Melbourne land had been sold, at an X 2 O S 68 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Land Grants The ' Nine- teen Counties' average price of under £80; two years later the price was more like £5000. As for Batman's treaty, it was ignored altogether; but as compensation to him and his friends for their enterprise and expenditure, they were allowed to take up free of charge seven thousand pounds' worth of land in the splendid lake country west of Geelong. C. Land Regulations (1824-31). Again and again during the years that followed Bris- bane's arrival the British Government had protested against the way in which the colony's population was being dispersed over an enormous area. It was not easy for anyone living in England, a country of small and well- cultivated farms, to understand how different the conditions were in New South Wales, where first-class farm labourers were rare, and where the climate, the spasmodic rivers, and the nature of the soil made it more profitable to run stock over large tracts of bush land. In Brisbane's time grants were made in proportion to the number of convicts em- ployed by the grantee, with a maximum of two thousand acres— sometimes the area was proportioned to the amount of money which the applicant was prepared to spend on it. In 1824 regulations were forwarded from England which ordered that the whole country should be surveyed, arid a price fixed for land in each parish; but Governor Darling's commission, issued the next year, gave him power to confine the survey to certain districts. In 1831 another set of regulations arrived, which abolished all land grants, insisted that all land should be sold by auction, and fixed a minimum price of five shillings an acre. This order might have bee a disastrous had not Darling already limited the colony, for landlaw purposes, to districts fairly within reach of the capital. These "boundaries of the colony, within which settlers will be permitted to select land," comprised, roughly speaking, the districts east of a line from Wellington to Yass and south of the Liverpool range, with a coast line from the Moruya to the Manning— to which the Port Macquarie district was afterwards added. THE DAYS OF BOURKE. 69 This was a very small bite out of a colony which extended from Cape York to Bass Straits. For the rest of that huge territory no system yet devised was suitable. Farms- even two-thousand acre farms— had no place in the great plains of the Darling watershed. Their usefulness was for rt Hunter Sydney JervisBaji ateman'sfiaii Twofold Bay NEW SOUTH WALES IN 184? "runs"— vast areas of grass land, insufficiently watered, within which the flock-owner might move his stock from y^^ place to place as the grass gave out and the waterholes Squatters went dry. To these men— "squatters," as they were soon called, because they were not authorised to occupy— a few 70 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. thousand acres were useless, and leave to buy land at five shillings an acre was a mockery. Not much less of a mockery was an offer to lease them the land at £1 per square mile. They made no efforts to legalise their position in any way; the Government might proclaim them trespassers, but they knew w^ell enough that no Governor would ruin the valuable wool industry by actually prosecuting them for trespass. Bourke's common sense at last saw a way out of the ditBculty. He divided the plain country into "pastoral districts," and gave the occupants of each district a license to go on trespassing within its boundaries on pay- ment of a small annual fee. This scheme was formally embodied in an early Act of his successor, Gipps, and by 1843 the whole country from the Darling southwards was oiu3*age96 divided among a few hundred squatters. 7). The Settlers and Their Surroundings. It is interesting to make a picture in one's mind of New Commu- South Wales as it appeared to the colonists in Bourke's time, when people proudly wrote home that two steamers were already plying between Port Jackson and the Hunter, and in Sydney itself "more than one hackney-coach" had begun to carry passengers about the streets. Stage-coaches carried the mails west to Bathurst and south to Goulburn along good main roads, taking about two days on the journey— letters had to be short, for the charge was four shillings an ounce. The Hunter valley was similarly supplied with its mails from Newcastle, while sailing vessels kept up communication along the coast southwards to the Shoalhaven and north to Port Stephens, Port Macquarie, and Moreton Bay. Thirty-five trading vessels and an equal number of whalers, owned by local men, constituted the colony's mercantile marine. Under Bourke the inland traffic was no longer exposed Bush- to a danger which had been very serious only a few years ranging J3gfQj.g_|^lig raids of bushrangers. This evil, which in Tasmania more than once developed into a merciless war ^' between the outlaws and the law-abiding settlers, did not THE DAYS OF BOURKE. 71 take so grave a shape on the mainland. Nor was there a permanent body of bushrangers in these early years, such as grew up during the gold-rushes thirty years later under the leadership of Gardiner and Ben Hall. Here and there a gang of escaped convicts eluded the police and terrorised the settlers for some months: one such gang in 1826 was audacious enough to attack houses in what are now the suburbs of Burwood and Auburn, not twelve miles out of Sydney. The career of most escapees, however, was short and less exciting. They were usually convicts who had been assigned as servants to up-country settlers, and had chanced upon cruel and brutal masters: from this servitude they took refuge in the bush, living on blackfellow's fare unless they could steal provisions from some outlying shepherd's hut. On the whole they were guilty of few violent crimes, and sooner or later were driven by starvation to surrender. But under Governor Darling this fluctuating body of petty robbers was largely increased by escapees fiom the road-making parties, whose condition the martinet Governor changed for the worse and made almost un- bearable: and these men, who were as a rule the most in- corrigible of the convict population, used their illegal freedom to commit every sort of crime. So it was that from about 1827 onwards highway robbery became fre- quent, and by 1830 a regular system had been developed, which practically ensured that no man could travel a hundred miles along any road in the colony without being "stuck up" by armed bushrangers. To meet this violence an equally violent law was enacted. The Bushrangers Act of 1830, among other severe clauses, contained one which rendered any man, free, freed, or convict, liable to be im- prisoned on suspicion by an officer or magistrate, and marched perhaps hundreds of miles under arrest before he could prove that he was earning his living lawfully. This Act, harsh and unjustifiable as it was, at any rate effected its object. There was an outbreak at Bathurst in 1830, mostly of assigned men who had been half-starved ; but when this was put down, bushranging ceased to be a serious evil. 72 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. 156 The Coinage until the gold-fever revived it in a new and far more virulent form. By Bourke's time also commerce was free from another trouble Avhich had in the early days considerably hampered it. This was the scarcity of coin, which had during Hunter's and King's rule made it necessary to use flour and rum as a means of paying debts. The Government brewery in 1804 accepted payment for its beer in "wheal, barley, hops, casks, or iron hoops.'^ King issued twopenny pieces in copper, and in his accompanying proclamation named Johannas, Ducats, Mohurs, Pagodas, Dollars, Rupees, and Guilders— a motley collection— as coin legally circu- HoBART Town. my /^ ^ No On>*^mand < Promise to Pay the Bearee ONE SHILLING, Value received. />^-i^ IT A^ Currency Note lating in the colony. With all this variety money was still scarce, and traders began to issue promissory notes— known as "currency," while money was called "sterling"— for sums of £1 down to threepence, the latter to be paid (in a note issued at Hobart) "in Spanish dollars at five shillings each." For notes payable in "currency, ' the holder could get only more notes, which were of little or no use in trading outside the colony. The value of these notes, there- fore, went down considerably; and when in 1816 Mac- quarie abolished them by proclamation, it was agreed by the Sydney merchants that £1 "currency" should be considered worth only 13s. 4d. "sterling." THE DAYS OF BOURKE. 73 Macquarie had in 1813 made an attempt to increase the Dollars amount of coin by a singular device. Although accounts Dumps were reckoned in pounds, shillings, and pence, the actual coin most in use was the Spanish dollar, which was made in Mexico— the great silver-producing country of those times— and circulated nearly all over the world. Out of these dollars (legally worth five shillings each) Macquarie ordered a small central piece to be punched: this "dump" was made a coin worth fifteenpence, and the rest of the dollar- Obverse Holey Dollar Reverse Dump at once, for obvious reasons, christened "holey-dollar" — still represented a value of five shillings. This bold device carried the colony on to 1825, by which time whole dollars had again dropped in value, notwithstanding proclamations, to about four shillings, holey-doliars to three shillings or less; while a tradesman might still receive in settlement of his little bill not only Spanish silver and English copper, but French, Indian, American, or even Sicilian coins, with values varying from tenpence to four shillings and four- 74 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. pence. This muddle, complicated by the persistence in seme districts of the old "currency" system, lasted till 1829, when Governor Darling finally settled the confusion bj insisting that in future all reckoning must be made with reference to the ordinary English coinage. The Abo- Nearly all over the world, wherever civilised white men rigines j^^^^^ occupied a newly-discovered country, their most immediate and one of their most lasting troubles has been to pacify and live quietly among the native inhabitants. The Red Indians in North America, the Zulus and other tribes in South Africa, the Maoris (as we shall see later on) in New Zealand, have had an important and often a retarding influence on the process of colonising those ^ regions. In Australia, however, the influence of the abor- iginal tribes has been much smaller. Their numbers were very small compared with the area of land over which they roamed ; they were split up into small communities, and did not readily combine against a common enemy; they had no real or- permanent chiefs— the "King Billys" whom one meets in their settlements or hanging round country towns are victims of the white man's imagination, with a title invented for his amusement. In New South Wales, more especially, the blackfellow was seen almost at his weakest. In mid-Queensland there are tribes who have often proved themselves ferocious and formidable enemies; but the tribes with whom English settlers first came into contact had much less power of united action. Origrn Their origin is still an unsolved problem, but they seem not to have been the first owners of Australian soil. These, driven south across Bass Straits by the incoming tribes, p. 84 took refuge in Tasmania, and are now extinct. The invaders, as far as we can gather from the study of their customs, passed into this country from New Guinea down the Cape York Peninsula, and separated at the bottom of it, their lines of travel spreading out fanwise across the continent. Thus a traveller from St. Vincent's Gulf to the Gulf of Carpentaria might find himself continuously among tribes with similar customs and dialects that varied little THE DAYS OF BOURKE. 75 from each other: but anyone crossing the country from Adelaide to Sydney would come upon different usages and different languages in nearly every tribe he met. Curiously enough, just as in mediaeval Europe languages were known by the word used for Yes (the Lingua di Si, the Langue d'Oc, &c.), so in Eastern Australia tribe-groups were known bj their word for No— the Kamilaroi of the Namoi Plains using "Kamil," the Wiradhuri of Riverina saying " Wir- rai/' and so on. The blackfellow's life was a hard one. Rarely was he so fjheM- lucky as the Port Jackson tribes, who had a perennial supply of fish ready to their hand. More often he roamed through inhospitable bush or sterile plains, learning great cunning in his attempts to snare the opossum and kangaroo, but often subsisting on snakes, gi'ubs, roots, manna— any- thing, in fact, which could be chewed. He had no ideas of cultivation. His tribe claimed a certain district for its own hunting: within its boundaries, when once he was full-grown and admitted with solemn rites to manhood, every living thing was his to eat if he could catch it.* This law, as may be imagined, caused much trouble between whites and blacks when first the settlers pushed their herds westwards into the great plains; for the blackfellow could not at first understand why he might kill all the kangaroo he liked but was punished for touching a bullock. This very freedom and independence, which made it so hard for the tribes to act unitedly, at the same time made each individual blackfellow a valuable guide and ally to our pioneers : and their value was increased by the fact that nearly always they were willing to be friendly at first sight. Hostility, as a rule, came later, when the white man, feuow through ignorance or malice, went counter to their ideas of yjfj[}g right and wrong. "Go away ! go away !" cried the natives Man of Port Jackson as Phillip's fleet stood in the harbour; but when Phillip landed he soon made friends with them, and it was an unfortunate collision with the French sailors of * There were, however, religious scruples, based on a man's descent, which forbade certain men to eat certain animals. 76 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. La Perouse's expedition that first made discord between natives and newcomers. At the same time their very intrepidity and manliness seemed to foreshadow that they would be dangerous enemies when irritated, and it was a long time before the settlers ceased to fear an outbreak. Fear of the blacks, indeed, was not the least of the motives which prevented early governors from exploring the country far inland. For many years the relations between black and white men remained on the same footing. Settlers took up country without taking any account of the natives' rights. The tribes dwindled away, some demoralised by drink and the vices of the meaner whites, some retreating into the more sterile interior as squatters occupied the better eastern lands. Individual blacks were employed on the stations, where their quickness and knowledge of animals rendered them invaluable. But those who preferred to lead their own life grew more and more hostile as their hunting- grounds were taken from them ; and by the end of Governor Bourke's rule complaints were coming in from all parts of the colony that white men had been murdered and their flocks raided, while the settlers in too many places had taken the law brutally into their own hands. At Myall Creek, in 1839, a whole tribe was captured by a body of shepherds and stockmen, and massacred in cold blood. This and similar acts so roused the tribes of the interior that in 1842 there broke out what was practically a Black War, and from Portland Bay to the Darling Downs every outlying settlement was full of raids and reprisals. But the alarm was only temporary: the risings were put down one by one, either with violence or by the peaceful intervention of the State-appointed 'Protectors of the Aborigines,' of whom George Robinson was the chief. Since then the tribes of south-east Australia have dwindled and are now mostly settled in a few reserves under State care. Over the great plains of the interior, from Central Queensland almost to the West Australian coast, and from Carpentaria south-west to Encounter Bay, their kinsmen THE DAYS OF BOURKE. 77 roam more freely, still sometimes a danger to the scanty white population that lives among them, and sometimes the victims of careless white brutality; but in all the States of the continent " Aborigines' Boards " have been appointed to look after such natives as approach white settlements, and about £63,000 a year is spent on this work. The census of 1911 showed that there were about twenty thousand within reach of civilization, nearly 9,000 of whom were in Queensland and about 6,000 in Western Australia; on the other hand, only 1,200 were counted in the Northern Territory, and it is estimated that within that area the total number is at least 20,000 — so that the census figures give very little real help. It used to be said that the Australian blackfellow was the lowest form of humanity. This is very far from being the case. The more carefully his conditions of life are studied, the more evident it becomes that his habits have been cleverly adapted to them. His ancestors were isolated, possibly thousands of years ago, in a country whose climate (in the districts which they first entered) does not suggest agriculture, and whose animals do not lend themselves to taming. Consequently they did not pass beyond the hunting stage of civilization; but they made the best of that stage under Australian conditions in a remarkable way; and their customs, their languages, their form of government, their rites and religious beliefs —all extremely complex— were well fitted to the purposes they had to serve. Their moral code, while different from ours, is strict and strictly enforced as long as they are not under white men's influence; and for their kindly and unaggressive disposition it will be enough to quote Eyre the explorer, who, after three years spent in a district which had previously been disturbed by constant wars between black and white, was able to write: " Were Europeans placed under the same circumstances, equally wronged, and equally shut out from redress, they would not exhibit half the moderation and forbearance that these poor untutored children of impulse have in- variably shown." CHAPTER V.-THE DAUGHTER COLONIES. A. Tasmania (1803-36). p. 33 Tasmania^ as we have seen, was first occupied in 1803 in order to anticipate the French who were sup- posed to be desirous of setting up rival colonies in the southern seas. Bowen pitched his camp at Risdon, on the eastern bank of the Derwent; but Collins, who was disappointed with Port Phillip, and had heard poor reports about the Tamar, the northern Tasmanian River, transferred his party shortly afterwards to the Derwent, and chose a better situation on the opposite bank of the river, a little nearer the sea. When Bowen went back to Sydney his detachment was brought over to join that of Collins, and it was thus settled that the future capital should be where Hobart stands now. King looked after the new settlement with much interest, and sent over as many cattle as he could spare. Bligh transferred to it some of the best farmers obtainable from Early Norfolk Island, which he was ordered to abandon. But Troubles within the next few years there was a constant famine in the little island. Its own farms were a failure, partly because the labourers employed on them were half-hearted and unskilful, partly because the blacks were a much wilder race than those of the mainland, and came frequently into collision with the newcomers. New South Wales, which was supposed to supply food, was itself starving because of floods in the Hawkesbury. At one time the islanders lived entirely on kangaroo meat; convicts were let loose to hunt down kangaroos, for which they got eightpenee a pound, and many of them naturally took the opportunity to escape into the bush. In spite of Collins' disapproval, the Tamar had not been neglected. In 1804 Colonel Paterson landed there with a 78 80 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Davey Governor, 1813-14 1813 The Bush- rangers settling party, and camped not far from the river's mouth, at George Town. A year or two later, however, he moved up to the present site of Launceston. At first this settle ment was quite distinct from the one which Collins governed, though it shared the same troubles from famine and the blacks, and in 1807 a track was found across the island from Launceston to Hobart. But in 1810 Collins died, and soon after Governor Macquarie came over to see what progress had been made; and in the general rearrangement it was decided that for the future the whole island should be under one ruler, with Hobart as his headquarters. The first lieutenant-governor under this new arrange- ment was Colonel Davey, an officer of the marines who had served at Trafalgar. This very rough-and-ready gentleman walked ashore on arrival in his shirtsleeves, and called at the first house he came to for a drink; and this beginning was rather typical of his four years of govern- ment. He treated the colony as a camp, administering rough justice during office hours and enjoying himself with some boisterousness when off duty. One very wise thing he did: the port of Hobart, which had been forbidden to trading ships, was thrown open to all comers, and soon became a centre of attraction both for merchantmen and whalers. The farming industry, too, was encouraged, and ill 1816 the settlers supplied not only Tasmania, but the mother colony also, with wheat. On the other hand, it was in Davey's time that bushranging became a serious evil. Tasmanian convicts, being those who had committed fresh crimes in Australia, were usually the worst of their kind; and the nature of the country— with narrow strips of fertile soil running up the river valleys between rugged spurs of the central tableland— offered them opportunities both of escape and of easily raiding the farms afterwards. Brutal to begin with, they lived a brutalising life in the recesses of the Tiers, and made themselves by the vilest ruffianism so terrible to peaceful folk that many farms were abandoned; yet their success appealed to men of a better THE DAUGHTER COLONIES. &1 class, and among others a land surveyor and a commissary of stores were induced to join their ranks. Davey in despair put the whole island under martial Jaw. Macquarie, as Governor-in- Chief, cancelled this order, and Davey resigned. His successor. Colonel Sorell, had a less military idea of colonisation, and called the settlers to his counsels instead of treating them as private soldiers under his command. A subscription was raised among them; large rewards were offered for the capture of a bushranger; the convict working-gangs were more strictly Sorell Governor, 1817-24 Lt.-Governor Collins Governor Arthur disciplined ; and the marauders, cut off from communication with their friends in these gangs, and zealously hunted up and down the island by police and soldiers, soon began to betray each other to their pursuers. When in 182 L Macquarie again visited Tasmania, he found that four years of SorelFs rule had doubled the population and trebled the acreage of farmlands. Sheep, moreover, were found to do very well in the central uplands, and the importing of some of Macarthur^s merinos from Camden 82 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. soon resulted in gaining a reputation for Tasmanian wool which has endured to the present day. Sorell, recalled in 1824 amid the regrets of the colonists, was succeeded by the strongest of all Tasmanian governors, Arthur George Arthur. He had already served with distinction 1824-36 ' as Governor of British Honduras, where he was known as a strict and energetic ruler and a strong advocate of humanity to the negro slaves. Sorell in his later years had allowed the discipline of the colony to relax, and bush- ranging had begun again. Arthur took firm hold of the reins. It was not necessary, he thought, that Tasmania A strong should be a free country; it was urgently necessary that it Rule should be a moral and orderly country. As an Act of the British Parliament had in 1825 practically separated Tasmania from New South Wales,* he found himself unhampered by interference from officials at Sydney, and with great boldness altered or annulled laws to which he objected, and suspended officials with whom he was for any reason displeased. When the land regulations of 1831 (enforcing sale at not less than five shillings an acre) arrived in the colony, he set them at nought as far as he could by issuing land-grants broadcast before the date on which the regulations could come into force. Such arbitrary conduct, of course, brought him into collision with the free settlers again and again; and there were now a good many free settlers, for Macquarie's glow- ing report of his second visit had induced a large number of people to emigrate to Tasmania from England in 1822. But in Arthur's eyes free men were only there on suffer- ance. He, like Macquarie, felt that his first duty was to the convicts, for whose reception the island had been set apart. His chief work was to terrorise the evil-doers among them, and to encourage those who showed any signs of reform; to that work all consideration of the free settlers must be subordinated. Sorell had made an attempt * Arthur and his successors were nominally still Lieutenant-Governors, " in the absence of the Governor," who was also the Governor of New South Wales, and took care to remain absent. THE DAUGHTER COLONIES. 83 to weed out the worst characters by establishing an isolated penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour, on the west coast, where the intricate bush at its back and the wild seas that beat on it seemed to make absconding- impossible. But to desperate men neither barricade was absolutely impassable. Matthew Brady, with ten others, escaped by sea in a stolen boat, and revived the worst terrors of the old bush- ranging days. A few prisoners penetrated the bush itself, and their sufferings on the way made them irredeemably inhuman by the time they descended on the farms inland. Arthur did his best to make this establishment at once less brutalising and more disciplinarian. The revival of bushranging was quelled by stern and sharp punish- ment, and Brady himself was at last captured by John Batman, the coloniser of Port Phillip. After a while the length (a month or more) of sea voyage to the harbour was found to be a great disadvantage— one party of convicts seized the ship that was taking them round and sailed off to China with it; free settlements, besides, were approaching it too nearly. Arthur accordingly resolved to remove the whole establishment, and, after making a trial of Maria Port . Arthur Island, finally fixed on a site at Tasman's Peninsula, which is almost completely severed from the mainland by two inrunning bays that leave only the seventy-eight yards' width of Eaglehawk Neck between them. Here doubly and trebly convicted prisoners were dealt with under an unrelenting system; the better behaved, as in New South Wales, were assigned to free masters all over the colony; and between the two classes there were interposed a series of road-making gangs, by whose labour the main highway from Hobart to Launceston and other roads were constructed and kept in repair. However despotic the Governor might be, his power was undoubtedly used to good ends. The colony grew and prospered. The Van Diemen's Land Company, formed in 1825, obtained large grants of land on the north coast at Circular Head and inland from it near the present Waratah, and in 1828 began to raise stock on a large scale. 84 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. When Arthur left it was found that the population had trebled since his arrival, the revenue had increased sixfold, and the volume of trade from £75,000 to £900,000. But of all his rule perhaps the most important achievement was at the same time the most painful to think of —his settlement TASMANIA ^^ Settled in 1837 ^ A^^A Cordon of troops A ^ employed in Black War, j6i rt Arthur The Blacks of the native question, which then threatened the peace of the island. The Tasmanian blackfellow, as has been said already, was less manageable than his distant cousins on the Australian continent, and came into contact with a worse class of white men. From the first they were suspicious THE DAUGHTER COLONIES. 85 of the white intmders, for at Risdon in the early days 1804 some of them had been shot by the soldiers in a momentary panic without having done anything unfriendly. From that time the colonists and the blacks regarded each other as natural enemies. Every Governor in turn proclaimed that a black man's murder would be punished as severely as a white man's, but it was impossible to control the actions of scattered settlers and convict storekeepers on the distant bush farms. The natives in their turn attacked isolated homesteads, and learnt to imitate the cruelties of the bush- rangers. At one time they were organised and led by an Australian blackfellow chief, Musquito, whom Governor King had captured and sent over to Tasmania for safe keeping. For this unendurable state of things, existing at his arrival, Arthur tried many remedies. Proclamations were in vain; the capture and execution of Musquito only embittered his followers. In 1828 reserves were set apart for native use, and "capture parties" were sent abroad to bring recalcitrants in to the appointed districts. But most of these parties simply took to hunting down the blacks and killing them; even Batman, who took every care to explain his friendly motives, found himself more than once forced into a fight. At last Arthur's patience gave w^ay. The whites, he knew, had first been in the wrong, but as matters stood they must be protected. He determined to make a line of beaters half-way across the island,* who, advancing steadily from north to south and wheeling round their right flank, should drive the black inhabitants before them into the cul-de-sac of Forestier's gjjl'®^ Peninsula. For nearly two months the long line kept pace War across hills and valleys, through dense bush, over difficult rivers, till it was concentrated between Spring Bay and Sorell; then it closed in triumphantly on East Bay Neck— and found not a soul in front of it. One old man * The line extended from St. Mary's to Deloraine, and then south past Lake Echo along the Dee and Derwent. This included the homes of the Stony Creek, Big River, and Oyster Bay tribes, which had given most trouble. 86 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. and a boy, captured on the way, were the sole trophies of an undertaking that had cost the colony more than thirty thousand pounds. At that moment of almost ridiculous failure Arthur had the courage to own his policy wrong and to reverse it com- pletely. The reserve on Bruny Island had been exceedingly George Well managed by a bricklayer, George Robinson. He had, Robinson jjj^jgg^j^ g^ ^y^j^ ^j^g hearts of the blacks in his charge that Arthur had allowed him to go unarmed into the bush and communicate with the west coast tribes. To him the whole management of native business was now confided. The " capture parties " were disbanded. Robinson, with a few friendlj'^ natives, went freely to and fro among the tribes, and within four years had brought nearly the whole black population to Hobart. Their numbers were found to have been much exaggerated; one dreaded tribe consisted of twenty-six all told, sixteen being men. But the terror they had excited was too great for much pity to be shown them; they were deported to the islands on the north-east corner of Tasmania, and there died off rapidly of mere home-sickness.* In 1847 a feeble remnant of forty-four was removed to Oyster Cove, a little below Hobart. In 187G died the last of them, Truganini, one of the friendly guides who had helped Robinson to complete his work forty years Continued before, on page 107 ^ WESTERN AUSTRALIA (1826-40). Between 1820 and 1850 the men most influential in re-shaping the life of the British nation were theorists, working out in practical politics the ideas which they got from the study of philosophy. They reformed Parliament, and the poor laws, and the factories, and the English system of taxation. It was to be expected, therefore, that some of them should also try their hand at reforming the system under which our colonies were founded and governed. Only, as Parliament and the factories were immediately * This had been anticipated, but Robinson himself declared there was no danger of it. THE DAUGHTER COLONIES. 87 under their eyes, while the colonies were a long way off and not like anything they had personal experience of, their reforms at home were more reasonable than those which affected the colonies; though after some years, when they had learnt something of the actual conditions under which colonists lived, they managed to do better and more lasting work on this side of the world also. The first colonial experiment of this theoretical kind was a most lamentable failure. In 1826 a military station had p-^ been fixed at King George's Sound, to prevent the French fiom occupying that part of the Australian coast. In 1827 Captain Stirling, who had been sent to inspect this station, cruised along the western coast on his way back, a)id went home full of enthusiasm over a grand river he had found there— one which its Dutch discoverer a hundred and thirty years before had called the Swan River, because ol the black swans that he saw on it. His report induced a Mr. Peel to plan out designs for a new and successful kind of colony. Ten thousand people were to be sent out by Peel and his friends. They were to grow sugar, and flax, and cotton, and tobacco, to raise horses for India and cattle for the warships' beef-casks; and they were to be given four million acres of Western Australian lands for their colony, in consideration of spending £30 on every man sent out. The British Government was not quite Dec 5, 1828 ready to encourage a few men on such a magnificent scale, but it adopted a good many of Peel's ideas; and in the end a proclamation was made to the public, specifying the terms on which colonists would be allowed to go to the Swan River settlement. Immigrants were to form parties. Theory in which five people out of every eleven should be women. They must go out at their own expense, and maintain themselves after arrival ; but for every £3 they took with them in money or goods they should get 40 acres of land. Land, indeed, was to pay for everything. The Governor was to get land (a hundred thousand acres of it) instead of a salary, and some of his subordinate officers came on similar terms. 88 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. and Practice Forty acres for £3 meant eighteenpenee an acre, and the lowness of the price attracted a great many. But every- body seems to have been so delighted with the prospect of owning land, that no one thought of enquiring what kind of land it was. In colonising by theory that sort of thing is apt to happen. Captain Fremantle, sent out in advance of the first settlers to get things ready for them, found that the country which had looked so inviting from the sea was a mixture of sandhills and scrub. The emigrants who followed had to camp for a time on Garden Island, a Early View of Fremantle Stirling Governor, 1829-39 bleak spot in the open ocean; at last Captain Stirling, who had been made the first Governor, fixed on the site of Perth for his capital, while the beach of Fre- mantle at the river mouth became a makeshift port. There the unfortunate settlers landed their valuable goods, chosen in England mainly for the amount of money they repre- sented, not for their usefulness in beginning life in a new country. A seventy-guinea piano was hardly the sort of furniture suitable to a pioneer homestead; but it was good for a 980-acre land order, and, having secured that, was THE DAUGHTER COLONIES. 89 left to rot on Fremantle sands. By way of making the failure of this crude scheme absolute, the Governor ordained that those who claimed the largest areas should have the first choice of land. All the country near Perth was promptly taken up in blocks of fifty and a hundred thousand acres, and the settlers who had come out to take up and cultivate small farms found themselves obliged to make their choice in districts many miles from their market. The large landholders were in the end no better off. Peel, who had really hoped to make a great success, and had brought out with him good labourers, good tools, and good stock— everything, in fact, of the best— got no reward at all for his enterprise. His land proved worthless, his labourers ran away, his tools rusted, his stock strayed, and was poisoned wholesale by eating noxious scrub. Never was a more unmistakeable collapse. Settlers who had any money left used it for getting away to the eastern colonies, as, luckily for themselves and Victoria, the Hentys were able to do. Those who had none stayed and fought their luck doggedly. There was the usual trouble with the blacks — even more than the usual, for the western tribes are a wilder and more implacable race than those of the south- eastern coasts. By 1835 two or three townships had sprung up in the country east of Perth, the station at King George's Sound had been taken over, and a couple of settlements had been made on the intermediate coastline. During these barren years there were a few attempts at Expiora- exploration, but the inland country was so desolate that *'°" no results of any value were obtained. One series of adventures is notable less for its practical value than for the sake of its hero. Early in 1838 Lieutenant George °''?y Grey started from Brunswick Bay, on the north-western coast, with the intention of marching across country to Perth; but the coast range was too rugged to be passed, and the only discovery of interest was the Glenelg River, near which Grey found rock paintings whose origin is still a puzzle to the antiquarian. Baffled here, he took ship for Perth via the Mauritius, and in 1839 undertook a new enter- 90 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. prise of less gigantic dimensions. He was landed with a party of twelve and three boats on Bernier Island, in Shark's Bay, and pulling across to the mainland discovered the Gascoyne River. Then storms damaged the boats and destroyed the depot of provisions, a mirage caused the party a long useless tramp inland, and an attack by black- fellows added to their troubles. Grey determined to make his way back to Perth by boat along the coast in the teeth of obstinate southerly winds. At Gantheaume Bay even this hope was taken from him, for both boats were damaged beyond repair in the surf. In despair he set out to walk the, rest of the distance, some three hundred miles; he himself pushed ahead with a few men, and, through the bush knowledge of his native guide, Kaiber, reached Perth in great destitution; a relief party which was at once sent out picked up the rest of his men straggling along the sea coast, almost too weak to move at all. One, a boy of eighteen who had volunteered for the expedition, was dead. Little came of all this suffering. Grey had crossed several previously unknown rivers, but found only one district worth settling in— that of Champion Bay; and even there no action was taken for a long while after. As reward for his services he was sent to act as Resident at the settlement Continued or King George's Sound. on page 178 ° * C. South Australia (1830-41). The first model colony, as we have seen, was to a great extent a failure. Out of that very failure sprang the second, planned carefully so as to avoid the glaring errors of its predecessor, though the first outline may have been E. G. sketched independently. In 1829 a London publisher field" issued "A letter from Sydney, the principal town of Australasia together with the Outline of a System of Colonisation." The letter was written from the standpoint of an "exclusive." Wentworth and his friends were called " rebels," whom " nothing but a sense of weakness deters from drawing the sword." New South Wales was no place for a gentleman. The refinements of THE DAUGHTER COLONIES. 91 English life could not exist there, for there was no leisured class. A leisured class must have servants to do the work, and of free servants (for convicts were to be shunned) there were none. A labourer might work for you during the first year or two after his arrival from England; but he would be sure to save money out of his wages, and buy land with it— for land, said the letter, was much too easily got in New South Wales— and then the refined master would find himself without a servant, and must spend his leisure in working for his own living. These conditions produced a new kind of society, and not a good kind. A really valuable colony would be one in which the state of society in England was faithfully reproduced. How was this to be done? The letter had its remedy "n%^ng°' cut and dried. All the enumerated evils arose from the Scheme cheapness of the land— make land dear. Then the labourer could not afford to buy it and set up for himself ; wherefore he would remain a labourer, happy and contented, earning his master's living as well as his own, and the master would have time to read and converse on intellectual matters with his equally leisured neighbours. Therefore— sell land at a high price, use the money thus obtained in bringing out emigrant labourers, and take care only to bring just as many as would actually be wanted to culti- vate the land sold. So everybody would be happy— the rich would hold all the land, and the poor would never lack employment. The whole arrangement went like clock- work — in theory. The author of this letter was one Of a set of men whose influence on the whole of our colonial empire during the next twenty years was to be very great indeed. Edward Gibbon Wakefield was the friend of Lord Durham and Charles Buller, who between them (with Wakefield's help) gave a new constitution to Canada. Another of his friends. Earl Grey (who must not be confused with Sir George Grey), seriously interfered by his mistaken zeal with the prosperity of British South and West Africa. Wake- field himself did a good deal to mould the destinies of both 92 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. South Australia and New Zealand, and was not without influence on the other Australian colonies; for it was his denunciation of land grants which brought about their P-^ cessation in 1831, and his South Australian plans affected the price of land in all the districts further east. 1830 Wakefield followed up his letter by ;founding a colonisa- tion society to carry out its suggestions, and the report of P-56 Sturt's discoveries on the Lower Murray suggested a site for his model colony. He and his friends at once demanded from the British Government a charter giving them complete control of the whole southern territory between West Australia and New South Wales. So extensive a charter was refused, and in 1834 they tried again. This time they asked for less absolute powers: they would be content to sell land and use the proceeds for assisting immigration. A " South Australian Association " was formed, including" many members of Parliament, Pamphlets favouring the scheme were issued broadcast, and a bill was introduced into the House of Commons. The Association M's.P., among whom was the historian Grote, pushed it through against a small opposition. The Duke of Welling- ton helped it in the House of Lords. The Act embodied a great deal of Wakefield^s original South scheme. South Australia was to have no convicts sent to ita"n Act ^^' "^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^o ^^ sol^ ^t not less than twelve shillings an acre,* and the receipts were to form an Emigra- tion Fund; whole families must emigrate together, though only those under thirty would be paid for out of the fund, and men and women must, as far as possible, come in equal numbers. This part of the business was entrusted to a board of eight commissioners. The administration of other public affairs was to be in the hands of a Governor, as in the other colonies. The British Government was to be at no expense in the matter, and could take over the colony entirely, if in twenty years there were not twenty thousand people in it. Colonel Torrens was made chairman of the * In New South Wales at this time the price was 5s. an acre. THE DAUGHTER COLONIES. 93 Board, a Mr. Fisher was to represent it in the colony, and Captain Hindmarsh was appointed Governor. One mistake of the West Australian colonisers was repeated with disastrous results. As before, the word land had a magical sound about it, and men did not trouble themselves about the quality of land available. In fact, one clause of the Act deliberately insisted that all land within the colony must be sold for the same price ; the price might be altered from time to time, but if in July (say) it was fixed at £1, that must be the price of every acre sold then, however fertile or barren the soil might be. In July, 1836, after an abortive landing on Kangaroo Island, the first settlers, with some trouble, found a site for the capital on the banks of the River Torrens, about six miles from the sea. When Governor Hindmarsh Hindmarsh arrived at the end of the year, he, as a naval man, took i836-8 ' great exception to this choice, which involved the use of a miserable little creek as a port; but the original site was confirmed at a meeting of settlers, and the town named Adelaide, after the then Queen of England. Soon there were more quarrels— not unnaturally, seeing how Parlia- ment had divided authority between the commissioners and the Governor. Fisher gave orders to the emigration 'agent; Hindmarsh removed the agent and appointed another. When some of the commissioners' officers quarrelled among themselves the Governor suspended them all round. At last the home Government, tired of the complaints of both sides, recalled Hindmarsh, removed r]sher, and sent out Colonel Gawler to take the place of both. Governor Gawler found everything at sixes and sevens. Gawier The rich landholders, who ought by theory to have been 1838-41 ' living on their estates and employing the poorer immigrants tu plough and sow them, were clustered together in Adelaide and engaged chiefly with speculating in town lots. The commissioners themselves had encouraged this specu- lation by shifting the price of land for no particular reason. They began with £1 an acre, dropped to 12s., with a THE DAUGHTER COLONIES. 95 notification that it would shortly be £1 again, and ex- pressed a hope that they would soon be able to make it £2. The labourers who came out stood on their dignity, demanded exorbitant wages, and did little for their pay — The partly because they lacked colonial experiience— so that Falls* really important work was entrusted to emancipists from Tasmania. The immigTant labourers might have worked for themselves, but land was priced too high for them, and many went eastward to the cheaper lands of Tasmania and New South Wales. Very little money was made in the colony, and the greater part of what had been brought out was paid away for provisions imported from the older settlements. Gawler was at his wits' end, and could think of no remedy but relief works, which certainly kept the poorer people from starving, but at the same time kept them from tilling the soil as Wakefield's schemes had insisted they should. When Gawler arrived the finances were in a hopeless muddle; the only thing certain was that the year's authorised expenditure had been run through in the first three months. He used the whole of his own fortune in paying Government labourers, and pledged his word that the home Govern- ment would pay nearly £400,000 more. But this was too much for that Government's patience. The Act had stipulated that no expense was to fall on British funds, and the British Ministry thought they had been quite generous enough in advancing £155,000 to meet Gawler's expenses. They stopped at that, notified the colonists that not a penny more would be paid, and recalled Gawler. At his departure South Australia was practically bankrupt. Its official expenditure was nearly six times its revenue, and its people paid away for imported goods nearly ten Continued times the value of their produce. on page no CHAPTER VI.-THE COMIKG OF SELF- GOVERNMENT. From page 70 Gipps Governor, 1838-46 A Difficult Position p. 279 A. New South Wales (1837-51). Even Bourke, with all his care, found himself at last mixed up in the emancipist quarrels, and resigned his post because of them, leaving to his successor, Sir George Gipps, a host of unsolved but very urgent problems to deal with. Gipps was probably the ablest Governor New South Wales has ever had, but his position was certainly the most difficult of any administrator's since Phillip. His duty was to represent the Home Government at a time when its right to control the colony was being fiercely disputed. The price of land and the terms on which it should be sold, or leased to squatters— the convict system, and the cost of it— immigration, the police, education, and half a dozen other important matters were in Gipps' hands when he arrived. The control of all of them was claimed by local politicians for a local Parliament, and Gipps had to support the British Government's claims and to assert its power, while all the time he was much inclined to sympathise with many demands of the local men. It happened, too, that in a matter relating to New Zealand land he was obliged to act against the interests of Wentworth; and the popular leader, never forgiving his disappointment, turned all his agitation against English control into a series of per- sonal attacks on a Governor who was only doing his duty. Through it all Gipps stood firm, helping his subordinates with clear judgment and unfaltering support; while one after another the Colonial Secretaries at home acknow- ledged his great qualities by leaving much to his discretion, and frequently by reversing their own decisions in obedience to his advice. No Governor has been more unpopular, none less deserved unpopularity. THE COMING OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 97 Three great questions, relating to transportation, self- government, and the land laws, were now ripe for decision. The first was soon done with. The Parliamentary Com- mittee of 1837-8 had reported against transportation, and the ghastly evidence it had collected horrified public opinion in England. In New South Wales men at first feared that no more convicts would mean no more labour, and that large landholders would thus be ruined. But they were given their choice between convict labour and self-government. " No one," said Charles BuUer, " would think of proposing that a convict colony should be allowed to rule itself." Such a choice was quickly made, and in 1840 a British Order-in-Council made Tasmania and Norfolk Island the only convict settlements of Aus- tralasia. Now that there were no more convicts to come, the emancipist question became one of little importance, and survived mostly in displays of personal feeling towards a few of the more prominent emancipist politicians. Went- worth became the leader of all who wished to have more local control over the business of the colony, and in 1842 their wish was partly gratified. An Imperial "Act for the Government of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land " gave the colony not " responsible " government (as constitu- we call the system which exists here now) but " repre- t'o" sentative " government— a sort of half-way stage, in which the Governor still appointed his Ministers on his own judg- ment, and himself directed their policy, and did a great deal which a Premier does now; while, on the other hand, he no longer had Macquarie's power of making laws, or even Bourke's full power of choosing the Council which was to help in making them. The new Council, which first met in 1843, consisted partly of nominated members, six official and six non-official; but they were quite in the minority, seeing that the elected members were twenty- four in number— one for Melbourne, five for the rest of the Port Phillip district, and eighteen for the various other parts of New South Wales. The Act provided also Q 98 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. for District Councils, which were to take over from the central government all " roads-and-bridges " business, pay- ing their expenses by rates levied within the district just as municipal councils now do. This provision would have given the colony a system of full local govern- ment such as it has been waiting for ever since; but, unfortunately, it was complicated by a clause which forced the district councils to pay half the police expenses, while the Governor retained the whole police control. Cou'ncii Such a mistake gave Wentworth the opportunity he asserts wanted, and one of the first acts of the new Legislative itself . ' ° Council was to declare, firstly, that district councils ought not to pay for a force which they could not control; and secondly, that the colony ought not to pay any expenses connected with the Imperial Government's convicts. Gipps yielded on the first point, but was firm on the second. Britain paid for the actual convict establishments, rightly and willingly; but the Council wanted to be paid also for all convicts who misbehaved in the colony and were sent to ordinary gaols therefor; and that the Governor could not grant. From that time Gipps and his Council were at daggers drawn; though he began by using mild and conciliatory language, the Opposition leaders abated nothing of their aggressive tone; and soon the plain speaking of their resolutions against him was only equalled by that of his comments on the resolutions when he forwarded them to the Colonial Secretary at home. Wentworth was, of course, the man whose reputation and experience gave weight to these attacks; but they were pointed and em- bittered by the genius of Robert Lowe, who learnt in New South Wales the art of political war which he was later to practise so successfully in the Imperial Parliaments of the sixties. Land- The land laws were a constant subject of discussion. The '*^* difficulty with regard to them was twofold— there was the question of land sales and the price to be fixed, and the question of land leases and squatters' licenses. In the land sales matter South Australia was the stumbling-block. Its THE COMING OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 99 commissioners were asking 12s. an acre, and hoping soon to make the price £1; but how could they get buyers while across the eastern border land was to be had at 5s.? Accordingly in 1838 Gipps was ordered to make the price 12s. in New South Wales also, and in 1840 Lord John Russell appointed a Land and Emigration Commission to look after these matters throughout the British colonies. This commission was thoroughly imbued with Wakefield's p. 9i ideas, and took advantage of its powers to experiment largely with his theories. It demanded that auction sales should be done away with, and that all Australian land should be open for sale at a pound an acre, quite irrespec- tive of its quality. A strong protest from Gipps brought about the concession that land on the Sydney side should be disposed of as before, but Port Phillip and its backlands were to be treated separately under the new order as to fixed price. Gipps again came to the rescue with a refusal tj sell at all any land within five miles of the chief southern townships— Melbourne, Geelong, and Portland. Even with that restriction one capitalist managed to secure at £1 an acre the whole of what is now the Melbourne suburb of Brighton. Lord John Russell gave in at once to the wise and masterful Governor, and his successor, Lord Stanley, him- self a strong man, was glad to have a strong man's help. In 1842 a Crown Lands Sale Act of the Imperial Parlia- ment settled that land throughout Australia must be sold by auction. The price was not to be less that £1 an acre, buc O"^ might be as much more as the Governor thought fit, and an Acre was to vary with the distance of the land from townships. Bourke's system of squatting licenses was formally sanc- tioned. All the money obtained from sales or licenses was to be used, in one way or another, for the benefit of the colony. It was this Act that, more than anything else, made Gipps' life a burden to him. Wentworth and his friends found many opportunities for attacking him, but none so good as three provisions of the Act gave them. In the 100 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. first place, said the Opposition, £1 an acre was far too higii a price. A few years before there had been a great deal of speculation in land, and prices had gone up. This "land boom" (as it would be called nowadays colloquially) had collapsed in 1840, and in 1843 as a result of it the Bank of Australia stopped payment and was wound up. Sheep were being sold for anything down to sixpence a head, and the squatters were only saved from absolute ruin by the discovery that you could get about six shillings' worth of tallow per sheep by boiling them down. To ask a pound W. C. Wentwobth Governor Gipps Financial Control an acre for country lands in such circumstances was tyrannical, said Wentworth; to which Gipps replied that there was no great need to sell the land at that moment, and it could wait till it was worth the price asked. The second point of attack was more serious. All the land fund was to be spent for the colony's benefit, but not necessarily by the colony's representatives. Half was to form an immigration fund; out of the rest Gipps was empowered to pay for looking after the aborigines, for the making of roads and bridges outside the settled districts, THE COMING OF SELF-GOVSRNMMt. 10?,, ^ and for the maintenance of a Border Poiici^, f ?)r^de^ in tR«i \ ; ,> ^ back country; any surplus was to be paid into the general revenue of the colony. Here, said Wentworth, was taxation without representation— the Crown was getting money from colonists and allowing them no voice in the disposal of it. Bourke, he claimed, had promised that the Council should control all the land revenue. Gipps denied so far- reaching a promise; and held that Bourke's words applied only to the surplus, which the Council did control. Squatters' occupation licenses provided the third and most vital point at issue. The Act gave the Governor power to settle this matter, and Gipps issued a series of terJ" regulations by which each run was to be separately licensed Licenses at a fee of £10, whereas previously each squatter had taken isu out a license and had held under it as many nms as he liked. The actual amount of money in question was very small, and there was no doubt that the squatters were getting great privileges at a ridiculously low price.* The real trouble was not about money at all. It was just this: to whom did the waste lands of Australia belong'? The Imperial view, stoutly upheld by Gipps, was that all the waste lands of the Empire belonged to the Crown, which held them to be used or disposed of for the benefit of all citizens of the Empire. If that was so, it was evidently right that the Governor in each colony should control that colony's waste lands, and settle the price at which they were to be sold or leased, and the use to be made of the proceeds. But Wentworth's party maintained that all land within the colony's boundaries belonged to the colonists, and in that case the Governor had no more right to make regulations about it without the consent of his Council, than he had to levy customs duties or alter the law at his own will and pleasure. Wentworth talked about taxing by prerogative, as if Gipps was an Australian Charles I. levying ship-money. Gipps considered himself * One squatter for nearly 400,000 acres'paid £80 a year. Four of the larpre land- holders under Bourke's system paid no more for nearly eight million acres than four others did for l-20th of that ared. 102 , \ * '> ^fflSTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. The Troubles of Port Phillip Lonsdale, P.M., 1836-39 Latrobe Superinten dent, 1839-51 See map, p. 167 '-'^to.bp defending- the rights of the Empire against the claims ^6f a few provincialists. On these matters of finance and land the Council as a whole was fighting the Governor. One other matter of importance there was on which the Council was divided within itself. Almost from the moment of their first landing the settlers of Port Phillip chafed against their inclusion in New South Wales. Their first administrator, Captain Lonsdale, had been superseded by Mr. Latrobe, who, first as Superintendent and then as Lieutenant- Governor, brought the young colony through fourteen years of very varied experience; but Latrobe was merely an official under the control of Gipps, and Gipps' very ability made him unlikely to trust overmuch to a subordinate's discretion. So Port Phillip took its orders, very unwillingly, from a department three weeks distant, and the inhabitants of Melbourne occupied their spare time in drawing up petitions for separation. The Sydney- siders, they said, were tainted with convictism; they were jealous of Melbourne's progress, and spent the proceeds of Melbourne land sales on extravagances in Sydney. When the Emigration Commissioners in 1840 ordered that Port Phillip should be treated as a separate district, they fixed its northern boundary at the Murrumbidgee, and gave it the coast as far north as Moruya. The Sydney Council was up in arms at once, protesting against so great a sacrifice of territory; and in deference to its objections Lord Stanley during the next year adopted the boundary it had suggested, and fixed the line where it now runs—along the Murray, and from its head in a straight line to Cape Howe. This, of course, gave ground for another charge to be hurled by Melbourne against Sydney. Not even th:^ concession of six members in the new Council satisfied the agitators ; the capital was too far away. Business men could not afford to leave their affairs for five months every year in order to attend meetings at Sydney, especially when they were sure to be outvoted. In 1844 all six members for Port Phillip were Sydney residents; and when a motion THE COMING OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 103 proposed by one of them for separation was defeated in the Council by a majority of three to one, Melbourne deter- mined to apply in future direct to the authorities at home. Gipps was strongly in favour of severing the connection, and Lord Stanley accordingly promised to take the matter up. But in 1845 Lord Stanley resigned his post. The whole Peel Ministry soon followed him, and its successors were drawn from the party of colonial reformers. Lord John Kussell, the Colonial Secretary of 1839-41, was the new Premier; the new Colonial Secretary was Earl Grey, formerly one of the Wakefield party; Charles Buller and another friend held important posts in the Colonial Office. A fresh chapter of colonial policy had begun. The men who a few years before had busied themselves with invent- ing new systems of colonisation, and had disturbed half Australasia in endeavouring to apply them, were now only too eager to let the colonists alone. The new creed was that Australia must have everything it wanted, even to independence. " We are, I suppose," wrote one of the party, " all looking to the eventual parting company on good terms." Gipps was not the man to be the mouth- piece of such a policy, and it was just as well that he resigned, quite broken down in health, before the task was required of him. His successor, Sir Charles Fitzroy, came to his work free from all the prejudices which on both sides had embittered the struggle between Council and Governor. He had no desire to interfere more than he could help in colonial politics. He was personally uninterested in local finance or the land laws or separation. He left these matters as much as possible to the Council and its leaders, Deas Thomson as head of the executive and Wentworth as chief critic. They could arrange matters among them- selves, and whatever Deas Thomson decided to do Fitzroy was willing to support steadfastly. The Council was given a great deal of that control over the finances for which it had fought so hard. The squatters' troubles were appeased by an Imperial Act which allowed them to lease their runs A Change of Policy at Home Fitzroy Governor, 1846-55 104 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. for a fixed period, with the right to buy what they wanted at the end of the lease for the bare value of the unimproved land. But just as things were settling down quietly, a new The end proposal from home (or rather the revival of an old one) Convict- threw the colony once more into confusion. Ever since 1840 '^"^ Tasmania had been the receptacle for all transported con- victs, and had received them at the rate of 3000 a year. To so small a colony this flood was ovei-whelming. Lord 1845 Stanley hoped to mitigate the evil by making a new convict See map, settlement at Port Curtis, then beyond the most northern ^" ^ stations of the Moreton Bay district; but this scheme came to nought, and Mr. Gladstone, who was Colonial Secretary 1846 during the last few months of the Peel Ministry, proposed anotlier solution of the question. His idea was to revive transportation to New South Wales under three conditions : for every convict a free emigrant was to be sent out, for every man a woman, and there was to be none of the herding convicts together in gangs which had made the old system so horrible. A committee of the New South Wales Council agreed to these proposals, but the Sydney publii! was aghast when it heard of them. While this scheme was being discussed, a less openly offensive one was being put into operation. From the very first one strong argument for transportation was that it gave offenders a chance to reform in a new land. During the forties a suggestion was made that this chance might at least be given to offenders whose punishment was over; and presently there began to arrive in Australia men who had served a term of imprisonment in England, and had been shipped out by Government with pardons conditional •Exile • ^" their remaining in their new home. These " exiles," as they were called, were at first welcomed both in Port Phillip and in Sydney, and more Avere asked for. But Earl Grey could not leave well alone. He tried to stretch a point by sending out not pardoned men, but men on a ticket of leave. Now the " exiles," being free within Australia, could be sent there without notice; but the THE COMING OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 105 1848 August ticket-of-leave men would be still legally convicts, and subject to police supervision, so that it was necessary by law, before sending them out, to proclaim New South Wales once more a place to which convicts could be sent. At this news Sydney blazed into fury, and Melbourne was not behindhand. Charles Cowper carried resolution after resolution in the Council and helped Lowe to rouse public opinion outside. When the ship Hashemy, with two hundred ticket-of-leave men, arrived in Port June ii, 1849 Jackson, there was a great public meeting on Circular Quay, and men talked of the Boston tea riots and the American Revolution. Melbourne followed suit when the Randolph anchored in Hobson's Bay; and presently it became known that at Capetown, in the Cape Colony, there had been a similar attempt to land convicts, and an equally determined resistance. Fitzroy took things quietly; he was inclined to side with Wentworth and the country folk, who rather hankered after assigned labourers, and to despise the turbulent townspeople; but it was wise to yield, and he sent on ship after ship as they followed each other to the scantily-populated settlements round Moreton Bay, where labour of any class was much needed. Earl Grey refused for some time to take No for an answer. The Council, he said, had changed its opinion before, and might again. But this time there was no chance of a change; a strong Anti-transportation League was formed, and organised a continual stream of petitions from all parts of the colony; and the Council in 1850 sent home a flat refusal to accept any convicts of anykind under any conditions. Earl Grey yielded then, very unwillingly, with hints that after all the North Australian convict colony might be founded. But within a year he was out of office, and his successors gave the colonists an unqualified assurance that Eastern Australia had heard the last of convictism. Meanwhile the Port Phillip people had at last got their desire. Lord Stanley^s good wishes had been of no effect because he left office almost immediately, and Earl Separa- tion of Port Phillip 106 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Grey was busied with other matters. In 1847, it is true, he promised separation; but his promise was so entangled with fanciful devices for the election of the legislature by municipal councils that it seemed of little value to the impatient colonists. Next year a fresh election to the New South Wales Council gave Melbourne an opportunity of expressing its opinion very pointedly. When polling day came round, two candidates were nominated to represent the town, of whom one was Earl Grey himself; and he was elected by a majority of nearly three to one. " Of course," said the malcontents who had nominated him, " we shall have practically no reprasentative at Sydney, but then the men we have now are Sydney men, and so worse than nobody." They tried to repeat the performance by electing five other Englishmen to be members for the Port Phillip district, but the rest of the electors thought that was over- doing the joke a little, and put in local men. One such jest, however, was quite enough to astonish and arouse Earl Grey. He revived an old custom by which the British Board of Trade looked after colonial affairs, and, adding to the Board three strong men interested in the colonies, called on it to devise a scheme for giving self-government to the Australian colonies. The Board sent back a recom- mendation that Port Phillip be granted complete separation from the older colony, and be called Victoria; the boundary ^* was to be as Lord Stanley had fixed it eight years before. As for self-government in general, it was proposed to leave matters very much in the hands of the various Councils, which were to construct and submit to the Government at home such Constitutions as they might think best fitted for their colonies. But on two points the Board expressed a strong opinion. The District Councils ought certainly to be revived, and to be allowed a large sum from the proceeds of land sales to spend on local roads and bridges. And Aus- tralia as a whole ought to have identical laws on certain subjects, for which purpose the Governor of New South Wales (the mother colony) should be made Governor- General, and should be able to summon a " General Assembly THE COMING OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 107 of Australia," with power over customs, the post office, ship- ping, and a few other matters of general interest. After a year's delay the Imperial Parliament passed an Act which embodied all the Board's recommendations except those referring to federation; of them there was left only the emptj^ title of Governor-General for Fitzroy, which served his successor's turn and was then dropped as meaningless. Next year the New South Wales Council did its part of the work. After a characteristic grumble at not having got all it wanted— though it was now given almost every- thing but the control of the land fund— it proceeded to form the new legislatures on its own model. The Sydney Council was to have fifty-four members, the Melbourne Council thirty— two-thirds in each case being elected representatives and the rest nominees of the Crown. B. Tasmania (1836-56). Arthur was recalled in 1836 to take up a more complicated task in Upper Canada, where there were agitations that demanded a strong man to control them. By way of a change the Plome Government replaced him with a ruler of very different qualities— Sir John Franklin— who was all for mildness and affection as a means of reforming the con- vict. Such a man was not well fitted for carrying out the iron system which his predecessor had established; and he brought with him a secretary. Captain Maconochie, whose theories carried mildness to extremes. Naturally, the men whom Arthur had trained to his arrangements could not understand the new ideas, and Franklin never succeeded in working quite amicably with them. Among the free settlers, however, his reforming energy showed itself in a more valuable way. To further religion and education were his chief aims. The settlers, he said, were surprisingly intelligent, and lived in " ease and opulence ;" what they wanted were clergymen and schoolmasters. So he sought everywhere to supply this lack ; even the famous Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, talked of coming out to work in Tasmania, and sent at Franklin's request a young Cambridge graduate, J. 1850 Continued on page 114 From page 86 Franklin Governor, 1837-43 A Centre of Educa- tion 108 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Political Troubles Wilmot Governor, 1843-6 P. Gell, to found a school which might " hereafter become a college or university for that part of the world."* For a few years Tasmania was the scientific centre of Australia. Botanists, geologists, and other scientific investigators— among whom Hooker and Strzelecki are the best known- studied Nature on the little island. Franklin himself had no mean reputation among them ; he had served as midship- man under Flinders in the Investigator, and lost his life in after years while endeavouring, in the cause of science, to discover the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. All his efforts, however, could not do away with the fact that Tasmania was a colony for convicts. When New South Wales in 1840 was closed to the importation of criminals, Tasmania got all the more. When the mother colony, three years later, was given the right to elect most of her Council, Tasmania, though named in the Imperial Act, Avas refused that privilege because of her convictism. In 1846 there was talk of closing Norfolk Island, where Maconochie^s theories had broken down in practice, and transferring its gangs of prisoners to the already over- stocked Port Arthur. At that the free settlers roused themselves to make a determined stand. They had already quarrelled bitterly with Franklin^s successor, Sir Eardley Wilmot, over the same question which Gipps and Went- worth fought out in New South Wales. It was utterly unjust, they said, that they should pay out of their own pockets police expenditure which was caused chiefly by the British Government's convict system. Wilmot forced a vote through the Council- one of twelve nominees, half officials— and the six non-oflRcial Councillors resigned at once, and made triumphal processions through the larger towns of the island. Wilmot was recalled by Mr. Glad- stone, Latrobe was sent over from Port Phillip to put matters straight, and a new Governor was hurried out from heme to restore the "Patriotic Six." i.e., the whole of Australia, as Arnold makes plain later in his letter. THE COMING OP SELF-GOVERNMENT. 109 Wilmot had owed his appointment to his writings upon the convict system; Sir William Denison obtained his Denison because he had for some j'ears controlled convict labourers ^*i^7?S^' in the English dockyards. His particular work, wrote Earl Grey, was to be the organising of similar labour in his new domain. But the days of convict labour were nearly over. The protest against the transfer of Norfolk Islanders grew into a demand that transportation should cease altogether. Earl Grey promised that it should, and then tried to shuffle out of his promise. The movement was taken up beyond the colony. It was no longer a merely Tasmanian question; as long as convicts were sent there, so long would they dribble across the straits into Port Phillip. As the Hashemy and Eandolph had excited Sydney p. 105 and Melbourne, so the Neptune, turned away from Cape- town, aroused the citizens of Hobart to vigorous and sometimes violent protests. Charles Cowper came over from Sydney to aid them. The Anti-transportation League took up their cause. When the Act of 1850 gave Tasmania, among the other colonies, the right to a Council two-thirds elective, that body immediately petitioned against having to receive any more convicts. Earl Grey was stubborn to the last, but when he fell the victory was won. On the 14th of December, 1852, Sir John Pakington, Trans- Lord Derby's Colonial Secretary, formally declared that no afan^end more convicts should be sent to any Australasian colony,* and followed this up next day with the proposal to people Norfolk Island with the Pitcairners, descendants of the men who had more than sixty years before mutinied against Bligh on board the Bounty. The suggestion was intended as a seal on the Government's formal promise. With Norfolk Island thus occupied, and the larger colonies self- governed, no room was left east of the Great Bight for any but free settlers. There was still one relic of the old times which men gladly saw disappear. Tasman, when he discovered it, had * Western Australia, of course, excepted. See p. 179 110 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. called the island Van Diemen's Land, and the name had stayed by it ever since. From the time when King established on it a prison for doubly-convicted men, that name and its adjective, Vandemonian, had been terms of reproach— since 1840 more so than ever. Now that the colony could rank itself with its free sisters, it chafed at the continuance of the brand; and at last an Order-in- Council was procured by which, since the beginning of 1856, " Van Diemen's Land " exists no longer, but is Continued replaced by " Tasmania."* on page 165 C. South Australia (1841-51). ^I'om South Australia also had waited many years for any sort of self-government, but not for Tasmania's reason —not convicts but bad financing, that went near to bank- ruptcy, caused that delay. Gawler's gallant but ill-judged struggle had plunged the colony deep in debt, and the settlers by 1840 were in a mutinous temper. The Colonial Office, looking about for a strong man, bethought itself of a young officer just home from Australia, where he had already shown great pluck and judgment both on adven- turous journeys and in dealings with the blacks at Albany; p. 89 and Captain George Grey, before he had been two months ill England, found himself on his way out again to take over the thankless task of repairing South Australia's Grey fortunes. One advantage he had which had been denied to *i84i"5'^' Gawler ; for the Board of Commissioners was abolished, and there was no authority that could interfere with the Governor. Grey took the bull by the horns. Most of the relief works were stopped without a moment's delay; in tlio A New remainder wages were cut down to a minimum, lest they Regime should keep in Adelaide labourers who were so badly needed in the country. The year's expenditure was reduced more than sixty per cent. There were tumults, but Grey stood firm. At once things began to improve, for the colony's ill-luck had already in two ways provided its own remedy. * To prevent confusion the modern name has been used throughout this book. THE COMING OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. Ill Settlement on country lands had been blocked because the rich clung to the town, and the poor could not afford to pay twenty shillings an acre; now, however, many private owners were in a mood to sell at any price— which the Governor was not allowed to do— and so the poorer workers get their chance of taking- up land; while young Sydney squatters, who had brought sheep and cattle overland to sell in hungry Adelaide, found plenty of room for new stations between the coast range and the Murray. Gawler might have profited by all this had not his relief system attracted labourers to the town. Directly Grey's stem retrenchment dispersed them, squatters and small farmers alike found them plenty of useful employment. While in May, 1841, four-sevenths of the population was in Adelaide, ill 1843 not more than a third was left there. Many difficulties were still pressing, but the Home Government gave the colony £155,000 to set its finances straight. B}' the same Act of 1842 a small nominee Council was set up — three officials and four non-officials— and a half -promise was made that when the colony could pay its way steadily it should be given a larger, two thirds elective, Council of the New South Wales type. Very soon South Australia was growing more foodstuffs than it wanted, and wheat and dairy produce were exported to the other colonies. Mines, too, were being discovered — a new thing, except for the coal mines of Newcastle, in Australasian lands. A carter, dragging a log behind his jhe dray as he brought his team down the steep side of the "^'"es Mount Lofty Range, knocked out of a rut a glistening piece of rock. He examined it carefully; its brightness and weight convinced him that it was valuable. Presently he found that the hillside was covered with similar stones. Experts in Adelaide pronounced it to be an ore of silver and lead, and soon a rich mine was opened on the ridge. Copper and tin had already been found on the upper waters of the Gawler, but not in paying quantities. In 1842 specimens of copper ore were picked up on the range further north, not far from the river Light. Captain Bagot, whose son found 112 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. them first, and his overseer, who had found more of the bright green ore, quietly took up eighty acres of the useless- looi-cing land at the regulation price of £1 per acre, and astonished the colony by opening out the famous Kapunda copper mine. After that the whole length of the range was carefully searched, and in May, 1845, another discovery of copper ore was made at Burra Burra, lifty miles further away. There was bound to be a scramble for the spoil if the land was put up to auction in the usual fashion; but speculators saw a cheaper way than that. The law pro- vided that a compact block of at least twenty thousand acres could be claimed as a " special survey " by anyone who would pay £1 an acre for it cash down. Captain Bagot's friends made up a company to do this; so did a number of Adelaide tradesmen. Grey, naturally anxious to get a fair price for such valuable land, was yet bound down by the law to let it go for £20,000. Bagot's party proffered the money, but part of it was in cheques and bills. Grey insisted that cash meant gold, and he would take nothing else. There was a rumour that Sydney caj^italists were on their way to the colony, laden with the necessary coin. Delay meant that neither Bagot's party, the " nobs," as they were called, nor the rival company, the " snobs," would get a penny out of their own South Australian mines. They were driven to combine for the moment, and between them scraped together twenty thousand sovereigns and secured the land. But they were still rivals. Instead of working the whole block jointly, they drew a line across it from east to west, and drew lots for choice of sections. The " snobs " won, chose the northern half, and in one year had mined more than 10,000 tons of ore. The unlucky " nobs " put twice as much money into their half as they were able to get out again, and were at last glad to sell it for £9000. Goveraor There was no doubt now about the colony's prosperity. 1845-8 ' Grey could safely be spared, and Lord Stanley sent him posthaste to New Zealand, where everything was topsy- turvy. His successor. Colonel Robe, is chiefly remembered THE COMING OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 113 for his ill-advised attempt to prevent any more cheap purchases of valuable mines. He proposed that a royalty should be paid to the Crown on all minerals found on private land. The official members of his Council sup- ported him, the unofficial men were against him. When he used his casting vote as well as his proper vote (for the Governor had both), the non-officials walked out of the room and left the Council without a quorum. Thus baffled, Robe fell back on the Crown's prerogatives. Theoretically, all land within the Empire belongs to the Crown, and the real landowner is legally a perpetual tenant. Robe took advantage of this fiction to demand royalties, and refused to grant any more land unless the purchaser bound himself to pay them. There was an outburst of protestations. Robe w^as recalled, and Sir Henry Young replaced him., Young with orders to restore the old form of grant, and let 1848-55 ' royalties alone. But the whole affair had excited a strong desire for self-government. Lord Glenelg, when the colony was founded, had promised an elected Council when there should be a population of fifty thousand. Lord Stanley had added the condition that the colony should pay its way. By 1849 both conditions were fulfilled, and South Australia shared with its eastern sisters in the p-^^ benefits of the Act of 1850. In 1851 the new Council was constituted of twenty-four members, sixteen being elected; so that at the end of that year all Australia east of the Great Bight was equally self-governing, and had begun to think of even fuller liberty. CHAPTER VII.-THE GOLD DISCOVERIES AND THEIR RESULTS. A. First News of Gold (1849-51). steps Australia under English rule had undergone many trans- Freedom formations since Phillip first passed between the Heads of Port Jackson. Under the naval governors it had been a gaol. Macquarie had tried to make it a reformatory. After his retirement the tide of free immigration set in strongly, until the convict element was first diluted, then swept away altogether; and the strong restraining hand of Gipps so disciplined young Australian politicians that it became at last possible and right to trust them with the administra- tion of their country's affairs. The Imperial Act of 1850 expressed this trust in a practical shape; and the last five months of 1851 saw the meeting in four colonies of the Councils which were to create our modern systems of full self-government. It was a very lucky thing that so much freedom in designing these Constitutions was given to the men on the spot. It might easily have happened that the British Government should take that task upon itself— and if the Act of 1850, instead of being an " enabling " Act, had contained an ideal system of government for Australia as it was in that year, that system would have been found quite unsuitable and unworkable when the time came to put it into force. A Constitution of 1850 would have been devised for a community of squatters and farmers; before the end of 1851 squatter and farmer were beginning to wonder whether they were of any political importance at al! Early Jn 1839 Couut Strzelccki found gold in iron ore near Gold . . , . Finds Hartley, in the Blue Mountains: but the possible yield was so small, and the danger of exciting a large convict 114 THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. 115 population by the news was so great, that Gipps persuaded the discoverer to say nothing in public about it. Two years later the Rev. W. B. Clarke found grains of gold in a creek near Bathurst, and for a time there was much discussion of the possibilities thus opened up. From England in 184^4 came the prophecy of an eminent man of science, Sir R. Murchison, that the Australian main range would be found as rich in gold as the Ural Mountains of Russia, which it so much resembled. But nothing practical came of all this talk. Early in 1849 a merchant ship from California put into Port Jackson with the news that great deposits of gold had been discovered in the gullies of Sierra Nevada, behind San Francisco. The discoverer, curiously enough, was an engineer from New South Wales. His fellow-countrymen were quick to follow on his trail, and among them was Edward Hargraves, a colonist of more than twenty years' Edward standing. He had been a small squatter, and in his first search after unoccupied pasture-land had ridden over the unpromising tangle of gullies that lies north-west of Bathurst, along the southern watershed of the Macquarie; and his new Calif ornian abode reminded him continually of those rides eighteen years before. " Slate, quartz, granite,'' he argued, " if these mean gold country in America, why not in New South Wales'?" He learnt the art of gold- washing— the use of the " pan " or " dish " for prospecting, in which water is swilled round and round over a shovelful of dirt till all the earth has been washed away, and the heavier specks of gold are seen glinting at the bottom; the use of the " cradle," in which the earth is washed by a continual stream of water down a long trough with bars of wood fixed across its bottom behind which the gold lodges. Armed with this knowledge and his own happy guess, he made back to Sydney, and rode at once across the mountains to Bathurst and thence to Guyong. There he picked up a young bushman named Lister, and on February 12, 1851, the two started off down Lewis Ponds Creek into the country of slate, quartz, and granite. The creek Har- graves IIG HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. was mostly dry; but where the Summerhill Creek came in from Frederick's Valley a reef of hard rock, stretching across the creek bed, held back a pool of water. Hargraves Ophir dug out and washed a panful of earth— in the bottom of the pan was a tiny nugget. Five more panfuls he washed, and in all but one the " colour " showed freely. With each dish his excitement grew; at last he turned upon young Lister, who was watching him with some amazement, and " My boy," he cried, " 1 shall be a baronet, you will be knighted, and my old horse will be stuffed, put into a glass case, and sent to the British Museum!" Another young bushman, James Tom, was now added to the party, and the Macquarie Valley was. traversed as far as Burrandong; then Tom and Lister explored the Turon, while Hargraves went north-west to Mitchell's Creek, everywhere finding the " colour " over a district about seventy miles long by forty wide. There was no room for mistake. The discoverer returned in haste to Sydney, and after parleying for some weeks with the Government, disclosed his secret. The Government Geologist confirmed the news, and by the middle of May four hundred diggers were camped on the golden creek junction, which Hargraves had already named " Ophir." The news spread rapidly. Sofala, on the Turon, became even more popular than Ophir. The mountain road from Sydney to Bathurst was thronged with would-be diggers. From end to end of the Dividing Range men searched the creeks for gold. At Tuena, on the Aber- crombie, at Araluen, on a branch of the Moruya, new fields were opened up; stray prospectors proclaimed their success in a dozen river valleys from Armidale south to Albury. The townsfolk began to abandon their work wholesale. Men of all trades and professions were scattered along miles of creekbed; even from independent Victoria set in a stream of gold-seekers, bound for the riches of the older colony they had so lately despised. Melbourne took alarm, and its citizens offered a reward of £200 to the man who should discover gold on their side of the border. THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. 117 The response was almost immediate. One party made a find only sixteen miles from Melbourne, in the bed of Anderson's Creek. Another laid open a quartz reef near Clunes, on one of the sources of the Loddon. In a short time a third field was proclaimed at Buninyong. But all these were overshadowed by the opening up of a long gully not far north of this latter place, where the Ballarat Diggings soon became the scene of great excitement. In a month 2500 people were on the ground, and new arrivals came in at the rate of a liundred a day ; on " Golden Point " men made thirty or forty pounds a day each for weeks at a time. Yet before long Ballarat itself was almost deserted in favour of Mount Alexander, where on Forest Creek (near Castlemaine) the gold was to be had for less trouble in shallower workings; and before the end of this exciting year prospectors had crossed the barren granite of the Mount itself, and settled down north of it upon the almost limitless wealth of Bendigo. B. The Troubles of Victoria (1851-5). By this time Victoria was in the utmost turmoil. "Within three weeks," wrote Governor Latrobe in October, " Melbourne and Geelong have been almost emptied of many classes of inhabitants. ... In some of the suburbs not a man is left, and the women for self- protection forget neighbours' jars, and group together to keep house." Farms, shops, ships, were alike deserted, not only by the men on them, but by their owners and masters. It was shearing time, but there were no shearers; it seemed likely that at harvest time there would be no reapers. By December the situation had grown still more serious. " It really becomes a question," wrote Latrobe, "how the more sober operations of society, and even the functions of Government, may be carried on." There were twelve thousand people on Forest Creek in an area less than four miles square. The police in town and country had almost entirely abandoned duty. It was only by summoning military help from Tasmania that the Governor could Victorian Gold- fields Latrobe Governor, 1851-4 The Great Rush 118 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. provide an escort for the convoy which brought gold to Melbourne; and while a force of thirty men was all that Tasmania could spare for that purpose, more than three thousand islanders of the roughest class had already come over to add to the chances of riot and disorder. The supply of food, too, was becoming a serious question; most foodstuffs had doubled in price, bread had risen from 5d. to 20d. the loaf in Melbourne— and a good deal more on the diggings. Every month the problem grew more difficult of solution. The summer heats, drying up the watercourses and so making cradling and washing almost impossible, had somewhat checked the inflow of diggers from the other colonies; but with the iirst rains of autumn they came faster, and with them came shipload after shipload of gold- mad men from England and America. Gradually the more immediate necessity of providing food for these thousands was got over. People began to recognise that it was nearly as profitable to trade with lucky diggers as to dig for gold oneself— and the trader's profits were much more certain. Of crime there was comparatively little among the great hordes at Bendigo and Ballarat, for robbery was the only crime that tempted anyone just them, and against robbery the whole mass of gold-seekers took very strong measures, rangers Outsidc the actual goldfields, however, there was still nmch lawlessness. The Mount Alexander road was in- fested by bushrangers, especially where in crossing the Dividing Range it traversed the gloomy Black Forest. Melbourne also was full of disorder, for in it the stream of fortunate gold-winners, always free with their money, met that other stream of outlaws, whose one aim was to get money somewhere and somehow. And while criminals thus naturally drew towards the capital, its police a^^ naturally were tempted away from it; for it was more than flesh and blood could stand, even at ten shillings a day, to be constantly arresting drunken men with two or three hundred pounds loose in their pockets. Latrobe, who THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. 119 worked incessantly and made a point of personally looking into eveiy difficulty, did his best. A body of two hundred police, recruited in Tasmania from among a number of veteran soldiers who had been settled on the land there, supplied the place of those Victorian constables who had left their work at the close of 1851, while in October, 1852, an extra regiment was sent from England to help in keep- ing order. Gold fields in 1852 OF Turbu- ^^ lent Meanwhile there was arising a graver trouble than any that regarded the supply of food or police, starvation, after the first few months, there was little fear. Diggers From robbery and murder any mass of men could soon be trusted to protect themselves. But in all half-civilised communities it is popular to denounce and resist the interference of outside authorities. The diggers of the early fifties were to a large extent not Victorians, or 120 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Australians, or Britons: even of those that came from the other colonies many were escaped or recently pardoned convicts. The noisier and more active section on every field was made up of men from all the world over; some, coming from countries autocratically governed, did not know how to use the freedom that was theirs in a British colony; some had been expelled from country after country, and had come to this end of the world in the hope of finding a place where law and order would not interfere with them. Moreover, the diggers as a whole were not yet inclined to settle down permanently in the colony.* They wandered from field to field, intent on " making their pile " and then spending it in Europe, if they had the luck to get so far. As for the country in which they happened to be, its welfare was a matter which concerned them little; it was not their home, but simply a place to be exploited and left as soon as possible. The Victorian Government, they thought, should see that they were well looked after— but it was tyrannical to demand anything from them in return. Unfortunately it cost money to look after them, and the Victorian Government had none too much. From the first .License Fitzroy in New South Wales had charged a license fee of ®®® thirty shillings a month to each digger, and Latrobe followed his example. But the circumstances of the two colonies were very different. The New South Wales goldfields were scattered, and had comparatively small populations; when the Turon diggers threatened a riot, half a company Feb., 1853 of soldicrs was enough to prevent a disturbance. The big Victorian goldfields, on the other hand, were not far apart, were within easy distance of Melbourne and its collection of criminals, and were thickly populated. A rising at Sofala might at most have threatened the safety of Bathurst. A rising at Ballarat would spread instantly to Castlemaine and Bendigo, and its leaders could control a force of over fifty thousand men within easy marching * Immigrants from England often brought their families with them— other immigrants rarely. Half the arrivals from England were women and children; barely a fifth from other places. THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. 121 distance of Melbourne. Besides this, Fitzroy had ready to hand the whole machinery of government, adapted to a population of two hundred thousand, which could be stretched without much difficulty to include an inrush of ten or twelve thousand more. Latrobe^s machinery, which he was only at the time of the rush taking over from New South Wales, was devised for a scattered population of seventy thousand ; when, after a few months, he had to cope with double as many (in a year or two with four times as many), it is hardly to be wondered at that there was great danger of the machine's breaking down. From the very first the license fee yielded far less than it should. It is not an easy task to collect forty thousand Agita- fees month bj^ month among a crowded and shifting population. Latrobe found the 30s. fee was bringing in too little to pay the actual expenses of managing the goldfields, and proposed to double it. There was a unanimous outcry, and the Mount Alexander men held frequent meetings, at which not only the increased fee, but any fee at all, was denounced as unjust and tyrannical. Latrobe thought it best to back down, and secured peace for a time by doing so; but the diggers did not forget that a few riotous demonstrations had utterly dismayed the colonial authorities, and were encouraged to try the same method again. At first the new Victorian Council was inclined to sympathise with the diggers because the Governor claimed full control of the gold revenue in the Crown's name. It seemed possible that there would be the same trouble in this matter as there had been about the land revenue in Gipps' time. But when Sir J. Pakington, the English Secretary for the Colonies, put at the Council's disposal the whole of the gold revenue, as well as all that was left of the land revenue, the diggers' refusal to pay was looked upon in a very different light. Pakington suggested, and Latrobe advised, that the fee for digging should be abolished and replaced by a royalty, to be levied in Melbourne on gold exported from the colony. This would be easier to collect, and would be paid only by those who Victorian Gold License ] THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. 123 had obtained gold— whereas the license fee was levied in advance on successful and unsuccessful alike. The Council shelved this proposal without much thought, but the rumour of it had stirred up the diggers again. The licensing system grew more and more unpopular. ^""js^oJJf Two days in every week were given up by the police to tent going round the mining camps in search of men without licenses. Anyone who could not produce his piece of paper was arrested and hauled off to the chief officer's tent, outside which he was ignominiously chained to a log. Now the man who had no license usually bolted directly he saw the police coming, and often got clean away, for no digger would help his pursuers. The man who really had taken one out would stand his ground, and perhaps find at the last moment that he had lost his paper; he, therefore, who had obeyed the law, would find himself in chains, and would chafe most bitterly against the system that put him there. There was a riot at the Ovens Diggings, near Beechworth, but this was quelled without much difficulty. At Castlemaine the police, by an unfortunate error of judgment, gave the discontented part of the population a chance of organising opposition to them. Presently there was a rumour that in New South Wales the fee was to be abolished altogether. The malcontents took hold of this belief and spread their organisation through all the neighbouring camps ; Bendigo became^ their headquarters, and the new diggings at Heathcote supplied a formidable contingent to their ranks. In August, 1853, they sent Latrobe a petition which ^fakef* formulated their demands clearly. The chief were that the action fee be reduced to 10s. a month, and that, " as the diggers have uniformly developed a love of law and order," armed police be no longer sent to collect it. Latrobe pointed out that it was a matter for the Council to deal with. The Bendigo men replied that they were not represented on the Council, and that, whatsoever the law might say, they were not going to pay more than ten shillings in future. They resolved further that anyone who did pay more than 124 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. ten shillings should be turned out of the diggings; as for themselves, they would adopt a i)oliey of "passive resis- tance "—if the Governor refused to take ten shillings, they would pay nothing, and let them arrest them all, and see how he liked it. Again, Latrobe suggested the abolition of licensing and the levying of a royalty; again the proposal was shelved in the Council; again the authorities had to back down before the diggers, and agree to a fee of two pounds only to cover three months. This time the demon- stration of what could be done by rioting was even more striking, for at Ballarat and Beechworth the movement had not been encouraged, and at Castlemaine it had collapsed; the concession was made to malcontents at Bendigo and Heath cote only, and was made when there was already on its way to the colony a body of troops sufficient to have restored order completely. By the end of 1853 Latrobe found himself once more able to command obedience; but his powers of ruling the colony had been finally and fatallj- discredited. With the best of intentions, with all the prestige of hard work and long service, he had failed to maintain the authority of the law. His position had been extremely difficult; his own perception of what was best to do had been made of no effect by the obstinacy of his constitutional advisers,— but in that half-and-half system of government, neither parliamentary nor autocratic, the Governor's responsibility was greater by far than his power. Latrobe thankfully obtained permission to retire, and was succeeded by Sir Charles Hotham. Hotham '^^^ "^^^ Govcmor was warmly received on all the Governor, goldficlds, and at once noted the real solution of the difficulty. As long as the digger had no interest in the country he lived in, he would be a grumbler and a law- breaker; let him settle down, marry, and make the place his home, and he would soon become a law-abiding citizen who could be trusted with a vote. "Where the soldier will fail," Hotham wrote, "the interest of the wife and child will prevail." For some time his hopes seemed likely to be fulfilled. Bendigo, after a sternly suppressed attempt 1854-5 THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. 125 to use force in expelling Chinese from the diggings, grew quiet and law-abiding. Ballarat had long been so— the most domestic of the mining camps, it was specially noted for its orderliness, its schools, and its quietness on Sundays. Hotham set himself to retrench the extravagant expendi- ture of Government, and to make preparations for giving the diggers what they seemed to deserve— direct representa- tion in the Council. Of a sudden the turmoil broke out again. On the night The of October 0, 1854, James Scobie was found murdered at ^ r|o[** Ballarat, near the Eureka Hotel. The miners accused the landlord, who was an ex-convict from Tasmania; but the magistrates found him not guilty. Immediately there was a riot; the chairman of the bench, it was said, was a corrupt man, a special friend of the landlord's, and had been bribed by him as by many others before. The hotel was sacked and burnt to the ground, and threats were made of attacking the Government camp, in which the supposed murderer had taken refuge. Hotham had no intention of letting the diggers bully him as they had Latrobe. He marched up an armed force of soldiers and police, and arrested four of the ringleaders in the riot. At the same time he had the landlord rearrested, and, after enquiry, dismissed the corrupt magistrate. But the lessons of previous years were not so easily to be unlearnt. At last Ballarat had committed itself to action against the authorities, and professional agitators were soon on the spot. The old grievances were brought out again, and new ones were easily found. The ringleaders of the hotel-burning riot were convicted, and in sentencing them the judge made injudicious references to the great Bristol riots of the Reform Bill time, and to the disturbances which broke out in Ireland during 1848. Many of the Ballarat diggers had taken part in those troubles, and bitterly resented the judge's attack. A Reform League was constituted, with a programme of demands that included the release of the hotel-burners, the abolition ol license fees, and nearly all the points of the famous 126 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Charter.* As usual, the cry of " no taxation without representation " figured largely among the League's watch- words. A deputation was sent to Melbourne, but persisted Nov. 27 ill " demanding " the release of the rioters, and Hotham declined to yield to such arrogance. The League, in answer, Nov. 29 showed its desires in action. At a meeting held on Bakery Hill, a number of licenses were publicly burnt, and peace- able diggers were warned to become Leaguers by a notice that " this meeting will not feel bound to protect " anyone who did not join within a fortnight. The Gold Commissioner next day sent out police to search for unlicensed miners, and when these were pelted with stones, brought a force of soldiers to their help. Shots were fired, and men wounded on. both sides. By this time the whole camp was in an uproar. No one worked any longer. The diggers began to prepare for more serious resistance. The officials sent hastily for more troops. Eight prisoners had been taken on the 30th, and everyone expected an attack on the Government camp for Eureka their release. But the leaders of the League had larger stockade ideas J they had already begun to hope for a complete political revolution, for a rising that should embrace every goldfield in Victoria, and for absolute separation from and independence of the mother country. The Reform League, in fact, had become an instrument of foreigners and political rebels. To release a few prisoners was beneath them; they set to work to form a permanent fortified camp on the Eureka lead, where they could command the main Melbourne road about a mile from Ballarat. Inside the hastily-erected stockade they proclaimed the " Republic of Victoria," and over it hoisted a new flag— blue, with the stars of the Southern Cross upon it. For two days they were left alone; the commander of the troops in Ballarat itself was busy preparing his own camp for defence. But when he found out what was really happening, he made up * The "People's Charter," tbe principal article of the Radical programme in British politics from 1839 to 1848, included (1) universal suffrage, (2) equal electoral districts, (3) vote by ballot, (4) annual parliaments, (5) no property qualification for members, (6) payment of members. 128 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. his mind to stop it once for all. Early in the morning ol the 3rd December he marched a force of three hundred men against the stockade, within which lay a body of rebels nearly five times as large. A volley was fired from the stockade; the troop replied vigorously, then charged, carried the defences, and dispersed their opponents in all directions. When Ballarat woke up that Sunday the reign of the League was over, the Republic and its flag were gone, and quiet people found themselves free to go about their business. Reforms This was the end of rioting. Sharp measures had been necessary, but at last it was clearly understood throughout Victoria that the new Governor could not be bullied into remedying grievances. That being clear, Hotham did his best to set matters straight. Some time before he had appointed a Commission to investigate the whole system of management on the goldfields, and during 1855 he reconstructed that system on the lines of the Commission's report. The license was changed from a monthly permit to a yearly, to be called a " Miner's Right," and to cost twenty shillings only; the revenue thus lost was to be made, up by an export duty of half a crown an ounce on gold. By a clause in the new Constitution Act the possession of a miner's right carried a vote with it. Thus the real grievances of the mining population were done away with, and though in Melbourne there was a sort of echo of the Republican movement, and the captured ring- leaders of the stockade were persistently acquitted by jury after jury in defiance of the evidence, there was from that time no further agitation outside the law. C. Settling into Shape (1853-9). In the other colonies the great rush to Victorian goldfields at first caused some dismay. New South Wales lost a quarter of its population, Tasmania a third; from South Australia went more than a hundred every day. Soon, however, matters began to right themselves. Diggers had to be fed and were willing to pay high prices for the THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. 129 food. So across the Murray came the sheep and cattle of Material New South Wales, the wheat of South Australia, to supply Bendigo and Ballarat; and back across the Murray to Adelaide or to Sydney went a good deal of Victorian gold in payment. South Australia even cut a road through the mallee scrub towards Mount Alexander, and estab- lished a police escort to take the winnings of South Australian miners safely to Adelaide. In Tasmania the times of alarm lasted longer; but there, too, in the end the colony profited— for a good many ex-convicts were got rid of at Victoria's expense, and their place was filled by steady workers brought out from England. In other ways, too, Australia was progressing. Went- worth added to the long list of his achievements on behalf of his well-loved countiy by carrying an Act to incorporate the University of Sydney, which was opened in October, 1852. The Australian Museum was founded in the following year, and the Sydney Grammar School a year later. Victoria was not slow to follow suit, opening the University of Melbourne in 1854, and the Public Library in 1856. Those, too, were the days of the first railways; by 1858 the New South Wales Government controlled lines from Sydney to Parramatta and to Campbelltown, and from Newcastle to Maitland, which had been laid down by private companies, while similar companies owned railways from Melbourne towards Geelong and Castlemaine, as well as the lines connecting the main city with its suburbs on Port Phillip. But the great permanent work of these years was the constltu- settlement of the colonial constitutions. As has been said, tions the Act of 1850 allowed each colony to recommend the form of government it preferred, and when the various recommendations reached London in 1854 they were found to be much alike. A few alterations were made in the bills sent from Sydney and Melbourne, and in 1855-6 the four eastern colonies received the constitutions under which (with few alterations) they have since lived. Each was given two Houses of Parliament— a Council and an Assembly. The Assembly in all consisted of members I 130 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. elected by the mass of the people; three colonies lequired that the voter should have a small property qualification, but South Australia gave a vote to all men of full age who had lived six months in the colony. The various Councils, how- ever, differed from each other a good deal. In New South Wales members were to be nominated by the Governor and his Ministry for a term of five years; by that time the colonists might be supposed to know definitely what they wanted. The other three colonies preferred elective Councils and required a fairly large property qualification in voters, Victoria and Tasmania giving votes also to members of professions. In order to make these elected Councils stable bodies, which should not be liable to change their way of thinking all of a sudden— as Assemblies sometimes do— it was provided that members should retire in batches, so that at each election only a small number of Councillors could be changed. The Assemblies, on the other hand, could not last more than five years (three in South Australia) ; and all members retired at the same time, so that it was possible to have a completely new Assembly after a single election. It was thus hoped that, while the Assembly represented what the colony thought in a particular year, the Council would represent a sort of average of what the colony had been thinking for the last ten years or so,— and that, between the two. Acts of Parlia- ment might be reasonably up to date without being rash. In 1855 there were still only four colonies east of longitude 129°. But the Imperial Act of 1850 had provided that any part of New South Wales north of latitude 30'^ might be cut off to form a new colony, and the Constitution Act of 1855 left the boundary undefined. The Moretoo Bay settlement, moreover, was rapidly growing. Thrown open to free settlers in 1842, it was at first somewhat neglected for the better known and more accessible lands Dr. Lang around Port Phillip, but by 1851 mustered a population of nearly nine thousand, of whom nearly five thousand were free emigrants. This result was largely the work of Dr. John Dunmore Lang, a Presbyterian clergyman of Sydney," THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. 131 who from his arrival in 1824 to his death in 1878 was active in every scheme that he believed favourable to the' progress of his adopted country. His career was fuller of party strife than that of most politicians, and it is not yet possible to judge it impartially without being accused of partizanship : but there are no two opinions about his strenuous zeal in the interests of Moreton Bay. He spent three years in England arranging for the emigration of suitable settlers, who established themselves on arrival in the farm lands behind Brisbane, and have since become the Db. John Dunmobe Lang Sib GrEOBGE BOWEN backbone of southern Queensland. It was from one of the ships that brought them out— the Fortitude— that Fortitude Valley, in the suburbs of Brisbane, has taken its name. In the new Sydney Assembly the question of separation was very soon raised, for there was a rumour that when Moreton Bay became an independent colony, convicts would The Separa- again be sent out to it— and indeed some of the bigger land- Queens- owners in the north, who needed labourers badly, had '^"^ petitioned for separation on those terms. The British Government soon reassured the protesting Assembly on this 132 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. point, and the question of boundaries was then warmly dis- cussed. Latitude 30° was not at all a suitable boundary, but the mention of it seemed to mean that the valleys of the ^pTeT** Clarence and Richmond Rivers were to form part of the new colony. After much petitioning and passing of resolutions, the matter was finally decided by a series of despatches in which Governor Denison pointed out how the physical features of the district in dispute made a natural dividing line further north. Through the rough country, he said, about the head of the Dumaresq and Clarence, it was difficult for men to penetrate either south from the Darling Downs or north from New England; consequently, while the trade of the Downs went naturally to Moreton Bay, that of New England went as naturally to Newcastle or Sydney. When these arguments were confirmed by petitions wiiich proved that the Clarence River people, as a whole, preferred to stay in the mother colony, the British Government hesitated no longer; in 1859 the boundary was fixed where it now is, and the districts to the north started on an independent career as the colony of Queens- land, with Sir George Bowen for first Governor, and a Constitution practically the same as that of New South Contiuued "Wnlpo on page 168 ^^ ^^®^- CHAPTER VIII.-riLLING IN THE MAP. A. Coastal Districts (1838-41). Mitchell's series of explorations during the governor- ^f^^ ship of Bourke had, as we have seen, connected the discoveries of his predecessors in such a way as to give the colonists a complete picture of their territory south-east of the Barwon-Darling-Murray line— complete, that is, except for the still unexplored knot of mountains in the extreme south-east corner. A line drawn from Spencer Gulf to Hervey Bay would to-day include nearly four-fifths of the population of Australia, and by 1838 all the necessary exploring work within that line had been done, and details could be filled up by the squatters, who pushed ever further and further from the coast in search of pasture for their flocks. There were still three things left for the explorer to do. The little south-eastern corner had to be opened up. Some connection had to be made between the main colonies and the isolated West Australian settlement. And the whole of the interior was still an unknown mystery —it might be a sea, it might be a sandy desert; all that men knew was that it sent no great rivers to the coast. The minor problem was soon solved when once Port Phillip had become an acknowledged and permanent settlement. McMillan, the manager of a station on the .^^'^^^ Upper Snowy River, pushed across to Omeo in 1839, and Gipps- on down the Tambo next year to Lake King. Hard on his '*"** heels followed another more carefully-conducted party, organised by one of the Macarthurs, and led by Count Strzelecki, a Pole and a man of science. This expedition started from the Upper Murray and clambered up the main range at its highest point, where on a bleak tableland rise a number of hummocks, no one much higher than the others. Picking out the one which seemed to him the 133 134 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. highest, Strzelecki called it Kosciusko, after the great Polish patriot whom he revered ; and the honour he intended has been confirmed by Australians who, when a higher point was found, transferred to it the name of Strzelecki's choice. From this point the expedition followed McMillan to Omeo and Lake King, but pressed on from the Macalister, where he had turned back, along the Latrobe towards Westernport. The bush was dense and tangled, and Strzelecki, afraid of losing his way altogether if he diverged from a direct course, insisted on pushing straight through every obstacle. Provisions had come to an end; the horses and baggage had to be left behind; at the rate of two miles a day or thereabout, scrambling, staggering, hewing their way inch by inch, with nativ9 bear's flesh for their only food, the party won through at last to Westernport. Their report of the country east of those dense forests roused others to find new roads to it. McMillan had already come back from his Monaro station with cattle, and was establishing stations between Omeo and Corner Inlet. A Melbourne party made its way round by sea and discovered the western lakes of Gippsland, which McMillan and Strzelecki had missed by keeping well inland. When a road was at last found north of Kooweerup Swamp, so that land traffic could pass direct from Mel- bourne itself, the speedy and profitable settlement of Gipps- land (as Strzelecki had named it) was assured. Even before these discoveries the second problem had Eyre in been attacked. Among the first of the "overlanders," who Australia brought stock overland from New South Wales to the newly- settled districts round Adelaide, was a young Yorkshireman, Edward John Eyre. Mere cattle-droving was not adven- turous enough for him; after one or two journeys by the 1838 usual Murray route he plunged boldly into the unknown Wimmera country as far as Lake Hindmarsh, but beyond that was baffled by impenetrable mallee scrub. Then for a year he devoted himself to business, but the old recklessness was upon him, and he threw himself heartily into South Australian schemes for enlarging the boundaries of settle- FILLING IN THE MAP. 135 ment there. He explored the coast to the west of Spencer 1839 Gulf as far as Streaky Bay, and found it barren and water- less; then, himself paying one-third of the expenses, he led ^^^ an expedition northwards from Adelaide to reach the centre of the continent. Keeping along the western spurs of the Flinders Range, he reached Lake Torrens, which was salt and swampy; he edged his way round this among the stony foothills, and came to a country where even the rain-water grew salt after lying a few hours on the ground, while another salt swamp, to which his name was given, seemed to bar his passage further north. Determined to do something of importance before his return to Adelaide, he made southwestwards for Streaky Bay, and, after some delays, pushed on to Fowler's Bay, where he formed a summer camp and a depot of provisions. The country ahead of him was even more waterless than any he had hitherto crossed. For the most part it was bare rock, breaking down to the sea in cliffs four hundred feet high. Here and there— fifty miles, a hundred miles, a hundred and forty miles apart— there were patches of sand beneath which, by digging, it was possible to find a little water. Now and then, but very rarely, a little grass or a small patch of miserable scrub was kept alive by the dew. The only reasonable hope of a successful journey across this wilderness lay in constant communication with a ship that should meet him to replenish his stores, and this had been arranged for as far as Fowler's Bay, but further than that Gawler, who was then Governor at Adelaide, would not let his vessel go. He had no money for work beyond the South Australian border, nor, if he had, was he inclined to spend it on an enterprise so mad as Eyre now proposed. Eyre was obstinate. If the ship would not come with Eyre him, he would go without it ; if the country could not the Bight support a party, he would go by himself. He sent back all his men but an old overseer of his, Baxter, who begged hard to be allowed to sta,y; then those two, with three blackfellows and a few horses and sheep, faced the terrible Feb. 25, 1841 136 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. desert. They endured everything that had been foreseen, and more. The live stock travelled so slowly, from thirst, that all the sheep and most of the provisions were eaten before half the journey was over. Again and again a camp had to be formed, while one or two of the party pushed on to find and bring back water. More than once their lives depended on dew collected by Eyre in a sponge and squeezed into a quart pot. The sun flamed all day; the nights were bitter cold. At the end of two months the blackf ellows began to steal what was left of the provisions ; Edward John Eyre Captain Charles Sturt when charged with it, two of them deserted, and though they came back in a few days, it was only to do a worse mischief still. One night, as Eyre was driving the horses from a scanty pasturage back to camp, he heard a shot, and presently saw Wylie (one of the deserters) running towards him and calling him to come. In the camp Baxter lay dying, shot through the heart; the baggage was strewn in confusion over the ground; the two other natives, who had evidently murdered Baxter to obtain the rest of the food, were not to be seen. Wylie himself was hardly to be FILLING IN THE MAP. 137 trusted after his recent escapade; still, there was nothin.a: for it but to push on, although every time they stopped to rest it became harder to summon up energy enough to move again. Week aft^r week Eyre and Wylie toiled on, till their provisions were quite exhausted, although water "was becoming more plentiful; then, in the nick of time, they found a French whaler at anchor in a little bay. The rest and help thus obtained enabled Eyre to complete his journey with comparative ease, and on the 7th of July he reached Albany. For fifteen hundred miles he had forced his way through the worst even of Australian deserts, and gained as his sole reward the conviction that, as he was the first, so he would be the last to travel by that road. B. The Inland Wastes (1844-58). Certainly his experiences warned other explorers to avoid the arid west, and for the next twenty years men's energies were concentrated on two routes by which they hoped to open up the eastern half of the continent. One series of discoverers pushed north from the Murray, the other west from the Queensland coast; all had as their goal the broad peninsula that spreads between the Gulf of Carpentaria and the waters of the Timor Sea. Sturt heads the first series; after him, at a long interval, come McDouall Stuart and Burke and Wills. The second series, besides the veteran Sir Thomas Mitchell, includes the names of Leich- hardt, Kennedy, and Gregory. When these men had finished their labours, Australia east of 130° was mapped out in all its main features. Sturt, whose Murray voyage had been the beginning of Sturt South Australia, settled down in the new colony first as Sur^^eyor-General, subsequently as Colonial Treasurer and finally as Colonial Secretary. But Eyre's march fired his ambition, and in the spring of 1844 he was once more at the head of a well-equipped expedition bound for the centre of the continent. To avoid the so-called lakes that had blocked Eyre in 1840, he followed the line of the Murray and Darling to near Lake Cawndilla, and then set his face 138 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. towards the Barrier Range, where he hoped to find a river running from the north-west. Baffled in this, he followed the range to its end, proceeding with great care from water- hole to waterhole, so that his live stock should never be in danger of death from thirst. By the end of the year he had reached a spot near Mount Poole, in the Grey Range, and there found himself suddenly shut in on all sides by the summer droughts. Few Australian summers have been more fiercely hot than that of 1844-5, and the autumn brought no relief; ink dried on the pen, lead dropped out of the shrivelled pencils, the woodwork of the drays almost fell to pieces; the explorers tried vainly to find a way out of their refuge, where the water began to run low. At last, worn with despair and stricken by scurvy, they sat idly day after day in a sort of cave which they had dug in the hillside to protect them from the scorching sun. In the middle of July, after six months' torture, rain came in torrents. A month later Sturt set out again over plains where the grass had already sprung plentifully, crossed Cooper's Creek where it ran in a tangle of indefinite channels, and a little beyond it found himself once more in a region of sandhills. Beyond the sandhills came a bare The expanse of sandstone covered with quartz pebbles— the Desert Stony Dcsert— and beyond that more sandhills; then, spurring him on with momentary hope, the well-grassed channels of Eyre's Creek; then sandhills again, and salt- encrusted plains to which he saw no end. East and north- east, had he but known it, lay the Diamantina and the Herbert, permanent watercourses that would have led him into valuable country. But he was bound for the centre of the continent, and that way the desert was impenetrable ; he fell back to the depot at Fort Grey, and made a fresh p.^^' start. This time he pushed more directly north, and found Cooper's Creek running strongly in a single channel through fertile country; but beyond it, between liim and the Diamantina plains, the Stony Desert thrust itself for- biddingly, with its same further edge of sandhill and salt plain. Sturt was utterly tired out. Moreover summer FILLING IN THE MAP. 139 was coming on again, hot as ever, and he was many miles from Fort Grey. He turned back for the last time. Cooper's Creek was drying up rapidly, and in Strzelecki's Creek, along which his road lay, there was barely enough muddy water left to help him back. Hot winds blazed about him till his thermometer burst. Fort Grey had been deserted by the depot, and Sturt's strength only just carried him tg join it under Mount Poole; then everything but food and water was abandoned, and by forced marches the expedition struggled along its old tracks to reach the Darling at the year's end. His health shattered, his eyesight permanently destroyed, Sturt was borne back to Adelaide and thence to an invalid's rest in England — so cruel a reward for all his labour was allotted to the greatest of Australian explorers.* Assuredly South Australia was an unlucky colony, for Eyre on the west and Sturt on the north had deprived it of all hope of expansion. It was, therefore, to the districts north-west of Moreton Bay that adventurous discoverers now turned their eyes; and Sydney politicians were just in a mood to take advantage of their zeal, since it was considered immensely important to connect the mother colony with a settlement formed not long before at Port Essington, on Coburg Peninsula. In 1843 a Select Committee of the New South Wales Council recommended that £1000 should be spent on opening up this route over- land, but Gipps had to get permission from England before he could grant the request. In the meanwhile, a young German doctor, Ludwig Leichhardt, who had made [-ejch. ready to go with Sir Thomas Mitchell on the proposed official expedition, persuaded his friends to fit out a private exploring party with himself as head. Starting from the Darling Downs, then almost the northern limit of settlement, he determined to keep as far as might be on the eastern side of the main range,^ where experience showed that there was always plenty of water. His track lay, * As some recompense for the privations he endured, the Government of South Australia granted him a pension of £600 per annum. 140 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. The Plains of Promise therefore, parallel to the coast and about a hundred miles inland, until he hit the Burdekin, and was led by it to the upper waters of the Lynd; then he made for the shores of the Gulf, and came for the first time into serious collision •with the natives, who killed his companion Gilbert. Up to this time he had been travelling through splendid country, his reports of which afterwards rejoiced the hearts of his squatter friends; but now, after rounding the head of the Gulf, he came upon thick scrub that made every step toil- some. Food ran short, and the meat was mostly flying- Dr. Ludwig Leichhabdt Sir Thomas L. Mitchell foxes; the horses and oxen began to die off. At last through rugged country Leichhardt made his way to Van Diemen Gulf, and on December 17, 1845, reached Port Essington in safety. Returning to Sydney by sea, he became the hero of the year; the Council voted him £1000, which was more than doubled by the gifts of his admirers; from Britain and France came the gold medals of the great Geographical Societies. Meanwhile the required permission had come from England, and Gipps was able to send off the Surveyor- FILLING IN THE MAP. 141 General. As Leichhardt was gone, Mitchell chose E. B. Mitchell Kennedy for his second-in-command, and started towards the end of 1845 to find an inland route to the Gulf of Carpentaria. From Nyngan he travelled due north, and crossed the Darling- not far below Walgett, presently coming upon that system of water-channels which is known at different parts of it as the Culgoa, Balonne, or Conda- mine. This took him eastward, and when at last he struck north along the Maranoa and Warrego he found himself on the coastal side of the Dividing Range, at the head of the Belyando. That certainly was not what he wanted; he turned back, crossed the Warrego again into thick scrub, and soon came out upon the head-stream of the Barcoo, running north-west among beautiful open downs. Once more, as on the day when he first saw Australia Felix, p. 61 Mitchell burst into a song of triumph over " the realisation of my long-cherished hopes ... a reward direct from heaven for perseverance;" but this time he was sadly mistaken. For some days he followed the river down, naming it the Victoria, because he was so sure it was the same Victoria River that runs into the Timor Sea; then, just before reaching the southward turn that would have shown him his error, he turned back for lack of provisions and hastened to Sydney with his news. Sydney, however, was incredulous about inland rivers, and Kennedy was sent Kennedy back to make sure. Mitchell's hopes were shattered at once; the Barcoo, when tracked down, ran back south-west into the same land of sandhills that had baffled Sturt. But Mitchell had opened up much fine country on the tablelands of the main range, and squatters were not slow to follow his trail. The forties opened with Eyre's failure; their central years saw the success of Leichhardt and Mitchell; their close was marked, not by failure only, but by death. Kennedy in 1848 was sent to traverse the Cape York peninsula. Landing at Rockingham Bay, his party was at once confronted with all the obstacles of a tropical jungle. The vines were armed with hooks, and made a dense 142 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. mat in the close-growing forest; nettle-trees stung the horses to death; the ground underfoot was usually a swamp. When these troubles were nearly over, the expedition was harassed by hostile blacks and soaked with tropical rains. Kennedy had arranged to meet a provision ship in Princess Charlotte Bay; but he was two months behind time in getting there, and the ship was gone. The drays had already been abandoned, and most of the horses eaten, when he determined to form a camp at Weymouth Bay, leaving eight of bis men there, and to push on himself with the other four. At Shelburne Bay he was compelled to leave three of them, and went on doggedly with the fourth, a blackfellow, in the hope of reaching Port Albany; but near the mouth of the Escape River they were surrounded by a mass of natives, and Kennedy was speared almost in sight of his goal. The faithful blackfellow, after burying his master, got away at night and crawled, half- starved and badly wounded, to the point of Cape York, where a ship was waiting to relieve the party. The Shelburne Bay refugees were never seen again. Of the eight, two were found alive when the relief ship reached them. Leich- Kennedy's fate is at least known. Leichhardt's remains again & mystery. In 1846 and in 1847 he headed two futile f expeditions, which did little but go over part of his old track at the head of the Fitzroy watershed. In 1848 he set himself a sterner task. He proposed to start from the Darling Downs, strike Mitchell's Barcoo and follow it to its southward turn, and then thrust out into the unknown west in the direction of Perth, skirting Sturt's desert as closely as he might. For such an adventure he had few qualifica- tions—he was a poor bushman, yet none too ready to take advice and none too tactful in dealing with his fellows. Ill-equipped, and with companions even less able than himself for the work, he started on his journey in March, 1848. On the 3rd of April he was on the Cogoon, "in excellent spirits." And that is the last we know of him. From that day the whole party disappeared. Expedition FILLING IN THE MAP. 143 after expedition was sent to look for it, every explorer since then has kept eyes and ears open for traces or news of it, the route it was bent on has been followed and crossed and re-crossed and run backwards; but of Leichhardt and his men no vestige has been found, no word remains. Of the explorers who took up the search for Leichhardt, ^^^ ^■ one especially did valuable work in the way of new dis- covery. A. C. Gregory,* who had already gained a reputa- p- ^^^ tion in "West Australia, was commissioned by Government to cut across the lost man's supposed track by following the Victoria River inland from the north. But the river, broad and deep near its mouth, was found to be much shorter than had been expected, and when Gregory left it and made south-west, he found one creek only that ran through grassy country— and even that, after a time, lost itself in the usual salt-lakes and sandhills. He returned to the Victoria, worked his way east on to the head of the Roper, and thence proceeded round the head of the Gulf on to Brisbane, following at some distance inland the route taken by Leichhardt's first expedition. Two years later he ^^^ started again, this time following the tracks of the lost party and pushing on across the Warrego to the Barcoo. This river he traced down to the point where Sturt had met it, and then made south by the line of Strzelecki's Creek to Adelaide. Neither of Gregory's expeditions had brought to light much valuable new country, but the last helped to revive again the exploring spirit among South Australians. Eyre's work in 1839-40 had left them with the impression that Lake Torrens spread its deadly salt-swamps in a huge horseshoe round all their northern districts. If on the maps of to-day we imagine a broad semi-circle of swamp with Lake Frome as one extremity, Lake Gairdner as the other, and Lake Eyre as the main body— the real Lake Torrens appearing simply as an advance guard— we shall understand the despair of Adelaide men during the forties with regard to any profitable expansion northwards. But in * Afterwards Sir A. C. Gregory. FILLING IN THE MAP. 145 1856 a Mr. Babbage began to investigate the Lake Torrens country, and it soon became clear that the one imaginary big lake was really a number of small ones, which were for the most part separated by fair cattle country. When Gregory, on his way to Adelaide, marched straight across dry land where everyone had thought there was an import- ant arm of Lake Torrens, the hopes of the South Aus- tralians rose considerably, and exploring parties were sent out in all directions. C. Crossing the Continent (1858-1863). Among these was one commanded by John McDouall Stuart, who had learnt his business under Sturt in the trying times of 1844-5. He now came to the front as an independent discoverer, launching out into new regions to the north-west of Lake Gairdner, and connecting them with the lands made known by Eyre near Streaky Bay. Next year he kept more directly north, and opened up a well watered district on the Neale, to the west of Lake Eyre— a strange contrast to the barren plains that edge it on the east. Then, stimulated by an offer of £10,000 to the first man across the continen|t (which the South Australian Council made lenthusiastically, but did not abide by), he started again in 1860 with only two com- panions and thirteen horses along the just-found route that promised so well. Creek after Creek was passed — the Neale, the Stevenson, the Finke, the Hugh— and then a steep and rugged line of cliffs seemed to bar the way. He scrambled through, however, naming the range after Sir R. MacDonnell, then Governor of South Australia: but on its northern side the grass lands gave place to dry scrub and spinifex— the latter a never-failing sign of those barren regions which had stopped Sturt in 1844 and Gregory in 1856. Still Stuart pushed on, camping on April 22 in the centre of Australia, close to the hill he proudly called Central Mount Stuart; he thrust out north-west towards Gregory^s tracks, but thirst beat him back; he pushed due north some distance past Tennant's Creek, but here the McDouall Stuart 1858 1859 The centre reached 146 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. natives attacked him, and with so small a party it was madness to go on. He returned to Adelaide to be received with enthusiasm; out of the twenty degrees of latitude that separate Adelaide from the Timor Sea he had traversed sixteen, and the rest would surely be easy work. His 1861 expedition was aided by a Government grant, though even so it consisted only of seven men and thirty horses. With it he passed Attack Creek (his furthest point the year before) unharmed by the blacks, and got a hundred miles further north before he was blocked by a thick scrubby John McDouall Stuart A, C. Gregory forest. Try as he would, there was no getting through it that year, and again he returned to Adelaide, only to make immediate preparations for another attempt. This time he gave up all hope of finding a route to the Victoria River, and determined to try his luck more eastwardly in the direction of the Roper. That way at last fortune favoured him; the Strangways took him to the Roper, and another of its tributaries led him across the North Aus- tralian tableland on to the head of the Adelaide. On July 24, 1862, the party rode down through a tropical surke and FILLING IN THE MAP. 147 forest to the sea beach, and Stuart dipped his hands in the waters of the Indian Ocean. A few hours after Stuart and his party re-entered Adelaide in triumph, another party of explorers bore mournfully into that city the bodies of two men whose fate has left them even more famous than their deeds might wiiis have done. While Stuart was making his second unsuccess- ful journey across the MacDonnell Ranges in February, 1861, Burke and Wills among the mangrove swamps of the Flinders mouth were watching the tide drain out into the Gulf of Carpentaria. The story of their one success, and of all the disaster that succeeded it, is one of the best known in Australian history; but it ranks with Leich- hardt's as one in which the due apportionment of praise and blame will always be a matter of doubt and discussion. It was in 1857 that the Royal Society* of Victoria hit on the idea of subsidising a trans-continental expedition. Victoria was at that time, owing to its wonderful goldfields, the richest colony in Australia, and the most fully explored : it seemed at once a generous and a reputable undertaking to spend its wealth on enlarging the bounds of less favoured communities. The Society's first proposal was to cross the continent from east to west along the line of the Tropic of Capricorn; but this ambitions design was aftei'wards changed for the more practicable one of finding a route from the Darling direct to Cooper's Creek, and establishing at the latter place a depot from which future excursions could be made to the north and west. The expedition was The to be fully provided against all possible needs, lavishly ing Parity equipped, and furnished with camels from India to make the desert journeys easier and quicker. Robert O'Hara Burke, a Victorian superintendent of police, was given the i860 command; G. J. Landells, the camel-expert, was his second- in-command; W. J. Wills was surveyor and astronomer: a doctor, an artist, ten more white men, and three Hindoo camel-drivers completed the party. Their instructions were * Then called the Philosophical Institute. 148 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. to form a depot on Cooper's Creek, and thence to explore the unknown triangle left between Leiehhardt's track of 1844-5, Sturt's of the same date, and Gregory's of 1858. As an alternative, they might turn north-west towards the districts just made known by Stuart, and connect his routa with Gregory's earlia?- explorations on the Victoria River watershed. Burke was a fine fellow in many ways— bold, zealous, First Dif. and persevering— but he lacked judgment, and was quite inexperienced in backblocks bushwork. He began by Robert O'Hara Burke W. J. Wills quarrelling with Landells over the management of the camels, and, when Landells resigned and Wills consequently became second in command, appointed a Mr. Wright, overseer of a station on the Darling, to fill the vacant place. At Menindie he left the main body of the expedition to rest, charging Wright to bring it on more slowly, while he and Wills, with five men and a camel-driver, went ahead to Cooper's Creek. There he waited barely a month, growing more impatient every day. A judicious explorer would have gone back to hasten on the main body, especially FILLING IN THE MAP. 149 as it was tlie expedition's first duty to establish its provisioa depot securely on the Creek. Burke conceived the wild idea of dividino- his small party again, and making- a dash into the unknown with hardly any of the equipment pro- vided for systematic exploration. He took Wills with him, into and two white men, Gray and King ;_ the other four, a man known" named Brahe being put in charge, were told to wait on the creek for Wright's party at least three months. They started on December 16. On April 21 Brahe, who i86i with all his party was suffering from scurvy, buried a quantity of provisions at the foot of a tree, carving DIG on its bark, and marched at ten o'clock to rejoin Wright, who Had not yet made his appearance. That evening, at half-past seven, Burke, Wills, and King staggered into the deserted camp, leg-Aveary, half-starved, and with two exhausted camels for their whole equipment. Wills, after the night's rest, was for following Brahe; Burke held out obstinately for an attempt to reach the cattle stations of South Australia, which were only a hundred and fifty miles to the south-west. Wills yielded: a letter explaining the new plan was buried at the foot of the tree, all signs of disturbance being effaced, lest natives should be led to investigate; and, after five days' rest, the three forlorn men started down Cooper's Creek, going at every step further away from the last hope of rescue. For Brahe, having met Wright in difficulties on the Bulloo, returned with him as soon as possible to the depot , but noticed no disturbance on the ground, and did not trouble to dig up again the stores he supposed to be still in the hole. Knowing that Burke had taken only three months' provisions, and seeing that Wright's party was quite unable to carry out any further work in the bush — four men had died, and the rest were suffering from scurvy— Brahe hurried back to Melbourne and urged the Royal Society to send out a relief expedition at once. The lack of news had already made Victorians anxious, and A. W. Howitt had been despatched on June 26 with a search party. The report of Brahe, whom he met on the Loddon, hurried 150 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA him to Cooper's Creek, while McKinlay from Adelaide pushed towards the same goal across Lake Torrens, Lands- borough struck southwards from the Gulf, and Walker west from Rockhampton. Burke was bound, men thought, to come across one of the four— unless he had made north-west towards the Victoria, and in that case he would meet Stuart. Howitt and Brahe were at the Cooper's Creek depot by the 13th of September; two days later King, half -starved and broken in spirit, was found among a tribe of blacks further down the creek; he, when he was well enough, led the party to a native camp where, in a bough gunyah, lay the dead body of Wills. From King's King was heard the whole wretched story. On parting °''^ from Brahe, Burke's party had made towards Eyre's Creek ; but, after crossing a portion of Sturt's Stony Desert, they came upon a fine creek, the Diamantina, which led them for some distance north-east. Then they pushed steadily northwards through a land well grassed and full of waterholes, until the Cloncurry brought them to the Flinders, and the Flinders to the Gulf. They had come out in little more than six weeks, but already provisions were running short, and the camels were giving a great deal of trouble. As they hastened back, travelling grew every day more difficult. Heavy rains made them ill and the soil boggy. One of the party pilfered from the scanty store of provisions, and Burke thrashed him for it. A fortnight later the same man fell ill, and after a few days died, and they halted for nearly a day to bury him. That day lost their lives; for, as we know, barely nine hours separated Brahe's departure from their arrival in the depot. All through King's story it is clear that Burke would have saved himself endless trouble by attaching a native or two to his party. The bush-lore of natives saved Leichhardt on his way to Port Essington; the want of it increased C{;nsiderably Burke's difficulties on his way to and from the Gulf, and proved disastrous on this last journey towards South Australia. For the attempt to reach South Aus- tralian settlements proved useless, and the three despairing FILLING IN THE MAP. 151 men crawled back gradually towards the depot, getting fish sometimes from the blacks, but subsisting for the most part on nardoo, the spores of a flowerless plant that grows in Nardoo marshy ground. This the blacks for some time gave them in the form of flour: later on, King discovered the plant, and they had to pound it themselves with much effort— and all the time there were fish enough in the creek (which a black companion would have taught them to catch) to have supported them for many weeks. Nardoo alone was of little use to them— it satisfied the appetite, but nourished the body not at all. Slowly their strength left them. Wills sank first, and insisted on the others leaving him and trying to find some natives from whom to beg fish. Burke, after a weary journey of two days, lay down and died; and King, returning to Wills, found him dead also. A few days later King found a friendly tribe of blacks, and pleased them so much by shooting a few crows that they fed him and kept him with them till Howitt arrived. The unfortunate explorers were at first buried where their bodies had been found, but it was afterwards decided to inter them in Melbourne. The story of the other relief parties may be told very "''j?® shortly. Walker hit the Barcoo and swerved northwards parties on to the head of the Flinders, and so to the Gulf, returning up the eastern side of the Flinders watershed, and across the main range to the Burdekin. Landsborough crossed from the Albert to the Herbert; returning, he struck the Flinders, and pushed south-east from its upper waters across the Thomson and Barcoo to the Warrego, down which he came to the Darling, and so to Melbourne. McKinlay, after finding an unknown white man's grave in the desert north of Cooper's Creek, and hearing from some imaginative blackfellow a story of fighting and the massacre of several white men, made north to the Diamantina, and followed Burke's route most of the way to the Gulf; then, bafiled by the mangrove swamps, he made eastwards, and came out among newly-formed cattle stations in the Burdekin country. 152 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Thus by the end of 1862, the essential outlines of Eastern Australia were all known; and when Howitt brought back the bodies of Burke and Wills to be buried with all honour at Melbourne in January, 1863, men felt that the days of the great explorers were over, and that it was only left for Australians— of the east, at any rate —to develop wisely the wide inheritance which had been won with so much skill and courage and endurance even to the death. The CHAPTER IX.-CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERN- MENT. A. New South Wales (1860-85). For twenty years and more after the granting of Constitu- ^^^^ tions, Australian colonists were chiefly occupied in. learning ^^^'^' to use their new powers. They were left, one may say, quite to themselves. England had almost ceased to take part in their affairs, and foreign nations had not yet begun to intrude upon the seas to eastwards. The exciting days of the first gold rush were over. The idea of joint action* and a common government was almost forgotten. Each Years or colony settled down to work out its own problems apart 'so'ation from its neighbours, influenced a good deal by the jealousies which always spring up between bordering communities when there is no great danger to unite them. Even in the miost perilous days of the American Revolution, Massa- chusetts and New York and Pennsylvania and Virginia quarrelled among themselves; it is not surprising that in times of absolute peace New South Wales and Victoria should have occupied themselves rather in trivial disputes than in remembering their common interests. But with such matters (and, indeed, with most of the questions which occupied Australians between 1860 and 1880) we cannot yet deal fully and impartially, because they are so fresh in men's minds, and so bound up with questions still under discussion, as to be really a part of recent politics, about which people take sides for partisanship. We must just note down what did happen, what was done, and wait some years before making assertions about the value or the rightness of any particular proceeding. In New South Wales the first question of great import- * There were several intercolonial conferences, but, except in postal matters, very little joint action resulted 153 154 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. ance with which the new parliament dealt was that of the Land land. Gold, of course, had upset all the old arrangements Laws f^j. settling small farmers on the fertile lands near coast p. 68 towns, and allowing squatters to spread their flocks and herds over the districts that were less fertile or more thinly populated. Gold was found in all sorts of places; where gold was found, there men gathered together and made a township; and townships must be fed from farms as near them as possible. Many diggers, too, grew tired of digging and wanted to buy a block of land to live on and to culti- vate. Some arrangement, therefore, must be made for pro- viding small areas of land, not in the twenty settled counties only, but anywhere over the colony where they were wanted. This was done by Sir John Robertson's Land Acts of 1861, which allowed anyone to take up ;i selection anywhere on three conditions: the area must be /,^ hot less Ihan 40 and not more than 320 acres; the price ^ , was £1 per acre, of which the selector must pay five shillings down, and the rest by instalments ; and the selector ^ must personally live on his selection, and improve it by '^l fencing and other useful work at the rate of £1 per acre. The Acts did not, of course, apply to land already sold or in "or near towns, or reserved for special reasons. But they did apply to all the vast areas leased by squatters to run their sheep on; for, although these could still be leased for five years at a time, yet anyone could pick out one of the more valuable bits— patches of rich soil, water front- ages, &e.— and settle down on it, leaving the squatter's sheep only waterless or half -barren paddocks for pasturage. It Their was also easy to evade many of the conditions. In country so thinly peopled, the Government would find it hard to prove that any particular person had not been living regularly on his selection. Moreover anyone could select, even a young child; so that a man with a large family could, by taking up a selection in the name of each child, control a good many areas of 320 acres. So there were soon three different kinds of selectors scattered over New South Wales. There was the genuine worker, who was ^ CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 155 really trying to make a liome for himself and a living from his farm. There was the man who chose an area which interfered with the working of the squatter's run, either because he had a spite against the squatter, or because he hoped to get money for going away. And, on the other hand, there was the " dummy " who was paid by a squatter to take up a choice piece of his run, not to use it, but >2 simply to prevent others from using it, and so keep it in ^ the squatter's hands. Many run-owners, too, who would ^ jf / not resort to dummying, spent all their money and borrowed ^'^ '^ a great deal more from the banks in order to buy right out ^yreuzo ^ as much of their runs as they could, thus leaving themselves without any savings to fall back on in bad years. It was over th.ese Land Acts^ while they were still Bills, The^ that there came about a great constitutional crisis. The constitu- Legislative Council consisted of nominees, who held their crisfs position for five years only as an experiment. There had been great disputes about the Council in the days when the Constitution was a-making, and they had been settled by this compromise. When Mr. John Robertson (as he was then) had passed his Bills through the Assembly, he found that the Council, just then close to the end of its five years' term, insisted on altering them so as to prevent selection on leased runs. In great haste the Governor, Sir y^^* John Young, was persuaded to appoint twenty-one new Governor, Councillors— a number sufficient to pass the Bills in their original form; but, when the new appointees attended a Council meeting to be sworn in, the President resigned his position and walked out of the house, followed by most of his fellow- Councillors, and the meeting fell through. Before another could be held the five years' term was up. Now an attempt had been made to pass a Bill providing that future Councils should be elective, but the Bill had been shelved; so the Constitution Act still held good, and it ordered that the new Councillors should hold their position for life. To choose them, therefore, was a matter needing great care, and made all the more difficult by the disagreement over the Lands Bills. Fortunately the 1861-8 ? • 156 HISTORY OF AUSTEALASTA. Governor and the Premier, Mr. Cowper, were wise enough to consult Wentworth, who had just returned from England amid great demonstrations, Parliament and the Judges joining with his own friends and the people of Sydney to do him honour. Wentworth became President of the new Council; his twenty-two colleagues were selected for their ability and public spirit, not from any partisan motives. The Land Bills were passed with a few alterations. Another attempt was soon made to establish an elective Council, to be chosen by the same voters who elected the Assembly— «.e._, by all men of full age who were residents in the colony— the only difference between the two bodies being cf. p. 198 that the Council would have only half as many members as the Assembly, and would be chosen by larger electorates. t!But of manhood suffrage Wentworth was a bitter enemy, and the Bill was thrown out— as have been several similar Bills since— so that the Council still consists of nominee members holding their seats for life. Chinese Besides upsetting the old land laws, the goldfields pro- Riots vided New South Wales with disturbances of another kind. At Lambing flat, near Young, there was a settlement of Chinese on a very rich goldfield, who lived partly by digging, but largely by keeping gambling shops, at which the white miners lost their earnings. Great discontent 1861 ensued, and presently there were riots. The white diggers held meetings, at which they passed resolutions that the Chinese must go ; and they proceeded to enforce this decision so vigorously that the Government had to send up a couple of guns and nearly two hundred troops from Sydney before order was restored. Some of the rioters were arrested, but on trial at Goulburn a jury acquitted them. Bush- More serious and more lasting was the revival of bush- ranging j.j^j^g-j^g._ r^^ie outlaws of the old times had been nearly all convicts escaped from imprisonment, who became bush- p. 70 rangers because there was no other life open to them ; they could not settle down for fear of being arrested by the police, and they must rob in order to procure food and the money that might buy them a passage to England. At the CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 157 same time, being convicts, and generally of the worst class, they were, as a rule, brutal and murderous. The goldfields created a new kind of outlaw— men who took to the bush willingly, of the free-settler class, stirred by false romance ai:d the hope of getting rich easily to lie in wait for the convoys which brought in gold from outlying fields to the more settled districts. There were brutes among them, too, but not so many; they hunted in gangs, whereas the convict bushranger had usually been alone; they had friends and relations scattered about the district where they worked, who warned them of attack, and sheltered them from pursuit— whereas the convict outlaw had been the terror, perhaps, but not the friend of his weaker neighbours. The years between 1861 and 1867 are full of the doings of these gangs— now best to be remembered by the bravery and devotion of the police who were set to extirpate them. The polities of the colony for many years after 1861 The dealt mainly with matters of finance, which were somewhat tries complicated by the desire of Ministry after Ministry to prepare the way for a tariff which should be uniform throughout eastern Australia. The Ministries themselves did not represent very definite party divisions, the same man at one time holding office under a Premier wBom at other times he opposed; but, roughly speaking. Sir"* Charles Cowper and Sir* John Robertson, together or alone, represented a party which held office for nearly nine years out of the first sixteen of the new Constitution, and Sir* James Martin, leading the opposite party, had five and a half years of Premiership. Under him for a time served Sir* Henry Parkes, who had made a name for him- \P' ^^ self during the Anti-Transportation agitation and in public discussions of the Constitution, and whose first achievement as a Minister (he was Colonial Secretary) was to pass the Education Act of 1866. This established a Council of Education, with power both to set up new public schools, and to assist existing denominational schools with grants * All these titles were conferred at much later dates. ./??i7 1879 158 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. of money— a double system which lasted fourteen years, and was only supplanted by a fresh Act of the same authorship. In 1872 (the year of Wentworth's death) began a new Parliamentary era, that of the struggle between well- defined parties headed by Sir Henry Parkes and Sir John Robertson, which ended in a four years' coalition Ministry guided by both leaders. During the struggle Parliament did little of permanent importance. But the coalition soon resulted in valuable work; for it was this Ministry which recast the electoral system of the colony, carried through Sib Henbt Parkes Sir John Robertson a Great International Exhibition, passed the Public Instruc- /_ tion Act of 1880, and took a prominent part in the first Intercolonial Conference (called to deal with the Chinese question), which made definite steps towards Federation. It was followed by a Ministry under Sir Alexander Stuart, which is chiefly memorable as having passed an Act amending, in very important points, the Robertson Lands Acts of 1861, and as having by the prompt determination of its Attorney-General, W. B. Dalley,* sent a body of New He wa4s acting as Premier during the absence of Sir A. Stuart. CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 159 South Wales troops to fight at Suakim, on the Red Sea, igss side by side with British regiments. This act, though little actual fighting occurred, proved of great value in reviving the feeling of brotherhood between Britons of the home islands and Britons of the outlying colonies. During all these years the colony made steady progress Material in wealth and all material prosperity. As Macquarie's '"os'^ess road-making had brought about the first great increase of settlement, so in these later times the extension of railways was a great factor of progress. West and south from Sydney, north from Newcastle, year by year the lines ran further towards the bounds of New South Wales. The Western Line was for a long time hindered by the difficult Blue Mountains barrier; in 1855 it was at Parramatta; in 1862 at Penrith; not till 1868 at Mount Victoria. The descent was a more costly business still, accomplished by the Great Zigzag (used until 1911, when an easier way down was found), and in 1876 communication was opened to Bathurst. To Goulburn, across more gradual slopes and a lower summit, the line was opened in 1869; and this line, after making a detour to avoid the gorges of the Upper Murrumbidgee, was completed to Albury in 1881, and became part of the great Trunk Line which connects the capitals of the four eastern colonies. For the line from Newcastle, which reached Tamworth in 1878 and the Queensland border in 1888, was being at the same time extended southwards to Sydney, and a great bridge across the Hawkesbury River, opened in 1889, was the last link in the 2500-mile chain that now joins Broken Hill to Cunna- mulla. Along the Trunk Line, from Albury to Tenterfield, the advantages of quick transport soon produced agricul- tural settlement wherever land was available for small farms. The Western Line between Bathurst and Bourke, together with branch lines to Hay in the south, Condobolin in the central west, and Walgett and Inverell in the north, tapped country which was at first purely pastoral, but which has now been found (within the limits of a ten-inch winter rainfall) very suitable for wheat-growing. Con- 160 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. sequently, though wool still remains the State's staple industry, agriculture has become an essential factor in its prosperity; while the yield of gold has been far surpassed by that of the four great coalfieldsj and of the even more famous silver and lead mines opened up at Broken Hill in 1885; and Federal legislation has in twelve years doubled the production of the State's still grooving manu- factories. ^^ Victoria (1860-85). a^ei30 ^^ Victoria, with its smaller and more compact area, the land question was not so urgent as in the mother colony; but an Act very similar to Robertson's was carried by Sir Charles Duffy in 1862. Far more important was the question of finance, which also led to a prolonged struggle between the Assembly and the Council. In New South Wales financial questions, though often troublesome, led to no great bitterness, because both parties were simply anxious to get revenue enough to meet the colony's expendi- ture; they proposed various ways of getting it, but that was the sole object of both. In Victoria, however, taxation was soon looked upon in another light. of%ro-* The Victorian diggers, to a greater extent than those of tection ^^^ South Walcs, wcrc emigrants from Europe and America, who knew nothing of farming and had originally been tradesmen or factory hands. Whereas a disappointed Turon digger would probably go back to work on his father's selection, the man who was unlucky at Ballarat would have no relation in the colony and no desire to settle on the land ; he would work his way back to Melbourne or Geelong, and take up his old trade there. Then, if he was a bootmaker (to take an instance), he would find that for many reasons boots could be brought from England and sold cheaper than he could afford to sell them; it is naturally cheaper to make a large number of boots at once with good machinery than to make a few at a time with clumsy machinery. '* Now," thought the bootmaker, " if only a duty were charged on all boots sent into the colony from outside, people inside would have to pay more for them ; and in that CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 161 way the price of imported boots could be made so high that even my boots would be cheaper, and people would buy from me." What the bootmaker thought, other manufac- turers thought; and so there sprang up in Victoria the policy of Protection, which uses the customs duties to make importationsTrom~butside so dear that it is cheaper to buy goods made by workmen inside the colony. In this way the tariff became not merely a means of getting revenue, but an instrument for carrying out a particular policy which had nothing to do with the revenue. And as this policy was bitterly opposed by a great many people— more especially by those who were not manufac- turers themselves and had to buy the high-priced goods— it was naturally much debated in Parliament. The befvveen Assembly was willing to make it law. The Council was Assem- sure to reject it. Neither party would give way. The council Council could not be swamped by appointing new members, because it was an elected Council and Ministers had no power over it. At last Sir James McCulloch hit on the device of "tacking" the new tariff clauses to the Appro- priation Bill, which has to be passed before a Government can legally pay any money on account of the public service. Now the Constitution provided that the Council could n h^Jic/^. reject bills dealing with taxatiooi or appropriation, but could not alter them; consequently it could not cut out the tariff clauses and pass the rest, but was forced to reject the whole bill, and so prevent the Government from paying tho civil servants, or to accept the whole bill, and so allow a Protective policy to be introduced. The bill was rejected. Civil servants, contractors for public works— all to whom the Government owed money— had to go unpaid. But McCulloch had another device ready; he borrowed money from a bank, paid with that the Government's other debts, and arranged that the bank should sue the Government to recover its loan. He went on, meanwhile, collecting the duties under his unauthorised tariff, and with that money, when the court gave judgment in favour of the bank, repaid the loan. He could not legally have paid away a ■ " 'K - - ' . ■ ■ 162 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. penny of revenue to civil servants, because the Council had not passed the Appropriation Bill; but a debt which the Supreme Court ordered him to pay must be paid out of any money at his disposal. sir^c. This trick could not have been played without the Governor, Governor's permission, but McCulloch persuaded Sir Charles 1863-6 j)arling, who was then Governor, that everything was correct. The British Government, however, was extremely angry that one of its officials, whose plain duty was to behave impartially and administer the Constitution straight- forwardly, should have lent himself to support one party in the colony against another. Darling was recalled, but out of this act also arose another fight between the twc Houses of the Victorian Parliament. The first fight had after nine months been settled by a compromise, which seemed to admit the injustice of " tacking." Yet in the very next year, when the Assembly wished to vote Sir Charles Darling's wife a sum of £20,000 as compensation for her husband's loss of office, the vote was again " tacked '^ to an Appropriation Bill, so that the Council might be forced to pass it. There was a second deadlock; but the Canterbury ^cw Governor was not as pliable as his predecessor, and ^1866^73^' P^^sently the Supreme Court forbade the Government to use unauthorised revenue as they had done before. This time Sir Charles Darling solved the difficulty by refusing to let his wife accept the £20,000, and for a year or two the Houses were at peace. As ill New South Wales, so in Victoria a new Parlia- mentary era began in the early seventies. The names of McCulloch and Duffy— the more eminent name of George Higinbotham, afterwards Chief Justice of the colony— had been war-cries in the struggles between 1856 and 1871; but these leaders retired one by one, and the Parliaments of 1874-83 were the fighting ground of parties led, one by Sir Graham Berry, the other by Mr. James Service and later by Mr. Duncan Gillies. The Protectionist policy was formally';^ ^and fully adopted. The Berry Ministries inherited and accentuated the ideas of those earlier politicians who were always disposed to fight the Council. For many years it CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 163 had been proposed to pay members of Parliament, so that Payment men who earned their living by daily work should be able iviembers to give up their work to enter the Assembly, and yet receive an income sufficient to live on. After rejecting ■ many bills, the Council in 1870 passed an Act to provide for this payment during the next three years, and in 1874 renewed the Act for a few years longer. In 1877 the Berry Ministry determined to have done with this temporary arrangement, and " tacked " a payment of members clause to the Appropriation Bill. The Council, strengthened by precedent, threw out the bill, and there was another dead- lock. The Ministry resolved to force the Council's hand by sheer violence. On Wednesday, January 9, 1878, a w,'^'^*^^ large number of Government officials came down to their day's work to find that they had been dismissed. Judges, heads of departments, police magistrates— all were in- cluded in the order. The whole Public Service was thrown out of gear. The Ministry declared this had been done merely for the time being, in order to save expense until the Council chose to pass the necessary bill. But, although after a few weeks many of the dismissals were cancelled, yet a great many of the dismissed officers were forced to leave the service altogether, and were replaced by new men. As the Council remained obdurate, the Governor, Sir George ^^^ ^• Bowen, took the side of the Ministry, and began to sign Governor, papers which would allow them to spend money without the ^^^'^ Council's consent. Then at last the Council gave way so far as to pass a separate (temporary) Payment of Members Act, and the Appropriation Act was afterwards passed without the obnoxious " tacked " clause. As before, the British Government rebuked and removed the injudicious Governor. Sir Graham Berry and Mr. Pearson went to England in the hope that by personal interviews they could persuade the Imperial Parliament to alter the Victorian Constitution, and in some way or other give all power to the Assembly. Their hope was not fulfilled; the Government in London refused to interfere with a colonial Constitution by which the whole Parliament of the colony was vested with power to make its own 164 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Lord amendments. Berry went back to Victoria and made ready GovSiorf to renew the fight; but there was a new Governor to face, 1879-84 and the people were getting tired of the never-ending squabbles, and in the end— following again the example of 1883 2s[ew South Wales— Victoria settled itself down to less exciting years of progress under coalition Governments. Prog^refs Through all its political disturbances, the colony had giown in numbers and wealth, though not so surely as its northern neighbour. The gold-rush years, with their ab- normal influx of population, had placed Victoria far ahead of the other Australian colonies; when the rush died away, the colony's smaller area did not allow much room for natural expansion, and New South Wales began slowly to creep up to a level with it. Small, too, as the area was, it was rendered still smaller for practical purposes by the con- dition of its eastern and western ends. In the north-west a large district was overspread with mallee scrub, difficult to penetrate, more difficult to destroy— a secure breeding- ground for millions of rabbits, which ate every blade of grass off the neighbouring plains. The eastern region of Gippsland was, and to a large extent is still, a tangle of heavily-timbered ravines among ranges more mountainous than any other in Australia. Victorian squatters, therefore, unless they were among the lucky few who in early days settled on the noble pasture-lands west of Geelong, were obliged to spread their flocks over the inland plains of New South Wales and Southern Queensland. In 1864 ] Victoria carried a railway from Melbourne to Eehuca on i the Murray; steamers had been running on that river since 1853; and soon the trade, not of the Murray only, but of its great tributary the Darling', was brought down to the port of Melbourne by river boats that ran from the Eehuca wharf as far as Bourke— in wet seasons even as far as Brewarrina. The Victorian tributaries of the Murray were also turned to account by the establishment of irrigation dams and canals across their valleys, and a network of branch railways overspread the country in every direction from the five main lines that connect Melbourne with Sale, Albury, Eehuca, Adelaide, and Portland. CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 165 C. Tasmania (1860-89). Across Bass Straits the political turmoil of the From continent found no echo; it was twenty-three years before ^^^^ the two Houses of the Tasmanian Parliament came to a deadlock, and even then the quarrel was a very short one. The island was too small and too close to Victoria to retain among its inhabitants any but quiet, hard-working farmers. Its more open central lands between Launceston and Hobart had been occupied by the early settlers for sheep- runs, which were gradually extended through rougher country towards the east coast. The north-west was but slowly cleared of its dense forests, though the soil beneath them was rich; the west coast and its back-lands remained till recent years unused and untrodden. One railway in 1868 was laid down among the wheat-fields of the north-west; another, begun in 1872, took four years to cross the low hills between Launceston and Hobart. In 1871, however, a great tin mine was discovered at Mount Mining Bischoff, behind one of the north-western blocks of land that had long before been granted to the Van Diemen^s Land Agricultural Company. This excited prospectors after other metals; iron mines were opened in the Tamar valley, but abandoned because the ore was chemically un- manageable. In 1878 the gold-yield reached importance; in 1884 silver-lead ores were found at Zeehan, south of Mount Bischoff; and about the same time there was dis- covered (though development was delayed till 1891) the great copper deposit at Mount Lyell, further south again, which made Tasmania until 1905 the largest producer of copper in the Commonwealth. As a result of these dis- coveries, the whole west coast has been thoroughly explored, and railways have joined the once isolated mining fields to ports at Strahan on Macquarie Harbour as well as to Burnie and Launceston on the Straits. But the greater part of Tasmania still remains as it has been since convictism left it— a placid nest of orchards, and hop gardens, and stud-sheep farms, a sort of National Park for the pleasure of Australians. CHAPTER X.- CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERN- MENT (continued). A. The Waste Lands (1861-63). The south-eastern corner of Australia, occupied by New South Wales and Victoria, is less than a seventh part of the whole continental area. In 1861 this corner contained nearly six-sevenths of the continent's population, and the greater part of what was left would have been found in one small district of South Australia, between Adelaide and the Murray. West Australia was a mere patch of settlement in the far south-west. The new colony of Queensland ran inland, nominally, to longitude 141°, though its settled area was bounded by the tropic on the north and the Maranoa to westward. South Australia Dividing stretched north to latitude 26°. There was still, therefore, Wastes ^ huge expanse of undistributed and unknown territory in the north; and for a long time now it has not been safe for any nation to leave land without some sort of definite administrator. The Imperial Government was giving up its control of Australian affairs as fast as it could, and had no mind to be burdened with responsibility for this unprofitable area. So when A. C. Gregory, the 1^60 Surveyor-General of Queensland, proposed that his colony should push its boundary westward so as to take in the head of the Gulf, and that beyond that a new colony of Albert should stretch west again to the De Grey River, with its capital on the Victoria, the Duke of Newcastle assented on condition that Queensland should take charge of the new baby till it was fit to run alone. This, however, was by no means what Queensland wanted, nor was South Australia inclined to see another colony meddling with p. T46 regions which had been just opened up by its own explorer, Stuart. On the other hand, no one at Adelaide wished to 168 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. be saddled with the administration of the great north- western deserts. And so it came about that by 1863 Queensland had got its western extension without any con- ditions at all; South Australia had taken over the Northern Territory, " until we '^— the British Government—" think fit to make another disposition thereof," and the north-west was left to the very nominal jurisdiction of the Crown colony administrators at Perth. From B. Queensland (1859-90). pageT32 Queensland began its career as a separate colony Brisbane in 1860 with sevenpence halfpenny in the Treasury, and it was seven years before its circumstances were much improved. At .. first the new Government borrowed money freely to spend on public works, and assisted immigration : in 1860 it owed less, in 1870 far more in proportion to its population, than any other Australian colony. West of the main range the land was left, as a rule, to squatters, and immigrants were settled at intervals along the coast, where- ever a river-mouth gave promise of well-watered and fertile land. For a few years the colonists made the most of a great piece of good fortune. In 1861 the United States CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 169 were split into two warring section over questions connected The with negro slavery, and for four years the Southern States civowar, (from Virginia to Texas) formed a " Confederate " govern- ■'»«^-^ ment of their own and fought hard to keep it. But the United States Navy remained in the hands of the Northern States, and was used to blockade the Confederate ports, so that they could carry on no traffic with Europe. As it was from the Southern States that England received her main supply of cotton, this blockade meant that thousands of workers in Lancashire cotton-mills were thrown out of work till cotton could be got from somewhere else. Egypt and India were able to produce most of this new supply, but Queensland had its share as long as prices were high ; when the American Civil War was over, and prices fell again, the colony found itself in a very critical position, with a huge debt, very little trade, many employers going bankrupt, and their workmen turned adrift to talk about marching on ^ Brisbane and sacking the banks. While matters were still very unsettled, a man of the ^^^ name of Nash walked into Maryborough one morning and announced that he had discovered rich gold at Gympie. Nine years before there had been a gold rush on the 1858 Fitzroy, which had ruined many proprietors— though out of the ruins grew the town of Rockhampton. But Nash's Gj>.'^<^ discovery was really valuable; Gympie soon became well coveries known, and absorbed most of the men who had been thrown out of work; and one success, as usual, induced adven- turers all over the colony to hunt eagerly for new goldfields. Soon the valley of the Burdekin was found to be auriferous, and a host of diggers pitched camp at Charters Towers, with a shipping port at Townsville: a few years later the discovery of the Palmer diggings, near the base of Cape York, brought about another coastal settlement at Coot- town, on the Endeavour River. The greatest discovery of all— the most important gold-find in Australia— was made in 1S86, when the three brothers Morgan found that a big hill of ironstone in the Fitzroy valley was saturated from top to bottom with gold. They bought it for £640— the 170 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. The Kanakas usual £1 an acre— and in ten years the Mount Morgan mine had paid no less than four and a half millions in dividends. Growrne ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ brought Queensland through its financial troubles. When cotton began to prove a payable crop, some planters made experiments with another tropical 1S65 product— the sugarcane. They, too, suifered from low prices when the American war was over, for the wages of white workmen were naturally much higher than those which American growers paid their negroes. In order to procure cheaper labour, therefore, they followed the example of British sugar-planters in the West Indies, and tried to import coolies from India and China: when this device did not answer they were at their wits' end. But among them was an old South Sea Island trader named Towns, and it occurred to him to fetch across some of the islanders- Kanakas as they are called— among whom he had traded, and set them to work on a plantation he owned. The Kanakas took to the work very quickly, and cost very little in wages, being content with food and lodgings while at work, and some clothes, guns, and axes when they were sent back to their homes. Presently other planters followed Tow^ns' example, and a regular trade in Kanakas began. The theory was that islanders made a voluntary agreement to work on Queensland plantations for two or three years; the practice soon became a matter of inveigling them on board a labour-ship under any pretext that might be invented, and then kidnapping them wholesale. A great many planters did not enquire too curiously into the means by which their labourers had been brought over, and before long stories of disgraceful deceit and horrible outrage were told in Australia and in England by men whose knowledge and truthfulness could not be disputed. The Queensland Government tried for years to control the traffic. The wages were fixed by law at £6 per year, in money or goods. An agent was placed by Government on each vessel to see that the Kanakas were fairly engaged and decently treated. No islanders might be landed in Queensland unless the ship^s captain could produce a written document from some 1868 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 171 responsible white man in the islands certifying that the labourer had gone of his own free will. Regulations like these, however, could always be evaded with a slight amount of risk, and " blackbirding " went on for a long time, frightening peaceable island tribes into their central forests whenever a ship appeared on the coast, and provoking the wilder natives (more especially in the Solomons group) to retaliate by murdering every white man they could catch. At last there grew up in Queensland a political party which objected strongly to the practice of importing black or yellow men to work in a white man's colony. Australia, they said, was a white man's country, and should not be overrun by Chinese and Japanese and Kanakas and Malays. The immediate danger was perhaps exaggerated: even in 1891, out of 400,000 inhabitants of Queensland only 9000 were Kanakas and about as many Chinese. But for politicians it was not so much the mixture of races as the lowering of wages that must be prevented. Kanaka labour was cheap labour: Kanakas, they said, were being employed on work that white men could do, and were being paid far less than white men's wages. So for some years no more islanders were imported. This, however, it was soon seen, would in the end make it impossible for sugar- cane to be gTown at any profit, and in a few years the labour traffic was revived under very stringent conditions. This temporary stoppage of the Kanaka supply led to qJJ"{J.® more lasting and serious results. It was a law forced on for the sugar-growers of the north coast by a Parliament mainly t?on*' composed of members from the southern end of the colony. And the extension of settlement northward, while the capital remained at Brisbane, had gradually made Queens- land a very r.nwieldy colony to administer. The original idea, of course, had been to make Queensland end on the north about Hervey Bay, and to create a new colony higher up with its centre near Bowen: but when Eastern Australia was given responsible government, the new Parliaments showed themselves very suspicious of every suggestion about creating new colonies. They could not forget that 172 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. p. 104 the proposed North Queensland colony of 1845 was to have been a penal settlement, and that many Queenslanders still hankered after the forbidden luxury. Indeed, Gregorj^'s colony of Albert was conceived by him as a receptacle for convicts. And so, just as Albert was never allowed to become a reality, the northern districts of Queensland were firmly gripped by the Brisbane Govern- ment to make sure that no convicts should be sent there. When the convict scare was a thing of the past, there arose this new difficulty about Kanaka labour. The northerners at once began to agitate for separation and to protest against being ruled by Ministers seven or eight hundred miles away, who know nothing of local needs and conditions. The southerners declared themselves afraid that a Townsville government would allow or even invite the immigration of Kanakas and Japanese in large numbers, and so form a nest of alien races from which they could spread all over Australia. One party asserted that w^hite men could not work properly in tropical climates, and that you must have brown or black men to cultivate the soil; the other was strongly of opinion that white men are not so unfitted for the climate as is said, and that in any case Australia must be kept white. When Federation brought Australian opinion as a whole to bear on the question, Kanaka labour soon came to an end. Progress West of the main range the great plains that Leichhardt and Gregory traversed are now a series of cattle-stations stretching away to the South Australian border. Nearly half the cattle of Australia are Queensland's, andl more than one-fifth of the sheep. Several of the Gulf rivers have gold in their valleys: the Cloncurry has copper also. Over the ranges west of Cairns are great deposits of tin, copper, and silver-lead. Railways, owing to the colony's peculiar shape, are many and disconnected, but it is intended to link them all up in the end by two great lines, one running practically along the coast from Brisbane to Cairns, the other parallel with it but not far from the State's western border. At present Brisbane taps the CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 173 southern pastoral districts by a line westwards to the Warrego; from Rockharapton a similar line touches the upper Barcoo; from Townsville a third runs south-west past the Charters Towers goldfield to the head waters of the Diamantina and Cloncurry; a fourth climbs out of tropical Cairns to cool fertile tablelands on the upper Barron, and traverses the rich mineral deposits of the Chillagoe and Einasleigh districts. The coastal connecting line is built as far north as Rockhampton. With these main lines and numerous branches (nearly 5,000 miles in all, of which about 15 per cent, are privately owned) Que^nslanders are vigorously exploiting their vast domain. C. South Australia (1860-90). The party politics of Queensland during the years From between 1860 and 1880 were confused and of purely local ^^^ interest, and much the same may be said about South Australia, although this colony has always been a good deal influenced by the doings of its Victorian neighbours. Pariia- As at Sydney and Melbourne, so at Adelaide there was for '"®"* some time friction between the Council and the Assembly about money bills. But in two very important points the South Australian Council was stronger tha t_the Victorian. f-y^ In the first place, the Constitution did not limit its powers ' except by providing that money bills were to originate in the Assembh'— and even that provision had only been inserted in tl.e Act by a majority of one. In the second place, the Council was elected in a very democratic way: a comparatively small amount of property entitled a man to vote, and the eighteen members were elected, six at a time, by all the electors of the colony voting together, while members of t!.e Assembly (which was elected by manhood suffrage) repiesented each his own district. Consequently the Assembly could not accuse the other House of repre- senting only a few rich people, and in the end a compromise was peacefully made by which the Council, instead of making amendments in money bills, suggested them to the Assembly— if the suggestions were not taken the Council /u|jvcu^' 174. HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. still was able to reject the bills altogether. This system worked well for many years, and was afterwards adopted by the Federal Parliament. In other ways also South Australia led the way towards modern democracy. It was the first of the Australian Colonies to pay its Members of Parliament, and the first to give women a vote, just as it had been the first to give every man a vote. To South Australia must be given the credit of two achievements which are of great importance to the whole continent. Its first parliament made itself notable by The passing in January, 1858, the Real Property Act, since °AcT^ known by the name of its author, R. R. Torrens.* Up to that time the buying and selling of land had been con- ducted (as it still is in England) by passing from seller to buyer certain documents called the " title deeds " of the land in question. In England, before a piece of land is sold, lawyers often have to examine carefully a large number of these documents, sometimes reaching back several hundred years, to make sure that the seller is really the legal owner of that piece of land and able to sell it without any con- ditions or restrictions. But in Australia, where a hundred and twenty years ago the whole country was without legal owners, it seemed to Mr. Torrens a stupid thing that this cumbrous system should be perpetuated. All the land sold had originally been sold by the Government, which still held the greater part of the country; it was therefore comparatively easy to find out who was the legal owner of any particular piece and to register his name in a public / office, so that there should be no mistake about it in future. I This was the principle of the Torrens Act^ which the other V^colonies have since copied from South Australia. Anyone who owned a piece of land might, after giving due notice by advertisements, have it registered as belonging to him in the Land Registrar's Office. After that the Government guaranteed that it really was his: if he sold it to anyone the sale was also registered and ownership guaranteed to the buyer. If he mortgaged it, or made any arrangement * Afterwards Sir Eobert Torrens. CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 175 that would prevent him legally from selling it, that too had to be registered. So now, wherever land is held by "Torrens Title," you can make quite sure about its owner- ship simply by going to the Registrar's office, instead of having to employ a lawyer to read through a great many ancient and puzzling documents. The other important achievement was of a very different """he kind. Australia is so far away from Europe that all sorts Teie- of serious changes in trade or politics might occur while a ^"^^ne^ letter was travelling from London to Sydney. Had we to depend on letters only, it might well happen (some such thing did happen in 1898 to a Spanish governor in the Caroline Islands), that England might go to war with another Power and Australians know nothing of it till the enemy's fleet shelled our towns. As soon, therefore, as clever men had laid a telegraph cable between Europe and ^^^ America, and had thus proved that electric messages could be sent under the sea for thousands of miles, people in Aus- tralia began to agitate for similar cables to connect this continent with the northern world. But besides the cables, which would naturally come from some island in Malaysia (so as to have as much wire as possible on land, where it is cheaper and easier to repair), there must also be a long line overland to reach the populated south-eastern corner of the continent. At one time Queensland thought of putting up this line, as her settlements were stretching out in a fairly continuous string to the Gulf of Carpentaria. But South Australia was very jealous of Queensland's progress in the north. We have already seen that the Adelaide p. 166 Government eagerly claimed its right, in virtue of McDouall Stuart's w^ork, to administer the Northern Territory; it was equally eager to claim also its right to the telegraph line which would start from Port Darwin, the capital of that Territory. It was, of course, useless merely to make such South a claim on paper; the colony that did the work would get atwo^k^ the line. Accordingly in 1870 the South Australians set to work along Stuart's route, constructing the line from both p. 146 ends at the same time. The southern half was put up with- 176 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. out very great difficulty, as a great part of it went through settled country, and supplies could be forwarded steadily from Adelaide. But in the northern half there was great trouble. Except for Stuart's journeyings the country was unknown— and his difficulties in getting through it had been immense. The climate alone in that tropical wilderness was enough to make European labour almost impossible. Even the timber for the posts had to be dragged from places hundreds of miles off, and was eaten by white ants when it arrived. Mr. Todd,* the superintendent of tele- SiR Robert Torrens Sir Charles Todd graphs, whose energy had made the whole enterprise possible, himself took charge of this piece of work, for the contractors failed utterly. He imported coolies to labour and iron posts to take the place of timber. At last, on the twenty-second of August, 1872, he was able to complete the land line from end to end by connecting the wires at Central Mount Stuart, and from Adelaide and Port Darwin alike received congratulations on the result of his unwearying * Afterwards Sir Charles Todd. CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 177 toil. Meanwhile the cable company had laid its cable from Banjoewangie, in Java, to Port Darwin, and had threatened the South Australian Government with a law- suit because the land line had not been ready on January 1, the date originally fixed for completion. But, luckily for South Australia, in the middle of its threats the Company's cable broke, and the land line was finished before the cable was mended. In October, however, every- thing was ready, and messages were sent clear through from Sydney to London by way of Adelaide, Port Darwin, Banjoewangie, Batavia, Singapore, Madras, and Bombay. About nine thousand miles of this distance are covered by cable, about four thousand five hundred by land lines; and of the latter nearly two thousand miles' length was con- structed at a cost of £479,000 by South Australia, at a time when there were not two hundred thousand people, in the whole colony. So energetic a community, as may be imagined, has not "^'"^^ been idle in other directions. In minerals the colony is Railways poor, except in copper. The two original mines at Kapunda and Burra Burra were closed, but those at Moonta and ^' ^^^ Wallaroo took their place, and for a long time turned out nearly one quarter of the total copper product of Austral- asia. Farming and wine-growing are the chief occupations in the southern settled districts, and sheep-runs cover the inland plains. But the poor rainfall puts South Australians at a great disadvantage in regard to all these pursuits, for the wheat yield per acre is only half what it is in the eastern colonies, and while New South Wales on an average carries a sheep to every two acres, in South Australia it takes fourteen acres to eveiy sheep. The enterprise of colonists has, however, made up for want of minerals in the colony itself by pushing a railway across the border to tap the p. leo great silver-mines of Broken Hill; and, while the districts bordering on the Murray are being opened up for farmers by irrigation, the large area between the river and the southern railway line is to be gridironed with branch lines to encourage wheatgrowing by " dry " farming. The L The North- 178 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. great trunk line of Australia, that runs round the eastern coast connecting the State capitals, has been continued by South Australia past Adelaide to Oodnadatta in the far north of the State and to Port Augusta on Spencer's Gulf; the prolongation from those points to the north and west has now become Federal business. The Northern Territory was for many years a source of ern much trouble. The first partj^ of settlers chose a bad site tory" for the capital, and men who had bought land eagerly tried to throw it back into the hands of Government. But the construction of the telegraph line brought population to Port Darwin, and founded a now flourishing township more properly known as Palmerston, and presently overlanders from the Queensland Gulf country began to move their cattle westwards and take up the valley of the Roper. The more active work of mining and agriculture was mostly carried on by Chinese and coolies, who are less enervated by the climate than Europeans are wont to be; wherefore the politicians of temperate Australia looked doubtfully on the Northern Territory, no less than on North Queensland, Continued ^g offering too casv a channel for the inflow of alien races. on page 201 ° -^ D. Western Australia (1840-95). From Cut off from her eastern sisters by a belt of waterless desert and the rough seas of the Great Bight, Western Australia for more than thirty years was scarcely affected at all by the events which made New South Wales and Victoria free and populous. The colonists were all farmers or squatters, and much in need of labourers; but there were no funds by which immigrants could be helped to come out. In the eastern colonies immigration was assisted out of the moneys received for the sale of Crown lands. At Perth hardly any such money was received— the proceeds of two years' sales amounted to £Q5. This came of the P-99 hard and fast rule, applied by Ministers in London to the whole of Australia, that no Crown Land should be sold for less than £1 per acre, while, under the original arrangement by which the Perth settlers had emigrated, private owners CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 179 held large areas of the best and most accessible land in the p-^ colony, and were ready to sell it at far lower prices. As it was thus impossible to attract free labourers, men's minds turned naturally to the thought of using convicts. Convicts By way of experiment boys were sent out from the Park- hurst Reformatory, and proved very useful as farm hands. 1843 In a few years their value became so obvious, and the need of more labourers so keen, that the settlers willingly accepted an offer made by Earl Grey to send out convicts. This was, of course, also very convenient to the British 1850 Government, which was just then in the thick of the Hashemi/ p. 105 and Randolph troubles with Sydney and Melbourne. For a time this device availed to keep the colony going. Grey's discoveries at Champion Bay were revisited, and good land found there, and some important lead mines were opened up on the Murchison. When in 1853 a rumour reached Perth that transportation was to be abolished, there were instant and emphatic protests. But the drawbacks of the system were great. Without convicts the colony had not attracted free settlers; with convicts it frightened them away. The Perth settlers appealed to the Imperial Government to send them free men as well as prisoners, but they only received some military pensioners to serve as convict guards, and a large number of ticket-of-leave men. For a long time the convicts in Government employ were set to work on public buildings, instead of being used to make roads and so improve communication inland. And, worst of all, the taint of convictism cut Western Australia completely off from the rest of the continent. Ship passengers from Fremantle or Albany were not allowed to land at eastern ports without a formal certificate that they had never been convicted. More especially did the Victorians protest that one penal settlement gave a bad reputation to all Australia, and Mr. McCulloch, the Premier in 1864, went so far as to propose that the offending colony should be boycotted. But when a new Anti-transportation League had been formed, and the agitation was at its height, news came from home 180 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Trans- portation abolished Reforms p. 97 that the system would soon be at an end. Away on the north-west coast, from Cossack to Roebuck Bay, large tracts of good land had been discovered, and it was thought very unwise to introduce convicts into a district so remote from headquarters; wherefore, seeing also that the eastern colonies had their own reasons for wishing to see the end of convictism, the Imperial Government decided that within three years transportation should be completely done away with. So by 1868 Western Australia became free again. But in material ways the influx of forced labour had cer- tainly done good. In 1849, twenty years after its first settlement, the colony's population numbered 4654, and its oversea trade had a value of £54,600. In thirteen years of convictism the population had become 18,780,* the trade had reached a value of £294,500, the area under cultivation had increased fivefold, and nearly a million pounds of British money had been spent among the settlers. Soon after transportation ceased a measure of represen- tative government was introduced. Up to 1870 the Governor had been assisted by a Council of five officials and five non-official Crown nominees. From 1870 to 1889 the Council was shaped to resemble that which had sat at Sydney in 1842— numbering at first eighteen, afterwards twenty-one, and having two-thirds of its members elected by all voters with a small property qualification. In 1878 there was an agitation for responsible government, but the Ministry at home was not prepared to give a handful of colonists between Perth and Albany the control of one- third of the continent. If they liked to have their districts cut off, and the rest of that huge expanse left as a Crown colony, they were welcome to govern themselves; if not, they must remain as they were. During the next ten years, however, great attempts were made to occupy effectively as much as possible of the waste area; goldfields were discovered at Kimberley and at Yilgarn, a telegraph line was constructed to Roebuck Bay (running thence by More than 16,000 were free men. CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 181 cable to Baujoewangie), and arrangements were made by which railways should be privately built so as in the end to connect Albany with Geraldton. These efforts to open up wider areas of the colony were recognised and applauded by politicians at home. When a new agitation for self- government sprang up in 1887, and was backed in 1889 by the unanimous vote of a newly-elected Council, the Imperial Parliament receded from its former attitude; and Govern- on August 15, 1890, an Act was passed which placed the "^ent largest and emptiest of the Australian colonies at last on an equal footing with its fellows east of the Bight. It must not be imagined, however, that nothing was done Expiora- in the way of exploring the western wilderness until it was needful to make an impression on the British Government. While Leiehhardt was still preparing for his last fatal journey, A. C. Gregory and his brothers were working northwards from Perth to the Gascoyne: when A. C. Gregory betook himself to exploration further eastward, his brother Frank continued the work in Western Australia till in 1861 he reached the Oakover River, while other adventurous pioneers pushed out into the salt-lake country east of York. In 1869 a rumour that traces of Leiehhardt still existed led to the dispatch of an expedition under Mr. John Forrest,* a surveyor, which managed to get some way past Lake Barlee; but its principal result was that Forrest could not bring himself to abandon an explorer's life, and began to look about for other work of the kind. In 1870 he retraced Eyre's march along the cliffs of the Bight, but was able now and then to turn inland off the direct route, and so discovered that behind the shore-belt of desert there was an expanse of well-grassed country almost the whole way to the South Australian border. In 1874 he did better still; striking out into the unknown land from a station on the Upper Murchison, he made his way clear across the colony to the overland telegraph )me, thus getting valuable knowledge of the whole interior. A similar cross-country journey in the opposite direction 1873 • Now Sir John Forrest. 182 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1875-6 Gold- mines had been already made by Colonel Warburton, and another was soon after completed by Ernest Giles; but in both these cases the travelling was more hurried, and little infor- mation was gained about any country except that on the line actually passed over. Alexander Forrest, however, in 1879 emulated his brother's careful work in an expedition which started from the De Grey River, examined the coast country to the Fitzroy, 'and then made inland along that stream and across the head of the Victoria to the telegraph line. He thus opened up a great pastoral district, in the middle of which, at Kimberley, gold was found in 1886. Sir John Forrest Alexander Forrest Then began an astonishing series of discoveries— at Yilgarn and Pilbarra, at Ashburton and Murcliison, in 1887-8 and 1890-1, followed by Coolgardie in 1892, and Kalgoorlie in 1893. The colony was almost transformed. In 1886 the population was 39,000, the net immigration 3,338, the trade value about £1,400,000; in 1896 the popu- lation was 138,000, the net immigration 36,891, and the trade value well over £8,000,000. The whole of this increase was due to the mines, for in the same period the CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 183 cultivated area increased only from 84,000 to 112,000 acres. Thencefon\'ard, however, the development of farming proceeded rapidly; by 1906, while the popula- tion had doubled and trade had more than doubled, the cultivated area had grown to 461,000 acres— and has since doubled again. At the same time many other sources of prosperity have been exploited— the forests of jarrah and karri in the south-west and pearl fisheries in the north- west, as well as the staple products of all Australia, wool, wheat and cattle. To aid this development more than 3,000 miles of railway have been built (not quite a third by private enterprise), one main line running 600 miles out through the Coolgardie and Menzies goldfields to Laverton, another south-east to Albany, another due south to Bunbury and the timber lands, a fourth from the port of Geraldton (opposite the Abrolhos) inland to the Murchison. A private line nearly 300 miles long joins this last railway to the main lines that radiate from Perth. Among other notable works are the goldfields water supply, pumped for 350 miles along the Kalgoorlie railway line from a reservoir near Perth (the initial cost was about 3^ millions, and the daily consumption about three million gallons, the water taking four weeks on its journey) ; and the long stretches of telegTaph line which border the coast from Eucla on the South Australian boundary to Broome on Roebuck Bay (whence the sub- marine cable runs to Banjoewangie), and so inland past the Kimberley goldfield to Wyndham on Cambridge Gulf. CHAPTER XL-AUSTRALASIA. A. Europeans in 'the South Seas (1803-1879). We have noticed how from time to time the spread of British colonies over Australian lands has been hurried on because it was supposed that France would otherwise take possession of the vacant territory. Tasmania in 1803, Port Phillip in 1804, Albany, Port Essington, and the South Island of New Zealand, were all occupied under the stress of such rumours. But in truth, when once Nelson had destroyed Napoleon's navy at Trafalgar, there was little fear for many years that a French colony would be set down so far away from Europe, at the mercy of any power that was strong at sea. Tahiti Phillip's commission had given him authority (as far as King George could give it) over " the islands adjacent to the eastern coast of Australia." This word "adjacent" was very indefinite, and Governor King exercised a sort of authority as far away as Tahiti, in the Society Islands: later Governors did not interpret it to include even New Zealand, and the South Sea Islands further north or east were left to themselves. Among them went British missionaries teaching the islanders carpentry and other useful arts as well as religion: in some a few rougher white men settled down to lead the native life, but New Zealand was the favourite haunt of such characters, and for the most part the gentle Polynesians found their white visitors kind and trustworthy. At Tahiti especially, where Cook and Bligh had stayed for some time. Englishmen were extremely popular, and in 1825 Queen Pomare asked that England should proclaim a protectorate over her islands. The request was refused, as being " inconsistent with inter- national usage:" but Pomare still regarded the English as 184 AUSTRALASIA. 185 her special friends, and hoped that at some later time she would get what she had asked for. But in 1830 there came to the French throne a king, Louis Philippe, who owed his kingdom to the trading classes in France, and was anxious by fair means or foul to encour- age their trade and extend their markets. England, he saw, had enormous trade and a gTeat colonial empire; he also would have these things, and he set about getting the empire at once. It was he who seized Algeria, and attempted to p. 273 seize New Zealand : and among other enterprises he sent an Admiral into the South Seas to see what he could pick up, especially along the line of traffic between Panama and Australia— for those were the days when men first talked of cutting the Panama Canal. The Admiral annexed the Mar- quesas accordingly, but they were not a very fertile group of islands, so he sailed on to Tahiti and picked a quarrel with Pomare about some Roman Catholic missionaries. Pomare had wanted to be English in her religion as in other things, and had appealed to London on this question also, to be rebuffed again because she was too far off to be looked after properly. The French Admiral rated her soundly: left to herself, with no hope of English help, she agreed to do anything the French wanted, and Tahiti was put under French protection. A few years later Grey became Governor of New Zea- ,5^*1,^5 land, and among the schemes devised by his active mind was neglected one for making that colony the centre of British dominion in Polynesia. Travelling much among the islands, he made friends with many of the chiefs, and their children were set to Auckland to be educated. There was even an arrangement made by which a large number of the island groups should form a Customs Union with New Zealand and should maintain British officials for that purpose, through whom the natives could deal with other foreigners— more especially with the Americans, whose men-of-war were very active in the Western Pacific. But the Imperial Govern- ment, which was getting tired of managing the colonies it had, was quite resolved not to acquire new ones, and the 186 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Customs Union fell through. When in 1853 the new French ruler, Napoleon III., seized New Caledonia and the Isle of Pines— where at the time France had neither trade nor sub- jects—Ministers in London raised no objection and would hear of none from Australia. When in 1859 the chiefs of Fiji unitedly offered their country to Great Britain, Ministers in London unitedly refused it: the group, they said, was not close enough to the route from Panama to Sydney, and Britain could do without naval stations in the islands as long as she held Australia. But when the Queens- p. 170 land labour trade began to demoralise all the South Seas, Fiji suffered more than any other group, and its cotton plantations were soon full of kidnapped Kanakas whom British law had kept out of Queensland. The scandal grew, and it was hinted that other nations would interfere if Britain refused to act. Sir Hercules Robinson, the then Governor of New South Wales, with some trouble convinced the reluctant British Government that annexation was the least of evils, and in September, 1875, the Fiji Islands became a Crown colony. ^^inaT"" "^^^ Western Pacific now began to attract the attention Interest of Several nations, and Britain woke up to the necessity of securing her position there against intruders. In 1878 there was a great stir made in these matters. Pressure was put on the Imperial Government to annex New Guinea, to which recent gold discoveries had drawn a number of diggers from Australia : but by the end of the year most of the adventurers had returned, and the Colonial Secretary refused to do anything. The New Hebrides, however, were made neutral ground by an agreement with France, which was suspected of desiring to annex them. Further east, during the same year, the United States acquired by treaty special trading privileges in Samoa, and in 1879 Germany and Britain followed suit, Britain also making in that yeai' a commercial treaty with the King of Tonga. AUSTRALASIA. 187 B. The Period of Annexation (1882-95). Three uneventful years followed— and then began that / "^undignified scurry of the European nations to seize each 1 for itself as much as possible of the uncivilised regions of 1 the earth which may probably count as not the least of its / results the federation of Australia. The whole worm'^ shared in its excitement; but, next to Africa, where the annexation-fever raged most fiercely, Australasian waters suffered from it most. Mutterings of the coming storm were heard in 1882, when France took Raiatea (near Tahiti) and revived the rumours of her designs on the New Hebrides, while an important German newspaper called on the Emperor to annex New Guinea. Baron Maclay, also, who had in 1879 unsuccessfully urged the Qurnec British Government to establish a New Guinea protectorate, was believed to be making similar proposals to Russia. There was even talk of an Italian colony in the much-desired isFand. The Australian colonies took alarm at once, and early in 1883 Queensland offered to paj^ all expenses if the British Government would annex. Before an answer could be given there came from Europe news that a German company was being formed to explore and colonise the territory in question, and the Queensland authorities in hot haste themselves hoisted the British flag at Port Moresby. On the heels of the telegram announcing this action to the Colonial Secretary came others from New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia heartily commending what Queensland had done. The Secretary, Lord Derby, was an unenthusiastic and slow-moving man, but he did his best to persuade the British Cabinet of the day to confirm Queensland's action. Mr. Gladstone, however (who was then Prime Minister), and his Foreig-n Secretary, Lord Granville, thought it far more important to avoid friction with Germany than to please a distant and troublesome colony; they declined entirely to accept the annexation, alleging that as far as they knew no foreign nation really did wish to seize New Guinea. But public opinion in 188 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. The Con- vention of 1883 German activity Australia had grown too strong to let the matter drop there : nor was New Guinea the only point of danger. France had long since established a penal settlement in New Caledonia : she might do the same in the New Hebrides : it was certain, at any rate, that a Bill was before the French Assembly by which a very large number of habitual criminals would soon be sent out to the South Seas, under conditions which would make it easy for them to slip across to Australia. Before the end of the year an Intercolonial Convention was held at Sydney, in which all the Australian colonies, as well as New Zealand and Fiji, were represented. It was thus the unanimous voice of British Australasia which declared to Lord Derby that New Guinea ought to be annexed; that convict settlements in the Pacific should be abolished; that no foreign power should be allowed to acquire any more territory in the South Seas; and that Australia was ready to share the cost of so maintaining and strengthening the Empire. All through 1884 resolutions and minutes and petitions poured into the Colonial Office in London, conf^m- ing and emphasising the votes of the Convention: and in October the Cabinet gave way so far as to announce a British protectorate over the southern coast of New Guinea, which was formally proclaimed by Commodore Erskine on December 1. The colonists now began to wonder why this new protec- torate was so limited. They soon found out. Three weeks after Erskine hoisted the British flag on the southern coast, all Australia was startled by the news that Germany had annexed the northern coast and the group of islands known as New Britain. In those islands Germany had some rights, for the great Hamburg South Sea trading company had a station at Mioko (Duke of York Island) since 1871, and from it supplied its plantations in Samoa with Kanaka labourers. New Guinea itself had not been touched by German trade, and to the Australian Governments (who did not know that Bismarck had been parleying for some months with the British Foreign Minister) the annexation seemed pure impudence, meant to be irritating and aggress- AUSTRALASIA. 189 ive. Protests, however, had no effect on the British Cabinet. For a few days they seemed ready to extend the new protectorate along the north coast so as to include Baron Maclay's settlement. But a few firm words from the German Chancellor broke their feeble resolution, and in the end a boundary line was drawn which started where latitude 8° intersects the northern coastline and followed the central watershed as nearly as might be to Dutch territory at 141° east longitude. As for the New Hebrides, they were left neutral, and the French Government agreed to send habitual criminals only to French Guiana. Before the New Guinea question was settled, German Samoa traders had raised another by their violent conduct in Samoa. King Malietoa, tired of being bullied, offered his country to Britain through the Government of New Zealand. As might have been expected, Gladstone rejected the offer, though New Zealand offered to pay all expenses and began to revive Grey's scheme for a British Polynesia. But before there was time for an answer the German consul had brought on a crisis by calmly annexing Apia, the Samoan capital, deposing Malietoa, and proclaiming one of his opponents king in his stead. The American consul added to the confusion by putting the whole group of islands under the protectorate of the United States. The States, while repudiating their consul's action, also refused to allow that of the German consul. Meanwhile Germany had seized Malietoa and shipped him off to Africa: a civil war broke out, and the German claimant to the throne had to be supported by German troops. After four years of tur- moil, the unfortunate islands were placed under a joint pro- tectorate of the three interested nations ; but this also broke „ ^I'.f. ' Partition down m 1899, and the United States now own one island, ofPoiy- while Germany controls the other two, Britain taking over Tonga and two of the German islands north of New Guinea. In the meantime a series of agreements among the European Powers allowed France to occupy all the groups east of Tahiti, and gave Germany a boundary line running through the Solomon Islands and turning nesu 190 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. north-east to the Marshalls. The lower half of the Solomons and all the remainmg islands east or south-east of that line, from Palmyra to the Macquaries, are thus definitely and by international agreement included within the British sphere of influence- C. Federation (1850-1910). Perhaps the affairs of Polynesia are not, strictly speaking, part of Australian history: but the events just mentioned had an unmistakable and a very important effect on that history. For more than twenty years the five eastern colonies had lived independent and sometimes quarrelsome lives, each fostering the jealousies born of its early career: the pressure of European aggression was needed to bring them so near to each other that a common life under a single federal government should seem at all possible or even desirable. After Lord John Russell's declaration of 1839, that Britain claimed the whole Australian continent, such European aggression on Australia itself could have been brought about only by a great war— failing war, the colonies might still be curled up, like hedgehogs, each within its own borders. But in Polynesia aggression was still possible without war : and so it came about that Samoa and New Caledonia and the Solomons are very closely con- cerned with the making of the new Australian Common- wealth. The In the days when politicians were busy devising the Discord various schemes by which the colonies of Australia became self-governing, everyone outside the colonies themselves thought it absurd that a number of small States, all within the British Empire, all peopled by white men of whom the overwhelming majority was British, should exist side by side without . being in some close way politically connected. Earl Grey's Committee was very anxious to establish a General Assembly for all Australia, consisting of a Governor-General and a House of Delegates from all the colonies; and in the Bill laid before the Imperial Parlia- ment, providing for the separation of Victoria, clauses AUSTRALASIA. 191 were inserted to create such an Assembly. But the objec- tions made to this scheme in Parliament, and the absence of any demand for it in the colonies, led to its abandon- ment as being premature, and the Act of 1850 was, therefore, passed without any provision for federation. Earl Grey, in sending out the Act to the Australian Governors, suggested that the colonies themselves should draw up a scheme of union, to be submitted to the Imperial Parliament. Soon afterwards he tried to create a con- necting link between the colonies by appointing the Governor of New South Wales Governor-General of Australia. But local prejudices were too strong. Victoria, after fighting hard to be separated from New South Wales^ was not likely to enter at once into a new union. The South Australian land system was a stumbling-block- Adelaide men were rather proud of its peculiarities, and did not care to let any Federal Assembly meddle with it and make it like those of their eastern neighbours. All these continental colonies looked down on Tasmania, because it had received convicts so much later than they had. Consequently Earl Grey's schemes came to nought, and the colonies drifted further and further apart. But when- ever the more statesmanlike politicians for a few moments shook themselves free of those local squabblings, they recurred to the idea of federation. In 1853 the Com- mittees which were appointed in New South Wales and Victoria to draw up new constitutions reported in favour of some form of federal union. It was possibly local pride that made Melbourne in 1855 petition the Queen that the federal capital should be established there. But it was a far higher motive that urged Wentworth and his friends to form a " General Association of the Australian Colonies " and to send a memorial in favour of federation to the Colonial Secretary. In the same year a Committee of the Victorian Assembly reported strongly in favour of union, and suggested an intercolonial conference on the subject, but its report was lost sight of. Again and again in the years that followed the subject cropped up, generally in 192 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Australian Colonien Duties Act, 1873 Conferences and Con- ventions The Federal Council connection with the levying of customs duties along the Murray River. In 1871, indeed, proposals were put forward for a Customs Union of Australia: and then was first heard the claim which was so successfully renewed in Canada in 1897, that " foreign countries have no pretence to interfere with the internal arrangements of the Empire, or the trade of one part with another." But when Lord Kimberley had been worried into passing an Act by which the colonies could have drawn closer together in this way, the local element again proved the stronger, and the Act remained a dead letter. In 1881 it was found necessary for representatives from the eastern colonies to meet in Sydney and discuss measures for lessening the number of Chinese immigrants. At this conference Sir Henry Parkes moved resolutions which pro- posed the establishment of some central authority to deal with inter-colonial questions of that kind; and a scheme for securing this was there and then drawn up— and shelved. But it was the trouble about New Guinea in 1883 that stirred politicians to take an immediate interest in the matter. It seemed very probable that if Queensland had been backed, not by a few^ telegrams from the Governments of disconnected colonies, but by the voice of a single Government representing united Australia, the whole of eastern New Guinea (and perhaps all its adjacent islands too) would have come under the British flag. The Con- vention of 1883, therefore, besides passing resolutions about Polynesian affairs, revived the plan of 1881 for representing the whole of Australia in a single assembly, and embodied it in a Federal Council Bill, which the Imperial Parliament passed in 1885. This Council con- sisted of two representatives appointed by the parliament of each colony that liked to join it. It had no independent power to make laws except on a very few matters, such as the relations of Australasia with the Pacific Islands, prevention of the influx of criminals, and the enforcement in all the colonies of legal proceedings taken in the courts of each colony. On other matters, as to which it was AUSTRALASIA. 193 important that there should be one law for all Australia — such as defence, quarantine, copyright, and marriage— the Council could only make laws if asked to do so by the parliaments of two or more colonies; and those laws would only hold good in the colonies which had asked for them, or which chose to adopt them. New South Wales thought this was taking a good deal of trouble over very little, and refused to join the Council ; so did New Zealand ; South Australia did not join until 1888, and then only for two years; and Fiji, although she joined, never sent a representative after the first meeting. So the Council usually consisted of representatives from Victoria, Queens- land, Tasmania, and Western Australia. It used to meet for a few days, first every year, and afterwards in alternate years; but it found no opportunity to do much work. Since 1883 the world has never been quite free from War war scares, and in nearly all of them the British Empire has been mixed up. There have been rumours of war with France over Egypt, over Siam, over West Africa; of war with Russia over Afghanistan, over Turkey, over China; of war with Germany over the Transvaal; even of war with the United States over Venezuela. A great many of these scares have been stupid and needless, but every one of them made Australians wonder what would happen if an enemy's warship appeared off Port Jackson or Port Phillip. Delegates from the various colonies met in London during the Queen's Jubilee in 1887 to confer with the British authorities about the defence of Australasia: and this conference resulted in the appointment of an Imperial officer to report on the forts and military forces of each colony, while a fleet was provided by an arrangement under Naval which the colonies hired from the British Admiralty seven scheme new warships, to be added to the regular British squadron in Australian waters, and used as far as possible specially for Australian defence. When the report on our land defences was published, there began a new movement in favour of federation. Sir Henry Parkes now took the lead on behalf of New South M 194 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Federation Wales, and after a good deal of letter-writing a conference '"pontics^' was held in Melbourne in 1890 between the members of the Federal Council and delegates from New South Wales and New Zealand. This was followed by a great Federal Convention, held in Sydney in 1891, to which each of the Australian colonies sent seven members appointed by parliament. New Zealand sending three only, of whom Sir George Grey was one. Here an important Bill was drafted, which was to give Australia a complete system of govern- ment with Governor- General and Cabinet, two Houses of Parliament, and a body of judges. The Bill had to be approved of by the colonial parliaments before it could be sent to London to be made an Act by the Imperial Parlia- ment. But the colonial parliaments wanted, not merely to say " yes " or " no," but to have a voice in the details of the Bill; so it was intended to give them all an opportunity of suggesting alterations, and then to revise the bill in a second Convention. The parliaments of Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania discussed the Bill and suggested a few amendments; but in New South Wales a number of local matters cropped up, and Sir Henry Parkes, who was in charge of the Bill, had to resign the Premiership, so that it was laid aside; the other colonies thought it not worth while to go on until New South Wales was ready. There was another gap of six years, during which more questions came up which could only be settled by the united action of several colonies— the question, for instance, of . laying a telegraph cable across the Pacific Ocean from Vancouver, in Canada, to Sydney; and the question of allowing all British colonies to make arrangements with each other and with Britain about Customs duties, without allowing a foreign nation to object. These were discussed in Ottawa, the Canadian capital, in 1894, and again in London during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. ^ "'"'?* Meanwhile there had been all sorts of unofficial meetings decisive move- and conferences, more especially in New South Wales and '"*" Victoria, to excite public opinion in favour of going on with federation. Leagues were formed in Sydney and Melbourne AUSTRALASIA. 195 for the same object. In 1895 and 1896 the parliaments of the eastern colonies (except Queensland) passed a set of Acts by which a new Convention was to be formed, ten delegates being elected to it by the people of each colony. Western Australia sent ten delegates elected by parliament. This latest Convention met three times— in Adelaide, in Sydney, and in .Melbourne— during 1897 and 1898. At the Adelaide meeting the first draft of a Constitution Bill was framed— largely on the lines of the Bill of 1891— and submitted to the parliaments of the five colonies, which suggested a number of amendments. These amendments were considered at the Sydney and Melbourne meetings; and the Bill as finally adopted by the Convention was put before the electors of New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania on June 3, 1898, and of South Australia on June 4. Jt was accepted by the people of Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. In New South Wales more people voted for it than against it, but the law provided that the Bill should not be accepted unless at least 80,000 people voted for it, and this number was not reached. When the New South Wales Parliament met, each House formulated a list of amendments which it would like to see embodied in the Bill. In January, 1899, the Premiers of all the Australian colonies met in Melbourne to consider these amendments, and some of them (together with one which had reference to the special conditions of Queensland) were accepted. The Bill thus amended was again put before the electors: South Australia accepted it on April 29; New South Wales on June 20; Victoria and Tasmania on July 27; and Queensland on September 2. The parliaments of these colonies then passed addresses to the Queen asking that the Commonwealth Bill, establishing a Federal Constitution for Australia, should be passed into law by the Imperial Parliament. But the law advisers of the Crown in England wanted to make several amendments in the Bill, in matters in which they thought Imperial interests were affected, and at the invitation of the Imperial Government each colony sent a delegate to < 196 HISTORl OF AUSTRALASIA. London to discuss any question that might arise, and to try to secure the passage of the Bill without amendment. In the end, after a good deal of negotiation, the Bill was passed with only one amendment of any importance, which related to appeals to the Privy Council; and it received the Queen's assent on July 9, 1900. Just before the Bill was passed, the Parliament of Western Australia, seeing that all the other Australian colonies were going to federate, decided to submit the Bill to the people of that colony. The vote was taken on August 31, when the Bill was accepted by a large majority. The Queen then, as provided by the Act, issued a Proclamation declaring that on January 1, 1901, the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania should be united in a Federal Commonwealth, to be called " The Commonwealth of Australia." The Earl of Hopetoun was appointed first Governor-General of the Commonwealth; and on the first day of the twentieth century the Commonwealth was established, the Governor- General was sworn in at Sydney, and the Federation of Australia became an accomplished fact. This means that Australia, instead of being as heretofore divided into six " Colo^jiies " absolutely independent of each other and only acting together when their legislatures happened to choose to do so, is now a single great colony like Canada and South Africa; Australia, however, has chosen the title " Commonwealth," whereas Canada calls herself a " Dominion " and South Africa a " Union." In the constitutions, moreover, there is an important difference of structure. The Federal Parliaments of Canada and South Africa are supreme over the federated " pro- vinces " ; laws made by the provincial legislatures are valid only if the Federal Parliaments have given them power to legislate on such subjects. In Australia the States are The much more independent; it is they who, by sanctioning the under Constitution Bill, have given the Federal Parliament power edera ion ^^ make laws on certain subjects, which are set forth in section 51. In all matters not specially handed over by AUSTRALASIA. 197 the Constitution the States are still independent, and Acts * dealing with these matters, if the Federal Parliament happens to pass them, are of no effect. The States, therefore, retain their old Constitutions, legislatures, Ministries, law courts, and most of their administrative departments; they manage, each for itself, ^ their railways, lands, education, police, and nearly all ^matters which concern only single States; they can levy direct taxes {i.e., income-tax, land-tax, stamp-duties, &c.) on their citizens; and their boundaries cannot be altered without their own consent. The chief matters now under Federal jurisdiction, with which the States have no more to do, are: — Oversea and inter-State trade and commerce, taxation through the Customs, postal, telegraphic, and telephone services, defence, external affairs {i.e., dealings with other nations and with the British Empire outside the bounds of Australia), and the restriction of immigra- tion; also quarantine, meteorology, trademarks, copyright and old-age pensions. Many other matters— such as marriage-laws, banking, insurance, bankruptcy, and other commercial subjects in which more States than one are concerned— the Federal Parliament can take over from the States when it likes; and proposals have been made that it should be given supreme control of all Australian commerce, even that carried on inside a single State. One can easily understand that it is not always a simple matter to decide when the Federal Parliament is within its rights. To prevent perpetual quarrels the Constitution ordains that the Federal High Court— which consists of J,^® five judges, and is also a court of appeal from all the State Court Courts— shall have the final word in such cases. When it pronounces judgment in private cases, a dissatisfied party may appeal again to the " Judicial Committee of the Privy Council " in London, if the Privy Council will let him ; but if the question concerns a quarrel about powers between a State and the Commonwealth, or between two States, there is no appeal from the High Court's decision unless the High Court itself allows it. This sounds complicated, but it is an important distinction. 198 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. The The Federal Parliament differs in some respects from any PaHiament legislature previously seen in Australia. It consists, ks the others do, of two Houses, and the House of Representatives is elected in much the same way as are the State Assemblies. To each State members are allotted in proportion to its population (except that Tasmania has five, though its proportionate allowance would be only three; New South Wales now has 27, Victoria 21, Queensland 10, South Aus- tralia 7, and Western Australia 5) ; each member represents a separate electorate, and is elected by the votes of all adult citizens. But in the States the " Upper House " is either nominee or chosen only by electors possessing a certain amount of property; while the Federal Senate is chosen by exactly the same voters as the Lower House, only grouped differently. An election takes place every third year; all the voters in each State unite to choose three Senators, who sit for six years; so that at any moment each State has six Senators, three of whom were chosen at the last election and three at the previous one. The first Federal Parliament, elected early in 1901, began its career by legislating for the repatriation of the Kanakas employed on the canefields in Queensland (the planters were given five years' grace) and the exclusion from Australia of undesirable immigrants, among whom were reckoned all who are not of European or white American descent. But its chief task was to construct the new Customs tariff. This work was complicated by a clause in the Constitution commonly known as the " Braddon " clause. In order to provide the States with enough revenue— since the direct taxation which alone they were allowed to levy for themselves was quite insufficient— Sir Edward Braddon had persuaded the Convention of 1897-8 to ordain that the Commonwealth should return to the States at least three- quarters of its Customs and Excise revenue; as it was expected that the States would want about £6,000,000 between them, it became necessary to raise about £8,000,000 from the Customs, and that meant some form of Protection. The Freetraders, however, fought hard in the Lower House AUSTRALASIA. 199 and were strong in the Senate; the tariff eventually framed satisfied no one, and had to be revised (this time by a more decidedly protectionist parliament) in 1907-8. As for the Braddon clause, by an arrangement of the Premiers in 1899 it was to last for at least ten years, and then the Federal Parliament could make new arrangements. What these should be puzzled many Treasurers for many years; finally the Parliament, adopting with slight alterations a scheme worked out by Federal and State Ministers in 1909, decided that from the beginning of 1911 the States should receive from the Federal Treasury annually 25s. per head of their population. Thus the Commonwealth is now left free to raise its revenue as it needs it, and the States know each year exactly how much they will get. The rest of the first Parliament's work consisted mainly in creating the various mechanisms necessary for proper government, including the Federal High Court. Sir S. Griffith of Queensland became the first Federal Chief Justice, and two Ministers joined him, thus making a new Ministry necessary. The original Ministry had been a composite one, headed by Sir E. Barton, to whom the movement towards Federation owed a great deal; his colleagues were the former Premiers of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tas- mania, together with Messrs. O'Connor (N.S.W.), Deakin> (V.), and Drake (Q.). The second Ministry was a recon- struction of the first, under Mr. Deakin as Prime Minister, Both these Ministries represented the Protectionist section of the Parliament ; the Freetraders clustered round Mr. Reid in Opposition, and a third party, known as the Labour Party, held itself aloof from both ; usually it supported the Ministry, but on tariff questions its members voted as they pleased. In the second Parliament this party, differing from Mr. Deakin on an important Bill, turned him out of office and replaced him for four months by its own leader, Mr. Watson; then Mr. Reid, allying himself with Mr. Deakin, defeated the Labour Ministry and formed one of his own, which lasted nearly a year; after which Mr. Deakin, 200 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. again coming to terms with the Labour Party, returned to office and stayed there till half-way through the third Parlia- ment, a period of three years and four months. Each election, however, made the Labour Party stronger; in November, 1908, it decided to replace its ally by its own leader— Mr. Watson had been succeeded by Mr. Fisher— and his Ministry held office till in June, 1909, it was defeated by a coalition of Mr. Deakin's friends with those who had hitherto followed Mr. Reid. Mr. Reid himself retired from politics, was knighted, and became the Commonwealth's first High Commissioner, or representative in London. Finally, in April, 1910, all this tangle of alliances and changing Ministries was ended by the return of so many Labour members to the Fourth Parliament, that Mr. Fisher came back to power with an absolute majority behind him in both Houses, the remains of the other two parties sitting in Opposition. We have seen that among the chief motives which induced Australians to adopt Federation were (i.) the need pp. 192-3 for effective defence and (ii.) the danger of foreign annexa- tions in the near Pacific. Military matters were being already much discussed when the Commonwealth came into existence, for the British Empire was engaged in a war with the Boer States of South Africa (which ended in their annexation) and the Australian Colonies had sent con- tingents of volunteers to fight side by side with the British troops. Sir E. Barton's Ministry in 1901-2 sent detach- ments of Federal troops— 4,000 men in all— on the same ^efence^ work. All this gave a strong impulse to the defence move- ment. In 1903 a new naval agreement with the British Admiralty, arranged by the then Prime Minister during an Imperial Conference in London, was passed into law : under this agreement Australia had no special squadron, but paid £200,000 a year towards the expenses of the Imperial squadron in the Pacific on condition that it was kept at a certain strength and was not removed outside the Pacific or Indian Oceans. Australians, however, did not care much for a scheme in which they measures AUSTRALASIA. 201 had no active personal concern. After a good deal of agitation a new plan was devised in 1909, and elaborated at the Imperial Conference of 1911, by which Australia was entrusted with the maintenance of one " unit " of the Imperial fleet in Eastern waters, the British Government providing two others (in the Indian Ocean and the China seas), to the latter of which New Zealand was to give the flagship. The Australian " unit " includes a giant cruiser, three smaller cruisers, and several smaller warboats, all built at Australia's expense, controlled by the Australian Government, and manned, as fully as possible, by Aus- tralian seamen and officers. All round the Australian coast, moreover, special harbours are set aside for naval pur- poses in accordance with a report made by Admiral Henderson, who also recommended that the Australian squadron should in the end consist of 52 ships, including 8 " Dreadnought " cruisers. And it is certain that what- ever changes are made will tend to make the ships built and manned by Australians a bigger and more efficient factor in the defence of the Empire. Land defence, organised at the beginning of Federation by General Hutton, has been similarly reconstructed and improved since then in accordance with the best expert advice. An Act of 1903 made all male Australians between the ages of 18 and 60 liable to serve in the local militia in time of war, but provided no methods of training them beforehand; this was done, so far as the coming genera- tion is concerned, by Acts passed in 1909 and 1910, the former establishing the principle of compulsory military training for boys under age, the latter embodying the recommendations of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum (who had been specially invited for that purpose by the Federal Government) with regard to effective training methods. All young Australians now enter at twelve years of age on a course of " junior cadet " training, passing at 14 into the "senior cadets," and at 18 into the citizen forces, in which they serve for seven years. When the system is in full swing, it is estimated that Australia will have an 202 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. army of about 120,000 adults (18-25) in regular training, as well as a steadily increasing number of trained reservists. As for the western Pacific, it is hoped that in the near future Australia will be entrusted with the task of guarding and policing, on behalf of the Empire, the island groups which belong to it. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth has taken over from Britain the control of and respon- sibility for New Guinea (which has gone back to its old name, Papua) ; trade with the German islands has been put on a safer and fairer footing; and the New Hebrides, instead of being left nondescript and unruly, have been brought under the joint administration of British and French officers, for whose guidance has been drawn up a series of regulations intended to make sure that citizens of both nations are on an equality and that no other nation has anything to do with the government. Another responsibility which the Commonwealth has taken oiver is the administration of the Northern Territory. South Australia, anxious though its citizens had been to take control of that huge area, has never been rich enough to spare money from the proper development of its own lands in the south; the main settlement being in the low tropical district near Port Darwin, it soon became the received opinion that white labour was not fitted to cul- tivate the Territory; and the public feeling of Australia, growing ever stronger in favour of a " White Australia," made it very difficult for the Government of any one colony to initiate a system of coloured immigration. When the Federal immigration laws came into force, what had previously been difficult became impossible. It was felt, tlierefore, that South Australia should be relieved of the burden of the Territory, and negotiations soon began for its transference to the Commonwealth, which was at last made on January 1, 1911. Exploring parties, some of which included professors of Sydney and Melbourne Universities, were at once despatched to report on the best methods of colonising the more accessible AUSTRALASIA. 203 districts; another professor was appointed Administrator; and it is hoped by steady and careful development — especially by placing settlers on the cooler tablelands south of the Roper, instead of devoting attention only to the tropical Port Darwin country— to make the Territory a source of strength to Australia, rather than what it now is, her weakest spot. As part of the conditions of transference, the Federal Government has agreed to con- struct a railway connecting the Territory with the southern States, and has taken over from South Australia the line which already runs from Port Augusta on Spencer's Gulf to Oodnadatta above Lake Eyre. While the young Commonwealth was beginning to feel its feet, Australia was afflicted with the most lengthy and jhe devastating drought known in its history. It had been D^'"®^*(^t long preparing: in 1895 there were over 106 million sheep in Australia, in 1901 only 72 millions— then in one year the number dropped to 53 millions. The cattle dropped from 8l^ to 7 millions; the crops failed even more disas- trously ; in 1901 we were exporting nearly 25 million bushels of wheat, in 1903 we were importing nearly 11 millions for our own food. But the recovery was almost as sudden and as striking as the disaster. By 1906 our sheep had gone back to 84 millions, our cattle to over 9, and our wheat exports to nearly 39 million bushels: so dependent is Australia on the rainfall, until the many schemes for irrigating our drier lands, of which a beginning has been pp. 164, 177 made here and there in the basin of the Murray, come to fulfilment and prove their worth. The States, to which much power is still left, have been busy adjusting their organizations to the new conditions, more particularly by cutting down the numbers of their members of Assembly. Apart from this, the chief work of nearly all the State legislatures has been to introduce systems of compulsory arbitration, by means of which wages and working conditions in many employments have been Settlement improved; and to revise their landlaws so that some of the immigration good agricultural land which was sold to private owners 204 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. many years ago, and has only been used for sheep-runs, may be bought back and made available for its proper use by the many young farmers who want land badly. The States are also encouraging as much as they can the immigration of Europeans, more especially of Britons, to populate the country and utilize its fertile areas. Australia is so big, and still so empty, that other nations are likely to look (and some do look) enviously on our unoccupied territories; and we cannot feel safe from unwelcome intrusion until, instead of four and a half millions, there are fifteen or twenty millions of us making (with the help of proper schemes for water-storage and irrigation) farmlands and plantations on the soil so suited for them by nature. To this point, then, the course of Australian history has led us— that we hold a whole continent of valuable land, using it very imperfectly, but free for the moment from outside interference. This free moment we must use, if we wish to retain our hold; we must use it to take seriously in hand the developing of our country's natural resources, by cultivating its richer soils, irrigating its drier, exploiting the fisheries along its coasts, opening up and thoroughly working the mines hidden below its surface. These things in the past have been done, for the most part, in a hap- hazard, unscientific sort of way. To do them methodically, scientifically, is Australia's task for the future; and young Australians cannot serve their country better than by pre- paring themselves with zealous study to take their share in the task directly they are grown men. CHAPTER XIL-THE STORY OF LAND- SETTLEMENT. In previous chapters (notably on pages 68-70, 93-5, 98-101, and 178), some account has been given of the laws and regulations by which, at different times, land-settle- ment in Australia has been governed. But this process has been so important a factor in the development of the country that it deserves a chapter of continuous narrative all to itself, even though that involves some repetition of things already said. The process divides itself naturally into four stages: — (i.) The Crown Grants stage (roughly speaking, 1788-1831) ; (ii.) The Land Sales and Pastoral License stage (1832-61) ; (iii.) The Selection before Survey stage (1861-94) ; (iv.) The Experimental Reform stage, still existing. In name, as you see, these stages correspond to certain methods of acquiring land from the Crown. But we shall find that they correspond also to changes in the method of using the land, and therefore to stages in the develop- ment of Australia from desert to sheep-run, and from sheep-run to wheat-farm and orchard and canefield. A. Crov^n Grants. The first principle of British land-laws is that all the land of a British possession belongs to the Crown, and can only be held by private persons under some kind of permission from the Crown. When a British settlement is formed on land already occupied by native tribes, and the early settlers obtain land direct from the occupiers, they are not allowed to retain it unless they get from the Crown (i.e.^ from the Governor or other ruling authori- ties) a confirmation of their holding. When Batmaa, for in- 205 206 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. stance, bought from the eight chiefs six hundred thousand acres at the head of Port Phillip, Governor Bourke refused P- ^ to recognise the transaction, and sold the site of Melbourne to the highest bidders: and when the New Zealand Land Company began buying and selling land in the islands without getting the British Government's permission, the p. 278 same rule was enforced, and the Treaty of Waitangi pro- vided that land should only be sold by Maoris to the Government. When Phillip landed in Sydney Cove, therefore, all the land of the new colony belonged— as far as British subjects and the civilized world were concerned— to the British Government. (The aboriginal tribes were so small and scattered that their claims were rarely considered, though several Governors did their best to avoid interference with native hunting-grounds). Phillip was authorised to make grants of land to convicts who had served their sentence, to free immigrants (if there were any), and to marines who cared to stay in the colony: no man might hold more than 100 acres, and the rent was to be Is. per acre.* The first settler, James Ruse, took up a thirty-acre farm at Parramatta on February 25, 1789; and four years later the first free settlers were given land at Liberty Plains (now called Bankstown), eight miles out of Sydney. Hunter placed settlers along the banks of the Hawkesbury under these conditions, emancipists getting 30 acres, officials and free settlers the full 100 acres. The first breach of these conditions was Macarthur^s p. 35 grant of 5,000 acres, which was also the first of a number of grants made by the British Government in London without consulting the authorities in Sydney. It marked, however, the beginning of a new era in Australian agri- culture. The earlier farms were of the English pattern — small holdings on which the owners grew gi'ain and hay and kept stock in small numbers. The sudden increase * The British Governmeiit's definite instructions were that grants must only be made to bo7ia fide settlers ; Phillip enforced this condition, but Grose gave land to the officers of his Corps unconditionally, and allowed them to traffic in it. THE STORY OF LAND-SETTLEMENT. 207 from 100 to 5,000 acres was made necessary by Mac- arthur's introduction of sheep-farming on a large scale: but the Governors felt that it was dangerous to let one man hold so much, and for many years after would rather let a sheep-farmer run his stock on Crown lands, than allot him a large area for his private use. When the Blue Mountains were crossed, and there seemed plenty of land for anyone who might want it, Macquarie still insisted that settlers should get only 100 acres each, though after he had visited the Bathurst Plains he made some grants tof 1,000 acres. It was possible, of course, for settlers to acquire larger areas by buying land from other grantees, and this was often done. Still, at the end of Macquarie's rule about 40,000 people were settled on less than 600,000 acres. Macquarie's policy was to make the people under his charge as orderly, comfortable, and hard-working as possible: which was all very well, but cost the British Government more money than it cared to spend on so distant a colony. When, therefore, Commissioner Bigge's p. 45 report called attention to the fine tracts of land available in eastern Australia, it was determined to use them as a bait to attract immigrants with money, who would settle in New South Wales, contribute to its local revenue, and help to increase its trade. So Governor Brisbane was directed to make grants up to four square miles, and to proportion the size of them either to the amount of money the immigrant was prepared to spend on his estate or to the number of convict labourers he would promise to employ. Dr. Lang's father, for instance, on his arrival in 1824, got a grant of 2,000 acres simply by agreeing to employ, house, and feed 20 assigned servants. At the same time, an attempt was made to keep all the new settlers fairly close together by mapping out the "Nineteen Counties," and ordaining that no land should be granted p. 68 outside them. The large blocks of land required for grazing sheep were not granted, but occupied at first under "tickets of occupation," then (from May 1, 1827, onward) 208 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. under annual licenses which might be cancelled at six months' notice. But the British Government was not content with this form of settlement, though under it the population of the colony increased in six years from 40,000 to 62,000, and the area of alienated land from six hundred thousand acres to three million. In the early twenties several land com- panies were formed in London by men with great political influence, and to these were made very large grants of Australian land. A million acres of New South Wales land were given to the Australian Agricultural Company, on condition that it spent at least £1 per acre on improv- ing and stocking the land. The Van Diemen's Land Com- pany received large grants in north-western Tasmania, p. 87 In Western Australia, you will remember, the whole settlement was to be made by unlimited land-grants, and was therefore a horrible failure. The mischief of these huge alienations was that they either discouraged or angered the other settlers: the A. A. Company, for instance, needed many convicts to work its estates, and was always quarrelling with the Governor, and annoying individual settlers by demanding more convict labour than the colony could properly allow it. The owner, moreover, of five or six thousand acres could not compete on even terms with the owners of huge areas in stock-raising or wool-growing, and there was bred in him the desire for huge areas of his own. Apart from these Companies, however, the Crown Grant system of alienating land produced fairly good results. It had, of course, the pick of the colony to work on— the Bathurst Plains, the Goulburn and Yass districts, the Hunter River Valley, the Mudgee district: on and between these, within 200 miles or so of Sydney, it had settled a population of resident farmers, personally managing estates of a moderate size. The colony became (for a moment) self-supporting in 1827. Unluckily in that very year there broke out a fever of speculation in stock, on which a severe drought followed almost immediately; and THE STORY OF LAND-SETTLEMENT. 209 the Crown Grant era closed in a gloom which it had not deserved.* B. Land Sales and Pastoral Leases. The system of land sales takes its origin from Edward Gibbon Wakefield, whose ideas have already been ex- plained on pages 90-3. But it is not made quite clear there why the British Government was so ready to adopt his ideas. The infl.uence of his friends had something to do with it, of course. But the most pressing argument was want of money. Although the colony's revenue — mainly obtained from customs duties and liquor licenses — was now sufficient for its ordinary expenditure, there was nothing to spare for developing the country by immigra- tion or by public works. Wakefield's proposals opened up the prospect of a new source of revenue — ^he insisted, indeed, that the proceeds of land sales should be spent only on immigration and public works. (In New Zealand, when his system was most fully developed, every acre cost £2, of which 15s. was to be used for immigration, 10s. for road-making, and 5s. to build schools and churches.) Up to 1831 Australian land yielded to the State practically no revenue at all; at best it had been used by the Govern- ment to pay in part for convicts' board and lodging. In future — especially as it was becoming very doubtful whether the convict system would be continued — every acre of land disposed of must fetch its price in cash. Some years before, in 1825, orders bad been given that anyone might buy any quantity of land up to 4,000 acres at not less than 5s. an acre. As long as land grants were * The following extract from the Official History of N.S.W. is interesting :— " The Australian Agricultural Company about this time commenced operations on an extensive scale, and by their rapid purchases caused a remarkable rise in the price of live stock. The result was a rapid accumulation of wealth by the pastoralists ; and a mania for the possession of flocks and herds seized all classes of the community in consequence. . . In the midst of this great speculative excitement a severe drought of nearly three years' continuance visited the colony, the result of which was that many fortunes were sunk, and many families ruined. . . Widespread distress was the result. This was intensified by the fact that large sums of money had to be sent out of the colony for breadstuffs, owing to the pursuit of agriculture being almost abandoned during the pastoral mania, and also to the drought destroying most of what wheat and maize was planted."— O^ciaZ History, pp. 38-39. 210 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. obtainable, very little was sold: but from August 2, 1831, it was ordained that cash sales should be the only way of getting land for your own (though land might still be leased for pastoral purposes) ; also it must be bought at a public auction, so that someone else could get the land you wanted if he cared to outbid you. As the policy was now to get as much revenue as possible, no limit was placed on the area any one man might acquire. Consequently the sheep-owners who had hitherto used land within the Nineteen Counties under license began to buy up their runs, and hardly any pasture land was left for newcomers. Under this stress the newcomers, and such of the old settlers as did not care to buy big areas of pasture land, simply moved outside the settled districts on to the western and north-western plains and ran their sheep over unlimited areas without paying anyone a penny. Gover- nor Bourke, who was for ever trying to reconcile his legal duties with his common sense, at first passed an Act declaring these squatters to be unauthorised trespassers on Crown Lands; but, as nothing could be done to pre- vent them from trespassing, and the mere name of ^trespasser' hurt nobody, he followed up that Act by another a few years later which let him license them to go on trespassing on payment of a small fee. Bourke also, in administering the land revenue, adopted that part of the Wakefield proposals which applied it to bring- ing out immigrants; in 1832, for instance, £6,400 was set aside from the Land Fund "to defray the expense of bringing out female farm servants from the agricultural counties of England," and 792 actually came. In 1833 1,253 assisted immigrants (not, of course, all females) entered the colony, besides 1,432 who paid their own passages. The results of the new policy were immediate and startling. In four years (1833-6) it brought in £300,000 to the Treasury, of which about £50,000 was spent on immigration, and £121,000 was applied to cover deficits in the ordinary accounts; in 1840, when Port Phillip was THE STORY OF LAND-SETTLEMENT. 211 being opened up, and the price of land had been raised to 12s. and £1 per acre, the land receipts were £341,000— more than all the rest of the colony's revenues— and nearly £150,000 was spent on immigration. Free im- migrants were then coming in at the rate of 10,000 a year to New South Wales alone, besides another 5,000 or so to South Australia; of the New South Wales contingent, however, about two-thirds were in some way assisted from public funds. It was in these years that the whole structure of the colony was altered. The restrictions of the twenties— .limited areas, a scanty labour supply, the prohibition of settlement outside a certain district^ had no doubt hampered development, but had made (for residential settlement and the steady improvement of the land a man owned. When those restrictions were removed, and estates were only limited by the settler's purse, while squatters could get unlimited pastures for a nominal fee, steady farming became almost a thing of the past. The squatter was a nomad of the wilderness, part of "a Bedouin commonwealth in the inland grass country," half forgetting that he was a citizen of ai State at all, and very impatient of the State's laws and regulations. The owner of land within the Nineteen Counties, at last possessing enough land of his own to let his stock increase naturally without providing improvements or artificial food, became a Sydney resident, living leisurely, and often a speculator in land and stock. The conditions of 1827 were repro- duced, and the same consequences followed rather more slowly: the drought of 1837-9, contemporaneous with the speculations in the new Port Phillip lands, and with the enormous inrush of immigrants, produced infallibly the great crisis of 1841-3. The land revenue dropped from £316,000 in 1840 to £15,000 in 1842; no one had spare money either to buy land or to employ labour, and in the very year of the crash 27,000 new immigrants arrived. Two banks failed, 1,000 people went bankrupt, and there were over 1,200 unemployed in Sydney. Such 212 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. were the results of unlimited land sales without the con- dition of bona fide settlement. It was impossible, however, to abandon the policy. Wool, for reasons which will be discussed in the next chapter, was the colony's staple product, and needed for its proper growth either bigger stations or heavy expenditure on improvements. Moreover, in 1843 New South Wales became partially self-governing, and the legislature was made up of wool-growers and their friends. The political side of land settlement in the forties is dealt with on pages 98-101: of the industrial side it need only be said that agriculture was more and more subordinated ta sheep- raising. While in 1833 60,000 acres were under cultiva- tion — about an acre to each inhabitant of the colony — in 1851 the proportion had decreased to % acre per inhabi- tant, and did not recover the 1833 standard till 1880. (The proportion in 1911 was nearly 2% acres per inhabi- tant.) Meanwhile settlement had begun outside the boundaries of New South Wales altogether. In Tasmania legisla- tion proceeded almost exactly on the lines laid down for the mother State; land sales began in 1828 — the price being a^ usual, 5s. or thereabouts per acre — and grants were abolished in 1831. Immigration, however, was not much encouraged until the abolition of transportation in 1855. Western Australia suffered so much from the free-grant policy of the first few years that very little land was left within reasonable distance of the market towns when the 5s. regulation came into force, and the lack of land sales money practically stopped immigration. The story of ^uoSI* South Australian settlement has already been told; to the scheme of its founders was due the increase in price, en- forced by Imperial regulation, from the 5s. of 1831 to the £1 of 1840 all over Australia. Everywhere the general rule held good, that settlement during the forties tended to become purely pastoral and, except in specially fertile districts near the market town, non-residential. Indeed, since a good deal of the money spent on the land in the THE STORY OF LAND-SETTLEMENT. 213 late thirties had been borrowed from England, a new class of landowner sprang up — the absentee, living in London on the profits of his ownership or the interest on his mortgage. Thus the Australia of 1850 was a country of great pastoral estates ruled by their owners; a few small patches of territory — the Twenty Counties,* and the immediate surroundings of Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, and Hobart — showed residential settlement, a little culti- vation, and a certain amount of improvement; the rest was inhabited by a few men^ and as many sheep and cattle as it could carry without being improved. Hardly anyone but Dr. Lang advocated or desired agricultural develop- ment: he, it is truie, worked hard to get some form of agriculture established — if not near Sydney or Melbourne, then near Brisbane ; if not grain, then sugar or cotton : but the attitudle of the ruling class is typified by a report made to the Legislative Council in 1850 by the squatters of Moreton Bay. '' Seven-eighths of the productions of New South Wales," they said, "are wool; any reduction in this production, or any increase in its cost, will be injurious to the colony; we urgently need labour, and would rather have the pick of the gaols than the refuse of workhouses" (their polite way of describing Dr. Lang's free immigrants). All this time, it must be remembered, land legislation was enacted by, or by permission of, the British Govern- ment. This was a good thing on the whole, as it prevented the local Council from giving the squatters their own way in everything; but it led to much confusion, since the authorities in London were apt to legislate either on general principles which should have been modified before applying them to Australia, or on information given them by interested parties who happened to have influence with Ministers. Consequently men with such different views as Gibbon Wakefield and Dr. Lang concurred with the squatters (of whom Dr. Lang, at any rate, strongly dis- approved) in demanding that land legislation should be * One had been added since Darling's time. 214 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. handed over entirely to the colonial parliaments. Before this could happen, the gold discoveries had completely altered the nature of Australian society, by introducing a mass of immigrants whose interests did not coincide with those of the squatting oligarchy; and had for the first time made a real difference between the interests of the various States. This change is so important that it must be explained fully. Victoria, to which ,the bulk of the gold-seeking immigrants rushed, yielded the bulk of its gold from a small area between Ballarat and Bendigo, astride the Dividing Range, and away from the region of big stations. The immigrants, moreover, were mostly men from the towns of Europe or the goldfields of California; the latter, adventurers by nature, became rich speculators or died in poverty; the former, when they left the gold- fields, made back to the city and took up again their old trade. Neither kind interfered much with the squatters. Victoria, therefore, became in part a manufacturing and speculative community centred on Melbourne, in part a purely pastoral community living alongside the other, but having as little as possible to do with it. New South Wales, with its goldfields mostly far from the coast and less excitingly rich than those of Victoria, had among its diggers a much larger proportion of native born. They, when they left the fields, usually took up land; the isolated dig-gings needed food and fodder supplies within easy reach, and more money was often made by selling these things to the diggers than by digging. New South Wales, therefore, remained a farming com- munity: but, since the diggings were all amongst the stations, there grew up constant quarrels between the squatter, who wanted his land for sheep, and the small farmer, who wanted to acquire the most fertile pieces of it for cropping. In South Australia, where there was no gold, but many patches of good wheat land, the landowners, large and small, devoted themselves to feeding the Victorian diggers THE STORY OF LAND- SETTLEMENT. 215 with corn or meat. Queensland remained for some years, both before and after its formal separation from New South Wales, a squatting colony of the pre-gold type, with a small farming community in the Brisbane Valley. Tasmania lost most of its young and active men to Victoria, and became a country of small runs and farms and orchards, managed by quiet, unenterprising owners for the most part. As for Western Australia, it was cut off both by mere distance and by its policy of using con- vict labour from the eastern States, and is practically negligible in Australian history until the eighties. C. Selection before Survey. Despite these differences, however, legislation in the five eastern States was constructed on much the same pattern, because their parliaments and their city press were in close touch with each other. It is therefore possible to" class the developments of land settlement in eastern Australia under one heading, even when separate legisla- tive bodies were dealing with it; and the stage of Selection before Survey coincides almost exactly with the beginnings of responsible government. To understand it we must revert for a moment to the forties, and note what use the squatters had made of their supremacy. It will be remembered that Bourke's "license to tres- pass" had been in Gipps' time converted into a license fee p. loi of £10 for each run. When he was succeeded by the weak Governor Fitzroy, the British Government was easily persuaded to give the squatters even better terms. Orders in Council of 1847 allowed them to lease land for a definite period (one year in the Twenty Counties, eight in the neighbouring districts, fourteen in the backblocks), with the right to buy any portion at £1 per aciie; during the" currency of the lease no one else could buy the land at any price, and at the end of it the leaseholder had first choice. In a country like Australia, where the water' supply is of paramount importance, the leaseholder under these regulations could secure permanently for himself a 216 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. very large holding by the simple process of buying for £1 per acre the comparatively small areas on which water was to be found. In South Australia such an outcry was made against this system that it was never put into force, and later regulations substituted a six months' tenure, thus keeping the land available for agriculturists whenever it might be wanted. In Victoria the deliberate delays of local officials — especially of the Surveyor-General, whose business it was to mark off the areas leased — kept the system out of full operation until after the gold rush, so that immigrants who wanted small farms were able to get them before the squatters were put in possession. But in New South Wales (then, of course, including Queensland) the new policy was worked for all it was worth; within two years 30,000 square miles of fresh country had been put under lease, besides all that had been previously occupied; in the backblocks alone the leased area nearly equalled that of Great Britain and Ireland. When the first gold rush was over, therefore, the would- be small farmer found very little agricultural land avail- able, at any rate until 1861; and even then he saw that, by taking up the well-watered patches under his pre- emptive right, the squatter could make sure of being un- disturbed in a much larger holding. Still, two could play at that game. If a squatter could "peacock" his run, it might be possible for the newcomer to do the same: after all, few squatters had the ready cash wherewith to purchase all the choice patches. So was bom the idea of "free selec- tion before survey," the system whereby any man could plant himself at a moment's notice on a fertile patch of leasehold, get its exact boundaries sui*veyed later, and claim it as his own by simply residing there, making certain small improvements and paying off the £1 an acre purchase money by small instalments. The first law of this kind was passed in Tasmania, but on such a small scale was hardly used at all. In 1861, when the first fourteen-year period ended in New South Wales, Jolm Robertson — THE STORY OF LAND- SETTLEMENT. 217 himself a squatter in the settled districts — carried the Act p- ^^ already described, which was for many years the pattern to all the other Australian States. The analogous Victorian Act somewhat narrowed the field open to the selector: in South Australia, where existing legislation (as has already been explained) gave the small farmer a chance, the Robertson principle was not applied till 1872: but the twin ideas of selection before survey and con- ditional purchase were during more than twenty years the recognized Australian panacea for land troubles. In the settled districts, which Robertson knew best, his Act worked well. The important part of the runs there was usually freehold already; and the selector, being com- paratively close to his market and on good and well- watered soil, rarely claimed more land than he could use. But outside the Twenty Counties, on the huge western and northern runs, squatters' freehold was rare, and a few clever selectors might easily ruin a station property. There the fight raged hotly. The squatters, who (what- ever one may think of some of their methods) were, as; wool-growers, the mainstay of the colony's prosperity, when they had exhausted their own funds appealed to the banks for more money to secure the "eyes" of the runs; in one case a station of 258,000 acres was absolutely secured for sheep by the purchase of about 700 forty acre blocks in different parts of it. Cunning selectors, on the other hand, often took up the choice patches', not with any intention of farming them, but simply to blackmail the squatter into buying them out- When the banks failed to give sufficient support, the squatter resorted to "dummy- ing" — i.e., arranging that the blocks he needed should be selected by a man who would as soon as possible transfer them to him; this led to perjury, because the law required every selector to make oath that he was not acting in any other person's interest. Few laws, one hopes, have done as much harm to the community as this Land Act of 1861. Its ostensible object — the settling of small farmers on the fertile 218 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. patches of land — was rarely attained: in 22 years over 60,000 applications were made under it, and of them more than two-thirds were either dummies or failures, the land falling back into the big runs. It divided the country population into two hostile camps, each hating and suspect- ing the other. And its moral effect is best described in the words of a Royal Commission's report: — "It has tarnished the personal virtues of veracity and honourable dealing by the daily habit of in- trigue, by the practice of evading the law, and by declarations in defiance of fact universally made. Self-interest has created a laxity of conscience in all matters connected with the land-laws, and the stain attaches to men of all classes and all degrees." We need not dwell on this part of our history, but it must be understood and reckoned with if we are to understand the situation in Australia to-day. For the mistake of New South Wales has affected the whole continent. Although in no other State was the conflict so severe, yet the principle was adopted in all (by the Victorian legislation of 1862 and 1869, the Queensland of 1860-8, the South Australian of 1872,* the Tasmanian of 1858-70) ; besides which the feeling of bitter antagonism between squatter and selector spread of itself from the mother-colony simply through the repeated migrations of shearer and miner and farmer from State to State. In 1884 an attempt was made in several States to im- prove the conditions of settlement by confining selection to certain parts of the runs. Each run was divided, as nearly as possible into halves ; one half was again leased to the squatter for a term of years, during which none of it could be taken from him; the other half he held as before, subject to the right of any man to select on it. This device naturally made the quarrel less violent, but did not strike at the root of it. The net results of Selection before Survey — apart from the moral result already noted-^were very small. ♦ South Australia, however, insisted on survey before selection. 220 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Figures given to Parliament in 1894 are its sufficient con- demnation. In 1861 about 160,000 of the population of New South Wales were townsfolk, and about 190,000 country-folk; in 1894 the towns held 730,000 and the country only 388,000. In thirty years of the Robertson system nearly fifty million acres were sold, yet only 200,000 more people were settled on the land; and the cultivated area increased by less than 600,000 acres. In 1861 the land alienated represented 39 acres per country resident, of which nearly 2 per cent, was cultivated; in 1894 it represented 147, of which a little more than I/2 per cent, was cultivated. The accompanying diagram shows clearly the effect of land legislation on cultivation. In South Australia, where land was from the beginning of responsible government made available for small farmers^ the area cropped rose steadily between 1861 and 1881, when the limit of genuinely agricultural land within easy reach of markets (2 to 2V2 million acres) was attained. In Victoria the rise was much hampered by the Robertson principle, until an Act of 1878 insisted that the selector should live on his selection for five years at least — and the Government enforced the con- dition strictly. In New South Wales, where residence clauses were not seriously enforced, cultivation was almost stationary till the nineties. Then, all of a sudden, the cultivation area nearly trebled within ten years, actually doubling itself in proportion to the population. B. Experimental Reform. The cause of that huge increase was the opening of the fourth period of land-settlement. About 1894, all over Australia, everyone interested in the land question had become convinced that the system of settlement must be altered if the lands of Australia were ever to be put to their proper use. Out of much discussion three remedies were evolved — re-purchase, land taxation, and survey before selection (also called classification of lands). The principle underlying them all was that land should be used THE STORY OF LAND-SETTLEMENT. 221 for the purpose it is naturally fit for. Somehow or other, good wheat-growing land must have wheat growing on it, instead of being merely used for sheep-rearing. If the land still belonged to the Crown, it must be surveyed into farms, and sold at its proper value to men who would cultivate it. If it belonged to private owners, either the Crown must buy it back and put farmers on it, or the owners must be induced to put farmers on it, or to farm it themselves. And there you have your three remedies: survey before selection for Crown lands, re-purchase of fertile private land, or such a tax on fertile private land as will induce the ownjer to use it more productively in order to get the money to pay the tax. The new ideas were differently applied in different States. In New South Wales the device of re-purchase was not tried till 1901, but has been extensively used since. The special survey of Crown lands has been complicated by the retention of the old Selection before Survey system alongside it. The land tax of 1895, levied on the "un- improved value" of lands, seems to have been the most effective remedy; when owners had to pay Id. in the £ on the value of their estates, theylb'egan to find it profit- able to grow crops on the good patches. In Victoria, on the other hand, the land tax (which was introduced in 1877, before the problem was properly understood) is far too light to make much difference to owners of good land; re-purchase was begun in 1898, but very little used till quite recently; and the special survey of good Crown land had been part of the Victorian land-laws since 1862. The increase in that Staters cultivation seems to have been chiefly due to schemes which greatly increased the fertility of certain lands by irrigation. It must not be forgotten, however, that the cultivation of land throughout Australia has been fostered since 1888 by the introduction of re- frigerated transport, which enables Australian sheep- owners and dairy-farmers to send their produce to Europe for sale, and therefore makes it profitable to use far more land for fattening lambs and feeding milch-cows than 222 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. would be needed to supply local wants. This will be more fully dealt with in the next chapter. The effect of the remedies detailed above cannot yet be discussed freely or with full knowledge, since we are really only at the beginning of the reform period, and the land question is a part of present-day politics. All that can be said here is that, whether by virtue of the remedies or from some other cause, genuine land-settlement has in- creased since they were introduced, but not steadily. Between 1896 and 1901 the cultivated area in New South Wales nearly doubled, and that of the Commonwealth in- creased from 6% to nearly 9 million acres. But between 1901 and 1909 New South Wales added only about 260,000 acres, and the whole Commonwealth (despite a great ad- vance in Western Australia) only a million. [These figures omit the area sown with artificial grasses, mainly for dairy- ing purposes, which increased from a million acres in 1901 to nearly 2i/^ millions in 1909; but, as has been already said, this increase was due rather to new methods of transport than to new devices of legislation.] After 1909 there was a second outburst in New South Wales, which in two years added 670,000 acres to her farmed area. Victoria in the same time added half a million acres, South Australia 400,000, and Western Australia 300,000. The cultivated area in the Commonwealth, that is, grew as much in each of those years as it had done in all the previous nine, both in bulk and in proportion to popula- tion. CHAPTER XIII.— THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES. "The two main pre-occupations of man, wherever we find him," says a notable writer, "are, first, to, earn his dinner, and, second, to eat it." The eating can take care of itself ; history is not concerned with our digestions. But the earn- ing is a matter that deeply concerns the welfare of any nation. The industries in which its citizens engage have often more influence on the national character and history than its wars and politics and forms of government. In- deed, a great deal of the political history of such a nation as Britain was directly moulded by the needs of the in^ dustries in which its most important citizens were occupied alt a particular time; and it would be easy to pick out from the history of Australia, as already narrated in this book, many cases in which politics and industries had been closely connected. At the census of 1911 it was found that Australians earned their living as follows: — Per cent. Professional classes (lawyers, clergymen, politicians, soldiers, &c.) .. .. .. .. .. 7i Domestic service, &c. .. .. .. .... lOJ Commercial class . . .... . . . . 14^ Transport and communication ( railway and tramway men, carriers, &c.) .... .. .. ,.- 8 Industrial {i.e., manufacturing) class .. ... 28| Primary producer? ...,., .. .. ., 29| Leisured class . . ,'..., . . . . . . 1^ 100 ■ The names given above are the official designations of the Various occupations, though "primary production" is as much industrial as manufactures are. About 44 per cen,t. of the total population is included in this list, the rest being people dependent on the workers — ^wives and children, relations not earning their own living, and the few Aus- tralians who are dependent on public charity. 224 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. More than half the workers, therefore, are actually making or producing something — rearing live stock, gxowing crops, mining, fishing, or helping to manufacture raw- material. The others are either carrying the products to market, helping to dispose of them, or attending to the personal needs of the producers. It is with the larger half — with the story of the development of their occupations on Australian soil — that this chapter has to do. A. The Pastoral Period. In the early days, we know already, all the efforts of the little community were directed towards maintaining a sufficient food supply, and there was a hard struggle before they were successful. The first industries were farming of p. 24 the simplest kind and — morels the pity — distilling spirits from the grain. But within the first twenty years two other industries had begun, in a very small way; coal was being mined, and exported, from the Hunter River field, and Macarthur had commenced his experiments in wool-growing. These two products — ^with whale oil, the result of an in- dustry which has now died out — ^were for a very long time the only exports worth making from a country so far away from outside markets; and their overwhelming im- portance determined the lines along which the colony was to progress. Coal was a coastal product in those days, and the chief effect of the trade in it was to establish a town and port at the mouth of the Hunter River, instead of at the head of its tidal waters — that is why Morpeth on the Hunter never grew to the size and importance of Grafton on the Clarence, Brisbane on the Brisbane, Rockhampton on the Fitzroy, and the other inland ports that are dotted round the coasts of Australia. Wool was the great staple of the inland country; for wool alone was valuable enough to bear the huge cost of carriage to the coast and still return a reasonable profit to the grower. Australian wool, moreover, soon acquired qualities specially valuable to the manufacturer in England, which no other wool from other THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES. 225 parts of the world could match; moreover, the growing of it required less labour, except at shearing time, than any other industry, and that was a very important point in a land so ill supplied with labourers as was Australia— at any rate until the days of assisted immigration. (In 1830, for instance, the Hawkesbury farmers could only get 100 men for harvest work, though they wanted four times as many— which tended to discourage wheat-growing). Thus the varied primary industries which the earliest Governors and settlers had hoped to introduce- Macarthur's vines, the Australian Agricultural Company's olives and flax planta- tions, the crops and the market-gardens which Macquarie so earnestly favoured— remained insignificant or died out altogether; even cattle-raising, which held its own till the days of Governor Darling, was neglected thenceforward, as the following figures will show: — Sheep. Cattle. 1821 ... 1842 ... 1850 ... 290,158 4,804,946 13,059,324 102,939 897,219 1,738,965 The Australia of the forties, then, was a purely pastoral — almost a purely wool-growing— country. In 1850 the total value of the exports from New South Wales (which then included Victoria and Queensland) was about £2,400,000; of that amount wool accounted for two-thirds and tallow— the export next in value— for one-eighth. The whole colony was arranged for the wool-grower's con- venience; towns were planted as far up the coastal rivers as ships could ascend to fetch away his wool; smaller in- land townships sprang up at river-crossings where his teams camped on their way to market, or at natural centres serving a dozen stations with the simpler necessities of life. For since the colony must buy from abroad practically all the manufactured goods it needed, and its wool was the only product with which it could pay for them, it was obviously wise to reduce as much as possible the cost and the difficulties of producing the wool. With that object, therefore, even the provision of local food-supplies was 226 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. neglected, and Australians fed on South American wheat rather than withdraw land or labour from the use of the predominant industry. Even in 1855 it was reported by Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Robertson to a Committee of the Assembly that— " the number of persons who have been bred to agricultural pursuits, at present residing in the towns of the colony, is beyond example excessive; and the wholesale price of flour in the colony is three times higher per pound than the wholesale price of animal food of the very best description— a state of things not to be found in any other civilized country." This discouragement of agriculture was, of course, carried too far, and here and there wise men tried to avoid pp. 130-1 it. Dr. Lang, as we have seen, took great trouble to plant a farming settlement in the valley of the Brisbane, and the district behind Adelaide was found to be worth far more as wheatfields than as pastures. But these were exceptional cases: on the whole wool was king — as may be seen from the fact that in 1842 there were 30 sheep to each inhabitant of the colony, and rather more than % of an acre of culti- vated land; while in 1850 there were 50 sheep, and rather less than % of an acre. It was in those years, however, that the mining industry took a start. In 1841 the Wheal Gawler mine, near Glen p. 112 Osmond in South Australia, was first worked for silver- lead ; in 1842 the Kapunda copper mine was discovered, and in 1844 the Burra Burra mine. Similar discoveries were made about the same time in New South Wales and Western Australia, but only the South Australian field was of real value. In 1847, moreover, the coal-trade of Newcastle, which had long been a monopoly of the Australian Agri- cultural Company, " began to show signs of progress and prosperity,"* as new competitors opened up other mines. As for manufactures, they hardly existed, except those which were concerned with preparing for local use the pro- Coghlan, Stat. Ace, 1902-3. THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES. 227 ducts of the stations and farms. In 1848 Australia could boast of— 223 flour mills. 62 tanneries. 51 breweries. 30 soap and candle works. 27 iron foundries. and 86 other establishments called factories; but Ihe average number of workmen in them was under four, so that they gave employment to less than 1 per cent, of the population —as against 11 per cent, nowadays. B. The Influence of the Gold Discoveries. The first result of the gold-rush was, naturally, to de- prive all other industries of the labour needed to carry them on, as has already been recounted in Ch. vii. The South Australian wheat-fields were only reaped by the help of blackfellows, and some New South Wales squatters im- ported eighty Chinese— "a fine set of young able-bodied men of willing and tractable dispositions"— who, however, seem to have been only useful as navvies, and to have failed altogether as shepherds. Consequently wages doubled with- in the year, and doubled again by 1854, and prices rose almost proportionately. The huge inrush of population, however, gradually relieved this pressure; by 1858, for instance, the bricklayer, who before the gold-fever was get- ting 6s. per day, and at the height of it 30s., found his wages settling at about lis. Agriculture went through similar convulsions; in 1850 Australia had 491,000 acres under crop, in 1854 the acreage had dropped to 458,000, but by 1858 has risen again to 1,037,000. Wool-growing, on the other hand, suffered longer: there were so many more people to feed that it became profitable to kill sheep for food instead of keeping them alive for their wool; there was, too, a greater demand for cattle, and many squatters began to breed them instead of sheep, especially on country where the wool was of poor quality— so that the value of the wool increased despite the smallei numbers of 228 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. the flocks. These movements are reflected in the following figures: — No. of No. of Value of Sheep. Cattle. Wool Exported. 1851 .. . 17,515,798 1,924,482 ^1,979,527 1855 .. . 17,065,979 2,697,390 3,170,640 1859 .. . 15,443,617 3,275,850 4,236,693 During the fifties Victoria was exporting between ten and twelve million pounds' worth of gold per year, and was therefore attracting far more immigrants than New South Wales, whose production was usually less than one million pounds' worth. But in 1859 and the following years the Victorian production began to fall considerably, and the diggers on Victorian fields looked about them for other p. 160 employment. As has been already said, many of them returned to the occupations they had followed in Europe, and soon formed a compact body of artisans eager for fiscal protection. This at once established an industrial distinction between Victoria and the other colonies; in 1861, for instance, the principal manufacturing industries of both Victoria and New South Wales were flour-milling and brewing or distilling— in 1871 Victoria possessed flourishing clothing and boot factories and joinery works, while in New South Wales tanneries and brickworks and sawmills had come to the front. In Victoria, that is, they were manufacturing articles ready for use, while New South Wales was only preparing the raw material for manu- facture. It was to be many years yet, however, before the manu- factures of Australia were to be a really important part of her industrial life. The wool and coal of New South Wales, the gold and grain of Victoria, the grain and copper of South Australia, were still the staple products of those colonies, and their progress is marked by the atten- tion paid more and more exclusively to their particular staples. Thus in New South Wales during the later sixties agriculture fell more and more out of fashion, while sheep multiplied: but Victoria increased her farming area steadily, and South Australia hers enormously, exporting THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES. 229 her surplus grain both to the other colonies and to Great Britain. Note the following table: — Industrial Progress, 1861-71. (All figures x 1,000.) Acreage No. of Value of Populatiou. Cropped. Sheep. Coal. N.S.W., 1861 ., 351 261 5,615 ^219 1871 .. 504 418* 16,279 316 Yict., 1861 .. 540 440 6,239 1871 .. 732 937 10,002 S.A., 1861 .. 127 487 3,038 1871 .. 186 1,045 4,412 * In 1866 the figures were 451. As might be expected from the facts just noted, bread was cheapest in Adelaide and meat in Sydney, while Melbourne made up to some extent by paying less for vegetables and butter. Queensland, which had become a separate colony in 1861, was mainly taken up with developing its huge area of untouched country : to do this it embarked on a vigorous p- ^^ policy of " assisted immigration," and attracted more than two-fifths of the whole number received by Australia during the sixties. To Queenslanders, too, is due the introduction of two new industries— cotton-growing and sugar-planting; the former died out again in a few years, and is only now being revived with some hope of success, but sugar soon became a staple product of the Queensland coastal districts and the northern river-valleys of New South Wales. Still, in the industrial history of Australia the sixties are a period of relaxation. Many experiments, as we have seen, were tried, but few were carried on vigorously ; even railway extension was neglected— probably because money was so badly needed, especially by the New Zealand Government, to carry on its Maori wars, that the Australian Govern- ments could get none at a reasonable rate of interest. From 1872 onwards, however, Australia began to pro- gress much more quickly, for several reasons. The experi- ments were beginning to succeed; the sugar industry was becoming established in Queensland; the Victorian pro- tective duties, first imposed in 1867, were fostering the local manufactures of Melbourne. Again, while the gold-yield of the two principal colonies fell off greatly, fields were 230 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. opened up in Queensland and Tasmania, and the island was also found to possess valuable tin-mines. Thus the less populated colonies began to share more evenly in the conti- nent's prosperity. South Australia continued steadily to increase its area of farm-lands, and Victoria in 1877 found itself independent of outside supplies in the matter of food- stuffs. New South Wales, for its part, remained faithful to wool, and the inland parts of Queensland to cattle. C. A Crisis and the Recovery. During the eighties this prosperity continued and, on the whole, increased, being stimulated to an extent previously unthought of by enormous public borrowings. From 1881 to 1892 the annual loan expenditure of New South Wales alone averaged close on £3,000,000, and the other colonies were not far behind. This stimulus, however, was for the most part artificial; from 1885 onwards the price in Europe of Australian products began to fall, and the wool-growers— who still remained the chief source of the country's wealth— found themselves pinched for money. Consequently they borrowed from the banks, and the banks secured money from English capitalists, in far greater amounts than had hitherto been customary. It so happened that about the middle of the eighties the mining industry developed unexpectedly: silver mines were opened at Broken Hill, and in Western Tasmania; gold was found at Kimberley in Western Australia ; in Queensland the great Mount Morgan mine had been discovered a few years earlier. This spurt in mining concealed for some time the falling off in the pastoral industry, and the desire of people outside Australia to invest money in its industries became greater than ever. It is stated that Victoria, besides the amounts borrowed by her Government, received £31,500,000 of private capital from outside in the five years ending in 1890. But this artificial stimulus was bound to fail. After 1885 employers, besides borrowing from the banks, tried to reduce the wages of their employees. A period of strikes began, culminating in the seamen's and shearers' strikes of ^890, and the Broken Hill strike of 1892. The outside THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES. 231 capitalist became anxious about his investments. The Aus- tralian employer found his production decreasing because of the strikes, the European price of his products still fall- ing-, and his expenses steadily rising as he borrowed more money and had to pay more interest on it. The banks found themselves forced to go on lending to men already deeply in their debt, in a vain hope that things would some day and somehow improve. And so came the crisis of 1892-3. " In the light of subsequent events," says Mr. Coghlan, "it must be confessed that the crisis was by no means the disaster which has been pictured." For a year or two business languished, and industries were almost at a standstill; then men took heart again and set themselves to real work. There was much less borrowing, for very few would lend; there was much less speculation, for no one dared risk the little money he had left ; but there was much more and more varied genuine production. As it happened, the wool industry, which had always been Australia's chief reliance, suffered heavily in the nineties from bad seasons, and the consequent loss of sheep ; to compensate for that in part, a new trade in frozen meat and butter sprang into being, and soon became of permanent importance. By the end of the century Australia was again prosperous, and no longer had all its eggs in one basket. The following table is instructive: — Australian Industries Before and After the Crisis (All figures x 1,0'JO) 1891. 1901. Pastoral industry — Wool produced, lb. 543,496 509,903 Employees 54 69 Meat exported (frozen), cwt. 211 1,294 Dairying industry — Butter exported, lb. 4,194 23,537 Employees 21 44 Farming industry — (a) Area cultivated, acres . . . 5,430 8,812 Wheat production, bushels 27,118 48,353 Mining industry — (b) Gold production, £ 5,273 14,006 (c) Silver „ (N.S.W. only) oz. 730 448 Coal exported, tons 2,514 3,261 Notes, (a) The wheat area is rather more than half the total cultivated area. (b) The huge increase is due to the Western Australian fields. (c) N.S.W. accounts for about 90 per cent, of Australia's silver. 232 HISTORY OP AUSTRALASIA. Since 1901 three influences have gravely affected the in- dustries of the Commonwealth. The great drought of 1902, the culmination of many comparatively dry years, gave agriculture a serious but only temporary set-back: its most permanent effects, probably, have been the introduc- tion of improved methods of cultivation, and the increased attention paid to irrigation— the Burrinjuck dam on the Murrumbidgee in New South Wales, the establishment of carefully organized Government irrigation colonies in Vic- toria, and the arrangement by which South Australia is to use Lake Victoria in western New South Wales as a reservoir for the Murray's flood waters, are examples of the new energy in this direction. The adoption by the Federal Parliament in 1901-2, and more emphatically in 1907-8, of the fiscal policy of protection to local industries has greatly stimulated manufactures— especially in New South Wales, where the opposite policy had been in vogue before Federation; while the establishment of completely free trade between the States has " facilitated the internal distribution of the products of Australian industry " (Knibbs). In 1902 the factories of Australia employed less than 200,000 workers; in 1911 the number had risen to 312,000; and this increase was greatest in factories con- nected with clothing and machinery. The third influence- that of recent industrial legislation— has had a somewhat counteracting effect. Judges in some States, Wages Boards in others, have been given power to fix wages and conditions of labour in various industries, and employers or employees who violate their awards are punished. In making these awards the tendency has been to make the employee's welfare the first consideration— that is, to insist that his wages shall be large enough to let him live a healthy life, neither starved nor overworked; the result has been to raise wages all round, and the natural consequence of that has been to raise the price of manufactured goods (including most foodstuffs) to the consumer. But, besides raising prices, the factory-owners have found it wise to lower the cost of manufacture by better organization within their factories, which often means the consolidation of THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES. 233 several small businesses into one big and well-managed one, as well as the improvement of machines so that om employee can turn out more work than formerly. Thus neither the figures given above concerning employees, nor such figures as might be given to show an increase in the number of Australia's factories, can adequately represent her real progress in that regard. A phrase already used is worth repeating, because it expresses in brief the new departure in Australia's indus- trial history. Australia no longer has all her eggs in one basket. For a hundred years and more wool was king: gold in certain districts helped to bring population, but it is doubtful whether on the whole the gold-mining industry was in itself profitable— whether as much money has not been spent, in the aggregate, on winning the gold as has been made out of the yield. Wool has been of immense value to this country; no other product, one thinks, could have maintained settlers here in the early days at all. But to base its whole prosperity on that one product— so that a diminished yield, or a falling price in Europe, may gravely affect the whole community at the same moment— became foolish directly there was a chance of doing anything else. To-day wool is only one among several products which com- mand good markets outside Australia; in a few years it may be one among many. It is still, of course, the principal one; but whereas in 1881 it accounted for 16 millions out of 27 million pounds' worth of total exports, in 1901 it accounted for 24 millions out of 49, and in 1911 for only 26 out of 79. It is possible, seeing how far Aus- tralia is from the crowded markets of Europe, and how much lower than hers is the standard of wages in the still more crowded markets of the East, that her export trade will always be confined to foodstuffs and raw material ; still, all developments that increase the number of such products as can be readily sold to other nations go to ensure that her welfare shall be independent of fluctuations in any one of them. The task before her people is to discover by repeated experiments the best possible use for every acre of her vast territory. 234 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. D. Railways. Reference has been made in earlier chapters to the con- struction of various State railways; but it must be noted here that the same influences we have been talking of affected their progress also. A beginning had just been p. 159 made between Sydney and Parramatta when the gold-rush left the promoters without labour to carry on. When the first fever was past, New South Wales took the task seriously in hand as a Government affair; Victoria at first p. 164 preferred private undertakings with State assistance, but eventually adopted— as did the other colonies— the system of building all the main lines with public money under State control, and depending on private companies only for small branch lines, mainly serving mines and other private enter- prises. In the sixties railway construction was not exempt from the general lassitude; from 1875 onwards it was carried on as briskly as other industries, and, like them^ with special reference to the convenience of each colony's staple-product. The route taken by the New South Wales lines was determined by the needs of the wool-growers, who alone at the time could supply freight enough to make the lines pay: the Victorian lines connected the goldfields with Melbourne and sought out the best patches of farming p. 173 land ; in Queensland the southern lines were built to carry wool to port, the northern to carry sugar or to connect mining districts with the coast. Consequently the later developments of new farming industries have found the existing railway systems inconvenient in many ways; and one of the most important problems now engaging the attention of the various State Governments (especially in New South Wales and Queensland) is how to adapt the old systems— catering for the wool traffic and centred on the State capitals— to the new conditions, which demand quick transit for many kinds of produce to the nearest possible port. Queensland, indeed, is occupied with a double prob- lem; while her southern railways are being extended so as' to open up new agricultural districts, the need of her many isolated northern lines is for better inter-communication; THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES. 235 and in the near future two great trunk lines are to link up all her systems, one running northwards along her coast to Cairns, the other paralleling it not far from her western border. Besides their purely industrial use, railways are of great importance in defence. For this reason the Federal Government has particularly interested itself in schemes pro- viding trunk lines right across Australia, both from west to east— linking Western Australia with the eastern States — and from south to north— giving access by land to the almost unoccupied Northern Territory. And the question of inter-State communication involves another— that of the break of gauge. Owing to unfortunate misunderstandings when the first lines were being laid down (for which the curious may consult the Official Year-book for 1910, p. 692), the New South Wales lines were built to the stock European gauge, while Victoria and (in part) South Aus- tralia adopted one 6V2 inches broader: all the other lines are of much narrower gauge, because construction was thus cheapened and the scanty traffic of the early days needed nothing bigger. Directly, however, the various State lines met at the borders, this difference in gauges, involving re- peated trans-shipment of goods and passengers, was found extremely inconvenient, besides rendering the transport of troops in time of war a dangerously tedious business. In this matter also, therefore, the Federal Government is actively interesting itself and has decided that its rail- ways shall be built on the New South Wales gauge; this has forced the States to reconsider the matter, at least in respect of their share of the great Trunk Line ; and before long it may be made possible to travel from Perth or Port Darwin to Brisbane at least in one carriage, or even to place goods on a truck at Chillagoe in Northern Queens- land and ship them from the same truck on Fremantle wharf. CHAPTER XIV. -AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. A. Introductory. The men who do things have not usvally the leisure, or the inclination, to write about them. And the history of the world shows that a nation's literature flourishes, not in the years when the nation is occupied with great deeds, but in those which follow. Then, and not till then, men have time to think over what has been done, to take trouble about recording it truthfully, and to put into literary form the emotions of the doers: then, too, there is time for culti- vating and expressing one's private emotions, for describing what one sees, and for choosing fit language to portray effectively and admiringly the country one has grown to love. So the age of Elizabethan literature followed hard upon the age of Elizabethan achievement, just as the age of great Roman literature which we call after the Emperor Augustus followed on the stirring times during which Sulla and Pompey and Julius Caesar had extended Roman dominion over almost the known world. The rule holds equally good on a smaller scale. The pioneers of a young country are, as a rule, far too busy to write. And if there are any whose taste lies that way, their feelings and ideas will still be those of the other country whence they came: they will describe the new land as observers from outside, disparaging it as exiles do, or enjoying its novelty as discoverers do, but not yet absorbing its spirit and delighting in it because it is their own and they are part of it. For literature written by men who felt themselves Australian this land of ours had to wait seventy years— till the days of Kendall— and a hundred had passed before the movement began which has given us in recent years a literature genuinely Aus- tralian. AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 237 The history of our development falls into three epochs. The sixty years of pastoral colonization provide many journals of discovery, a few histories (mostly written for political reasons), and one poet, Charles Harpur. In the next forty years the inrush of immigrants following on the gold discoveries brought to the country a number of Englishmen with a taste for literature; for pleasure or for pay many of them indulged their taste, but only one, Gordon (for Kendall was native-born), wrote happily as a man in his own home. But during the last twenty years there has sprung up a school of young Australians who tell of their own life in their own natural way, and describe their own country as men who love it; so that through them a stranger can get at the heart of the people, not merely at the ideas formed about the people by interested outsiders. Naming these three epochs by their most typical writers, we may call the first the epoch of Wentworth, Lang, and Harpur— the second that of Kendall, Gordon, and Marcus Clarke— and the third that of Lawson, Paterson, and Daley. B. The Beginnings: Wentworth^, Lang, Harpur, Naturally enough, the first books that bore any impress of the new country were journals of discovery and records of its early history. The official journals of Governors Phillip and Hunter, and similar records made by Messrs. Tench, White, and Collins, deserve mention as the first written accounts of Australia under British authority, but have no literary value : nor has the History of New South Wales falsely called Barrington's, which is in the main a compilation from the works just mentioned. The first book issued from the printing press which Phillip brought with him was the General Standing Orders (1802) which served as laws for the young colony: the next year, as has been already mentioned, it printed the first newspaper p. 48 issued in Australia, the Sydney Gazette of March 5, 1803. The first known publication in verse was a loyal Ode for the King's Birthday by Michael Robinson, who seems to 238 HISTOKY OF AUSTRALASIA. have continued for some years his career as unofficial laureate of the colony. And in 1819 Charles Lamb's friend, NEW SOUTH WALES General* Standing Orders : ilLLUCTED FROM THE GENSR AL.O RDERS ISSUED BY FORMER GOVERNORS, FHOM THB l6thOF FkIKWART, I79I, TO THE6tI> OrSsPTBMBBR, 180O. ALSO. General Orders iffued by Governor King, FK*M •Tut iSxiiCf SerrsMaBR, i8oo, tothk 30th or StrTiM»m, 1801. m Eeduced Title Page of First Book Printed in Australia Barron Field, who had been for some time Judge of the N.S.W. Supreme Court, felt himself inspired to write the TK» S Y D N E And New South CAZ ETTE, Wales Advert ifer. PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY. Vol I. SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1803. Number 1. It ii hnepy ordered, thic^ll Advertirements', Orders, &c. which tpxzt {utier the OI&cUl Srgntture of the iecrenrjr of &>'a Colony, or of lay other Officrr of Government, properly aaihorifed to fublifh them in tli; Sv»«ir GAitTri, anr Niw South Waiei ADvtBTlil»> «re meant, and mull be deemed to conrey oiEcialan.'i fuScient Notifications, in the fam; Manner a»if#iey were particnluly fpecified to any on e IndiTidual, or Ochers; to whom fiich may have % Referooc*. By Comaiand of Hij ExceUeocy the Goremor and Couunanier ia Chie/, WIIXIAM NEATE CHAPMAN, i Sydney, March 5th, 1803. General Orders. ■n EPEATEP CojapUint* hann; been made of the great Icfles fitSiuned by the Settler* « H ontil fnither Oiden, «(Ca'U>fr Public Stores. V/heat wttf cootiooe to be nsceiyed into the Stores at S-ydner. enlil fvftlwr Orders. VVhfat will be JlTued ta the Civil, Mifi- ury, £x. until further Orden«--t9tcept 10 tee deticiimenn and labouring people ai Caftle- Hill, Seven-Hills, and other Out Pofts. who win receive Flour, as they have not the on venience of Mills. By Commsnd, Su, W. N, C H a f « aj« , .Sec Gijvemnient Houfe, feh. 2+, 180}. •J^HE GOVERNOR hnvi Mr. Robert C«mpbeU to bod .4000 G«l- ians of Spina far the domeftic ofe ef the In- habiunts, from the Caille o.*^ Good Hope it will be divided in the (ollowing pro- portion, vil. For the Officer! 00 the Civil EftaUiflunent, (inclodioj Sopeiitte/wiantt and Seore- kccpen], lOooGallom; For Naval and ,ViUury Commnnoned OSr een, 1000 Gallons ; Fv the licked Prople. fsodQ>^<«Hi To be diftiibaied to fucb Perfens as the GofcaMoa may think proper lo giant Permits to, loeo Gallons. 'Ite above to include the Civil and KfiU- ury Officers at Norfclk IlUnd. By CommanJ, &c. W.N.CHAPi«Aii,Sec. Government Huafe, March 4 iggy ADDRESS. Unumerable »» the OWlac'iet *eie whick threatened to oppofe our Under k>ng jreb we are happy to affirm, that \kty not iof«rmaanub\e, hotvever d^culi ihe talk before us. The wility ofa PAPER in the OOLOMY. a it mud open a Ource of MH ivformatiOB. will, we hooe, be univerfatty fM< and ac> knuwiedged. We havocourted tng alBi'tanwi frf the UfiHious and Iia thai has latislr t*ken place ui the Prices of maw Artkia ofcommon Csniuihf tioit. »» nil barn enabled ttfWake aa Abaiemeatiiinif Ciiarg<& «»d thai all Ordert with which he roar <>« honoured flail b» carcjiilly and punctsally executed. . Reduced Facsimile of Australia's First Newspaper 240 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. First Fruits of Australian Poetry, verses so extremely feeble that one's only excuse for referring to them is the fact that Lamb reviewed them in the Examiner. While on the subject of " first-printeds," we may note that the first Tasmanian newspaper, the Derwent Star, was issued in 1810, and that colony's first book, a life of Michael Howe, in 1818. As far as the native-born are concerned, Australian literature began with the Statistical, Historical, and Politi- cal Description of New South Wales, written by W. C. Wentworth, and the same author's poem Australasia; these were published in London in 1819 and 1823 respectively, but their author's birthplace, their subject, and the glow of Australian enthusiasm which permeates them, give us a permanent claim on them. Wentworth himself, on his return to Sydney, found bigger tasks awaiting him, and amid the turmoil of local politics could snatch no further time for literature: but it is pleasant to remember that the same zeal for his country's highest welfare instigated thirty years later his incorporation of the University of Sydney, by no means the least of his works for the land he loved. John Dunmore Lang was another author whose principal interests lay in the world of politics, and his writings, though nominally historical, are better described as enlarged political pamphlets whose fiery partizanship makes them better literature than history. Both he and Wentworth in the course of their career started newspapers, but the value of the matter printed in them is purely political. Lang, however, cultivated also other branches of authorship: a small volume of verse— Aurora Australis (1826)— and an ethnographical treatise On the Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation are the best known of his minor works. The one writer of this first period whose work had no ulterior motive, who devoted his intellect to literature alone, is Charles Harpur, of Windsor in New South Wales. Born in 1817, he spent the first twenty-six years of his life in unsettled fashion, but in 1843 settled down to farming life in the Hunter River valley. The quietude of the bush gave AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 241 him long-wished-f or opportunities of meditative observation ; and during the next twenty-five years he experimented steadily with verse of many kinds, taking his poetic mission very seriously, and often depressed beyond measure because it was scarcely recognised beyond the circle of his personal friends. Kendall has said for him the best that could be said : " And far and free this man of men. With wintry hair and wasted feature. Had fellowship with gorge and glen. And learned the loves and runes of Nature. But, as the under-currents sigh Beneath the surface of a river. The music of humanity Dwells in his forest psalm for ever." The verdict may stand, so long as we recognise that it applies only to his few finest poems—" The Creek of the Four Graves," for instance. Among the personal friends to whom reference has just been made one deserves special mention. Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse, when a young student of law in Edinburgh, had been a pupil of Sir William Hamilton and a friend of Thomas De Quincey. Coming to Sydney in 1830, he soon established an extensive practice, and devoted his rapidly accumulating wealth to all kinds of intellectual pleasure. His scholarly advice and his (for those days) splendid library were at the disposal of everj^one who cared for either. He was one of the original trustees of the Publie Library of New South Wales, and one of the first presidents of the Sydney School of Arts, and until his death in 1873- he was the judicious patron of every young Australian within his ken who showed a spark of literary talent. In the forties, however, there was little to patronise. Except in Harpur's case, literature Avas a mere handmaid to other professions, and Wentworth and Lang were not the only men who exploited their powers of expression mainly in the service of the political press. Wentworth's- P 242 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Australian, first published in 1824, was the colony's first non-official newspaper, and continued for twenty-four years a stormy existence. Lang's Colonist lasted only five. In 1831 began the still-continuing career of the Sydney Herald, which assumed its present name (Sydney Morning Herald) shortly after its transformation to a daily paper. In 1844 appeared the Atlas, probably the most brilliant journal ever published here, which, during its life of four and a half years, enlisted the services of Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke and Mr. Gladstone's Chan- cellor of the Exchequer), James Martin (twice Premier of New South Wales and afterwards Chief Justice), and William Forster, also for a short time Premier of the mother colony. In 1850 Henry Parkes, springing into political prominence in connection with the Anti-transporta- tion League, founded and carried on for nearly eight years the Empire, for which Martin and Forster also wrote. No other Australian colony could in those days boast of journals to match the Atlas and the Empire: in Sydney alone was there the stress of political conflict which sufficiently excited the brains of able men. But each settle- ment, as it came into existence, evolved a press of its own. The first Melbourne journal was the Advertiser, John Pascoe Fawkner's paper, in whose first issue ("given away to householders") its proprietor advertised his hotel as providing — " Mental and Bodily refreshment unrivalled in this " quarter of the globe. Lodgers allowed the use of "the Library Gratis. There are 7 English & 5 " Colonial weekly papers, & 7 monthly & 3 Quarterly " Reviews from Britain." Not so bad for a town less than a year old, and 12,000 miles from Britain! Adelaide already had its Register (1837) ; Perth got its Inquirer in 1840; Brisbane its Courier in 1844. At the beginning of this section we noticed the journals of the first explorers and Governors; it may be suitably closed with some reference to later journals of exploration. AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 243 Blaxland (p. 39) published his journal in London in 1823, Avhere Oxley (p. 41) had already issued his in 1820. Hume and Ho veil (pp. 51-53) waiting till 1837, were able to publish theirs in Sydney; but Sir Thomas Mitchell reverted to the earlier practice, describing his earlier series of expeditions (pp. 60-62) in a London publication of 1838, and his later (p. 141) in 1848. Sturt's account of the Murray voyage (pp. 54-57) came out in 1833; that of his Central Australian journey (pp. 137-139) in 1849. From the literary point of view only MitchelFs work is worth consideration. C. The Immigrant Observers: and Kendall. The gold-rush of the fifties peopled Australia with adventurers of many kinds, including a number of highly- educated Englishmen who soon found the diggings uncon- genial, and resumed their old professions in the new land. The intellectual life of Melbourne was for a short time enriched by the arrival of William Howitt, a well-known English writer, wlio after a stay of two years went back to England and did a good deal there to advertise the Australian colonies. (His eldest son, Alfred, was the p-^^ explorer who found King, sole survivor of the Burke and Wills expedition). With Howitt came Richard "Orion" Home, so nick-named from a poem he published in 1843 at the price of one farthing, but allowed to be sold only on condition the purchaser pronounced its title correctly. While in Australia— where he stayed till 1868— he wrote nothing of any literary value, but his reputation and strong character made his influence great among the Melbourne writers. In Sydney during these years a similar, but more effective and permanent, influence was exercised by James Lionel Michael. In London he had been a solicitor, a friend of Ruskin and Millais, and a strong supporter of the famous " Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood," one of whose founders- Thomas Woolner— came at the same time to Australia. The diggings, his original goal, lost their attraction on closer acquaintance, and he took up again his legal work, which 244 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. soon brought him within the circle dominated by Stenhouse. MichaeFs own writings, however, like those of most mem- bers of that circle, showed only ephemeral cleverness; his title to remembrance rests on the kindness he showed and the guidance he gave to Australian's first— and still, some think, her best— real poet, p. 268 Mention is made further on of Thomas KendalL missionary and first resident magistrate in New Zealand. After his trip to England with Hongi he seems to have come back to New South Wales, where Governor Darling gave him a small estate near Ulladulla. There, in 1841, was born his grandson, Henry Clarence Kendall, among " the deep, green, gracious glens " whose spirit was to haunt his verses till the end. From the southern valley of his birth the five-year-old boy was taken to the even lovelier northern valley of the lower Clarence, where he was left an orphan. In 1857 verses of his were printed in a Sydney paper, and presently attracted the attention of Sheridan Moore, one of the Stenhouse-Michael coterie, who sought the young poet out and brought him into the circle. There he met Harpur and Henry Parkes (who had already printed some of his verses in the Empire) f D. H. Deniehy— of whom more later— and Dr. Woolley, principal of the Sydney University. But the closest of his new friends was Michael, who gave him work in his office and encouraged him to read the best modern poetry. When Michael in 1861 removed his office to Grafton, Kendall went back with him, but apparently did not stay long. In 1862 Kendall boldly sent a selection of his best work to the Athenaeum, then the principal critical journal in London. Three poems, with favourable comment appended, appeared in the issue of September 27, 1863; but before it could reach Sydney a complete volume— Poems and Songs- had been published there by subscription, and had been deservedly praised. (Both British and Australian critics, we may note, reserved their real praise for the poems which dealt with Australian subjects.) Meanwhile his friends AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 245 found him work in the Government sei-vice : in 1863 he was given a clerkship in the Lands Department, and in 1866 Henry Parkes, then Colonial Secretary, transferred him to his own office — a method of encouraging literary talent which has been employed often since, in more than one colony. This promotion enabled him to marry, but was abandoned in 1869 in favour of migration to Melbourne, where he had won a prize the year before in a poetica. competition— R. H. Home being the judge— and where he hoped among a less staid and pre-occupied reading public to make his living by writing alone. Almost immediately on arrival he published his second important collection of poems, Leaves from Australian Forests; but the buying public of Melbourne was not yet educated up to proper appreciation of local poetry, however genuine, and the book was commercially a failure. For journalism of the popular kind he was quite unfitted, and no other literary work could provide a livelihood; in 1871 he returned to Sydney, broken in health and heart-sick at the death of his little daughter Araluen, and did not recover— despite the care of Henry Parkes and other staunch friends— until in 1873 he was put in charge of a timber-felling business at Camden Haven, on the north coast. Once back in his beloved bush, he regained strength and courage, and his last years were passed in placid comfort.. In 1880 his last and best hook— Songs from the Mountaina —was not only well-praised but well-bought, and the next year Sir Henry Parkes created for him the office of Super- intendent of State Forests; but the work involved rough travel, for which he was no longer fitted, and brought abour his death on August 1, 1882. KendalFs life is worth studying in detail because one gets thus some idea of the difficulties which beset even a writer of genius in Australia not so long ago. The patronage of Stenhouse, the friendship of Michael, the continued support of Parkes and Dalley, could not secure for the man they all admired the restful, untroubled life which might have developed his genius fully. In part this was due— as any 246 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. more detailed account of his life will show— to inherited defects in Kendall's own character; but, when the fullest allowance is made for these, it is still impossible to com- mend the social conditions under which genius could only be encouraged by setting it to clerical work in a Government Department. Kendall is the one Australian— probably the one colonial —poet whom British critics have so far recognised as to include him on equal terms in an anthology of British poetry. He owes this honour not so much to the matter of his verse— for he knew little about men, and was by no means a close observer of nature— as to the true lyrical cry, the ear for delicately beautiful phrasing, the poignancy of emotion, which all his best work discloses. The " Prefatory Sonnets " and " Rose Lorraine " from the collection of 1869, " Orara " and " After Many Years " from the book of 1880, may be taken as typical, though he did stronger work than any of them. And young Australians will do well to respect him both as a poet who strove always to do better than the best he had done, and as a man who never shifted on to others* shoulders the responsibility for troubles which he knew were his own fault. Almost parallel to Kendall's career runs that of a fellow- poet with whose name his is generally coupled. Adam Lindsay Gordon, born of British parents in Fayal of the Azores, trained as a boy in Cheltenham under Cotswold, on the edge of the Badminton hunting country, had got him- self into trouble with his family over a horse and a love- affair to such an extent that exile to Australia was the only cure. He reached Adelaide in 1853, with introductions to the Governor and other influential people in his pocket; but life in the mounted police, unhampered by the social connections which had harassed him in England, attracted him for two years, after which he worked in the Mount Gambier district as a professional horsebreaker. There he found his Michael in Julian Tenison Woods, who was then doing mission work on the Victorian border, and later on became one of the most distinguished men of science Aus- AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 247 tralia has produced; and this friendship revived in Gordon the love for classical literature which pervades his verses. Marrying in 1862, in 1864 he inherited a legacy from his mother, and the next year entered the local Parliament, defeating the Attorney-General and thereby driving a Ministry to resignation. But Parliament— which he treated to classical allusions and quotations— had no charms for him; he preferred steeplechase riding in Adelaide, Ballarat, and Melbourne, and began to send racing rhymes to a Melbourne sporting paper. Bell's Life in Victoria. During Henry Clarenpe Kendall Adam Lindsay Gordon 1866 were published in that way verses probably more quoted than any others written in Australia: " No game was ever yet worth a rap For a rational man to play Into which no accident, no mishap Could possibly find its way," and " Life is mostly froth and bubble ; Two things stand like stone — Kindness in another's trouble. Courage in your own." Presently his verses began to appear in the Australasian ^ 248 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. then the most literary of Australian journals; and in Sep- tember, 1867, he published Sea Spray and Smoke Drift, in which the racing verses were bound up with better and more serious work. The book was a failure ; its author was practically unknown except to readers of BelVs Life, and its often colloquial and careless style offended the taste of critics who believed poetry to be a thing apart from ordinary life, worthless unless it was at least dignified. A second volume, Ashtaroth, failed even more utterly and for better reason. His legacy, too, had been badly invested, and he went back to his favourite steeplechasing, which he combined for one disastrous year with a livery-stables business in Ballarat. In 1869, while holiday-making in his old South Australian haunts, he wrote the verses by which he is best known—" The Sick Stockrider " and " How We Beat the Favourite "—and later in the same year estab- lished himself in the Melbourne suburb of Middle Brighton, where George Higinbotham gave him the run of a fine library. He was already a favourite with the journalistic coterie that suited Henry Kendall so ill, and seemed at last on the way to a life of comfort and content, when in 1870 three misfortunes overtook him almost simultaneously. In March he was thrown from his horse during a race, and badly hurt about the head; early in June news came from England that his claim to a Scottish barony, in forwarding which he had spent much borrowed money, was found un- tenable; on the twenty-third of that month his third book, Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes, was ready for publi- cation, and the statement he obtained from the publishers, showing the cost of publishing it, crushed his spirit beyond redemption. Next morning he shot himself. No greater contrast can be imagined than that between Oordon and Kendall ; yet the two were friends for the short time they knew each other, and admired each other's work; KendalFs review of Bush Ballads was cordial even to flattery, and the verse in which he mourned for the elder poet declares unreservedly that Gordon "... sang the first great songs these lands can claim To be their own." AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 249 In a way this criticism is misjudged. Gordon never became an Australian. He did not love the countiy as Kendall did; he loved life, especially life in the open, a rider's life. His strongest poem, " Britomarte," and his best-known, " How We Beat the Favourite," both deal with English scenes, and the bulk of his work is full of English reminiscences. But what in England would have been the oases of a humdrum life— the sunlit, air-wrapt rides, " Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while," — were the everyday life of the southern Australian bush in Gordon's day; and it is the life, the riding, the race, the fight that he celebrates, not one of its environments rather than another. For that— because his verse is always alive, even at its melancholy moments, with the joy and energy and adventure of the old bush days— Australians have taken Gordon to their hearts, and count him one of themselves. When, seven years after Gordon's death, a Melbourne publisher issued a complete edition of his verse, the chosen editor was Marcus Clarke, then the most famous of Vic- torian writers. Few men were really less fit to edit Gordon. Clarke knew hardly anything of the bush— his short ex- perience of it had not been pleasant; he was a city man to the core, a brilliant but rather shallow journalist; his pre- face attributes to Australia outside the cities a weirdness which was really only a result of his city-bred discomfort in strange surroundings, and a melancholy wdiich was, in fact, a part of Gordon's own nature. Unfortunately his reputation and the charm of his phrases have imposed on the minds of readers, both in Australian cities and in Britain, a quite unreal picture of the bush. His talent was far better emploj^ed on the work which will make him always remembered— For the Term of His Natural Life, a power- ful and unforgettable novel of the British penal system as it was administered in Norfolk Island and at Port Arthur during the forties. Again, unfortunately, he managed to create a false impression about Australia; for few readers take the trouble to remember that these two great prisons 250 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. were conducted under British law by British officials, were isolated from their surroundings, and had scarcely more to do with Australian life than if they had been situated on Dartmoor and at Portland. The work itself, however, it is hard to over-praise. It has been called sensational; but that epithet is usually applied to stories which affect the reader by subjecting- the hero to rare and extreme trials, while the trials of Clarke's hero, when once the " system " had gripped him, were the ordinary everyday life of those penal settlements. In that lies the tragedy : Clarke neither exagge- rates it nor spares us a throb of it; he fascinates with legiti- mate horrors, and uses his material like a master-craftsman. In dealing with the three greatest names of this period, we have passed over several that deserve some notice. Daniel Henry Deniehy, pupil of Stenhouse and friend of R. H. Home, is remembered rather for his reputation among his fellows than for his literary work, nearly the whole of which was as ephemeral as journalistic politics and criticism must be. But the reputation was one, to quote Stenhouse, "for high intellectual culture and brilliant oratorical powers'' unequalled even among his talented contemporaries. Notable, too, as politician and journalist, less meteoric as to career, but happier in a long life of useful service to his country and his friends, was William Bede Dalley. And the missing novel of Australian life, the antidote to Clarke's tragic gloom, was written for us by Henry Kingsley, a five-years' visitor who loved the bush like Gordon for its airiness, and better than Gordon for itself. Geoffry Hamlyn, much of which he wrote on a station in the Western District of Victoria, where in the fifties the old pastoral life was still untroubled by the gold-fever, depicts that life with pleasant optimism but substantial accuracy; however idyllic the picture may seem, it is confirmed by the evidence of experts— of Thomas A. Browne, for instance, whose Old Melbourne Memories, a squatter's reminiscences of life in the forties, covers much the same ground. The years after Gordon's death saw no literary produc- tion of importance in Southern Australia. Clarke's great AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 251 novel was written in 1870-1; Kendall published nothing till 1880. The gap is partly filled 'by a Queensland writer, James Brunton Stephens, who had to write without the encouragement of patrons or journalist friends, and whose work probably gained thereby in studied excellence what it may have lost in emotional freedom. Known to Aus- tralian readers mainly by his lighter verse, it is for his grave, scholarly, and deeply thoughtful poems— the first and still the best of their class in Australia— that he de- serves careful study; though it is perhaps equally remark- Mabcus Clarke James Brunton Stephens able that one man should have succeeded so well in both kinds. His life was uneventful; from a tutorship on a station— where he wrote his most ambitious and not alto- gether successful poem, " Convict Once "—he passed to the Queensland Education Department, and thence in 1883 to the Colonial Secretary's office, in which the work soon demanded all his brain power and left him neither time nor inclination for further literary production. He became Principal Under-Secretary, and died in 1901; but the last twenty years of life had added little to his poetical output. 252 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. and his high water mark was reached in 1877, with that noblest of Australian patriotic hymns, " The Dominion of Australia." In journalistic literature this period is not over-rich; but the Freeman^ s Journal and the Southern Cross (the former still in existence, the latter dying within a year) contained some of the best work of Dalley and Deniehy. A History of New South Wales .... and other Australasian Settlements was published in 1862 by Roderick Flanagan, and a better, though incomplete, one— The History of Aus- tralian Discovery and Exploration— hy Samuel Bennett in 1866. And we may fairly include the Speeches and Lectures of Dr. Woolley (published in 1864) and Dr. Badham— the first principals of the University of Sydney— among the valuable products of Australia's second literary period. D. The Work of the Native-born: Paterson, Lawson, &c. In 1885 and the following years young writers, mostly Australian-born, seem to have begun feeling their feet to such an extent that in 1888 it was found possible to publish in London two collections of Australian verse. Philip Holdsworth and Thomas Heney in Sydney, and Mary Hannay Foott in Brisbane, represented the new impulse towards a genuine local poetry of observation, written (mainly under Kendall's influence) in scholarly but con- ventional phraseology. The Australian-born novel— the tale, that is, of lives lived among, and influenced by, Aus- tralian conditions, told by authors similarly influenced— had been ushered in a few years earlier by the first stories of Mrs. Cross (" Ada Cambridge ") ; Mrs. Campbell Praed and Madame Couvreur ("Tasma") soon followed; but the best known work of this kind was due to Thomas A. Browne ("Rolf Boldrewood "), whose Old Melbourne Memories has already been mentioned. As he came to the country when only four years old, he may be reckoned an Australian native; and thirty years of bush life, first as a squatter, then as magistrate and goldfields warden in AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 253 New South Wales, helped him to know the land he wrote (and still writes) about as few of our authors have done. Armed with this knowledge, he had poured forth a long array of novels which depend for their interest less on their plot and development of character than upon the well- studied types embodied in their minor characters. Bohhery Under Arms, a perhaps over-sensational study of the bush- ranging times, is famous the world over; and The Miner^s Right and The Squatter's Dream, whose titles explain their themes, fall not far short of it. By rights, however, he Thomas A. Browne John Fabrell should be classed among the writers of the previous epoch, for his principal characters are never at home in Australia; Britain is their home, and the return to it the happy ending of their story. While these authors— practically all, except Rolf Boldre- wood, of the " studious observer " class— were publishing work written during the late seventies, a new school of writers was taking form. Men who were doing work or undergoing experiences in the bush began to put their work and experiences into words, at first for the pleasure of their 254 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. mates, then for the instruction of the city-folk who knew so little about them. Of course this was not a new thing; wherever men have worked together from the beginning of the world, some of them have, for the delight of all, strung together rhymes and stories of the work they were doing, and the folk they were living with. Early Australia, too, had its ballad-mongers, shaping the life of their fellows into crude and rugged, but sincere and sometimes captivat- ing, verse. In the eighties, however, two fresh factors were introduced. The spread of State-school education gave workers in the bush a more articulate speech in which to explain their feelings, at the same time that saw a migra- tion up-country of adventurous, well-educated youths who took cheerily to bush life— not, as in the old Kingsley- Boldrewood days, as "bosses," but as co-workers and mates of the men already there. And this fresh source of bush- song and story found a new channel ready to receive it. In 1881 there appeared in Sydney a new weekly paper, the Bulletin. At the back of its owners' minds lay the keen desire to stimulate among Australians a love of their own country for its own sake; and from the first they printed, and paid for, every contribution in prose or verse which seemed to be inspirited by such a love, except where the style was too impossibly crude. The result has been the accumulation of a mass of written matter, not often ^' literary " in any strict sense of the word, but instinct with the Australian spirit in most of its guises, and including here and there literature more genuine and of higher quality than any previous epoch can show. Two poems at least of that high quality are the work of John Farrell (1837-1904), most of whose work was done for the Bulletin, and was published with the help of W. B. Dalley and the strong approbation of Brunton Stephens— not to mention the commendation, which came later, of Tennyson himself. Long practice in journalism, and wide reading, gave Farrell what many others of this school have lacked— the power of selection; he wrote, probably, as much as any of them, but edited his work for publication relent- AUSTRALIAJS LITERATURE. 255 lessly. Only sixteen poems did he think worthy to survive; but among them are "Australia " and "Australia to Eng- land" (the latter written for Queen Victoria's second Jubilee), which rank with Brunton Stephens' "Dominion" verses as the high-water mark of our patriotic song. The best-known writers of the Bulletin school are A. B. Paterson and Henry Lawson, who will probably go down to posterity in company, like Gordon and Kendall. Between them they sum up the greater part of bush life and bush- men's aspirations. Paterson, taking to the life for recrea- Andeew Barton Paterson Henry Lawson tion and adventure, sees the happier and more humorous side of it ; his heroes are horse-lovers, whose memories recall the bush at its best, who can enjoy the give-and-take of practical joking; his drover rides singing behind his stock, and " Sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars." Lawson's drovers are of a different kidney, and the sunlit plains mean to them " Shrivelled leather, rusty buckles, and the rot is in our knuckles Scorched for months upon the pommel while the brittle rein hung free ; " 256 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. his heroes mostly fare a-foot, and steem to have struck the bush in times of drought; the life he knows best is the life of the man who cannot get away from up countiy, yet cannot settle down there, the " traveller " or swagman, the vagabond by nature— and of the woman " past carinV the drover's wife whose husband will never come back, the victims of men or of ill-fortune. Paterson enjoys the good days now; Lawson's are in the past or the future— the '' roaring days " of the gold-rush, or those " when the world shall grow wide " again. Because men naturally love to be told of things pleasant and laughable, they read and quote oftener the happier poet's verses; but in Lawson there is a vein of genius— richer perhaps in While the Billy Boils and his other prose works, the best of which are the only prose fiction yet written in Australia that can rank with that of the best modern European writers. Barcroft Boake, of the same school, is remembered mainly by one haunting set of verses " Where the Dead Men Lie " ; Edwin Brady has done for the shipping folk, and Edward j^y son for the miners, in pleasant unstudied fashion what Paterson and Lawson have done for the men who handle cattle and sheep. Will H. Ogilvie is a more lyrical but less Australian Paterson, celebrating like him bush horses and bush mates, but keeping his best gift of song to recall the Scottish borderland where he was born. All these writers are counted as New South Wales men; the bush, however, takes little account of State boundaries, and knows them siinply as Australians. This outburst of worker-poetry did not supplant or dis- courage verse-writers of the observant, contemplative school, though its New South Wales origin may partly account for the fact that the observers of the nineties appeared chiefly in Victoria. The most notable of them was William Gay, a sonneteer of some excellence; Bernard O'Hara and Bernard O'Dowd are still writing, and, with G. Essex Evans, of Toowoomba in Queensland, and Roderic Quinn, of Sydney, make up a handful of reputable minor poets of whom no country need be ashamed. Apart from AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 257 them, as from the purely bush poets, stands Victor James Daley. At Dawn and Dusk, his first volume of verse, has more of the magic of pure poetry in it than all the rest put together. But the greater part of it, as of all the work mentioned in this paragraph, might have been written any- where. The general literature of this period is very varied, but not much of it can be claimed as especially Australian. The Centennial Magazine (1888-90) and the Australian nne (1899) maintained, while they lived, a high Will H. Ogilvie Victor J. Daley standard of literary worth. Rusden's History of Australia is the most serious and detailed historical work attempted here ; George Collingridge and Ernest Favene have narrated the story of the discoverers and the explorers; and biography is creditably represented by E. E. Morris's Life of George Higinhotham and G. C. Henderson's Life of Sir George Grey. Much other work of the period, both his- torical and scientific, is Australian in matter; the few just mentioned deserve selection because their authors were Aus- tralian (qualified for the name at least by long residence) and they are well-written. Q 258 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. E. Literature in New Zealand. In New Zealand the course of literary development has been like that already described, but later throughout, since the colonisation of the islands was later. The first book devoted to New Zealand alone was published in London in 1807; but the first book corresponding to the journals of Phillip, Collins, &c., was E. J. Wakefield's account of the foundation of Wellington, published in 1845. The missions to the Maoris had long since begun to give the native language a written form; a small lesson-book, Korao no New Zealand (Sydney, 1815), Kendall and Lee's Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand (London, 1820), and a fragment of a New Testament— sixteen pages bound in pink blotting paper, the first book produced in the islands, printed with great difficulty by William Colenso in 1834— are worth noting. The first local verse was R. C. Joplin's New Zealand, a poem in three cantos, published in Auckland in 1843. Genuine literature may be said to begin with Judge Maning's Old New Zealand in 1863. Maning had lived for years as a Pakeha Maori (see p. 267), and his fresh, vividly written story of those days is one of the most valuable documents in the islands' history. The first important poem. Domett's Banolf and Amohia, is well-known because of its author's reputation, but too much lengthened by irrele- vancies to tempt many readers for its own sake. Domett was in England a close friend of Robert Browning, who wrote at least two poems on his account; landing in New Zealand in 1842, he settled in Nelson, entered politics, and in 1862 became for a short time Premier of the colony. Much travelling and keen observation gave him a very wide and full knowledge of the country and its Maori inhabi- tants, which was, from the artistic point of view, a hin- drance to his poetical work. The other memorable name of the " immigrant " school is that of Thomas Bracken, miner and journalist, who is, however, chiefly known outside New Zealand by one poem only, " Not Understood." AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 259 In recent years there seems to be no response in New Zea- land to the Paterson-Lawson school of Australia; but the contemplative observers are many, the romantic beauty of the New Zealand bush inspiring more descriptive verse than Australian scenery can— for a man must know Australia, but need only see New Zealand, to feel the poetry inherent in each. Hubert Church, Jessie Mackay, and Dora Wilcox are of this observant school, and Miss Mackay has a fine lyrical gift in addition. From it, too, springs Arthur H. Adams, whose range travel has widened, and whose pub- lished volumes include verse of genuine patriotism and of notable character-drawing. The Dominion's prose fiction includes neither a Geofry Hamlyn nor a While the Billy Boils; the best work of H. B. Marriott Watson, a born New Zealander, has nothing to do with his native land, and the only noteworthy names are those of G. B. Lancaster and William Satchell. On the other hand, the historical work of William Pember Reeves is better than anything of a similar kind done in Australia. CHAPTER XV.-NEW ZEALAND IN THE EARLY DAYS. A. The Maoris and Their Land. About twelve hundred miles south-east of the coast of LsLna ^^w South Wales lie two long and narrow islands whose recent history has been closely bound up with that of the Australian continent. Like it, they were isolated from the rest of the world until very modern times. Like it, they were discovered and left unused by the Dutch, re-discovered and in the end occupied by the English; and the English occupation was in their case also hurried on because we feared that the French would fore- stall us. In almost every other respect they differ from it very much. Australia is a dry land of vast plains and low perverse ridges; its trees are fond of a stiff grey foliage that is admirably suited to withstand hot winds; its natives are few in proportion to its area, and their chief occupation is procuring food enough to keep them alive. In nearly three million square miles of continent only two or three hummocks in one corner rise more than seven thousand feet from the sea. The islands of New Zealand, on the other hand, are mountainous from end to end, and the one great plain of Canterbury is furrowed with rivers fed from perpetual snow. Almost everywhere, save on ridges lofty enough to be covered with ice, there is fertile soil covered with pasture, or bush, or forest, all equally green. The natives, called Maoris, were (until white men came) spread thickly over the whole of the North Island and a great part of its southern neighbour. Food was abundant, and not even the constant wars between the tribes could keep down their numbers. Them- Thcsc Maoris did not reach their present home so very long before the white men. Their legends, which agree NEW ZEALAND IN THE EARLY DAYS. 261 well with those of other islands in the Pacific, tell us they came originally from " Hawaiiki," bringing with them the plants which were their chief food— the calabash-gourd, the taro, and the sweet potato. Hawaiiki has been identified by some authorities with Hawaii, in the Sandwich Islands: and it is certain that Maori and Samoan and Hawaiian are of the same stock. But others think that they all came originally from Malaysia; and there still are cousins of theirs on the Maclay coast of New Guinea. About the time when Edward III. was ravaging France, canoe after canoe was pouring out its warriors upon the North Island of New Zealand to harry and to extirpate some earlier race of whom we know nothing. " Te Ika a Maui " the warriors called this new home of theirs—" The fish of Maui" — which he, their god, drew up from the sea depths to give them a resting-place after their weary voyage. The southern island was " Te Wai Pounamu "— " The water of greenstone " — a valuable stone, very hard, of which the chiefs made their axes; and indeed it was this island and its greenstone that the whole expedition had set out to look for. But for some reason or other (probably the colder winters of the south, to which these natives of the tropics were unused) they never completely covered Te Wai Pounamu; the lands on which we found them in any number comprised the whole of " Maui's Fish," and the northern end only of its neigh- bour. On these they settled down to farm and fight— for in farming and fighting, and sometimes fishing, the Maori's life was spent. They cultivated the yam and the sweet potato, which, with fern roots and dried fish, were the main part of their diet. But these were labours of necessity. Their amusement was to fight; they took their fighting in the same spirit as stirs us to a cricket match. If their enemy was starving they sent him food; they saw no fun in fighting starving men. If he had another engagement, or wanted to get in a crop, they put off the attack till he was ready. There were even cases in which the two parties met beforehand for a friendly discussion of the plan of 262 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. campaign. Still, when the war-game began, they took it very seriously. There was no make-believe about the slaughter. "Come ashore ! come ashore !" they called out to Cook ; " come and be clubbed to death !" Dead enemies they ate to crown their triumph ; for to be eaten was the worst of disgraces. Their Qut of a multitude of customs that astonished and puzzled their European visitors two specially deserve notice. One was called the Muru (literally, plunder). By this custom a man who committed certain offences rendered himself liable to have his property taken from him by a party of raiders, one of whom would in serious cases also fight a duel with him. This raiding in itself was evidently a kind of rough justice for wrong done, just as a wrongdoer nowadays is ordered by a judge to pay a sum of money as damages to the person injured. What made the Maori custom puzzling was the nature of the acts which provoked it. If a man's child was burnt to death accidentally, the mother's relations had the right of plundering the negligent father. A bush fire that ran across some old, deserted burial ground would subject the man who first lit it to a raid at the hands of everyone whose ancestors had been buried there. Moreover, the offender felt insulted if no raid was made on him. The greater the crime the more property was taken, and it was the highest possible com- pliment to take everything and club the offender as well. One can understand that when this custom was first enforced against Europeans the result was bad blood; for the white man, not knowing what wrong he had done, looked upon his raiders as so many barefaced thieves, and the Maoris were indignant that any objection should be made to a rule so well understood among themselves. The Muru applied only to white men living among the TheTapu natives. The second custom, the Tapu, was a matter of greater moment, and was probably at the bottom of most collisions between Maori and European. This Tapu had two branches: in one light it was a sacredness attaching to certain people and their property, which prevented other NEW ZEALAND IN THE EARLY DAYS. 263 people from interfering with them; in another it was an accursedness attaching to certain people and their pro- perty, which forbade them to have any dealings with the rest of the tribe. The Tapu of sacredness, for instance, applied to all chiefs; what belonged to them might not be touched by any meaner man. Food cooked for a chief, thought the Maori, would poison a slave; a fire blown up by a chief's breath was not for a commoner's cooking. On the other hand, all who touched a dead body (except in war), or had to do with the burying of one, were Tapu in the other sense. If they entered a house it must be destroyed; if they touched any man he was unclean perhaps for months. Their hands, more especially, were so utterly accursed that food touched by the hand was useless even for its owner, and he had to feed off the ground, gnawing what others threw to him as best he could with hands behind his back. Nor was a Tapu necessarily permanent. A man or place might be approach- able to-day and Tapu to-morrow. The sweet-potato fields were Tapu at harvesting-time, and their cultivators on any working day. A white man living with natives might in time find out some of the complex rules which governed these matters; but explorers were almost sure sooner or later to fall into some trap, and then, as with the Muru, bad blood resulted, the European thinking the Maori un- reasonable, the Maori feeling that the European was an impious ruffian. B. Early Discoveries (1642-1774). The first discovery of New Zealand by white men has p. 5 already been mentioned. Tasman in 1642, sailing east- ward from Tasmania, anchored off the end of South Island* in the bay now named after him. Before he could land his Tasman ships were attacked by a fleet of war canoes, and a boat's crew in passing from one ship to the other lost three men. * strictly speaking, Te Wai Pounamu is Middle Island, and Stewart Island is South Island ; but of late years the name " Middle " Island has been dropped, and the two large islands are called North and South respectively. 264 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. At that Tasman fired on the canoes, and the Maoris fled in disorder. But the attack had been fierce enough to make him doubtful about landing. He sailed away northwards —never finding out that there was a big strait close to him —named the northernmost cape he saw after Governor Van Diemen's wife, and made for Batavia by way of Fiji and the north coast of New Guinea. On his map the new country is called Statenlandt, but Dutch geographers soon changed the name to that which it still bears— New Zealand. For more than a hundred years the Maoris were left Cook alone. Then came Cook, searching for the Great South Land, eager to know whether this coastline of Tasman's charting was one of its northern promontories. On October 8, 1769, he landed in Poverty Bay, but his boat party was at once attacked, and a Maori had to be shot before the white men could get away. Still Cook did not despair. He landed again next day, and tried to make friends with the natives through Tupia, a Tahitian whom he had brought with him. Tupia's language was understood, but it seemed impossible to keep the natives quiet; there was a second scuffle, and another Maori was shot. Then Cook tried to capture some of them, and succeeded in taking three boys. Kind treatment pacified them, but when they were landed again their countrymen made no effort to be more friendly than before. So Cook gave up his attempts in disgust, and sailed southwards along the coast. Here he was in another tribe's territory, and had better success; now and then a few Maori warriors would come on board, and some went so far as to stay among the strangers all night. Presently, at a cape which he called Turnagain, he altered his course and stood back to the northwards, and there, not long after passing Poverty Bay again, he found a tribe friendly enough to take him through their village and explain their way of life. So he coasted along round East Cape and the great curve of the Bay of Plenty till he came to Mercury Nov., 1769 Bay, where he took formal possession of the land for England; then, still hugging the coast, he made for Tas- man's Cape Maria Van Diemen, and from there struck NEW ZEALAND IN THE EARLY DAYS. 265 across the open sea past Cape Egmont to the bay where Tasman had first anchored. Avoiding his predecessor's mistake, he surveyed the deep bight more carefully, and discovered the strait which bears his name; and on the shores of Queen Charlotte's Sound took possession of South Jan. 30, 1770 Island in the name of the British King. A short voyage took him up the east coast to Cape Turnagain, and being thus sure that this northern land was an island (since he had now sailed round it) he turned south, struck the southern land off Kaikoura, and followed that coastline also completely round by Banks' Peninsula and South Cape and the long west coast stretch till he came again into Cook Strait and anchored in Admiralty Bay. From that place on March 31 he set sail for the discovery of p- 9 Eastern Australia. On the whole Cook's relations with the natives had been friendly. Now and again he was compelled to use firearms, but with Tupia's help he generally persuaded each tribe to trade, and he took care to punish his own sailors if they injured peaceful natives. Three times in after years he re-visited the islands, and found the Maoris on eacl^ occasion friendly. One piece of thoughtfulness especially )von their favour. Thinking (wrongly, as it turned out) that their cannibal habits arose from the want of animal food— for beside dogs and rats there was not a four-legged animal in all New Zealand— he left among friendly tribes several pigs, sheep, and goats, besides fowls, potatoes, cabbages, and other vegetables. Some weed poisoned the sheep and goats; but the pigs and fowls throve and multiplied, and* the new kind of potato suited the Maori taste amazingly well. Not all their visitors, however, behaved so well. In 1770, while Cook was still in New Zealand waters, a French captain, De Surville, landed at Doubtless Bay, and The found that, thanks to Cook's tact, the natives were inclined to be friendly. Suspecting that some of them had stolen a boat, he chose to revenge himself by destroying their village and kidnapping their chief. Two years later a neaux 266 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1772 second Frenchman, Marion du Fresne, crossed the Tasman Sea from Tasmania and anchored in the Bay of Islands. For a month Maoris and French were the best of friends. Suddenly, just before the time fixed for their departure, du i'resne and sixteen companions were set upon, killed and eaten. They had violated the Tapu, it appears: they had cooked their meals with the wood of sacred images. Maori law and religion demanded that they should die. But Crozet, du Fresne's second-in-command, knew nothing of this. To him the natives seemed a cowardly set of traitors. He shot down their warriors wherever he could find them, and destroyed everything within his reach that belonged to them. Sixty years afterwards the story was still fresh in Maori memories, and chiefs petitioned for English protection against "the tribe of Marion." During Cook's second visit a similar misfortune befell l2i^.'^ one of the ships under his command. Captain Furneaux put in to Queen Charlotte's Sound towards the end of 1773 to refit after a stormy voyage, and lost a boat's crew of ten men, who had contrived to quarrel with the Maoris over a sailor's stupid practical joke. The next day an officer disturbed more than a thousand Maoris at their cannibal feast. But Furneaux, rightly thinking that there had been no treachery, but only a sudden dispute, rescued and buried what was left of the dead bodies, and sailed away without attempting indiscriminate revenge. C. Missionaries AND Chiefs (1775-1830). Such stories as these did not encourage quiet Europeans to frequent or to settle in New Zealand, though adventurers went there by the score. Sealers haunted the Otago Sounds; timber ships were loaded with North Island kauri logs; whalers put in at convenient harbours, and even attracted natives to form part of their crews. Such inter- course was unlikely to make for peace, for the adventurers were not men who would accommodate themselves to the very complex ceremonial of Maori life. The early settlers were, as a rule, worse. They were mostly fugitives from NEW ZEALAND IN THE EARLY DAYS. 267 justice, or men whose conduct had expelled them from civilised communities, and they helped to degrade the ignoble Maori ferocity by adding to it vices of their own. Among these " pakeha Maoris " (as those whites were called who lived Maori lives) there were, of course, some fine characters, whose influence on the tribe that adopted them was good, and from whom we have since learnt to under- stand a good many of the puzzling native customs; but, taking it all round, the European element during the early years of this century was a bad one— vicious, lawless, and uncontrollable. Governor King, however, was minded to make friends with the manly islanders to the south-east of his dominion. It happened that, while he was in charge of Norfolk Island, Grose sent him a couple of young chiefs who had been kidnapped from the Bay of Islands to instruct the Norfolk Island convicts in flax-growing. King was as tactful as Cook had been, treated them as chiefs should be treated, and soon took them back to their own country. A few 1806 years later, when he became Governor, he brought over a still greater chief, Te Pehi, to Sydney, entertained him well, and sent him back in a King's ship with many presents. Now one of King's great friends was Samuel Marsden, an Marsden energetic clergyman, who had arrived in New South Wales in 1794 as Church of England Chaplain. His career in that country was in many respects not unlike John Macarthur's. He was an enthusiastic breeder of stock: he was interested See portrait, p. 289 in every enterprise that could increase the colony's pros- perity ; he was a strong " exclusive " and a bitter opponent of Governor Macquarie. So thoroughly did he enter into the public life of New South "Wales that his work there will always be judged according to the political prejudices of his critics; but with reference to New Zealand matters are on a different footing. There his work was one of pure benevolence, so ably and persistently carried out as to deserve fully the success that attended it. At King's table he met the chief Te Pehi, and was at once interested in his accounts of Maori life. Returning 268 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. from a visit to England three years later, he travelled in the same ship with a young warrior whose uncle, Hongi, was the great chief of the Bay of Islands tribe. Sending this young man on before to tell his countrymen that there were some good white men in the world, Marsden was preparing to despatch two missionaries to his new field of interest, when news came of a more than usually horrible 'B*^ d' inassacre at Whangaroa. The captain of a trading ship massacre named the Boyd had flogged one of his crew, who was a Maori chief. A chief's back is more sacred than any other part of him except his head; to flog him violates the Tapu most atrociously. The Boyd anchored off Whangaroa, the 1809 chief's own home, and his insulted tribesmen slaughtered nearly every soul on board, crew and passengers, leaving only four alive out of seventy. Te Pehi, who lived near, rescued the four— a woman, a boy, and two children— but got little good of it; for vindictive Europeans destroyed his village in the belief that he had aided the massacre, and the Whangaroa men killed him a short time after for helping the survivors to escape. The news of this slaughter induced Governor Macquarie to forbid Marsden's projected expedition, but he did his best to stop the increasing friction between white and native ^^^^ by making the owner of every ship that traded with New Zealand liable to pay a thousand pounds if the crew quarrelled with the Maoris while there. Presently Marsden persuaded him to take more active measures. Hongi and his nephew were brought over to Sydney, and Macquarie gave them and another chief official authority to control the intercourse between their tribes and Europeans, appoint- p. 244 ing a Mr. Kendall (grandfather of Henry Kendall, the poet) as resident magistrate for the Bay of Islands district. In November, 1814, the brig Active sailed from Sydney, carrying Marsden himself, Kendall, and two missionaries. Hall and King, besides workmen and live stock to make a permanent settlement under Hongi's protection. By way of a beginning Marsden went personally among the men of Whangaroa, and reconciled them with Hongi's men, who NEW ZEALAJSD IX THE EARLY DAYS. 269 were friends of their victim Te Pehi; and on Christmas Day, under the shadow of the Union Jack, the tribes assembled to hear for the first time in a regular Church of England service the doctrines of peace and Christianity. For the next twenty years the history of New Zea- land is full of disappointments. The missionaries worked hard; many a time they stood between excited war parties and prevented a conflict. Marsden came over many times to see his friends, and used his influence to discourage the trade in arms; almost his last days were spent in making peace between two fighting chieftains. But all their in- fluence was of little avail against the Maori^s natural joy in war, exaggerated and debased by the low whites who traded and settled among them. And war under the new The conditions was becoming less of a fairly-conducted sport of the than before, more an instrument of bloodthirstiness and ^niTs"' tyranny. Guns were irresistible. But guns and powder and shot could not be made as clubs and spears had been— they must be bought from white traders. Small or poor tribes had not the wherewithal to buy them ; conse- quently, small and poor tribes wen^- to the wall, and three or four great chiefs, with their prosperous and well-armed tribes at their back, held the island in a state of terror. Hongi, protector of the missions, chafed under Marsden's refusal to barter arms with him. He was an ambitious Hongi man— "There is but one king in England," he said, "there shall be but ore among the Maoris." In 1820 he went to England with Kendall, the magistrate, and was made much ' of. George IV. gave him valuable presents, and London society added many more, for this old cannibal was the lion of the season ! Hongi took everything with polite pleasure, came back to Sydney, disposed of nearly all his treasures there, and sailed for his home with three hundred muskets and plenty of ammunition as the final proceeds of his voyage. Then he burst into action. One raid dispersed and almost destroyed the tribes of the Thames valley. Another devastated the Auckland isthmus and the Waikato country. A third was directed against the Arawa, the 270 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. sacred pioneer tribe of the original immigration, who guarded the nation's holiest relics on an island in Lake Rotorua. Even from the east coast war parties marched to join in a great uprising against the new tyrant, but his firearms again gave him the victory at Kaipara. Hongi's actual dominion was in the northern peninsula, which after his death remained comparatively quiet. But now wars broke out in the lands between Mount Egmont and the Hot Lakes, where a Waikato chief and one of a kindred tribe in turn attempted to make themselves all powerful. By this time muskets were common, and no single tribe could quite master the others. Further south, however, a new power was growing up under the cleverest Raupara- of all Maori statesmen, the chief Rauparaha. He was at ^* first the leader of a tribe that held Kawhia on the west coast, and was always in danger of being extirpated by its Waikato neighbours. Muskets there were unobtainable: white traders rarely landed on those shores, and the great trading station was at the Bay of Islands, in Hongi's hands. In 1817 Rauparaha had joined a war party that went ravaging down the island to the very end of it, and had heard of another rendezvous for white men in Queen Charlotte's Sound. From that time he determined to establish himself on or near Cook Strait, and to become the Hongi of the South. Using all the arts of diplomacy, he gathered round him one after another of the smaller tribes who feared the Waikato. He obtained the help of Te Heu Heu himself, a giant chieftain who held the district of Lake Taupo in undisturbed possession while war raged all round on the coasts. He moved his followers step by step, fighting here, treaty-making there, till by 1828 they were established along the coast from Wanganui to Port Nicholson, with the island fortress of Kapiti as their refuge and headquarters. From this position of vantage Rauparaha sent war parties across the Strait to invade the South Island, taking the opposite shores from Cloudy Bay to Tasman Bay for his followers' use, but extending his ravages as far south as NEW ZEALAND IN THE EARLY DAYS. 271 Akaroa. The killing of his uncle in a raid on Kaiapoi roused him to take a fearful vengeance. For a few tons of flax he hired an English ship to convey himself and his warriors secretly to Banks' Peninsula. When the ship anchored there the Maoris kept themselves hidden in its 1830 hold, while the white captain enticed on board the chief of the Kaiapoi tribe and his family. Holding them as prisoners, Rauparaha stole out at night upon their village, slaughtered its inhabitants, and brought back their bodies to be cooked for a cannibal feast in the ship's galley; while the captured chief was taken to Kapiti, and killed there after many tortures. D. British Interference (1831-9). The news of so ghastly a deed as this, perpetrated with the help of an Englishman, stung the Sydney authori- ties into action. Governor Darling proposed to send Sturt across as Resident, but his recall hindered matters a little, james and it was two years before Mr. James Busby was formally ^"^''v made Resident by the English Government. He had no great powers, as Bourke plainly told him, but had to depend on the help of the missionaries and what influence he could 1833 gain over the native chiefs. He began with a piece of bad luck. A shipwrecked crew had quarrelled with the Taranaki Maoris, who killed some of them and captured a woman and her two children; an English warship was sent to rescue them, and its commander managed to involve himself twice during the affair in the massacre of natives who were trying to bring the children back peacefully. But Busby did his best, went from tribe to tribe with the missionaries, hearing patiently the Maori side of matters, and steadily refused to be driven into harsh measures against men who were by now intensely suspicious of all Europeans. In 1835 he collected all the chiefs of the Oct. 28 north and formed them into a confederation called the United Tribes of New Zealand, with power to make laws; the southern chiefs were asked to join in, and the British King was nominated Protector of the confederacy. The 272 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. British King, however, had no intention of accepting this oft'er. Busby strongly urged that England should take the responsibility of intervening between Maori and Pakeha, especially in the matter of land sales, where the customs of Attempts buyer and seller were widely different. In 1837 Captain Settle- Hobson of the Rattlesnake^ fresh from the "Joundilig'"~--of '"®"* Jlelbourne, put forward a plan for establishing Government stations under British consuls at the principal ports. But the Ministry in London was worried with political troubles in Canada and racial troubles in South Africa already, and was inclined to think colonies an unprofitable nuisance. Another colony, more responsibility, new worries from the other side of the world— such folly was not to be thought of. Upon which decision Ministers were suddenly con- fronted with the obstinate activity— upsetting all their non- interference resolutions— of the indomitable Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Of course, all these years had not gone by without any attempt to settle Europeans permanently in so delightful a country. When in Brisbane's time free immigrants p. 48 began to make their way in increasing numbers to New South Wales, New Zealand also was thought of, and in 1825 a company was formed to settle the lands round Hokianga. Some intending colonists were actually sent out, but their first appearance in the country took place at an unlucky moment. Hokianga River was the boundary between two tribes which were just then working them- selves up for a fight, and the new arrivals found themselves confronted with all the gruesome pantomime of a Maori war dance. There was howling and prancing and horrid gesture, there was the mimicry of battle and slaughter, with all the detail of a cannibal feast for a wind-up. The settlers looked at each other— and sailed posthaste for Sydney. Another attempt at colonisation, more ludicrous, but in the end more serious also, was made by a puzzle-headed de adventurer who called himself Baron de Thierry. His Thierry parents wcre French, but he had been in the British army NEW ZEALAND IN THE EARLY DAYS. 273 and diplomatic service, and he adopted either nationality as circumstances suggested. With a couple of hundred acres bought at Hokianga he conceived the idea of starting I822 a Maori kingdom; but neither England nor France would back his claims, and for twelve years he wandered about the world trying to make his fortune. In 1835 he recurred to his original plan, and announced himself as a sovereign chief of New Zealand and defender of its liberties. The English, while formally disowning his claims, let him take possession of his two hundred acres and issue edicts at his will, which amused Pakeha and Maori alike by their bombast and their assumption of royal style. But in a year or two rumours began to spread that all this was leading up to something more serious. De Thierry boasted of support from France. Certainly there were more French ships than usual off the coast; and Louis Philippe, the French monarch at that time, was known to be quite un- scrupulous in his diplomacy. A French ship captain, it was said, had bought land at Akaroa, in South Island. Men wondered, and took alarm. But it was Wakefield, as we have said, who actually ^^^ forced the British Government into action. In 1836, field while South Australia was still in founding, he gave ^^^"^^ evidence before a Parliamentary Committee about the scandals of New Zealand land sales, and drew a picture of the reckless adventurer inducing the poor native to barter his land unknowingly " for a few trinkets and a little gunpowder." In 1837 he helped Lord Durham, who had been in the collapsed scheme of 1825, to found the New Zealand Association, with a most admirable and philan- thropic plan of colonisation on such terms as should be fair to everybody. After long palavering with an unwilling Ministry this plan also fell through, partly because both Wakefield and Lord Durham had done work (in connection with the Canadian troubles) of which the Government dis- p. 9i approved. Even Lord John Russell declared that New Zealand must be treated as an independent country, almost at the very time when his famous declaration that Britain 274 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. claimed the whole of Australia finally warned the French off that continent. Wakefield and his friends took the bull by the horns. They formed a New Zealand Company for making a colony on the regular Wakefield lines. They calmly sold New Zealand land in London, under the Government's nose— land, as usual, which they had not yet obtained from its native owners. They shipped off the first batch of settlers quietly, with Colonel Wakefield, brother of the prime mover, in command. Then, and not till then, Lord Durham waited on the Colonial Secretary and told him what had been done. 1839 At last the Government bestirred itself. Hobson was made Lieutenant-Governor, and sent off in a hurry to treat with the chiefs. Any land he could obtain from them was to form part of the colony of New South Wales, and no other land sales were to be recognised except after full enquiry by the Governor. Luckily Gipps, who had suc- p. 96 ceeded Bourke in 1838, was a man whom the home Ministry trusted, and a good deal was left for him and Hobson to settle between them. And so before the end of 1839 three separate expeditions were descending upon the far-off Maori lands— Colonel Wakefield, with his unauthorised cargo of speculative settlers, making for Cook Strait; Hobson in haste to reach the older settlement on the Bay of Islands; and a French company (the Nanto-Bordelaise, promoted mainly by merchants of Nantes and Bordeaux) commissioned by the King of the French to occupy as much territory as possible, beginning with the Akaroa concession, on condition that at least a quarter of it should become the property of the French crown. CHAPTER XVI. -NEW ZEALAND, 1839-1851. A. Colonel Wakefield (1839-40). Colonel Wakefield won the race easily. On the 16th of August his ship reached Queen Charlotte's Sound, and he lost no time in crossing to Port Nicholson, where the company had directed him to form a settlement. In great The Rush haste— for he had heard that missionaries were coming spoii from the north to see the natives had fair play— he sum- moned all the chiefs he could get together, displayed his Sept. 27 stock of arms and ammunition, and persuaded the greedy natives to sign documents which, by English law, would give him the whole of their tribal territory. Hurrying from the Port to Kapiti he interviewed Rauparaha and Oct. 24 procured his signature to another document of the same kind. Other chiefs came in, signed, and went off with the coveted guns; and on the 8th of November a third deed completed, in Wakefield's eyes, the transfer of huge territories to the possession of the New Zealand Company. It is worth our while to take Wakefield's claim to pieces. In the first place, he had been carefully instructed to make sure that all the native owners approved, and that each transaction was thoroughly understood by the whole tribe which it affected. . He made no attempt to carry out these instructio^s. A Pakeha Maori of poor character, whom he had picked up near Port Nicholson, made a few clumsy explanations to some of the chiefs in that district; and that was all. Gibbon Wakefield's remarks of three years before were exactly descriptive of his brother's conduct. In the second place, the land mentioned in his documents ^* stretched far beyond the boundaries of the tribes with whom he dealt. It was as if a man should claim to own the State of New South Wales by virtue of an alleged grant from the Corporation of Sydney. Wakefield had 275 276 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. iseen chiefs of three tribes at most, whose territory com- prised perhaps fifty miles of coastline north of Port Nicholson, and an undefined district of South Island bordering on Cook Strait. By his documents these chiefs were made to hand over to him all the lands which now are included in four provinces— Taranaki, Wellington, Marlborough, and Nelson— quite irrespective of the fact that in the North Island part of them alone there were ten other tribes who had not been consulted in any way about the transfer. The payment (which was partly made in scissors, combs, beads, sealing-wax, and Jews' harps) was at the rate of about sixpence per thousand acres, and the first result of it was to set all the lucky chiefs fighting over a division of the goods. Maori Eveu morc serious than the other objections to this "L^ astonishing claim was one founded on Maori land customs. Englishmen are accustomed to individual ownership of land. A particular section belongs (say) to Mr. Robinson. If you wish to own it, you and Mr. Robinson agree on a price, sign before witnesses a document in which the agreement and the price are stated, and when you have paid your money the land is yours. Ownership and sale of that kind were quite unknown to the Maoris. With them the land belonged to the whole tribe— not to any single person; and no one man, not even the chief himself, could sell it or give it away. There were only two ways in which territory could properly change owners: the whole tribe must either unite to dispose of it by a solemn act, or be completely defeated and driven out of it by another tribe which immediately proceeded to occupy its conquest. This principle, when you understand it, is fairly simple, but Colonel Wakefield, and many Englishmen after him, took no trouble to understand it; or, if they did, then hoped that the ignorance of the home Government on such matters would allow them to press claims which were in every way invalid and absurd. The home Government, however, was not quite as ignorant as Wakefield hoped. Hobson's instructions laid NEW ZEALAND, 1839-1851. 277 on him the special duty of seeing that false claims to land Hobson were not set up to overreach the natives. Directly he Governor^ reached Sydney he consulted Gipps, and a proclamation i839-*o was drawn up announcing that no purchases of land in New Zealand would be recognised by the authorities unless and until they had been enquired into and confirmed by Government Commissioners. Soon after his arrival in the Bay of Islands he called the chiefs together at Waitangi, A Maori Chief Signatures to the Treaty OF Waitangi where Busby lived, and after full explanation and two days' discussion concluded with them the famous and important Treaty of Waitangi. This contained three clauses, each of which was interpreted to the chiefs by their friends the missionaries, and well debated among them both in council and in their villages during the evening. The first clause ^^b. 6, 1840 yielded to the Queen of England " all the rights and powers of sovereignty " which the chiefs had in their districts. The Treaty of Waitangi 278 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. The second clause guaranteed to the tribes " full and undis- turbed possession of their lands," and ordained that, if at any time the tribes wished to sell land, they should offer it first to the British Government. The third clause gave the natives of New Zealand all the rights and privileges of British subjects. Here was an open and honourable transaction; there were no beads and Jews' harps about it; the wording of the treaty was clear and simple— the chiefs understood it, and Hobson understood it. When in after years the friends of the New Zealand Company, tried to upset the arrangement, they had to t^ke refuge in talk about " naked savages "—as if a man's intelligence depended on his wearing clothes— and to describe the treaty as " a praiseworthy device for amusing and pacifying savages for the moment." B. The Scramble for Land (1839-43). It was certainly time that some control should be established over the greediness of the white men for land. Land When Hobson demanded particulars of the claims Claims made by Europeans, he found that they amounted to more than half the area of the islands; and out of the total of seventy thousand square miles, sixty-eight thousand were set down as purchases of the last two years. The Land Commissioners soon discovered how preposterous these assertions were. Many claims overlapped; purchases along the coastline were assumed to extend an indefinite distance inland; sometimes a mere right to fish in a certain bay, or to obtain wood and water on its shores, was impudently transformed by the white bargainer into a claim to ownership of the whole surrounding district. In nearly all cases there was the further difficulty that the alleged Maori settler had no right to sell. He might be a chief acting without the consent of his tribe; more often he was an insignificant member of the tribe greedy for guns; most often of all he was a perfect stranger to the district he pretended to sell, and signed the deeds without knowing or caring what they meant. NEW ZEALAND, ] 839-1851. 279 As nay be imagined, Hobson did not get much enjoy- ment t)ut of his Lieutenant-Governorship. The Company was only one among many powerful claimants. Sydney, more especially, was full of them, with Wentworth at their p. 96 head, who had obtained a grant of nearly half the South Island from five petty chiefs who were visiting New South Wales. But here Gipps was a tower of strength, and the Sydney speculators had to acknowledge themselves beaten. Another more immediate danger arose from the French p^^®^^ expedition to Akaroa. Hobson had sent the Waitangi Settlers Treaty round North Island to be signed by the chiefs, and was delighted to find signers in South Island also. To make quite sure of his ground there he formally annexed it to the British Empire both by virtue of the treaty and by right of Cook's discovery. In spite, however, of all these precautions, there were rumours of a proposed French annexation in South Island on the ground that England was exercising no real authority there except on the shores of Cook Strait. French newspapers even suggested a con- vict settlement. In July, 1840, a French frigate, UAuhe, was lying in the Bay of Islands, when Hobson heard that the ship sent out by the Nanto-Bordelaise Company was p- ^^^ making for Akaroa. He at once put two and two together, and quietly sent off the British warship Britomart to the threatened spot. UAuhe followed closely in its wake; the Britomart ran into a storm and was badly damaged; but the French ship also met with bad weather, and for , several days could not get round Banks' Peninsula. At last it sailed into Akaroa Harbour to find that England had won the race by four days, and France had lost her last opportunity of making a white man's colony in the South Pacific. The French Company's settlers, however, were allowed to occupy the land their countrymen had bought, and for some years the Peninsula remained practi- cally French, with a French warship constantly hovering about for its protection. It was the New Zealand Company, after all, that gave Hobson the most trouble. At every step his decisions 280 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. The New Zealand Company clashed with the Company's interests. His treaty had gravely endangered Wakefield's purchases, and prevented any more of the same profitable kind. His work was to keep the peace, to protect the Maoris; Wakefield's was to acquire land even at the risk of war and to settle white men on districts from which the Maoris must be got rid of as soon as possible. Hobson made his headquarters in the Bay of Islands, among the whalers and the kauri getters; the Company's principal station was on Cook Strait, and its Early View of Wellington trade was to be agriculture. Its first township, at the head of Port Nicholson, was found unsuitable, and in March, 1840, Wakefield moved across to a place on the western shore called Te Aro, where he founded the town of p. 92 Wellington— so named out of gratitude for the great Duke's help in passing Gibbon Wakefield's South Australian Bill. Hobson, about the same time, was finding the Bay of Islands an inconvenient position for managing his dominions, and the Company's men hoped he might move NEW ZEALAND, 1839-1851. 281 his headquarters to their new town; but in those days Cook Strait was really the southern end of British settle- ment (Akaroa being French), and a more central place was found in Auckland, where two gulfs, almost meeting each other, gave easy access to either east or west coast at pleasure. Many things helped to produce friction. Hobson was on good terms with the missionaries. Wakefield jeered at them and snubbed them. The Wellington towns- folk set up a half -independent government of their own, alleging that the Lieutenant-Governor was neglecting them and order must be kept somehow; Hobson, with the naval man's keen anger against anything like mutiny, talked about high treason and sent troops to put it down. But these troubles were trifling compared with the Com- ylToubies pany's struggles to retain its huge nominal territory. The lesson of South Australia had not yet been learnt, and the same old process was going on of selling land in England by blocks at a fixed price before either buyer or seller knew what sort of land it was, or even whether it was the Com- pany's to sell. Emigrants paid their money, made the voyage out, and found on arrival that the land they imagined theirs was in the possession of brown and tat- tooed cannibals— such was still their idea of the Maori. They clamoured against the Company. Wakefield assured them it was the Governor's fault, not the Company's. Hobson declined to recognise the Colonel's enormous claim. Gipps was appealed to, and adjudged to the complainants a block on Port Nicholson, about one-hundredth part of the claim. At that they took the matter home, where they had the very great influence of Lord Durham and his friends to back them. The Whig Ministry then in office was getting weaker and weaker every day; Lord Durham's set was an important section of the Whig party; to conciliate it Ministers would do a good deal. Lord John Russell, the Colonial Secretary, after some feeble expostulations did nearly all that the Company asked. Gipps was its most formidable opponent; his influence was removed by a despatch which made New Zealand a separate colony uncon- ^^' ' 282 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. nected with New South Wales; his award of land was set aside in favour of an arrangement by which the Company was to be allowed four acres for every pound it had spent. Feb. 12, 1841 Finally, its position was made formal and secure by the grant of a Royal Charter Even now its directors were not satisfied. Wakefield had claimed twenty million acres; Gipps had granted a hundred and ten thousand; the new award increased this to a million; the directors demanded that they should be allowed to pick the million where they liked, and that it should be the Crown's duty to buy off al! natives claiming ownership of the land they picked. But a new Ministry came into power in England, arid the last demand remained unsatisfied. Hobson Meanwhile in New Zealand itself the confusion grew 1841-2 ' worse daily. Gibbon Wakefield saw how easy it was to force Governor Hobson's hand by simply unloading ship- fuls of emigrants on New Zealand soil. Once there, they could be trusted to insist on getting land somewhere, and Hobson would be compelled to do something for them. So Colonel Wakefield was instructed to be ready to form new settlements; smaller companies, really branches of the great one, were formed at Plymouth and other English seaport towns ; and presently bodies of settlers, all of whom had bought blocks of unknown land before they sailed, arrived at Taranaki under Mount Egmont, and at Nelson Mar.-Sept., in Tasman Bay. Some of the Wellington settlers also moved up the coast to Wanganui. Everywhere the new arrivals came into conflict with Maori owners who denied that they had ever parted with their land. Wellington itself was on such land; at Wanganui only the actual town site was indisputably Wakefield's; at Taranaki there were all sorts of Maori interests— some claimed as occupants, some because their fathers had been occupants, others by right of conquest. The native claimants nearly everywhere behaved better than the intruders. If white men built huts on disputed ground, the Maoris destroyed the huts and carefully preserved all property found in them to be handed back to the owners. When tb i whites astC, 284 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. at Nelson mined coal on land that was not theirs, they were not interfered with while working, but every night the coal was piled back into the holes from which it had been dug. Actual conflict the Maoris avoided as much as possible, because they were gentlemen— the undiscerning settlers thought it was because they were cowards. But actual conflict was not far off. Nothing else, indeed, could be expected; for Europeans in those days knew little about the better side of native character, and thought that all " uncivilised " people were equally savage and unintelligent. In Parliamentary debates of the time one flnds two ideas strongly insisted on. The first is, that brown or black natives of any country had no right to any more of the land than they were actually occupying. The second is, that such natives should be petted and protected if they were humble and weak, but could not be considered to have any valid laws of their own which might conflict with civilised laws. The Wakefield school of colonisers thought that they were really helping the Maoris by using their land and introducing English laws; they genuinely felt that chiefs who objected were ungrateful wretches. C, War with the Maoris (1843-6). ^**^ It happened that at Nelson there was not enough farm land to divide among all the colonists who had bought blocks before they left England. The nearest available land was The on the Wairau River, that runs into Cloudy Bay. Now, this CcrnSct was part of the territory mentioned in the document which Rauparaha had signed in 1839, and Colonel Wakefield believed that he had other rights to it. Rauparaha abso- lutely denied that he had sold it, and when surveyors came burnt their huts and removed their marks. Captain Wakefield (a third of the Wakefield brothers), who was head of the Nelson settlement, at once started for the Wairau with a police magistrate and an armed force in order to arrest Rauparaha. The party found him with his son-in-law, another great chief, camped on the ground, and the magistrate calmly produced a pair of handcuffs and NEW ZEALAND, 1839-1851. 285 proposed to take them prisoners there and then. " We are on our own land," they said. " Do we go to Port Jackson or Europe to steal your lands'?" The magistrate threatened to use force. " This," said Rauparaha, " is the second time you have threatened to fire; you should not be so thought- less." The English party advanced, and a shot \vas fired by one of them which killed a woman, daughter of one chief and wife of the other. At that the Maori restraint gave way. " They have begun it," cried the chiefs ; " wel- come darkness and death !" Firing broke out on both sides. There was a rush of Maoris that swept the English- men up and over the hill. Then Captain Wakefield waved a white handkerchief and Rauparaha called to his men to spare the fugitives, but the other chief rushed up, crying, " Remember your daughter," and killed Wakefield and eight others in cold blood. The bodies were left where they fell, nineteen in all. Rauparaha, carrying the handcuffs that had been meant to manacle him, crossed the Strait and summoned his tribesmen to sweep the Pakeha from their land. Two men only at that moment prevented the imme- diate sack of Wellington— Hadfield, the missionary, and a young chief who was be notable hereafter, Wiremu Kingi te Rangitake. By the time this happened Hobson was no longer Gover- ^9^^°"'^ nor of New Zealand. Deprived of the strong support which Gipps had been always ready to give him, suffering from repeated strokes of palsy, fretted by the turbulence of Wakefield's followers and the daily increasing suspicions of the Maori chiefs, he died at his post a worn-out and dis- Sept. lo, 1842 pirited man. Under his rule eleven thousand settlers had established themselves in the new country— more than six thousand on the shores of Cook Strait, four thousand in the north, and about nine hundred at Taranaki. None of the settlements, however, were really thriving. Auckland lived on Government expenditure, and the Company's men on their own capital, waiting for something definite to be done about the land they had so rashly bought. In the far north there was still some trade with whalers and timber ships; 286 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Malad- ministra- tion Fitzroy Governor, 1843-5 Oct. 1844 but the one cheerful spot in all the islands was Akaroa, where the French settlers were living peacefully in a little paradise of gardens and vineyards. The colony's finance was in ruins: it owed nearly £50,000 to New South Wales, and its ordinary expenditure was more than double of the revenue. Yet little of the blame for all this can be laid on Hobson's shoulders. His virtue was that from first to last he had done justice between man and man, white and Maori. " Mother Victoria," wrote a chief to the Queen, " my sub- ject is a Governor for us Maoris and for the Pakeha in this island. Let him be a good man, as the Governor who has just died." Lieutenant Shortland, Hobson's second-in-command, kept things going as well as he could for a year, with as much goodwill as his predecessor but less tact. All Hobson's troubles were his also, and when the Wairau affray induced the home Government to send out a new Governor, Captain Fitzroy, no one was very sorry, and Shortland himself probably least of all so. But Fitzroy's rule, although he had the advantage of strong support from Lord Stanley, the Colonial Secretary of Sir Robert Peel's Ministry, did more harm than ever. His term of office began, it is true, under most difficult and disheartening circumstances. He found discontent widespread, trade paralysed, and the treasury empty. The Government officials had received no pay for six months. The Wairau conflict had excited the natives, and there were ominous appearances of another outbreak. Such a crisis Fitzroy was unable to face firmly. He did not seem able to make up his mind definitely for any length of time, whether the subject was land purchase, finance, or treatment of the natives. Hobson had refused to allow anyone to buy land direct from the Maoris. The Government, he said, would buy what land was wanted, and white settlers must bargain with the Government. Fitzroy cancelled this decision, and allowed whites to buy land direct so long as they paid the Government ten shillings an acre of the price; and presently this weak policy was weakened still more by lowering the Government's share NEW ZEALAND, 1839-1851. 287 from ten shillings to a penny. As for finance, the Governor tried to procure money alternately by customs duties and a property tax, and got so little from either that he was forced to raise a loan of £15,000 for ordinary expenses. His native policy was more disastrous still. Almost his first act of authority was to look into the troubles at Wairau. He rated the Nelson settlers soundly and desei^edly for their impatient aggression; then he crossed to Kapiti, heard Rauparaha's account of the matter, and rebuked him for the slaughter of prisoners in cold blood, but announced his decision that the white men were first in the wrong and he would not avenge their deaths. Such a verdict was strictly just, nor could Fitzroy have peaceably enforced any other: but it seriously affected European prestige among the natives. To demand no vengeance for the death of your kin— to claim no share in the land where their blood has been shed— these things in Maori eyes were the merest cowardice : from end to end of the island every tribesman soon heard the news, and every- where the native took on himself the airs of a superior. The Waikato chief reviewed his war forces within two miles of Auckland, and invited Fitzroy to be present. The Taranaki claimants became aggressive : " Waitara shall not be given up," wrote Wiremu Kingi, whose tribe had left the district with Rauparaha years before, but had not therefore p- 270 lost their right to hold it. In the north more serious trouble was brewing. The Wairau affray had frightened away traffickers from New South Wales. The customs duties cut off trade with the whalers. When the natives grumbled at their desertion an Hone American Pakeha, with a jerk of his thumb over his ®'*® shoulder, pointed to the Union Jack. flying on a hill behind the Bay of Islands settlement. " That's what's wrong," said he ; and Hone Heke, a son-in-law of the famous Hongi, marched his men in upon the settlement and burnt th« July 8, 1844 flagstaff at a great war dance. Fitzroy hurried troops to the place, and received apologies from the neighbouring chiefs. But at this moment there canie to the colony very 288 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. disturbing news. A Committee of the British House of Commons, led by Lord Howick (who was afterwards Earl Grey), had resolved that the Treaty of Waitangi was an injudicious error, and that natives had no right to any land they did not actually occupy. The Committee's report was only carried by seven votes against six, and Parlia- ment refused to adopt it; moreover, the whole business was rather a party demonstration against the Tory Ministry than a genuine decision on the merits of the case. But the Maori did not understand these distinctions; he only knew that his treaty was being disparaged and his Jan. 10, 1845 ^^nd rights threatened. Heke cut down the flagstaff again, and a body of soldiers was sent up to re-erect and guard it. Fitzroy offered a reward of £100 for Heke's capture, and Heke in return made the same offer for Mar. 11 Fitzroy's head. The settlement was rushed and the flag- staff destroyed a third time; the settlers defended them- selves bravely till their powder magazine blew up and then abandoned the town, which was fired and burnt to the ground. There was a panic among the whites as this news spread; Auckland, Wellington, and Nelson were fortified. The Waikato tribe contemptuously offered to protect the Governor against Heke. Fitzroy's failure could scarcely have been more ignominious; and Lord Stanley, when the Gr®y ^ news reached home, recalled him in disgrace, and sent Captain George Grey hastily over from South Australia to save New Zealand from ruin, as he had already saved the p. 110 other Wakefield colony from bankruptcy. Before Grey could arrive, war had begun. Heke, debarred from further attack on Europeans by the watch- fulness of a chief friendly to the British, was busy strengthening his pas. These fortifications, which have played a great part in all the Maori wars, were palisaded enclosures, generally placed on the top of a hill, with only one approach from below, and that a very difficult one. Inside the enclosures were shallow ditches for the defenders to lie in while firing between the palisades; behind were more rows of stakes, each with its ditch, huts that covered NEW ZEALAND, 1839-1851. 289 shelter pits, and often underground passages from pit to ditch. Fitzroy sent up a force of four hundred British soldiers with as many friendly natives to capture Heke; but the first attack on a comparatively weak pa showed how impossible it would be to storm such defences without having knocked a hole in them with artillery. Accordingly ohaee the British troops were reinforced, and five guns sent up, ^^® one a thirty-two pounder, to attack Heke's men at Ohaeawae. The Maoris were cheerful and • excited— there was to be real fighting again, something like old times. Food Sir George Gtrey Eev. Samuel Marsden for the British had to be brought nineteen miles along bad bush tracks, but no attempt was made to intercept it— " How could they fight us," said the chiefs, " if they were starving?" They made repeated rushes from the pa, capturing once a British flag, which they immediately hoisted in full view underneath their own. The British commander, in exasperation, ordered an assault before the palisading had been thoroughly battered down. The soldiers charged with great bravery and broke through the outer rows of stakes, only to find a third unbroken row of s 290 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Grey Governor, 1845-53 Ruapeka- peka 1846 Peace tree trunks fifteen feet high-; from that they retired sullenly, having lost half their number. When some days later more ammunition arrived for the thirty-two-pounder, it was found that the Maoris had decamped, and our troops claimed a victory— but Heke's warriors scouted the claim; to abandon a pa, they said was nothing; a fight is won by killing men, and they had killed many Pakehas, and lost very few men themselves. Before Fitzroy had ventured to move again Grey arrived and took over the management of affairs. Here at last was a man who knew his own mind, and was deter- mined at all costs to carry through any policy he might decide on. He began by announcing at every opportunity that the Treaty of Waitangi stood good, and should not be departed from. That settled, he gave every chief his choice: there were to be no neutrals in the matter. They must be active friends, or be counted as enemies. He had become Governor on the 18th November, at Auckland. On the 27th he was at the Bay of Islands, and gave Heke four days to surrender. Heke refused. Grey collected his troops— soldiers, marines, seamen, colonist volunteers, and friendly Maoris— and by the end of December was battering at the almost impregnable pa of Ruapekapeka. His heaviest guns, however, were not up till the 9th of January, and on the 10th they had hammered three holes in one face of the stockade. Next day, Sunday, the Maori garrison went out at the back of their pa to hold service and cook their meals: the war game, they thought, like other games, must not be played on Sunday. Grey's friendly natives were on the alert, saw that the pa was almost empty of defenders, and beckoned the British to enter by the breaches. Heke's men made a gallant attempt to recapture their stronghold, but were driven fighting into the forest. A victory was all Grey wanted to restore the prestige of the British power. Heke's men came in readily now, on the promise of a free pardon. The Governor hurried to AVellington, where Rauparaha and his son-in-law were stir- ring up the Port Nicholson tribes to intrude again upon NEW ZEALAND, 1839-1851. 291 land which Fitzroy had bought from them. A short peace was arranged. Maori and European, said Grey, should live under equal laws, but there must be an end of violence and blood. In May the trouble broke out again. Grey deter- mined to have no more of it, seized Rauparaha unexpectedly, and drove the other chief into the recesses of the forest, Wiremu Kingi again giving the British a great deal of help. The Maori spirit of resistance was at last broken, and from north to south of the island men acknowledged the power and the justice of Grey. D. The Administration of Governor Grey (1846-50). The war once finished, he set himself to understand and utilise the warriors he had conquered. He learnt the Maori language that he might speak directly with them, and studied their traditions and customs to become acquainted °'"®^^g"'* with their ways of thinking. The younger chiefs he en- Maoris rolled in a new police force, while the elder were made magistrates to keep order among the tribes. He connected the scattered British settlements with good roads, made largely by Maori labour. When one important chief for- bade road-making in his territory, Grey sent his wife a horse and carriage, with a friendly note to explain that driving was a healthy form of exercise for ladies— and the road was made forthwith. Schools for chiefs' sons were built and endowed. There was one more minor outbreak at Wanganui, during which the natives sent their white May-Dec. enemies a couple of canoes filled with vegetables, and were astonished to find their fair play misconstrued; but Grey settled it amicably, and crowned his peace-making by allow- ing Rauparaha to go home again. When, some years later, he at last resigned his Governorship and left New Zealand, every tribe lamented. Deputation after deputation of chiefs came to bid him farewell. " When you came," said one orator, "it was like the shock of an earthquake; your fame rose to the centre of the island, and extended to the waves on the ocean's shore." Then, bursting into half- lyrical eloquence, he addressed Grey as "the peacemaker, 1847 292 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. the honourable, the friendly one ..." and ended, " Go, then, pride of the tribes . . . but. Father, when thou hast seen Waiariki,* return, return to us!" the With his own countrymen Grey had a far more difficult Company ^^g]^ jjg j^^^^j gg^jj jj^ South Australia the mischief wrought by speculative trafficking in unknown land. He was set on maintaining fully every detail of the Treaty of Waitangi. In both matters he was at variance with the leaders of the Company's settlements. He had found time in the midst of his preparations against Hone Heke to annul pp. 286-7 pitzroy's " penny-an-acre " proclamation, and he persis- tently cancelled wherever he could all land grants which violated one of Hobson's original rules— that not more than 2560 acres should be granted to any one person. Although this last attempt set even the missionaries against him, his services in controlling the Maoris might have won over all opponents within the colony itself; but it was opposition in England from which he had most to fear. While Fitzroy June, 1845 was Still Governor, Charles Buller in Parliament attacked the Waitangi Treaty and all who upheld it, though after a fierce three nights' debate he was beaten by a majority of fifty. But in the same year Lord Stanley left office, and in June of 1846 the Peel Ministry was upset, and Earl Grey (who had been Lord Howick) became Colonial Secretary under Lord John Russell. This was the Company's opportunity: the Colonial Office was manned with its friends, and the time was come to secure its mastery over the islands it had so long coveted. At the beginning of 1847 Governor Grey received from his namesake in England an Act, a Charter, and a set of Instructions. Taken together, these documents revived the unjust decision of p. 287 the 1844 Committee, abolished all native rights in land not actually occupied, and set up a Constitution by which the Maoris and a good many of the European colonists would be excluded altogether from any share in their own government. It was a critical moment in New Zealand * Queen Victoria. NEW ZEALAND, 1839-1851. 293 history, but Grey was equal to it. Fortified by the protests of the Anglican Bishop Selwyn (a man no less noble than himself) and the Chief Justice, he refused to obey the Colonial Secretary's orders, and sent home a despatch strongly urging that they be cancelled. Bishop Selwyn's protest was also forwarded, and a numerously-signed petition to the same effect. The Waikato chiefs took alarm, and wrote importunately to the Queen. Under such a chorus of reproaches Earl Grey staggered, and (to his honour be it said) yielded all along the line. The new Con- stitution was suspended for five years; the chiefs were formally assured by a letter from the Earl that the treaty was not to be interfered with; the Governor was knighted, and asked to draw up a Constitution of his own which should be just to Maoris, colonists, and the mother country alike. Grey's triumph was the Company's death-blow. Its funds were exhausted, it could get no new settlers, and money had to be borrowed from Parliament. The Acts which granted the loan of £236,000 stipulated that the sum must be repaid by 1850, or the Company's whole property surrendered to the Crown. When the year came, the surrender took place; but friends in Parliament, active to the last, obtained a final allowance of £268,000 more, which was to be paid out of New Zealand land revenues. But colonisation was by no means at a standstill. Grey planted round Auckland four settlements of veteran New soldiers, who held small plots of land on condition that they ments should be always available for garrisoning or defending the capital. The Company, dying though it was, retained Oct., 1847 strength enough to promote and aid two larger and more important settlements in the South Island. A Scottish company took up the work of establishing in Otago a colony of Presbyterians, adherents of the Free Church, which had in 1843 severed itself from the Established Presbyterian Church of Scotland. In 1844 a tract of 400,000 acres was bought from the few natives who roamed otago along the coastline between Otago Harbour and Molyneux 294 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Bay; in 1848 the first settlers landed, and within six years there was a population of over two thousand. The land system was purely Wakefield's; each acre cost £2, of which ten shillings paid for the land, another ten shillings went towards road-making, five shillings was set apart for schools and churches, and the remaining fifteen shillings went to form a fund for shipping labourers from Scotland. A second South Island province took its rise from similar sources. The High Church party in England followed the example set by the Free Church party in Scotland. A ^Vurw' Canterbury Association was formed; the great central plains, containing two and a half million acres, were handed over to it, after Grey had, as far as he could find out, satisfied all native claims. A charter was granted in 1849, and immigrants began to arrive by the end of the following year. Here, at last, Wakefield saw his theories completely justified. The land was higher-priced than ever— out of £3 an acre, £1 was allotted to the emigration fund, £1 to schools and churches, and 10s. to road-making, the rest being paid over to the Government as purchase money. But here there were none of the native troubles which had interfered with the success of Wellington; nor were the South Aus- tralian difficulties repeated, for the country was fertile and well watered, and poor people who wanted land could find cheaper acres in the North Island. So Canterbury grew and prospered; and as at the same time a settlement was forming itself among the peaceful tribes of Hawke's Bay, Grey saw before he left eight centres of colonisation thriving under his rule— at Auckland, Wellington, Wanganui, Taranaki, Napier, Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago. inces CHAPTER XVII.-NEW ZEALAND SINCE 1850. A. The New Constitution. Among other marks of the confidence which the British Government placed in Sir George Grey, he had been given almost a free hand in drawing up the constitution under which New Zealand was to obtain self-government. It was therefore mainly his work that the Constitution Act of 1852 became law— a complicated structure, which made of the two islands rather a federation than a colony. They were divided into six provinces— Auckland, New Govern- Plymouth, Wellington (in the North Island) ; Nelson, "prov- ^ Canterbury, and Otago (in the South) : each had a paid Council of elected members, and a Superintendent also elected. These dealt with most local matters: matters con- cerning land, the post office, customs duties, and others that affected the colony as a whole, were to be dealt with by a double-chambered Central Government— a Council of nominees holding office for life, an Assembly of members elected by the same voters who chose the Provincial Councils. Above all were the Governor and his Ministers, who could veto all provincial ordinances and the election of provincial superintendents. In finance an awkward arrangement was made by which the Central Government spent what it wanted and then divided the balance— a very uncertain sum— between the provinces. Maori matters were strictly reserved for the Imperial Government, and the Governor was given power to proclaim certain districts as reserves under Maori law. At the time, while the squabbles between Auckland and Wellington, the Company and the Crown, were still fresh in men's minds, no closer union would have been workable. As it was, the quiet South Island provinces chafed for many years at having to supply funds for carrying on Maori 295 .296 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. wars up north: and the conflicting land policies of Grey and Wakefield soon made it impossible to arrange one common system of land laws, so that in a very few years that question was transferred from the Central to the Pro- vincial Governments. But with that alteration, and the occasional addition of new provinces as settlement spread, Grey's constitution lasted in full working order for twenty- three years, and saw the colony through two wearisome wars and several exciting gold rushes. Retires With the passing of the Constitution Act Grey felt that his work was done. During seventeen years of hard work in three Australasian colonies, he had enjoyed three months' holiday at home. He had saved South Australia; he had saved and united New Zealand. At the end of 1853, having seen the assembling of the first Provincial Councils, he took leave of absence and returned to England, to find the New Zealand Company's influence still powerful against him. It was dead, but its partisans attacked him bitterly, and for a time he was in disgrace with the Colonial Depart- ment. For a time only, however— he was soon able to vindicate himself, and, more trusted than ever by the Government, was sent out to manage yet another dis- organised colony in South Africa. B. The Maori War (1856-65). Meanwhile his successors at Auckland were by no means maintaining his traditions. Matters in dispute between the Central authorities and the provinces were largely "K-*^*" ^®^^^®<^ ^y letting the provinces have their own way; but move- Maori difficulties were not to be disposed of so easily. '^®"* Land, of course, was at the bottom of the whole trouble; a Secretary for Native Affairs had been appointed, and to him alone could the Maoris legally sell land, but eager settlers were constantly bargaining behind his back with greedy natives who pretended to be sole owners of valuable patches. Presently the chiefs took alarm ; they still trusted the Imperial authorities (of whom the Native Secretary was one), but were very suspicious of the local Assembly and XEW ZEALAND SINCE 1850. 297 its Ministers, who were always striving to gain control of native affairs. In 1856 there was a great council of Maori chiefs near Lake Taupo, at which they bound themselves to sell no more land to anyone, not even to the Imperial authorities. At the same time they revived Busby's p. 271 original scheme of banding the tribes together under a single head. The chiefs, it was felt, were losing their mana: the new Governor, Colonel Gore Browne,- was not treating them Browne with the same friendly respect that Grey had shown. If i^s-ei ' they could agree on one great chief, and make him their king, he could speak to the Governor on more equal teinns. Thus began the " King " movement, not as an act of rebellion against British rule, but as a means of giving the Maori tribes the same standing under British rule that the new Constitution had given to the white colonists. For a while the movement lagged: Potatau, the elected king, was an old man and a great friend of the whites, and did as little as possible in his new office. But in 1859 matters became much more serious. The white settlement at Taranaki had been from the first a centre of disturbance. The town was little more than a straggling street parallel to the sea beach, with a few The cottages scattered in the fern-bush and forest which spread Block on all sides from the slope of Mount Egmont behind it. This wild country was the home of quarrelling fragments of ^ native tribes, who fought each other year in, year out, over trivial questions of disputed ownership. The most im- portant and consequently most quarrelsome chief of the district was Wiremu Kingi, who had in past years done the British many a good turn; and he was still so friendly that he refused to join the King movement, and took care that no Europeans should be injured in the squabbles of his fellow-tribesmen. But it happened that in 1859 the Taranaki settlers wanted more land, and the Governor arranged to buy from some natives a block at the mouth of the Waitara River. Wiremu Kingi protested, partly p- 287 because he occupied a part of it, mainly because as chief he could veto all sales of tribal land. The sellers, of course, Feb. 20, 1860 298 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. disputed his veto. To Browne, no expert in Maori matters, he was only a turbulent leader of quarrelsome natives, and his claim to a veto seemed absurd and arrogant. The block was bought; surveyors were sent on to it; Wiremu Kingi asserted his rights as mildly as he knew how by sending against them the ugliest old women of his tribe, who over- whelmed them with reproachful caresses. The Governor was in no mood to appreciate humour. He called the Maoris rebels, and proclaimed martial law in the Taranaki district. Now " martial law " is an expression well under- stood among Europeans, but this was what the translators of the proclamation made of it : " The law of fighting is now to appear at Taranaki, and remain until again forbidden." We can imagine the joy of the younger Maoris at this The official order to resume their dearly beloved game of war. Game They plunged into it with the utmost zest, building pa after pa in the Taranaki forest land and sending cheery challenges to the British commanders sent against them. " Friend," wrote a number of chiefs to General Pratt, " come to fight me, that is very good : come inland, and let us meet each other. Fish fight at sea— come inland .... make haste, make haste, don't prolong it." Wiremu Kingi, stigmatised as a rebel, at once threw in his lot with the King leaders and called the powerful Waikato tribe to his I aid: As usual, the British troops fought by rule and line, breaching the pas with artillery and marching in column to the attack. " They are brave men," said the natives, " but very foolish, for they march so close together that one bullet will kill two men." Presently General Pratt tried to lessen this loss of life by sapping up to the pas as carefully as if they were fortified cities; but this style of warfare was too tedious for his lively opponents, who at last sent out a flag of truce and offered to finish the sap for him themselves if that would. bring on the actual fighting any sooner. Even while fighting the natives did not forget the cause of the whole trouble. They were always ready to make peace on condition that the ownership of the Waitara block should be carefully enquired into. But Browne was NEW ZEAXAND SINCE 1850. 299 obstinate, though Governor Denison sent him from New South Wales a letter of admirable advice in Grey's own spirit : he set to work to fortify the approaches to Auckland, and was preparing to carry the war into the Waikato district when orders from home recalled him and sent Grey once more to the post of danger. Grey hurried over from the Cape to Auckland, and at Gfey once put himself in communication with every Maori tribe again he could reach to find out what was at the bottom of their restlessness. He way soon able to explain to the British Government how peculiar the native method of warfare was, and how futile it must be to treat them either as civilised beings or pure savages. The recent war, for instance, they considered to be so purely local a matter that the W^aikato tribe, which was fighting hard in Taranaki, had not attempted to disturb a single European Grey again in its own district. At the time of Browne's departure I86I-8 there was no actual fighting going on, and the most redoubtable of Pratt's opponents was occupied in starting a school and ploughing land from which to raise crops for feeding the school children. Grey determined to have done -J*^® with war against such men, if possible, and soon put for- ward a scheme for utilising them in the administration of the countrj\ The chiefs were to be made magistrates and police officers in their own " hundreds :" they were to nomi- nate representatives on the council of their district, which would have power over hospitals, gaols, schools, and dis- putes about land. Most of the chiefs accepted this new proposal joyfully, and the white colonists, for whom Grey after some trouble obtained the control over Maori affairs (which had till then been Imperial), were at least willing to try the experiment. But the Waikato men still adhered to their " King " movement, and Grey did not conceal from them that he wished to see it suppressed. Potatau, the first king, had been his personal friend. Of the new one, Tawhiao, he knew little, and nothing that was good. While proclaiming and encouraging peace everywhere else, he set his military forces to make a good road from Auckland to 300 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. the Waikato River, so that troops could be quickly moved upon that centre of disturbance whenever it should be necessary. At the same time he announced that the Waitara grievance would be thoroughly enquired into, and in 1862 admitted Wiremu Kingi's claim, and arranged to hand the block back to him. His Ministry was slow to consent, and Grey was im- patient to have done with the whole affair. By an T^® unfortunate blunder, while waiting for Ministers to make resume up their minds about Waitara, he resumed possession of the war another Taranaki block which belonged to the whites, and had been seized by the Maoris during the war. To the natives one matter balanced the other, and the two should have been settled at the same time; they saw their conquest taken away from them while Waitara May 4, 1863 still remained British. The order for war came speedily from the Waikato, and a party of ten Englishmen was brutally massacred within a few miles of Taranaki township. The whole island was at once astir. This was no matter of a land squabble, but a direct challenge from the King leaders to the Governor: from Wanganui came news of a plotted rising: all Europeans were thrust out of the Waikato. Grey soon put his new road to good use, and a strong force of British soldiers and colonial militia fought its way up the enemy's river under General Nov. 20-21 Cameron. At Rangiriri a pa of great strength was taken after repeated assaults, and the soldiers ran among the defenders as they surrendered, shaking hands with them for their gallantry. A remarkably strong chain of defences at Paterangi was made useless by Cameron's sudden appearance on the Maori line of supplies in its rear. At last three hundred of the retreating natives entrenched themselves in a hastily-constructed stockade at Orakau, on a branch of the upper Waipa. Carey, an officer under Cameron, surrounded them with a force of more than four April 2,1864 times their number, but in three assaults failed to cross the stockade. Next day it was breached with the fire of a heavy gun, and Carey called on the Maoris to yield and NEW ZEALAND SINCE 1850. 301 save their lives, for there were women and children among them. " The women will fight too," they said : and for their own part, " Ka whawhai tonu, ake, ake, ake ! We fight to the last, for ever, for ever, for ever !" Abandoning the Christian hymns which they had used so long, they called on their own gods of former days and marched in a body against the English line to the music of their fathers' war song. For six miles the troops beset them, until more than half of that brave band was killed: the rest escaped across a friendly river and dispersed in the forests of the upper W^aikato. The war in that district was over. There was more work for the soldiers yet, however, for jauranga the King leaders had sent their order to fight far and wide Cam- over the island. A body of young warriors from Hawke's Bay, crossing to join another detachment in Tauranga, were attacked and beaten by the Arawa, a tribe friendly to the British. The main body of the Tauranga tribe fortified a pa, afterwards called the " Gate Pa," on the boundary between the white settlements and native territory, and Cameron resolved to surround and attack it. For a whole day his guns battered the stockade; at four o'clock the -A.prii28 troops charged and entered the pa, but not a Maori was to be seen— they were all hidden in rifle-pits dug out under- ground, from which they shot the officers at their leisure. One* regiment, it is said, lost more officers at the Gate Pa than any regiment did at Waterloo. A panic seized on the crowded assailants, and they fell back in disorder, pursued by taunting natives. That night the pa was abandoned, and the Maoris fell back inland; but their triumph lasted six weeks only, and at Te Ranga the regiments they had broken broke their defence in turn. With that the remnant of the Tauranga tribe submitted themselves to Grey's mercy, and the King party retreated further into its central fast- nessess, despairing of any further good fortune. Yet before peace was made this extraordinary war was to develop another surprise. At Taranaki it had gone on Ha"s smouldering all the time, with occasional skirmishes and ambuscades. While Cameron was in Tauranga, the hostile The Hau 302 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. natives under Mount, Egmont suddenly revived their forefathers' cruelties, mutilating and eating some of the English dead. Out of their own and the Christian religious beliefs some fanatic prophets had constructed a new religion, and proclaimed that in December, 1864, the white men would be extirpated: meanwhile, the devotees would go unwounded even by rifle bullets if only as they charged they shouted, "Haul Hau!" in honour of their god, the angel Gabriel. Taranaki itself was soon freed from these wretches, but for a year or two they held strong positions A Maori Pa on the Wanganui; and though the Waikato men and the King party in general refused to become converts, yet Hauhau missionaries were allowed to pass across the Taupo district and stir up the disaffected at Poverty Bay and at Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty. Here the Arawa and other friendly tribes (among whom two chiefs, Te Kepa and Ropata, especially distinguished themselves) succeeded in crushing the fanatics with very little help from Govern- ment. At the Wanganui Grey himself had to interfere. General Cameron was tired of losing his best troops in assaulting strongly- fortified pas: he was beginning to NEW ZEALAND SINCE 1850. 303 respect his Maori enemies, who fought so well, more than the white settlers whom he had to protect, and who seemed to him over-greedy for land: moreover he had not grasped the difference between the King movement, which Grey merely wished to render harmless and non-aggressive, and the Hauhau superstition, which must at all costs be extirpated. Ordered to Wanganui, he thought it was simply a matter of more " land grabbing ;" he excused himself from attacking the rebel pa at Wereroa, retired to Auckland, and left his troops inactive. Grey collected a mixed force of natives and colonists, seized a height which commanded the pa, and in two days took it without the loss of a single man. His "^^^Ysls^"^' success closed the long war and gave New Zealand a breath- ing space from alarms : but for him it was the beginning of that friction with the British War Department which at last led to his recall and closed his career as an Imperial officer. C. Troublous Times (1865-68). In truth Grey was at this time beset on all sides with difficulties. The Imperial authorities could not understand why, having been sent to the colony with absolute power in native .affairs because he knew them so well, he had almost at once got his power transferred to his responsible Ministers in the colonial parliament. He had done so, as a matter of fact, because all the nominal power he might have was not to be exercised without money, and the colonists were not fond of finding money for schemes over which they had no control. But he overrated his personal influence among the men to whom the new arrangement committed his powers. Some were of a new generation, and knew little of his earlier services: some still remem- bered the animosity of the New Zealand Company: nearly all were possessed with the idea that New Zealand was a white man's colony, and that the interests of the natives were of quite minor importance. To check their zeal against the Maori Grey was forced back upon the use of his prerogative as Governor, the very power of which he had tried to divest himself. The colonists called him 304 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. tyrannical. The Colonial Office called him vacillating. When the War Office complained indignantly that a mere civilian Governor was interfering with one of its Generals, Grey's position became almost impossible to hold. But much work besides fighting was done in this second governorship of his. The South Island, free from Maori Gold troubles, had contributed its share of excitement in the shape of gold-fields. In 1861 gold was discovered on the Tuapeka River, and the yield grew richer as diggers went north along the valley of the Clutha. On the Shotover a miner swam across some rapids to rescue his dog from drowning, and that afternoon washed out more than a thousand pounds' worth of gold from the point where he landed. Otago quadrupled its population in three years, and would have grown faster but for fresh discoveries on 1865 the west coast, where Hokitika became the centre of a mining enterprise that spread up every torrent bed and got great reward from the sands of the sea shore. Smaller parties prospected through the province of Nelson and round the Hauraki Gulf, and the quartz reefs of Coro- mandel attracted many, though Maori opposition to the sale of tribal lands delayed for years the opening up of the rich Thames Valley goldfield. Ititutrjn -^^ ^^^ ^^* ^^^y ^^ regard to native affairs that Grey had trouble with his Ministers. The Constitution creaked a good deal in the working. In Browne's time had been fought out the inevitable question about the responsibility of Ministers to parliament. Wynyard, a stop-gap Acting- Governor, had maintained in office men who were not members of the new parliament at all, and who could only be abused, not unseated, by electors or an Assembly that differed from them: Browne, after a good deal of palaver- ing, accepted the modern system, and in all but native affairs acted on the advice of a Ministry led by Mr. Edward Stafford. But the provinces were too powerful to allow the formation of any Ministry that could work solely for the whole colony's good, and their influence always tended towards complete separation. The six original provinces in NEW ZEi^AND SINCE 1850. 305 the end grew to ten. Hawke's Bay in 1858 was carved out of Wellington, and Marlborough out of Nelson a year later. The gold rush made a province of Southland, in- cluding the Clutha and Mataura valleys: but this district was again merged in Otago in 1870, after existing separately for nine years. Later on, in 1873, the west coast gold- fields obtained two years of existence as a province under the name of W^estland: but this was far beyond Grey's time, and is only mentioned here for the sake of complete- ness. So strengthened, the provincial element in the Assembly asserted itself with dangerous freedom. Attempts were made to cut off Auckland and the chief Maori districts from the rest of New Zealand, and failing that, to make each island a separate colony: in both cases the end sought was to keep the revenues of Canterbury and Otago for local purposes and to throw on the Imperial Government the cost of war— for Auckland by itself would certainly have been too poor to pay its war bill. Both attempts were barely defeated, the latter by a single vote only. Auckland, on the other hand, in 1865 asked for separation on its own account, because the southern provinces had a majority in parliament and gave it laws that it did not want. Grey's capture of the Wereroa pa was accepted as the ^^^y^^ close of the war, though Hauhau disturbances broke out at odd moments for some years later. He and his Ministers now set to work to make gome permanent settlement of Maori affairs. Of course the friendly tribes in quiet districts had long ago accepted his scheme of 1861, and kept in good working order, but at Waikato and Taranaki and Tauranga and Whakatane there were large tracts left desolate and without any sort of local administration, Maori or white. These tracts the New Zealand Government took over as a prize of war, to the extent of more than three million acres: about a tenth part of this area was dis- tributed among loyal natives for reward, and nearly the same amount restored to native owners who threw them- 306 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. selves on the Government's mercy: most of the rest was thrown open for sale to white settlers. One block of four hundred thousand acres between the Waipa and Waikato, stretching south as far as Orakau, was reserved for a series of military settlements, on which members of the Colonial militia were placed to defend from further incursions of the King natives the soil over which thef had fought so See map, gallantly. The King party, in answer, proclaimed Te Aukati, " the boundary line " enclosing territory that stretched from Taupo west to the sea and north to the military settlement, known thenceforward as " the King country:" across that boundary line no white, no loyal native might step under penalty of death. The Hauhaus of Tauranga had an Aukati of their own, reaching from the head of the Thames north to the Coromandel Range: but this was a temporary affair only, while within the King- country Tawhiao and his followers sulked for many a year. The irreconcilables being thus provided for, it was time to confer on the friendly tribes their full privileges as 1865 citizens of the Empire. A Native Rights Act gave their land customs the force of law. A Native Lands Act, em- bodying and improving on one passed in 1862, established Land Courts with Maori and English juries. Not long after 1867 Maori schools were endowed, and the tribes were allowed to elect four of their chiefs to represent them in the colonial parliament. The policy which Grey had proclaimed in 1845 was at last triumphant when in 1868 he was recalled from the colony which he more than any other man had shaped and saved. For evil days had come upon the Empire, and there was no room for a strong Governor who wished to stand between the British Government and the colonists, binding them both together. English politics in the years from 1854 to 1874 had been centred more and more on the British Isles. After Lord Palmerston's death even European politics almost ceased to interest politicians in London, and the colonies, scattered far oversea, interested them still less. New Zealand, where Imperial troops were fighting, had to be NEW ZEALAND SINCE 1850. 307 attended to, but the chief wish of successive Colonial Secre- taries was to get the troops out of it as quickly as possible and leave it to its own devices. They chafed at Grey's con- stant appeals to them to take some genuine interest in his schemes, and took the first excuse to get rid of him. General Cameron had resigned after the Wereroa affair, and was attackifig the Governor bitterly at home. General Chute, his successor, thought fit to order a Maori prisoner to be shot in cold blood, and his officers put the act down to the Governor's orders, being reluctant to believe that a soldier would have done such a thing. Grey, charged with pecai? the crime by Mr. Cardwell, then Colonial Secretary, denied it with bitter indignation. His denial was received by a new Secretary, the Earl of Carnarvon, the one man who really was anxious to keep the colonies in the Empire: and he, while admitting that the Governor had cleared himself completely, asked him to alter the wording of his dispatch. At the same time, yielding to pressure from Cameron's and Chute's friends at the War Office, Lord Carnarvon decided that military matters should be left to the General alone. Before any answers could be received, another and much weaker Secretary was in office, and to him came both Grey's refusal to withdraw a word of the dispatch objected to, and a further dispatch asserting proudly that Lord Carnarvon had been " misled " and that his statements and inferences were incorrect. To the new Secretary this was mere mutiny on the part of a minor official: he answ^ered curtly that it was needless to go on with the discussion, and that he would soon be able to tell Sir George wjio was to succeed him, and how soon he would be relieved. At the news of this marked discourtesy all New Zealand united in the Governor's defence. His Ministers ■ forgot their bickerings arid protested strongly against the method and reason of his dismissal. Parliament addressed him in terms of unqualified praise. From every province, from every friendly tribe letters came pouring in, full of affection and reverence and regret at his departure. Eight years later, when at a great banquet in Wellington the 308 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. Bowen Governor, 1868-73. Te Kooti Nov. 10 Jan. 5, 1869 toast of " The Governor " was proposed, every Maori there sprang to his feet and cheered enthusiastically for " The Governor — Governor Grey !" Sir George Bowen, who came from Queensland to succeed him, entered on office with a praiseworthy desire to find out all he could about the colony and to interest the Colonial Secretary in its progress, but found the *despatches from London just as curt, if less hostile. Before very long, however, he found himself able to make his reports not only interesting but alarming. A native called Te Kooti had been arrested as a spy in 1865 during the Hauhau troubles on the east coast, and had been sent with other prisoners to the Chatham Islands. On July 4, 1868, he headed a revolt in which the prisoners seized the convict station, boarded a Government schooner, and sailed back to the North Island, landing a little below Poverty Bay. Three times he was attacked by small bodies of colonists, but burst through them all to gain the shelter of the inland ravines: then, while eager officers were mustering the friendly tribes to pursue him, he came suddenly down on the settlement at Poverty Bay and massacred every human being he could find. Almost at the same time a Hauhau chief broke into revolt on the west coast near Wanganui, and announced that he was reviving cannibalism. At the moment there was but a single British regiment in New Zealand, and that was under orders for removal. Governor Bowen begged that it should be left: he wrote and he tele- graphed protests : he pictured the seriousness of the situation by cornparisons with the Indian Mutiny and the Battle of Culloden, and quoted parallels from the Bible and the " Lady of the Lake." The Colonial Secretary put them all aside as " very interesting," but insisted on removing the troops. In this emergency the colonial Government turned, at first in part and then altogether, to the help of its Maori friends. Colonel Whitmore, an officer who had served under Cameron, was put in command of the Colonial militia: with the help of Te Kepa he suppressed the dis- orders at Wanganui: with the help of Ropata he stormed NEW ZEALAND SINCE 1850. 309 Te Kooti's pa at Ngatapa, perhaps the most formidable of Maori fortresses— where three lines of earthworks guarded the summit of a mountain peak, only to be approached along a narrow ridge with precipices on either hand. By great good fortune Tawhiao was persuaded to remain neutral, and one of his principal chiefs even joined the colonial forces. Te Kooti, after' another merciless raid on Whakatane, was driven into the ranges east of Taupo, through which Te Kepa and Ropata hunted him for many months. At last Tawhiao allowed him to take refuge in the King country, and the Government, assured that he was treated purely as a refugee and was now harmless to do further ill, assented to this arrangement. Te Kepa and Ropata received com- missions as Majors, and were presented with swords of honour from the Queen. D. Peace and Progress (1870-90). So closed the long series of Maori wars, with the full recognition that loyal Maoris were full citizens of the Em- pire, fighting under the same flag and obeying the same laws as the white men who had settled among them. Tawhiao and his followers, it is true, held aloof in the King country, where for many years they maintained a practically independent though friendly state. But only once since Te Kooti's last raid has there been talk of dissension between natives and colonists, and that (as may be guessed) was over the question of land. A road was being surveyed across the Waimate Plains, south of Mount Egmont, when a party of Maoris sent by a prophet-chief, Te Whiti, 1^79 stopped the survey because it was trenching on their reserves. The district was that in which the last Hauhau revolt had taken place, and the alarmed colonists suspected, quite unjustly, that the prophet was reviving that super- stition. Troops were poured into the Waimate and Te AYhiti was arrested; but there was no outbreak, nor had there really been a prospect of one. In 1870 New Zealand began to take stock of her losses, and to devise some scheme of progress for the future. The 310 HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. scheme formulated was a very simple one. A sum of ten million pounds was to be borrowed, with which to construct railways, roads, and harbour works from end to end of the colony, to encourage immigration, and to buy up land for settlement. Part of the cost was to come from the sale 'of Crown lands that bordered on the new public works and would be increased in value thereby: but this provision the Provinces, always jealous for their absolute control over their own land, managed to throw out. The borrowing went on, however, and all the Provinces got by interfering was their own abolition. In 1875-6 Acts were passed which Constitu- ended the provincial system and substituted for it a number Reform of county and borough councils to look after local affairs, while the central parliament (which since 1865 had been sitting at Wellington) took over all business in which the whole colony had a common interest. Sir George Grey, who had returned to Auckland in 1870 and had entered the colonial parliament as member for that city in 1874, strongly opposed these Acts, but became himself Premier soon after they were put in force. As a party politician, however, he did not prove a success, although many of the measures he advocated have since been passed by men whom he helped into parliamentary life. In 1879 the period of borrowing and public works came to a sudden end. As happened in Victoria later, land had been sold at an abnormally high price during the " boom,'' and when the yield of gold fell off and the price of farming products went down, the landholders who had borrowed money to pay for their high-priced land were unable to re- pay the loans. Consequently the next ten years were largely taken up in devising measures to settle small farmers on the land at low rentals, so that by cultivating it more carefully, and by establishing co-operative dairies and meat-freezing works, it might be made more valuable to the colony at large. Since 1890 the chief endeavour of the New Zealand Parliament has been to make the State look after many things that in other countries are the concern of private people, so that not only railways and post offices (as in NEW ZEALAND SINCE 1850. 311 Australia), but hospitals and other charities, life assurance and even servants' registry offices are managed by the Government. The right of women to vote at parliamentary elections, the acts for regulating factories and establishing compulsory arbitration, and many other of our newer laws were first passed and tested in New Zealand. Quiet and isolated within their belt of ocean, New Zealanders make experiments from which their fellow-citizens of the Empire may learn much. INDEX I. Aborigines, the, of Australia, 1, 23, 64, 74-7, 206 Aborigines, the, of Tasmania, 74, 76, 84-6 Adelaide, 93,- 94, 110, 129, 134, 135, 139, 143, 146, 149, 164, 166, 168, 173, 175-6, 195, 229 Akaroa, 271, 273, 279, 281, 286 Albany, 58, 110, 137, 179, 180, 184 Albert, Province of, 166, 172 Albury, 52, 62, 116, 159, 164 Alexander, Mount, 117, 118, 121, 129 Arthur, Governor, 63, 64, 66, 81-5, 107 Auckland, 185, 285-8, 290, 293, 299, 305, 310 Australia, the name, 3, 31 Australian Agricultural Company, 208, 209, 226 Bagot, Captain, 111-12 Ballarat, 117, 118, 120, 124-8, 160 Banks, Sir J., 12, 14, 34 Banks' Peninsula, 265, 271, 279 Barcoo River, 141, 143, 151, 172 Barton, Sir E., 199-200 Bass, George, 26-9, 40 Bathurst, 40, 49, 53, 60, 70, 71, 115, 116, 159 Batman, John, 63-6, 83, 85, 205-6 Baudin, Admiral, 30-3 Bay of Islands, the, 266-8, 270, 274, 279-80, 287-90 Beechworth, 123, 124 Bendigo, 117-18, 120, 123-4, 129 Berry, Sir Graham, 162-4 Bigge, Commissioner, 45, 50, 207 Bischoff, Mount, 165 Blackfellows, the {see Aborigines) Blaxland, Gregory, 40, 49, 242-3 Bligh, Governor, "^34-7, 44, 78, 109 Blue Mountains, the, 22-6, 40, 114, 159 Botany Bay, 11, 14, 20, 27 Bourke, Governor, 59, 60, 66, 70, 76, 96, 101, 133, 206, 210, 271 Bowen, Governor, 132, 163, 308 Braddon, Sir E., 198 Brisbane {see also Moreton Bay). 50-1, 131, 143, 168, 171-2, 215 Brisbane, Governor, 45-8, 51-3 68, 207 Britomart, the, 278 Broken Hill, 160, 177, 230 Browne, Governor, 297-9, 304 Browne, T. A. ("Rolf Boldre- wood"), 250, 253 Buller, Charles, 91, 97, 103, 292 Burke, Robert O'Hara, 137, 147- 51 Busby, James, 271, 277, 297 Bushrangers, the, 71, 80, 83, 118, 156 Camden, 35, 81 Cameron, General, 300, 301, 307 Canterbury, District of, 294-5, 305 Cape of Good Hope, the, 17, 22, 34, 105 Carpentaria, Gulf of {and dis- trict), 4, 9, 31, 74, 76, 137, 140, 147, 150-2, 172-5 Castlemaine, 62, 117, 120, 123, 129 Castlereagh River, 43, 53-4 Charters Towers, 169, 173 Chinese, the, 16, 125, 156, 158, 171, 178, 192, 227 Clarke, Marcus, 249 313 314 INDEX. Clarke, the Revd. W. B., 115 Coal, Discoveries of, 27-8 Coinage, the, 72-4 Collins, Lieutenant-Governor, 33, 62, 78-80 Commonwealth of Australia, 196- 204 Constitution, the Federal, 195-8 Constitutions of New South Wales, 48, 59, 97, 114, 129, 130, 155- 6, 190 Constitutions of New Zealand, 292- 3, 295-6, 304-5, 310 Constitution of Queensland, 132 Constitutions of South Australia. 92, 111, 113, 129-30, 171-2 Constitutions of Tasmania, 108, 129-30 Constitutions of Victoria, 106-7, 128-30, 161, 164 Constitution of West Australia, 181 Convention of 1883, 188, 192 Convention of 1891, 194 Convention of 1897-8, 195 Convicts, the. 17, 26, 33, 44, 48, 68, 71, 78, 81, 82-3, 97, 98, 104-5, 108, 109, 110, 131, 156, 179, 180 Cook, Captain, 9-13, 15, 50, 262, 264-7, 279 . Cook Strait, 265, 270, 274, 276, 279, 280, 285 Cooktown, 169, 173 Coolgardie, 182 Coolies, the, 170, 176, 178 Cooper's Creek, 138-9, 148-51 Cowpastures, the, 26, 35 Cowper, Sir Charles, 105, 109, 156, 157 Cunningham, Allan, 41, 53, 60 "Currency," 72-3 Dalley, William Bede, 158, 245, 250, 252 Dampier, William, 6-9 Darling Downs, the, 53, 76, 132, 139, 142 Darling, Governor (N.S.W.), 48-9, 53, 63, 68, 71, 74, 244, 271 Darling, Governor (Vic), 162 Darling River, 53, 56, 61, 69, 70, 137, 139, 141, 147, 151, 159, 164 Davey, Governor, 80, 81 de Quiros, 3 de Thierry, 272-3 Deakin, Alfred, 199, 200 Deas Thomson, Sir E., 103 Defence of Australia, the, 193, 200-2 Deniehy, Daniel H., 244, 250, 252 Denison, Governor, 109, 132, 299 Derby, Lord, 187-8 Derw-ent River, 33, 78, 165 Diamantina River, 138, 150, 151 Dollars and Dumps, 73 du Fresne, Marion, 30, 266 Duffy, Sir Charles Gavan, 160, 162 Durham, Lord, 91, 273-4, 281 Dutch, the, in the East, 4-6, 9, 18, 260 Duyfken, the, 4 Egmont, Mt., 270, 282, 297, 302, 309 Emancipists, the, 44-8, 96-7, 206 Encounter Bay, 33, 56, 76 Endeavour, the, 8-9, 11-13 Eureka Stockade, the, 126 Evans, Surveyor, 40-1 "Exiles," the, 104 Eyre, Edward John, 134-9, 141, 143, 145, 181 Eyre, Lake, 143, 145 Farrell, John, 254 Fawkner, John Pascoe, 64-5, 242 Federal Council, the, 192 Federation, 106-7, 158, 187, 190- 204 Fisher, Andrew% 200 Fitzroy, Governor (N.S.W.), 103- 7, 120-1 INDEX. 315 Fitzrov, Governor (X.Z.), 286, 291, 292 Fiji, 186, 188, 193, 264 Financial Crisis of 1893, 230 Flinders, Matthew, 14, 26, 29, 30-1, 50, 108 Flinders River, 147, 150, 151, 173 Forbes, Chief-Justice, 49 Forrest, Sir John, 181 Franklin, Governor, 107, 108 Fremantle, 88-9, 179 French, the, in the Pacific, 16, 29, 30, 57, 87, 184, 260, 265, 273-4 279, 281, 286 Furneaux, Captain, 266 Gate Pa, the, 301 Gawler. Governor, 93-5, 110-11, 135 Geelon^, 52, 64. 66, 68, 99, 117, 129, 160, 164 Germans, the, in the Pacific, 186, 188, 200 Giles, Ernest, 182 Gipps, Governor, 70, 96, 103, 114- 15, 139, 140, 274, 277, 281-2, 285 Gippsland, 9, 133-4, 164 Gladstone, W. E., 104, 108 Glenelg, Lord, 66, 113 Goldfields, the, of New South Wales, 114-17, 120, 125-6, 214 Goldfields, the, of New Zealand, 304, 310 Goldfields, the, of Queensland, 169, 170 Goldfields, the, of Tasmania, 165, Goldfields, the, of Victoria, 117, 128, 214 Goldfields, the, of W. Australia, 182-3 Gordon, A. Lindsav, 237, 246, 250 Goulburn, 43, 49, 51, 54, 70. 156, 159 Gregorv, A. C, 137, 143, 145, 166, 172, 181 Grey, Governor, 89, 90, 110-12, 179, 194, 257, 288, 290-96, 299-307, 310 Grey, Earl, 91, 103-6, 109, 179, 190-1, 288, 292-3 Grose, Lieut, -Governor, 24, 34, 267 Hargraves, Edward, 115-16 Harpur, Charles. 237, 240 Hauhaus, the, 302, 305, 306, 308, 309 Hawkesbury River, 23-4, 40, 45, 78, 159, 206 Hentys, the, 62-5, 89 Hervey Bay, 29, 31, 133, 171 High Court, the, 197, 199 Higinbotham, George, 162, 248, 257 Hindmarsh, Governor, 93 Hobart, 33, 78, 80, 86, 109, 165 Hobson, Governor, 272, 274, 278- 80, 281-2, 285-6, 292 Hokitika, 304 Holey-dollars, 73 Hone Heke, 287-90 Hongi, 268-70 Home, R. H., 243, 245 Hotham, Governor, 124-6 Hovell, Captain, 51, 53, 56, 58, 62, 243 Howe, Cape, 27-8, 102 Howitt, A. W., 149-51, 243 Hume, Hamilton, 43, 51-3, 56, 61, 63, 243 Hume River {see Murray River) Hunter, Governor, 25-6, 28, 34, 37, 72 Hunter River, 33, 70 Illawarra. 28, 57 Immigration in the Goldrush, 117, 160 Immigration to N.Z., 274, 279, 281- 2, 285-6 316 INDEX. Immigration to Q., 130-1, 168 Immigration to S.A., 92-3 Immigration to W.A., 87, 88, 178 Immigration to-day, 197, 204 Immigration under Brisbane, 45, 48, 49, 272 Imperial Conferences, 200-1 Industries, Growth of, 223 Investigator, the, 29, 31 Irrigation, 104, 177, 203 Johnston, Major, 36, 37 Kanakas, the, 170, 172, 186, 188, 198 Kapiti, 271, 275, 287 Kendall, Henry, 236, 244-6, 268 Kennedy, E. B., 137, 141-2 Kimberley, 180-2 King George's Sound, 29, 33, 58, 87, 89, 90 King, Governor, 14, 22, 25-6, 31, 35, 37, 44, 72, 78, 85, 110, 184, 267 " King " movement in New Zea- land, the, 296-7, 299, 303, 306, 309 Kingsley, Henry, 250 Kosciusko, Mount, 134 La P^rouse, Jean de, 30, 76 Lachlan River, 21, 26, 40-1, 54, 61 Landlaws, Maori, 276, 306 Landlaw of 1861 (N.S.W.), 154-5, 158, 215-20 Land Regulations, 68, 82, 92, 98, 101, 178, 205 Land Settlement, 205 Lang, Dr. J. D., 130-1, 207, 213, 240-42 Latrobe, Lieut.-Governor, 102, 108, 117, 121, 124-5 Launceston, 62, 64, 65, 80, 165 Lawson, Henry, 254-5 Leeuwin, Cape, 4, 29, 33 Leiehhardt, Ludwig, 137, 139-43, 150, 172, 181 License-fees, miners', 120-1, 123-6, 128 Liverpool Plains, the, 43, 51, 53, 60 Lonsdale, Captain, 66, 102 Louis Philippe, 273-4 Lowe, Robert, 98, 105, 242 Macarthur, John, 34-7, 82, 206, 225, 267 McCulloch, Sir J., 161-2, 179 Macdonnell Range, the, 145, 147 Maclav Coast, the, 187-90, 261 McMillan, 133-4 Macquarie, Governor, 37, 45, 50, 73, 80, 82, 114, 159, 207, 267-8 Macquarie Harbour, 83 Macquarie River, 40-1, 54, 56, 115-16 Maitland, 49, 129 Malaysia, 1, 3, 6, 18, 175, 261 Maoris, the {see New Zealand passim ) Maori Wars, 287-90, 296-303, 308-9 Marsden, Revd. Samuel, 267-9 Marion (see du Presne) Martin, Sir J., 157, 242 Matra, James, 16, 17 Mauritius, 5, 31, 89 Melbourne, 64-7, 99, 102-3, 105-6, 116-18, 120-1, 126, 128-9, 134, 151-2, 160, 164, 191, 195, 206. 229 Mining in New South Wales, 31, 57, 114-15, 120, 156, 160, 224, 226, 230 Mining in New Zealand, 284, 304-5 Mining in Queensland, 169, 170, 172, 230 Mining in South Australia, 111-12, 177, 226 Mining in Tasmania, 165, 230 Mining in Victoria, 116-17 Mining in West Australia, 179, 180, 182, 230 INDEX. 317 Mitchell, Sir Thomas, 60, 62, 66, 133, 137, 139-40, 243 Moreton Bay, 50, 53, 70, 104-5, 130-1, 139 Morgan, Mount, 170, 230 Murchison River, 179, 181, 182 Murray River, 52, 56, 61-2, 92, 102, 111, 133-4, 137, 164, 177, 192, 203 Murrumbidgee River, 52, 54, 61, 102, 159 Mnni, the, 201-3 Natives, the {see Aborigines) Naval Defence Scheme, the, 193, 200, 201 Nelson, 276, 282, 284, 287-8, 295, 304-5 New Caledonia, 186, 188 NeM' Guinea, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 74, 186- 9, 192, 202, 261, 264 New Hebrides, the, 3, 9, 186, 189, 202 New South Wales {see Index II.) New South Wales Corps, the, 23, 26, 34, 37, 44 New Zealand {see Index II.) New Zealand Company, the, 206, 274-5, 278, 282, 292-3, 296 Newcastle, 43, 57, 70, 129, 132, 159, 226 Ngatapa, 309 " Nineteen Counties," the, 68, 154, 206, 211, 213, 215 Norfolk Island, 22, 25, 49, 50, 60, 78, 97, 108, 109, 267 Northern Territory, the {see Index 11.) Ohaeawae, 289 Orakau, 300, 306 Otago, 293-4, 295, 305 Ovens River, 52 Overland Telegraph Lines, 175, 176-7, 180, 182 " Overlanders," the, 111, 134 Oxley, John, 41, 50-1, 53, 61, 243 Pakington, Sir J., 109, 121 Pamphlett, Thomas, 50, 51 Panama Canal, the, 185-6 Papua, {see New Guinea) Parkes, Sir Henry, 157-8, 192-4. 242, 244, 245 Parramatta (river and town), 23- 4, 26, 48, 62, 129, 159, 206 Pastoral Industry, 224 Paterson, A. B., 255, 256 Paterson, Lieut.-Governor, 24, 33, 36, 78 Payment of Members, 162-3, 174 Peel, George, 87, 89 Pelsart, Francis, 4 Perth, 88, 89-90, 178-80 Phillip, Governor, 19, 26, 38-9, 75, 184, 206, 237 Pomare, Queen, 184 Pope's Line, the, 2 Port Arthur, 83, 108 Port Curtis, 50, 104, 172 Port Darwin, 173, 176-7, 202-3 Port Essington, 139-40, 150, 184 Port Jackson {see also Sydney), 12, 20, 30, 70, 75, 105 Port Macquarie, 43, 50, 68, 70 Port Moresby, 187 Port Nicholson, 270, 275-6, 280-1, 290 Port Phillip {see ^Iso Victoria), 30, 33, 52-3, 62-3, 184, 206 Port Sterphens, 12, 57, 70 Portland Bav {and town), 61, 62, 76, 99, 164 Portuguese, the, in the East, 2-4 Poverty Bav, 264, 302, 308 Pratt, 'General, 298-9 Protection, 160-2, 198-9, 229 Provinces of New Zealand, the, 295-6, 304-6, 310 Queen Charlotte Sound, 15, 265-6, 270, 275 Queensland {see Index II.) 318 INDEX. Hailways, 129, 159, 164-5, 172-3, 177-8, 203, 234-5, 310 Kauparaha, 270-1, 275, 284, 285, 287, 291 Reid, Sir George, 199, 200 Robe, Governor, 112 Robertson, Sir John, 154-5, 157, 216-7, 226 Robinson, George, 76, 86 Robinson, Sir Hercules, 186 Rockhampton, 169, 172 Roebuck, the, 6 Ropata, 302, 308-9 Roper River, 143, 146, 173, 178, 203 Rosehill (see Parramatta) Ross, Major, 22 Ruapekapeka, 290 Rum traffic, the, 24, 26, 34, 44 Russell, Lord John, 99, 103, 190, 273, 281, 292 Samoa, 186, 188-9 Selwyn, Bishop, 293 Settlement, Growth of, 205 Shortland, Lieut.-Governor, 286 Solomon Islands, the, 3, 171, 190 Sorell, Governor, 81-2 Soudan Contingent, the, 158-9 South African War, the, 200 South Australia {see Index II.) Spaniards, the, in the East, 2-4 Spencer Gulf, 30 Squatters, the, 69, 70, 76, 101, 103-4, 114, 154-5, 168 Stanley, Lord, 99, 103-4, 105-6, 112-13, 286-8, 292 Stenhouse, N. D., 241, 244, 245. 250 Stephens, J. B., 251-2, 255 Stirling, Governor, 87-8 Stony Desert, the, 138-9, 142, 150 Strzelecki, Count, 108, 114, 133-4 Stuart, Sir Alexander, 158 Stuart, John McDouall, 137, 145- 7, 175 Sturt, Captain, 53-8, 60, 92, 137-9, 141, 145, 243, 271 Sugar-growing in Queensland, 170, 171, 229 Swan River, 87 Sydney {see also Port Jackson), 22, 23, 27, 31, 70, 102, 104, 106, 129, 131, 159, 188, 192, 194, 196, 206, 229 Sydney, Lord, 17, 18 "Sydney Gazette," the, 48, 237, 239 Tahiti, 3, 9, 15, 184-5, 189 Tamar River, 28, 33, 78, 165 Tapu, the, 262-3, 266, 268 Taranaki, 271, 282, 285-7, 294, 297, 300, 301, 305 Tasman, Abel, 4-6, 9, 109, 263, 264-5 Tasmania {see Index II.) Taupo, Lake, 270, 297, 302, 306, 309 Tauranga, 301, 305, 306 Tawhiao, 299, 306, 309 Te Aukati, 306 Te Kepa, 302, 309 Te Kooti, 309 Te Pehi, 267-9 Te Whiti, 309 Thames River, 269, 304, 306 Tonga, 186, 189 Torrens Act, the, 174-5 Torrens, Lake, 135, 143, 149 Torres Straits, 4, 5, 6 Townsville, 169, 172-3 Transportation, 17, 48, 60, 97, 104- 5, 108-9, 179-80 "Treaty," Batman's, 63, 68 Treaty of Saragossa, the, 2 Treaty of Tordesillas, the, 2 Treaty of Waitangi, the, 206, 277- 8, 288-90, 292-3 Turon River, 116, 120 "Twenty Counties," {see "Nine- teen Counties ") INDEX. 319 United States, the, in the Pacific, 189 Van Diemen, Antony, 4-5 Van Diemen's Land {see Tas> mania, Index II.) Victoria (see Index II.) Victoria River, 141, 143, 148-9, 166, 182 Waikato River (and tribe), 269- 70, 287-8, 293, 298-9, 300, 301, 302, 305 Wairau River {and district), 284-6 Waitara River {and district), 287, 297, 300 Wakefield, Colonel, 274-6, 284 Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, 90-2, 209, 213, 272-3, 275, 280-82, 294, 296 Wanganui River {and district), 270, 282, 291, 294, 300, 302, 308-9 War burton. Colonel, 182 Warrego River, 141, 143, 151, 172 Wellington (N.S.W.), 41, 57, 68 Wellington (N.Z.), 258, 276, 280. 282, 285, 288, 290, 294-5, 305, 310 W^entworth, William Charles, 39, 49, 59, 60, 90, 96, 100, 101, 103, 105, 129, 156-8, 191, 240, 241, 279 Wereroa, 303, 305, 307 West Australia {see Index II.) Westernport, 28, 51-3, 58, 62-4, 134 Whangaroa, 268 Wills, W. J., 137, 147, 151 Wilmot, Governor, 108-9 Wiremu Kingi, 285-7, 291, 297, 300 Wollongong, 27-8, 57 Wool Industry, 224-6, 233 York, Cape, 3, 12, 31, 69, 74, 141, 169 Young, Governor, 113, 155-6 PAGES. . . . 9-36 6-8, 39- -43, 49-57 37- , 60, 133-4 -77, 96-107 114- -17, 12C 1, 129- -32, 153-60 .. 5, 9 260-78 278-311 INDEX II. New South Wales, Discovery and early settlement of Explorations in . . . . 22, Growth of, to 1851 Progress of, to 1899 . . New Zealand. Discovery of . . History of, before annexation History of, as a British Colony Northern Territory, The — 57, 58, 139, 146, 166, 168, 175, 178, 202-3, 235 Queensland. Discovery of 29, 30, 31, 50-1, 53 Early settlements in . . . . . . . . . . 51, 105 Separation of, from New South Wales . . . . . . 130-2 Explorations in 139-145, 146-152 History of, as a separate colony . . . . 166-173, 175, 187 South Australia. First settlement of . . . . . . . . . . . . 90-5 Subsequent history of . . 98-9, 110-13, 1128-30, 166-8, 173-8 Explorations in 134-7, 145-7 Tasmania. Discovery of . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 15, 28 Early settlements in 33-4, 39, 208 History of, to 1856 . . 71, 78-86, 97, 104. 107-110, 128-130 History of, to 1899 ' . . . . 165 Victoria. Opening up of 30, 31-33 51-3, 60-8, 133-4 History of, as Port Phillip District . . . . 97-99, 102, 105-7 Gold discoveries in, and their results . . . . 116-129 Recent history of 160-4, 179-80 West Australia. Discovery of 4, 5, 7, 33 Early settlement in 58, 86-90, 208 Explorations in 89, 90, 135-7, 180-3 History of, to 1906 .. .. 178-183 320 W. C. Penfold & Co., Printers, 183 Pitt Street, Sydney. Catalogue of books PUBLISHED BY ANGUS & ROBERTSON LIMITED PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY 89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY ^ The books in this Catalogue may be obtained through any Bookseller in Australia or New Zealand. Intending purchasers are requested to write direct to the publishers if they have any difficulty in obtaining the books required. English and Foreign orders should be sent to the publishers whose names appear in the body of the Catalogue ; where no other name appears, orders should be sent to the Oxford University Press, Amen Corner, London, E.C. The costs of postage stated herein apply only to the Commonwealth of Australia. March, 1913. KRW BOOKS! AND NEW EDITIONS^ THE STATE AND FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONS OF AUSTRALIA. By K. R. Cramp, M.A., Examiner, N.S.W. Depart- ment of Public Instruction. With portraits of Framers of the Federal Constitution, Statesmen of the Commonwealth, Justices of the High Court, etc. Crown 8vo., cloth ^ilt, 3s. 6d. [postage 2d.) ' [Nearly ready. LIFE OF LAPEROUSE. By Ernest Scott, author of " Terre Napoleon." With Chart of Voyages in the Pacific, and 13 illustrations. Small 4to., cloth, 3s. 6d. {postage Id.) The French nation has had no greater sailor than Lap6rouse, and no better choice could have been made when Louis XVI. selected this disciple and ardent admirer of the great Captain Cook to conduct an enterprise in the Pacific. The story of Laperouse's splendid work as an explorer, and his close associa- tion with Australia, render this one of the most important contributions to our history, while the noble character of th.» man gives the book special value for presentation purposes. The illustrations are from authentic sources and are very interesting. CHRISTOPHER COCKLE'S AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCES. By "Old Boomerang'' (J. R. Houlding). Revised edition, with 2 portraits. Cloth gilt, 5s. {postage 2d.) Originally published under the title "Australian Capers," this volume has been out of print for many years, and copies which have come into the market secondhand have been pur- chased at enhanced prices. The author has at last consented to its republication and has thoroughly revised it. As a picture of Australian life thirty or forty years ago the book is worthy of a permanent place in our literature, and it con- tains plenty of fun and humour for both old and young. NEW HOOKS! AND NEW EDfTTONS! STORIES OF OLD SYDNEY. By Charles H. Bertie. With 53 pen and pencil drawings by Sydney Ure Smith. Small 4to., cloth cover, printed in colours, 3s. 6d. (postage Id.) Sydney Morning Herald: "A charming and interesting little book . . . they live and breathe, and he has contrived to make actual to us those remote and almost incredible days . , . Mr. Smith's admirable illustrations are an equally im- portant feature of the book, which, in addition to its interest, presents a great antiquarian value." A POPULAR GUIDE TO THE WILD FLOWERS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. By Florence Sul^man. With 51 full-page drawings by Eirene Mori and Dorothy M. Watkins. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. (postage 2d.) This book deals with the most typical and popular repre- sentatives of nine families of plants found in the Central Coast District and on the Dividing Range. Each genus, as well as its principal species, found within that area is described fully, and about 100 specimens are illustrated. Tliere is also an illustrated glossary of the few necessary botanical terms used, and the whole plan of the book is so simple that the plants described can be identified at sight. It will be found indis pensable to teachers, students and bush-lovers generally. THE MOTHER STATE: The Physical Features, Natural Resources. Geolog-y, Scenery, Climate, Industries and Commerce of New^ South W^ales. By J. M. Taylor, M.A., LL.B. With 13 folding maps and 72 illustrations. Cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (postage 2d.) This is the only up-to-date general description of New South Wales, and it sliould find a place in every home in the State. No more concise and reliable book is available for sending to friends abroad, as all the information is drawn from latest authentic sources. The illustrations and maps add largely to the book's interest and value. (See also page 25.) NEW EDITIONS WHERE THE DEAD MEN LIE AND OTHER POEMS. By Barcroft Henry Boake. Second edition, revised and enlarged, with memoir, portraits, and 32 illus- trations. Crown Svo., cloth g'ilt, gilt top, 5s,; full morocco, gilt top, 6s. {postage 2d.) J. Bkunton Stephens, in The Bulletin : " Boake's work is often praised for its local colour; but it has something better than that. It has atmosphere — Australian atmosphere, that makes you feel the air of the place — breathe the breath of the life." Sydney Morning Herald: "There is no qviestion, can be none, of the intimate faithfulness of every touch that gives us landscape, atmosphere." Daily Telegraph : " An essential publication, full of human interest." Australasian: "There is enough merit in these remains to show that Boake was, to say the least, a writer of promise, and to make us regret that his life was cut short in so sad and untimely a manner." THE POETICAL WORKS OF BRUNTON STEPHENS. As finally revised by the author, re-arranged and printed from new type, with photogravure portrait. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s.; full morocco, gilt edges, Gs. {postage 2d.) See also Commomoealth Series, page 12. The Times : " This collection of the works of the Queensland poet, who has for a generation deservedly held a high place ill Australian literature, well deserves study." Daily News : " In turning over the pages of this volume, one is struck by his breadth, his varsatility, his compass, as evidenced in theme, sentiment, and style." The Athenaeum : " Brunton Stephens . . . well known to all those who are curious in Australian literature, as being, on the whole, the best of Australian poets." Sydney Morning Herald: "This new edition will not only do honour to his memory, but will make his work known to many to whom he has previously been little more than a name." NEW EDITIONS J THE GOLDEN TREASURY OP AUSTRALIAN VERSE. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Bertram Stevens. New (fonrtli) edition, revised and en- largied. Crown cSvo., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s.; full morocco, gilt edges, 6s. (postage 2d.) Argus : " Tt is a vast improvement on its predecessor. Cer- tain copyright restrictions have been removed, and Mr. Stevens has been allowed to help himself to some excellent work which was inaccessible to him three years ago . . . Mr. Stevens has shown himself once more a man of excellent taste and dis- crimination, and has laid lovers of poetry who also love Aus- tralia under a heavy obligation to him for this most pleasant book." London: Macmillan d' Co., Limited. FAIR GIRLS AND GRAY HORSES, WITH OTHER VERSES. By Will. H. Ogilvie. Revised edition, completing twentieth thousand. With portrait. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. ; full morocco, gilt edges, 6s. Scots MAT^ : " Its verses draw their natural inspiration from the camp, the cattle trail, and the bush ; and their most charac- teristic and compelling rhythms from the clatter of horses' hoofs." Spectator : " Nothing could be better than his bush ballads, and he writes of horses with the fervour of Lindsay Gordon." HEARTS OF GOLD, AND OTHER VERSES. By Will II. Ogilvie. Printed from new type and bound uniformly with the other volumes of the " Snowy l{iver " series. Fourth thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s, ; full morocco, gilt edges, 6s. [postage 2d.) Daily Telegraph: "Will be welcomed by all who love the stirring music and strong masculine feeling of this poet's verse. Mr. Ogilvie has gone back to Scotland, but his verse written in Australia lives still, and is not forgotten when the camp fires are burning." AUSTRALIAN VERSE THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVElt, AND OTHER VERSES. By A. B. Paterson. Forty-ninth thousand. Witli photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s.; full morocco, gilt edges, 6s. {postage 2d.) The Literary Year Book: "The immediate success of this book of bush ballads is without parallel in Colonial literary annals, nor can any living English or American poet boast so wide a public, always excepting Mr. Rudyard Kipling." Athenaeum : " Swinging, rattling ballads of ready humour, ready pathos, and crowding adventure. . . . Stirring and entertaining ballads about great rides, in which the lines gallop like the very hoofs of the horses." The Times : " At his best he compares not unfavourably with the author of * Barrack-Room Ballads.' " London: Macmillan and Co., Limited. RIO GRANDE'S LAST RACE, AND OTHER VERSES. By A. B. Paterson. Thirteenth thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s.; full morocco, gilt edges, Cs. {postage 2d.) Spectator: "There is no mistaking the vigour of Mr. Pater- son's verse; there is no difficulty in feeling the strong human interest which moves in it." Bookman : " Now and again a deeper theme, like an echo from the older, more experienced land, leads him to more serious singing, and proves that real poetry is, after all, universal. ]t is a hearty book." London: Macmillan and Co., Limited. THE SECRET KEY, AND OTHER VERSES. By George Essex Evans. With portrait. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s.; full morocco, gilt edges, 6s. {postage 2d.) Glasgow Herald: "There is . . . the breath of that apparently immortal spirit which has inspired . . . almost all that is best in English higher song." The Bookman : " Mr. Evans has written many charming and musical poems, . . . many pretty and haunting lines." AUSTRALIAN VERSE WINE AND ROSES: A New Volume of Poems. By Victor J. Daley. With portrait. Crown 8vo., cloth g'ilt, gilt top, 5s. ; full morocco, gilt edges, 6s. {postage 2d.) Daily Telegraph: ''Most of his verse is tinj];ed with sad ness — as in most Irish poetry — but there is a fine imaginative quality that lifts it to a far higher plane than that of the conventional melancholy rhymer. There are poems in this book that recall the magic of Kossetti. . , . Victor Daley has left his mark in the beginnings of an Australian literature." AT DAWN AND DUSK: POEMS. By Victor J. Daley. Third edition. With photo- gravure portrait. Crown 8vr., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s.; full morocco, gilt edires, 6s. {postage 2d.) Bookman: "These verses are full of poetic fancy musically expressed. ' ' Sydney Morning Herald: ''The indefinable charm is here, and the spell, and the music. ... A distinct advance for Australian verse in ideality, in grace and polish, in the study of the rarer forms of verse, and in the true faculty of poetic feeling and expression." Bulletin: "Open this book where you will, you are caught at once into a land of dreams." HOW HE DIED. AND OTHER POEMS. By John Farrell. Third edition. With Memoir, Appreciations, and photogravure portrait. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s.; fnll morocco, gilt edges, 6s. {postage 2d.) Melbourne Aoe: " Farrell's contributions to the literature of this country were always distinguished by a fine, stirring optimism, a genuine sympathy, and an idealistic sentiment, which in the l)Ook under notice find their fullest expression." New Zealand Mail: " Of the part of Mr. Farrell's work con- tained in this volume it is not necessary to say more than that it has long since received sincere commendation, not only from other Australian writers, but from men eminent in letters in England and America." AUSTRALIAN VERSE WHEN THE WORLD WAS WIDE, AND OTHER VERSES. By Henry lawson. Eighteenth thousand. WitJi photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s.; full morocco, gilt edges, 6s. {postage 2d.) The Academy: "These ballads (for such they mostly ars) abound in spirit and manhood, in the colour and smell of Aus- tralian soil. They deserve the popularity which they have won in Australia, and which, we trust, this edition will now give them in England." The Speaker : " There are poems in * In the Days When the World was Wide' which are of a higher mood than any yet heard in distinctively Australian poetry." VERSES, POPULAR AND HUMOROUS. By Henry Lav^son. Seventeenth thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.; full morocco, gilt edges, 6s. (postage 2d.) For cheaper edition see Commonwealth Series, page 12. New York Journal: "Such pride as a man feels when he has true greatness as his guest, this newspaper feels in introducing to a million readers a man of ability hitherto unknown to them. Henry Lawson is his name." WHEN I WAS KING, AND OTHER VERSES. By Henry Lawson. Eighth thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. ; full morocco, gilt edges, 6s. {postage 2d.) Also in two parts, entitled " When I Was King,*' and ''The Elder Son.". See page 12. Spectator (London) : "A good deal of humour, a great deal of spirit, and a robust philosophy are the main characteristics of these Australian poets. Because they write of a world they know, and of feelings they have themselves shared in, they are far nearer the heart of poetry than the most accomplished de- votees of a literary tradition." AUSTRALIAN STORIES WHILE THE BILLY BOILS. By Henry Lawson. With eight illustrations by F. P. Mahony. Thirty-first thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. {postage 2d.) For cheaper edition see Commonwealth Scries, page 12. The Academy : " A book of honest, direct, sympathetic, humorous writing about Australia from within is worth a library of travellers' tales . . . The result is a real book — a book in a hundred. His language is terse, supple, and richly idiomatic. He can tell a yarn with the best." ON THE TRACK AND OVER THE SLIPRAILS. By Henry Lawson. Nineteenth thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. {postage 2d.) For cheaper edition see Commonwealth Series, page 12. Daily Chronicle : " Will well sustain the reputation its author has already won as the best writer of Australian short stories and sketches the literary world knows." Pall Mall Gazette: "The volume now received will do much to enliance the author's reputation. There is all the quiet irresistible humour of Dickens in the description of * The Darling River,' and the creator of ' Truthful James ' never did anything better in the way of character sketches than Steelman and Mitchell." CHILDREN OF THE BUSH. By Henry Lawson. Ninth thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. {postage 2d.) Also in two parts, entitled " Send Round the Hat " and " The Romance of the Swag." See page 12. Daily Telegbaph : " These stories are for the most part episodes which appear to have been taken direct from life . . . . and Mr. Lawson contrives to make them wonderfully vivid . . . Mr. Lavvson's new stories are as good as his old ones, and higher praise they could not get." The Bulletin: "These stories are the real Australia, written by the foremost living Australian author . . . Lawson's genius remains as vivid and human as when he first boiled his literary billy." 10 .4 i\STRALJAX HTOIUES JOE WILSON AND HIS MATES. By Henry Lawson. Tenth thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. {postage 2d.) For cheaper edition see Commonwealth Series, page 12. The Athenaeum (London): "This ia a long way the beHt work Mr. Lawson has yet given ns. These stories are so good that (from the literary point of view of course) one hopes they are not autobiographical. As autobiography they would be good, as pure fiction they are more of an attainment." London: Wm. Blackwood & Sons. THE RISING OF THE COURT, AND OTHER SKETCHES IN PROSE AND VERSE. By Henry Lawson With coloured cover by Lionel Lindsay. Crown 8vo., wrapper {Commonwealth Series), Is. {postage Id.) Queensland Times: "These stories show Lawson at his best, and Lawson at his best is not to be beaten by short story writer! in current literature. ' ' Weekly Press (Christchurch) : "No one else could have written these sketches. Lawson has so much feeling and so much humour." AN OUTBACK MARRIAGE: A Story of Australian Life. By A. B. Paterson, author of " The Man from Snowy River," and " Rio Grande's Last Race." Eighth thousand. {Commonwealth Series), Is. {postage Id.) Scotsman : " The chief virtue of the book lies in its fresh and vivid presentment of the wild life and the picturesque man- ners of the Australian bush, while in form and style it claims recognition as a work of considerable literary distinction." Pall Mall Gazette : " The whole tone of the book is fresh and breezy . . . Altogether, this is a distinctly interesting story." Glasgow Herald :".... will stand comparison with works of fiction produced in any part of the English-speaking world." 11 CHEAP REPRINTS THE COMMONWEALTH SERIES. Crown 8vo., picture cover, Is. each (postage Id.) The Rising of the Court. By Henry Lawson Send Round the Hat: Stories. By Henry Lawson The Romance of the Swag : Stories. By Henry Lawson When I was King: Verses. By Henry Lawson Tjhe Elder Son: Verses. By Henry Lawson Joe Wilson: Stories. By Henry Lawson Joe Wilson^s Mates: Stories By Henry Lawson On the Track: Stories. By Henry Lawson Over the Sliprails: Stories. By Henry Lawson Popular Verses. By Henry Lawson Humorous Verses. By Henry Lawson While the Billy Boils: Stories— First Series. By Henry Lawson While the Billy Boils: Stories— Second Series. By Henry Lawson An Outback Marriage. By A. B. Paterson The Old Bush Songs. Edited by A. B. Paterson My Chinee Cook, and other Humorous Verses. By Brunton Stephens History of Australian Bushranging. By Charles White Part I.— The Early Days. Part IT. -1850 to 18G2. Part III. -1863 to 1869. Part IV.-1869 to 1878. .'..For press notices of these hooks see pages 5, 9, 10, 11, 15, and IQ of this Catalogue. 12 SPECIAL AUSTRALIAN EDITIONS THE PRAYER BOOK DICTIONARY. Edited by G. Harford, M.A., and Morley Stevenson, M.A. Crown 4to., half morocco, 30s. {postage Is.) " The Prayer Book Dictionary " deals with the origins, history, use and teaching of the several editions of the Book of Common Prayer within the Anglican communion. Every endeavour has been made to give information under the titles most likely to be referred to. Prayer Book terms being uniformly preferred. Where it has been necessary to collect material in longer articles, cross references direct the reader to the subsidiary topics included. A compre- hensive Table of Subjects in Prayer Book order serves, more- over, as a Subject Index, and at the end of each article reference is made to the section of this Table where kindred topics are mentioned with their authors. Thus the full resources of the Dictionary under any head can be readily unlocked. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons. LAURENCE HOPE'S LOVE LYRICS. Uniformly bound in fancy boards with cloth back. 5s. per volume {postage 3d.) The Garden of Kama. Daily Chronicle: "No one has so truly interpreted the Indian mind — no one, transcribing Indian thought into our literature, has retained so high and serious a level, and quite apart from the rarity of themes and setting — the verses remain — true poems." Stars op the Desert. Outlook: "It is not merely that these verses describe Oriental scenes and describe them with vividness, there is a feeling in the rhythm — a timbre of the words that seems akin to the sand and palm-trees and the changeless East." Indian Love. Spectator : * ' The poetry of Laurence Hope must hold a unique place in modern letters. No woman has written lines so full of a strange primeval savagery — a haunting music — the living force of poetry. ' ' London : William Heinemann. 13 Mlf^CELLANEOUB A BUSH CALENDAR. By Amy E. Mack. Second edition, with 42 photo- graphs of birds, flowers, bush scenes, etc. Small 4to., cloth, 3s. 6d. {postage Id.) Selborne Magazine : " It is with a pleasing sense of sur- prise that we read Mrs. Harrison's brightly-written studies of Nature as she is seen by the seeing eye." Literary World: "A pleasant little book . . . There is much to interest those who have no personal knowledge of the antipodes . . . and to those who know the country, the vivid descriptions will bring back many happy recollections." BUSH DAYS. By Amy E. Mack. With 39 photographs. Small 4to., cloth (uniform with "A Bush Calendar"), 3s. 6d. {postage Id.) T. P.'s Weekly (London): ^'A delightful book of descrip- tive studies in nature. ' ' Bookseller (London): ''Utterly delightful in every sense of the word. '^ Book Lover: *'A succession of memories of happy times with nature." Sydney Morning Herald: ''Deals with many aspects of outdoor life, and that fascinating inner heart of it, the hidden life of the bush." BUSHLAND STORIES. By Amy E. Mack. With coloured illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. Gd. {postage 2d.) Academy: "It is not often that we have the pleasui-e to welcome from Australia a book of so many charming short stories as are contained in the volume before us." Scotsman: "Charming and simple nursery tales, appetisingly touched with local colour of the Bush." Birmingham Daily Po.st : " There is a daintiness and distinct charm in these fa'ry tales." M MISCELLANEOUS THE AUSTRALIAN BIRTHDAY BOOK. Passages selected from Australian and New Zealand / poetry, edited by Bertram Stevens. Crown l^ 16mo., limp morocco, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. {postage 2d.) Sydney Morning Herald : " The poetical quotations form a choice anthology of Australian verse . . . The book should have a special claim for Australian use." Daily Telegraph : " A dainty little volume . . . The selections have been carefully made, and the little book is a collection of poetic flowers of the soil as well as an autograph album." DOT AND THE KANGAROO. By Ethel C. Pedley. Illustrated by F. P. Mabony. Ninth thousand. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 2s. Gd. {postage 2d.) Sydney Morning Herald: " ' Dot and the Kangaroo ' is witli- out doubt one of the most charming books that could be put into the hands of a child. It is admirably illustrate . by Frank P. Mahony, who seems to have entered thorouglily into the animal world of Australia. The story is altogether Australian. ... It is told so simply, and yet so artistically, that even the * grown-ups ' amongst us must enjoy it." HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGING. By Charles White. In 4 parts, with many portraits and illustrations. CroAvn Svo., paper covers. Is. each {postage Id. each) Year Book of Australia: "The bushrangers have long since left the stage of Australian history, but their evil deeds live after them, and are likely to do so for many years to come. Having collected all the published details relating to the career of the Tasmanian as well as the Australian gangs, Mr. Wliite has reduced them to a very readable narrative, which may fairly be termed a liistory.- In this shape it forms a valuable contri- bution to the general history of the country, especially as a picture of social life in the past." 16 MT.'^CELLANEOUS TO-MORROW: A Dramatic Sketch of the Charactep and Bnvlpon- ment of Robert Gpeene. By J. Le Gay Brereton. Royal 16mo., wrapper, Is. 6d. (postage Id.) Sydney Morning Herald : " Must be pronounced the first Australian play of literary worth." Glasgow Herald: "In this very clever dramatic sketch Mr. Brereton has given evidence of the possession of a true capacity for play-writing." The Nation (London) : "A remarkable and genuinely poetic play." THE OLD BUSH SONGS. Collected and edited by A. B. Paterson, author of " The Man from Snowy River," " Rio Grande's Last Race," &c. Twelfth thousand. Crown Svo. (Commonwealth Series), Is. (postage Id.) Daily Telegraph: "Rude and rugged these old bush songs are, but thoy carry in their vigorous lines the very impress of their origin and of their genuineness . . . Mr. Paterson has done his work like an artist." COOKERY BOOK OF GOOD AND TRIED RECEIPTS. Compiled for the Presbyterian W^omen's Missionary Association. Twelfth edition, enlarged, completing 145,000 copies. Crown 8vo., cloth, Is. (postage Id.) Extract from Preface : " The young and inexperienced housekeeper need have no fear of failure provided she follows carefully the directions given, as the aim of this book has always been, not only to provide wholesome and economical receipes for capable housewives, but to help those who have not had the benefit of maternal guidance and home training. It is significant that many discerning women have made a habit of giving a copy of the ' Presbyterian Cookery Book ' to every new bride of their acquaintance." 1f^ lillSGELLANEOUS THE ANNOTATED CONSTITUTION OF THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH. By Sir John Quick, LL.D., and R. R. Garran, C.M.G. Royal 8vo., cloth gilt, 21s. The Times : " A monument of industry." THE LAW OP LANDLORD AND TENANT IN* NEW SOUTH WALES. By J. H. Hammond, B.A., LL.B., and C. G. W. David- son, B.A., LL.B., Barristers-at-Law. Demy 8vo., cloth, 7s. 6d. {postage 3d.) Sydney Morning Herald: "A valuable contribution to legal literature." THE JUSTICES' MANUAL AND POLICE GUIDE. A Synopsis of offences punishable by indictment and on summapy conviction, definitions of crimes, mean- ingrs of leg-al phrases, hints on evidence, procedure, police duties, &c., in Ne^v South Wales. Compiled by Daniel Stephen, Sub-Inspector of Police. Third edition, thoroughly revised to the beginning of 1913, including all new and consoli- dated Acts, and with a chapter on Finger Prints by Inspector Childs. Demy 8vo., cloth, 7s. 6d. (postage 3d.) [Just published. Sydney Morning Herald, reviewing the second edition (1906): " Justicea of the Peace and others concerned in the administration of the law will find the value of this admirably- arranged work . . . We had nothing but praise for the first edition, and the second edition is better than the first." RACIAL DECAY: A Compilation of Evidence from "World Sources. By OcTAvius C. Beale, A Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1907, and of the State of New South Wales, 1903. With numerous dia- grams. Crown 4to., paper cover, 2s. 6d. {post. 3d.) London: A. C. Fificld. 17 MISCELLANEOUS DAIRYING IN AUSTRALASIA: Farm and Factory. By M. A. O'Callaghan, Chief of Dairy Branch, Department of Agriculture. Contains oyer 700 pages and more than 200 plates. Royal 8vo., cloth, 10s. {postage 5d.) Contents: I. How to Select and Equip a Dairy Farm — II. The Dairy Herd— III. The Various Breeds of Cattle— IV. The Jersey — V. The Guernsey — VI. South Hams or South Devons — VII. The Dairy Shorthorn — VIII. lUawarra Dairy Cattle — IX. The Ayrshire — X. Holstein, Dutch, or Fricsiau Cattle— XI. Kerry Cattle— XII. The Dexter— XIII. Other Breeds of Dairy Cattle— XIV. Cattle Breeding— XV. How to Judge Dairy Cattle — XVI. Guenon's Escutcheon Theory — XVII. Management of the Dairy Herd — XVIII. The Feeding of Dairy Cattle — XIX, Herd Testing Associations — XX. The Microhe and the Dairy Farmer — XXI. Dairy Inspection and Cleanli- ness — XXII. Water for Dairy Purposes, from a Bacteriological Point of View— XXIII. Cattle Diseases— XXIV. Milking hy Machinery— XXV. Cow's Milk— XXVI. Milk Standards— XXVII. The Testing of Milk and its Products— XXVllI. Separating — XXIX. Butter Manufacture — XXX. The Cause of Decomposition and the Means of Preserving Dairy Products —XXXI. Cream Grading— XXXII. Bacterial Butter Taints— XXXIII. Condensed Milk— XXXIV. Cheese Manufacture— XXXV. Margarine in Relation to Butter— XXXVI. Dairying in the Argentine — XXXVII. Siberia from a Dairying Point of View — XXXVIII. The Pig on the Dairy Farm — Appendices. The Daisy (London): "A compendium of exact and scientific experimental knowledge which will be found of the utmost value to anyone engaged in the pursuit of dairy farm- ing and its cognate trades ... It gives in clear and unmis- takeable language the whole of the dairy manipulation from beginning to end . . . The author has dealt with the points at issue in so general a manner that his book is of world-wide application and usefulness ... An illuminating series of chapters on all phases of milk questions and problems." The Field (London) : "He knows his subject well and has rendered a service to the dairying industry by placing at its disposal a book of high instructiv* value and practical character." Australasian Medical Gazette : " If medical men were to suggest that this book on dairying would be very useful to those engaged in the milk trade, in a short time much of the deplorable ignorance that now exists on the prevention of the infection of milk with all kinds of bacteria would be dispelled.'" 18 MISCELLANEOUS SIMPLE TESTS FOB MINERALS. By Joseph Campbell, M.A., F.G.S., M.I.M.E. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged (completing the twelfth thousand). With illustrations. Cloth, round corners, 3s. 6d. {postage Id.) Ballabat Stab : " This is an excellent little work, and should be in the hands of every scientific and practical miner." Bendigo Evening Mail: "Should be in every prospector's kit. It enables any intelligent man to ascertain for himself whether any mineral he may discover has a commercial value." New^castle Mobning Hebald : " The book is a thoroughly practical one." Wyalong Stab: "Now it will be possible for miners and prospectors to test any mineral which has a commercial value." THE PLANTS OF NEW SOUTH WALES: An Analytical Key to the Floweping- Plants (except Grasses and Rushes) and Ferns of the State, with a list of native plants discovered since 1893. By W. A. Dixon, F.I.C, F.C.S. With Glossary and 49 diagrams. Foolscap 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. {postage 2d.) Nattjbe : " A handy little book providing a compact guide for naming flowers in the field," Sydney Mobning Hebald: "A valuable contribution to the botanic literature of Australia." IRRIGATION WITH SURFACE AND SUBTER- RANEAN WATERS, AND LAND DRAINAGE. By W. Gibbons Cox, C.E. With 81 illustrations and a coloured map of Australia. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. {postage 2d.) The Austbalasian : " The most valuable contribution to the literature on the subjects dealt with that has yet appeared in Australia." 1» MISCELLANEOUS THE HOME DOCTORING OF ANIMALS. By Harold Leeney, M.R.C.V.S. Fourth edition, thoroughly revised and greatly enlarged, with nearly 100 illlustrations. 8vo., cloth, 12s. 6d. {postage 8d.) Contents. — I. Diseases of the Blood — II. Diseases of the Heart — III. Diseases of the Digestive System — IV. Tumours — V. Diseases of the Respiratory Organs — VI. Diseases of the Eye — VII. Diseases of the Brain and Nervous System — VIII. Diseases of the Generative Organs — IX. Diseases connected with Parturition — X. Troubles of the New Born — XI. Skin Diseases — XII. Parasites and Parasitic Diseases — XIII. Diseases of the Foot — XIV. Lameness and Bone Diseases — XV. Wounds and their Treatment — XVI. Bleeding: How to arrest Bleeding and how to Classify — XVII. Operations: Such as Castrating and Docking — XVIII. Blisters, Blistering, Firing, Setons, Seton- ing — XIX. Poisons and Antidotes — XX. Antiseptics and Disin- fectants — XXI. Anaesthesia, Insensibility to Pain — XXII. Physicking, Purging Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Pigs, Dogs, and Cats — XXIII. Diseases of Poultry — XXIV. Administration of Medicines — XXV. Medicines: A Comprehensive Series of Pre- scriptions — XXVI. Nursing and Foods for the Sick — XXVII. Methods of Control or Trammelling Animals — XXVIII. Vices, Tricks, and Bad Habits of the Horse. THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF BOILER CONSTRUCTION: A Manual of Instpuction and Useful Infopmation for Practical Men. By W. D. Cbuickshakk, M. LMech. E., late Chief Engineering Surveyor, New South Wales Govern- ment. Second edition, revised and enlarged, with 70 illustrations. 8vo., cloth gilt, 15s. {postage 3d.) The Times (Engineering Supplement): "Mr. Cruickshank has given a useful work to boiler designers and superintendents. . . . There is a ' handiness ' in the arrangement of the subjects which enables the reader to locate any subject quickly." Journal of the Marine Engineers' Association : " A practical treatise on the construction and management of steam boilers, and will be found of great value to practical engineers." 20 MISCELLANEOUS AUSTRALIAN NAVAL AND MILITARY ANNUAL. Published for the Australian National Defence League. Royal 8vo., boards, 5s. {postage 2d.) Contents: Military Defence Acts and Statistics, Regulations and Syllabus of Military College, Commonwealth Militia^ Rifle Clubs, etc., Naval Defence Acts, Naval Forces, and much oflicial and other useful information. LIGHT HORSE POCKET BOOK. Compiled by Lieut. D. C. Howell Price, A. and I. Staff. A concise guide to Regulations, Field Training, Camp Duties, Equitation, etc. With Nominal and other Rolls. Pocket size, limp cloth. Is. 6d. (postage V2<^-) INFANTRY POCKET BOOK. Compiled by Lieut. R. Stupart. A concise guide to Regulations, Field Training, Musketry, Camp Duties, etc. With prefatory note by Colonel W. Holmes, D.S.O., V.D., Nominal, Section and Attendance Rolls, and Duty Roster. Pocket size, limp cloth. Is. 6d. (postage ^2^0 THE CADET HAND BOOK. Compiled by Lieut. R. Stupart. A concise guide to Regulations, Duties of Non-Com's., Guards and Sentries, etc., with Attendance Roll for Section Commanders. Pocket size, limp cloth, Od. (postage i/2<^.) RIFLE EXERCISES AND MUSKETRY INSTRUCTION FOR CADETS. Compiled by Lieut. R. Stupart. Paper cover, 6d. (postage Vzd.) 21 ; i^CHOOL SUPPLEMENTARY READING BOOKS THE CHILDREN'S TREASURY OF AUSTRALIAN VERSE. Edited by Bertram Stevens and George Mackaness, M.A. (Syd.) With notes. Crown 8vo., cloth, Is. 3d. (postage Id.) Tliis volume contains all the best verse written in Aus- traliji and NeAv Zealr.nd, suitable for junior clnsses. It has been adopted by the N.S.VV. Department of Public Instruction for supplementary reading in primary schools. SELECTIONS FROM THE AUSTRALIAN POETS. Edited by Bertram Stevens and George Mackaness, M.A. (Syd.) With notes. Crown 8vo., cloth, Is. 6d. {postage Id.) The contents have been selected from the published work of Gordon, Kendall, Paterson, Lawson, Ogilvie, Daley, Essex Evans, Brunton Stepliens, Mrs. Foott, Dorothea Mackellar, and many other well-known writers. In addition, tlie book con- tains a number of fine poems not obtainable in any other volume, and it is easily the best, if not the only, collection of Australian verse entirely suitable for young readers. It is prescribed for use in the High and Secondary Schools of New South Wales. TEENS: a Story of Australian Schoolgirls. By Louise Mack. Illustrated by Frank P. Mahony. Crown 8vo., cloth. Is. Od. (postage 2d.) Sydney Morntno Herald : "Ought to be welcome to all who feel the responsibility of choosing the reading books of the young ... its gaiety, impulsiveness and youthfulness will charm them." GIRLS TOGETHER: a Story of Australian Schoolgirls. By Louise Mack. Illustrated by George W. Lambert. Crown 8vo., cloth, Is. 3d. (postage 2d.) Queenslanper : "A story told in a dainty style that makes it attractive to all. It is fresh, bright, and cheery, and well worth a place on any Australian bookshelf." 22 ^ SCHOOL SUPPLEMENTARY READING BOOKS LIFE OF LAPEROUSE. By Ernest Scott. With illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, Is. 3d. {postage Id.) [Sliorthi. This charming and instructive story of the life and work of France's sailor hero, who was so closely associated with Aus- tralia and the Pacific Ocean, is the first ever published in English, and will give Lap^rouse the place he deserves in our history. LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, BOTANIST. By Mrs. F. Danvers Power. With portrait. Crown 8vo., cloth, Is. 3d. {postage Id.) [Shortly. WATERSIDE STORIES, BIRDLAND STORIES, AND BUSHLAND STORIES. By Amy E. Mack, author of " A Bush Calendar," etc. Crown 8vo., cloth, 9d. each {postage 1/2^.) [Shorthi. These stories have been adopted for supplementary reading in primary schools, and are the best of their kind yet pro- duced in Australia. They are also published in one volume under the title " Bushland Stories" (see page 14). DOT AND THE KANGAROO. By Ethel C. Pedley. Illustrated by F. P. Mahony. Crown 8vo., cloth, Is, 3d. {postage Id.) [Shorthj. THE STORY OF W. 0. WENTWORTH: AUSTRALIA'S FIRST PATRIOT. By liEwis Deer and John Barr. With portrait and illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, Is. {postage Id.) Daily Telegraph : " An admirably-written biography, suitable for use as a reader in the higher classes of schools. They have jointly presented the main facts in the career of Wentworth with historical accuracy, as well as in capital literary styl ." JiuLLETiN : " Is intended for school children and will be of great value to them. It will also supply the general reader with a coacise and impartial account of Wentworth's career which cannot be obtained elsewhere. The authors have done their work weU." 23 EDUCATIONAL CALENDAR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY. Demy 8vo., linen, 2s. 6d. ; paper cover, Is. {postage 3d.) [Published annually m June. MANUAL OF PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS HELD BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY. Demy 8vo., paper cover. Is. (postage Id.) IPuhlished annually in September, and dated the year following that in which it is issued. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE INFINITESIMAL CALCULUS. By H. S. Carslaw, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S.E., Professor of Mathematics in the University of Sydney. Second edition, revised. Demy 8vo., cloth, 5s. (postage 2d.) London: Longmans, Green d; Co. PRACTICAL PHYSICS. By J. A. Pollock, Professor of Physics, and 0. U. VoNwiLLER, Demonstrator in Physics, in the Uni- versity of Sydney. Part I. With 30 diagrams. 8vo., paper cover, 3s. 9d. (postage 2d.) ABRIDGED MATHEMATICAL TABLES. By S. H. Barraclough, B.E., M.M.E., Assoc. M. Inst. C.E. Demy 8vo., cloth, Is. (postage Id.) Logarithms, &c., published separately, price 6d. (postage Id.) 24 EDUCATIONAL HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA; From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, ^vith Chapters on Australian Literature, Industries, and Land Settlement. By Arthur W. Jose, author of "The Growth of the Empire." Fifth edition, thoroughly revised, with many new maps and illustrations from rare originals in the Mitchell Librai*y. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. Gd. {postage 2d.) The Bulletin : " It is the most complete handbook on the subject available; the tone is judicial and the workmanship thorough . . . The new chapter on Australian Literature is tht best view y^t presented." United Empire { London ) : " The best short account of Aus- tralasian history." Glasgow Herald: "Admirably written and well illustrated." Spectator (London) : "His book is both clear and interest- ing, and this edition contains two new and very valuable chapters." GEOGRAPHY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. By J. M. Taylor, M.A., LL.B. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged, with 13 folding maps and 67 illus- trations. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (postage 2d.) This is the standard text-book on the subject, and it has been thoroughly revised and largely re-written. It has also been issued for general readers under the title " The Mother State" (see page 3). LAW AND LIBERTY. A Manual of the Elements of Political Economy for the Use of Statesmen, Teachers, and Students. By Alexander W. Johnston, M.A. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. (postage 2d.) The Age : " Worthy of commendation, for it introduces fresh- ness into a heavy but important subject ... As a series of concise pronouncements which convey ideas and induce thought it is well worth reading." London: Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd. 25 EDUCATIONAL THE CUTTER'S GUIDE. A Manual of Dresscutting and Ladies* Tailoring. By M. E. Roberts, Lecturer at Sydney Technical College. Third edition, revised and enlarged, with 150 diagrams. Crown 4to., cloth gilt, 7s. 6d. {postage 2d.) Tailors' Art Journal: "To all those inquirers from whom we have had continued correspondence asking for information as to the ways and means of perfecting their knowledge in the rudiments of ladies' dressmaking and tailoring, we can safely say that no book is better suited for their purpose than this." Woman's Budget: "So simple are the directions given that the book has only to be known to find a place in all houses where the women-folk are anxious to understand the useful art of dresscutting." GARMENT CUTTING FOR GIRLS. A Course of Scientific Garment Cutting for Schools. By M. E. Roberts. Prescribed for use in Girls' High Schools. With 50 diagrams. Crown 4to., boards, 2s. 6d. (postage Id.) DRESSCUTTING MEASURE BOOK. For Students and Pupils using "The Cutters' Guide," and " Garment Cutting for Girls." 6d. {postage V2d.) A JUNIOR COURSE OF FIRST AID: For Boy Scouts, Gipl Aids, and Primary Sciiools. By George Lane Mullins, M.D. With 30 illustra- tions, 6d. {post free 7d.) FIRST AID IN NURSING: For the Busli and Country, and for use in Schools. By Mrs. W. M. Thomas (Sister Dickson). Illustrated. Foolscap 8vo., cloth. Is. {postage Id.) 26 EDUCATIONAL ENGLISH GRAMMAR, COMPOSITION, AND PRECIS WRITING. By James Conway, Headmaster at Cleveland-st. Superior Public School, Sydney. Prescribed by N.S.W. Department of Public Instruction for Teachers' Examinations. New edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3s 6d. {postage 2d.) A SMALLER ENGLISH GRAMMAR, COMPOSITION, AND PRECIS WRITING. By James Conway. New edition, revised and en- larged. Crown 8vo., cloth Is. 6d. {postage Id.) THE AUSTRALIAN OBJECT LESSON BOOK. Part I.— For Infant and Junior Classes. Second edition, with 43 illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. {postage Id.) Part II.— For advanced Classes. Second edition, with 113 illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. {post- age 2d.) NEW TESTAMENT LESSONS. By Rev. John Burgess, D.D. Part I. — The Life of Christ. Foolscap 8vo., paper cover, Is. {post- age Id.) NOTES ON THE SHORTER CATECHISM. By John Burgess, D.D. Part I. — Questions 1-3S, 4d. {postage Id.) Part II.— Questions 39-81, 6d. {postage Id.) Part III.— Questions 82-107, 6d. {postage Id.) 27 EDUCATIONAL BRUSHWORK FROM NATURE, WITH DESIGN. By J. E. Branch, Superintendent of Drawing, Depart- ment of Public Instruction. Prescribed by the Department of Public Instruction, N.S.W., for Teachers' Examinations. With 19 coloured and 5 other plates. Demy 4to., decorated cloth, 7s. 6d. {postage 3d.) The Schoolmaster (London): "The teaching is very care- fully set out, and is quite up to the standard of English authors in the same subject. The plates, too, are very carefully de- scribed and explained, and many useful hints are embodied in the notes. We have nothing but praise for the matter, style, and get-up of the book." WIRE WORK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. By Charles E. Dawson. With 25 Diagrams. Crown 4to,, paper cover, Is. 6d. {postage Id.) Tliese exercises are the outcome of practical work in manual training carried out by the author. TOY-MAKING FOR BOYS. By Charles E. Dawson. With 23 diagrams. Crown 4to., paper cover, 2s. {postage Id.) COMMONWEALTH MANUAL TRAINING SERIES. Concrete Guide to Paper-Folding for Design. Is. 6d. {postage Id.) Pupils' Paper-Folding Books for Classes I. and II., Class III., and Class IV. Id. each. Teachers' Manual of Cardboard Modelling for Classes II. and III. (Lower). Is. {postage 2d.) Pupils' Cardboard Modelling and Drawing Book. 3d. 28 EDUCATIONAL A NEW BOOK OF SONGS FOR SCHOOLS AND SINGING CLASSES. By Hugo Alpen, ex-Superintendent of Music, Depart- ment of Public Instruction, New South Wales. 8vo., paper cover, Is. (postage Id.) GEOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. Revised edition, with 8 maps and 19 illustrations. 64 pages. 6d. (post free 7d.) GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA, AND AMERICA. Revised edition, with 18 relief and other maps, and 17 illustrations of transcontinental views, distribution of animals, &c. 88 pages. 6d. {post free 7d.) GEOGRAPHY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. With 5 folding maps. 48 pages. 6d. {post free 7d.) PRACTICAL GEOMETRY. For Classes II. and III. With Diagrams. 2d. For Classes IV. and V. With Diagrams. 4d. PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL GEOMETRY. Book II. Prire M. BOYS' AND GIRLS' AIDS TO ARITHMETIC: A Series ot Diagrams for the Guidance of Pupils. Demy 4to., paper cover, 6d. {post free 7d.) 29 EDUCATIONAL AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL SERIES. Grammar and Derivation Book, 64 pages. 2d. Test Exercises in Grammar for Third Class, First Year, 64 pages. 2d. Second Year, 64 pages. 2d. Table Book and Mental Arithmetic. New edition, greatly enlarged. 34 pages. Id. History of Australia, 80 pages. 4d. Illustrated. Geography. Part I. Australasia and Polynesia, 64 pages. 2d. Geography. Part II. Europe, Asia, America, and Africa, GG pages. 2d. Euclid. Books I., II., and III. 2d. each. Arithmetic and Practical Geometry— Exercises for Class II., 50 pages. 3d. Arithmetic— Exercises for Class III.,^ 50 pages. 3d. Algebra. Part I., 64 pages. 4d. Answers, 4d. Algebra. Part II. To Quadratic Equations. Contains over 1,200 Exercises, including the University Junior, the Public Service, the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, and the Bankers' Institute Examination Papers to 1900, &c., 112 pages. 4d. Answers, 4d. Bible History for Schools, with Scripture Class Helps. Llustrated. 64 pages. 4d. THE METRIC SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES, AND DECIMAL COINAGE. By J. M. Taylor, M.A., LL.B. Crown 8vo., 6d. (post free 7d.) THE AUSTRALIAN LETTERING BOOK. Containing the Alphabets most useful in Mapping, Exercise Headings, &c., with practical applica- tions. Easy Scrolls, Flourishes, Borders, Corners, Rulings, &c. New edition, revised and enlarged, cloth limp, 6d. {post free 7d,) 30 EDUCATIONAL THE AUSTRALIAN COPY BOOK. Approved by the Departments of Public Instruction in New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania, by the Public Service Board of New South Wales, and by the Chief Inspector of Catholic Schools. In 10 carefully-graded numbers, and a book of Plain and Ornamental Lettering, Mapping, &c. (No. 11). Price 2d. each. Numerals are given in each number. A.C.B. Blotter (fits aU sizes). Id. CHAMBERS'S GOVERNMENT HAND COPY BOOK. Approved by the Department of Public Instruction. In 12 carefully-graded numbers and a book for Pupil Teachers (No. 13). 2d. each. The letters are continuously joined to each other, so that the pupil need not lift the pen from the beginning to the end of each word. The spaces between the letters are wide, each letter thus standing out boldly and distinctly by itself. The slope is gentle, but sufficient to prevent the pupil from acquiring a back hand. The curves are well rounded, checking the ten- dency to too great angularity. ANGUS AND ROBERTSON'S PENCIL COPY BOOK. Approved by the N.S.W. Department of Public Instruction. In nine numbers. Id. each. No. 1, initiatory lines, curves, letters, figures; 2 and 3, short letters, easy combinations, figures; 4, long letters, short words, figures; 5, long letters, words, figures; 6, 7, and 8, capitals, words, figures; 9, short sentences, jRopires. THE REFORM WRITING BOOKS. With directions for teaching writing on the Reform system. Nos. 1, 2, and 3, Id. each ; Nos. 3a, 4, and 5. 2d. each. Pamphlet on The Teaching of Writing, Ig. tl 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED EDUCATION - PSYCHOLOGY LIBRARY This book is due on the last date stamped below^ or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 7 DAY USE DURING SUMMER SESSIONS MAR 4 1966 ihm-^Hm- APR 4 1966 MAvP !c-^:,/, Af<^ VfitCL*-! l"'iiv Tx>V/,lJ.%-H^'f vJiS^^r.. VB 5 4 4.*? 4 8 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY