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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE 
 
 OF 
 
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 UNIVERSITY 
 CALIFORNIA 
 ANGELES
 
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 BONDS OF DISUNION 
 
 OS 
 ENGLISH MISRULE IN THE COLONIES
 
 lOXDOX : FRINTEP BY 
 
 BrOTTISWOODK AIJD CO., NEW-STRKET BQUABS 
 
 ASD PARLIAMENT STREET
 
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 BONDS OF DISUNION 
 
 OR 
 
 ENGLISH MISRULE IN THE COLONIES 
 
 BY 
 
 C. J.jEOWE, M.A. 
 
 BARRISTER - AT - LAW 
 AUTHOli OP ' QUESTIONS OF THE DAY IN VICTORIA' 
 
 
 ) 3 , ■) ■» -J ' > - 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1883 
 
 All rights reserved
 
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 V ';'<'w;'ii ;
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTKODUCTION 
 
 PAGK 
 1 
 
 P_ CHAPTER 
 
 iJ^ I. A TEANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY . . . .12 
 
 t/J 
 
 "iZ II. IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA — ' DIVIDE ET IMPEKA ' . .55 
 
 OQ III. MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND — PAUPER EMIGRATION TO 
 
 "^ CANADA 89 
 
 IV. CRIME RAMPANT — TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES . 117 
 
 V. UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA — IMPERIAL MISGOVERNMENT AT THE 
 
 ANTIPODES 
 
 » • 0> VI. INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES — MISMANAGEMENT OF EMIGRA- 
 
 156 
 
 '■^ TION TO AUSTRALIA 193 
 
 t3 VII. DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA . . . 227 
 
 Si 
 
 VIII. WAKEFIELDISM— ' THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE ' . . . . 266 
 
 IX. SYSTEMATIC FLEECING — ' HIGH PRICE ' IN VICTORIA, LATE PORT 
 
 PHILLIP 310 
 
 X. PART I. THE DUAL HOUSE SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA . . . 324 
 
 Z, PART II. PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION . 380 
 
 o 
 
 rf XI. IMPERIAL FEDERATION —CONCLUSION 348 
 
 >> f. .. B ">%
 
 BONDS OF DISUNION ; 
 
 OR 
 
 IMPERIAL MISEULE IN THE COLONIES. 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 It seems but a poor compliment to the correct choice of a title 
 for a book that the author should have to devote a few intro- 
 ductory hnes to explain its meaning. It appears, at first siglit, 
 to be a confession that the book does not fit in with the title, 
 and that the connection between the two must be justified by 
 apparent apology for a want of correspondence between them. 
 
 My belief, however, is that no such apology is called for in 
 the present instance, and I have therefore no further inten- 
 tion in penning these introductory lines than to briefly advance, 
 for the sake of convenience and clearness, a statement of the 
 objects sought to be attained in the ensuing chapters. 
 
 It is difficult to form a just estimate of the bearing of re- 
 sults where the end to be subserved is not clearly indicated : 
 while, on the other hand, the mere statement of the object in 
 view ought of itself to suffice to ensure a correct appreciation 
 of the means used to effect it, of the facts employed in illus- 
 trating it, and of the comparative value of the general line of 
 reasoning. 
 
 I wish, then, as shortly as may be, to explain to the reader, 
 at the outset, the general scope of a work which, in its subject, 
 need not fail to interest, however defective the treatment of 
 that subject may be, and however small the attention which 
 
 B
 
 2 BOXDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 the average Englishman may nerve himself to bestow upon a 
 work which concerns itself mainly with well-worn matters of 
 bygone colonial history. 
 
 With reference to the title of this book, it may be well at 
 once to proffer the explanation that, in my meaning, the 
 ' Bonds of Dismiion ' of which I treat are to be taken as ex- 
 pressive of those political measures for the government of our 
 Colonies which, while intended to weld the empire into one 
 harmonious whole, whereof each part should derive its laws 
 from a common centre, were, and under any circumstances 
 would be, so many centrifiTgal forces tending to dismiion 
 between England and her Colonies. 
 
 Every now and again we are regaled with some elaborated 
 scheme of quasi-legislative union between Great Britain and 
 her Colonies wherever situate. We are told of the formidable ^ 
 front which would be presented to the universe by the vast 
 Imperial Federation thus formed ; of the immeasiirab'e bene- 
 fits that would be conferred by it on a world prone to dis- 
 ordered dreams of wild ambition ; of the millennium of peace 
 and prosperity such union would inaugurate, and of thebomid- 
 less authority the federated empire might exercise and claim. 
 Utopian theories these — wild, feverish, vague, high-sounding, 
 and raised on the flimsy foundation of unreasoning fancy. 
 To those who lend themselves to the advocacy of such schemes, 
 numbers— the number of square miles, the number of people 
 to be confederated — are everything. The greater the number 
 brought under the influence of a central legislative body at 
 half the globe's distance from those colonies most specially 
 sought to be included in the happy union, the greater is to be 
 the might, the more real and overwhelming the power, of the 
 united whole. The individual dispositions, wants, jealousies, 
 and ambitions of particular colonies, of indi^-idual members 
 of colonial populations, are to the Federalists considerations 
 to be advanced only in order to be dismissed as unworthy of 
 the high dignity they claim for their loftiness of view. And 
 yec it is just those very individual whims, caprices, or call 
 them by what names you will, that must ever_form the insuper-
 
 INTEODUCTION. 3 
 
 able impediment to the realisation of the most likely-looking 
 of federation schemes. 
 
 The necessity for complete local self-government, the wish 
 to give local expression to individual wants, and to provide 
 local remedies for local grievances, must always be too urgent 
 in our autonomous Colonies to allow us to suppose that any 
 one of them will ever again permit the interference of any 
 foreign legislative body to regulate matters for the manage- 
 ment of which the colony can itself pro\-ide a competent direct- 
 ing body. The term ' foreign ' may seem misapplied, but it 
 is not easy to see how a Federal Imperial Parliament could 
 occupy any other relation to any single colony than that of a 
 foreign Controlhng Board. The extent of its interference 
 would, we are assured, be limited to questions of imperial 
 import, but wlio can doubt the sheer impossibility of drawing 
 an accurate distmguishing line between imperial and purely 
 local questions, or of adhering to it when sketchily defined. 
 The disputes of a parish vestry may come to have a truly 
 imperial signification, and the most general of measures pro- 
 viding for proportionate rates of expenditure on federal arma- 
 ments may be justly regarded by colonial populations as grossly 
 interfering with the minutest local rights. A Federal Union, 
 Consulting Board, Parliament, or whatever it is proposed to 
 call it, for even limited, strictly defined purposes, can there- 
 fore mean nothing less than a body endowed with competency 
 to intermeddle with the internal details of colonial adminis- 
 tration, and as such it could never by possibility be carried 
 into actual practice. 
 
 But what is it that the strenuous advocates of Imperial 
 Federation wdsh to protrude into notice ? Is it some new 
 system that has never previously been placed on its trial ? or 
 is it an old, old policy which it is sought to rejuvenate under 
 some speciously modern guise ? The answer, clear and deci- 
 sive, I trust, may be found in the following pages, which show 
 by admitted fact, by historical illustration, and by reasonin,;,' 
 which, whether it be weak or strong, both fact and illustration 
 spontaneously supply, that the centralisation involved in tlie 
 principle of federal union has been pertinaciously tried. Ami 
 
 b2
 
 4 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 not in vain, for if there is one broad result that stands out 
 marked as the uidisputable outcome of the happily superseded 
 experiment, it is that the more tightly each legislative tie was 
 drawn between England and her Colonies, the greater became 
 the enfeebling stram upon it. The closer the connection 
 attempted to be established, the more wealcly grew the fine- 
 spun link between exacting parent State and indignant depen- 
 dency, and eacii fresh assertion of imperial authority or of the 
 right of imperial interference was an additional instalment of 
 ' Bonds of Disunion.' 
 
 The mere fact of the Colonies bemg governed from a dis- 
 tant unsympathetic centre was of itself enough to alienate 
 from England the afiections of colonists revelling in a sense of 
 their own power and importance ; and even though the rule 
 inflicted on them had been as free from fault as it was fraught 
 with injustice and mistake, its continuance would, in all pro- 
 bability, never have been tolerated beyond that preliminary 
 stage which precedes the formation of local government institu- 
 tions in the colony itself. But the proceedings of the Imperial 
 Government in regard to the Colonies were certainly not free 
 from blame, nor would it be easy to point to any one of them 
 as not being in truth, at one time or another, an impolitic 
 irritant to the easily aroused passions of" jealous colonial 
 populations. Injurious as most of them were to the colonies 
 on whom the main burden of injudicious and perpetual home 
 interference fell, they operated still more efficiently against 
 the maintenance of union, or even harmony, between England 
 avid the Colonies. What were the main errors, and worse than 
 errors, that formed the most noteworthy portion of the record 
 of the imperial government of the most important colonies left 
 to us, after our attempts to reduce the then North-American 
 colonies to the position of London-governed pro^^nces had pro- 
 duced their natural results, it has been my endeavour to 
 narrate in this book. The examples I have given are those 
 alone which appear to me most typical of their kind, for to have 
 adduced a multitude of others would have done little but 
 encumber with useless detail a cham of illustration in itself all 
 powerful to prove, that both in Canada and in Australia, the
 
 INTEODUCTION. 5 
 
 necessary tendency of prolonged imperial rule Avas, to provoke 
 in both a bitter discontent that only the concession of the right 
 of self-government could assuage or remove. 
 
 Perhaps the general scope of my book has now been suffi- 
 ciently indicated, but it seems advisable to discuss a little 
 further the question of Imperial Federation, since the con- 
 sideration will give a more pouited significance to the deductions 
 I wish to be derived from the chapter immediately ensuing. 
 
 An important requisite of the federal project must evidently 
 be, that the country claiming to exercise the chief share of 
 authority in the Federal Council should have given proofs of 
 its capacity for conducting the administration of its own affairs 
 on principles likely to be conducive to the best results, and 
 that from the history of its more recent past it should be able 
 to furnish a guarantee that the preponderating share of power 
 to be confided to it will only be used to the advantage of the 
 imperial domain. For this purpose it should be ready to show 
 a record of a consistently beneficial course of internal legisla- 
 tion, not calling for the sudden substitution of political and 
 social changes of extraordinary magnitude ; and further, it 
 ought, in order to support its claim to the federal leadership, 
 to be able to give ample evidence of as great a willingness to 
 reform glaring defects in its preAaous conduct of colonial 
 administration as it has given of its desire to destroy what is 
 rotten, unjust, and hopelessly corrupt in its own institutions. 
 Can such assurance be furnished from the comparatively 
 modern domestic legislation of Great Britain ? Can it be 
 assumed that the future course that might be pursued towards 
 the Colonies by England, if to her was entrusted the managing 
 directorship of the Federal Comicil, would differ in spirit from 
 the course she has persistently adliered to in the past ? The 
 change would be unlikely, and in the nature of things next to 
 impossible. If so — if the sole answer to these questions must 
 be a decided negative, and such it cannot fail to be — then 
 England's claim to the controlling headship of the Federal 
 Council is indeed a poor one, and as in the view of the 
 Federalists the superior authority of the mother-country in the 
 Councils of the vast Union is the end-all and be-all of the
 
 6 BO^DS OF DISUNION. 
 
 imperial scheme, the denial of England's claim to effective 
 precedence would ensm-e the hopeless wreck of the crude 
 design. 
 
 The portion of England's history that I have chosen for 
 cursory review is one which typifies the period of transition 
 from oligarchical despotism gaudily decked out with a false 
 similitude of free mstitutions, to a time when the people of 
 England, roused at length to a knowledge of then- o'wn irre- 
 sistible power, made a bold and partially successful bid for the 
 popularisation of the Constitution, and for comprehensive re- 
 form in all departments of administration. In the former 
 period, the comitry was being rapidly conducted by the glaring 
 misgovernment of a class to the alternative between ruin and 
 rebellion ; in the latter period, the con\iction of absolute 
 necessity had forced an unwilling ruling class to concede to 
 peaceful revolution those popular reforms which might other- 
 wise have been extorted by unreasoning violence, and when, 
 like a faded leaf, the structure of privilege, corruption, and 
 hereditary right that had uniformly o]:)posed an audacious 
 denial to the people's will, had crumbled to powder imder the 
 vigorous touch of the reformmg hand. 
 
 Unreformed England was certamly not a guide whom the 
 Colonies would have willingly chosen. Is it probable that 
 their experience of their government by Eeformed England 
 would render her more acceptable to them as a counsellor 
 and leader ? Here, again, the answer must be framed in no 
 doubtful negative. Clear and decisive it should be, if reason- 
 able inference from hard facts be not altogether valueless. In 
 this book I have endeavoured to demonstrate that, whether 
 England was bound or free, whether oppressed and mis- 
 managed by a clique or governing herself to her ovm advan- 
 tage, each and all of her efforts to govern her Canadian and 
 Australian colonies, or to interfere in the management of their 
 local and general concerns, were productive of an ever-growing 
 want of confidence in the purity of her intentions, of an in- 
 creasing disapproval of her measures— of so bitter and wide- 
 spread a dislike as to make it in the highest degree unlikely 
 that the Colonies would ever consent to yield up to England
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 tlie smallest share of right to intermeddle once more in their 
 domestic concerns. Not even as a co-partner would they 
 willingly admit her into Federal Union with themselves ; far 
 less, then, as a Power entitled to precedence and headsliip. 
 
 Between Eeformed and Unreformed England the difference 
 was an enormous one. Slow, tentative, and incomplete thougli 
 most of the early reforming measures were, the mere hiitiation 
 of them was an immeasurahle breach with the past hfe of the 
 nation. Kegeneration had been evolved from decay, and 
 hopeful vigour had succeeded to paralysmg decrepitude. But, 
 vast as the difference was, it had little or no effect in improv- 
 ing the system of imperial government exercised over the 
 Colonies. The nation had its hands full with the work of 
 reconstructing its own public institutions in new forms, and 
 public opinion m England, always careless and ill-instructed 
 in regard to colonial matters, was too much occupied with the 
 difficult task of substituting orderly liberty for old-established 
 conditions fraught with uiiquity to be able to lend to the 
 study of colonial grievances even that limited degree of languid 
 attention which the Englishman of to-day can, on occasion, 
 be wrought up to bestow on colonial topics. On the other 
 hand, the officious meddlesomeness of the Colonial Office was 
 in no whit relaxed. With mistaken vigour it pushed tlie 
 principle of centralisation into an active operation which 
 became more nauseous to the colonial populations in propor- 
 tion as they increased in nmnbers and self-esteem ; and the 
 right of self-government was only conceded to them when at 
 length it became apparent to the slow reasoning powers of 
 fussy ofiicialdom that the concession of the right afforded the 
 only means of keeping the Colonies in even nominal sub- 
 jection. 
 
 It may now be apparent why the period of English history 
 treated in the ensuing chapter should have been the one 
 selected for brief re\iew. Of all periods of our national 
 history of modern date, none brings more closely into strikmg 
 contrast the difference between the condition of the people 
 before and after the Keform era, and the very extent of the 
 difference effected at home furnishes an instructive commen-
 
 8 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 tary on the entire absence of alteration in our contemporary 
 system of colonial government. 
 
 From the point of view of the national welfare it seems to 
 be as desirable as it is natm-al that, within certain limits, 
 people should regard their own individual interests as para- 
 mount to those of their neighbours. National prosperity 
 flows primarily from the efforts of individuals to better their 
 own condition, and not from a national strivin^after a philan- 
 thropic interference in the affairs of other people or other 
 countries. England would probably not have worked out her 
 own reforms as thoroughly as she has done had she not been 
 too intent upon them to have had either time or inclination 
 for taking into serious consideration the wants of the Colonies. 
 It was well for England that she did not concern herself about 
 them ; it was well also for the Colonies themselves, for it in- 
 grained into them the conviction that they had nothing to 
 hope from the sympathy of the public at home, and that upon 
 themselves alone they must rely if they would gain the legis- 
 lative independence they so eagerly desired. It taught them, 
 in fact, to look closer to their own business than they had 
 hitherto done. The bearing of these considerations upon the 
 question of imperial federation is pertinent enough. The 
 British public took no thought for the Colonies, and made no 
 provision against their continued misgovernment, at a time 
 when all other government institutions in Great Britain were 
 condemned to radical reconstruction because of their corrupt- 
 ness and inefficiency — excepting alone the Colonial Office, the 
 congenial home of red-tape, corruption, and incapacity. For 
 the Colonies the public cared nothing then, and it cares nothing 
 for them now. Test the last statement, reader, if you will. 
 Inquire how many of your acquaintance know the political 
 or geographical divisions, of Canadian or Australasian colonies ; 
 how many of them have the rare patience to wade through a 
 single volume relating to colonial history, or to peruse a single 
 newspaper article bearing on the most important colonial 
 questions. Go to the civic or political banquet wliere the toast 
 of ' The Colonies ' figures last on the speech list, and where 
 only a few uninterested loungers linger while the utterances
 
 INTEODUCTION. 9 
 
 of colonial representatives form an unheard accompaniment 
 to the delayed pleasures of the table. Find out what sort of 
 knowledge of the Colonies is imparted to the rising generation 
 at school or at home. Collect all the evidence possible, and 
 you can but conclude, that of interest in colonial matters 
 there is amongst Englishmen absolutely none. A new 
 colonial loan may be discussed with fervour by acute stock- 
 brokers or by investors desirous of a new security. The ex- 
 ploits of a cricketing team may attract momentary attention 
 to the physical capabilities of antipodean colonists, but of 
 interest in the vast political and social problems every day being 
 thoughtfully and peacefully worked out in the Colonies for 
 future precedent and example to the parent State there is no 
 solitary vestige. And why should there be ? Are we not 
 fully enough occupied at home in reconstructing our own 
 present and in framing our own future ? Are we not, in 
 short, paying that salutary attention to our own business 
 which precludes the possibility of our giving a passing thought 
 to the concerns of distant countries ? Fortunately, so it is, 
 so it must ever be, as long as the nation is free to exercise its 
 political intelligence for the furtherance of internal reform. 
 New questions of ever-increasing complexity are inevitable 
 attendants on the groA^dng prosperity around us, for each new 
 opportunity gives rise to some freshly-born desire, and each 
 reform granted is but the harbinger of others to be demanded 
 in turn. The hands of a nation blessed with free power 
 to regulate its own affairs on a popular basis must always be 
 full to overflowing, and in applying itself to set its own house 
 in order England has enough, and more than enough, to do. 
 Why then should she concern herself about the internal 
 affairs of Colonies of whose condition and circumstances the 
 mass of her people know nothing and care nothing ? Let the 
 Imperial Federalists explain this, and let them prove, if they 
 can, that any attempt on England's part to direct in the 
 smallest degree the external policy of a colony would not be, 
 in reality, an intermeddling with its domestic policy. Let 
 them demonstrate, if they can, that such a coxirse would not 
 be prejudicial to the best interests of England itself, as in a
 
 10 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 measure tending to withdraw her attention from plans for the 
 ameKoration of her own condition, and that it would not 
 furnish a dangerous irritant to the easily excited animosity 
 of the colonial community. 
 
 It is not my mtention to discuss at any further length, in 
 this introductory chapter. Imperial Federation schemes. 
 Each page in this book should furnish arguments against 
 them, and reference to the subject directly would best find 
 place in its concluding pages. The facts set forth in the 
 following chapters are proofs of an apathetic mdifference to 
 colonial interests on the part of England's people in times 
 past, and of the unavoidable tendency of colonial govermnent 
 from a distant centre to produce the rapid severance of the 
 tie by which it was sought to bind the Colonies in subjection 
 to an Enghsh Government department. I have alluded here 
 to the visions of federal schemers, because at the root of all 
 their plans is the mamtenance of the prmciple of centralised 
 government. Can we hope that the consequences of the 
 application of that principle in the future would differ in kind 
 from the ascertained results of its previous trials ? Do the 
 teachings of experience allow us to suppose that a system that 
 has broken down m every detail, wherever put into active 
 operation, can ever furnish a more favourable record of 
 success if refurbished under a deceptive title indicative of 
 mutual co-partnership ? It cannot be that it should ; but 
 if, on the other hand, an all-powerful ' Bond of Dismiion ' is 
 to be urgently desired, if the complete disruption of our 
 colonial empire is an object to be attained with certainty and 
 speed, then let us energetically promote the formation of a 
 Federal Union and Council for matters of imperial concern. 
 
 But one word more by way of introduction. The miser- 
 able condition of England in the opening decades of the 
 present century was, truly enough, alleged by the reformers, 
 to be due to the domination of a landowning class. Every 
 effort was made by the popular leaders to reduce the power of 
 the landowners, for such a limitation was seen to be a con- 
 dition necessarily precedent to the establishment of a rational
 
 INTEODUCTION. 11 
 
 system of popular govenimeiit. Yet it was just when the 
 nation had begun to acquire a certain amount of control over 
 its former rulers that it was deemed just and wise to impose 
 upon the Australian colonies measures for the encouragement 
 of a greater and more injurious monopoly of landowning 
 than England herself had been called upon to grapple Vvith. 
 The curse of England, landowning monopoly, was at a pen- 
 stroke transplanted to the soil of the antipodes. There, alas ! 
 it has struck deep root, and may in time furnish, in the sad 
 consequences of an embittered struggle between the acred few 
 and the landless many, the most fitting tribute to the hiiquitous 
 folly of English colonial rulers. 
 
 Do Enghsh Ministries, to whatever extent of Liberalism 
 they may pledge themselves in home politics, perceive the 
 evil their predecessors have created m Australia ? If so, 
 they do their best to intensify it by conferring titles and dis- 
 tinctions upon the many-acred shepherd king ; and, worse 
 than that, by introducing into Australia the prmciple of 
 hereditary title.' Heretofore the colonial landowner has 
 looked upon his extensive property from a commercial point 
 of view, as a means for the acquisition of wealth, and has 
 shrunk fi'om the prospect of letting his eldest son grow up in 
 idleness in expectation of a paternal inheritance. To-morrow 
 he may regard his acres as necessary to be kept together for 
 the maintenance of the dignity of the title which his heir will 
 succeed to. Eldest sons, aristocratic customs, and class 
 hatreds — these are the injuries which England still has it in 
 her power to bestow upon the Colonies, and the infliction of 
 which affords conclusive proof that to-day, as in times past, 
 the mother-country contmues to give evidence of hopeless 
 incapacity to compreheYid the conditions of colonial life. 
 
 ' I allude to the baronetcy recently conferred on Sir W. J. Clarke, 
 reputed to be the largest landowner and richest squatter in Australia.
 
 12 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OP ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 Glance for a moment, if you please, at the long list of measures 
 passed within the last fifty years for the relief of the English 
 labouring and middle classes. Look at the sweeping nature 
 of the reforms contained in those measures, and remember 
 that they were extorted from Parliaments bitterly hostile to 
 change. Eead how concessions for the people's benefit were 
 wept for, clamoured for, struggled for, before being finally 
 wrested from rulers callous to the misery that they themselves 
 had caused. What must have been the condition of the people 
 whose necessities claimed such reforms, yet could not obtain 
 them except at the cost of such constant sufi'ering and agita- 
 tion ? What must have been the character of the Govern- 
 ment which persistently withheld the meanest instalment of 
 reform until extracted by the force of no longer resistible ur- 
 gency ? See, even to-day, around us a mass of humanity, fighting 
 for profit, for employment, or only for bare existence, and un- 
 ceasingly calling for legislative reforms. If with untrammelled 
 trade, with the universe pouring its wealth of produce in keen 
 competition on an English market, with an unshackled press 
 thundei'ing out its mandate of ' popular rule,' in accordance with 
 a public opinion which encourages to the full the ventilation 
 of grievances and remedies, the Englishman of to-day is still 
 discontented and restless, how must the bulk of the community 
 have fared in the earlier years of the present century, before a 
 single remedial measure had been passed ? — when, out of their 
 scanty earnings, a narrow oligarchy of borough-mongers main- 
 tained themselves in power and place as the * elect of the
 
 A transition; period of ENGLISH HISTORY. 13 
 
 people ; ' when they turned their power to account to oppress 
 the poor, to enrich themselves, to rob the public purse, to 
 stifle trade, to proscribe cheap food, to promote jobbery, 
 monopoly, venality, and corruption, to burke discussion, to 
 foster crime, to perpetuate and maintain, as the most sacred 
 bulwark of the nation, the grinding religious, social, and 
 political inequality from which for half a century or more the 
 country has been trying to extricate itself ? 
 
 Let us make the picture as bright as possible. See then, 
 first, population increasing, borough-mongers in course of being 
 overthrown, trade expanding, invention in powerful swing, and 
 the people at last on the high road to freedom and self-govern- 
 ment ; and let the very magnitude of these changes point the 
 misery which necessitated their accomplishment. 
 
 The population of the United Kingdom had increased from 
 19,000,000 in 1819 to 21,000,000 in 1881. This was made 
 up by an increase of the population of Great Britain from 
 13,000,000 to 16,500,000, and of that of Ireland from 6,000,000 
 to 7,750,000. Between these periods, again, the gross taxable 
 income had increased by over 50 per cent., or from 150,000,000/. 
 to about 250,000,000/., so that the national income had im- 
 proved in a geometrical ratio to increase of population. More- 
 over, the cheapening of every manufactured article, brought 
 about by the use of labour-saving inventions, by vastly im- 
 proved modes of communication, and by the greater facilities 
 for exchange afforded by them, had increased the purchasing 
 power of the enlarged income by 70 to 80 per cent. 
 
 The power-loom and the spinning-jenny had taken the 
 place of the hand-loom, the threshing-machine had been sub- 
 stituted for the tedious manual work of the labourer, and 
 invention was busy in all departments of industry. Steam 
 railways, after having been laughed out of court by all tliat 
 was wise, great, powerful, and official in the land, were at 
 length fairly started in 1830, and with wdiat vast results on 
 the peace, prosperity, and progress, not only of England, but 
 of the universe, we now know. As men travelled quicker, so 
 they thought quicker. A closer contact was established 
 between different parts of the kingdom, and the nation for the
 
 14 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 first time began to discover its real condition of suffering and 
 stagnation. Long-lauded blessings began to be regarded as 
 unmitigated evils, and England at last positively set to work 
 to cleanse the Augean stable in which it was living— nay, even 
 to upset the glorious Constitution of 1688. Long and bitter 
 was the struggle, but the nation was getting rid of leading- 
 strings, and was beginning to find out its own power. As 
 soon as it did so it became irresistible, and bit by bit the 
 wonderful fi-amework raised a century and a half before was 
 reformed, overturned, and finally reconstructed out of all 
 recognisable existence. 
 
 Eeligioas dissent had been formerly regarded as a grave 
 offence, and was still punishable by the exclusion of Dissenters 
 from all offices of trust. This must be altered, and a reluctant 
 Legislature was forced to declare that the comitry should be 
 allowed to claim the services of Dissenters of all kinds, and 
 that formal subser\-ience to an established religion was no 
 longer to be the test of magisterial capacity. 
 
 Blood relationship or family connection with those in 
 power, had been generally held to constitute a right to live on 
 the public purse. This, however, was not the ^'iew of the re- 
 formers, who saw no virtue in the arrangement, and insisted 
 that not only should public officials be rewarded in proportion 
 to the work to be done by them, but also that highly-salaried 
 State servants should no longer be permitted to procure cheaply- 
 paid substitutes to do the work entrusted to them. Nor Avere 
 the reversions to public offices of trust to be vended in future 
 for the benefit of the privileged few to whom the public service 
 was a profitable gamble. 
 
 The venerable Church, too, was to be reformed. Good 
 fellowship, unclerical habits, and good birth were no longer 
 to be the sole qualifications for Church dignities. The 
 Church must thenceforward exist for the people, and not the 
 people for the Church. 
 
 The courts of justice in their turn were attacked, though 
 with no great success. We all know that the laws of England 
 represent the perfection of human reason, that they are 
 known to all. and that there is and ever has been free access
 
 A TR.INSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 15 
 
 to the courts of justice for the meanest subjects of the realm. 
 The respectabihty of these maxims was to a great extent 
 thrown away upon the reformers who turned their attention 
 to the compUcated and expensive nature of legal proceedings. 
 They saw in them the evidence of the falsification of all true 
 principles of administration of justice. Each court of common 
 law had its own peculiar procedure, clashing with that of the 
 courts around it, and chaos, confusion, and glorious iteration 
 reigned at Westmhrster in honoured supremacy. Each step 
 in a proceeding at law was so tedious, slow, uncertain, and 
 costly, and it was also capable of such indefinite protraction 
 that only the man endowed at once with the longest purse 
 and the greatest share of obstinacy could hope to succeed in 
 a lawsuit. The law should be the guarantee of liberty, and 
 that it can only be if the poor man has the same chance of 
 gettmg justice done for him as the rich man has. This, it was 
 evident, he had not. He was told that the coiirts of law were 
 open to him for redress, ' but so,' said Home Tooke, ' was the 
 London tavern — to any one who could pay.' As a consequence 
 the risk rmi by a rich man in defrauding a poor one was rendered 
 infinitesimally small. 
 
 But the justice of the law courts was speedy and cheap 
 besides tlie dilatory proceedings of the Court of Chancery, 
 where the length of suits was measured by decades and half- 
 centuries, where people were born in Chancery, lived and 
 died in Chancery, and left therein their descendants for as 
 long as there was any corpus possessing a value over which 
 Chancery could claim cognisance. The constitution of this 
 court, orighially devised to deal with less than a million of 
 money, had been in no whit altered, though the property 
 within its tenacious grasp amounted in value in 1831 to more 
 than 40,000,000/, sterling. Honest and capable as most of 
 the judges were, both at law and equity, they had no interest 
 in conducting the business before them either quickly or well, 
 so long as they were paid by fees and not by salary. The 
 inferior officers of the courts, who were paid in like manner, 
 for their part had a lively interest in throwing impediments in 
 the way of expeditious termination of suits.
 
 16 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 But the system, or ratlier want of system, was dear to the 
 lawyers long taught to consider legal procedure, as well as 
 the law itself, the highest perfection of human reason. Up 
 to 1832 but slight improvement had been effected in law 
 procedure beyond the substitution of payment by salary to 
 the judges instead of payment by fees. Venerable fictions 
 were too powerful for the reforming spirit to contend against 
 with success, and it was not till the Common Law Procedure 
 Act of 1852 came mto force that legal proceedings began to be 
 conducted on a fairly intelligible basis. 
 
 While such was the state of our civil courts, the evils of 
 the 'justice ' dispensed by the criminal courts were quite as 
 apparent and far more terrible. The criminal laws were 
 indiscruninate slaughter enactments. Our legislators at the 
 beginnmg of the century had but one remedy for crime. 
 ' Hang ! hang ! ' was their guiding rule, as if hanging was the 
 best use to which a human being could l)e devoted. Nowadays 
 it is thought that punishment should be but a means to an 
 end — a process to be applied to reform a community and to 
 discourage from crime. Not so thought our forefathers. 
 They were, in fact, too careless of either the moral or physical 
 good of the people to reason out schemes for the prevention 
 of crime. One of the most humiliating chapters of our 
 national history is that in which the House of Lords and the 
 bencli of Bishops, headed by a Lord Chancellor and supported 
 by the voice of a Lord Chief Justice of England, appear as 
 banding their energies together in the cause of judicial murder, 
 and successfully denouncing the noble efforts of Eomilly and 
 Mackintosh to remove the capital penalty from trivial offences 
 as the hallucmations of crack-brained ' theorists.' 
 
 Till 1833 the very barbarity of our criminal laws con- 
 tinued to furnish powerful incentives to crime by the reaction 
 their severity produced in public feeling. In the clearest 
 cases juries over and over again refused to con\ict when a 
 punishment grotesquely disproportioned to the offence charged 
 would follow a verdict of ' guilty.' In a large number of 
 cases they gave verdicts involving deliberate perjury — by re- 
 ducing the amount sworn to as the value of stolen property,
 
 A TI1.1NSITI0N PEEIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 17 
 
 in order to avoid the capital conviction. Prosecutors and 
 witnesses could hardly be induced to come forward at all 
 when their evidence might hang some unfortunate, guilty of a 
 trumpery offence committed in a moment of weakness or 
 under the pressure of starvation. 
 
 As evidenced by the statistics of half a century ago, the 
 chances of a prisoner being convicted at all were only about 
 six or seven to four, and the odds of the quality of his offence 
 being reduced by the verdict of a jury were largely m the 
 prisoner's favour. Taldng, for instance, the criminal statistics 
 for 1832, we find that the number of people committed for 
 trial in that year was 20,829, of whom only 14,947 were con- 
 victed. No fewer than 1,449 were condemned to death. Cut 
 so opposed was public opinion to the barbarity of the criminal 
 system that the death sentence was but rarely permitted to be 
 carried out, and it had become a mere formal method of 
 terminating a trial for the graver kinds of offences. In 1832, 
 it appears that only 54 people were executed, and 15 of these 
 executions were for murder. It was evident that the criminal 
 law had fallen into utter contempt, and nothing can furnish a 
 clearer proof of this, and of the consequent increase of induce- 
 ments to crime furnished by Draconian rigour, than the rise 
 in the number of criminals from 4,605 in 1805, to 9,091 in 
 1816, and to 20,829 in 1832 —a quickly ascending rate of 
 increase altogether disproportionate to the increase of popula- 
 tion over the period. 
 
 The Game Laws were held up to tlie nation as sublime 
 achievements of statesmanship, and as corner-stones of the 
 glorious Constitution. Under these laws only landed pro- 
 prietors and their heirs apparent, as also their gamekeepers, 
 were allowed to kill game. Any one f jund transgressing the 
 Game Laws was liable to be sentenced and tried by the magis- 
 trate, who was at the same time his accuser. The poacher, 
 judged and sentenced by the landowner on whose preserves 
 he had trespassed, was sent to herd with the worst of criminals. 
 Smarting under a sense of injustice, he formed a ready tool foi- 
 his new companions, and rarely did the man convicted of the 
 dire offence of putting his toil-worn hand on a pheasant or a 
 
 c
 
 18 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 partridge emerge from prison without having irrevocably 
 committed himself to association with the gallows-birds he 
 left behind him. 
 
 But, however severe and unfairly administered the Game 
 Laws were, they did little or nothing to check poaching, 
 especially when, as too often happened, the mass of the popu- 
 lation was smik in the deepest distress. 
 
 It was made a penal offence to sell game. This enactment 
 naturally drove up the price of game, and acted as a further 
 stimulus to poaching. The brains of landlordism were, how- 
 ever, quite equal to the occasion, and erected the buying of 
 game into a penal offence. The nation could not take this 
 last feat of legislative wisdom au serieux. People laughed 
 at it for awhile, and then bought more game than ever. 
 
 After 1831 some of the feudal privileges attaching to a 
 landowner's monopoly of game were swept away, and the game- 
 licence system was adopted which is now in vogue. But 
 until very recently poaching was still considered as one of the 
 most serious of offences in the eye of the law, and it doubtless 
 is so rated still by many a Squire Western of modern times. 
 
 A step forward in the lessening of landowners' privileges 
 
 was taken ere long. By 1830 the nation had become obtuse 
 
 enough to be unable to see why lando'W'ners should continue 
 
 to have the sole and exclusive privilege of defrauding their 
 
 creditors, while ordinary debtors were thrown into prison for 
 
 indeiinite periods, not unfrequently embracing a lifetime. So 
 
 in that year it procured the passing of an Act providing that 
 
 the proceeds realised from the sale of landed estates should be 
 
 liable to be attached in payment of debts contracted on it, and 
 
 in 1833 real estate was for the first time subjected to liability 
 
 for the payment of simple contract debts. These reforms may 
 
 seem but small ones compared with the evils arising from 
 
 landowning monopoly, and which future generations, if net 
 
 the present, will still have to assail ; but considering that the 
 
 Parliaments of those days were composed of landlords and 
 
 their nominees, it was then infinitely more difficult to effect 
 
 trifling reforms in the laws relating to land than it would be 
 
 at the present day to procure complete and sweeping changes.
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 19 
 
 If by the measures above mentioned the defensive positions of 
 the landlords were still left almost inviolate, the thin edge of 
 the wedge of reconstruction had been introduced, and, further, 
 the offensive powers of acred magnates were sadly curtailed 
 by general legislation. 
 
 The time had at length arrived when landlordism in 
 England was no longer to be treated as an absolutely mviolable 
 principle. The standards of right were now declared to be 
 standards of A^Tong, misrule, and iniquitous oppression. The 
 people proclaimed their intention of setting up an entirely 
 different set of principles for the conduct of legislation and 
 for the government of the country. This could only be done 
 through the medium of a Eeformed Parliament, so Parliament 
 was reformed. 
 
 It is not my intention to go into the details of the oft-told 
 tale of Parliamentary Pieform, but it vrill be necessary to 
 advert to it in order to throw light upon the condition of the 
 people and of the government of the country at the time it 
 was effected, by pointing out some of the more glaring evils 
 attaching to the representation of the people which required 
 immediate attention. 
 
 The position of Members of Parliament was in many 
 respects an en\'iable one. They revelled in the privilege of 
 exemption from arrest for cixil process, so long as they con- 
 tinued Members, and they also enjoyed an immunity from 
 submission to decrees and from paying the cost of suits, in 
 the Ecclesiastical Courts. 
 
 These privileges were equally agreeable to large capitalists 
 as to the landlords, and rightly so, for they furnished to both 
 a safe and simple relief from pecuniary difficulties. Thus a 
 man desirous of defrauding his creditors would often purchase a 
 seat in Parliament from some influential borough-monger, who 
 welcomed the profitable transaction. Then, as the ' elect ' of 
 the people, he would lift up an indignant voice against the 
 crime of indebtedness, and give a senatorial vote for drastic 
 measures for filling the prisons with insolvent debtors. For 
 these, however innocent or unfortmiate, no punishment could 
 be too severe. Or from the safe obscurity of Boulogne or 
 
 c2
 
 20 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 Calais he might resell his seat for a profit on the original 
 transaction. 
 
 Public opinion had gradually come to consider these prac- 
 tices as objectionable ; at last they became scandalous, when 
 in 1820 a debtor in the Fleet, for debts amounting to 7, GOO/., 
 was by one of those judicious arrangements returned for 
 Beverley. The prison doors were opened at once to the honour- 
 able Member ; but truth compels us to relate that, instead 
 of adorning ^\'ith his presence the Parliamentary arena, he 
 betook himself to the retirement of a Continental retreat. On 
 the other hand, a seat in Parliament miglit be made the means 
 of liquidating a just debt, for an influential owner of a borough 
 might hand it over as an asset to some importunate creditor. 
 If unembarrassed, he might satisfy the claims of conscience 
 and relationship by handing the seat over for a time to a 
 younger son or a needy relative for whom it Avas incumbent 
 on him to make suitable provision. 
 
 The jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts at that time 
 extended to grants of probate and suits for divorce. The pro- 
 bate proceedings might involve expensive issues directly 
 chargeable to the inefficient administration of a trustee, who 
 yet, if a Member of Parliament, could not be called upon to 
 pay one iota of the costs, to carry a decree into execution, or 
 to make good damage caused by a breach of trust. Or an 
 heir-at-law might, if a Member, refuse to produce a will 
 setting aside his claims or creating a charge in favour of some 
 one else. 
 
 Where elections were contested, tlie electors became 
 marketable commodities, to be bought up at fancy prices. 
 The polling sometimes went on for weeks at a time, and the 
 grossest briber}-, corruption, and intimidation were fi'eely 
 indulged in and as openly boasted of. The expenses of these 
 elections were enormous, and, except through the avenue of 
 a pocket borough, only a very wealthy man could dream of 
 getting into Parliament. 
 
 Political discussion was the last thing to be thought of at 
 election time. It was a season of drunken orgies for the 
 intelligent freeman and the enlightened burgess. In some-
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 21 
 
 boroughs, the privilege of returning a Member to Parliament 
 was confined to the Mayor and Corporation. In others, a 
 limited body of freeholders were the only ones entitled to 
 exercise the franchise. In at any rate one borough, an in- 
 dividual was known to have proposed, elected, and returned 
 himself as duly elected, and, as he at the same time held the 
 office of sheriff, his proceedings were strictly within his right. 
 The anomalies were abundant, and to us are probably more 
 startling than they appeared to a generation which regarded 
 them as grateful indications of the eternal fitness of things. 
 
 If there was any principle at all regulatmg the distribution 
 of electoral privileges, it would seem to have been that the 
 larger the population of any particular place the fewer should 
 be the nmnber of voters allowed to it ; and that representa- 
 tion should, as far as possible, be made to bear an inverse 
 ratio everywhere to the numbers of the people and to the mag- 
 nitude of their interests. Nommally, there was a House of 
 Commons representative of the people, but actually, a House 
 representative of the Lords. It furnished the latter with 
 places and pensions, imposed taxes on the people to provide 
 for these, and presented the nation in return with Corn 
 Laws, Navigation Laws, criminal laws of midiluted savagery, 
 and penal laws of varying hues of absurdity and cruelty. But 
 ' the eternal fitness of things ' was now to undergo alteration 
 even in the sacred abode of legislative incapacity, and in 1882 
 a House of Lords, the palladium of our Constitution, though 
 deaf to the wants of the people, consented to the reform of 
 the House of Commons in order to prevent the extension of 
 its own privileges to others more worthy of them. 
 
 Now let us look at the dark side of the picture. Hitherto 
 we have seen progress and reform effected or about to be 
 effected ; now we have to deal with poverty and sufferhig, with 
 folly rampant and mirelieved by remedial change. 
 
 The prosperity of the nation from the beginning of the 
 century up to 1832 was far more apparent than real. Above 
 a certain line, was improvement and increasing comfort ; 
 below, grindmg distress but a short remove from starvation.
 
 22 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 The substitution of machinery for hand labour had facilitated 
 and cheapened production. Improved agricultural and farm- 
 ing implements were raising a larger produce from the land, 
 but a rapidly increasing population had produced a demand 
 far more than the increased produce. In consequence, poorer 
 lands had been brought into cultivation, and the rent of land 
 had greatly risen. But the enlarged farming area had not 
 sufficed to bring into employment more than a comparatively 
 small number of the thousands of agricultural labourers 
 thrown out of work by the introduction of threshing- 
 machines. 
 
 In manufactures too, many thousands of people had been 
 thrown out of employment by the introduction of the power- 
 loom and the spinning-jenny, and the demand created by the 
 cheapness consequent on facilitated production had not yet 
 become sufficiently great to allow of the re-engagement of 
 these destitute toilers. Amongst manufacturers and merchants, 
 the competition engendered by the increased cheapness of 
 production had lowered profits all round for the time being, 
 and the fifty per cent, rise in the taxable income of the 
 country represented little more than a rise in the incomes of 
 the landowners and of the greater capitalists. For a while 
 the industrious Lancashire men refused to recognise the signs 
 of the times, and stuck patiently to their superseded hand- 
 looms. At one time it was estimated that at least 41,000 of 
 them were endeavouring to subsist on as little as twopence 
 per diem. But this could not last long, and in the rage of 
 infatuated despair many of them joined the bands of un- 
 employed labourers then devoting their energies to indis- 
 criminate rick-burning and general machine-breaking. Over 
 this untoward state of things the powers that were resolved 
 to triumph. They set about the laudable endeavour by 
 enjoining upon the parishes to extend the operation of the 
 Poor Law, by supplementing the labourers' pay out of the Poor 
 Piates. Whether a labourer was able-bodied or not, the rates 
 were to be expended in supplementing his earnings, if in- 
 sufficient for his own support. He was to be entitled to 
 relief, not according to the value of his services, but in pro-
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 23 
 
 portion to the number of his progeny — therefore the larger his 
 family was in point of numbers the greater would be the 
 amount of relief afforded him. 
 
 The effect of these provisions soon became painfully 
 apparent. Families had become lucrative investments, giving 
 rates of profit or livelihood increasing progressively with the 
 numbers and helplessness of their members. For the first 
 time in his life, the labourer found himself authoritatively 
 encouraged in extravagance and improvidence. Young people 
 could look forward to State endowments on their marriages ; 
 the older people found the necessity for work superseded by 
 an amiable State mechanism. 
 
 The parishes were startled when they perceived the extent 
 of the growing burden thus thrust upon them. The labouring 
 population, by degrees, came to look upon the parish allowance 
 as their inalienable freehold, and in consequence the emulation 
 of parish officials was directed to shifting on to each other 
 their expensive pauper bills. Proud indeed of its diplomacy 
 was the parish that could contrive to marry off some aged 
 female pauper to a pauper of the opposite sex in some adjoining 
 parish. But the last parish, where the happy pair now ac- 
 quired a new domicile, was not so satisfied with this connubial 
 arrangement. Every scheme of petty ingenuity was brought 
 into play to return the compliment, and pauper marriages in 
 order to transfer liabilities to other parishes, became practical 
 jokes of exqui&ite humour. A pauper was estimated to cost 
 '2,51. per annum, and as every case of doubtful settlement was 
 hotly contested before the courts of law with all the careless 
 profusion incidental to spending other people's money, the 
 burden caused by the local Poor Piates soon became intolerable, 
 so much so that the lower classes of ratepayers were themselves 
 becoming rapidly pauperised. 
 
 Under the old state of things the landlords had often come 
 forward to render temporary assistance to their tenantry, and 
 between the loftiest and the lowliest in the rural districts there 
 had always existed a certain bond of sympathy. Absolute 
 power on the one hand, absolute submission and obedience on 
 the other, almost always coexist mth a feeling of obligation ou
 
 24 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 the part of the superior, of entire dependence on that of the 
 inferior, which prompts occasional acts of benevolent charity 
 from the one to the other. But the new administration of the 
 Poor Law made the tenant to a large degree independent, and 
 whatever sympathy might have existed between the landlord 
 and his tenants, or between the farmer and his labourers, was 
 rudely severed. The landlord, seeing his tenant m receipt of 
 parish relief to Avliich he too had to contribute, promptly turned 
 his tenant out into the cold. But, still desirous of doing some- 
 thing to allay the widespread misery thus occasioned, the land- 
 lords, honestly enough perhaps, embraced the theory that the 
 enclosure of commons, by bringing more land into cultivation, 
 would afford additional employment. So they procured Enclo- 
 sure Acts, which had the effect of enclosing no fewer than 
 1,751,310 acres of common land in the squires' ring-fences 
 between 1811 and 1830. But this was in reality diminishing 
 and not increasing the cultivated area. 
 
 On the common land, labourers had been used to live in 
 cottages on small plots of ground which they considered as 
 their own. One of these small occupiers would have in his 
 little domain a cow or two besides a few pigs and poultry, and 
 could raise from it as much vegetable produce as he and his 
 family could consume. Nay, he might often supplement his 
 wages by an appreciable income from the sale of his surplus 
 produce. All his spare hours were spent in the cultivation of 
 his little terrain, and he was sober, industrious, and wealthy 
 as compared with his after lot when these small productive 
 holdings had gone to swell his squire's domain. The produce 
 was now to find its way entirely to his landlord's behoof, and 
 so at one blow the labourer was levelled from the position of 
 a small but industrious and hopeful farmer, to that of a lodger 
 on sufferance, at the mercy of a landlord who had robbed him 
 of his all. Now, instead of being an energetic producer, his 
 chief desire was to be an unthrifty consumer of parish suste- 
 nance, supplemented by what he could procure for the miserable 
 pay doled out to him for unwilling negligent Avork on his stolen 
 property. Despite, or probably because of, the enclosure policy, 
 pauperism went on increasing, until in 1832 the Poor Piates
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 25 
 
 of the kingdom for the year amounted to 7,000,000^., and it was 
 calculated that the proportion of paupers to population in 
 England and Wales was as one to seven. 
 
 But it is an ill wind that hloAvs nobody good, and it is 
 certain that a considerable portion of the enormous sums 
 devoted to pauper relief found its way into the receptive 
 pockets of parish officials. Porter, in his ' Progress of the 
 Nation,' '■ observes : — ' Plunder and jobbing of all kinds were 
 the usual accompaniments of the system, and it is by no 
 means surprising that persons who were allowed to benefit 
 themselves in this manner should have become violent oppo- 
 nents of a change which has introduced order and economy 
 into the various branches of parish expenditure whence they 
 had previously drawn their irregular gains.' The change, 
 however, was to be deferred till 1834. 
 
 The enclosure system not having proved efficacious, the 
 ingenuity of the squires was equal to a new remedy. ' The 
 land is over-populated,' 'they said, and, with a view to reduce 
 the fancied excess of numbers, they proceeded to pull down 
 houses and cottages on their estates. But population was by 
 no means reduced by these re*iiedial methods, for the Poor Law 
 was far stronger in promoting increase than misery and 
 high-handed oppression were potent to check it. 
 
 The farmers were hardly better off than the labourers. 
 Threshing machinery had come to their aid ; the researches 
 of Davy had given to farmmg a more scientific character ; a 
 better system of cropping by rotation had come into use, and 
 improved means of communication had cheapened the carriage 
 of produce to market, besides facilitating the means of exchang- 
 ing it. Their produce was eagerly demanded, and the demand 
 kept pace with the increase of population. But, despite all 
 these considerations, farming had become a thoroughly bad 
 business, a mere scheme for throwing good money after bad. 
 Why this was so will be obvious enough if we briefly examine 
 the operation of the Corn Laws. 
 
 Previous Corn Laws having failed of their nominal object 
 
 > P. 'J4.
 
 26 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 of keeping the price of agricultural produce high and even 
 while at the same time adding to the prosperity of the nation, 
 the cry of distress among the owners and occupiers of land 
 became exceedingly urgent. Accordingly, an Act was passed 
 in 1815, under which the importation of corn was absolutely 
 prohibited until the price of home-grown corn should have 
 reached the famine height of eighty shillings per quarter. Also 
 the monopoly of the home market was secured by the Act to 
 the British grower, for all other grain until the price had 
 reached a proportionate height. Further, the introduction of 
 all foreign meat, flesh or fish, living or dead, was absolutely 
 forbidden, and to give completeness to the system, it was 
 decreed that imported butter was only to be used for washing 
 sheep or for greasing carriage-wheels, and the revenue officers 
 received stringent instructions to stir the butter round with 
 tarred sticks so as to ensure its not being used as food. A 
 notable exception, however, was made, by which turtle, turbot, 
 and sturgeon were to be admitted, so as to afford cheap and 
 nutritious food for the million ! 
 
 It was expected that these enactments would keep the price 
 of home produce permanently high, and would prevent fluctu- 
 ations m price. Eighty shillmgs was thenceforward to be 
 the invariable price of corn. So likely did this appear, that 
 the bounties on the exportation of grain were done away with. 
 
 The effect of a rise in the price of produce in a settled 
 country, is to raise the rent of the land on which it is grown 
 if, in consequence of the rise, inferior land is brought into 
 cultivation. Li prospect, then, of the high prices promised by 
 these Corn Laws, the farmer, if he wished to remain a farmer, 
 was called upon to pay an mcreased rent for the expected value 
 of his monopoly — an additional tax to his landlord to nullify 
 the extra profit he might possibly derive from his busmess. 
 
 The farmers were in 1815 promised eighty shilluigs a quarter 
 for their corn, and their farms were valued on that supposition. 
 The hope of high profits held out by the Corn Laws created 
 competition for high-rented farms, and caused abandoned 
 and inferior soils to be brought into cultivation. So much 
 the better for the landlords. But the dreams of continuous
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH EISTORY. 27 
 
 high prices were qiiicldy dissipated. The average price of 
 wheat in 1816 was 76s. 2fZ., in the following year 94s., and 
 in 1818 it was 83s. 8d. With these prices came a further 
 extension of tillage. The price of wheat dropped very 
 materially in consequence, and continued rapidly to descend, 
 until in October 1822 it was no more than 38s. Id., while the 
 average for that year was only iis. Id.^ 
 
 Not much of constancy about these prices. 
 
 Protection had executed its natural function of first stimu- 
 latmg artificial prices and profits, and natural competition, xm- 
 naturally extended, had reduced them agam to a non-paying 
 level. ' Distress ' became again the farmers' cry, and a Com- 
 mission was appointed to inquire into its causes. ' Depreciate 
 the currency again,' shrieked the landlords, ' and all will go 
 well.' But even a landowner's Parliament at its wits' end for 
 any impracticable panacea, could not go this length. In 1822 
 Lord Liverpool's Administration passed an Act allowing impor- 
 tation at high duties when the price of corn should reach 70s. 
 But this enactment was inoperative, because till 1828, when 
 it was superseded by the famous, or infamous, sliduig scale, the 
 price never rose higher than 66s. Qd. 
 
 A new set of Eesolutions, moved by Mr. Charles Grant, "■' 
 was passed and embodied in an Act in 1828. The Act pro\dded 
 that the duty was to be 23s. Qd. when the home price of corn 
 was 64s., gradually declming to 16s. Qd. when the price was at 
 69s., and to Is. when it was at or above 73s. On this shifting 
 principle the duties were based till 1841, when the law was 
 altered with a view of securing a price of from 54s. to 58s. 
 per bushel, and m 1846 the Corn Laws were at last totally 
 repealed. 
 
 Let us look at the condition of the farmers when the 
 system of Corn Laws was in full swing. Their rents were 
 based on the supposition of constant high prices being main- 
 tained. As a matter of fact, under the system prices fluctu- 
 ated incessantly, and under its influence they were declining 
 enormously, taking a comparison over a period of a quarter of 
 a century. The farmer was crippled and often ruined, by the 
 
 ' McCuUoch's Commercial Dictionary, tit. ' Corn Laws.' 
 ^ Afterwards Lord Glenelg.
 
 28 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 conjoint operation of high rents, Poor Kates, and low prices. 
 Rents fell again in 1818, but not in the same proportion as 
 prices of farm produce fell, and the farmers were therefore 
 worse off than before. Farming had become a pure speculation 
 instead of a steady trade. The land was of necessity cropped 
 to its utmost ability, and an incoming yearly tenant would 
 too often find that the basis of his rent, previous prices and 
 previous crops, was one which must absorb whatever profits 
 he might hope to make from exhausted soils. He could not 
 get a lease, so improvements were out of the question. Close 
 cropping was ever}'thing. The distress of the farmers at the 
 beginning of the third decade of the century was more serious 
 than it had been in 1815, because of the increased number of 
 farmers vergmg on ruin, who had been induced to rush into 
 agricultural pursuits by the grant of a State monopoly, as it 
 was thought to be. The sliding scale of 1828 was still to 
 secure this monopoly, but its main effect was to induce 
 enormous speculations in foreign corn, which was always ready 
 to come out of bond and so to depress the price of the home 
 supplies. Foreign corn had never been entirely kept out, even 
 under the most absolute form of prohibition, but now it was 
 always lying in wait to AVi'eck the farmers' hopes, as we shall 
 see later on. 
 
 It may be remarked here, that it was this attempted exclu- 
 sion of foreign produce that was ever, in reality, the farmers' 
 bane. At the period now under consideration, the length, 
 uncertainty, and risk of sea voyages, inefiicient stowage, &c., 
 made importation of grain by sea a very expensive and specu- 
 lative busmess. The importer, therefore, could only have 
 afforded to sell at prices far above the home level, if that level 
 had been a low and regular price. The home farmer would 
 have had nothing to fear from a foreign competitor except 
 when crops were unusually deficient at home, and when in 
 consequence his own produce rose in value. As a matter of 
 fact that rise would not have been a great one, because foreign 
 supplies would have rushed in to meet a deficiency. The 
 nation, cheaply fed, would have been able to devote to extension 
 oi' productive industries vast sums which, though nominally
 
 A TEANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTOEY. 29 
 
 paid in giving encouragement to agriculture, in reality went 
 to swell the rent-rolls of the landlords. A prosperous nation 
 would have keenly competed for increased supplies of agricul- 
 tural produce, and would, by a healthy demand, have prevented 
 corn prices from falling below a paying level. Steady prices 
 would have operated largely in favour of a disposition to grant 
 leases, rather than yearly tenancies, which placed the tenant at 
 his landlord's mercy. "With the guarantee afforded by a lease, 
 as well as with the stimulus to improvement given by average 
 low prices returning no more than a regular fair margin of 
 profit, would have come economical and careful cultivation, 
 while invention would have received the spur it needed. Lands 
 would have risen steadily in value. Rents would have been 
 punctually paid. Prosperity would have gained the day 
 over Poor Eates ; and even with all the startling contrasts 
 between progress and poverty that dog the footsteps of pros- 
 perity, England might have been energetic, industrious, and 
 contented, instead of being merely restless, miserable, and 
 starving. 
 
 Low prices and free competition were not, as was the 
 supposition, the causes, but they ivere the true remedies, for 
 agricultural distress. The legislative medicines for the dis- 
 ease were high prices and monopohes. 
 
 The competition founded on expectations of the value of 
 an exclusive market, was of itself sufficient to reduce farming 
 profits below the average limit that competition, not artificially 
 stimulated, would have driven them down to. When to this 
 circumstance we add the bitrden of crushing rents, pauperising 
 rates, and a sliding scale so constructed as to promote the flow 
 of foreign grain into England at the maximum of expense 
 and risk to the farmer, to the nation, and to the importer him- 
 self, we can see that the lot of the British farmer, mider the 
 operation of the laws nominally devised for his express benefit, 
 was not an en\'iable one. 
 
 Rents had dropped in 1818 after their pre^'ious rise, but, 
 notwitlt standing bad farming seasons, fast-droppuag grain 
 prices, and the restoration of a metallic currency, they were 
 maintained at double the height to which tliey had reached in
 
 30 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 the earlier years of the century. In 1803 the assessments to 
 the Income Tax upon real property in Great Britain were 
 made upon an annual value or rental of 38,691,394^. In 
 1812 the atmual value was estimated at over 46,000,000L, 
 while hi 1842 Sir Robert Peel, in bringing forward his pro- 
 posals for an Income Tax, estimated the rents of the pre^■iou3 
 year at 72,800,000/. So that, even on his showing, rents must 
 have almost doubled in thirty-eight years. But Sir Robert must 
 have underestimated, or the growth of rental must have been 
 extraordinarily rapid during 1842-3, for we find that the 
 annual value of real property assessed to the tax for the 
 year ending April 5, 1843, was for England and Scotland 
 alone 95,284,497/., although i^roperties of less yearly value 
 than 150Z. were excluded from the assessment. Deducting 
 from this total 2,598,943Z. as the assessed value of railway 
 property for the year, we have still a formidable total left, 
 vrhich shows an actual increase in rent of about 150 per cent. 
 since 1803. 
 
 It may readily be believed that relatively to the other 
 classes of the community — that is, to the peoj)le, and to the 
 farmers in especial — the landlords were doing very well for 
 themselves, and, on the principle of letting well alone, were 
 exceedingly unwilhng to allow of any legislation which might 
 produce a change for the better in the circumstances of the 
 nation. Selfishly blind to their true interests as the landlords 
 were, while striving exclusively for the promotion of their own 
 wealth and influence, they failed to see that the prosperity of 
 the country would give a far higher value to landed property 
 than it had ever known before. The abolition of the Corn 
 Laws inaugurated a Free Trade era which the landlords bitterly 
 opposed, and which was in nothing more remarkable than in 
 the immensely increased value it gave to landed property. 
 Moreover, since the adoption of free-trading principles, the 
 rise in the value of land has been on a far sounder and more 
 permanent basis than previously, for it has not, as then, been 
 caused by the increase of population faster than its means of 
 subsistence, but by the large increase of the population in 
 numbers and wealth, resulting from the cheapness of food and
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 31 
 
 extension of employment that followed on the substitution of 
 a world-wide market for the local supplying gromid. 
 
 It is quite unnecessary to show how an already starving 
 people failed to derive advantage from Corn Laws which cur- 
 tailed an already existing insufficiency of food. The condition 
 of the nation was so deplorable that, but for the efi'ects of the 
 Poor Law in destroying the growth of independence and manli- 
 ness, the do^m-trodden population would probably have forced 
 the repeal of the Corn Laws within a very few years after 
 their imposition. It is only by considering the people as 
 utterly deficient in spirit, and utterly wanting in the self- 
 reliance which leads to organisation for the redress of evil 
 government, that we can cease to marvel at their endurance 
 of food taxation till 1846, or to wonder that they should for 
 so long have consented to a twenty per cent, tax on their 
 bread, whilst, according to Eichard Cobden, ' the family of a 
 nobleman paid to the Bread Tax about one halfpenny for every 
 hundred pounds of income.' True it was that ' pohtical dis- 
 content, revealing itself in occasional riotings, rudely repressed 
 by violence and bloodshed, was rife throughout the country. 
 But in the Legislature its voice was little heeded, for it was 
 not the people but a class which was then represented in 
 Parliament.' ' 
 
 The people had gone off on a wrong scent, clamouring 
 for Parliamentary Eeform. That was desirable and necessary, 
 but the repeal of the Corn Laws was far more so. That the 
 great mass of the nation did not altogether starve was in 
 great part owing to importations of foreign wheat. In 1825, 
 1826, and 1827, partial admissions of foreign corn were made 
 under Orders in Council and special Acts, but under the 
 sliding scale of 1828 a vast speculative import trade in grain 
 grew up, which benefited the consumer if it did little good to 
 the farmer or to the trader himself. The sliding scale appears 
 to have been expressly drawn up -with a view to promote risky 
 speculation. It certainly had that effect, and thereby diverted 
 a great deal of commercial enterprise into a hazardous foreign 
 corn trade, from channels where more regular profits might 
 ' Montgreclien's History of Free Trade in England, p. 9.
 
 32 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 have been made at far less than the average of risk involved 
 in the importation of foreign corn. With regard to this, Mr. 
 Jacob, in his evidence before the House of Commons Com- 
 mittee in 1833, says : — ' The supplies of foreign corn came 
 in by jerks in large quantities at once, not according 
 to the immediate wants of consumption, but according 
 to the perpetually varying duty, and according to the 
 opinion among the importers of a probable rise or fall of the 
 averages.' 
 
 Mr. Henry Ashworth, in his valuable little book ' Cobden 
 and the League,' summarises as follows : — ' Let it be supposed 
 that, following an unfavourable season, the average price of 
 wheat in the English market had become 73s. per quarter, 
 and the import duty consequently Is. per quarter. This low 
 duty would attract the notice of the merchant and induce him 
 to refer to the prices of wheat abroad. If he concluded to 
 send out orders, the operations had to be hastened, in order to 
 escape payment of a higher rate of duty on arrival, in conse- 
 quence of earlier arrivals inducing lower prices and higher 
 duties, at the instance of other importers. He would not 
 consider it safe, under the circumstances, to make his out- 
 going remittance in manufactures or home produce, lest his 
 delay in the sale of such prodixce abroad should cause his 
 import of wheat to arrive (in an extreme case) when, in conse- 
 quence of other large imports, it was worth only 3Gs. a quarter, 
 and when the duty to be paid would be 50s. 8d., making 
 the total cost to the importer 86s. Scl. a quarter. With 
 sach an arrav of hazards before him a large venture miq-ht 
 be his ruin. He might, however, take his chance of a profit 
 by sending out gold — ^the effect of which would be to facili- 
 tate his purchases of grain abroad, and at the same time to 
 derange our currency, instead of increasing our exports of 
 manufactm-es.' 
 
 Again, Mr. David Salomons, in his ' Eeflections on the 
 Operation of the Present Scale of Duty on Foreign Corn,' 
 observes, after alluding to the risks run by corn importers : — 
 ' Their [the speculating importers] gain is calculated not only 
 in the advance in the price of corn, but also in the fall in the
 
 A TKANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 33 
 
 scale of the duty, and as the duty falls in a greater ratio than 
 the price of the corn rises, the duty operates as a bounty to 
 withhold sales until it reaches its highest protecting limit, 
 when the duty is also at the lowest. . . . When the averages 
 are at 73s., the extreme limit is attained, the duty being only 
 Is. per quarter ; so that if an importation were made that 
 might be sold at or about 60s., paying a duty of 20s. 8d., by 
 withholding the supply until the extreme limit of 73s. be 
 reached, a gain of 7s. not only would be made by the rise in 
 the averages, but also a profit of 19s. 8d. by the reduction of 
 the duty, making a total increased profit of 26s. 8d. . . . The 
 tendency of the fluctuating scale is, not to promote, but to 
 withhold the supply, not to keep corn from fluctuation, but to 
 offer a bounty for raising it to that extreme point when the 
 mere nominal duty is imposed.' 
 
 So not only had commerce been induced by the sliding 
 scale into a risky and too often ruinous business, at the 
 expense of more regular trade, but also at the cost of oiir out- 
 turn of manufactures, which ordinarily form the medium of 
 payment for our foreign imports ; at the cost of the farmer, 
 whose hopes for compensation for bad seasons in the shape of 
 occasional high prices were dissipated by the certainty of a 
 sudden glut of corn being let loose from bond on to a bare 
 market, which immediately became fully supplied ; at the cost 
 of the nation, whose food supplies were withheld when there 
 was the greatest need for them; and at the cost of the revenue, 
 which only received the lowest rate of duty payable when the 
 corn was taken out of bond. 
 
 In consequence, too, of the drain of gold, used instead of 
 manufactures to pay for foreign corn, the Bank of England 
 had at one time to borrow largely from the Bank of France, 
 • and the rate of interest rose to the then unprecedented 
 amount of six per cent., while many articles of produce fell to 
 extremely low prices.' ' 
 
 On the shipping interest too the effects of this corn specu- 
 lation were disastrous, as concisely shown in the follo^^ing 
 
 ' Ashworth's Cobden and the League, p. 9. 
 D
 
 34 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 remarks culled from Tooke's ' History of Prices : ' ' — ' On the 
 occasion of a prospect of the opening of our ports at the low 
 duty, such is the suddenness and the extent of the demand 
 for shipping that not only are vessels very unsuitable for com 
 carriage engaged, but a deficiency of tonnage is experienced, 
 to the inconvenience of other branches of trade. . . . But the 
 mischievous working of the system is again felt in this very 
 interest, for no sooner are the ports again shut than there is 
 a sudden cessation of all such extra demand for shipping ; 
 vessels are built under the influence of the casual demand and 
 high freights ; hence, by the subsequent competition the rate 
 of freights is reduced temporarily below its ordinary level, and 
 the shipowners, who, like the landed interests, consider them- 
 selves entitled to apply to the Legislature on occasions of any 
 considerable decline from a previous adventitious rise m the 
 value of their property, become loud in their complaints of a 
 decay in British shipping, and pray for additional protection, 
 as was the case between 1819 and 1822, and again betAveen 
 1832 and 1833.' And yet -wdth all its evils this foreign 
 importation was necessary if the people were to be kept from 
 starving — a compensation which in some degree atoned for the 
 untoward result of trading adventures, made hazardous to a 
 degree by the action of a beneficent Legislature. 
 
 Whilst an unhealthy stimulus was given to speculation in 
 one direction, where the intention of the stimulating laws had 
 been to minimise speculation and to equalise prices, an equally 
 unhealthy prohibition was put on the development of general 
 foreign trade by laws designed to enrich the mother- country 
 and her Colonies. These last were the celebrated Navigation 
 Laws. The efl'ect of these when conjoined to that of the Corn 
 Laws, and even without taldng into account the enormous and 
 multifarious duties imposed on every article of commerce, was 
 to interpose a barrier to trade beyond which no lawful enter- 
 prise could penetrate. 
 
 The foundation of the Navigation Act was laid during the 
 Protectorate, and the system was perfected in the time of 
 
 1 Vol. iii. p. 31.
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 35 
 
 Charles II. The Act provided that no merchandise of either 
 Asia, Africa, or America should be imported into England in 
 any but British or colonial-built ships, navigated by an Eng- 
 lish commander, and having, at least, three-fourths of their 
 crews English. Besides this exclusive right conferred on 
 British shippmg, discrimmating duties were imposed, so that 
 goods which might still be imported in foreign ships from 
 Europe were in that case to be more highly taxed than if 
 brought in under the English flag. 
 
 The reasoning of the upholders of the Act was somewhat 
 as follows : — ' The Act will encourage British shipping, and 
 with increased shipping will come an mcrease of trade. Thus 
 it will serve as a fostering ground for a naval marine, and a 
 naval marine means commercial supremacy.' By this reason- 
 ing cause and effect were reversed with a vengeance. The 
 present accepted way of looking at the matter would lead us 
 to suppose that commerce would create a demand for ships, 
 ships for sailors, and, judging by experience, that the number 
 of British sailors employed under a free system of shipping 
 would always bear a proportion of at least three-fourths to 
 the number of foreign sailors. Thus a large, well-trained 
 body of men would always have been ready to respond to the 
 exigencies of the naval service. Nowadays we should further 
 suppose that if European countries had been permitted to bring 
 their own goods in their own ships at the same rates of duty 
 as in English ships, an active trade would have sprung up 
 between England and the Continent which would have led to 
 a largely increased employment of English bottoms. The 
 comparatively quick and recurring profits of that trade, as 
 compared with the slow and doubtful returns of distant com- 
 merce, would have stimulated production at home for a 
 market of which the wants could have been sufficiently 
 accurately gauged to ensure the minimum of waste. London 
 would have become an infinitely larger emporium of commerce 
 than she actually had become previous to the repeal of the 
 Navigation Laws, and would have been enabled to do a far 
 larger trade in consequence with her Colonies and with the 
 world at large. 
 
 d2
 
 S6 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 More British ships and more British sailors would have 
 been called into active requisition, and the nursery for our 
 navy might probably have been great enough to obviate the 
 necessity for the excessive amount of ' crimping ' put into 
 force during war time. A naval supremacy would have been 
 acquired, all the stronger because based upon commercial 
 supremacy. 
 
 But these were not the views of our rulers at the com- 
 mencement of the celitury. The Navigation Laws were to be 
 observed to the letter. With regard to the United States the 
 consequence was that, very soon after acquiring their inde- 
 pendence, they copied our own Act word for word, and put it 
 in force against us. They refused to allow British ships to 
 take produce over to their shores. For several years the con- 
 test was carried on with vigour ; British ships bringing home 
 produce from the States and taking back nothing in retmii, 
 while American ships took our manufactures to their own 
 ports and returned again in ballast. So the game of making 
 two ships do the work of one went on — a game which, if un- 
 productive of benefit to shippers, was still more expensive to 
 the populations on either side of the Atlantic, who fomid the 
 cost of goods brought across the ocean either way more than 
 doubled to them. 
 
 The gain was a doubtful one even to the shipowners. In 
 1815 both the Home and United States Goverinnents gave 
 way, and a mutual reciprocity treaty was drawn up, putting the 
 shipping of either country on an equal footing with regard to 
 the carriage of goods between English and United States ports. 
 
 The Continental nations were not slow to avail themselves 
 of the tactics of the United States, and extracted from England 
 certain modifications of the Navigation Laws in 1821 and 1825, 
 but the hardship of the previous rules, though materially re- 
 duced, remained in great measure unremedied. The importa- 
 tion of European goods continued to be practicable only in 
 British ships, or in ships of the country of which the goods 
 were the produce, or of the country from which they were 
 shipped. So that if a Dutch ship, for instance, could only 
 get partially loaded in a Dutch port, she could not fill up at a
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 37 
 
 neighbouring Belgian port, but must come to England partly 
 empty. Freights of foreign ships went up in consequence of 
 the perpetual recurrence of such cases as these ; the cost of 
 imported articles was increased thereby, and for this the 
 British consumer paid handsomely. 
 
 But this was not all. The measures of 1825 still prohibited 
 the produce of Asia, Africa, and America fi'om being imported 
 from any European port, and these goods could not be brought 
 in in foreign bottoms except when imported direct in ships of 
 the comitry of which the goods were the produce. ' In con- 
 sequence, though the ports along the English Channel might 
 have been glutted with the corn and cotton of America, the 
 sugar of Brazil and Cuba, the coffee of Java, and the tea of 
 China, and though all or some of these articles might at the 
 time have been deficient here, not one of them could be im- 
 ported in a foreign ship unless, as was sometimes the case, it 
 Avas carried back to the country where it had been originally 
 shipped ; nor even in a British ship, unless it was first carried 
 from Europe to some other contment.' ' Notwithstanding the 
 harm entailed by these arrangements, the shippers fancied 
 themselves benefited by them — certainly no other class was. 
 They therefore strenuously opposed the repeal of the Navi- 
 gation Laws, and not till January 1, 1850, was their baneful 
 operation put an end to. 
 
 In addition to Corn Laws and Navigation Laws there were 
 the customs duties by which heavy tolls were levied upon every 
 import, and which contributed effectually to prevent the ex- 
 pansion of our foreign trade. Girt in by this network of pro- 
 tectionism, any extension of external commerce was a sheer im- 
 possibility, and Ave find that while from 1801 to 1832 inclusive 
 our imports of foreign and colonial merchandise had only risen 
 from the value of 31,786,262L to that of 44,586,741Z., the de- 
 clared values of British and Irish produce and manufactured 
 goods exported had positively declined from 39,730,659/. in 1801 
 to 36,450,594/. in 1832. It is true enough that these figures 
 show that we were buying in 1832 at a cheaper rate than in 
 1801, but under unfettered conditions we should doubtless 
 
 ' McCulloch's Co77imercial Dictionary, tit. ' Navigation Laws.'
 
 38 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 have been able to export a great deal more of both produce 
 and manufactures, and to buy with them a far larger propor- 
 tion of foreign merchandise. That this effect actually followed 
 the removal of restrictions may be shown from the fact that 
 in 1847, the year after the repeal of the Com Laws, we 
 bought close on 100,000,000/. worth of imports with less 
 than 59,000,000/. worth of exports. Such was the declared 
 value of exports in that year, but it may be mentioned, as a 
 curious fact illustrative of the obstinate opposition to change 
 pervading our fiscal administration, that the official values of 
 our exports had ever since 1818 been largely in excess of the 
 declared values ; the official values, until a recent period, 
 having been based on a scale drawn up in 1694, and blindly 
 persevered in ever since, not'ftdthstanding the great fall -in 
 prices since the peace. The official value of exports m 1847 
 was therefore put dovm at 126,130,986/., instead of at their 
 real value of 58,842,377/. 
 
 Within the period from 1801 to 1832 the volume of our 
 foreign trade had been almost, if not quite, stationary. In- 
 deed, considering that the population of Great Britain had 
 during the period increased by nearly one-half, and that of 
 Ireland by about a seventh, it is evident that by comparison 
 the volume of outside commerce had positively diminished. 
 Estimated per capita of traders, independently of increase in 
 population, it certainly had done so, for between 1811 and 
 1832 the number of families engaged in trade increased by 
 27|- per cent. — figures which mean that a greatly increased 
 number of traders had not succeeded in enlarging the volume 
 of foreign trade. That many of these families were engaged 
 in internal trade only, in no way affects the truth of this asser- 
 tion, since in a country like our own mternal and external 
 trade are merely the complements of each other. 
 
 That trade should decline was inevitable at a time when, 
 as Mr. Montgredien says : — ' There was hardly an article 
 obtainable from abroad that was admissible here without the 
 payment of import duties, always heavy, sometimes excessive, 
 and in certain cases all but prohibitory. It mattered not 
 whether it was a raw material or a manufactured product,
 
 ' A TRANSITION PEEIOD OF ENGLISH HISTOEY. 39 
 
 whether it was an article of luxury or of universal consump- 
 tion, whether it came in masses like cotton, or in driblets like 
 orchilla — everything foreign which an Englishman might 
 use was withheld from him till its cost had been enhanced 
 by a customs duty. The tariif list of the United Kingdom 
 presented a tolerably complete dictionary of all the products 
 of human industry,' • 
 
 The excise laws were a fitting comiterpart to these restric- 
 tions. Not only everything foreign, but everything native, 
 was heavily taxed. ' Wherever you see an article tax it,' 
 might have been appropriately posted up as the principle of 
 our fiscal legislation. Wherever there was anything taxable 
 it was taxed, and the exciseman practically took charge of our 
 chief industrial occupations. He was an effective ally of his 
 CO- spoiler the custom-house officer. It was to the interest of 
 both to hamper business as much as possible, since the more 
 they did so the more they might hope to exact as blackmail 
 from people desirous of getting their goods to market. 
 
 Manufactures of woollen and cotton goods, silk and flax ; 
 paper mills, calico-printing, brick-making or soap-maldng works, 
 every branch of industry that most effectually administered to 
 the bare wants of the people, were ruthlessly supervised by 
 revenue harpies. Until 1825 silk goods had to be looked 
 after and taxed in order to keep them from coming into the 
 coimtry to compete with the home manufacture. Wool, too, 
 had to be similarly supervised and taxed in order to prevent it 
 from going out of the country. Drawbacks were here and there 
 allowed, and, being complicated in their nature, afforded excel- 
 lent opportunities for tampering with officials. The greater 
 the demand for anything — that is, the greater the necessity for 
 it — the more mquisitorial were the regulations for the supervi- 
 sion of its production, manufacture, or importation, and the 
 higher the tax charged for its use. 
 
 It is in the distribution of the incidence of taxation that 
 its pressure is to be found, and whatever the nominal amount 
 of a particular tax, it must inevitably press with infinitely 
 greater weight upon the poor than upon the rich when im- 
 
 ' History of the Free Trade Movement, p. 4.
 
 40 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 posed upon the necessaries of life. Judged by a standard so 
 taken, the duties on soap, candles, sugar, paper, and coal were 
 far heavier than those upon pure luxuries, because they fell 
 with disproportionate severity upon the poorest substratum of 
 the population. 
 
 Coal is an article necessary alike to existence and to 
 manufactures, and yet till 1831 a glaringly unjust and oppres- 
 sive duty was imposed upon sea-borne coal ; unjust, inasmuch 
 as it fell only upon those parts of the kingdom to which coal 
 had to be carried by sea ; oppressive, inasmuch as the duty 
 amounted to full fifty per cent upon the price paid to the coal- 
 owner by the purchaser. Moreover, the duty varied in different 
 parts of the kingdom, and in Scotland there was no duty upon 
 coal at all. Further, until 1830 various troublesome distinc- 
 tions were in vogue, under the customs regulations, as between 
 large and small coal, between coal and culm, and between 
 coal and cinders, all engendering delay, expense, and judicious 
 bribing, the cost of which had to be recouped to the merchant 
 by the consumer. Coal, too, was sold by measure and not by 
 weight, a method fraught with golden opportunity to the coal 
 dealer to defraud the public, and of which he eagerly availed 
 himself with a dexterity begot from practice. 
 
 The expense of coal must have operated very powerfully 
 to diminish the out-turn of manufactured goods, and to pre- 
 vent the cheapening of their prices to a level easily payable 
 by the mass of the community, as well as contributing to 
 minimise in other ways the meagre comforts of the poor. 
 Still, manufactures showed signs of prosperity ; not such signs 
 as we should expect now with a world-wide market for our 
 manufactured goods, but sufficiently marked to be indicative 
 of a gradual progress in the prospects of manufacturing in- 
 dustries due to improvements in machinery and in means of 
 communication. The great increase of population, too, 
 created an extra demand, and through the conjoint operation 
 of these various causes upon his business the manufacturer 
 had been able to extend his works, and in some sort to triumph 
 over the difficulties interposed in his way by the Legislatiure. 
 
 It may be said that in the ten or fifteen years immediately
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 41 
 
 following the peace, manufactures of all sorts increased j^^i'^'i' 
 passu with the population of the Idngxloin. It is a contention 
 that cannot be readily admitted when we reflect on the 
 numbers of manufactured articles then looked upon as almost 
 unattainable luxuries that are now regarded as necessary ad- 
 juncts to existence. But, even admitting the truth of the 
 assertion to the full, I maintain that the proper rate of in- 
 crease of English manufactures is not in proportion to the 
 increase of the population of the United Kingdom, but in 
 proportion to the development of the entire universe. Making 
 our calculations on the latter basis, then, there need be no 
 hesitation m asserting that, though our manufacturers made 
 progress in their business before the Free Trade era despite 
 impeding restrictions, the statistics on the subject for the 
 antecedent period fail to furnish any very healthy signs of 
 positive prosperity. 
 
 The excessive rates of taxation afforded irresistible tempta- 
 tions to smuggling. If, on the one hand, there was an army of 
 revenue officers, on the other was an imposing navy of smug- 
 glers. Each was in turn heavily subsidised by the trader, who 
 by the exigencies of his position was almost forced to bribe the 
 one and subsidise the other. Eare indeed must have been 
 the merchant who, while honestly paying the duties on his 
 imports, had not at the same time an interest in some smug- 
 gling venture. Sympathy with smuggling in an overtaxed 
 country is as natural and general as sympathy with poachers 
 in a country hedged in with Game Laws, because it is there, 
 justly enough, considered that the vocation of the smuggler 
 is the natural corrective of excessive duties. Hence smug- 
 gling itself was looked upon by the majority of the people as 
 a risky but far from dishonourable species of adventure ; while 
 each successful shift or evasion of the customs regulations was 
 held to confer a badge of merit on the transgressor of the 
 revenue laws. ' To pretend,' says Adam Smith, ' to have any 
 scruple about buying smuggled goods, though a manifest 
 encouragement to the breach of the revenue laws, and to the 
 perjury which almost always attends it, would in most coun- 
 tries be regarded as one of those pedantic pieces of hyprocrisy
 
 42 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 which, instead of gaining credit with anybody, seems only to 
 expose the person who affects to practise them to the sus- 
 picion of being a greater knave than most of his neighbours. 
 By this indulgence of the public the smuggler is often en- 
 couraged to continue a trade which he is taught to consider 
 as in some measure innocent, and when the severity of the 
 revenue laws is ready to fall upon him, he is frequently dis- 
 posed to defend mth violence what he has been accustomed 
 to regard as his just property ; and from being at first rather 
 imprudent than criminal, he too at last has become one of the 
 most determined violators of the laws of society.' 
 
 The high tariffs were an enormous premimn on smuggling 
 and on the criminal state to which repeated violations of the 
 law too constantly lead. The bad associations into which a 
 man must necessarily enter when forced into opposition to 
 oppressive fiscal laws by the hope of gain would in all pro- 
 bability, in time, induce in him an opposition to all laws, good 
 or bad. Even where the most virtuous men have associated 
 themselves together for the purpose of remedying some glaring 
 defect in the political condition of their country, ostracism 
 and persecution have rarely failed to impart a reckless and 
 lawless character to their after lives ; but when the smuggler 
 enters upon the hazards of his profession, he bands himself 
 together with men inspired from the outset with no more 
 noble motive than that of filling their pockets at the expense 
 of the revenue. Theirs is not a lofty spirit of patriotism, but 
 an ignoble and lawless passion which leads to crime for crime's 
 sake, and to violence as an assertion of lawful right. 
 
 The wise men who imposed the duties were not only 
 encouraging smuggling, and through smuggling crime, but 
 they were also stimulating immorality in the mercantile 
 classes, through them amongst the small local traders, and 
 through these again in the people. Te defi'aud the revenue 
 by making false declarations, which a revenue officer was 
 bribed to endorse, had become an ordinary part of the routine 
 of trade, and who can doubt that the spirit thus engendered 
 would ultimately make its way into all business dealings of 
 whatever kind. Integrity in business matters is the test of
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 43 
 
 honour and truth in all social relations. Let the first be 
 tampered with ever so little, and the others are worth — well, 
 nothing at all. We believe that to-day commercial, social, 
 and political morality all stand on a higher footing than they 
 did some fifty years ago, and I cannot but think that we owe 
 this improvement largely to the discouragement given to 
 smuggling and open fraud that has supervened upon the 
 reform of our fiscal system. True, our newspapers are full 
 enough of commercial and other frauds, but it must be borne 
 in mind that much of what is now called ' fraud ' in the world 
 around us has been authoritatively so denominated by very 
 recent statutes, and that it was considered as mere sharp 
 practice half a century back. If many frauds go unpmiished 
 for every one detected, the reflection arises that the propor- 
 tion of them that were never discovered or punished must 
 have been substantially greater when the police and detective 
 forces were worthless in point of organisation and competency, 
 when railroads were in their infancy, and when the telegraph 
 did not exist to annihilate distance between the furthest 
 limits of the globe, and to check the craftiest combinations of 
 calculating villany. 
 
 At that time, too, only a very partial and occasional 
 publicity was given to actions which to-day are exposed to 
 the full blaze of public and private criticism in every detail, 
 It was tlien easy to hush up a fraud or pass over an indiscretion 
 on which nowadays the criminal courts, or at any rate 
 popular opinion, would not be slow to pass an adverse verdict. 
 That fraudulent practices are now more widespread in their 
 disastrous effects cannot be doubted, but the same causes 
 which render them so widely injurious are also those which 
 tend to prevent their frequent recurrence. In this way 
 increased facilities of communication act and react on each 
 other. They augment the ill effects resulting from com- 
 mercial immorality, while they diminish the temptations to 
 unfair dealing by the increased risk of exposure and punish- 
 ment, Eeasoning thus deductively, it would appear that 
 commercial and general immorality was more prevalent 
 formerly than now.
 
 44 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 If vce owe much of that spirit to the prevalence of a 
 protectionist regime, to preventive laws whose severity w^as 
 a premium on their infraction, we may also debit it in part to 
 the difficulties attending the dissemination of information. 
 The rate of postage was then estimated by the distance over 
 which a letter had to be carried. From 1827 to 1831 the 
 lowest rate was : — 4(i. for any distance not exceeding 15 
 miles ; Sd. for 50 and not exceeding 80 miles ; 9c?. for 80 and 
 not exceeding 120 miles ; and so on until it rose to \&d. for 
 600 and not exceeding 700 miles. For distances over 700 
 miles the postage was lid. 
 
 ' It appeared that the actual cost to the Government for 
 carrying each letter between the most distant parts of the 
 empire was only a fractional part of a farthing ; and that to 
 charge, as in many cases was done, more than 480 times the 
 actual cost was equivalent to the imposition of a heavy tax 
 upon communications of all kinds, whether carried on for 
 purposes of business or for gratifying the sympathies of family 
 affection and friendship.' It was well said by one of the 
 advocates of postal reform, ' that if a law were passed for- 
 bidding parents to speak to their children till they had paid 
 sixpence to Government for permission, the wickedness would 
 be so palpable that there would be an end to the tax in that 
 form of exaction in twenty-four hours ! Yet what difference 
 is there in principle when parents are prohibited from writing 
 to their children, or children to their parents, unless they pay 
 the tax under the name of postage ? ' ' Until 1839, however, 
 the high postage rates indicated above were charged on letters, 
 and for the twenty years immediately preceding that date the 
 Post Office revenue was stationary. 
 
 It must not be supposed, nevertheless, that Parliaments 
 particularly skilled in shifting burdens from their o^sii shoulders 
 on to those of a suffering people would consent to impose 
 taxation on themselves for the conveyance of letters. We 
 fully expect to find, and do find, that the principal officers of 
 Government and the members of both Houses of Parliament 
 
 ■ Porter's Progress of the Nation.
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 45 
 
 enjoyed the privilege of ' franking ' — that is, of sending letters 
 by the post free of postage, and this privilege was very ex- 
 tensively exercised, to the manifest injury of the revenue. It 
 will be found that in 1839 the estimated number of letters sent 
 through the post in the ordinary way was 75,907,572, while 
 the number of those ' franked 'was no less than 6,563,024, and 
 thus some eight per cent, of the total number of letters, and a 
 far larger proportion of the postal revenue, was remitted to 
 those who ought at the time to have contributed most largely 
 to the latter — namely, to Members of the Legislature, their 
 friends and sycophants. Let us not disparage the charity of our 
 legislators, where the exercise of that virtue cost them nothing. 
 It must be admitted that ' franks ' were fi'eely issued by them 
 to personal friends, uifluential voters, importunate creditors, 
 or needy relatives.^ 
 
 Nor could newspapers supply the deficiency of news caused 
 by a dearth of letter-writing. Besides that the paper on 
 which they were printed was heavily taxed, a stamp duty of 
 fourpence was placed on each printed sheet. When to these 
 taxes, postage at exorbitant rates was added, it becomes ap- 
 parent that but few could afiord to buy newspapers, and that 
 those few would be mostly w'ealthy residents near the metro- 
 polis, or near the place of local publication. 
 
 A press so heavily hampered is hardly likely to attract or 
 develop much literary talent or thoughtful reasoning. The 
 heavy expenses to be paid in taxes, and the risk of prosecution 
 run by the proprietors and editors of papers for venturing to 
 give utterance to Liberal sentiments, were considerations suf- 
 ficiently powerful to prevent capital from being attracted to 
 the newspaper business. The newspapers were nothing-more 
 than * i^rints ' meagrely supplied with news, wretchedly 
 printed, and badly got up. They afforded but little scope or 
 
 ' The Post Office revenue continued stationary during the twenty 
 years ending with 1839 ; thougli from the great increase of population 
 and commerce during that period it is obvious, had the rates of postage 
 not been so high as to force recourse to other channels, such as sending 
 letters in parcels, the revenue must have rapidly increased from the 
 termination of the war downwards.
 
 46 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 attraction to writers of ability, for neither was much to be 
 gained from contributing to the spiritless columns of an 
 almost powerless press, nor did the handicapped finances of 
 newspaper proprietors permit of their giving pecuniary en- 
 couragement to rising talent. Consequently, violence of 
 language too often took the place of argument ; scurrility of 
 useful comment ; personality of criticism ; and the buyer of 
 a newspaper did not usually take much by his high-priced 
 purchase. It certainly could not be said of newspapers of half 
 a century ago that : — ' The advertisements or notices which 
 they circulate, the variety of facts and information they con- 
 tain as to the supply of commodities to all parts of the world, 
 their prices and the regulations by which they are affected, 
 render newspapers indispensable to commercial men, super- 
 sede a great mass of epistolary communication, raise merchants 
 in a remote place to an equality with those in the great marts, 
 and wonderfully quicken all the great movements of com- 
 merce,' ^ All these good points were notably conspicuous by 
 their absence from the newspapers of the period. 
 
 The power of combination to redress bad laws is one which 
 can best be given by a free and speedy circulation of news. 
 Such a power was necessarily of slow and halting growth 
 when impeded by the absence of general, regular, and trust- 
 worthy information on the affairs of the day. The long 
 acquiescence of the people in the ascendency of a small ruling 
 class who kept their means of information in so backward a 
 condition may perhaps be ascribed as much to their want of 
 knowledge of their own condition, and of their own power to 
 remedy it, as to anythmg else. Narratives of passing events 
 were 'mostly rumours culled from some letter or newspaper of 
 possibly not too recent date, and circulated by word of mouth. 
 Each local centre had its o^\m opinions, no doubt, on matters 
 pertaining to itself, but there was little or nothing of that 
 irresistible power nowadays termed public opinion, acting in 
 close alliance with an intelligent, carefully edited, and well- 
 informed public press. 
 
 Where we find a heavily taxed press we need not expect 
 
 ' McCuUoch's Commercial Dictionary, tit. ' Newspapers.'
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 47 
 
 much excellence of national education. As a matter of fact 
 there was no system of public education at all. It was far too 
 resolutely opposed by those in power, especially by the Bishops, 
 who never scrupled to quote Scripture against the poHcy of 
 allowing the labourer to be educated into the belief that he was 
 in any way better than a slave, and that he had a right to be 
 dissatisfied with his situation in life. Independent efforts did 
 a little ; Lancaster and Eaikes, Bell and others fought sturdily 
 for the education of the people, and nobly devoted themselves 
 and their purses to the cause, but my Lords were too careful 
 of the happiness of the labourer to permit him to have the 
 chance of being educated into dissatisfaction with his own 
 condition. And yet, ' if one tithe of the expense that has been 
 incurred to so little purpose during the present century in 
 punishing crimmals had been employed in preventing crime 
 by means of education, what a different country would England 
 have been to what our criminal records show it to have been.' ^ 
 
 An uneducated, uninformed population may for long be 
 persecuted with impunity. That they revolted against the 
 yoke even as soon as they did, miserable though their condi- 
 tion was, was perhaps owing to a considerable extent to the in- 
 fluence of American and colonial notions of freedom wafted 
 across the Atlantic, and gradually permeating into the remotest 
 nooks and corners of the kingdom. 
 
 I may hereafter have occasion to refer to the effect pro- 
 duced upon the mternal legislation of the British Isles by the 
 close association with the United States and the British 
 Colonies developed under Free Trade. At the period under 
 notice such effect was, by comparison, almost mirecognisable, 
 although doubtless to a certain degree operative in stimulating 
 the growth and the strength of a national demand for popular 
 government. 
 
 With reference to education, again, it would appear to be 
 as advantageous from an economical as from a moral or intel- 
 lectual point of view. ' Of all obstacles to improvement, ' says the 
 late Dr. Sumner m his ' Eecords of the Creation,' ' ignorance 
 is the most formidable, because the only true secret of bettering 
 ' Porter's Progress of the Nation, article ' Education.'
 
 48 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 the poor is to make them agents m bettering their own con- 
 dition, and to supply them, not with a temporary stimuhis, 
 but with a permanent energy. As fast as the standard of in- 
 telhgence is raised, the poor become more and more able to 
 co-operate iii any plan proposed for their advantage, and more 
 likely to listen to any reasonable suggestion, and more able to 
 miderstand and therefore more willing to pursue it. Hence it 
 follows that when gross ignorance is once removed and right 
 principles are introduced, a great advantage has already been 
 gained agamst squalid poverty. Many avenues to an improved 
 condition are opened to one whose faculties are enlarged and 
 exercised ; he sees his own interest more closely, he pursues it 
 more steadily, and he does not study immediate gratification 
 at the expense of bitter and late repentance, or mortgage the 
 labour of his future life without any adequate return. Indigence 
 therefore will rarely be found in company with good educa- 
 tion.' 
 
 Education not only increases the scope of employments 
 open to men and women by giving them greater power of 
 utilising their opportunities, but it also augments the produc- 
 tive energy of each worker. Hence comes greater material 
 prosperity, a just pride, reliance on oneself, and the corollary, 
 a demand for a voice in the legislation of the country, follows 
 as a matter of course. Of the tendency of education to pre- 
 vent or check crime there can be no serious doubt. I agree 
 with Herbert Spencer that it is not an unfailing panacea for 
 crime, for education cannot annihilate the misery from which 
 crime mainly springs ; but as an adjunct to other means of 
 improving the condition of mankind its efficacy is hardly 
 deniable. 
 
 In treating of the general effect of environing trade with a 
 close-drawn network of restrictions, one refers, as a matter of 
 course, to a few powerful sentences in which John Stuart 
 ]\Iill concisely summarises the necessary results of the main- 
 tenance of a system of duties and disabilities in commercial 
 dealings. He tells us : ' — ' That a tax on any commodity, 
 whether laid on its production, its carriage from place to place, 
 
 ' PrinciiAes of Political Ecojiomy, Book V., chapter v., § 32.
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 49 
 
 or its sale ' — the ' tax on its sale ' being taken to include postal 
 and newspaper taxes, the imposition of which has the effect of 
 interfering with facilities of exchange — ' or whether the tax 
 be a fixed sum of money for a given quantity of the commodity 
 or an ad valorem duty, will, as a general rule, raise the value 
 and prices of the commodity by at least the value of the tax. 
 There are few cases in which it does not raise them by more 
 than that amount.' In order to prevent and check evasions 
 of the tax the supervision of revenue officials is necessary, and 
 the producer has to carry on his operations in the way most 
 convenient to the revenue, ' though not the cheapest or most 
 efficient for the purposes of production.' Of course these restric- 
 tions increase the price of the article. ' Further, the necessity 
 of advancing the tax obliges producers and dealers to carry on 
 their business with larger capitals than would be necessary, on 
 the whole of which they must receive the ordinary rate of 
 profit, although a part only is employed in defraying the real 
 expenses of production or importation. ... A part of the 
 capital of the country is not employed in production, but in 
 advances to the State to be repaid in the price of the goods. 
 . . . Whatever renders a larger capital necessary in any 
 trade or business, limits the competition in that business, and 
 gives something like a monopoly to a few dealers.' 
 
 It must be apparent that trade has, under the freest 
 conditions, an invariable tendency to become gradually mono- 
 polised in comparatively few hands. Until fresh areas of pro- 
 duction are made available, competition in dealing in products 
 from existing fields lowers by degrees the rate of average 
 profits, until the margin of gain on small transactions is 
 swallowed up by the losses incidental to average risks. Only 
 on large ventures can the return be a paying one when profits 
 generally are so reduced. The smaU principals then become 
 middle-men, and, until fresh fields of production are brouglit 
 within reach, a comparatively small number will maintain a 
 monopoly of the trade, and ynll thus be enabled ' to keep up 
 the price beyond what would afford the ordinary rate of profit, 
 or to obtain the ordinary rate of profit with a less degree of 
 exertion for improving and cheapening the commodity.' 
 
 £
 
 50 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 These are tendencies distinctly observable even where 
 trade is perfectly free, and they must be greatly strengthened 
 and quickened in their operation where trade is fettered on all 
 sides by high duties and multitudinous restrictions. These 
 duties, and the other expenses connected with State super- 
 vision of industries, had to be advanced by the seller before he 
 could be recouped by the buyer. The price requisite for 
 giving a profit to the former undoubtedly restricted the 
 demand. With a small demand and a large cost to be in- 
 curred prior to the article being put on the market, only large 
 capitals could yield fair average profits by way of return. 
 Smaller capitals would not give a profit at all without some 
 fresh opening for their employment, and until access was 
 found to this, the comparatively small number of large 
 capitalists would be surely acquiring a complete control and 
 monopoly of the market. Besides, the larger a man's capital, 
 the more he could hope to advance in encouraging smuggling 
 and in bribing revenue officers ; so the unscrupulous large 
 capitalist had here an additional and powerful lever for use in 
 pushing a small competitor out of business as a principal on 
 his own account. Natural and artificial causes were thus 
 combined against the small trader, and the normal tendency 
 to monopoly was artificially hastened, and that too with the 
 maximum of injurious result. When, then, we read of the 
 great increase in the general income of the comatry for several 
 years after the peace in 1815, we may unhesitatingly appor- 
 tion that part of the increase which did not go to the land- 
 owners to a comparatively small band of large monopolists. 
 
 That as large a number of small traders as possible should 
 make fair average profits, is evidently far more desirable than 
 that a small number of men should make high profits. To 
 allow of the free extension of the area of production, is to 
 permit of the possibility of the first result ; to limit that area, 
 is to necessitate the last. And yet, every attempt to increase 
 the field of industry— or area of production and employment 
 — by reducing or abolishing the infamous regulations which 
 circumscribed the range of employment, was strenuously and 
 even bitterly opposed by a landowners' Parliament. One may
 
 A TRANSITION PERIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 51 
 
 search in vain for any widespread evil amongst those above 
 enumerated which were not directly brought into being and 
 maintained, in utter indifference to a nation's misery, by land- 
 lord and capitalist legislators. Equally vain is the search for 
 any reform devised for the people's benefit which has not had 
 to bear the brunt of fierce, uncompromising, relentless opposi- 
 tion from the combined ranks of wealthy monopolists ever 
 ready to live on the people, to sponge on the people, and to 
 persecute the people, fraudulently filching from them their 
 hard-won wages under the false guise of the ' elect ' of the 
 people, their ' natural,' ' heaven-born ' legislators, &c. 
 
 Had the ' unworking aristocracy,' as Carlyle termed the 
 mass of our unprincipled law-makers, been content with the 
 privileges assured to them at the commencement of the 
 century by then existing arrangements, framed in accordance 
 with the theory of the ' glorious Constitution ' of 1688, the 
 verdict of posterity might be more lenient to the clique than 
 it is or will be. But the continuous exercise of unfair privi- 
 leges must infallibly produce, if not obliquity of the mental 
 vision, at any rate an exaggerated notion of their own rights 
 in those enjoying them. The ' unworking aristocracy ' became 
 more grasping, more tyrannical, more jealous than ever of 
 any appearance of national prosperity which threatened to 
 interfere with their monopoly of power and wealth, and 
 launched boldly forward into Corn Laws, Game Laws, pro- 
 tecting laws, and what not. ' What looks maddest, miser- 
 ablest, in these mad and miserable Corn Laws,' said Thomas 
 Carlyle, ' is independent altogether of their '* effect on wages," 
 their effect on " increase of trade," or any other such effect; 
 it is the continued maddening proof they protrude into the 
 faces of all men that our Governing Class, called by God and 
 Nature and the inflexible law of Fact, either to do something 
 towards Government or to die and be abolished, have not yet 
 learned even to sit still and do no mischief.' ' 
 
 In the foregoing pages little has been done beyond exposing 
 the framework of the picture which displays the misery caused 
 by the ascendency of unworldng aristocrats. As for their 
 
 ' Chartism Past and Present, p. 208. 
 k2
 
 52 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 acts and all that tliey did, are they not written in indelible 
 letters even in the signs around us ? Is not our enormous 
 national debt a monument to their carelessness of national 
 suffering, of national blood and treasure, and of their callous 
 indifference to the national thrift ? Are not our Primogeniture 
 Laws, Laws of Distress, and the encouragements given by 
 law to entails and perpetual settlements, still potent remnants 
 of their dearly-prized rights of defi'auding their humble 
 creditors ? Is not a Land Tax levied on a scale of valuation 
 of no later date than 1692, a proof of their power to resist the 
 burden of taxation, and to oppose the spirit of the principles 
 of 1688 to the progress of improving innovation ? 
 
 What does a system of unfairly large proportionate repre- 
 sentation to counties and small boroughs show ? What the 
 acred wealth of the House of Commons ? What the main- 
 tenance of a House of Lords by right of birth, and of a bench 
 of Bishops by right of State subsidy '? 
 
 They show that the ' glorious principles ' of 1688 still 
 flourish with the vigour of a green old age, still powerful 
 with the spirit of mischief, still a dangerous menace to the 
 peaceful progress of the nation ; and they will continue to 
 manifest their baleful presence amongst us so long as an 
 hereditary and irresponsible House of Lords has the conceded 
 right of maintaining even its outward semblance of irre- 
 sponsible power, and so long as wealth rather than worth 
 continues to furnish the House of Commons with a majority 
 of legislators of strongly anti-popular sympathies. 
 
 Let our Colonies at the furthest ends of the world take 
 these lessons to heart. Land, the possession of land, is and 
 ever was the only true basis of an aristocracy. As population 
 increases, land acquires a value not to be defined by figures 
 of arithmetic. Social privileges, customary privileges, and 
 statutory privileges therefrom arise. The smaller the number 
 of those who acquire them, the worse relatively will be the 
 condition of the remainder of the people, the greater the 
 influence of the landowner. From influence comes power ; 
 from power exclusive rights and ' Les droits du plus fort sont
 
 f 
 
 A TRANSITION PEEIOD OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 53 
 
 toujours les meilleurs.' Let the rising nationalities who now 
 control their oAvn destinies at the Antipodes and elsewhere, 
 take warning from the bitter experience of the English people. 
 Let them grasp clearly the lesson, that a landowning monopoly 
 is the cause of all other monopolies ; that it raises up a class 
 whose interests are made to run in a different groove from 
 that of the landless multitude ; and that its office is to check 
 progress by taxing its onward movement. The growth of the 
 landowners' power is unchecked because gradual, and for the 
 while unperceived. The small squatter, who may justly base 
 his claim to his 640-acre block on his right of reward as a 
 pioneer of early settlement, becomes in a short space the 
 proprietor of vast estates of almost unlimited extent. As he 
 encloses more land, so he becomes increasingly jealous of his 
 self-asserted privileges. The neighbour who was formerly a 
 welcome guest now finds his cattle impounded for breaking 
 through some encircling fence or for trending on straggling 
 ill-kept boundaries. The shepherd king becomes a territorial 
 magnate, and, clothed with magisterial power, judges the cause 
 of the luckless trespasser who has violated the sanctity of his 
 territorial limits. As population presses further forward on 
 the virgin soil, he exacts rent and yet more rent. 
 
 His scant and hard-earned sustenance becomes a princely 
 income, and from the fount of honour, a landowning Council 
 at home, he receives as the reward of wealth distinctions, not 
 for himself alone, but for his children and his children's 
 children. The colonist whose great possessions have procured 
 his translation into a baronet, transmits his honours to liis 
 eldest son. He stands in a privileged position in the eyes of 
 the vulgar wealthy, who are stimulated into sycophancy to tlie 
 institutions of a mother-country ever ready to reward by the 
 offer of ribbons a'nd titles the wealth of a landowning mono- 
 polist wherever found. A landed aristocracy springs into 
 being, and with it the curse of hereditary privileges, hereditary 
 legislators, and hereditary monopoly. 
 
 Fervently is it to be desired that the attempts to establish 
 a titular aristocracy in the Colonies may fail. Already the 
 struggle between land monopolists and the great bulk of the
 
 54 
 
 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 colonial populations is becoming dangerously embittered. Let 
 the Cro^\^l enlist itself on the side of the landowners by giving 
 them titular distinctions as evidence of its sympathies, and in 
 far larger proportion than it gains the attachment of the 
 privileged few will it alienate the affections of the unrecognised 
 many. Then the landowners' cause Avill become that of the 
 Crown. At any rate the people will identify one with the 
 other, and will have none of either. 
 
 V ^-'^i^ms^^
 
 55 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. — ' DIVIDE ET IMPERA.' 
 
 ' When legislating for a new and unsettled country, the pro- 
 vident ruler would lay his plans with a view to attract and 
 nourish future populations, rather than with regard exclusively 
 to the interests of the few individuals who happen at the 
 moment to inhabit a portion of the soil.' ^ Nothing, however, 
 could have been further from the intention of the legislators 
 who towards the latter end of the eighteenth century took 
 upon themselves the management of England's colonial 
 empire, than to found their rule on so reasonable a plan. To 
 establish peculiar privileges for a handful of individuals in the 
 Colonies as well as in England, to initiate and maintain the 
 rule of a small dominant class, and to invest it with the odious 
 power of grindmg monopoly in matters commercial, social, and 
 political, were the principles of colonial government ignorantly 
 advanced by them, and adhered to with an infatuated tenacity 
 that argued more for their obstinacy than for their mtelligence 
 or capacity. 
 
 Until a comparatively recent date, the raison d'etre of 
 colonies was believed to consist exclusively in the peculiar 
 facilities which their existence afforded to commercial 
 monopoly. ' The only use of American colonies or West 
 Indian Islands ' to England, was heralded forth by short- 
 sighted statesmen as consisting ' in the monopoly of their com- 
 merce and the carriage of their produce.' ^ To quote from 
 Adam Smith : — ' The maintenance of tliis monopoly has 
 hitherto been the principal, or more properly perhaps the sole, 
 
 ' Lord Durham's Report on Canada, 1839. 
 
 - This was the much applauded view put forward by Lord Sheflield.
 
 56 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 end and purpose of tlie dominion wliicli Great Britain assumes 
 over her Colonies. In the exclusive trade, it is supposed, con- 
 sists the great advantage of provinces which have never yet 
 afforded either revenue or military force for the support of 
 government or the defence of the mother-country. The 
 monopoly is the principal badge of their dependency, and it is 
 the sole fruit which has hitherto been gathered from that 
 dependency. Whatever expenses Great Britain has laid out 
 in maintaining this dependency have hitherto been laid out 
 in order to support this monopoly.' 
 
 It was only to be expected that rulers so peculiarly apt 
 at mismanaging the affairs of their own country should 
 display at least equal ability of misrule when dealing v^th far 
 distant colonial dependencies. Fortmiately it was not within 
 their power to inflict upon Canada and the West Indies, the 
 most important of our colonies after the revolt of the United 
 States, the extent of suffering which they inflicted upon the 
 home population, but in so far as in them lay they contrived 
 to cripple the rising colonial trade, to prevent the natural 
 development of the colonies, to create amongst them bitter 
 discontent, at times swelling into violent outbreaks, to pre- 
 vent the flow of emigration to them, and to render them heavy 
 and dangerous burdens to the nation at large. 
 
 In pursuance of this ' monopoly ' theory — the most mis- 
 chievous groundwork of the Comedy of Errors knovm as the 
 mercantile system, entailing, as it did, a double loss on the 
 Colonies and on the mother- country — it was decreed, that the 
 trade between the two was to be carried on exclusively in 
 British or colonial-built ships. By means of protective or 
 exclusive duties, which operated to shut out any cheaper produce 
 of other countries, the monopoly of the home market was 
 secured to the colonial producer, and an artificial basis of 
 ' solid prosperity ' was thus given to home and colonial trading. 
 So thought the inept legislators of the day. 
 
 To make of the system a consistent whole, by far the greater 
 quantities of the produce of the Colonies, under the denomi- 
 nation of ' enumerated articles,' were to be prohibited from being 
 sent direct to any foreign country. They were first to be sent
 
 IMPERIAL MISEULE IN CANADA. 57 
 
 to Great Britain, and there unladen, before they could be for- 
 warded to their final destinations. In addition, the Colonies 
 were to be compelled to buy such foreign articles as they might 
 require, entirely from the merchants and manufacturers of 
 England, and all attempts to establish manufactures in the 
 Colonies were to be persistently discouraged. So essential was 
 the enforcement of this last principle deemed to be to the just 
 management of a colony, that Lord Chatham did not hesitate 
 to declare in his place in Parliament, with all the fervour and 
 indiscreetness of a harebrained schoolboy, that ' the British 
 colonists of North America had no right to manufacture even 
 a nail for a horseshoe ' — a braggart assertion and fitting preface 
 to the successful efforts of the colonists to manufacture for 
 themselves an independent Eepublic. 
 
 One of the chief grounds on which this policy of contempt 
 for and constant interference with the Colonies was attempted 
 to be justified, was, that it would keep the Colonies in firmer 
 dependence on the mother-country. It is needless to say that 
 historical facts have conclusively behed this anticipation. 
 
 So long as our North-American colonies were allowed a 
 large share of local self-government, the loyalty of their in- 
 habitants to England was one of their most characteristic 
 features. The very behef in that loyalty was perhaps the main 
 cause of those attempts to interfere in the purely domestic 
 legislation of the Colonies which led to the dismtegration of 
 our colonial empire. When Franklm offered to supply Gibbon 
 with materials for a chapter on the ' Decline and Fall of the 
 British Empire,' he doubtless had in view the pernicious con- 
 sequences to the imperial dominion inseparable from the 
 logical carryuig out of our colonial system. The logical 
 sequence of endeavours to regulate the external trade of the 
 Colonies was to be found in maladroit meddlings with their 
 internal exchanges, with their fiscal laws, and wath their in- 
 most political and social regulations. 
 
 The Americans had always been loyal, so they would 
 always continue loyal. They had been so accustomed to have 
 their external trade and politics regulated for them, that they 
 would cheerfully submit to imperial dictation in all local
 
 58 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 matters. This was the view taken and acted on m deciding 
 that the Colonies were to be locally taxed from St. Stephen's, 
 in order to keep them in 'firmer dependence.' The result 
 was the embittered and exhausting struggle which terminated 
 in the establishment of the complete independence of the 
 United States, and in a bill of 100,000,000/. which John Bull 
 had to pay for losing them. 
 
 This was a heavy cost to have to pay for the maintenance 
 of a vicious principle, but it had not the effect of modifying 
 the views of our rulers with regard to our remaining de- 
 pendencies. On the contrary, the colonial system was more 
 rigorously administered than ever. The United States were 
 promptly added to the list of foreign comitries tabooed to the 
 trade of the loyal Colonies, and the nearest and best market 
 and exchange centre was thereby sternly mterdicted to 
 colonial producers. The trade of the empire was contracted 
 within a narrower zone, and the injurious effect of monopolies 
 within it were now rendered all the more apparent by 
 the contrast between expanding wants and an increasing 
 artificial contraction of the trading area. Of the restricted 
 trade done, the monopolists conducted a greater proportionate 
 share, and as peculiar traduig privileges were assured to them 
 they became careless as to the quality of the commodities 
 from which, at unnaturally heightened prices, they reaped 
 extravagant profits. 
 
 If we would form a passing estimate of the injuries 
 inflicted both on England and her Colonies by this system of 
 fostered monopoly, let us briefly glance at two prominent 
 and typical cases — the West Indian monopoly of the sugar trade, 
 and the Canadian monopoly of the timber trade. No illustra- 
 tions could be found reflecting more fairly the iniquitous folly 
 of the colonial system. 
 
 A trade in sugar was stimulated between the West Indian 
 colonies of Great Britam and the mother-comitry ; and a 
 large amount of capital and labour diverted mto sugar-grow- 
 ing by the favourable differential duties accorded to importations 
 of West Indian sugar as compared with those imposed upon 
 sugar from foreign countries proper.
 
 IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 59 
 
 For a lengthened period prior to 1845 the duty on foreign- 
 grown sugar was maintained at 63s. per cwt., on West 
 Indian colonial sugar at 25s. 2d. per cwt. The former rate 
 of duty was of course prohibitory on foreign sugars ; although, 
 exclusive of duty, the price of Brazihan and Cuban sugar was 
 only half that of colonial sugar. The direct cost of this 
 arrangement over a series of years has been variously estimated 
 at fi'om three to five miUions per amium — an amount equiva- 
 lent to cent, per cent, upon the totals paid for colonial sugar 
 imported during those years. At one time, the colonial 
 supplies of sugar were sufficient not only to supply the home 
 market, but to afford a surplus for exportation. Not, however, 
 that this meant a supply at all in accordance with the home 
 demand for sugar, as we should estimate that demand nowa- 
 days, for Mr. Huskisson's statement in the House of 
 Commons on Mr. Grant's motion m 1829 for a reduction of 
 the Sugar Duties was undeniable. Mr. Huskisson alleged 
 that, ' in consequence of the present enormous duty on sugar, 
 the poor working man with a large family, to whom pence 
 were a serious consideration, was denied the use of that 
 commodity, and he believed he did not go too far when he 
 stated that two-thirds of the poorer consumers of coffee drank 
 that beverage without sugar.' But after the emancipation of 
 the slaves, the supply fell to one -half of its previous dimensions. 
 On the one hand, therefore, we had a rapidly increasing 
 population, and on the other, we had that population confined, 
 by an oppressive duty, to a market for sugar in which the 
 supply had been materially diminished. ' The consequences 
 were such as every man of sense might have anticipated from 
 the outset. The business of refining for the foreign market 
 and our export trade in sugar were all but annihilated, while 
 the average price of Muscavado sugar admissible to the Enghsh 
 markets amounted during the three years ending with 1844 to 
 about double the price of foreign sugar, in bond, of equal or 
 superior quality.' ' 
 
 The slave trade had been aboHshed by Act of Parliament 
 in 1807, but an active trade in slaves was notwithstanding 
 ' McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, article ' Sugar.'
 
 60 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 kept up by tlie colonial sugar-growers, and, however much it 
 might be discouraged, slavery itself was recognised as essen- 
 tial to the development of the sugar plantations. Sugar 
 cultivation and slavery went hand m hand, and in encouraging 
 the one we were maintainmg the other. The 20,000,000L 
 paid to colonial sugar-planters as compensation for slave 
 emancipation may therefore fairly be added to the three to 
 five millions annually expended directly by the home con- 
 sumer, in fostering the sugar monopoly. As to the effects of 
 the abolition of slavery upon the colonists themselves, we 
 know how mdespread was the ruin caused by it. Had it 
 not been for the injudicious bolstermg up of a large sugar 
 monopoly by legislative enactments, emancipation would have 
 been effected many years prior to 1834, and at a comparatively 
 trifling cost. As it was, when it came it struck a deadly 
 blow at an artificially enlarged interest, and by the ruui it 
 caused it deprived us of much-needed customers, who, if 
 prosperous, might have afforded a valuable purchasmg market 
 for articles of home manufacture. 
 
 The benefits (?) of monopoly were not all to be on one 
 side. A monopoly accorded must coexist with reciprocity 
 enforced. Besides the obligation imposed on the West 
 Indian colonies of sending home all produce destmed for 
 foreign comitries, it was made incumbent on them to aid in 
 encouraging British and Canadian shippmg. To this end, 
 American and foreign merchandise was prohibited from en- 
 tering West Indian ports directly, by crushing duties. But it 
 might be imported there duty free (in some cases), if shipped 
 from a British home or colonial port, and thence exported in 
 British or colony-built ships. The hardship of these pro- 
 visions was most keenly felt where American produce was 
 dealt m, since with New Orleans, Baltimore, and other United 
 States ports close at hand, no advantage could be taken of 
 their vichiity. Everything bought in the States for the West 
 Indian colonies had first to bear the cost of transport to 
 Quebec or Montreal before it could be sent to our other 
 possessions, and trade was handicapped by being forced from 
 the shortest and cheapest into the longest and dearest routes.
 
 IMPEEIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 61 
 
 111 papers laid by the West Indian merchants and planters 
 before the House of Commons/ they estimated the increased 
 expenses they thus incurred in procurmg lumber, staves, flour, 
 shingles, fish, &c,, at fifteen per cent, on the entire value of 
 these articles, or at the enormous sum (to them) of 187,575Z. 
 a year. No part of this sum went into the pockets of any 
 British merchants. It went wholly to indemnify the Ameri- 
 cans and others for being obliged to bring their produce by the 
 most circuitous route. 
 
 One object of our rulers — the steady discouragement of a 
 direct trade between America and the West Indies — had been 
 apparently attained, but this involved other consequences on 
 which it was difficult to look with absolute complacency. 
 For the contraction of trade had the natural effect of dimmish- 
 ing instead of mcreasing the tonnage of British and colonial 
 shippmg engaged in it, while, on the other hand, the restrictive 
 laws had given a fine impetus to smuggling where the articles 
 of trade were not bulky and inconvenient of carriage. The 
 British West Indian ports swarmed wdth semi-piratical smug- 
 glers, and abundance of profitless employment was given to 
 the large and expensive naval establishment mamtained for 
 the purpose of preventing and checking them. 
 
 The sugar monopoly collapsed as soon as the artificial 
 protection was withdrawn from it. Widespread ruin followed, 
 the moment the prop was taken away. The smuggling which 
 had been fostered by preventive folly, resolved itself into 
 piracy for want of other occupation, and for many years after 
 the equalisation of the Sugar Duties the conchtion, on land, in 
 the West Indies, was one of helpless despondency ; on the sea, 
 one of perilous msecurity. 
 
 Canadian timber, was an article to which especial preference 
 was shown by our pseudo-economist governors. For some 
 years pre%dous to 1843, the differential duty in favour of Cana- 
 dian timber was 45s. per load. The effect of this preference 
 was to encourage the growth of a lumber trade in Canada 
 
 i No. 121. Session 18.31.
 
 62 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 and to turn the agriculturist into a lumberer — that is, to turn 
 him from an occupation where thrift and industry were 
 indispensable to success, to one where these qualities became 
 so conspicuous by their absence, that lumberers were justly 
 stigmatised as the ' pests of the colony.' Apart from this 
 demoralising tendency, the lumber trade actually put ifiapedi- 
 ments in the way of the agricultural development of the colony, 
 since the cutting down of the trees engendered so great a 
 growth of brushwood, that it actually cost more to clear the 
 land where the lumberers had been than where they had not 
 been. 
 
 The immediate consequence of the differential duties to 
 the home country was, that at a stroke it almost annihilated 
 all trade between England and Norway and Sweden. Those 
 countries had little besides the finest timber to exchange for 
 our commodities. When prevented by the high duties against 
 them from exporting it to England, they were driven to resort 
 to the markets of France and Holland for the articles they 
 had formerly imported from us. Thus our manufacturers 
 lost a profitable market, and numbers of English workmen 
 employed by these manufacturers Avere thrown out of employ- 
 ment, while other countries thereby gained good customers, 
 and developed their own industries to meet the Scandinavian 
 demand. The loss to ourselves in pounds, shillings, and 
 pence was for the times very considerable. The exports to 
 Sweden, which in 1814 had amounted to 511,818/., declined 
 in 1819 to 46,656Z., and even in 1842, after great efforts had 
 been made to re-acquire the Swedish trade, they totalled no 
 greater value than 199,313/. The like with the export trade 
 to Norway, which fell from a total of 199,902Z. value in 1815, 
 to the value of 64,741Z. in 1819, and in 1842 was still not 
 estimated to be worth more than 134,704/.' 
 
 During all this period of differential Timber Duties, the 
 price of timber from the North of Europe was cheaper than 
 that of Canadian timber by nearly the difference in the 
 amount of the differential duties. Not only that, but the 
 quahty of the European timber was far superior, if we are to 
 ' McCuUoch, ' Timber Trade.'
 
 IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 63 
 
 believe the first Report of the House of Lords on the foreign 
 trade of the kingdom, where it is asserted that ' the North - 
 American timber is more soft, less durable, and every descrip- 
 tion of it more liable, though in different degrees, to the dry 
 rot than is timber of the North of Europe.' And, further, 
 ' that the timber of Canada, both oak and fir, does not possess, 
 for the purpose of shipbuilding, more than half the durability 
 of wood of the same description, the produce of the North of 
 Europe.' And yet it was of this Canadian timber that we had 
 been for years building bad ships instead of good ones, in order 
 to give an artificial stimulus to supposed colonial require- 
 ments. We had been heavily taxing ourselves and putting 
 an incubus on the real development of the Canadas, in order 
 to build of the worst materials procurable, at extravagant 
 rates, two ships where one would have done better at largely 
 reduced cost, if built with untaxed ' durable ' European 
 timber. 
 
 Independently of the direct pecuniary losses inflicted upon 
 both mother-country and the colonies of Canada by the 
 maintenance of this ridiculous monopoly, the indirect losses 
 on either were certainly far greater. Each had to purchase 
 in the dearest market, and each, therefore, lost the sound un- 
 bolstered trade which might have been utilised in developing 
 fresh industries to which capital on either side would naturally 
 have flowed. The purchasmg power of each, not only for the 
 products of the other, but for the products of all other countries, 
 was diminished by at least the extra cost which each had to 
 incur for buying in markets kept artificially dear by monopoly. 
 That this was a benefit to individual monopolists is probable 
 enough, but that only in a comparative degree, and it is 
 evident that it could involve nothing but heavy loss to the 
 bulk of the smaller traders on each side, and that both colonial 
 and home consumers were distinctly impoverished by it. 
 
 The colonial system was exactly calculated to generate 
 feelings of jealousy and dislike of imperial rule amongst both 
 Canadian and West Indian colonists. In Canada, in especial, 
 where there was a gradually increasing European-born labour- 
 ing population, the injury and injustice of the system was
 
 64 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 keenly felt, but it was, as we shall see, but the groundwork of 
 far more strenuous efforts to make the intermeddling despotism 
 of the imperial authorities more hateful to the colonists and 
 more dangerous to the maintenance of the tie between Great 
 Britain and her down-trodden dependencies. 
 
 Until we began to colonise with convicts towards the close 
 of the last century, the imperial power of England never at- 
 tempted to rule locally in every detail from the vast distance 
 of the breadth of the globe, a body of its subjects who had 
 gone forth from England and founded a colony. The charters 
 of Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Ehode Island 
 gave to those colonies unlimited powers of local self-govern- 
 ment. Within their own boundaries the colonists had the 
 right to administer their own affairs on the freest and most 
 popular basis. 
 
 So long as the Colonies were poor and struggling com- 
 munities, they were enabled to thrive under the ' beneficent 
 neglect of the home Government.' ' When, however, it 
 became evident that they were rapidly advancing in wealth 
 and resources, England, or, rather, the body of Englishmen 
 that had arrogated to itself the power of imperial rule, was 
 prompt in asserting claims to the appropriation of the local 
 colonial revenues to its own purposes. This clique of auto- 
 cratic managers would perhaps, had it been possible, have put 
 into practice Sancho Panza's maxim of selling the colonists 
 for slaves, and appropriating to themselves the proceeds. 
 This being out of the question, the attempt was made to de- 
 prive the colonists of what Wakefield terms their ' dearest 
 municipal right,' and to submit the regulations of colonial 
 life and the control of the colonial purse to an unsjonpathetic, 
 careless, and irresponsible set of officials at home. This line 
 of policy was, as I have before attempted to show, the neces- 
 sary outcome of the principles on which the colonial system 
 was based. The smaller and more irresponsible the body of 
 rulers, the easier was it to conduct unchecked a policy of 
 
 ' Professor Thorold Rogers's Essay on the Colonial Qtiestion. Cobden 
 Club Essays, 1S7'2.
 
 IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 65 
 
 meddling and spoliation. The system was not long in costing 
 us the allegiance of the North-American colonies as an early 
 instalment of its natural consequences, and the shock so 
 rudely given imposed upon the clique the necessity of caution 
 in the immediate future. A penal colony was, therefore, re- 
 served for the theatre of our first experiments in thoroughly 
 centralised government, and there the local or municipal form 
 of self-government was wholly inapplicable so long as the 
 population was entirely composed of convicts and their gaolers. 
 It was deemed as inapplicable to the helpless communities in 
 Canada which came under our dominion by conquest. 
 
 To French Canada was accorded a delusive shadow of free 
 institutions without any of the reality of freedom ; the power 
 of representation in a popular assembly without any of the 
 natural consequences of representation. The central system 
 was trimnphant for awhile, and every portion of our vast 
 colonial empire was liable to the most serious injury from an 
 oversight, a misapprehension, a want of right information, or 
 an error of judgment, on the part of a gentleman sitting in 
 Downing Street, instructed by irresponsible, unknowai officials 
 wedded to red-tape by the law of their being. Commmiities of 
 which the main characteristics, indeed the elements of whose 
 existence, were perpetual changes and ever-onward progress, 
 were ruled by an authority as ' laborious, heavy, busy, blind, 
 and bold ' as the veriest Goddess of Arch- Stupidity. 
 
 So long as we made no attempts to interfere with the local 
 self-government of our North-American colonies, their attach- 
 ment to the British connection was genuine and deep. They 
 presented in this respect a remarkable contrast to the centrally 
 governed Spanish colonies of America. Both English and 
 Spanish colonies have now forcibly separated themselves 
 from their parent countries, and both have established Ee- 
 publican forms of government. The immediate causes of 
 separation were in either case similar. The English colonies 
 revolted against the attempt to impose upon them a central 
 bureaucratic system which proposed to take from them the 
 power of controlling their inmost fiscal arrangements. The
 
 6Q BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 Spanish colonies rebelled against the intolerable contmuance 
 of the system. There was, however, one notable difference in 
 the course of the hostihties m either case. In the former, 
 education in the self-governing prmciple had developed a 
 spirit and a power which speedily made the North-American 
 colonies more than a match for the immense i^esources of the 
 British empire. In the latter, a long continuance of uniu- 
 telhgent and unsympathetic bureaucratic despotism had 
 enfeebled the powers of the South-American colonists to such 
 an extent that only after a long series of feeble throes, at times 
 quite unavailing, was the grip of impotent Spain released from 
 the throat of her exhausted dependencies. 
 
 Again, compare the results. The United States came out 
 of the contest' ready and able to profit to the uttermost by the 
 training which experience m local self-government had given 
 them. The colonies of South America became the homes of 
 perpetual revolution and incessant anarchy. 
 
 If a world-wide empire such as ours derives strength from 
 its Colonies, it is not through the strengthenmg of the legis- 
 lative tie between them, but through the deep-rooted loyalty 
 which the unfettered exercise of local self-governing power 
 implants in the affections of the most far distant colonists. 
 Just as the North-American colonies derived from their local 
 institutions a basis of unconquerable strength, so did the fi'ee 
 exercise of local authority make them loyal staunch allies and 
 subjects of the parent country. On the other hand, the one uni- 
 versal cause of weakness in an extensive dominion has always 
 consisted in the disaffection of its outlying portions, arising 
 from the maintenance of the central principle. Of the salutary 
 principle of decentrahsation, Burke himself was at one time a 
 strenuous advocate, and yet it could hardly have been wdthout 
 a feeling of the deepest humiliation that, in order to illustrate 
 the necessity of relaxing our powers over the borders of the 
 empire, so as to strengthen it at the centre, he should have 
 found himself forced to appeal, in an EngKsh Parliament, to 
 the politic example of the Turk. 
 
 The Spanish colonies were a constant and fatal drain on 
 the resources of Spain. Long before the latter had been reft
 
 IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 67 
 
 of her South- American colonies she had lost all internal vigour 
 and all her weight in European councils, chiefly because of the 
 weakness and demoralisation her colonial system entailed upon 
 her. On the other hand, so long as the municipal rights of 
 the English colonies were left unmolested the colonists were at 
 all times prompt to take up arms on behalf of the mother- 
 comitry. 
 
 It is unnecessary to multiply instances of the political 
 benefits resulting to the imperial State from the establishment 
 of local self-government in colonies, as opposed to the evils to 
 be expected from the maintenance of the central system. 
 From the days of the Roman empire, whose chief dependence 
 was in her mmiicipalities, to the time when the self-governing 
 Fueros of the Basque Provinces of Spain herself fought to the 
 ast rather than submit to a revolution which deprived their 
 egitimate sovereign of his throne, history abounds with 
 nstances to point the moral and adorn the tale of the guar- 
 antee afforded by widespread, free-born local governing insti- 
 tutions for the loyalty and cohesion of the separate parts of 
 the State : of the inevitable tendency of centralisation to \ao- 
 lent disruption of peaceful relations between rulers and ruled. 
 
 The unwisdom of our ancestors in forcing on the separa- 
 tion of the States was still more glaringly conspicuous in their 
 attempts to perpetuate in their Canadian colonies the policy 
 which had given rise to the Declaration of Independence. The 
 central system in a form which was bureaucratic as well as 
 central was applied to Canada with redoubled vigour, and but 
 for the utter want of training in self-government fostered by 
 it throughout the Canadas, and the irreconcilable jealousies 
 promoted by the system between the French and English- 
 speaking divisions of the Canadas, the occasional revolts 
 against our dominion by the colonists would most certainly 
 have eventuated in violent separation. 
 
 Of all the evil results of centralised government there is 
 none more pronounced than its effect in destroying, by the 
 process of preventmg, the growth of a spirit of self-rehauce. 
 If there is one quality above all others desirable for a young
 
 68 f ♦ ( KQH^BS OF DISU^IOl 
 
 community to ^alwiiSterii-^'-w^icit' self-reliance from its 
 earliest infancy. (Ttfpieafjltraliied form of government was not 
 only calculated to, but was framed expressly to, repress the first 
 indications of this quality. The colonist was to have no Avill 
 of his own, and was to have no indiscreet aspirations in the 
 direction of bettering himself. He was a toddling infant to 
 be kept in leading-strings to an official high priesthood. At 
 times he might be ' pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw,' 
 but the serious business of trying to get along in his own way 
 was not for him. 
 
 The Canadians were to have representative assemblies to 
 play with, but they were not to be permitted to have either 
 hand or real voice in their own government. The Colonial 
 Office would see to that, and everything would be administered 
 in the best possible way. Canada was not to be governed for its 
 own benefit, otherwise it might take the leading-strings into 
 its own hands and rmi clean away, as the United States had 
 just done. No ! dominion over Canada was a recompense 
 given by Providence to the Colonial Off.ce, its relatives and 
 friends, to make up for the field of patronage of which they 
 had been pitilessly despoiled by the unreasoning conduct of 
 the ' wicked rebels ' of the erst North-American colonies. 
 
 Canada was divided into two provinces, Upper Canada and' 
 Lower Canada. In the latter division the bulk of the inhabi- 
 tants were French, and between them and the English popu- 
 lation prevailed a fierce and consuming hatred. ' That liberal 
 institutions and a prudent policy might have changed the 
 character of the struggle I have no doubt,' says Lord 
 Durham,^ ' Uidiappily, however, the system of govern- 
 ment pursued in Lower Canada has been based upon the 
 policy of perpetuating that very separation of the races, and 
 encouraging those very notions of conflicting nationalities, 
 which it ought to have been the first and chief care of govern- 
 ment to check and extinguish.' 
 
 Up to so late a period as 1816, the nationality of the 
 
 ' Lord Durham's Ileport on the Affairs of British North America, 
 p. i'6.
 
 DIVIDE ET IMPERA. 69 
 
 Fi'ench Caiiaclians was confessedly cultivated as a means of 
 isolating entirely the inhabitants of British (Upper) Canada 
 from those of the revolted colonies. To keep the former loyal, 
 they were to be kept fi-om contact with the populations of the 
 United States— a de\'ice sufficiently puerile to be well wortliy 
 of the statesmen who supported it as a sovmd principle of 
 govermnent. 
 
 The poHcy of the Colonial Office was to govern its 
 colonies by means of internal dissensions, and ' to break them 
 down into petty isolated communities, mcapable of combina- 
 tion, and possessing no sufficient strength for individual 
 resistance.' ^ It was with this object in view that Canada 
 was di\ided into two provinces, the settled portions being 
 allotted to the French, and the unsettled portions being set 
 apart for British colonisation. ' Had the sounder policy of 
 making the Lower Province English in all its institutions 
 been adopted from the first and steadily persevered in, the 
 French would have been speedily outnumbered, and the bene- 
 ficial operations of the free institutions of England would 
 never have been impeded by animosities of origin.' ^ But it 
 was fomid impossible to exclude the English race from a pro- 
 vince where the great rivers afforded the most convenient 
 highways for commercial enterprise. The attempt, therefore, 
 to preserve a distinctive French-Canadian nationality in the 
 midst of Anglo-American colonies and States proved a signal 
 failure in respect of its object, but it succeeded in producmg a 
 jealous contest of races which was largely responsible for the 
 long miprogressiveness of the Canadian Dominion. Every 
 measure of the Imperial Government seemed shaped with 
 special intent to aggi'avate the evil to the extremest degree. 
 Alternate concessions to either of the contending races only 
 irritated both, and, while intensifying the animosities of race, 
 brought the vacillating and unwieldy Government system 
 into utter contempt. 
 
 The defects of government in the Canadian colonies were 
 briefly and pithily summarised by Lord Durham as follows : ^ — 
 
 ' Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of British North America, 
 p. 46. 2 Ibid. p. 47. ' Ibid. p. 51,
 
 70 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 ' It may fairly be said that the natural state of government in 
 all the Colonies is that of collision between the executive and 
 the representative body. In all of them the administration 
 of public affairs is habitually conceded to those who do not 
 co-operate harmoniously with the popular branch of the Legis- 
 lature ; and the Government is constantly proposmg measures 
 which the majority of the Assembly reject, and refusing its 
 assent to Bills which that body has passed.' 
 
 In Lower Canada the practical worldng of the Eepresenta- 
 tive Assembly commenced with the imprisonment of its leaders 
 for freedom of speech — no very auspicious initiation of free 
 institutions ! By degrees the Assembly acquired a partial con- 
 trol over a portion of the public revenue ; and an unceasmg 
 struggle ensued with the Executive, until by 1832 the-Assembly 
 had gained an entire control over the whole revenue of the 
 colony.' But it still found itself deprived of all voice in the 
 choice, or even designation, of the persons to whom was to be 
 confided the administration of affairs. 
 
 The constitution of the Assembly was unworkable. It 
 might refuse or pass laws, vote or withhold supplies, but it 
 could exercise no influence over the nomination of a single 
 servant of the Cro'svn. In the selection of officials no regard 
 whatever was paid to the wishes of the people or of their re- 
 presentatives ; indeed, hostility to the Assembly was usually 
 the ground of the elevation of the most incompetent persons 
 to posts of honour and trust. The actual government of the 
 colony was placed in the charge of officials bitterly opposed 
 t» the popular will, and who were deputed to carry into opera- 
 tion the legislation which they most strenuously opposed. 
 
 It is difficult to imagme a greater mockery than repre- 
 sentative institutions coupled with irresponsible government. 
 The opposition of the Assembly to the Crown was an unavoid- 
 able result of such an arrangement. The popular leaders, 
 relieved of all the responsibilities of opposition, made the 
 business of legislation and the practical government of the 
 province subordinate to the struggle for power, and the 
 necessities of the community were used for the purpose of 
 
 * Report, p. 52.
 
 DIVIDE ET IMPERA. 71 
 
 extorting tlie concession of whatever demands tliey might 
 choose to make. 
 
 As to the Legislative Council, it is described in the 
 ' Report ' ' as ' hardly anything but a veto in the hands of public 
 functionaries on all the acts of that popular branch of the 
 Legislature in which they were always m a minority.' This 
 veto was used without much scruple, and the time which 
 should have been devoted to wise legislation was spent in a 
 contest for power between the Executive and the people 
 ' which a wise Government would have stopped at the outset 
 by submitting to a legitimate responsibility, and which a wise 
 people would have ceased to press when it had \'irtually 
 attained its end.' ^ 
 
 This Council was vowed to secresy. None of its members 
 were answerable for the working of any department. There- 
 fore there was no individual superintendence over, as there 
 was no responsibility for, any department. Still it was from 
 the ad-\ace given by these officials that the edicts of the 
 Colonial Office were dra^vn up. 
 
 Considering these circumstances, it would be indeed sur- 
 prising if it should be found that any department was carried 
 on advantageously for the colony. 
 
 While the money voted for public works was unblushingly 
 scrambled for, the works themselves were rarely commenced, 
 and more rarely completed. Next to the power of disposing ■ 
 of the land in a new country, there is no more important 
 function than that of forwarding and controlling the public 
 works. But unless there exist municipal authorities to 
 interest themselves in, and see to the proper administration 
 of, the sums voted for those works, the department charged 
 with their execution can hardly fail to utilise its opportunities 
 for its own private ends. It is not too much to say that 
 jobbery, robbery, and criminal inefficiency were the most 
 conspicuous features in the administration of the public works 
 of Canada. 
 
 There was no such thing as local or municipal government 
 throughout the length and breadth of the Canadas. All 
 
 • Ee2)ort, p. 58. « Ibid. p. 49.
 
 72 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 regular administration appeared to cease immediately bej'ond 
 the walls of Quebec and Montreal. In the rest of the country 
 there was ' no sheriff, no mayor, no constable, no superior 
 administrative officer of any kind.' ' Nor were there any 
 county, municipal, or parochial officers, either named by the 
 Crown or nominated by the people. The people, accustomed 
 to rely entirely on Government dictation, had no power of 
 doing anything for themselves, and were but little disposed to 
 yield assistance to the central authority which presumptuously 
 thought itself above the necessity of local aid to enable it to 
 carry its measures into practice. It was not deemed fittmg to 
 the scheme of government that the colonists should be allowed 
 to regulate their own local affairs. And yet, though declared 
 to be unworthy of managing the business of a parish, they 
 were, with an inconsistency characteristic of the system, 
 entrusted with the power of influencing, by the votes of their 
 representatives in the Assembly, the highest destinies of the 
 State. It would have been indeed surprising had the self- 
 contradifftory parcelling out of duties terminated in anything 
 but discontent, disaffection, and failure. 
 
 Canada was hedged around with a network of customs 
 duties. But the collection of these was not entrusted to the 
 colonists themselves. None were permitted to dip into the 
 ' pickings and stealings ' of the customs revenue except the 
 officers of the Imperial Government. This revenue again was 
 a source of endless dispute between the two great provinces 
 of the Dominion. Almost the whole of the imports of Upper 
 Canada came through the ports of Lower Canada, and the 
 former therefore insisted on receiving a portion of the revenue 
 from duties. The revenue of Upper Canada bemg totally 
 inadequate to the expenditure, the province found itself 
 obliged to raise the scale of customs duties in order to pay the 
 interest on its debt. These duties being levied in Lower 
 Canada, the taxation of that province had also to be raised, 
 although it enjoyed a large surplus revenue. It may be 
 readily believed that this arrangement did not tend to produce 
 harmony between the two provinces — a result entirely in 
 
 ' Ee;port, p. 78.
 
 DIVIDE ET IMPERA. 73 
 
 accordance with the motto ' Divide et Impera ' specially 
 adopted by the Imperial Government for application to the 
 circumstances of the two Canadas. 
 
 The principle of centrahsation did not stop at the Custom 
 House. It was carried into the Post Office. The Colonial 
 Post Office was subordinated to the General Post Office in 
 London, and its every detail was regulated and administered 
 by the rulers and servants of an establishment several weeks' 
 sail from Canada. The increased cost of the postal service 
 was thus very great. The direct .part of the cost was, in the 
 first place, borne by the English office, and, m order to recoup 
 the expense to that mstitution, the revenue from the colonial 
 etters was paid over to it. The mdirect cost was probably, 
 n those days of slow-going sailing-ships, a still heavier 
 bin-den, and it fell chiefly upon the Canadians themselves. 
 But this was what was intended. Much letter-writing or ex- 
 ended business relations might have given the colonists a sense 
 of their own importance which it would have been presump- 
 tuous in them to entertain. Besides, what mattered the mjury 
 done, if the object of good colonial government was attained — 
 namely, if money was somehow screwed out of the colony to 
 pay for the cost of officialism at home ? 
 
 Officials m England enjoyed the privilege of franking their 
 letters, on presumed grounds of public policy, but then there 
 they made their own laws. The Canadian officials would 
 doubtless have gladly conferred the privilege on themselves, , 
 their relatives and friends, but this they were not allowed to 
 do, for reasons of public policy were not considered as apply- 
 ing to Canada ; and besides there was the all-sufficient reason 
 that the postal revenue was an English perquisite. 
 
 The colonial officials, however, availed themselves of a 
 remedy ready to hand. The funds derived from the sale of 
 Jesuits' estates had been dedicated to public educational 
 purposes. By way of reimbursing themselves for paying 
 postage and other vexatious charges, the Council diverted the 
 money derived from these sales — from education, for whicli 
 nothing was done— to a secret service fund by which the 
 official members of the body were enriched, at the same time
 
 74 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 that their influence was sensibly enlarged. The obstinate 
 struggle which was for long maintained with the Assembly in 
 order to continue this gross misappropriation furnishes a 
 vivid illustration of the difficulty of curtailing the powers for 
 evil of an irresponsible and therefore corrupt clique of 
 officials. 
 
 The ' Family Party ' which ruled Upper Canada had in 
 some respects an easier task before them — politically — than 
 had the small band of officials who administered to their own 
 wants in the Lower Province. There were no questions in 
 Upper Canada arising ujDon the jealousies of rival nationali- 
 ties, so the only problem in politics to be solved was how to 
 set the different classes and interests in the community most 
 completely by the ears. 
 
 The ' Family Party ' or ' Family Compact ' was composed 
 of native-born as well as of English officials. So the party 
 had always a strong local connection, out of which it could, 
 in case of necessity, manufacture a good deal of support. 
 
 The small knot of officials who composed the ' Party ' 
 adhered with great fidelity to the example set them by the 
 parent State. Conscious that unless the whole patronage of 
 the colony was at their disposal, they could not hold together 
 in defiance of the representative body, they divided between 
 themselves all places of office and trust, and endowed these 
 Avith salaries equivalent to their belief in their own merit. 
 
 A dominant Church is always one device of a ruling 
 oligarchy for giving to its position the weight of a religious 
 sanction. So the party set to work to bolster up an Estab- 
 lished Church, representative perhaps of one-fourth of the 
 population. This move, fi-om the point of view of their own 
 interest, was probably a wise one, for it enabled them to 
 count • on the support of a proportion of the people which, 
 though a small one, comprised the wealthiest and most 
 influential settlers. It was the countenance given by these 
 last that permitted of the continuance of the rule of the 
 Family Party. Religious government is government through 
 religious differences, and just as the Colonial Office based its
 
 DIVIDE ET IMPEEA. 75 
 
 rule on local hatreds, so the Party founded its strength on 
 religious animosity. 
 
 The Assembly repeatedly passed Bills appropriating the 
 moneys from the sale of reserve lands which had been lavished 
 on the Church, to education ; but all such Bills were summarily 
 rejected by the Family Party, bent as it was in maldng up 
 to the Church in endo-niiients what it lacked in popular 
 sympathy. 
 
 The members of the Party were supreme in the chartered 
 banks. They therefore most persistently opposed any exten- 
 sion of the banking system which might compete •mill their 
 o'wii monopoly. Most of them, too, were lawyers. The legal 
 fraternity has invariably distinguished itself by a close trades- 
 unionism which has made the entrance into its own profession 
 as narrow and exclusive as possible, and the Canadian lawyers, 
 true to tradition, secured themselves from competition by re- 
 fusing to allow even English barristers or sohcitors to prac- 
 tice in the colonial courts without a long local apprentice- 
 ship, whatever might have been their standing at home. 
 
 As for the conduct of pubHc works, it was of com'se far too 
 abomiding in lucrative chances to be permitted to be carried 
 on except by the few individuals forming the Party, who, by 
 getting the management enth-ely into their ovra hands, 
 ' deliberately encouraged a system of carelessness and profusion 
 by which they were enriched at the public expense.' ' 
 
 With government in the hands of wreckers, trade must 
 always lack confidence and 'enterprise. However anxious the 
 rulers may be to promote it, its expansion vnll be impossible 
 where political integrity is altogether non-existent. But the 
 Family Party officials had no intention of encouraging the de- 
 velopment of trade. It was, they thought, contrary to their 
 private mterest to do so, so they scrupled not to hamper the 
 operations of commerce by imposing heavy duties, by retarduig 
 the settlement of the country, and by systematically neglecting 
 those public works which are as the breath of life to a young 
 community strugghng into being. 
 
 Had there been any system of local government at all, we 
 
 » Beport, p. 109.
 
 76 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 may feel certain that, despite every effort of the Family Party, 
 roads, bridges, and commmiications would have been estab- 
 lished over the face of the comitry, and would have neutralised 
 to some extent the effects of detestable misgovernment ; but of 
 local government there was not the faintest shadow, and, not 
 Lavmg the fear of local control before its eyes, the Family 
 Party pursued michecked the even tenor of its way. 
 
 For the establishment and maintenance of this state of 
 tilings the Colonial Office must be held directly responsible. 
 The office had created the Family Party in Upper Canada and 
 the Bureaux m the Lower Pro\'ince, and between Office, 
 Family Party, and Bureaux was the freemasonry of anti- 
 popular interest. 
 
 The Colonial Governor was usually the mere creature 
 of one or other of these powers, and his position was never a 
 very enviable or secure one. The representations of the 
 officials in either province were, as a rule, accepted by the 
 Colonial Office as the basis of its mstructions to the Colonial 
 Governor. The information which thus formed the ground- 
 work of the instructions given to him emanated from small 
 knots of men systematically hostile to the mshes of the great 
 majority of the colonists. The policy he was required to carry 
 out was therefore that which the colony was the least pre- 
 pared to accept. The details of the directions given to him 
 were models of precision, and laboriously dictated to him the 
 course he was to pursue in every particular of his administra- 
 tion. If he did as he was told, he became unpopular with the 
 colonists, who clamoured for his recall. If he acted as he 
 thought best in the interests of the colony, he earned the dis- 
 like of the local official class, who lost no time in procuring 
 his deposition by mahgnant representations to the Colonial 
 Office. In self-defence, then, he as a rule refrained from doing 
 anything until he had taken the opinion of the Office, even in 
 matters of a strictly local nature, of which none but those 
 immediately interested could possibly know anything. Of the 
 instructions that he received from time to time, the best that 
 could be said of very many of them was, that they were quite 
 inoperative. Either they had been outrun by time and events
 
 niPEEIAL MISEULE D;i CANADA. 77 
 
 in the colony, or from some reason, which a moment's intelli- 
 gent consideration might have rendered apparent, they were 
 inapplicable to things real in the colony. Thus a glance at 
 a map might have taught the Colonial Office that it was by no 
 means necessary to send out a cargo of casks filled with fresh 
 water for the use of ships floating on the fresh-water lake of 
 Ontario. ' I have seen the House of Assembly,' says Wake- 
 field, ' incapable of restraining their mirth while the Speaker 
 was gravely reading instructions to the Governor which his 
 Excellency had been desired to communicate to them. They 
 laughed at the ludicrous inapplicability to Canada of the \iews 
 expounded in these despatches.' ' Such escapades as these 
 had naturally the effect of bringing the home Government 
 into contempt in the colony. 
 
 The greater part of these instructions, however, never saw 
 the light without being marked 'secret' or 'confidential.' 
 The Colonies were in fact ruled by a power which had an 
 absolute choice between making kno^^^l and concealing all the 
 grounds of its laws and orders. ' The most important busi- 
 ness of government was carried on in a secret correspondence 
 between the Governor and the Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies, and the Colonies were frequently the last to learn 
 the thing, that most concerned them by the tardy publication 
 of papers on the order of the British Parliament.' - 
 
 The Canadas were to be kept in firm dependence by being 
 prevented from framing laws and mstitutions for their own 
 local govermnent. The entire management of the country 
 was therefore to be centralised in a London office. It may 
 be interestmg to glance at the mner working of the system, 
 together with some of its more obvious consequences. 
 
 Supposing a distant and centraUsed form of government 
 to be conceivably necessary for the welfare of the Colonies, it 
 would before all things be requisite that it should be adminis- 
 tered by those ' who sympathise with their subjects, whose 
 glory is in their prosperity, to whom their misfortunes are at 
 least a discomfort, and whom . . . they can check in cases of 
 
 ' Wakefield's Art of Colonisation, p. 243. 
 ^ Bepurt, p. 75.
 
 *78 BONDS OF DISUNION. ' 
 
 great need by threatening them with the ultima ratio of popular 
 despair.' ^ But the very opposite was the case. The 
 Colonial Office staff, who in reality ruled the roast, had not a 
 sympathy in common with the bulk of the people in any one 
 of the colonies, and the course of policy adopted towards the 
 latter had reference merely to the state of parties in England 
 and to the maintenance of antiquated office traditions, rather 
 than to colonial wants and circumstances. The staff was a 
 permanent body without responsibility to its imfortunate sub- 
 jects, and could not be made amenable to pressure exercised 
 by them. 
 
 Neither party in the colony could calculate upon the prob- 
 able result of their mutual struggles; because, though they 
 might be able to estimate accurately enough their strength 
 locally, they could never tell how or when some hidden spring 
 might be set in motion by the Colonial Office, which would 
 defeat their best laid plans, and render utterly unavailing 
 whole years of patient effort.'^ 
 
 The fact was that the business of the Colonial Office was 
 conducted entirely by permanent clerks responsible to no one. 
 It was quite beyond the power of any Secretary of State for 
 the Colonies to make himself acquainted, even in the most 
 perfunctory way, with the real requirements of the Colonies, 
 or to decide satisfactorily upon the conflicting statements and 
 claims brought before him. In his dilemma he sought the 
 aid of his permanent staff, men of great ' tact ' in dealing with 
 their superiors, and owng their elevation to that desirable 
 social accomplishment, coupled with length of routine service. 
 Frequent changes of government might bring as many changes 
 of Colonial Ministers with widely varying views on the subject 
 of the policy of their department, but the best of them could 
 do little against the ' tact ' and vis inerticB of the permanent 
 clerk, under whose dominion they rapidly but surely fell. These 
 clerks had fi'om long practice grown up to regard the Colonies 
 as so many empty pigeon-holes which it was necessary from 
 time to time to fill up with perfectly rounded phrases and 
 
 ' Wakefield's Art of Colonisation, p. 231. 
 ■' Report, p. 137.
 
 IMPERIAL 3IISEULE IN CANADA. 79 
 
 metaphors on the subject of filial duty, with didactic discourses 
 on morality and ethics, or with ca^refully penned essays on 
 political economy. For them the Colonies existed only on 
 paper. They represented nothing more than the opportunity 
 for some gracefully turned composition, in which the reciprocal 
 duties of Colonial Governors and peoples were pointed out in 
 unexceptionable language, and quite in accordance with the 
 most ancient office forms. The characteristics of this system of 
 ' paper government,' as it was called by Burke, were vacilla- 
 tOry measures varied by tyrannical edicts. Caprice in every- 
 thing, consistency in nothing, was the rule of conduct in 
 Downing Street. 
 
 The chief object of the permanent clerk, the ruler of a 
 domain besides whose vastness the empire of Imperial Eome 
 dwindles down to a provincial centre, was to save himself 
 trouble. If some obscure mtriguer at home appeared likely to 
 make himself troublesome in his efforts to procure for himself 
 some exclusive privilege or piece of patronage in the permanent 
 gentleman's territories, it was given to him as a tribute to his 
 skill in bringing backstairs influence to work. But a deaf 
 ear was turned to the colonist who could train no heavier 
 metal to bear than the history of private ■m:ongs or public 
 misadventure, due to the ignorant rule of the Colonial Office. 
 But, with all his desire of saving himself trouble, the perma- 
 nent gentleman had contracted an inveterately bad habit of 
 writing despatches and instructions, the effect of which was, 
 often enough, to deprive Colonial Assemblies of theii' just 
 functions, and so to irritate them and force them into ^aolent 
 proceedings, such as political impeachments, the stoppage of 
 supplies, and personal attacks on the local representatives of 
 the Cro'wn. But where the permanent gentleman did save 
 himself a world of bother was in his treatment of important 
 Colonial Bills sent home for the royal assent. On these he be- 
 stowed but scant notice, except when impelled by some burst of 
 \'irtuous indignation to recommend their disallowance. ' The 
 number of colonial laws which have been disallowed . . . 
 would,' says Wakefield, who wrote with an intimate knowledge 
 of the subject, ' form the subject of an incredibly curious
 
 80 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 return to the House of Commons.' ' But often enough th& 
 permanent official omitted altogether to present the Bill for 
 assent, as in one very characteristic case, where, through his 
 delay, the royal assent was so long postponed that when the 
 Bill was sent out to the colony as an Act,- the question was 
 raised, whether the assent had been delayed beyond the two 
 years allowed for it by law ; whether, having been so delayed, it 
 was valid ; and whether all the proceedings already taken under 
 it were not thereby invalidated. The Bill had been passed in 
 March 1829, and the royal assent was not given till May 1831.^ 
 The reasons for enforcing the reservation of Colonial Bills 
 for the royal assent are alleged to be founded on considera- 
 tions of State policy. Unless the Bills so reserved are limited 
 to those of a nature likely to involve the welfare of the parent 
 State, as is in effect done under the Constitutions accorded 
 to the Australian colonies, the requirement of the royal 
 assent acts prejudicially on the social and political condition 
 of the Colonies. As 'it renders the validity of laws doubtful, 
 since the royal assent may be capriciously exercised, obedi- 
 ence to them is not implicitly given. The Colonial Ministry 
 whose principal enactments are vetoed is either brought into 
 contempt with the people, to the detriment of its legislative 
 position, or else, if the measure disallowed be of great im- 
 portance locally, the home Goveriunent comes to be looked 
 upon with a dislike and jealousy which prompt the colony 
 irito a persistent defiance until its end has been achieved and 
 the veto withdrawn, to the loss of Imperial political credit in 
 the colonial mind. The home Government is, in the end, 
 always forced to submit to the colonial will, and the veto is 
 practically worthless except as an irritant to the passions of 
 the dependent community. Even supposing the right to be 
 exercised in a direction clearly for the good of the colony — 
 for example, were it to be used to restrain enactments subver- 
 sive of Free Trade principles— still, colonial jealousy would 
 be excited by the fact that the veto was the act of a distant 
 authority, who would be considered as much less qualified to 
 
 ' Art of Colonisation, p. 254. 29^,10 Geo. lY., c. 77. 
 
 '■' Lord Durham's Report, p. 75.
 
 IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 81 
 
 judge of the law than were those by whom it was made. 
 Hence a certificate of popularity would probably be earned by 
 the party whose work the vetoed measures were, and their 
 hands would be strengthened for further efforts of similar 
 tendency, however pernicious. 
 
 There can, moreover, be no temporary finality or certainty 
 about legislation liable at any moment to be thwarted by the 
 decision of a faction at home, and the party in the colony 
 which has objected to the passing of any law is always on the 
 alert to gain its own point by means of secret intrigues with 
 the Colonial Office. 
 
 Colonial government, under the practice of an indiscrimi- 
 nate reservation of Bills, became a tissue of intrigues ; and yet 
 the practice was absolutely necessary to the maintenance of a 
 government at once bureaucratic and central. 
 
 This w^ould be the case even where the colonial government 
 was carried on by means of free and representative institutions. 
 The evil was intensified in the Canadas in consequence of 
 the initiative of rule being centred in the hands of officials 
 who, as a rule, were the lowest types of their class. We all 
 know the celebrated letter of.O'Connell to one of his 'tail,' 
 who had been ostracised fi-om decent society at home, offer- 
 ing him a ' place ' in the Colonies, if for the sake of the party 
 he would retire from Parliamentary life. It was on this 
 principle that most of the colonial officials were selected. 
 Doubtless there were exceptions, great and striking as ex- 
 ceptions, but the badge of qualification for a colonial appoint- 
 ment was too often that of incapacity for one at home. 
 
 Any one was good enough to be a colonial official magnate 
 who was decidedly not good enough for public employment at 
 home. Let a man but have displayed sufficient skill in 
 preying upon the weaknesses of the British public ; let him 
 have indulged in some indiscretion, which forfeited for him 
 his place in English society ; let him have thoroughly proved 
 himself unfit for some position of public or private trust at 
 home ; then, if possessed of influence with the permanent 
 gentleman, either through himself, or through relatives 
 desirous of getting him out of the way, he was straightway 
 
 G
 
 82 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 invested witli powers over the destinies of some distant and 
 struggling fragment of the empire— powers absolute save in 
 so far as they were checked by his own integrity. His acts 
 and all that he did were invariably upheld by the Office at home, 
 so long as he exercised his authority in his own quiet way at 
 the expense of his subjects, and sent home no remonstrances 
 or suggestions. Sometimes a knowledge of the most flagrant 
 of his proceedings filtered home, and in the light of even an 
 indifferent public opinion were voted scandalous. He was 
 then requested to resign in favour of some other Colonial 
 Office protege, whose retirement abroad had been rendered' 
 necessary by circumstances. Wakefield asserts ^ that if the 
 truth were known regarding the conduct, character, and 
 manners of colonial officials in the palmy days of the tribe, 
 ' John Bull's hair would stand on end. We should hear of 
 judges deeply in debt, and alone saved by the privilege of 
 their station from being taken to gaol by the officers of their ^ 
 own courts. We should hear even of Governors landing in 
 secret on their arrival, and getting hastily sworn into office 
 in a corner, for the purpose of hindering officers of the sheriff 
 from executing a writ of arrest against his Excellency. W^e 
 should learn that in the single colony of New South Wales, 
 of which the population was at that time under 200,000, 
 many high officials passed through the Insolvent Court in a 
 single year.' Their insolvency was caused by their speculating 
 in the public land, of which they were trustees for the people, 
 but they continued to hold office as though nothing had 
 happened. ' The Colonial Treasurer at that time was a 
 defaulter. At the same time the Colonial Secretary was 
 obhged to resign his appointment in consequence of a dis- 
 covery that a lady who passed as his wife was not married to 
 him. An office, the duties of which required very high and 
 peculiar qualities — that of a sole judge of law and conscience — 
 was held by a country attorney whose chief business in 
 England had been the dirty work of elections, and who by that 
 means got the appointment. Another office, of still more dif- 
 ficulty and delicacy, was given to an awkward, half-educated lad 
 of eighteen. Two principal officers of the Government fled the 
 ' Art of Colonisation, p. 207.
 
 IMPERIAL MISEULE IN CANADA. 83 
 
 country— the one for robbing the pool at cards; the other for a 
 yet more disgraceful offence.' 
 
 And yet the class composed of people such as these— the 
 official class — was the only one possessing any privileges in 
 the Colonies. The Canadian officials had not the same 
 opportunities for misconduct as were open to the bureaucrats 
 of the con^^ct colony, but it was the absence of opportunity 
 and not any moral superiority which enabled the one set to 
 maintain a more respectable appearance than the other. 
 Mentally and morally the two sets of officials were probably 
 on a par. 
 
 Thrift and intelligence, even the acquisition of wealth, 
 never operated to raise the worthiest settlers to the height of 
 the lowermost steps of the official thrones. In Upper Canada 
 one of them might struggle into a family relationship with the 
 Family Party, but as a rule he was inclined to indulge in a 
 spirit of independence that rendered him peculiarly obnoxious 
 to the Party. Not only did the members of the ruling faction 
 set their faces against the introduction of such men to offices 
 of trvTst, but they used also to affront and injure them by every 
 means in their power. They assiduously strove by similar 
 means to discourage the immigration of people of the better 
 classes. In short, it may be said that respectability, wisdom, 
 or any prominent virtue acted as a proscription in respect to 
 the enjoyment of distinction and power. The man possessed 
 of these attributes found himself placed in the colony in a 
 mortifying position of inferiority to the lowest officials. De- 
 barred from the chance of bettering himself, even perhaps 
 from a money point of view, the more intelligent he was, the 
 less likely was he to look upon the colony as a permanent 
 home where he might assist in establishing a happier and 
 freer England than the one he had left behind him. Such 
 ambition was of no use at all, so he contented himself with 
 making money as fast as possible, in order to return at the 
 earliest possible moment from colonies which official stupidity, 
 tyranny, and meddlesomeness had rendered ' unfit abodes for 
 any but convicts, paupers, and desperate or needy persons.' ' 
 
 ' Quarterly Bcview, 1848. 
 g2
 
 84 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 By the operation of the central system, enterprise had 
 been benumbed and creative legislation forbidden in societies 
 whose natural business was adventure and creation. Ground 
 down under the heelof an officialism ignorantly and secretly 
 impelled, colonial parties had degenerated into factions, 
 colonial politicians into demagogues. Amongst them the in- 
 justice and oppression of the system had begotten slavish 
 means of self-defence, prominent throughout which was 
 ' hypocrisy, crafty intrigue, and moral assassination of oppo- 
 nents.' ' Can we Avonder that even the practice of uitegrity 
 had been banished from public life in the Colonies, and that 
 the standard of private honour had been brought far below 
 that of the mother-country ? 
 
 Natural advantages of climate and soil were of slight 
 benefit where enterprise was deliberately discouraged. Prince 
 Edward's Isle might, in Lord Durham's opinion, in his time 
 have become the granary of the British colonies in Canada. 
 Instead of that, it barely sufficed to support some 40,000 
 people. Although the whole island was pre-eminently rich 
 in agricultural resources, and required but little labour in 
 clearing, while at the same time it was blessed with a more 
 genial climate than that of the other provinces, only one- 
 fourteenth of the surface of the island had been brought into 
 cultivation. The cause of this lamentable waste of national 
 wealth was owing partly to the possession of almost the entire 
 island by absentee proprietors ; but mainly to the influence of 
 the absentees at home in preventing the royal assent from 
 being given to remedial Acts of the local Legislature.^ Prince 
 Edward's Isle, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfound- 
 land, although among the oldest settled colonies in the North- 
 American continent, could only show a population of one 
 person to every hundred acres. Yet all the land was easily 
 cultivable, and the coast fisheries were enormously valuable, 
 but in consequence of the lack of enterprise due to the vicious 
 working of a centralised bureaucratic system of government, 
 these fisheries were practically monopolised by the fishermen of 
 
 * Wakefield's Art of Colo?iisation, p. 156. 
 
 * Berort, p. 141.
 
 IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 85 
 
 the United States. Such was the depth of apathy into which 
 colonists, whom every surrounding circumstance of cHmate 
 and opportunity combined to spur into healthy vigour, had been 
 forced by the unwisdom of their Colonial Office wet-nurse. 
 
 ' In all these provinces,' says the ' Eeport,' ' ' we find repre- 
 sentative government coupled with an irresponsible Executive ; 
 we find the same constant collision between the branches of 
 the Government, the same abuse of the powers of the repre- 
 sentative bodies, owing to the anomaly of their position, aided 
 by the want of good municipal institutions, and the same 
 constant interference of the imperial administration in 
 matters which should be left wholly to the provmcial govern- 
 ment.' 
 
 The tendency amongst all young colonies when left to 
 themselves has been towards centralisation to a far greater 
 extent than is desirable, but it has, on the other hand, been 
 largely neutralised by the control exercised over Government 
 proceedings by an unrestricted franchise and by unlimited 
 freedom of speech. The centralisation has never taken the 
 form of a concentrating of power in the hands of a small 
 knot of officials, but rather that of grouping in the hands of a 
 popular Assembly a great deal of the business which might 
 more advantageously be conducted by private enterprise. 
 
 Where the work of the politician is mainly constructive, 
 and where, side by side with central business management, a 
 vigorous principle of local self-government is to be found, the 
 danger that looms ahead is not perceived because not imme- 
 diately apparent, but it is nevertheless, even there, a very real 
 one. There is always the imminent risk of the central Govern- 
 ment, entrusted with a large share of the national business, 
 extending the area of its influence by increasing the amount 
 of patronage at its disposal. A class of officials is created 
 which, as it is dependent on Government employment, so it 
 influences the proceedings of Government. As the circle of 
 State employes becomes larger, so they will fetter the free 
 action of a ]\Iinistry by claims for an increase of the area of 
 employment for their services — claims which, with each fresh 
 
 ' EciJort, p. 139.
 
 86 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 concession, become increasingly more difficult to be resisted. 
 An official class nominally dependent on the State may thus at 
 some future period become its controller, even in those coun- 
 tries rejoicing in the freest institutions. 
 
 Local institutions for self-government are worth little 
 unless invested with a full share of responsibility. The prin- 
 ciple of responsibility is weakened if the central Government 
 is allowed to take upon itself any part of the local business for 
 which the smaller authority is able satisfactorily to provide. 
 Thus in the matter of local roads, local improvements, and 
 local expenditure, the central Government should not be per- 
 mitted to interfere, at least not to such an extent as to lessen 
 the responsibility of the local officers. That principle is 
 recognised and acted upon now in England, if not in Ireland. 
 Unfortunately, in our free colonies the tendency is towards 
 encouraging the assistance and interference of the central body _^ 
 in district business. 
 
 It may be that the causes of this difference are not far to 
 seek. At home a bitter experience has given an irresistible 
 impulse to decentralisation. In some of our colonies, inex- 
 perience of the evils of centralised government has perhaps 
 been the cause that has prompted a resort to it. But in 
 truth the habit was implanted in many of the colonies by the 
 circumstances of their first foundation, as immediately depen- 
 dent on the Crown, and the traditions of the Colonial Office 
 may have thriven in antipodean soil unconscious of the 
 parentage from which they sprung. There is, however, quite 
 enough in the history of the natural development of a colony, 
 however free, to account for an indisposition on the part of 
 individuals to burden themselves with the cares of government 
 on even the smallest scale. They generally live far apart from 
 each other, and concern themselves little about the business 
 of neighbours the nearest of whom are remotely situated. 
 The new settler usually considers himself a mere bird of 
 passage — encamped, not settled — and he takes no more than a 
 passing interest in the affairs of the country as a whole, or in 
 the local concerns of his own part of it, so long as he is left in 
 peace and quiet. In Australia, where there has never been a
 
 IMPERIAL MISRULE IN CANADA. 87 
 
 dangerous assemblage of savage hordes fringing the borders of 
 the squatters' run, the reasons which stimulated local associa- 
 tion in the American colonies to prevent molestation, and 
 which ultimately led to a degree of local organisation, do 
 not exist. The Australian squatter was left in peace, and 
 had little inducement to associate closely with fellow-settlers 
 in his vicinity. He had neither motive nor wish to do so, and 
 he was still more unwilling to take long and tedious journeys 
 to the seat of government in order to discuss matters colonial, 
 or to arrange for local institutions in which he did not consider 
 that he, as an individual, was personally and directly in- 
 terested. 
 
 Again, in a new colony the majority of the early settlers, 
 especially if the country is a pastoral one, are fairly prosperous, 
 and therefore are not easily worked up to political agitation. 
 They are content to leave the rule of the country in the hands 
 of those in the vicinity of the seat of government ; and thus it 
 is that the leading centre of population first absorbs the repre- 
 sentation of the colony, then undertakes through its Assembly 
 the conduct of public works, and gradually usurps the authority 
 of the local ruling bodies. 
 
 These are evils which will, in the Colonies, doubtless find 
 their remedies, but they must first have produced sufficiently 
 injurious effects to make a remedy a pressing necessity. That 
 is to say, the evils consequent on centralisation will not be 
 thought worthy of being cured until they have worked a good 
 deal of harm to the colonial community. 
 
 Let us not underrate the pohtics of a vestry. The in- 
 terests of a nation are those of the individuals composing it. 
 The desire to better one's own self is at the root of national 
 success ; individual efforts in the direction of the promotion of 
 private interests form the only groundwork of natural pros- 
 perity, and these eftbrts are better capable of being seconded 
 by small local bodies in the business of which each member 
 is personally concerned than by an Imperial Parliament or a 
 Representative Public Legislature. 
 
 A system of local and municipal self-government, if
 
 88 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 properly guarded from encroachment, promotes the growth 
 and spread of the very virtues which the official central 
 system represses. If the area of local rule be sufficiently 
 limited, the settlers enter with ardour into questions, of every- 
 day life, where it is in their own power to promote their own 
 well-being. Every new district institution or improvement 
 settled or discussed is a fresh step onward in the political 
 and general education of men who perhaps for the first time 
 find their voices influential in the resolution of measures 
 affecting others besides themselves. They learn that if they 
 take they must also give, that if they live they must also let 
 live. So a spirit, if not of sympathy, at least of toleration, is 
 generated, while collectively a sense of responsibility and self- 
 reliance takes the place of sulky obedience to the central 
 power. As local privileges become more extended, so the 
 jealousy of any interference with them becomes more pro- 
 nounced. The interest as well as the duty of a people en- 
 trusted with the making of its own local regulations is to 
 maintain the laws and preserve order. From liberty, the 
 liberty of complete local self-government, and from that 
 alone, spring order, contentment, and prosperity.
 
 89 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND, PAUPEE EMIGEATION 
 
 TO CANADA. 
 
 In new countries the business of deepest moment to all, upon 
 wliicli indeed everything else depends, is the disposal of the 
 public land. If it be doled out sparmgly ^\^th niggard 
 hand, the community, however small, may be pinched for 
 room even in the ^^Iderness. New-comers may be prevented 
 from choosing the most fertile soils and favourable situations 
 within reach, and the society may, even at its foundation, 
 endure the evils of an old and overpeopled State. 
 
 Or large tracts of land may be lavished upon speculators 
 and favourites, who leave their lands unsettled and mitouched 
 while they may forbid the use of them to others. By acts 
 such as these the bond fide settler may be cut off or far 
 removed from markets in which to dispose of his surplus 
 produce and procure other commodities ; and the greatest ob- 
 stacles may be opposed ' to co-operation in labour, to exchange, 
 to the division .of employments, to combination for municipal 
 or other public purposes, to the growth of towns, to public 
 worship, to regular education, to the spread of news, to the 
 acquisition of common knowledge, and even to the civilising 
 influences of mere intercourse for amusement. Monotonous 
 and stagnant indeed must ever be the state of a people who 
 are permanently condemned to such separation from each 
 other.' ^ 
 
 Of the two methods, the evils of the latter are unquestion- 
 ably the greater. It may at first attract population and 
 generate a delusive appearance of prosperity over the youthful 
 colony, but it will certainly ultimately retard settlement to a 
 
 ' Eeport of Lord Durham, p. 145.
 
 90 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 much greater degree than it originally stimulated it. Further, 
 it will ine\'itably leave behind it a train of unfortunate con- 
 sequences, of which the history of land settlement in Canada 
 furnishes numerous examples. It is not the intention here 
 to point out the pernicious policy of the lavish system further 
 than it is illustrated by the state of the Canadas under it. 
 In treating of land settlement in Australia, I propose to dis- 
 cuss briefly the merits and demerits of different modes of 
 alienation of public lands. Suffice it to show, in the present 
 chapter, how pregnant with mischief was the course actually 
 pursued in our Canadian dominions. No better example 
 could be chosen, and none has been more exliaustively treated 
 by the Eeport of a high official whose interest no less than 
 his inclination furnish a sufficient guarantee against his 
 sweeping condemnation being dictated by prejudice or couched 
 in terms unnecessarily strong. 
 
 A lavish mode of free granting of land involves a careless 
 dealing with it. The physical features of a new and vast 
 country, heavily timbered and abounding in every variety of 
 natural formation, require careful and intelligent surveying in 
 order to figure in accurate scale on the plan which points the 
 new-comer's destination. If the boundaries of property are 
 incorrectly described, the settlement of land may be the sig- 
 nal for a plentiful store of litigation, which, though it may 
 furnish an irresistible attraction to lawyers, must be prejudi- 
 cial to the order and harmony of the settled districts. Men 
 engaged in lawsuits with each other will be unlikely to form 
 associations for purposes of local management of the affairs of 
 a district, or even for recreation. Moreover, the intending 
 immigrant will be deterred from a colony where the decision 
 of a law court may at any time divest him of the fruitful 
 farm which he hopes to wrest from the wilderness. From 
 these considerations it would seem that the importance of 
 accurate surveying can hardly be overrated. Its absolute 
 necessity, indeed, becomes apparent enough from the mere 
 reflection that, without certainty of limits and boundaries, 
 there can be no security of title to property in land. How 
 the officials in whose hands was the disposal of public
 
 M.iLADMINISTEATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 91 
 
 lands in Canada recognised that obligation we shall presently 
 see. 
 
 Even supposing land to be unexceptionably surveyed, and 
 alienated mider the best possible system, the entire virtue of 
 the plan may be wrecked by there being mmecessary delay in 
 the granting of titles to land. Whatever delay takes place in 
 perfecting the titles of individuals occasions micertainty and 
 consequently insecurity of property. Circuitous and expensive 
 modes of application for titles are of themselves productive 
 of delay, and produce other evil consequences of their own, 
 not the least of which are those ' backstairs ' dealings so 
 savoury to official senses and so unlikely to be practised with 
 effect except by wealthy colonists of the speculator class. 
 
 It is eminently desirable that land alienation shou^ld be 
 conducted on a coherent plan, and that that plan should as 
 far as possible be uniformly applied. ' If very different 
 methods of proceeding have effect in the same colony, or in 
 different parts of the same group of colonies, the operation of 
 some can hardly fail to interfere with or counteract the 
 operation of others,' • 
 
 However dear conflicting differences of system may be to 
 the legal mind, they undoubtedly operate injuriously on the 
 dispositions of men not brought up to regard the technicalities 
 of varying forms of land tenures as affording ready means of 
 subsistence. The thrifty emigrant, the man who calculates 
 his future carefully beforehand, is the one whose entrance 
 into a colony it should be the object of any colonial Govern- 
 ment to encourage, and it is just this class of immigrant 
 whom an absence of system, a total want of uniformity, or a 
 frequent change of system will most tend to discourage. On 
 the other hand, variations of system are no bar to the advent 
 of people of the ' shovelled-out ' pauper class, equally careless 
 of the future as improvident in the present. 'Frequent 
 changes of system,' observes Lord Durham, 'are apt to be 
 very injurious, not only by probably displeasing those who 
 either obtain land just before, or desire to obtain some just 
 after, each change, but also by giving a character of irregularity, 
 
 ' Bc]port, p. lio.
 
 92 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 uncertainty, or even mystery to the most important proceedings 
 of Government. In this way, too, settlement and emigration 
 are discom-aged, inasmuch as the people are deprived of all 
 confidence in the permanency of the system and are unac- 
 quainted with any of the temporary methods.' ' 
 
 A lavish mode of disposing of the public lands is sure to 
 be accompanied with an extreme absence of impartiality in 
 effecting the distribution. The authority which gives away 
 the land in vast areas at a time will most certainly select as 
 the recipients of its gifts only those who are likely to be use- 
 ful to it. Eelatives and friends are provided for in this way, 
 and those influential and wealthy settlers whose opposition is 
 likely to prove troublesome are appeased by large grants of the 
 public estate. Thus a comparative few, and those in all pro- 
 bability with the least power and the least intention of turn- 
 ing their properties to good account, are favoured at the expense 
 of the mass of the community. A dangerous system of political 
 and purely speculative landlordism is early brought into pro- 
 minence. The sturdy cultivators, whose labour is the greatest 
 benefit that can be derived by the State, and who, however 
 harshly repressed, will in time constitute the most powerful 
 party in it, get at best but a scant unremunerative share in the 
 pickings. The inevitable result is a feeling of distrust of all 
 Government proceedings, eventuating in the general unpopu- 
 larity of the ruling powers, if not in positive acts of secret or 
 open rebellion against them. 
 
 Nothing is more requisite to the well-being of a young 
 colony than that the disposal of its lands should be adminis- 
 tered by authorities trusted by and in sympathy mth the 
 people. It is only imder such a condition that the population 
 can either demand or expect a constant and regular supply 
 of new land in proportion to its wants, an equitable distribu- 
 tion of it, a ready adjustment of claims, uniformity or con- 
 stancy of system, or, in fact, any encouragement worthy of the 
 name being given to immigration and settlement. Lord 
 Durham's testimony is only that of one of a cloud of witnesses 
 to the statement that ' in the North-American colonies, as in 
 
 • Report, p. 146.
 
 MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 93 
 
 the United States, the function of authority most full of good 
 or evil consequences has been the disposal of public land.' 
 ' Therefore,' he might have added, ' it should be delegated to 
 those on whom the consequences fall.' The authorities 
 selected to superintend that business should therefore have 
 been composed of those individuals whose knowledge of and 
 sympathy with the people's earth-hunger was shown by the 
 popular choice having fallen on them as being peculiarly fitted 
 to deal with the question. Even Merivale, who certainly can- 
 not be accused of any antecedent prejudice against the Colonial 
 Office, where he drew an official salary, advocates the necessity 
 of giving up to the Colonies the charge of their own land 
 administration. Fortunately that has been done long since, 
 and the question once so fiercely debated has ceased to possess 
 more than a curious interest for the present generation, but 
 up to thirty years ago it was fiercely debated, both in the 
 Colonies and at home. However, at the period we are treat- 
 ing of, the entire power of the disposal of the public lands was 
 confided to the grasping hands of a set of officials distrusted 
 and detested by the people. Their acts furnish ample proof 
 of the vigour with which they set to work first to deserve and 
 then to repay that hatred by such ruinous misconduct m the 
 great charge committed to them that Merivale indignantly 
 asks, ' What public body after all could mismanage the lands 
 of its own demesne more than those of our American colonies 
 have been mismanaged by the Imperial Government ever since 
 their foundation ? ' 
 
 Let us thoroughly grasp the meaning of the term Imperial 
 Government. It was imperious rather than imperial. It was 
 the remorseless sway of the permanent unknown official that 
 was here typified. Between him and colonial Officialdom 
 there was a secret all-powerful bond — kept ahve by patronage 
 on the one hand, by the fruits of patronage on the other. For 
 the official mind the vast colonial estates of the empire repre- 
 sented only opportunities for private corruption, jobbery, and 
 plunder, and these it utilised to the very uttermost. 
 
 We shall see how systematically every principle that we 
 consider it necessary to observe in ahenating the public land
 
 94 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 was violated in Canada, to the infinite detriment of that 
 colony, and side by side we may use for comparison the pro- 
 gress of the adjoining United States under a consistent plan 
 based on rational, because natural, maxims. 
 
 In the United States ever since 1796, the disposal of land 
 not already appropriated to particular States had been strictly 
 regulated by a law of Congress. In British North Araerica, 
 with one partial exception, there never was any law on the 
 subject till 1827. The Imperial Parliament only interfered 
 once to enact the ' unhappy system ' ^ of Church Eeserves. The 
 Provincial Assemblies never exercised any control in the 
 matter, so that the Lords of the Treasury and the Colonial 
 Secretary for the time being — that is, the permanent unknown 
 official — were the only legislators, and the provincial agents 
 of the permanent gentleman, responsible to him alone, were 
 the only executors. 
 
 ' The system of the United States,' says Lord Durham,^ 
 ' appears to combine all the chief requisites of the greatest 
 efficiency. It is miiform throughout the vast federation ; it is 
 unchangeable save by Congress, and has never been materially 
 altered ; it renders the acquisition of new land easy, and yet 
 by means of a price restricts appropriation to the wants of the 
 settler ; it is so simple as to be readily understood ; it pro- 
 vides for accurate surveys and against needless delays ; it 
 gives an instant and secure title ; and it admits of no favour- 
 itism, but distributes the public property amongst all classes 
 upon precisely equal terms.' 
 
 The British North- American colonies, on the other hand, 
 suffered from the entire want of any system. Many different 
 methods had been practised, not only in the different colonies, 
 but in every colony at different times, and within the same 
 colony at the same time. The greatest diversity and the most 
 frequent alterations would almost seem to have been the ob- 
 jects in view. In one respect there was uniformity, and in 
 one alone. Everywhere the greatest profusion had taken 
 place, so that in every colony and almost in every part of each 
 colony more, and very much more, land had been alienated 
 » Beport, p. 148. ^ Ibid. p. 148.
 
 MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 95 
 
 by the Government than the grantees ever could have the 
 means of reclaiming from a state of wilderness, or the oppor- 
 tmiities for attempting to cultivate. Yet in all of the colonies 
 it .was difficult and sometimes next to impossible for a person 
 of no influence, however willing to become a bon& fide culti- 
 vator, to gain a title to any land against the superior claims 
 of unscrupulous speculators. 
 
 The man who was fortunate enough to obtain a promise 
 of a land grant after much intriguing had, in addition, to 
 undergo a harassing delay before the title was made out to 
 him. In the United States the title to land purchased of the 
 Government was obtained immediately and without delay. 
 But in the British Colonies there was always a great deal of 
 useless formality to be gone through before a complete title 
 could be procured, even to land that had been paid for. 
 These formalities were accompanied with expenses in the 
 nature of fees to lawyers and costs to officials which, of 
 course, had to be taken into account in estimating the price 
 paid for the land. The longer the delay and the more com- 
 plicated the formal proceedings, the greater the legal and 
 official perquisites. It is not surprising, then, to learn that, 
 although eight years was considered an utterly abnormal 
 length of time to perfect the process of the completion of the 
 title, the average period requisite for that purpose, after the 
 whole of the purchase-money had been paid, was fully fifteen 
 months. During all these months the purchaser would have 
 no right to enter on the land, and the labour v/hich might 
 have been employed in raising a surplus produce capable of 
 extending industries at home was exercised in dangling 
 listlessly about in official ante-rooms. 
 
 When the settler had at length secured his right to take 
 up his land, he found that in consequence of the almost ' in- 
 credible ' ^ inaccuracy with which it had been surveyed, it 
 was next to impossible for him to claim his supposed bound- 
 aries without trespassing on the limits of his neighbour's 
 properties. Or else he discovered that he was liable to be 
 divested at any time of his holding by some later comer 
 
 ' Report, p. 149. - Ibid. p. 167.
 
 96 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 whose boundaries, as delineated on the Government plan, 
 conflicted with his own. Litigation therefore became the 
 first and most important business of each settler. It was the 
 interest of the official class to further the litigious spirit, for 
 the members of it were themselves lawyers as a rule, and 
 devio'us were the traps they laid for stimulating that spirit 
 into existence. This was effected by selling lands as nomin- 
 ally surveyed where in fact there never had been any survey 
 taken ; or, again, by making grants to different purchasers 
 for the same lot of land. Purchasers were circumvented in 
 every way. In some places ' the lots, instead of running per- 
 pendicularly according to the diagram, actually ran diagonally. 
 In others, again, the lots dividing the ranges were so irregular 
 as to give to some lots several times the contents of others, 
 although all were nominally equal in extent ; and in places the 
 area of some lots was taken up entirely with lakes which had 
 been altogether omitted from the plan.' So inextricable was 
 the confusion into which the surveying department had been 
 allowed to fall, so inefficient was its constitution, that Lord 
 Durham abstained from interfering with it, believing it to be 
 ' incapable of any valuable improvement.' ^ 
 
 It was not till 1827 that any attempt was made to super- 
 sede the old system of free grant by that of sale. Up to that 
 date the scandalous proceedings connected with lavish grants 
 to official favourites had been allowed to go on unchecked. 
 About half of the surveyed lands in Upper and Lower Canada 
 had thus been alienated, not to thrifty husbandmen, but to 
 loyalists — i.e. refugees from the United States who settled in 
 the provinces before 1787 — and to their children, to militia- 
 men, discharged soldiers and sailors, legislative councillors 
 and their families, to naval and military officers, to barristers 
 and solicitors, to contractors, to favourites or their heirs. To 
 Mr. Gushing and another were given upwards of 100,000 acres 
 as a reward for giving information in a case of high treason. 
 In short, half of the .surveyed land, comprising the most 
 fertile and best situated portions, was given to just those very 
 people who were utterly unfitted by their station, sex, or 
 ' Beimi, p. 171. - Ibid. p. 159.
 
 MALADMINISTEATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 97 
 
 infirmities from dwelling on tlieir grants or cultivating tliem 
 with success. Many of the grants to loyalists were to un- 
 married females. It was estimated that not one-tenth of the 
 lands granted to loyalists had been ever occupied by the 
 grantees. Of the remaining grants it was asserted that nine- 
 teen-tAventieths had hardly ever been approached by their 
 owners. Had the proprietors simply been incapable of work, 
 and so had they indulged in the practice usual with them of 
 selling their holdings for a trifling sum or a few bottles of 
 rum to others who could, and would work them, the in- 
 jurious consequences might not have been so great. But the 
 purchasers for rum were the officials themselves, who thus 
 monopolised in their own hands most of the grants, in addition 
 to those they had conferred upon themselves by free gift. 
 These they held as land-jobbers in view of the value which 
 future settlement would give them. 
 
 It has been urged by Merivale that purely speculative 
 purchases of land are economically disadvantageous only where 
 the capital employed in the speculation has been withdrawn 
 from some productive use.' But the disadvantage is, in 
 reality, far more serious, and consists in the prevention 
 oft'ered by land speculation to putting labour, wdiich in 
 new countries is the highest form of capital, to the produc- 
 tive use of land cultivation. The land-jobbers in Canada 
 not only did not work their OAvn estates, but they prevented 
 others from doing so until the pressure of increasing popu- 
 lation made it worth their while to sell small portions. 
 Further, they put every obstacle in the way of permitting 
 roads or bridges to be made across their extensive wastes, 
 in order to force up land values by restricting the colonists 
 within a small centre, and also with the object of prevent- 
 ing the acquisition of ' rights of way ' by the general public, 
 which might be considered as taking away from the price 
 that an intending purchaser might be willing to give. In 
 this way alone, amongst others, land-jobbers can effectually 
 retard settlement, and prevent the development of the re- 
 sources of the country. In doing so they enforce the loss of 
 
 ' MerJ\ale on Colonisation, Lecture XV. 
 H
 
 98 BONDS OF DISUNION, 
 
 infinitely more wealth than the capital expended on the pur- 
 chase of land would have represented if otherwise productively 
 employed. It must be remembered, too, that the enhanced 
 price on the resale of portions goes entirely into the land- 
 jobber's pocket, who thus enriches himself at the expense of 
 tlie bona fide cultivator, and thereby subtracts from the power 
 of the latter to accomplish his ends. Economically considered, 
 land speculation is a tax upon progress in a new country 
 which, if not utterly destructive of its prospects in the imme- 
 diate future, is deeply injurious to its ultimate well-being. 
 
 Of the moral evils of speculation, Mr. Merivale takes a 
 view with which • there can be no disagreement. To use his 
 own words, ' it consists in the feverish excitement which it 
 communicates to all transactions of ordinary business ; the 
 impatience of slow results ; the restless disposition ; the lan- 
 guid inattention to regular labours which it infuses into the 
 spirit of all classes ; the enormous and discreditable puffery ' 
 to which speculators resort to increase the value of their 
 lands, which is sure to raise extravagant expectations in the 
 first instance, and then to end in discouragement and dis- 
 appointment.' 
 
 The land-jobbing class ruled supreme in all the British 
 North- American colonies, and in no case was their influence 
 more marked than when practically the whole of Prince 
 Edward's Island, comprising an area of over 1,500,000 acres, 
 was granted away to a feAv individuals, chiefly absentees, in 
 the course of a single day. ' 
 
 The local Executive could always calculate on the indiffer- 
 ence of the home Government to its proceedings so long as 
 it confined oppression and injustice to the most defenceless 
 members of the community. It made bold, therefore, to 
 modify provisions made by the home Government for land 
 grants to disbanded militia- men who had served throughout 
 the great European wars at the commencement of the cen- 
 tury. By interposing expensive and harassing delays in the 
 way of the grants, which made them worth nothing at all, 
 the local Executive, in fact, violated the instructions received 
 
 » Report, p. 175.
 
 MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 99 
 
 from the mother-country as effectively as if obedience to them 
 had been dehberately refused. 
 
 Of course, with a Grovernmental cKque straining every 
 point so as to adjust the systems of land alienation to the 
 wants of its individual members, the people were willing 
 enough to imitate their example for their own private benefit. 
 Accordingly, we find that provisions made after the passing 
 of the Constitution Act that grants should not in general be 
 of more than 200 acres, and that under special circumstances 
 1,200 acres were to be the maximum of each, were most suc- 
 cessfully evaded. This evasion was effected by the system of 
 ' Leaders and Associates,' and was managed as follows : — A 
 petition signed by from ten to forty or fifty persons was pre- 
 sented to the Executive Council praying for a grant of 1,200 
 acres to each person, and promising to settle the lands ap- 
 plied for. Such petitions were always gi'anted, the Council 
 being perfectly aware that under a previous agreement between 
 the applicants — of which agreement the form was prepared by 
 the Attorney-G-eneral of the colony, and sold publicly by the 
 law stationers of Quebec — five-sixths of the land was to be 
 conveyed to one of them, termed the ' leader,' by whose means 
 the grant was obtained. 
 
 It is to be regretted that history should abound with in- 
 stances of the desire of the clergy of a dominant Church to 
 extend the influence of their order by founding it on their 
 power as landoAvners. A spiritual power basing its authority 
 upon temporal wealth is but too likely to lose in reverence 
 what it gains in worldly resources. Be that as it may, the 
 clergy of established religions in Canada, if not possessed of 
 the former, were certainly favoured with a fair share of the 
 latter. 
 
 The system of clergy reserves was established by the Act 
 of 1791, commonly called the Constitutional Act, which 
 directed that in respect of all grants made by the Crown a 
 quantity equal to one-seventh of the land so granted should 
 be reserved for the clergy. These clergy reserves alternated 
 with Government reserves Hke the^ squares on a chessboard, 
 and the effect of both was to witlihold so much laud £i-om 
 
 H 2
 
 100 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 settlement and to keep it in a state of wilderness. A perpetual 
 contest was kept up between the clergy of different denomina- 
 tions for the exclusive monopoly of the reserves, and the 
 Protestant Established Church got the best of the struggle, 
 inasmuch as the forms of its religion were most out of harmony 
 with the views of the colonists. In violation of the Constitu- 
 tional Act a quantity equal to one-sixth of the land granted in 
 Upper Canada was set apart for clergy reserves, and in the 
 Lower Province the clergy had reserved for them half as much 
 again as they ought to have had. The method of making 
 these reservations was as bad a one as could have been devised. 
 Every second or third lot was reserved alternately — one for the 
 Crown, one for the Church — so the settler found himself hedged 
 in on either side by mioccupied wastes, across which it was 
 neither within his ability or legal right to make roads. Even 
 if roads were constructed by Government there was no ^ 
 machinery for keeping them in repair. There was not in ' 
 Canada any local taxation for local works, and the modes 
 adopted for raising funds for those purposes were, in Upper 
 Canada, frequent turnpikes, to which in the LoAver Province 
 was added the venerable plan of corvee, or statutory com- 
 pulsory labour for so many days in the year. ■ It is stated in 
 the ' Poeport ' that, solely in consequence of the badness of roads 
 but a little way from the great towns, it cost more to send 
 wheat a distance of eighty or ninety miles, in many places, 
 than it would have cost to send the same quantity of wheat 
 from Montreal to England, and to have it ground there and 
 returned. A barrier wider than the Atlantic itself was thus 
 interposed between places which in these days of swift com- 
 munication would be next door to each other, and might even 
 then have been near neighbours. After 1821 a certain amount 
 of consolidation of the blocks was effected, but with little 
 beneficial result ; and although a part of the reserves were sold 
 from time to time, the last vestige of the system was not swept 
 away by the absorption of the funds resulting from the sale of 
 the reserves into the general revenues of the colony till 1856. 
 
 In July 1827 in.structions were sent out by Lord Goderich 
 to discontinue grants of land in future, and to substitute a
 
 MALADMINISTRATION OF CANADIAN LAND. 101 
 
 nniform system of sale. This was a well-directed purpose to 
 which the home authorities had been compelled to give their 
 attention through fears of rebellion in Canada. These in- 
 structions were further confirmed in 1831, and further evaded, 
 to such a degree, indeed, that between 1827 and 1839 the 
 quantity of land disposed of by free grant in Upper Canada in 
 respect of real or pretended antecedent claims Avas twenty 
 times that of the land sold. Two milhon acres v.'ere granted 
 against one hundred thousand sold. Li Lower Canada also, 
 the object of the new rule of selling was completely defeated 
 by the large number of free grants.' 
 
 As a result of long misgovernment, the administration of 
 the public lands, instead of alw^ays yielding a revenue, cost for 
 a long while more than the land sales produced. ' But this 
 is,' says the ' Eeport,' ^ ' a trifling consideration when com- 
 pared with others, I allude to the striking contrast which 
 is presented between the British and American frontier lines 
 in respect to every sign of productive industry, increasing 
 wealth, and progressive civilisation.' 
 
 On the American side all was activity and bustle. The 
 forest had been widely cleared ; every year numerous settle- 
 ments were formed and thousands of farms were created out 
 of the waste ; the country was intersected by roads ; canals 
 and railroads were finished, or in the course of formation ; the 
 ways of communication and transport were crowded with 
 people and enlivened by numerous carriages and large steam- 
 boats. Bridges, artificial landing-places, and commodious 
 wharfs were formed on the lake frontages as soon as required. 
 Tov^aiships were growing apace, and the stability and magniii- 
 cence of their buildings might have done credit to populated 
 centres of the Old World. On the British side, A\ith the 
 exception of a few favoured spots where some approach to 
 American prosperity was apparent, all was waste and desolate.^ 
 There was but one railroad in all British America, and that 
 one was only fifteen miles in length. The ancient city of 
 Montreal could not bear comparison with some of the most 
 recent American cities. The difference was, however, most 
 
 ' Report, p. 165. 2 Ibid. p. 150. ' Ibid. p. 151.
 
 102 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 » 
 
 manifest in the country districts. On the Canadian side was 
 a widely scattered population, poor, and apparently unenter- 
 prising, though hardy and industrious, separated from each 
 other by tracts of intervening forest, mthout towns or 
 markets, almost without roads, living in mean houses, drawing 
 little more than a rude subsistence from ill-cultivated land, 
 and seemingly incapable of improving their condition. In the 
 eastern townships of Lower Canada, upon the border Ime, it 
 was a common practice for settlers when they wished to meet, 
 to enter the State of Vermont, and make use of the roads there 
 for the purpose of reaching their destination in the British 
 province.^ 
 
 Throughout the fi'ontier the market value of land was 
 much greater on the American than on the British side. The 
 average difference was ' notoriously several hundred per cent.,' 
 and in some cases amounted to over a thousand per cent. 
 The price of wild land in Vermont and New Hampshire, close 
 to the fi'ontier, was five dollars per acre, and in the adjoining 
 British toivnsliips only one dollar. In Canada a great deal of 
 land was totally unsaleable even at such low prices, while in 
 the States property was contmually changing hands. Not 
 only was land almost unsaleable, but it was impossible to 
 obtain money on mortgage of land, because when a sale was 
 forced there was no certainty as to the value, since at the 
 time there might be a perfect glut of land in the market, and 
 no purchasers. And this though, on the whole, superior 
 natural fertility belonged to the British territory. In Upper 
 Canada the whole of the great peninsula between Lakes Erie 
 and Huron, comprising nearly half the available land of the 
 province, consists of gently undulating alluvial soil, and, with 
 a smaller proportion of inferior land than probably any other 
 tract of similar extent in that part of North America, it was 
 generally considered the best grain country on the whole 
 continent. The soil of the border townships of Lower Canada 
 was allowed to be superior to that of the neighbouring 
 American States ; while the lands of New Brmiswick, equal 
 in natural fertility to those of Maine, enjoyed superior natural 
 
 ' Report, p. 152.
 
 PAUPEE EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 103 
 
 means of communication.^ If there had been any difference 
 between the two countries due to natural causes, it ought to 
 have been in favour of Canada. The difference, such as it 
 actually was, was the result of radically bad misgovernment, 
 and the same cause drove a large proportion of the people out 
 of the colony and into the United States, where the induce- 
 ments offered to emigrants by a beneficial system of local self- 
 government were so far superior. 
 
 The theory of the day was that Colonies existed only for 
 the benefit of the home country — an estimable theory and one 
 worthy of being thoroughly worked out. The only way in 
 which the mother-comitry could benefit by her Colonies was 
 through their prosperity ; yet they were regarded as useful in 
 promoting the prosperity of England by beiiig themselves made 
 unprosperous. Infirm paupers, of the class least capable of 
 helping themselves, were to be shovelled out to colonies 
 where self-help tv^as a sine qua non of existence, in order that 
 England might be supplied with a new and profitable market 
 for her surplus manufactures. The rulers of the day ignored 
 entirely the fact that Avithout exchange there can be no com- 
 merce, that non-producing colonists can never be customers 
 at aU, and consistently strove to foster a colonial market by 
 remittances of paupers physically incapacitated from earning 
 their o^vn livelihood, much less of raising produce wherewith 
 to purchase even articles of necessity from home. 
 
 The labour of a young and active man is v\^orth far more 
 in every way in a new and fertile country than it would be at 
 home. Under favourable conditions he can soon hope to 
 raise far more produce than suffices for his own consumption. 
 He quickly finds himself in want of home commodities, which 
 the results of his own labour enable him to purchase, at a 
 handsome profit to the provider of his necessities. The more 
 capable he is of work, the greater becomes his purchasing power, 
 the more ambitious is his scale of requirements and the larger 
 are his demands upon the home market. Business at home 
 is quickened and extended by the new and remunerative call 
 upon it. The area of employment is enlarged, and goes on 
 
 ' Bepoi-t, p. 153.
 
 104 BONDS OF DISU^ilON. 
 
 enlarging in proportion to the increased activity of labour on 
 the soil of some far distant settlement. Whole families who 
 previously were starving from want of employment, or im- 
 pelled to criminality by insufficiency of food, now find constant 
 occupation at paying wages, and widespread pauperism is 
 resolved into general prosperity. Such is the true develop- 
 ment of the theory that our Colonies ought to exist for the 
 benefit of the home country. Let our object be t6 induce our 
 most vigorous and intelligent labourers to emigrate and so to 
 improve the lot of those left behind, if we would not make of 
 colonisation what it has too often been — a disgrace and a 
 burden to the kingdom, as well as a scarecrow to the working- 
 man. 
 
 But there is another benefit, which, though less easily 
 apparent, accrues with unfailing certainty to the country from 
 the freedom and prosperity of such colonies. It is to be^ 
 found in the moral effect exercised upon the home population 
 by the constant intercourse with societies freer and happier 
 than their own. As their standard of living is raised by more 
 constant and better-paid work, so also is the desire strength- 
 ened of securing for themselves more advantageous situations 
 in life. The more prosperous the condition of the w^orking 
 classes, the more they are likely to claim for themselves a 
 share in the legislation which affects them as the bulk of the 
 community — that is, in all legislation. Not by those violent 
 measures which are the sole resort of a proletariat, to 
 whom misery and oppression have left no other resource, but 
 by the gradual assertion of rights which flow naturally from 
 the improved intelligence to which prosperity gives birth. 
 
 It would be a small gain, were the working classes merely 
 made contented with a better state of things. What is to be 
 desired is that they should be made more active in interesting 
 themselves in the regulation of their own affairs, as being the 
 affairs of the nation. That this is certain to follow on ' pro- 
 sperity ' is evident if we consider the actual meaning of the 
 term. Greater commercial activity is productive of improve- 
 ments in means of communication, and with them of improved 
 facilities for information. As the opportunities for exchange
 
 PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 105 
 
 of commodities are rendered easier and more plentiful, so also 
 will ideas and aspirations be more freely exchanged. Social 
 meetings will embrace a wider circle, anomalous or unjust 
 conditions of life ^\all be rendered more apparent and more 
 intolerable by comparison Avitli those of others more for- 
 tunately situated, while combination for purposes of redress 
 will be more influential because more numerously supported, 
 and because capable of being illustrated by a greater number 
 of individual instances. The social meeting is the germ of 
 the political association, and this last can now speak with an 
 authority which lends weight to its assertions, while the 
 knowledge of its power procures for it leaders of worth and 
 ability fitted to achieve its ends by moderation and firm- 
 ness. For example and guidance they cast their eyes to 
 distant lands where a free and vigorous British nationality 
 has established popular institutions and popular laws. Out 
 of the colonial statute-books they cull precedents for English 
 use, and laugh at the venerable fictions or convenient 
 metaphors which once did yeoman duty for political maxims. 
 In all these results the meaning of national ' prosperity ' is 
 involved. Thus it is then that our Colonies may benefit us 
 by improving our social conditions, as also by giving us back 
 precedents of legislative virtue and wisdom in return for the 
 boon of encouraging a healthy vigorous emigration and of 
 leaving them unhindered to manage their own affairs. Had 
 not our rulers of a few decades back been alike indifferent 
 to the wants and sufferings of the people, this must have 
 been the basis on which they would have promoted colonisa- 
 tion, for their failings were more due to an entire absence 
 of sympathy with national requirements than to deficiency in 
 reasoning powers. 
 
 Not so very many years ago, however, the view generally 
 taken of emigration is clearly enough expressed in some of the 
 conclusions arrived at by the Select Committee of 1827, on 
 Emigration. Eeferring to the proposal of the ]\Ianufacturers' 
 Relief Committee to subscribe 25,000/. for the purpose of 
 assisting emigration, provided a further sum of 50,000/. could 
 be obtained from other sources, the Commissioners lay down
 
 106 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 as a rule ' that private or local contributions in some shape 
 ought to form the basis of any system of emigration to which 
 it may be expedient for this Committee to recommend any 
 assistance from the national funds.' ' But they immediately 
 proceed to break through the salutary principle so preten- 
 tiously laid down by recommending a national grant of 
 50,000^. from the rates for an ' immediate ' emigration, on 
 grounds of the peculiar urgency of the prevailing distress. 
 In truth, the Committee does not seem to have clearly 
 understood the meaning of its own rule, for, while deprecating 
 State assistance, it advocated the application of parish rates 
 to ' shove llmg-out ' rediuidant population. That there is a 
 distinction between the two methods may be admitted, but it 
 is one of degree and not of kind. The one is a form of State 
 aid as well as the other, and that of the parish was the more 
 objectionable of the two because of the greater power and - 
 desire of the local body to make emigration compulsory. 
 
 On economical grounds the exportation of paupers or 
 other emigrants by the State is not easily defensible. If 
 compulsory, no condemnation can be too strong for the 
 practice ; if voluntary, it will be accompanied either by the 
 retention of a lien on the emigrant's labour as a security for 
 the repayment of the passage-money, or by the offer of a free 
 grant of land as an inducement to him to pay for his own 
 passage. 
 
 In the former case he must be subjected to occasional 
 supervision by some subordinate official whose duty it is to 
 collect his instalments ; and usually he ends by refusing to 
 pay them at all, justly regarding their payment as an unfair 
 tax on his labour, while learning the lesson of dishonesty by 
 evading the fulfilment of his contract. In the latter case the 
 offer of a free grant is nothing short of a bonus on emigrants 
 exactly on a par with a bonus on the exportation of any 
 commodity. 
 
 The recommendations of the Commissioners were, however, 
 of too careless a nature to allow us to suppose that they 
 founded them on economical reasons. Throughout the Eeport 
 
 ' Second Eeiiort.
 
 PAUPER EMIGEATION TO CANADA. 107 
 
 it is evident that their object in deprecating State aid was to 
 shift the responsibihty of the conduct of emigration from 
 Parhament on to local bodies. 
 
 A Board of Emigration was to be appointed whose first 
 duty would be to examine into the claims of would-be emi- 
 grants. The man who could claim to be in a state of ' perma- 
 nent pauperism ' ' would be considered as most worthy of a 
 passage out to the Colonies. It seemed hardly necessary to 
 add that ' the emigi'ant chosen should be a person in con- 
 sequence of whose removal no diminution of production would 
 take place, although by such removal the expense of his main- 
 tenance would be saved to the community,' because people in 
 a state of ' permanent pauperism ' would, if judiciously chosen 
 with regard to that principle, consist very largely of the aged 
 and infirm, incapacitated from work of any kind. 
 
 It was anticipated that the number of English incapable 
 ' permanent paupers ' would not be sufficiently great to materi- 
 ally lessen the burdens of the home population ; so Ireland, as 
 being the principal pauper field, was first to be resorted to for 
 emigrants, and preference was to be given to Irish claims. 
 The Irish, it was alleged, were responsible for a great deal 
 of English misery by their constant influx into the United 
 Kingdom. This stream must be diverted elsewhere, and what ' 
 way could be better than by sending out shiploads of Irish as 
 burdens for colonial backs. Now this Irish influx was of 
 immense benefit to England and Scotland, for it furnished a 
 cheap and abundant supply of labour at harvest-time. But 
 for Corn Laws, this autumnal immigration would have helped 
 to considerably redu.ce the price of bread. The allegation that 
 these Irish harvesters added to the distress and misery of the 
 population was absurdly untrue. They were not paupers who 
 came over, and whilst in England they made and saved money. 
 They were, in fact, prosperous and well-to-do, ascompared with 
 the mass of the English labourers in the northern counties. 
 It is fair to suppose that the Commissioners were misinformed, 
 for they emphatically declare that ' it is vain to hope for any 
 permanent advantage from any system of emigration which 
 
 ' Third Report.
 
 108 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 does not primarily apply to Ireland, whose population, unless 
 some other ovitlet be opened to them, must shortly fill up every 
 vacuum created in England or m Scotland, and reduce the 
 working classes to a unifoiin state of degradation and misery.' ' 
 
 The Committee recommended that ' no assisted emigration 
 should be anything but voluntary.' '^ The capital advanced 
 for the purpose was to be repaid by the emigrant, but no able- 
 bodied paupers were to be assisted to emigrate. So, with the 
 obligation thrown on them of physical labour in order to re- 
 pay money advanced, only those were to be chosen who were 
 altogether incapable of work. This was the first regularly 
 appointed Parhamentary Committee, and its recommendations 
 ought to be engraved on a monumental tombstone raised by 
 some intelligent colonial community as a tribute to the legis- 
 lative incapacity and heartlessness of their former masters. 
 
 Paupers abounded in Ireland, and were to be picked up for . 
 the choosing by emigration agents, not from amongst those 
 who had the enterprise to voyage across St. George's Channel 
 in order to find temporary work for themselves in England 
 and Scotland, but amongst the most helplessly debased and 
 unthrifty earthworms of the cottier class. Ignorant and help- 
 less at the same tune, they furnished a ready prey for the un- 
 scrupulous contractors whose business it was to make a profit 
 for themselves out of the pauper cargoes exported. These 
 contractors got so much a head on each emigrant, and, de- 
 spite nominal regulations to the contrary, compressed as many 
 emigrants as possible mto the smallest available ship-room. 
 
 The tendency of these pauper shovellings-out was to make 
 the common people thmk of emigration with dislike, nay, even 
 terror. It was looked upon as a degradation, and its very 
 name was associated with a feehng of shame. And how could 
 it be otherwise when ' hundreds and thousands of pauper 
 famiUes walked in their rags from the quays of Liverpool and 
 Cork into ill-fomid, unsound ships, in which human beings 
 were crammed together in the empty space which timber was 
 to be stowed in on the homeward voyage. Ignorant themselves, 
 and misinformed by the Government of the requisites of such a 
 
 ' Second Eeport. " Third Report.
 
 PAUPER EMIGEATION TO CANADA, 109 
 
 voyage, they suffered throughout it from privation of necessary 
 food and clothing ; such privation, filth, and bad air were sure 
 to engender disease ; and the ships that reached their destina- 
 tion in safety deposited some contagious fever together with a 
 mass of beggary on the quays of Quebec and Montreal.' ' 
 
 So abominable had the condition of the emigrant shijis 
 become before the termination of the voyage, that the Inspectin g 
 Physician of the Port of Quebec alleged in evidence before a 
 colonial committee, that the ' harbour-master's boatmen had 
 no difficulty, either when the wind was favourable or in a dead 
 calm, in distinguishing by the odour alone a crowded emigraiit 
 ship.' 
 
 The death-rate on board, from typhus fever alone, at times 
 amounted to nearly ten per cent, of the total number of pas- 
 sengers, and from the same cause a far larger proportion were 
 afterwards received into hospital on shore, after having been 
 ruthlessly disgorged from their floating pent-house without 
 a shilling in their pockets, and with clean bills of health. For 
 six weeks at a time, the witness had known the shores of the 
 river along Quebec to be crowded with these unfortunate 
 people, the places of those who might have moved off being con- 
 stantly supphed by fresh arrivals, and ' there being daily drafts 
 of ten to thirty taken to the hospital with infectious disease.' 
 The consequence was its spread among the inhabitants of the 
 city, especially in the districts in which these mifortunates 
 had established themselves. Those who were not absolutely 
 without money got into low taverns and boardmg-houses and 
 cellars, where they congregated in immense numbers, and 
 where their condition was not any better than it had been on 
 board ship. This state of thmgs existed for many years prior 
 to 1882. * 
 
 According to Dr. Skey,- a regular importation of contagious 
 disease was continuously occurring. It originated on board 
 ship and was, in his opinion, occasioned by bad management, 
 
 ' Speech of Mr. Charles Buller in the House of Commons on Colonisa- 
 tion in 1S43. 
 
 - Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, and President of the Quebec 
 Emigrants Society.
 
 110 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 in consequence of the ships being ill found, ill provisioned, 
 overcrowded, and ill ventilated. ' I should say,' he adds, ' that 
 the mortality during the voyage has been dreadful ; to such an 
 extent that in 1834 the inhabitants of Quebec, taking alarm at 
 the number of shipAvrecks, at the mortahty of the passengers, 
 and the fatal diseases which accumulated at the quarantine 
 estabhshment and the Emigrant Hospital of this city, invohdng 
 the inhabitants of Quebec in the calamity, called upon the 
 Emigrant Society to take the subject into consideration and 
 make representations to the Government thereon.' 
 
 These occurrences took place under the Passengers Act, 
 which had been passed in 1825 and re-enacted in 1828. In 
 1835, in consequence of the strong remonstrances of the 
 colonists, an amended Act was passed containing some excel- 
 lent provisions, but so rarely were they enforced that under it 
 things went on pretty much as usual. It attempted to estab- 
 lish and maintain a proportion between the tonnage of ships 
 and the number of passengers to be can'ied. This direction 
 was simply ignored altogether in practice. No emigrant was 
 to be allowed on board without a sufficiency of some sorts of 
 provisions. Beyond those of the Act of Parliament, however, 
 they seldom took enough on board, despite the duty imposed 
 upon emigration agents of seeing to their sufficiency. Vessels 
 were chartered for emigration purposes by contractors whose 
 sole object was to make their cargoes pay, and in this laudable 
 endeavour a great part of their business operations consisted 
 in evading the Act. 
 
 The Act required that the name, sex, age, and occupa- 
 tion of each passenger should be entered in a list, certified to 
 by the customs officer at the outport, and delivered by the 
 captain with the sliip's papers to the customs officer at the 
 port of arrival. These lists were systematically falsified, 
 especially as to the ages of emigrants, so as to defraud 
 the revenue by avoidmg the full payment of the Emigration 
 Tax, which was levied in proportion to age ; and also for the 
 purpose of carrying more persons than the law allowed, by 
 comiting grown persons as children, of which last the regula- 
 tions permitted a greater proportion than of grown persons,
 
 PAUPEE EMIGEATION TO CANADA. Ill 
 
 to tonnage. ' This fraud,' says Lord Durham, ' is very com- 
 mon, of frequent occurrence, and it arises manifestly from 
 want of inspection at home.' ' 
 
 In 1837, after many thousands of innocent emigrants 
 had fallen victims to ofticial inattention and private avarice, 
 some improvement was effected in the shape of a Passenger 
 Tax, imposed in order to provide medical attendance, shelter, 
 and some means of transport on arrival to destitute emi- 
 grants. Also a quarantine station was establish at Grosse 
 Isle, where arriving sliips were to be regularly detained ' as 
 if the emigrants had departed from one of those Eastern 
 countries which are the home of the plague.' '^ 
 
 Will it be believed that in the Keport of the Emigration 
 Agent from the United Kingdom,^ it is stated, with reference 
 to that emigration to the Canadas before 1832 which has 
 been above described by eye-witnesses of the miseries and 
 calamities that then took place, that ' these great midtitudes 
 had gone out by their own means, and disposed of themselves 
 through their own efforts, without any serious or lasting in- 
 convenience "? 'A practice,' it is added, ' which appeared to 
 thrive so well spontaneously.' 
 
 The same Keport states, with reference to the operation of 
 the Passengers Act of 1835, that the duty of the oflicers 
 employed by the Colonial Office to superintend its execution 
 was ' to give ease and security to the resort to the Colonies 
 and to promote the observance of the salutary provisions of the 
 Act. ... In all that relates to emigration they constitute, 
 as it were, in every port, the appointed poor man's friend. 
 They take notice whether the ship offered for his conveyance 
 is safe and fit for the purpose ; they see to the sufficiency of 
 the provisions on board ; they prohibit overcrowduig, and 
 they make every effort to avert or to frustrate those numerous 
 and heartless frauds which are but .too constantly attempted 
 at the moment of departure upon the humbler classes of 
 emigrants. Every effort is made for the ease and safety of 
 their transit.' 
 
 ' Report, p. 180. "^ Ibid. p. 181. 
 
 3 Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, May 11, 1838.
 
 112 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 The Colonial Office confessed that ' heartless frauds ' had 
 been perpetrated, that they could not have been effected except 
 through the hicompetence and venality of officers appointed 
 by itself ; and yet it prompted this gross tissue of falsehoods 
 as a monument to its o\ni integrity, forethought, and huuianity. 
 
 These were not the views taken by people at Quebec, 
 where the majority of the passengers were landed. After the 
 date of this Report, Dr. Poole, who had been in charge of the 
 quarantine station at Grosse Isle for the preceding six years, 
 stated in his evidence before the Commissioners of Inquiry on 
 Cro^vn Lands and Emigration, that ' the poorer class of Irish 
 and the English paupers sent by parishes were, on the arrival 
 of vessels, in many instances entirely without provisions — so 
 much so that it was necessary to supply them with food from 
 the shore ; and some of these ships had already received food 
 and water fi'om ships with which they had fallen in. The 
 state of destitution to which they were thus brought, combined' 
 mth dirt and bad ventilation, invariably produced fevers of 
 a contagious character, and besides the deaths on the voyage, 
 numbers were admitted to hospital on arrival as suft'ering 
 from contagious diseases. The emigrant ship was almost 
 invariably a mere sponging-house, in which the captain 
 utilised his position to extort their little all from the emigrants, 
 by inducing them to lay in only a small store of provisions for 
 the voyage, and when these supplies were exhausted he seized 
 the opportmiity to supply them out of his own private stock 
 at 400 per cent, profit, until he had robbed them of their last 
 shilling. Yet, no doubt, there were plenty of respectable 
 captains employed in the lumber trade, and a proper selection 
 by tlie emigrant agent at home might have prevented this 
 abuse. 
 
 Another evil which Dr. Poole pointed out — namely, that of 
 employing as emigrant ships unseaworthy vessels, which con- 
 sequently, being unable to carry sail, made very long passages, 
 might easily have been minimised by very little expenditure 
 of trouble at home, since the tonnage of vessels coming to 
 Canada was in excess of emigi'ation requirements. He alludes 
 in conclusion to the incapacity of the medical officers appointed
 
 PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 113 
 
 to superintend the physical ailments of emigrant cargoes. 
 The majority of them were milicensed students and appren- 
 tices or apothecaries' shopmen, without sufficient knowledge 
 to be of any service to the emigrants, either for the prevention 
 or cure of diseases. To conceal their ignorance they often 
 combined with the captains to give false reports at the 
 quarantine station with respect to their ships. In one in- 
 stance amongst others, a vessel containing 150 emigrants was 
 returned as having a clean bill of health. On inspection 
 being made, upwards of forty cases of typhus fever were sent 
 to the hospital, of whom nine were then below in bed unable 
 to get up. ' Many of the others were placed against the 
 bulwarks to make a show of being m health, with pieces of 
 bread and hot potatoes in their hands.' 
 
 Sometimes the proofs of their utter want of the first rudi- 
 ments of medical knowledge were ludicrously illustrated by 
 their mode of treatment. Thus one of them returned the 
 captam of a ship and three passengers as sufi"ering from 
 fractured arms. These fractures, however, turned out on ex- 
 amination to be simple bruises. The surgeon, however, in- 
 sisted on his own mode of treatment, allegmg as proof of its 
 correctness that ' in the case of the captain ' both the tibia 
 and fibula of the arm were broken. As is well known, the 
 tibia and the fibula are both bones of the leg. 
 
 This, however, was not a laughing matter for thousands of 
 emigrant famiHes suffering from many forms of disease, com- 
 plicated by lowness of diet, and whose condition required 
 skilful and miremitting medical attention. Under the cir- 
 cumstances of utterly incompetent medical officers being 
 those generally selected for tliese ships, probably the death- 
 rate on board would have been even higher than it was had 
 the proportion of surgeons to emigrants been sufficiently large 
 to permit of anything like attendance on individual invalids. 
 
 A Government which induces thousands of people to emi- 
 grate ought to look after the means of transport, and it ought 
 to take at least as great care of the comforts, or at any rate 
 necessities, of those whom it sends abroad as a reward for 
 faithful service to the State. But nothing of the kind was
 
 114 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 done. In the years 1832 and 1833 some 3,000 old soldiers, 
 termed Commuted Pensioners, to whom grants of land had 
 been apportioned in Canada in lieu of their claims upon 
 Government, were compressed into hulks and shipped away. 
 No instructions with regard to them had been remitted to the 
 colonial authorities, and the pensioners consequently landed 
 at Quebec in an almost penniless condition and without any 
 provision having been made for them. ' Many of them spent 
 the amount of their commutation money in debauchery, or 
 were robbed of it when intoxicated.' Many never attempted 
 to settle upon the land awarded to them, and of those who 
 made the attempt, several were unable to discover where- 
 abouts in the wilderness their grants were situated. Many of 
 them sold their right to the land for a mere trifle, and were 
 left within a few weeks of their anrival in a state of absolute 
 want. Of the whole nmnber who landed in the colony, pro- 
 bably not one in three attempted to establish themselves on * 
 their grants, and not one in six remain settled there at the 
 present time ; the remainder generally lingered in the vicinity 
 of the principal to\vns, where they contrived to pick up a sub- 
 sistence by begging and occasional labour. Great numbers 
 perished miserably in the two years of cholera, or from dis- 
 eases engendered by exposure or privation and aggravated by 
 their dissolute habits. The majority of them have at length 
 disappeared.'' Thus the ignorant tools employed m manu- 
 facturing military glory for a triumphant nation were first 
 robbed of their earnings by an appreciative Government, and 
 contemptuously tossed away to die in degraded misery in a 
 distant grave. 
 
 In most transactions of human life a balance between good 
 and evil may be allowed for. In the Government conduct of 
 emigration the balance is weighed dowir heavily on one side, 
 for the inhumanity of their actions was uncompensated by one 
 good deed or one good result. Merciless injustice was un- 
 relieved by one single achievement of sound policy or one 
 solitary gleam of right principle. Enfeebled paupers were 
 shovelled out to territories where youth and activity might 
 
 ' Report, p. 189.
 
 PAUPER EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 115 
 
 have raised a golden harvest as well for the Old World as for 
 themselves. If our rulers could have known anything, they 
 must have known how large a proportion of the British popu- 
 lation depended at the time on the trade with the United 
 States. Without that trade what would have been the 
 size, wealth, and population of Manchester, Liverpool, or 
 Glasgow— in fact of all our great towns ? These were hard 
 facts which they must have seen, and had bi ought under their 
 notice day by day. Even at that time it could not have been 
 doubted that a prosperous Canada might have maintained a 
 large proportion of the home population. 
 
 Could the Governments of the time have in fact believed 
 that the ' over-peopling ' of the kingdom, while 300,000 helpless 
 mouths were every year being added to the population, could 
 ever be seriously diminished by even systematic and gigantic 
 emigration schemes ? It is only too probable that they were 
 sufficiently acquainted with the true principles on which 
 colonies could be made beneficial to the mother-country. If 
 so, they showed an indiiierence to the prosperity of England, 
 as well as of the Colonies, a general hatred of the human race 
 so great as to be almost incredible. They were well aware 
 that the effect of emigration must be to increase the home 
 population, unless the emigrants should be physically incapable 
 of becoming producers at all. They could not hope to pre- 
 vent the increase at home which the rapid spread of trade 
 with the United States portended, but within their o'wai limits 
 of authority they did their best— a best which was verily tlie 
 worst — by making the Canadas as barren and unproductive 
 as possible. Let us by preference lay the discredit as much 
 to their want of intelligence as to any other cause. Far be it 
 from us to decry the consummate ability or the vast powers 
 of the orators and statesmen whose names are still with us 
 household words ; but there is abundant evidence that on the 
 great economical questions of the day Governments had for 
 long no wish to learn the salutary truth. It was a medicine for 
 which they had no taste, Men learn witli difficulty what they 
 have no wish to believe. Economical remedies for suffering, 
 prescribing equality of rights and raising of conditions, found 
 
 i2
 
 116 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 unwilling advocates even in those members of the ruling 
 classes who professed a cold sympathy for the labouring popu- 
 lation. To raise the condition of those below them was, in 
 their view, to lower their own to an intolerable level. Educa- 
 tion, custom, and the long assertion of a superior position had 
 built up a barrier of pride which opposed an almost impreg- 
 nable bulwark to the teachings of economical science. 
 
 Let us admit all this. Let us further allow that the busi- 
 ness of government is in the main transacted by hirelings 
 who, whatever may be their zeal, ability, or good-will, lack the 
 minute supervision which alone can assure attention even to 
 the dull routine of their daily duties ; that their work is systema- 
 tically scamped, or regulated by precedents framed for a 
 bygone age ; that the Minister of the day is delivered over, 
 bound hand and foot, into an inextricable web of formalism 
 woven by the traditions of generations of incompetent official- 
 ism. Let us allow that superior intelligence has been cramped,"^ 
 enterprising schemes baulked, and noble aspirations checked 
 by the withering breath of official red-tapeism. Allow all this, 
 and when every excuse has been made and every palliation 
 suggested for the crimes and the follies which made up the 
 sum of our colonisation policy, let the responsibility be laid to 
 the charge of those who undertook its direction. Bespondeat 
 sujjerior ; let each titular chief in whose name these things 
 were done answer for them. By just so much as man is 
 the most difficult piece of luggage to transport, does he re- 
 quire to be handled with greater care in the transporting. 
 Yet he was badly packed, insecurely stowed away, and with 
 abommable cruelty shot away as rubbish on Canadian shores, 
 to the great injury of himself, his fellow- subjects and fellow- 
 creatures, and to the lasting infamy of his unnatural parent.
 
 117 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 CRIME RAMPANT — TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH 
 
 WALES. 
 
 It may or may not be that there is a time and place for 
 everything, but it is certain that neither the one nor the other 
 is discoverable until experience has demonstrated how mis- 
 timed and misplaced everything actually is. It is possible 
 that there may have been a period when the transportation of 
 criminals might have been productive of the best results, and 
 there may have been a locality exactly suited to develop the 
 system to the greatest advantage. We may assert -ndth confi- 
 dence, however, that the history of criminal transportation to 
 the Australian colonies does not furnish a single shred of 
 evidence in proof that there ever was a time when the whole- 
 sale exportation of cargoes of felons directed to them was 
 productive of anything but an infinity of evil. 
 
 Transportation first began to be practised as a system by 
 England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, ^ when it was decreed 
 that rogues and vagabonds were to be banished. It apparently 
 mattered httle where to, for tlie place of exile was not par- 
 ticularly, specified. In the reign of James I. this omission was 
 rectified by the direction that criminals were thenceforward 
 to be sent to the southern colonies of North America and to 
 the West Indian colonies— to just the very places where the 
 labour of white men was least likely to be of use to themselves 
 or to any one else. The great abuses that then arose under 
 the practice of transportation were tentatively dealt v,hh in 
 the reign of George I.^ by a Parliamentary enactment, the 
 necessitating causes of which were stated to be ' the failure of 
 
 ' 39 Elizabeth, c. iv. ' 4 Geo. I.
 
 118 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 those who undertook to transport themselves ' — as they well 
 might do — and ' the great want of servants in His Majesty's 
 plantations.' They Avere to be taken out by contractors, who 
 were empowered to hire the convicts out — in other words to 
 sell them — to the planters at the highest possible profit. The 
 price given by the purchasers varied according to the length of 
 sentence which had yet to run, and the most heavily sentenced 
 convicts, who were presumably the worst offenders, brought 
 the best prices. Both the home Government and the con- 
 tractors thus made handsome profits out of the worst forms of 
 vice, and this Parliamentary slave trade flourished as a national 
 institution till the War of Lidependence. As the average 
 number of c;:iminals so disposed of was about 2,000 per annum, 
 and as the average market quotation was 201. per crhninal, 
 the Government for many years made an annual gross revenue 
 of 40,000Z. out of the national vices. 
 
 The suggestions as to the future disposal of criminals after 
 the revolt of the States were characteristic of the light Adews 
 of their public duties prevailing among our political leaders 
 at the time. Mr. Eden, for example, proposed ' that the 
 more enormous offenders be sent to Tunis, Algiers, and other 
 ports for the redemption of Christian slaves ; while others 
 might be compelled to dangerous expeditions or be sent to 
 establish new colonies and settlements on the coast of Africa 
 and on small islands for the benefit of navigation.' Another 
 statesman, still more sweeping in his intentions, would have 
 it that criminals should be throAvn ashore on the Guinea Coast 
 — a proposition that had, at any rate, the merit of simplicity. 
 The latter suggestion was to a certain extent acted upon, and 
 it was deemed wise and expedient to make the West Coast of 
 Africa the future destination of convicts. But the deadliness 
 of the climate there soon awakened the spirit of humanity 
 throughout the kingdom in favour of the lives of the convicts, 
 and procured the speedy abandonment of. a system of trans- 
 portation which, under the pretence of ' correction and im- 
 provement,' was found almost equivalent to an indiscrimmate 
 sentence of death. 
 
 The discovery of Botany Bay by Captain Cook came just 
 
 1
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 119 
 
 in the nick of time to relieve the Government of that date 
 from undertaking the responsibihty of dealing with its own 
 criminals at home. Tlienceforth, the vast resources and the 
 infinite capabilities of Australia were to be subordinated 
 to the supposed requirements of the felonry of England, and 
 only the most degraded forms of crime were to be allowed 
 to confer the right to emigrate to the newly-discovered 
 continent. 
 
 The objects of transportation as put forward at the time 
 were : — 
 
 1. To rid the mother-country of the intolerable nuisance 
 arising from the daily increasing accumulation of criminals 
 in her gaols and houses of correction. 
 
 2. To afford a suitable place for the safe-conduct and 
 punishment of these criminals, as well as for their ultimate 
 and progressive reformation ; and 
 
 3. To form a British colony out of those materials which 
 the reformation of these criminals might gradually supply to 
 the Government, in addition to the families of free emigrants 
 who might from time to time be induced to settle in the 
 convict territory. 
 
 Brave words, bravely spoken, and making a fine show of 
 philanthropic intention never meant to be acted up to. Gloss 
 it over as the Government might with humanitarian senti- 
 ment, its real object in promoting transportation to Australia 
 was its desire to avoid doing its plain duty to the comitry. It 
 was far simpler to evade all obligations connected with the 
 proper punishment, right discipline, and the reformation of 
 criminals by turning them out of the country, neck and crop, 
 to the remotest corner of the universe, from whence neither 
 complaint nor remonstrance could penetrate home, than to keep 
 alive before an indignant people the spectacle of defects of 
 prison management so gross that the reform of the system 
 would soon be imperatively required. If the convicts were 
 indiscriminately transported, the home population would not 
 realise the amount of vice and crime prevailing in their midst, 
 and would consequently be less likely to turn their attention 
 to the unequal and iniquitous laws which forced so large a
 
 120 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 proportion of men and women into criminal habits. Out of 
 sight is out of mind, and' a colony of con\icts might soon be ex- 
 pected to fade out of popular memory ; while complaints of 
 oppressive treatment, or of incompetent and tyrannical ad- 
 ministration on the part of the Government gaolers sent abroad 
 to safeguard (and reform !) the prisoners, could be altogether 
 suppressed, or represented as the lying tales of discontented 
 felons. Such, in plain English, divested of its sickly philan- 
 thropic guise, were the objects which Government had steadily 
 in mind when advocating the establishment of a penal colony 
 in New South Wales. 
 
 The reformation of the transported criminals may, indeed, 
 have been hoped for by many of the advocates of transporta- 
 tion, but the Government, at any rate, never made the slightest 
 effort to achieve it. On the contrary, their ami seems to have 
 been, as we shall presently see, to render the condition of the 
 prisoner as degraded, demoralised, and hopeless as possible. 
 As for the formmg of the basis of a free colony out of convicts, 
 the merit, if any, of the intention completely disappears when 
 we reflect that the ordained system of con\dct management in 
 New South Wales effectually precluded all possibility of re- 
 form, and that the free colonists who fi-om time to time pro- 
 ceeded thither were neither encouraged to emigrate by the 
 home Government, nor in any way assisted to do so until the 
 absolute necessity for free emigration was repeatedly called for 
 by the local authorities. Then a few pauper families were 
 sent out, whose advent was a doubtful gam to the settlement, 
 and all the future eftbrts of Government in that direction were 
 fitful, forced, and of futile utility. 
 
 Free emigrants to Australia were, in fact, considered 
 objectionable on various gromids. They gave trouble from 
 the commencement by not being contented with the means of 
 transport when lamentably deficient in the requisites of 
 decency or comfort. They grumbled at this, that, and the 
 other arrangement that was mifit for human beings; they 
 found fault with the conduct of things in the colony, and were 
 perpetually trying to effect alterations in every department of 
 local administration. Besides, they occasionally wrote home
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 121 
 
 to friends in England, and every now and again questions 
 were asked in consequence which it was disagreeable for 
 Ministers to have to answer. Free emigrants were therefore 
 on no account to be encouraged. 
 
 ' Imagine the case of a household most carefully made up 
 of picked specimens from all the idle, mischievous, and noto- 
 riously bad characters in the country ! Surely the man who 
 should be mad or wicked enough to bring together this mon- 
 strous family, and to keep up its characters and numbers by con- 
 tinual fresh supplies, would be scouted from the country he 
 so outraged, would be denounced as the author of a diabolical 
 crime against his people, and would be proclaimed infamous 
 for setting at naught all morality and decency. What is it 
 better that, instead of a household, it is a whole people we have 
 brought together, and are so keeping up ? that it is the wide 
 society of the world and not of a single comitry against which 
 the nuisance is committed ? ' ' 
 
 Such was the condition to which the English Government 
 diligently strove to reduce New South Wales ; such was the 
 crime against humanity of which England may claim the sole 
 and exclusive credit of precedent amongst modern nations. 
 
 People may differ widely as to their conceptions of those 
 forms of penal discipline which are ideally the most efficacious 
 for the double purpose of punishing and reformmg. Still, all 
 would agree that the essential requisites of any effective reform 
 would comprise certainty of punishment or reward — that is, 
 the assurance that definite consequences would follow upon 
 particular acts or omissions — ^and also the maintenance of as 
 equable a proportion as possible between offence and penalty, 
 between merit and guerdon. Without these requisites every 
 penal system must break doAvn. 
 
 It is desirable also that the persons put in authority over 
 the prisoners should be those who, from the weight of their 
 moral characters, are in some way fitted to give examples of 
 decorum, self-restraint, and good conduct to the contaminated 
 mass around them. Especially is this advisable when gaolers 
 ' Essay on Colonisation, by Dr. Hind.
 
 122 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 and their charges are not brought into contact with each other 
 merely in the ordinary routine of prison discipline, but are 
 associated together more closely, as master and servant for 
 instance ; so that the latter has continuous opportunities for 
 profiting or otherwise by the private as well as by the official 
 character of the former. 
 
 The system ultimately adopted with regard to the convicts 
 transported to Sydney was to ' assign ' them to masters who 
 were practically free to make of them what use they pleased. 
 They employed them in every department of their business ; 
 slave-drove them to their hearts' content ; spoiled some by 
 over-indulgence ; hardened the evil dispositions of others by 
 unfair treatment ; and being entirely iinrestrained by any pre- 
 tence of responsibility, were quite careless of the physical pain 
 or the moral injury their practice or example might inflict on 
 those whose lives had been made over to their keeping. 
 
 A bad system can never be made to give good results, and 
 if the assignment system was a radically vicious one, it must 
 be remembered that it was almost a necessary consequence of 
 convict colonisation as actually practised. In promoting 
 transportation the home Government had, in effect, laid down 
 the broad principle that the most convenient way to treat 
 criminals was to save themselves the trouble of looking after 
 them by getting rid of them anyhow. When they had sold 
 a cargo of convicts to contractors, they considered that they 
 had fulfilled their duty as guardians of the national rights, 
 and it mattered not at all to them that the mortality on board 
 the transport ships was frightful, and that a large number of 
 the survivors of the voyage landed but to find a grave. We 
 are told that days and even weeks elapsed mthout their 
 deliverance from the reeking hold. ' Ventilation was ignored; 
 disciphne was lax or brutal. It was to the interest of mer- 
 chants that rations should be reduced. Every death on the 
 voyage was a gain of so many pounds to the contractors. 
 The officers on board were often partners in the traffic, 
 personally interested in landing as few as possible.' ^ We 
 learn from the official report of the surgeon superintendent of 
 ' Bonwick's First Twenty Years of Australia, p. 18.
 
 TEANSPOKTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 123 
 
 one of the convict fleets how the poor wretches might well 
 have complained of hard fare and hard usage : — ' Stowed below 
 in fetid quarters, half-clad, lymg in wet places with insuffi- 
 cient covering or absolutely destitute of it ; stripped of the few 
 comforts which had been provided by friends, bullied by 
 brutal officers, beaten without cause, conscious of exposure to 
 disease and death, helpless and hopeless in their half- starved 
 condition. Did they complam, the remonstrance was made 
 the gromid for inflicting fresh torture. Chains and flogging 
 added to their horrors. ... A great number of them lying, 
 some half and others nearly quite naked, without either bed 
 or beddiiig, unable to turn or help themselves. Some of these 
 unhappy people died when the ships came into the harbour, 
 but before they could be taken on shore. Part of these had 
 been thrown into the harbour, and their naked bodies cast 
 upon the shore were seen lying naked on the rocks. The 
 misery I saw amongst them was inexpressible.' ' 
 
 In the case of one ship the convicts were put in irons 
 during the ivhole voyage in consequence of some conjecture 
 that they meant to seize the ship and murder the officers ; and 
 Dr. White relates many instances of finding, on his visits to 
 convict ships on their arrival, dead bodies below ' still in 
 irons.' 
 
 On board the ten transports that formed the second con- 
 vict fleet there had been embarked in England 1,763 convicts, 
 male and female, of whom no fewer than 198 died on the 
 passage out ; and such was the state of debility in which the 
 survivors landed in the colony, in consequence of the insuffi- 
 cient quantity and bad quality of the food supplied to them 
 durmg the voyage, that 116 of their number died in the 
 Colonial Hospital shortly after their arrival.^ It is a fitting 
 commentary, however, upon the inhuman recklessness with 
 which the convict colony had been settled that this calamitous 
 mortality actually prevented the annihilation of the inhabi- 
 tants from absolute starvation. ' Had not such numbers died,' 
 observes Colonel Collins, ' both on the passage and since the 
 
 ' Bonwick's First Twenty Years of Australia, p. 195. 
 ' Lang's History of New South Wales, vol. i. p. 42.
 
 124 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 landing of those who survived the voyage, we should not at 
 this moment have anything to receive from the public stores ; 
 thus strangely did we derive a benefit from the miseries of 
 our fellow-creatures.' 
 
 The colony at this period had been reduced to the greatest 
 straits for want of food — a condition of things directly attri- 
 butable to the action of the British Government in sending out 
 convicts of whom not a single soul possessed the smallest 
 knowledge of agriculture. Thus it was with the whole of the 
 system and every detail in it — gross negligence everywhere ; 
 and the example so given from home was speedily followed by 
 the Colonial Governors, who found in the adoption of the 
 assignment system the readiest means of minimising the 
 trouble of looking after the convicts. 
 
 The first Governor of the colony, Captam Phillip, was fully 
 alive to the duties of his position, and was unremitting in his 
 efforts to ameliorate the condition of the convicts by supplying 
 them with motives for exertion and with inducements to 
 become thrifty settlers. To those who had satisfactorily 
 worked out their sentences he gave grants of land, and by his 
 firm, considerate treatment of those under sentence, tending 
 as it did to give them an interest in their daily labour, he 
 almost succeeded in impartmg to the colony for the time being 
 what, under the circumstances, may fairly be called — a moral 
 tone. But the benefits attributable to his rule vanished with 
 his departure, when the colony was left to the tender mercies 
 of the New South Wales Corps. 
 
 This was a corps recruited for special service in the colony 
 about three years after its foundation. Its officers were easily 
 procurable out of the ranks of men who had . failed to satisfy 
 the by no means very stringent social requirements of those 
 days, and whose habits and characters bore a general resem- 
 blance to those of the felons delivered over to their rule. 
 Like officers, like men. According to Governor Hunter, 
 ' Soldiers from the Savoy, and other characters who have 
 been considered as disgraceful to every other regiment in His 
 Majesty's service, have been thought fit and proper recruits
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 125 
 
 for the New South Wales Corps, which in my humble 
 opinion, my Lord, should be composed of the very best and 
 most orderly dispositions. They are sent here to guard and 
 to keep in obedience to the laws, when force may be necessary, 
 a set of the worst, the most atrocious, characters that ever 
 disgraced human nature ; and yet we find, amongst those safe- 
 guards, men capable of corrupting the hearts of the best 
 disposed, and often superior in every species of infamy to the 
 most expert in wickedness among the convicts. Our stores, 
 our provisions and granaries, must be entrusted to the care of 
 such men, and what security can we have in the hands of these 
 people '? ' 
 
 It matters, in reality, but little for the purpose of this 
 chapter what or who were the members of the corps, except 
 as further proof of the indifference of the home Government 
 to the conduct of affairs in New South Wales, because it was 
 inevitable that even a regiment composed of the possessors of 
 all the virtues should, from the almost boundless power with 
 which they were invested over the offscourings of the English 
 gaols, become, in time, asbrutalised as the hardened criminals 
 with whom they were hourly brought in contact. 
 
 If the vices of the individual members of the corps had been 
 more conspicuous than their virtues during their home career, 
 the exhibition of pettifogging rapacity and open profligacy 
 afforded by their behaviour as a corporate body, from the time 
 of the formation of the corps till its recall in 1809, was even 
 more noteworthy. True to its doctrine that the convict 
 colony was not worth looking after, the home Government 
 had neglected altogether to send out a successor to Governor 
 Phillip until nearly three years after his return to England ; 
 and in the meantime the corps ruled the settlement in undis- 
 puted supremacy. 
 
 In justice to the corps, it must be said, that its members 
 were placed in a position of great temptation to turn their 
 opportunities to purposes of private gain. The extraordinarily 
 high profits frequently realised by speculative importers on 
 the sale of articles of consumption were a strong inducement 
 to them to eke out an inadequate pay by speculating in com-
 
 126 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 mercial transactions themselves. However widely their 
 dealings might be known, it was in the highest degree un- 
 likely that any notice would be taken of them at home. They 
 were, moreover, in sole possession of the King's stores, and as 
 these contained whatever was necessary for the subsistence of 
 the settlement, useful articles might be procured from that 
 source for nothing, or at worst at prime cost, which could 
 afterwards be retailed at enormous profits. That their duty as 
 the guardians of the stores was to deal with them as trustees 
 for the population of the colony was not an argument likely 
 to recommend itself to men obhvious to the sense of honour, 
 and, in their case, the salutary principle of securing common 
 honesty by a high scale of payment had never even been 
 attempted. If any of them reasoned with themselves about 
 the matter at all, they found their excuse in irresistible 
 temptation, and what was at first a fraudulent misappropria- 
 tion soon acquired the strength of a recognised laudable 
 custom. 
 
 The article then and for many years after in most frequent 
 requisition was Kum ; and in process of time it came to be 
 established as a general rule that there should be certain 
 periodical issues of rum to the officers of the corps, in quan- 
 tities proportioned to the rank of each.' Eum- selling became 
 the whole art of government, and the ofiicers, from being 
 buyers and sellers in general, gradually constituted themselves 
 the oyily traders in riim in the colony, and then refused to 
 content themselves with anything short of the entire monopoly 
 of trade in every description of commodity, whether produced 
 in the colony or imported from abroad. When a merchant ship 
 arrived in the harbour, the officers got the first sight of her 
 manifest and cargo, and in the sale of the latter they diligently 
 and successfully copied the example of that other military 
 trading association, the Honourable East India Company. The 
 officers, having the sole command of every commodity that 
 came into the colony, forced the farmers who had been 
 established by the wise policy of Governor Phillip to bring 
 their crops to them as sooii as gathered. These crops they 
 ' Lang's History of New SoiUh Wales, p. 50.
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 127 
 
 paid for in diluted rum, which they passed in exchange at the 
 rate of 31. to 4/. per gallon, and afterwards sold the crops at 
 extravagant prices to the colonists. The effect of these pro- 
 ceedmgs was so greatly to discourage attempts at agriculture 
 that on more than one occasion the colony was brought to the 
 brink of starvation. 
 
 In addition to the injurious effects resulting from the 
 monopoly acquired by the misappropriation of the public 
 stores, the whole corps furnished an example of licentious- 
 ness which must be held largely responsible for the gross im- 
 morality pervading the community. Lieutenant Bond is but 
 one of several who assure us that on the arrival of a convict 
 ship in Sydney Harbour ' the commissioned officers come on 
 board, and as they stand upon deck select such females as are 
 most agreeable in their persons, who generally on such occa- 
 sions endeavour to set themselves off to the best advantage. 
 The non-commissioned officers then are permitted to select 
 for themselves, the privates next, and lastly those convicts who, 
 having been in the country a considerable time, and having 
 realised some property, are enabled to procure the Governor's 
 permission to take to themselves a female convict.' 
 
 When Governor Hmiter arrived, at the end of 1795, he 
 tried to counteract this monopoly of commerce and women by 
 urging the recall of the corps. Naturally his recommenda- 
 tions were miheeded. After havmg nominally carried on the 
 government in hostile subordmation to the corps for five years, 
 he embarked for England to represent the grievous state of the 
 colony in person ; but backstairs influence was too strong for 
 him, and he neither returned nor was able to procure any 
 attention to his remonstrances. 
 
 Governer King arrived in the colony towards the close of 
 1800, and found himself at once imbroiled with the corps. He 
 very soon gave up the attempt ' to make farmers out of pick- 
 pockets,' but the chief cause of the comparative failure of 
 farming during his reign was the effect of the grinding mono- 
 poly of the corps in deprivnig the pickpockets of all induce- 
 ments to become farmers. No one vn\l work if he is certain 
 to be despoiled of the hoped-for reward of his labour, and the
 
 128 BONDS. OF DISUNION. 
 
 farmers who, while forced to take payment in diluted spirits 
 for produce which, under the existing circumstances of the 
 colony, might have been sold at a high profit, saw that those 
 profits, raised by extortion to an enormous height, were quietly 
 absorbed by the officers, gave up agriculture and became rum 
 sellers on their own accounts. In thus changing their occu- 
 pation they were assisted by the Governor, who hoped that by 
 giving them licences to sell rum he might set up a counter- 
 poise to the overbearing power of tyranny which the corps 
 derived from its monopoly. Up to this tune the superior 
 officers had carried on the wholesale, and the non-commis- 
 sioned officers the retail, trade in rum — a division of labour 
 supported on the ground that by no other means could the 
 surplus stores of rum be effectually disposed of. Under the 
 system introduced by Governor King, expired-sentence men — 
 ' emancipists,' as they were called — were to compete with the 
 non-commissioned retailers, and licences for the purpose were 
 given out with such liberality and profusion that the popula- 
 tion at the time was said to consist ' of those who sold rum 
 and of those who drank it.' Even the chief constable of Sydney, 
 whose business it was to repress irregularity, had a licence to 
 promote it, under the Governor's hand, by the sale of rum and 
 other ardent liquors ; and the chief gaoler had a licensed house 
 in which he sold rum pubhcly on his own behalf right oppo- 
 site the door of the gaol. 
 
 The natural result of this state of things was a general 
 dissolution of the scanty moral feelmg of the colony, and a 
 general relaxation of penal discipline. There was now no 
 pretence of either. ' Neither marrymg nor giving in marriage 
 was thought of in the colony ; and as the arm of the civil 
 power was withered under the blasting influence of the miser- 
 able system that prevailed, the police of the country was 
 wretchedly administered, and virtuous industry was neither 
 encouraged nor protected. Bands of bushrangers, or runaway 
 convicts, traversed the country in all directions, and, entering 
 the houses of the defenceless settlers in open day, committed 
 fearful atrocities.' ' Several hundred convicts banded them- 
 
 ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i., p. 71.
 
 TKANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 129 
 
 selves together with the view of imitating the example set 
 them by their masters, of making the most for themselves 
 out of the existing chaos. They armed themselves, and after 
 devastating a part of the comitry gave battle to the military 
 at Vinegar Hill. Here they were defeated and broken up — 
 fortunately, it would seem, for the respectable portion of the 
 inhabitants, for the success of the convicts would have insured 
 a much more formidable insurrection, with the probable accom- 
 paniment of a general massacre. 
 
 Whatever may have been Governor King's capacity for 
 brmging the affairs of the colony to a more prosperous issue, 
 the antagonism of the corps was too strong to allow of any 
 reforms being even partially carried through. How micompro- 
 mising was the spirit in which his measures were counter- 
 acted by his nominal subordinates, may be gathered from the 
 following instance. His Excellency, having found it necessary 
 to prefer charges against a member of the corps to the Secre- 
 tary of State, did so at considerable length, entrusting his 
 despatches to an oflicer proceeding to England for the express 
 purpose of carrying the complaint ; but he was imprudent 
 enough to allow the circumstance to get abroad rather too 
 soon, and the genius loci was set to work to defeat his inten- 
 tions. The despatch-box was deftly picked of its contents 
 before leaving the colony, and when opened in the Duke of 
 Portland's office in Downing Street, it was found to contain 
 merely a number of old newspapers.' 
 
 In August 1806, Captain Bligh, of the famous ' Bounty,' 
 succeeded King. At the time of his entermg upon his duties, 
 the rum-selling practices of the corps had become so systema- 
 tised that rum had actually become the colonial currency, 
 or universal medium of exchange. Officers, civil and military, 
 the clergy, all sorts and conditions of people, were under the 
 necessity of paying for everything, even for labour, in ardent 
 spirits ; ^ and consequently every one in the colony was obliged 
 
 ' Lang's Ncio South Wales, vol. i. p. 71. 
 
 ^ Evidence of Mr. John MacArthur on the trial of Colonel Johnston 
 in 1811. 
 
 E
 
 130 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 to be a trader in and for rum. Governor Bligli was specially 
 instructed to put an end to this monstrous system. 
 
 It was easy enough to make a show of morality by gi\dng 
 these instructions, but if the Home Government had been in 
 earnest in its attempt to reform the colony, it might even then 
 have recalled the corps, as it had been repeatedly urged to do 
 by previous Governors and by indignant private remonstrances. 
 To send out Governor Bligh to curtail the privileges of a body 
 of men who, besides possessing absolute power in the colony 
 itself, were backed up by secret influences at the Colonial Office 
 far more potent than could be brought to bear on the side of 
 the Governor, was to hand over that official tied and bound 
 into the hands of the Philistines. 
 
 We need not concern ourselves with the widely varying 
 estimates of Governor Bligh's character with which colonial 
 historians have favoured posterity. Whether he was a monster 
 of iniquity as described by Wentworth or the much-injured 
 individual portrayed by Lang, by Bennett, or by himself, matters 
 little. It is certain, however, that he was called upon to con- 
 front ia situation of infinite difficulty, and the fact that, during 
 his administration, he set himself resolutely to break down the 
 injurious monopoly of the corps, must plead in favour of his 
 action as Governor, whatever may have been his private 
 failings. 
 
 Only four months before his arrival had occurred the great 
 March flood of 1806. The agricultural operations of the 
 colonists had been carried on principally on the rich allu\'ial 
 soils bordering the river Hawkesbury. An extraordinary and 
 unexpected rising of the waters of the river swept away at a 
 blow the agricultural resources of the colony, and, save for the 
 Government stores, the inhabitants were deprived of the 
 ordinary means of subsistence. ]\Iaize, meal, and flour of the 
 coarsest description rose to two shillings and sixpence a pound ; 
 the price of wheat sprang up from seven and sixpence to eighty 
 shillings a bushel, and many families had no bread in their 
 houses for months together. The Governor under these cir- 
 cumstances endeavoured to alleviate the distress by encourag- 
 ing the cultivation of as large an extent of ground as possible.
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 131 
 
 and with tins view lie engaged to pnrchase'from the colonists, for 
 the King's stores, all the wheat that might be disposable after 
 the next harvest — at ten shilhngs a bushel. Besides this, he 
 took upon himself to throw open the King's stores at very mode- 
 rate prices, and he allowed these stores to be exchanged against 
 produce at fair rates. These were certainly judicious measures, 
 for, in the first place, a large extent of ground which had been 
 enriched by recent floods was laid under fruitful cultivation, 
 and, in the second place, a heavy blow was struck at the system 
 of making rum the circulating medium of the country. But 
 they drew down upon the Governor's head the dire vengeance 
 of the corps, and of the numerous licensees to whom had been 
 accorded by Governor King the privilege of retailing rum. 
 The craft of those who fattened on the drunkenness of their 
 fellows was endangered by these new-fangled arrangements. 
 If they were allowed to get fairly into operation, the emanci- 
 pated convicts might begin to take to agriculture in earnest, 
 and might possibly acquire the habits of virtuous industry, as 
 they would no longer have an almost irresistible temptation 
 to do nothmg but drink rum. The free settlers, too, if allowed 
 to pocket the profits of their own produce, would probably 
 become prosperous, and their prosperity might attract other 
 free immigrants into the colony. A respectable community 
 might thus grow into existence, with a gradually mcreasing 
 power of its own, which would be too weighty for the rum 
 sellers. 
 
 The wrath of these last culminated in 1808, the pretext 
 being the alleged illegal treatment of Mr. John Mac Arthur, 
 one of the officers of the corps, and the next step was the 
 seizure of the Governor by the corps, his imprisonment for 
 several months in Sydney, and his ignominious expulsion from 
 the colony. But in procuring the downfall of the Governor 
 the corps was but paving the way for a like calamity for itself. 
 Not all at once, for the home Government was too completely 
 indifferent to the welfare of the colony to take humediate 
 notice of these acts of rebelHon against its own representative. 
 
 The commandhig officer. Major Johnston, took upon him- 
 self the government of the colony immediately on the deposi- 
 
 k2
 
 132 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 tion of Governor Bligli, and was not recalled to answer for his 
 conduct, before a court-martial, till two years later. 
 
 For nearly a twelvemonth he governed the colony as he 
 pleased. The acts of his administration and all that he did 
 consisted of lavish distribution of rum, and prodigal grants of 
 land to those of the free population who either approved of 
 the late measures, or were likely to do so with proper manage- 
 ment ; of profuse granting of pardons and other lesser mdul- 
 gences to the convicts. Major Johnston took credit to himself 
 for having relieved the King's stores of the maintenance and 
 clothmg of three hmidred persons, but this benefit was 
 effected by no more sagacious a course of policy tnan was 
 implied in the throwing open the doors of the gaols for the exit 
 of hundreds of felons. In this way a number of persons of 
 the worst character were let loose on the colony, ' and as an 
 idea had also got abroad that the colony had now become 
 free, and that it was no longer obligatory to labour, the result 
 was a state of anarchy that produced a general neglect of the 
 cultivation of the soil, and was otherwise distressmg in the 
 extreme to the well-disposed part of the population.' ' 
 
 During Major Johnston's administration, and that of the 
 two brother officers who succeeded him until the arrival of 
 Colonel Macquarie, there was further opportunity for the 
 display of governing talent, which was utilised for the purpose 
 of levying and expending numerous duties on imports, and of 
 completely emptymg the King's stores, plentifully as those 
 had been replenished during Bligh's superintendence. 
 
 At last, after a reign of fifteen years, the gentlemen of the 
 New South Wales Corps were recalled. ' The evils that men 
 do live after them,' and the effects of the profligacy and rapa- 
 city of the corps lingered long in the scene of their unsavoury 
 triumphs. Progress had been effectually checked by a mihtary 
 despotism sanctioned and encouraged by careless masters at 
 home. The support uniformly afforded to the corps in high 
 quarters had enabled them to turn robbery of the public 
 property into a recognised branch of their professional labours, 
 and to establish habitual intoxication and promiscuous concu- 
 
 ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. j). 126.
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WAI.ES. Vd^ 
 
 biiiage as the ordinary standard of morality. For fifteen 
 years, at the most critical period of the liistory of the settle- 
 ment, they had been aided and abetted by the home Govern- 
 ment in making a hell out of what should have been a 
 reformatoi-y, and by the same influence they were stimulated 
 to display in their own behaviour vices transcending those 
 which they slwxdcl have been selected to reform. 
 
 It was during Governor Macquarie's administration that 
 New South Wales may be said to have entered on the initial 
 stage of her future career of greatness and prosperity. Freed 
 from the harassing opposition of the corps, the Governor now 
 had to support him a regiment ' which had not been corrupted 
 by any previous connection with the colony. He had before 
 him the task of completely reforming everv-thing and everybody 
 in the colony, and to a certain extent he succeeded. But, 
 however great may be our admiration of the miswerving 
 honesty of his purposes, it cannot fairly be said that tlie 
 progress of the settlement during liis reign was very largely 
 due to the measures adopted by him. 
 
 Macquarie seems to have been actuated throughout by the 
 sincerest desire to promote the prosperity of the colony. 
 Unfortunately he thought that the surest way to achieve this 
 was by keeping it up as a con\ict settlement and altogether 
 excluding the free element. The latter object was plainly 
 incompatible with the welfare of the colony, as became evident 
 from the improvement manifested so soon as the free popula- 
 tion began to preponderate over the bond. But in the 
 Governor's eye convicts were tlie best colonisers. The surest 
 claim to his favour consisted in having at some time l)orne 
 the badge of conviction for felony. He held the opinion tliat 
 the population was composed entirely of those ' who had been 
 convicted and of those who ought to have been so,' and that 
 the fonner, being more amenable to discipline — of a kind, 
 furnished the more promising material of the two. At any 
 rate, he could exact implicit obedience from the convicts, and 
 that was a virtue of superlative merit to the soldier mind of 
 the Govenior. 
 
 ' 73rd Regiment.
 
 134 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 Ill order to better the condition of the con\act class he 
 adopted Governor PhilHp's plan of giving grants of land to 
 emancipists, but with tliis difference, that Phillip only gave 
 to men of superior character, whereas Macquaire gave without 
 making inquiry into character at all. But very few eman- 
 cipists cared to become farmers, and almost invariably the 
 donees sold their blocks for as much rum as they could get for 
 them, and migrated to Sydney, where they could revel in the 
 society of congenial spirits, and in one way or another find 
 plenty of money, employment, and rum. There was every 
 inducement for them to go to Sydney provided by the Govern- 
 ment itself, in the shape of easy employment on public 
 buildings of more than doubtful utility, and carried on on a 
 scale so extensive that labour of any kind was gladly welcomed. 
 This concentration of criminals in the capital was of itself a 
 dangerous evil, and it was intensified by the practice of paying 
 for laboixr as for everything else — in rum. Amongst other 
 buildings erected at this 'period, utterly disproportionate in 
 size and magnificence to the wants of the colony, was the 
 General Hospital, commonly called the Eum Hospital. The 
 terms made for its construction were that the contractors 
 should have the right to purchase and retail 15,000 gallons of 
 ardent spirits annually for four years. The contractors were 
 men of ingenuity and resource. The financial part of their 
 business they understood thoroughly, for first they bought 
 rum abroad for 2s. 6d. a gallon, passed it through the customs 
 at 7s. a gallon, and then they paid the wages due, partly in 
 rum at the rate of two guineas a bottle, and in clothes, tea, 
 sugar, &c., each of which articles was charged to the labourer 
 at an enormous profit. Then they set to work to get the 
 money part of the wages back again. This they 'succeeded in 
 doing by the simple expedient of erecting public-houses close 
 by the works, where the men might expend their money wages 
 in more rum at two guineas a bottle. 
 
 The immense quantity of building that was carried on on 
 similar terms for several years naturally made Sydney a very 
 Paradise for emancipated felons, and while they flocked thither 
 in drmiken gangs, the comitry districts suffered from want of
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 135 
 
 labour. The blocks so freely granted to the emancipists found 
 ready purchasers for rum in already extensively acred proprie- 
 tors, and thus the foundation was laid of a land monopoly in 
 the hands of a comparative few which was destined to furnish 
 a crop of burning questions in the immediate future. 
 
 Even to the inhabitants of Sydney itself, the building 
 mania of the Governor afforded a serious grievance, since, in 
 consequence, they could only procure the labour of men judged 
 incompetent to be employed on the Government works. 
 Handy or industrious artisans were with difficulty found, to 
 provide for the wants of the general public. Their work was 
 badly done, and so exorbitantly dear that it was cheaper to 
 import the most ordinary articles of use from home than to 
 buy them on the spot. Private building operations were 
 almost at a standstill, and newly-erected palaces, uninhabited 
 and useless, stood side by side with the crumbling walls and 
 wooden shanties where the residents lived and moved and had 
 their being. 
 
 This was not the country for free labourers, nor did the 
 Governor intend it to be so. The actual cost of convict and 
 emancipist labour might be four times as great as the cost of 
 fi-ee labour, but Macquarie was prepared to charge that loss 
 upon the British taxpayer in order to preserve the colony as 
 the inheritance of felons, and the home Government was 
 ready and willing to support his policy. 
 
 It is often asserted that the future prosperity of New South 
 Wales was most materially assisted by the extensive roadiug 
 and bridging operations inaugurated by Macquarie. Without 
 doubt it was. Internal commerce was immensely benefited 
 by them, and so, in time, was external trade, but it is equally 
 clear that, had free immigrants been attracted instead of being 
 repelled, the necessities of what would have been a brisk 
 active population would have enforced the making of means 
 of communication quite as extensive as those actually effected 
 and at a large saving of expense. The public works effected 
 in New South Wales since free immigi-ation became an 
 accomplished fact on a large scale, have iiifinitely exceeded 
 in magnitude, though at a largely reduced proportionate cost,
 
 136 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 even the great achievement of road-building across the Blue 
 Mountains to Bathurst. Still, there is no denying that these 
 roads and bridges were of great use to the country ; the chief, 
 perhaps the sole, benefit attributable to the initiative of 
 Macquarie. 
 
 Eeferring to him and to his general line of policy, Mr. 
 Commissioner Bigge observes : — ' It has been his misfortune 
 to mistake the improvement and embellishment of the towiis 
 for proofs of the solid prosperity of the colonists, and to forget 
 that the labour by which these objects have been produced 
 was a source of heavy expense to the British Treasury, and 
 that other means of employment might have been tried and 
 resorted to, the effect of which would have been to regulate in 
 a cheaper and less ostentatious form the progress of colonisa- 
 tion and punishment.' ' 
 
 It is impossible to avoid the conclusion forced on us by 
 the preceding sketch that a large proportion of the vast ex- 
 penditure of British money in the Governor's building craze 
 was, in reality, devoted to carrying on a growing process of 
 demoralisation in the colony, and in thus preventing the 
 attainment of the chief end for which the colony w^as nomin- 
 ally established — the reformation of the convict population. 
 It acted adversely, too, on the free population by discourag- 
 ing labour from finding its way to the comitry districts, 
 whither free immigrants might otherwise have resorted ; 
 and by raising up a powerful emancipist class who, basking 
 in the sunshine of Government House, and rewarded for 
 villany by official favours, were for many years able to com- 
 bat the desires of the free settlers for necessary measures of 
 reform. 
 
 Few people will be found to quarrel with Macquarie's 
 honestly-meant wish ' to restore emancipated and reformed 
 convicts to a level with their fellow-subjects.' But the mmd 
 revolts at the bare possibility of effecting the equality of 
 footing by bringing down the reputable portion of the com- 
 munity to the level of the convicts. Yet this was what was 
 done. The effort to raise the bond resulted in the degradation 
 ' Commissioner Bigge's Report on New South Wales.
 
 TRANSPOETATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 137 
 
 of the free. In 1814 the Governor lent his influence to an 
 attempt to admit three convicts, who had been transported 
 for perjury and forgery, to the privilege of practising as bar- 
 risters and solicitors in the Supreme Court. The petition 
 presented for the purpose to the judge, Mr. Hart Bent, was 
 refused by him on grounds which accorded with the law he 
 Avas bound to administer, if not with the views to which the 
 Governor gave countenance. The immediate consequence 
 was the deposition from office of the judge conscientious 
 enough to oppose the mandate of authority, and the substi- 
 tution of a more pliable instrument to preside over the ad- 
 ministration of law thus lowered to the standard calculated to 
 suit the proclivities of a criminal society. Had the convicts 
 at that time possessed the opportmiity or shown the desire to 
 make their condition better or more virtuous, the counter- 
 action might, in a measure, have mitigated the evil. But it 
 was just at this time that the practice of ' assignment ' con- 
 tributed most powerfully to degrade their aspirations, to 
 mmimise their opportunities, and to debase their characters 
 by offering every inducement to criminality and worthless- 
 ness. 
 
 The practice of assignment grew up into great prominence 
 diu'ing the reign of Macquarie. Convicts of all sorts were 
 allotted as servants to whoever might care to take them off 
 the hands of the Government. In the assigned ser\dce no 
 wages were allowed to be given, and the servants were sub- 
 jected to the most severe regulations, such as any master 
 could mvariably get enforced, on appeal to a fellow-magistrate 
 and master, by equally severe pmiishments. At the end of 
 the allotted periods, the convict might ask for, and according 
 to the report made of him might obtain or be refused, a ticket 
 of leave. Whether he would obtain this ticket or not was 
 always a matter of uncertainty. The record kept of prisoners' 
 conduct only embraced offences ; no official notice being taken 
 of good ordinary behaviour, such as diligence, sobriety, obedi- 
 ence, honesty, fidelity, zeal, or the hke ; and thus, as only 
 that appeared whi^^ had drawn down magisterial censure, 
 a careless man, however good his disposition and intentions]
 
 138 B0J5DS OF DISUNION. 
 
 might, especially under an indifferent mastei', liave a long list 
 against him and nothing in his favour ; while a thorough 
 villain, more happily circumstanced or perhaps because of the 
 very power of deception which his villany gave him, might 
 have few or no offences recorded against him. When the 
 ticket was obtained, a particular district was assigned in 
 which the recipient was to reside, and within which he might 
 change his master and residence and receive wages. It was 
 obligatory on him to attend certain musters and not to change 
 his abode without informing the police, to sleep constantly at 
 home, and to return thither before eight o'clock in the evening. 
 For very trifling irregularities he was liable to have his ticket 
 suspended or entirely taken away ; in either of which cases he 
 was usually sent to hard labour on a road party, thus being 
 suddenly reduced to the worst and most demoralising of all 
 penal stages. 
 
 As the periods of sentence respectively expired, whether 
 with or without the intervention of tickets of leave, the 
 prisoners became entirely free, and mixed as such in the 
 community. 
 
 This is a sufficiently accurate sketch of the course of the 
 assignment system. Its operation was most distinctly in- 
 jurious all round, if for no other reason than that the degree 
 of punishment inflicted by it was in the highest degree uncer- 
 tain. A bad master might make it fearful ; a good or weak 
 master might make it an indulgence rather than a punish- 
 ment. In the system was involved a position of utter degra- 
 dation for those convicts possessed of a semblance of self- 
 respect ; whilst to irresponsible masters was given the most 
 absolute power for the abuse of tyrannical authority. 
 
 The assigned servants were, in fact, slaves. The system 
 was slavery in its very worst form, for the New South Wales 
 slaveholders had no property in their slaves, nor consequently 
 had they any motive for improving their condition. Besides, 
 the servants had not always held the same degraded positions. 
 Many had education, more ability, and the passions of all 
 were easily excited. They were fitting enough subjects for 
 the exercise of moral influence, had it been forthcoming either
 
 TKANSPOETATJON TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 139 
 
 in precept or example ; but the discipline to which they were 
 subjected was purely physical. If the master so willed it, the 
 most minute offences against this discipline were visited with 
 further pains and penalties, and the frequent and gross mjus- 
 tice of the pixnishments thus inflicted had as demoralising a 
 tendency as the spectacle of the unrestrained vices of the free 
 portion of the community. 
 
 For some time after the establishment of the system, the 
 Government undertook to clothe and provision the assigned 
 servants for a specified number of months in each year. 
 Their labour was useful so long as it could be had on these 
 terms, but it frequently happened that the master would, 
 as soon as Government support was withheld, be mide- 
 sirous of employing all those assigned to him. If he was a 
 farmer he would, as a rule, at that time, not care to raise a 
 larger amount of produce than was necessary for him and for 
 his family's subsistence. There was no market for any surplus 
 outside the colony, and inside it the number of hihabitants 
 was too small and the bulk of them too poor to absorb the 
 large grain crops, which grew almost without supermten- 
 dence on the fertile soils in favourable years. The farmer 
 would take the convicts assigned to him, partly in order to 
 curry favour ^dth the Government, partly because their 
 mauatenance involved him in no cost, and possibly they 
 might be useful to him as domestic servants, or in other 
 capacities. When the time came for him to give them the 
 minimum of support required by law, he had a choice of ways 
 in which to rid himself of his burdens. Either he might 
 return them on the hands of the Government, by brmging 
 accusations against them which, whether true or not, he 
 could always contrive to get substantiated, and so manage to 
 procure them a period of labour with some road gang; or 
 he might give them fi-ee mdulgence to roam about the 
 country— that is to say, to form themselves into predatory 
 gangs pledged to the worst forms of lawlessness. When he 
 got them imprisoned, it was perhaps to satisfy a grudge, or 
 out of the promptings of a general malevolence of disposition. 
 Either dislike or revenge could be safely Avreaked in this
 
 140 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 form. If lie turned them loose to prey upon society, the act 
 may have argued kindhness of character, but, like many of the 
 freaks of good-nature, this course was probably the more 
 objectionable of the two, since those so sent abroad would be 
 the most worthless of the lot assigned to him. The best he 
 would probably reserve, as being worth their keep. 
 
 When free emigrants began to come into the colony in 
 considerable numbers in Governor Brisbane's time, the status 
 of the convict, considered as a labour machine, was greatly 
 altered. He was no longer an incubus on Government hands 
 to be forced off at any price, but he had become an article of 
 value of which the Government had sole possession. A 
 quickly increasing population with a gradually extending 
 range of wants required an amount of food which could only 
 be supplied by the active co-operation of all the labour force of 
 the colony. Commerce generally was stimulated by the in- 
 cursion of the free element, and the service of able assistants 
 became a matter of necessity. The dispensers of convicts 
 could now become coquettish, and were in a position to dis- 
 pose of their human machines on favourable terms, as well 
 as to make assignment a branch of special patronage. Thence- 
 forth, servants were only to be granted to people who could 
 give proof of capacity to maintain them. So far so good ; 
 the clearing of the gaols had become a matter of apparent 
 saving of expense. The difference between the new and the 
 old methods of assignment was that now the slave was not 
 given, but sold. This saving of expense was only apparent 
 as concerned the community at large, for the burden of 
 maintaining the convicts had been merely transferred from the 
 Government to individuals, and assigned labour was estimated 
 at not more than one quarter of the worth of free labour 
 under ordinary conditions. But such was the disinclination 
 to direct payments in the shape of wages that the free labour- 
 ing immigrants could only with extreme difficulty obtain 
 permanent engagements, the masters generally hoping that 
 they might get a prisoner assigned to them suited to their own 
 particular purpose, and that they might thus save the direct
 
 TEANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 141 
 
 expense of a free servant.' ' In consequence, the free servants, 
 who might otherwise have formed a valuable labour force, 
 in some cases either themselves became employers of a 
 few convicts, or became small tradesmen in the towns, or 
 more usually, through sheer inability to procure work, they 
 sank deep into vicious modes of existence or into lazy dissipated 
 habits. Their very independence was a fatal bar to their 
 employment by masters whose rule, whether conducted with 
 tyranny or indulgence, was based throughout on the principle 
 of physical coercion. The fi-ee man was a contractor for a 
 definite use of his services, and, before the law, had equal rights 
 with his master, which he might enforce if occasion required. 
 He was obnoxious therefore to men accustomed to the delights 
 of slave-driving, and had consequently no chance afforded 
 him of bringing his labouring power into competition with 
 that of a convict. 
 
 It must, too, be remembered that the scale of a man's 
 work will depend vipon the general standard of labour around 
 him. The free labourer might have been competent to pro- 
 duce four times as much as the convict, but, unless a man of 
 very exceptional force of character, he would usually content 
 himself with doing no more than was necessary to raise the 
 value of his day's work slightly above the convict level. Be 
 that as it may, one prominent effect of the assignment 
 system was that it procured the discouragement of free labour 
 and of the working power of the free labourer, besides power- 
 fully militating against the influx of fi-ee immigrants. 
 
 Both as a punishment and as a means of reforming 
 criminals, the failure of assignment was complete. Its 
 efficacy for either purpose was dependent upon the characters 
 of individual masters. By just so much as these differed 
 from each other, the operation of the system was rendered 
 uncertain. Masters might be stern disciplinarians, ready to 
 visit an offence against conventional regulations with all the 
 hea\dest penalties of a penal code so harsh that its extreme 
 provisions were rarely carried mto practice ; or they might 
 regard breaches of discipline with a lenient eye, using them 
 
 ' Captain Maconochie's Thoughts on Convict MaiMgemcnt, p. 13.
 
 142 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 only as convenient excuses for procuring the punishment of 
 servants whom they dishked or feared. Others, again, might 
 err on the side of over-indulgence either owing to good-nature 
 or to wealmess of character, or perhaps from a belief in the 
 greater efficacy of easy treatment in inducing labour. The 
 whole system was a lottery, in which the prizes, the good 
 situations, were as often as not drawn by those least deser\'ing 
 of them, felons too hardened in vice to profit either by good 
 treatment or good example. On the other hand, men more 
 unfortmiate in their fall than criminal in their habits might be 
 assigned to masters — possibly themselves emancipists, of the 
 lowest type, and deriving their rise from fortunate speculations 
 in rum — whose treatment might be effectual in brutalising 
 their miserable dependents. 
 
 The great majority of masters cared nothing about the 
 punishment or reformation of their slaves — they viewed them 
 merely as insensate instruments for business purposes, their 
 object being to get as much work out of them as possible, and, 
 whether they used the indulgent or coercive system, it was 
 but as a means to the attainment of this end. Of the two 
 the indulgent system was the one more generally employed, 
 and those subjected to it might safely calculate on being better 
 fed and clothed, and also on doing far less work than would 
 have been demanded at home from healthy English labourers.' 
 Captain Maconochie, in illustration of the indulgent system, 
 mentions a case where the whole of an assigned staff sat 
 down in a cornfield during harvest and refused to work be- 
 cause the supply of tobacco was exhausted. Some was hourly 
 expected from a neighbouring tovsna ; nevertheless it was found 
 necessary to procure an immediate supply before the men could 
 be induced to work. Tobacco was an indulgence which the 
 master was not bound to allow them, and the men were at 
 the time receiving as much flour and mutton as they chose to 
 eat, and a bottle of wine a day. Instances of this kind were 
 not very frequent, it is true — and why ? Because masters 
 took good care not to be ivithout tobacco. 
 
 When such was the pampered condition of convicts, it is 
 ' Maconochie's TJwjujhts on Prison Management, p. 36.
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 143 
 
 not surprising to find that free men were occasionally found 
 willing to exchange their freedom for bondage by committing 
 some act which would subject them to the luxuries and indul- 
 gences of the latter state. An instance of this, much dwelt 
 upon by the colonial historians, was furnished in the case of 
 two soldiers of the 57th Eegiment in Governor Darling's 
 time, who, with the object in view of becoming assigned 
 servants, committed a theft in such a way as to ensure imme- 
 diate detection. The temptation was great ; and the punish- 
 ment, intended to be exemplary, was so disproportioned in 
 fact to the circumstances of the case that one of the men 
 convicted died within a few hours of its first infliction, and 
 in consequence a popular revulsion of feeling was produced, 
 alarmiirg in its results. 
 
 It occasionally happened that assignment furnished a 
 ready means of evading the ends of justice, as where the 
 proceeds of robberies in England were remitted out to some 
 unsuspected colonist, under a preconcerted arrangement or 
 trust, that the thieves when transported should be assigned to 
 the service of the consignee confederate, who might be relied 
 upon, through fear of exposure, to make a fair distribution of 
 the plunder. 
 
 If the nature and extent of the punishment of the assigned 
 servant was uncertain and capricious, his reward — namely, 
 the ticket of leave — was every whit as doubtful. It often 
 happened that good behaviour lessened the chances of a man's 
 obtaining his ticket when due, for the ticket was only given 
 if there was no record of offences against the servant during 
 his period of assignment. Consequently, good, useful servants 
 were prosecuted by their masters for the most trivial, real, or 
 fancied offences, in order that a record of crime might be 
 procured against them, so that, their tickets being refused 
 them, they would of necessity be contiruied in the assigned 
 service. This practice became so common in Sydney that a 
 regulation had to be passed making it impossible, by requiring 
 all men to whom tickets were due for service to be returned 
 to Government, whether they were entitled to them by conduct 
 ' Maconochie's Thoughts on Prison Management, p. 43.
 
 144 BONDS 01 DISUNION. 
 
 or not.' On the other hand, by reason of the difficulties 
 thrown in the way of masters parting with useless servants, 
 men, otherwise unfit, would generally obtain tickets of leave. 
 By procuring them that indulgence, the master immediately 
 became entitled to another servant, who might turn out a 
 greater acquisition. So the most worthless and hardened were 
 rewarded with freedom and entitled to spread their demoralis- 
 ing influences through the colony as advertisements of the 
 value of vice, while the thrifty, temperate, and industrious 
 were made to furnish a warning against the cultivation of 
 qualities deemed meritorious in all other communities but 
 those of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land.' 
 
 Of all the disgraceful features attending transportation, 
 perhaps none was more glaring in its cruelty than the failure 
 of the home Government to supply the local authorities with 
 proper hsts of the periods of transportation to which the 
 convicts had been severally sentenced. It was thus often 
 impossible, without a lengthened inquiry, that in those days 
 of slow communication occupied many months, or even 
 years, to ascertain the correctness of the assertions of the 
 numerous convicts who claimed to have served the full lengths 
 of their sentences ; and, though the importance of sending out 
 such lists with each convict ship was even imploringly urged 
 by the Colonial Governors, it was not until ten years after the 
 first foundation of the settlement that the Secretary of State for 
 the Colonies condescended to state that ' in future lists shall 
 be sent from England and Ireland of the terms of sentence.' 
 
 So far as the principle of the mjustice thus done was 
 concerned, it made no difference whether the worst or the best 
 of the convicts were most affected by it. It was, however, 
 naturally felt as a greater hardship by those prisoners who 
 had been transported for political offences, and to whom any 
 prolongation of their sentences meant a bitterly intense 
 degree of mental suffering, than it was by those convicts to 
 whom transportation or imprisonment was neither a disgrace 
 nor a punishment. The studied neglect was, in the case of the 
 former, a refinement of cruelty directed against political 
 
 ' Now Tasmania.
 
 TRANSP0RTAT10^' TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 145 
 
 opponents -who had been transported for Laving dared to 
 defend the hberties of their country ; and in the case of all it 
 was a bitter heartless wrong. 
 
 With respect to the reformation professed as the main 
 object of the s5'Stem, the wonder was how it could ever have 
 been expected. Assignment was, on the face of it, as has 
 been shown, not only slavery, but slavery in its very 
 worst form. The stimulus to labour or the punishment for 
 indolence and insolence was usually the lash. Other modes 
 of punishment were liberally provided, but masters generally 
 preferred flagellation, as causing less interruption to their 
 servant's work. Even under the mdulgent system, the lash 
 was fi'equently brought mto use. 
 
 The eftect of slavery has always been in the highest degree 
 debasing to both master and slave, and thorough deterioration 
 of general moralitv has been its mvariable result. The 
 following is the picture of the con\act settlements under the 
 assignment system of slavery, drawn by a careful observer : — 
 ' In my opinion the effect is what ought to have been ex- 
 pected. I firmly believe that almost eveiy prisoner who is 
 submitted to its operation ' (that of assigmnent) ' is deterior- 
 ated by it. Every one of them may not be a bad man, but 
 every one was a better one in England. I have directed 
 considerable attention to this subject, and sought information 
 from every available som-ce. I have conversed -mth ministers 
 of religion of various denominations, with magistrates and 
 settlers, and my opinion has been every Vv'here confirmed. I 
 hear one say that the prisoners invariably have money which 
 they cannot honestly obtain. Petty thefts are so common 
 that all appear to make up their minds to them. Drmiken- 
 ness seems in most cases to be only limited by opportunity ; 
 and h-ing and perjury are so fearfully prevalent that I beUeve 
 we have the authority of a Judge and Attorney-General attached 
 to the assertion that evidence may be readily obtained to 
 convict any man of any crune laid to his charge for half-a- 
 crown.' ' Those who had obtained their tickets or had been 
 completely emancipated had greater inducements to work and 
 
 ' Maconochie's Thouglits on Prison Discipline, pp. 38, 39. 
 
 L
 
 146 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 to revert to the ways of honesty, but the demoralismg effects 
 of the penal discipHne which they had undergone were equally 
 pronounced m their case. One of them, who since his eman- 
 cipation had devoted himself entirely to sheep-stealing, had 
 brought from the school of reforming discipline the maxim, 
 ' An old thief must keep his hand in,' and this he alleged as 
 his only motive. ' And,' continues Maconochie, ' of those 
 who had been convicted of murder within the year preceding, 
 all were of those who had been let loose upon society as peni- 
 tent and reformed men.' ' 
 
 The large influx of convicts during the reign of Macquarie 
 and the supply poured in in Brisbane's time might not have 
 been effective m reducing the demand for convict labour had 
 the colony been making sufficient progress to be able to give 
 employment to the extra arrivals. But, although the sta- 
 tistics taken at the end of Macquarie's administration com- 
 pared favourably with those taken twelve years previously, 
 the advance in material progress had been very small. The 
 population had been swollen to three times its pre^dous 
 amount mainly by importations of convicts, and the increase 
 in flocks and herds was the result of reproductive action in 
 a country peculiarly well fitted for its operation. The acreage 
 nominally under cultivation had been enlarged, but was still 
 far from sufficient to feed a trebled population without large 
 supplements of food brought at heavy expense from India and 
 Batavia. Moreover, only about two-thirds of this acreage was 
 actually under cultivation, a large proportion having been 
 abandoned after having been cleared. To open a market for 
 the employment of the convicts now rapidly accumulating on 
 his hands, Brisbane stimulated the immigration of free 
 settlers. With this view he offered, through the Home 
 Government, grants of land to those intending colonists who 
 could procure satisfactory certificates of their possessing a 
 capital of at least 500^., the grants to be proportioned to the 
 amount of their available property. Besides which, any one 
 who would undertake to maintain twenty convicts was 
 declared to be entitled at once, and without any further quali- 
 
 ' Maconochie's Thoughts on Prison Discipline.
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 147 
 
 fication, to a grant of 2,000 acres, and so on at the rate of one 
 Imndred acres for every convict he niiglit be wilhng to take on 
 his hands. The result of these indi;cements was a large and 
 continued influx of free settlers, and the colonial Government 
 soon found that the demand for convicts was greater than the 
 supply at its disposal could satisfy. The Government farm?; 
 that had been laid out to give employment to the convicts 
 had therefore to be abandoned. On these farms land had 
 been cleared and buildings erected at great expense, and it is 
 a striking commentary on the worth of convict labour — or of 
 Government planning — that the value of the land had been but 
 little uiereased by the expensive work performed upon it, 
 while the buildings were found to be of no value at all, and 
 were suffered for the most part to go to ruin. These farms 
 were now given up, and the convicts located in tliem were 
 distributed forthwith among the free settlers. 
 
 It seems impossible to patch up an evil without creating 
 fresh ones. The whole system of colonising with convicts 
 was thoroughly bad, and although the necessity for the emigra- 
 tion of free people was at length admitted, even at home, it 
 was promoted by means of encouragement productive of vicious 
 results. The habit grew up among the free of getting large 
 grants of land made to themselves by offering to mamtain a 
 larger number of convicts than the Government could supply, 
 and they were nevertheless granted the full quantity of land 
 proportioned to the whole number of convicts applied for. As 
 an instance of the stimulus given by the ' encouragement ' 
 plan to land-jobbing may be taken tlie case of an inchvidual 
 who, having come to the colony for a short while for the 
 benefit of his health, bethought himself of benefiting his 
 pocket as well as his health by applying for a grant of 2,000 
 acres. The grant was accorded, and he immediately sold his 
 easily-earned property, without ever having seen it himself, 
 for the sum of 500/. This was no extreme example, for 
 Governor Darling afterwards found it necessary to devise 
 regulations expressly to meet the frequent recurrence of such 
 cases. Agi'eeably to these regulations land was thenceforth to 
 be granted m proportion to the property or means of the 
 
 l2
 
 148 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 applicant, but it was not to be granted to him at all unless 
 there was reason to believe that he was able and willing and 
 likely to improve it. 
 
 It may be suggested that Brisbane would have acted more 
 wisely if he had done more to encourage the immigration of 
 free labourers instead of confining his efforts to the introduc- 
 tion of capitalists. As it was, the class of men whom he in- 
 duced to come to the colony were afterwards the strenuous 
 supporters of the continuance of the transportation system, 
 and by their insistance in that respect their influence in 
 retarding the advance of the colony was very considerable. 
 Not only were they advocates for transportation, but they 
 uniformly did their utmost to keep free immigrants of the 
 labouring class entirely out of the country, and thus they pre- 
 vented the formation of a society intermediate between masters 
 aud convicts. Such a society would probably have prevented 
 the pretensions of the former fi'om acquiring a solidity danger- 
 ous to the welfare of the comitry, and would by the force of 
 example and association have been effectual in raising the 
 latter from their brutalised level. 
 
 The convicts had no chance of becoming reformed charac- 
 ters under actual conditions. It was not in Australia as it 
 had been in America, where the felon transported to the 
 plantations found himself an insulated rogue amongst honest 
 men. There ' he imperceptibly glided into honest habits 
 and lost not only the tact for pockets, but the wish to in- 
 vestigate their contents. But in Botany Bay, the felon, as 
 soon as he got out of his ship, met with his ancient trull, with 
 the footpad of his heart and the convict of his affections — the 
 man whose hand he had often met in the same gentleman's 
 pocket, the being whom he would choose from the whole world 
 to take to the road, or to disentangle the locks of Bramah.' 
 It was impossible that vice should not become more in- 
 tense in such society. The most powerful instrument of reform 
 — the public opinion of respectable men and women of a rank 
 of life on a par with that of the generality of the convicts — 
 was non-existent in Ntw South Wales, and was sedulously 
 kept at a distance from a community where its steady opera-
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 149 
 
 tion was essential to the reformation Avliich the ruling powers 
 professed to have in \-iew. 
 
 The fear that Brisbane's steps m the direction of free 
 emigration ixdght be but the thin end of the wedge which was 
 to open out a path for the introduction of free labourers took 
 possession of the Home Government. The emancipists, too, 
 whom Macquarie's ill-judged schemes had raised up into a 
 powerful class, might be always sure of a community of senti- 
 ment between themselves and the Colonial Office. They 
 therefore pressed for Brisbane's immediate recall, and the 
 Ofl&ce gladly acceded to a proposition which gave opportunity 
 for showhig signal disapprobation of a course which, if un- 
 checked, might eventually lead to the prosperity and indepen- 
 dence of the colony. Fortmiately, they were too late to 
 prevent the influx of a goodly number of free labourers in the 
 teeth of all discouragement, and during the governorship of 
 Darling, Brisbane's successor, the preponderance of this class 
 became so pronomiced that from thenceforward con\'icts and 
 their concerns dwindled into comparative insignificance, until 
 brought prominently into notice again by the opposition of 
 the Home Govermnent to the demands of the colonists for 
 the cessation of transportation. During Darling's time the 
 emancipated convict mechanics gradually disappeared from the 
 face of society in the towns, being replaced by skilled labour 
 of a more reputable character from the mother-country, and 
 being thus in the natural course of events pressed down to a 
 lower level in the scale. The emancipist was obUged either 
 to conform his habits to those of his respectable neighbours, 
 or to be off as an outlaw to the inhospitable mterior. 
 
 Governor Bourke, who succeeded Darling, found it neces- 
 sary to mitigate the severity and the mequality of magisterial 
 sentences on con\dcts by limiting the scale of punishment for 
 any one offence to a maximum of fifty lashes. He also regu- 
 lated the practice of assignment by refusing to bestow more 
 than seventy convicts on any single individual ; and, by gi\'ing 
 a second or casting vote in the Legislative Council, he pro- 
 cured the passing into law of his proposal to make convicts 
 eligible to serve on juries on criminal cases. These measures,
 
 150 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 especially the one restricting the liberty to lash, brought the 
 Government into very bad odour — a not altogether unhealthy 
 sign in the latter case, inasmuch as it was significant of the 
 growth of a free population. Some three years after the 
 departure of Bourke, transportation to New South Wales 
 virtually ceased ; although, as we shall see hereafter, the 
 Home Government was always anxious to renew the system. 
 If not entirely killed, it was thoroughly scotched by 1840, and 
 it only remains to sketch some of its salient features to which 
 attention has not yet been called. 
 
 During the fifty-three years devoted to turning the colony 
 into a reservoir of crime, no fewer than 59,788 felons had been 
 transported from England to this distant shore. Of these only 
 8,706 were females — only about seventeen per cent, of the 
 whole number — a fact which speaks volumes for the professed 
 desire of the home Government to reform the morals of the 
 prisoners. This arrangement prevented the natural increase 
 of the criminal population by births — possibly a fortunate cir- 
 cumstance — but the fact must be debited to the culpable care- 
 lessness rather than credited to the good intentions of our 
 rulers. This inequality between the numbers of the sexes 
 was for fifty-three years the ready cause of the grossest forms 
 of vice that civilisation has ever been called upon to reprobate.' 
 And who shall say that felons, untended and untaught, inured 
 to vicious lives, and brutalised by habit though they were, 
 were to blame for these atrocious immoralities, rather than 
 those Pharisees in high places in England whose measures 
 were devices for depraving the depravity even of the noisome 
 herd selected with care from the bestial offscourings of British 
 gaols. 
 
 The expenses of the transportation system were enormous. 
 The evidence given before the Transportation Committee in 
 181G showed that the price paid for the mere transport of con- 
 victs had been on an average 37Z. per head, exclusive of food 
 
 ' The women who were sent out from time to time are described as 
 being the most j^olluted of their sex ; as ' far worse than the men, and 
 at the bottom of every infamous transaction in the colony.' — Letter from 
 Governor Hunter.
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 151 
 
 and clothing en route ; and it appeared that in 1814, 108Z. per 
 man were paid for the transport, food, and clothing of 1,01() 
 convicts. Up to 1815 the total direct cost of the settlement 
 to the mother- comitry had been 3,465,983Z., and whereas the 
 annual expense of maintenance of each convict was calculated 
 at B'Sl. 9s. 5d., the value of his labour was stated to be not 
 more than 20/. per annum. 
 
 What a reversal of the true functions of colonisation was 
 shown in these figures. Instead of being the means of en- 
 riching the home populations, New South Wales has been 
 made a sink for the national Avealth as well as for the national 
 iniquities. 
 
 The local Governors were being continually urged to reduce 
 the expense of maintenance, until they were harassed into the 
 pernicious system of granting tickets of leave to convicts pro- 
 miscuously, without any inquiry worth the name into their title 
 to the indulgence. There was thus let loose a set of men who 
 had been solemnly pronoiniced to be improper and dangerous 
 members of society, and unrestrained opportunities were thus 
 afforded them of committing fresh enormities before they had 
 made the atonement affixed to their original offences. Such 
 was the extension of the ticket of leave system, that although 
 4,659 convicts were transported between January 1812 and 
 January 1817, the expenses of the colony for the latter year were 
 6,445/. less than for the year 1813. This violent and unjusti- 
 fiable mode of retrenchment, however, was not put into such 
 extensive practice with impunity ; it was attended with its 
 natural and inevitable results — proportionate increase of de- 
 moralisation and crime. Eobberies and other crimes of 
 violence became so frequent that the Governor deemed it 
 expedient ' earnestly to recommend to persons in general to 
 travel only during the daytime.' 
 
 The ' ticket of leave ' system may be made beneficial enough 
 in its operation ; for, if carefully administered, it may consti- 
 tute a means of exceptional value for stimulating criminals to 
 an industrious course of conduct which may ultimately be- 
 come the habit of their lives. In a community composed ex- 
 clusively of convicts, the adoption of the system is practically
 
 152 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 a nec3ssity ; but just in proportion to the need for it is the 
 danger lest carelessness in its application should furnish a pre- 
 mium to villany. 
 
 The home Government must have known that when they 
 were insisting on the granting of tickets of leave as a device 
 for economy, they were in fact directing the local authorities 
 not to make good conduct the condition of granting. They 
 were simply to use tickets of leave to diminish the number of 
 convicts, so as to cut down the cost of their maintenance. 
 
 The local objections were contemptuously set aside, and 
 the home creed forced upon the colony. Tickets were dealt 
 out with lavish profusion and the grantees very soon required 
 an increased police force to watch them or to take them into 
 custody, unwilling though the authorities were to take any 
 grantee on their hands again. For how were they to save 
 expense if they had to re-arrest men as fast as they let them 
 go '? Under the circumstances they pursued one or other of 
 the two inconsistent courses of either waiting until the out- 
 rages perpetrated by the releasees became unbearable, or they 
 kept ap the stream of circulating criminality by fresh indis- 
 criminate issues of tickets. 
 
 The felons released on tickets had not even the chance of 
 obtaining an honest livelihood so long as the policy of the 
 Home Government prevented the opening of fresh avenues of 
 employment ; and this prevention was, as will presently 
 appear, a cardinal feature of DoAvning Street rule. So 
 matters went on from bad to worse. Crime increased in a 
 proportion higher by thirty or forty per cent, than the growth 
 of population, for criminal cases trebled while population 
 scarcely doubled itself; and notwithstanding that, at times, 
 the practice of assignment provided very largely for the ex- 
 penses of convict maintenance, it was ascertained by a Trans- 
 portation Committee of the House of Commons that up to the 
 end of 1836, when transportation virtually ceased, the total 
 average cost of maintenance had been for each convict 821. 
 The average cost of conveying each one to the colony during 
 the whole of the transportation period had been 28Z. Against 
 this last item there was nothing to place on the other side of
 
 TRANSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 153 
 
 the account, while, on the calculation given above, for every 
 33Z. 9s. 5d. expended on his maintenance, the convict could 
 only show work to the value of 20Z. It follows that the pro- 
 bable net loss incurred by England, taking simply cost of 
 transport and loss due to inefficient work, in establishing and 
 fostering this one con\act colony for fifty-three years, amounted 
 to no less than 2,500,000/. exclusive of interest. 
 
 This is indeed in striking contrast to the prosperity that 
 might have resulted both to the colony and the mother- 
 country had free emigration earlier taken the place of con- 
 \-ict transportation. The estimated annual value of a free 
 labourer's work in the Australian colonies is usually taken at 
 200/. Over and above the necessary cost of subsistence, a 
 good part of this represents the value ui exchange to the 
 colony of the surplus produce which he annually assists in 
 raising. As this surplus is, as a rule, exchanged for home 
 goods, the value of the free labourer is almost as great to 
 the mother- country which supplies him as to the colony in 
 which he resides. 
 
 Suppose the conditions of the community, where labour is 
 so economically profitable, to be suddenly reversed. The 
 labouring man ceases to produce a surplus, or even has to 
 depend upon subsidies from home for the means of existence. 
 How many families at home would, in such case, inevitably 
 be thrown out of employment and driven to a criminality of 
 life on which in happier times they looked with abhorrence! 
 By seeing what a loss pecuniarily and morally such altered 
 conditions would involve, we can in a measure appreciate 
 the injury inflicted on the home community by the devoting 
 of one of the fairest portions of the universe to the exclusive 
 occupation of a society of unprofitable consumers, fed, clothed, 
 and lodged at the expense of the Britisli taxpayer. 
 
 Every convict sent out increased the burdens of the Enghsh 
 poor ; and so in turn transportation increased the propensity 
 to crime at home. 
 
 Transportation, as actually conducted, was as a punish- 
 ment most unequal in its operation. ' Generally speaking, it 
 was most dreaded by those offenders against the laws of their
 
 154 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 country who might be _ called accidental criminals ; by persons 
 who had not made a trade of crime, but who had been induced 
 to commit crime by the impulse of the moment, or by some 
 accidental combination of circumstances, or by some all-power- 
 ful temptation, and who might in many cases be possessed 
 of good moral feeling.' ' It fell with terrible effect on those 
 who were least deserving of it, while hardened criminals 
 viewed it as a golden opportunity for running riot in vice 
 and lawlessness. The distance of the Antipodes from England 
 made transportation, for most, a sentence of perpetual banish- 
 ment, and that to a colony where, thanks to atrocious political 
 and economical mismanagement, the successful exercise of 
 honest industry was next to impossible. Some by force, fraud, 
 or successful speculation in rum, managed to do well, and to 
 find their way home again, to renew once more the criminal 
 associations of their youth, or to furnish an example of the 
 prosperity to which villany might attain in a place specially 
 designed for its signal punishment and complete reformation. 
 A few of those who remained behind, by strength of character 
 or resolution, acquired for themselves wealth and regained the 
 respect of their neighbours ; but the vast majority lived on, 
 hated, despised, degraded, and ever sinking lower into the 
 darkest depths of helpless drunken imbecility ; or, by indulg- 
 ing boldly in criminal adventures, remained a constant source 
 of annoyance and danger to the community until their gradual 
 extirpation by rum or the gallows. 
 
 Probably many of these last had, when transported origin- 
 ally, been of the class most easily accessible to reforming 
 influences. They were the ' accidental offenders ' most keenly 
 alive to the degradation of their situation, and most easily 
 goaded to desperation by a sense of the unmerited degree of 
 their sufferings. 
 
 In one way or another the convicts dwindled away with 
 remarkable rapidity under the influence of a free emigration. 
 Some were assimilated by the advancing wave, but generally 
 they dropped out of sight and out of mind, much as the 
 aboriginal withered away when brought into contact with 
 ' Report of Committee on Transportation.
 
 TEAKSPORTATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 155 
 
 civilisation. But the taint remained for long in dissolute 
 habits, in the disposition to look upon vices with a lenient 
 eye, in the fashion of dependence upon the fiat of the ' some- 
 body's cousin ' who ruled the colony as the nominee of the 
 Colonial Office, and last, but not least, in the disinclination of 
 labourers to emigrate from home to a place associated in their 
 minds with every circumstance of infamy. 
 
 During all this time, the facilities afforded by the trans- 
 portation system for getting rid of crimmals had prevented 
 any attention bemg given to criminal discipline at home. Ahke 
 at home and in our dependencies, the rule of a landoA\ming 
 oligarchy had promoted the growth of crime, and the draft of 
 a few thousands of comdcts annually to Australia seemed to 
 have increased, rather than diminished, the call upon the foul 
 accommodation of the English pi-isons. This was natural 
 enough, for the prospect of transportation was attractive 
 to the English criminal, and even without that inducement, 
 misgovernment was there, too, an all-compelling cause of 
 crime. 
 
 The chapter of transportation records a period of English 
 history as disgi-aceful as any that obscures her annals. But 
 it is Avith the impolicy rather than with the wickedness of the 
 system that I am now mainly concerned. To make a colony 
 look back with shame upon its origin is certainly not a likely 
 way to promote an entente cordial e between it and the parent- 
 country, or to generate a feeling of pride in the mutual tie that 
 nominally binds them together. 
 
 If ever there was a system certain to be reprobated by a free 
 colonial population, it was that of the transportation of con- 
 victs. Nothing was so calculated to give reality to the risuig 
 threats to ' cut the painter ' as the blindly persistent attempts 
 of the home authorities to give the system fresh vitality ; and 
 until wiser counsels induced the abandonment of that policy. 
 New South Wales was a formidable hotbed of rising disaffection.
 
 156 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 UNPROGEESSIVE AUSTRALIA — IMPERIAL MISGOVERNMENT 
 AT THE ANTIPODES. 
 
 Whether we go back in search to remote periods of antiquity, 
 or trace the course of history to times as recent as our own, 
 we shall find that the prosperity of individual nations has ever 
 been dependent on the freedom of their institutions rather 
 than upon fertility of soil or benignity of climate. On the 
 other hand, centralised and anti-popular forms of government 
 have invariably had the effect of neutralising the benefits to 
 be expected from the possession of natural advantages. 
 
 It mattered not at all that New South Wales was so 
 plentifully endowed by nature that, even under the withering 
 blight of convictism, she might speedily have become pre- 
 eminent among our colonial possessions, so long as the des- 
 potism of the Colonial Office extended over her an influence 
 more deadly than even convictism itself. 
 
 Canada possessed the shadow without the substance of free 
 institutions. New South Wales, although inhabited entirely 
 by Englishmen, could not show even the semblance of free- 
 dom. This was a condition of things which, however much 
 it might have been warranted at the original foundation of 
 the convict settlement, was totally inexcusable in its continu- 
 ance as soon as the numbers and energy of the free non- 
 convict population became capable of administering to local 
 requirements. 
 
 It is not easy to lay down a rule for the point of time best 
 fitted for handing over to a young community, composed largely 
 of a convict element requiring constant supervision, the 
 management of its own destinies. Where the colonists are
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 157 
 
 free men and women, they will probably fare best if left to 
 themselves from the outset. Self-government ah initio is there 
 the best, indeed the sole, means of developing local resom-eea 
 and of acquiring local strength. The absence of leading- 
 strings undoubtedly gave rise to the great energy and vitahty 
 of our North- American colonies, and enabled them to contend 
 successfully, not only in their war with the wilderness and the 
 savage, but at a later period against the unperial power 
 which would have ruthlessly robbed them of their hard-earned 
 heritage. 
 
 With regard to New South Wales the reasoning is more 
 involved. The case was unique in the history of English 
 colonial possessions, and it is therefore only by looking back 
 to the time when the evil effects of the general regulations 
 applied to her first exposed the incompetency of the Home 
 Government to legislate for her that we can point to a date 
 when her free inhabitants should have been entrusted with 
 the moulding of popular institutions. If it can be shown that 
 after a certain period the free settlers formed a considerable 
 proportion of the population, that their industry was retarded 
 by their absolute subjection to the decrees of a distant govern- 
 ing body, and that remonstrance was useless to avert or miti- 
 gate the course of injurious legislation, it may with reason be 
 asserted that that was the period at which local self-govern- 
 ment became a necessity if the welfare of the colony was an 
 object to be considered. 
 
 But, as we know. New South Wales never was governed 
 bv the home authorities with a view to its welfare. It was 
 to be repressed, not developed, and therefore the emigration 
 of free settlers, the sine qua non of the uprismg of free local 
 institutions, was to be perseveringly discouraged. 
 
 Had means been taken to further the prosperity of the 
 colony, it was but too probable that free emigrants would 
 have been attracted to it ; that they would ere long have 
 asserted their right to refuse the cargoes of felons so freely 
 exported ; and that the accumulation of such a mass of de- 
 pravity at hom.e might have directed a disagreeable amount of 
 attention at home to the misgoveriuuent of England herself.
 
 158 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 From the official point of view, then, it was not desirable to 
 make the colony prosperous, so any measures tending to its 
 benefit must be decisively tabooed. The subject of the most 
 advisable time for granting a certain degree of local self-rule 
 cannot, therefore, be treated from the point of view of the 
 Home Government, since they had no wish to see the colony 
 make forward progress at all, but must be considered by the 
 light thro'ttii upon it by the page of history. 
 
 The fact that about the year 1804 the free and the indus- 
 trious freed inhabitants of the colony began to feel the weight 
 of oppressive imperial restrictions on the every-day business of 
 their Hves, and that these settlers then bore a fair proportion 
 in number to the general mass of convicts, would seem to 
 mark out that year as an epoch when a measure of self-rule 
 might have been properly accorded. It was then that agri- 
 cultural produce had become in excess of the quantity required 
 for consumption, and that farmers began to look around them 
 for fresh openings for the exercise of their energies. A local 
 representative governing body would doubtless have made 
 vigorous efforts to help them by refusing to give effect to the 
 monstrous restrictions with which the unperial rulers had 
 environed the colony ; and the immediate future of New South 
 Wales might then have been as full of promise as has been 
 its subsequent career. As it was, the prayers, remonstrances, 
 and arguments of the colonists fell upon listless ears ; the old 
 restrictions were tenaciously adliered to, and until they were 
 removed, many years afterwards, the colony remained in the 
 stationary stage. 
 
 Never was there a country more fitted for diversity of occu- 
 pation than New South Wales, and never was a better oppor- 
 tunity afforded to the home Government of stamping out 
 enterprise than was afforded by the circmnstances of the 
 colony in the opening years of the century. This opportunity 
 was utilised to the uttermost. 
 
 The means adopted were duties and disabilities. The duties 
 were levied on all articles imported and on all articles exported, 
 the tariff' of duties on exports being, in the case of coal and 
 timber, double the amomit of the duty on the same articles
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 159 
 
 when imported. It made no difference that the imports hable 
 to duty came from ports in the same colony, for the coal and 
 wood on wliich a double export duty was levied came to 
 Sydney from other portions of the colony itself. That duties 
 on these articles should be levied equally on exportation as on 
 importation, and in two of the most material instances doul)led, 
 was, says Wentworth,' ' so manifestly absurd that it would be 
 quite superfluous to dilate on the system. It is a system of 
 policy which, it may be safely asserted, is unlmo"\vii in any other 
 part of the world ; and nothing but the indubitable certainty 
 of its existence would convince any rational person that it 
 could ever have entered into the contemplation of any one en- 
 trusted mth the government of a colony.' Surely he would 
 have been justified in assertmg that only those entrusted with 
 the government of a colony could ever have conceived such 
 fiscal measures. 
 
 Two great industries were thus nipped in the bud. But 
 for the duties, both coal and iron would have been largely 
 exported to India and to the Cape of Good Hope. As it was, 
 the vessels trading between those coimtries and the colony had 
 always to return fi-om the latter in ballast, though the owners 
 or consignees would have gladly shipped cargoes of bark, 
 timber, and coals, if they could have derived the most mmute 
 profit from their carriage or sale.^ The colonists had, m con- 
 sequence, to pay, in the increased price of imported articles, for 
 the double freight entailed by the importing ships having to 
 return empty. Will it be credited that a succession of 
 Governors should, under instructions from home, have perti- 
 naciously adhered to a system of finance so monstrous and 
 absurd '? 
 
 The rising trade in coal, cedar-wood, and wattle bark was 
 thus extinguished — as a trade ; and survived only in the profit- 
 less form of an occasional fitful speculation on a lunited scale. 
 
 There were, however, still more potent forces applied to 
 cripplmg any incipient development of mdustry. The home 
 duties on colonial produce were made to exceed the local 
 
 ' Wentworth's Description of New South Wales, p. 289. 
 ^ Ibid. p. 290.
 
 160 BONUS OF DISUNION. 
 
 duties in seventy. The southern coasts of Australasia 
 abounded with fish, and within a few hours' sail of Sydney 
 were extensive whale fisheries capable of being worked at a 
 great profit to the colony. Here was a new field of employ- 
 ment lying ready to hand, and at so great a distance from 
 England that the object of the Navigation Laws— the fostering 
 of an English naval marine — could not possibly have been 
 interfered with by allowing the colonists the run of their own 
 fisheries. But it did not suit certain London merchants con- 
 cerned in the South Sea fisheries that spermaceti oil should 
 be introduced in large quantities into the home market. At 
 the same time, so totally uninterested was the Home Legislature 
 in the welfare of the colony that, at the instance of the mer- 
 chants. Parliament passed an Act \drtually prohibiting the 
 colonists from the right wlipJe as well as from the sperm 
 whale fishery. 
 
 The local duty on whale oil was hea\y enough — being 
 2/. 10s. on a ton of sperm oil, and 2/. on a ton of black whale 
 or other oil — to act as a partial discouragement to the prose- 
 cution of the fishing ; but, by the Act, the duties on oil im- 
 ported into England, taken from whales caught ' by His 
 Majesty's subjects usually residing in ' Australia, were raised 
 to 8L 65. 3fZ. on the ton of train, and to 24/. 18s. 9d. on the 
 ton of sperm oil. The duties thus imposed were twenty times 
 greater on train oil and sixty times greater on spermaceti oil 
 than the duties levied on similar substances taken by British 
 subjects residing within the limits of the United Kmgdorfi. 
 
 There can be no doubt that these enormous rates were 
 de\'ised specially to prevent the Australian settlers from even 
 attemptmg the whale-fishing, and the proof, if proof were 
 needed, is strengthened by the fact that the English import 
 duties on oils brought from any other colony were a small 
 fraction of those charged on the like matters imported fi'om 
 the Australian colonies. All the efforts made by the latter 
 to utilise the whale fisheries for their own benefit were rendered 
 futile by the enormous weight of unjust duties imposed upon 
 their produce on its introduction to the only country where it 
 \N ouid otherwise have fomid a ready and remunerative market,
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 161 
 
 \^hile ships, manned by English crews, might explore the 
 Southern Seas in pursuit of a valuable propert}^ which the 
 residents hard by were forbidden to touch. These English 
 crews only found their way thither at rare seasons and in- 
 tervals, and thus vast resources were rendered unavailing, a 
 strugglmg community was reduced to idleness, and the British 
 consumer was victimised, in order to prevent the convict 
 colonies from becoming enterprismg and respectable, and so 
 that the pockets of a few grasping London traders might be 
 comfortably filled. 
 
 Had the colonists been encouraged to prosecute the whale 
 fishery on their own shores, a direct trade might have sprung 
 up between the mother-country and the Antipodes, which 
 might have called into existence a fresh demand for British 
 shipping, and which would have furnished a natui'al fostering- 
 ground for a mercantile and naval marine. 
 
 For other reasons, too, it was distinctly to the interest of 
 England herself to encourage the local prosecution of the 
 whale-fishing. The ropes, canvas, and gear of every descrip- 
 tion necessary for the outfit of the colonial vessels for these 
 fisheries would certainly have been furnished from home for 
 some time to come. Moreover, the supply of sperm oil in the 
 market would no longer have been so deficient as to keep the 
 price at- famine height, or to afl:brd an excuse for the bounties 
 held out by the Legislature for the encouragement of whale- 
 fishing. To argue thus, however, is to suppose that the Home 
 Government w^ere capable of preferring the interests of man- 
 kind to those of small cliques of monopolists whose poli- 
 tical influence was worth buying; or to suppose that they 
 troubled themselves to reflect upon the inconsistency of giving 
 bounties to mdi\'iduals to promote whale-fishing, and inflicting 
 duties upon a whole community in order to prevent any such 
 fishing being carried on at all. 
 
 The duties created disabilities, but there were disabilities 
 proper in addition. By a clause m the East India Company's 
 charter it was prov-ided that no vessel of less than 850 tons 
 measurement, with the exception of the Company's packets, 
 should be allowed ' to clear out from any port within the 
 
 M
 
 162 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 United Kingdom for any place within the Hmits of the said 
 Company's charter, or be admitted to entry at any port of the 
 United Kingdom from any place within those limits.' ^ Un- 
 fortmiately for the Colonies, 'those limits' mcluded Australia, 
 and thus a death-blow was given to the Australian colonists' 
 chances of bettering their position. For the smallness and 
 poverty of the colonial population did not allow of a demand 
 sufficiently great to absorb cargoes of such magnitude, and 
 experimental shipments out there resulted in loss to the 
 OAvners, who very soon discontinued the hazardous specula- 
 tion. Before the passing of the Act, merchants had been in 
 the habit of shipping cargoes in smaller vessels for the 
 colonial markets, but now they were compelled to abandon 
 their connection with the colony, which therefore had to 
 depend for its supplies of British manufactures upon the 
 captains of the vessels engaged in the transport of criminals. 
 ' These supplies therefore naturally became unequal and 
 precarious ; sometimes being mmecessarily superabundant 
 and cheap, and at other times bemg so excessively scarce and 
 dear as to be entirely beyond the reach of the great body of 
 consumers.' ^ 
 
 The tendency of this Act was not less injurious to the 
 colonists with regard to the few articles of export which 
 they were enabled to produce or collect for the English 
 market. These were three in number— namely, wool, hides, 
 and sealskins, and their quantity was inconsiderable. These 
 articles represented a value for export to England of about 
 15,000L annually. ' It may therefore be perceived,' says 
 Wentworth, ' that the whole of the annual export of this 
 colony would not suffice for half the freight of a single vessel 
 of the size regulated by the Act in question. It happens in 
 consequence that the different articles of export which the 
 colonists collect frequently accumulate in their stores for a 
 year and a half before it becomes worth the while of the 
 captains of any of the vessels which frequent the colony to 
 give them ship-room, and even then they do it as a matter of 
 
 ' 53 Geo. III. c. 155. 
 
 " Wentworth's Description of New South Wales, p. 313.
 
 UNPEOGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 163 
 
 favour, not forgetting, however, to extort an exorbitant 
 return for that kindness and condescension. The o'Raiers, 
 indeed, of the vessels are so well aware of the inability of the 
 colony to furnish them with cargoes on freight that they 
 generally manage before their departure to contract for 
 freights from some of the ports in India — a precaution which 
 increases still more perceptibly the difficulty which the 
 colonists experience in sending their produce to market.' ' 
 
 It was not until some forty years after its foundation 
 that the colony found itself able to build and use, on its 
 own accomit, vessels of the dimensions of 350 tons. Con- 
 sequently, during the whole of that period they were pro- 
 hibited from navigating their own vessels on their own seas. 
 Of what possible benefit could this, have been to the East 
 India Company ? At the best it could not have advantaged 
 the Company so much as the operation of similar restrictions 
 on vessels built at the Cape of Good Hope would have done ; 
 and yet, by an Order in Council in 1814, the Cape was ex- 
 pressly relieved from the disability, while Australia was still 
 kept groveUuig under its burden. 
 
 There seems to have been a wantonness in our dealings 
 with the Australian colonies, a doing of mischief for mis- 
 chiefs sake, which is not accomitable for solely by reference 
 to the contemptuous tone m which it was customary for the 
 Downing Street officials to set at nought the necessities of 
 our Colonial Empire. Either the English statesmen who 
 successively made absurd and injurious regulations for 
 Australian colonies were careless enough of their duties to 
 allow themselves to be kept in utter ignorance of the effects 
 of the measures endorsed by them, or else their actions must 
 have been dictated by a spirit of general malevolence. 
 
 Mated at every turn, the condition of New South 
 Wales was mdeed deplorable. The agriculturist, for whose 
 produce there was no demand, might not have the capital 
 where-uath to become a grazier. If he went to Sydney he 
 could not get employment, and it was useless to set up as a 
 
 ' Wentworth's New South Wales, pp. 313, 314. 
 ii2
 
 164 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 trader for himself, except as a rum seller, in a country wliere 
 there was hardly any other trade than rum selling. To do 
 even this he required capital, for he not only had to pay a 
 heavy duty on the imported rum, but he had to bribe the 
 authorities heavily in order to obtain a licence ; and bemg sub- 
 jected to severe competition in his adopted calling, he could 
 not hope to do well except by selling a very large quantity of 
 spirits. Thus he was driven by pressure of foolish fiscal 
 measures and by the arts of favoured Government officials to 
 stimulate widespread intoxication as his only means of making 
 a livelihood. 
 
 A certain amount of external commerce was, it is true, 
 carried on, and, strange is the irony of events, with China — a 
 country whom we afterwards forced at the cannon's mouth to 
 open her ports to foreigners. While England was playing the 
 very part which she afterwards declared to be so immoral when 
 practised by China as to deserve exemplary pmiishment, a 
 small trade was being maintained between the latter country 
 and a few colonial merchants by means of American and 
 Indian-built vessels. But this channel of industry, as well as 
 that furnished by the discovery of the Seal Islands, soon became 
 profitless, and they were consequently far from pro\dding a 
 remedy for the miprosperous condition of the agricultural body. 
 The distress, therefore, of the colony continued increasmg in 
 proportion to its increase of population, and rum selling grew 
 more and more into favour as an indispensable and natural 
 vocation. 
 
 The necessity of permitting the erection of local distilleries 
 was repeatedly urged upon the home Government, and appa- 
 rently with excellent reason. The principal agricultural soils of 
 the colony along the banks of the Hawkesbury river usually 
 produced far more grain and vegetable produce than the colony 
 could consume. In consequence the crops were left rotting 
 on the groimd for want of purchasers, and farmers were ruined 
 by the very fertility of the land. Every now and again, how- 
 ever, came an iniaida^tion of the river which swept away all 
 he agricultural resovirces of the colony. No produce had 
 been stored up, for there was no use for it, and of a sudden the
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTEALIA. . 1G5 
 
 commmiity was reduced nearly to starvation point. Then 
 recourse Avas necessary to foreign supplies, and these had to be 
 procured at famme prices from India and elsewhere, and very 
 large amounts had to be paid away m freight duties and 
 shippers' profits. Moreover, the colonial consumers were com- 
 puted to have paid over a period of fifteen years, from 1804 to 
 1819, some 25,000Z. per annum for rum, more than half of 
 which amomit went in payment of incidental duties and charges ; 
 and if the amount thus disbursed benefited English and 
 foreig-n distillers, it certainly did no good to the colony. If the 
 colonists had been allowed to erect distilleries, an immediate use 
 would have been found for surplus grain supplies, an mduce- 
 ment would have been given to store them, and so the risk of 
 famine, with its attendant heavy expenses, would have been 
 minimised, while farming would have received a healthy 
 stimulus. It might have become a profitable business, and 
 many a resourceless convict might have taken to it as an 
 occupation preferable to vice and drunkenness. 
 
 It seems more probable than not that the liberty to distil 
 would have tended to diminish intoxication, for there can be 
 no doubt that part of the heavy consumption of spirits at the 
 time in the colony was owing to the exceedingly high price at 
 which they were retailed. This may sound paradoxical, but 
 it is none the less true. It was afterwards found, when the 
 importation of spirits was practically freed from duties, that 
 general drunkenness diminished in a marked degree, and that 
 too at a time when increased sobriety could not well be 
 ascribed to superiority of education or condition among the 
 classes forming the subject of the comparison. The reason of 
 the difference effected by the fall in price may perhaps be found 
 to rest on much the same ground as does the almost unvary- 
 ing sobriety of natives of wine-producmg districts ; but a more 
 potent cause of the sudden improvement may be suggested as 
 arismg from the natural lessening of desire in men to get full 
 value out of a cheap common article than out of a dear one of 
 comparative rarity. The purchaser of rum at two guineas a 
 bottle would possibly conceive himself under a sort of obliga- 
 tion to di-ink the whole of it and to get the full result out of it
 
 166 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 as an intoxicant, but he might not consider it necessary to 
 brutahse himself over a bottle at four shillings. 
 
 Besides the i^robable moral effect that would have resulted 
 from the cheapenuig of spirits, it was in the highest degi-ee 
 likely that the stimulus given to agi'icultui-e would have 
 favourably reacted on all other occupations, except perhaps 
 rum selling. A certain measure of prosperity would have been 
 imparted to each when the principal one was prosperous, and 
 people would have had other things to do besides drinking. 
 The commmiity would in all probability have attauied to a 
 height of respectability which would have given it no in- 
 terest in maiutainmg drunkenness as the normal phase of 
 existence. 
 
 Apparently the colony had only to ask for a thing from 
 the home Government in order to have it scornfully refused. 
 The proposed scheme would affect the customs revenue, and 
 beside that consideration the welfare of the colony sank into 
 insignificance. So the colony was not to be permitted to 
 employ and improve itself by distillmg spirits. 
 
 It has ever been a characteristic of Colonial Office rule that 
 the officials of the Colonial Department, though themselves 
 utterly ignorant of perhaps even the geographical positions of 
 the countries over which they exercise irresponsible sway, 
 should steadfastly endeavour to regulate the mamiers, cus- 
 toms, and occupations of the inhabitants of the remotest 
 dependencies after their own fashion. The Office was possessed 
 of the idea that agriculture and nothmg else was the true 
 vocation of the Australasian colonist. Starting mth that 
 behef, it naturally went just the wi'ong way to work to con- 
 trive that it should be so. Instead of encouraguig agriculture 
 by fostering such a growth of population and general occu- 
 pation as would have put the colony in a position to consume 
 its own available produce, every obstacle was interposed to 
 the growth of either population or occupation, so that every 
 one might be forced into the losing business of farming. 
 ]\Iagnificent crops were rotting on the ground for want of 
 purchasers, farmers in despair were seeldng for other pursuits ; 
 but the instructions from the Office were to induce settlers
 
 UNPROGEESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 167 
 
 and expirees to take to nothing but farming by offering them 
 fi-ee maintenance for themselves, their wives, famihes, and 
 servants for eighteen months, on condition of their cultivatmg 
 the soil. Of this offer, newly-arrived settlers, despairing of 
 finding other emplojinent, and many expirees, availed them- 
 selves ; and as soon as the helpmg hand of Government was 
 withdi-aMii, the distress amongst them became as pronomiced 
 as it was among the origmal farmers, and they were reduced to the 
 necessity of seeking the same expedients for relief. Of course, 
 if these measures had been directed to attracting population, 
 the maintenance of a large number of fi'ee settlers for so long 
 a time might have afforded some excuse for the offer thus 
 made of inducements to new arrivals to subsist m idleness. 
 But even this excuse, bad as it would have been, as altogether 
 micalculated to effect its object, was altogether wanting ; for, 
 despite all professions to the contrary, the home authorities 
 made it clear by their acts that they wished to render the 
 colony as imattractive as possible to fi'ee emigrants. The 
 measure was never more than an ' Outdoor Eehef Act,' and 
 was about as well devised to promote prosperity as was the 
 celebrated Poor Law in operation in England during the earher 
 portion of the century. It was mdeed productive of such vn.de- 
 spread distress in the colony that the period of Government 
 maintenance had after a time to be reduced to six months. 
 But the mere alteration in the number of months effected no 
 change in a radically bad piinciple, and, after having been 
 productive of an mfinity of misery, the regulation was allowed 
 to lapse into disuse. 
 
 The promotion of agriculture in' a country possessing,, in 
 many respects, such peculiar aptitudes for it as New South 
 Wales possessed on many easily accessible soils in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Sydney was midoubtedly a politic object ; and 
 had requisite opportmiities been afforded for its natural 
 development, agi'iculture would speedily have become the 
 most favoured and general of pm-suits. Those opportunities 
 would have consisted in allowing free exercise to the trading 
 mstincts of the community, but these were denied. The 
 colony was ' cabined, caged, cribbed, confined ' on every side ;
 
 168 BONDS Of DISUNION. 
 
 its population was kept down ; its purchasing power reduced, 
 and agricultural production altogether surpassed the local 
 powers of consumption. The soil was too fertile, too easily 
 responsive to the ' ticlding of the hoe,' to permit of farming 
 being profitable so long as the colony remained stationary, and 
 thus a series of unjust laws had made of fertility a curse histead 
 of a blessmg. 
 
 The misatisfactory results of farming turned attention to 
 grazing ; but cattle and sheep were scarce at that early period, 
 and only men possessed of a certain amomit of capital could 
 become graziers. Those who did so fomid their occupation 
 a lucrative one. They increased their acreage as their flocks 
 and herds multiplied, and as they became possessed of land and 
 wealth, so they acquired influence and unreasonable views of 
 their own importance. They set themselves up as a separate 
 order from the rest of the people, as an aristocratic body with 
 pecuhar privileges. These ' squatters,' as they were called, 
 afterwards constituted themselves the bitterest opponents of 
 all popular demands, and hi no respect was their opposition 
 more uncompromising than to the claim of the people to a 
 fair share m the pubhc lands. Whatever may have been the 
 squatters' rights, the long and bitter struggles for their asser- 
 tion between them and the people materially impeded and still 
 impede the progress of the Australasian colonies. 
 
 It is probable that there would not have been so many 
 largely-acred squatters if the profits of farming had kept pace 
 with those from grazuig. Those who succeeded m the last 
 would, under circumstances favourable for farming, have 
 persisted in their tillage over comparatively small areas, and 
 so the commencement of the lando-ftTiing monopoly of the 
 squatters might have been delayed until free institutions had 
 come into bemg, when such a monopoly would certamly not 
 have been possible of acquisition. 
 
 Let us briefly review the (JB^of consequences. Duties 
 and disabilities, by their injurious effects upon population and 
 commerce, procured the ruin of the farmers. The latter 
 would not have become graziers, or squatters let us call them, 
 if they could have continued farmers workmg at a profit. As
 
 UNPKOGRESSIVE AUSTEALIA. 169 
 
 it was, they became squatters because they were gettmg 
 ruined as farmers. Iii the former capacity they attauied to 
 an exceptional prosperity which attracted all the spare capital 
 of the colony into their callmg, and they thus possessed 
 themselves of a monopoly of land and mfluence which was 
 opposed to the popular mterests. An irreparable mjury was 
 thus mflicted on the people, as the indirect but obvious conse- 
 quence of the duties and disabilities imposed by the superlative 
 wisdom of Downing Street. 
 
 It may with confidence be asserted that a colony in its 
 infancy is peculiarly unsuited for the establishment of manu- 
 factories. Neither the requisite plant or skilled labour can 
 be procured without great difficulty, and the labour of the 
 description required must for long be so limited m quantity 
 that the manufacturers must inevitably be dependent upon 
 the good-mil or caprice of employes well aware of the im- 
 possibility of replacing their services, rather than upon a 
 carefully carried out system of superintendence. Even when 
 initial difficulties have been surmomited, the articles turned 
 out are almost mvariably inferior in quality and dear in price. 
 In consequence of the disabilities which prevented the home 
 manufacturers and merchants from sending out cargoes of the 
 most necessary manufactures, except occasionally and m very 
 small consignments, the colonists found themselves obliged 
 to erect small manufactories in order to supply themselves 
 -ftdth the most ordinary articles of clothing. A certam amount 
 of capital was invested in these concerns, which, through the 
 medium of exorbitant charges, kept up a moderately prosperous 
 existence until it became worth the while of the home shippers 
 to supply clothing enough for the colony, when the competition 
 from outside procured the ruui of the local manufactories, 
 together with the loss of the capital sunk in them. 
 
 Ordinarily, the policy of the home Government was 
 directed to the most uncompromising opposition to the 
 establishment of colonial manufactories. In the view of the 
 imperial authorities Colonies were chiefly useful as consumers
 
 170 ' BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 of home manufactures. The prohibitions to manufacture 
 imposed upon Colonies were probably ineffectual in promoting 
 the sale of a single article of English make in the Colonies, 
 since the English markets were naturally the best and most 
 obvious centres for the supply of manufactured goods to the 
 Colonies. But through the monstrous restrictions imposed 
 upon trade with Australia, the settlers in the Australasian 
 colonies were absolutely disabled from purchasing home com- 
 modities, and were forced to make for themselves on the spot 
 articles which the home manufacturers would, in the absence 
 of restraints and disabilities, have gladly exported there. 
 
 A review of the evils resulting from Imperial rule can 
 hardly furnish any other conclusion than that it was in all 
 respects the form of government least desirable and most in- 
 jurious to the colony from the moment when she gave the 
 first signs of having outstripped the conditions of a purely 
 penal settlement. No hostile invader could have wrecked the 
 country more effectually than did the measures of the British 
 Government during the first twenty years of the century, 
 during which the nominees of the Colonial Office, uncounselled, 
 unchecked, and uncontrolled by any local body, lorded it over 
 the destinies of the colony under the sole and irresponsible 
 direction of the Office itself. 
 
 Utterly unfitted for his post although more than one of the 
 Governors was, it is evident, from the urgent remonstrances 
 repeatedly sent home by all of them against Imperial measures, 
 that if left to themselves they would not have inflicted upon 
 the colony a tithe of the damage due to ignorant home 
 Government interference. 
 
 The Governor was left unfettered so far as regarded his power 
 to inflict injury, for the only court in which his actions were 
 cognisable at law was at a distance by sea of sixteen thousand 
 miles from the colony ; and while the expense of proceedmg 
 against him would have been quite beyond the means of any 
 member of the community, an adverse verdict for the plaintiff 
 was almost or quite a foregone conclusion. But his power to 
 do good was most jealously watched by the scribes of the 
 Colonial Office, who exhausted the ingenuity of official red-
 
 U^fPROGEESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 171 
 
 tapeism in the elaboration of rules for the suppression of 
 virtue and prosperity in the Colonies. 
 
 The Governor might impose what duties he pleased, in 
 violation of the fundamental maxim of British liberty that no 
 one shall be taxed without his own or his representatives' 
 consent ; nor, until Macquarie voluntarily vmdertook to furnish 
 quarterly accounts of the public revenue and expenditure for 
 public information, had those who paid the duties the satis- 
 faction of knowing how any part of the proceeds were applied. 
 From the secresy thus observed it was natural to conclude 
 that a goodly portion of the funds so raised found their way 
 into the Governor's private purse — a supposition which, whether 
 just or not, was certainly entertamed by the majority of the 
 colonists. The power he thus possessed was enormous, for, 
 though he was sufficiently sensible of his own hiterest to con- 
 fine his duties to articles which in the then pauperised state 
 of the colony might be considered luxuries, it was open to him 
 to tax every article of consumption, and, on the plea of public 
 contributions, to undermine the whole prosperity, such as it 
 was, and happiness of the commmiity. Gradually, as the free 
 element in the colony acquired stability, the growth of an 
 influential public opinion imposed an imwritten though very 
 practical check upon the unjustifiable levying of taxation at 
 the will of an individual— a check on the caprice of the 
 Governor for the time being of far greater weight and utility 
 than was the advice of the nominee Comicils appointed, after 
 Macquarie's time, to regulate the course of local legislation. 
 
 Again, the Governor had nearly absolute power over the 
 lives and liberties of the colonists under his charge. Crimmal 
 cases were tried, not before a jury, but by a court-martial com- 
 posed of military officers selected for the purpose by the 
 Governor. Civil officers were rigidly excluded from these 
 court-martials, and the accused was left to the mercy of judges 
 whose professional training left little doubt that they would 
 not be likely to run counter to the known or supposed desire 
 of the Governor for the conviction of any particular prisoner. 
 ]\Iacquarie wisely abandoned the principle of selecting the 
 members of the court-martial himself, and during his time
 
 172 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 officers were made to serve in regular rotation ; but it was 
 open to him at any time to revert to the old practice of choos- 
 ing as judges either those most easily amenable to Government 
 influence or those who were known to have private reasons 
 for punishmg prisoners whom it was thought desirable to con- 
 vict. In the time of Governor Bligh, his chief legal adviser, 
 the Judge-Advocate General, was found incapable of ad\dsmg 
 on any point of law whatever. He had obtained his office as 
 the relative of an mfluential man, though he had not even re- 
 ceived a legal education. Such was the legal guide provided 
 by a thoughtful mother-country for a Governor of naturally 
 arbitrary disposition, and possessed of almost unlimited local 
 power. He was, however, soon discovered to be useless for 
 any purpose, so the services of a local attorney who had been 
 prosecuted in the colony itself on a charge of swmdling had 
 to be called into requisition. Anomalous as it would have 
 been anywhere else, a quondam con\4ct of notoriously bad 
 character was considered the iittest person to advise laws for 
 a community of which even the free members were declared 
 to be incapacitated by reason of the taint of convictism from 
 exercising the usual right of British subjects — that of sitting 
 on a jury. But m New South Wales it was quite in the order 
 of things that an infamous swmdler should pull the strings of 
 justice, and prompt the selection of military judges — agamst 
 whom, be it remembered, no ground of challenge could be 
 urged by the accused — to work his o%m private purposes. 
 
 With the michecked control over the purses and property 
 of the colonists, joined to the right of disposing at pleasure of 
 their lives and liberties, the power for evil of the earlier 
 Colonial Governors resembled more those of an Oriental 
 despot than of the \'icegerent of a free nation. In no English- 
 speaking community of modern times would the continuance 
 of such unnatural authority have been tolerated for an hour 
 had not every energy been paralysed by the closing of all 
 avenues of enterprise to a people forced into a hopeless state 
 of crime, idleness, and drunkenness. 
 
 If, on the other hand, a Governor wanted to contribute to 
 the progress of the colony he found himself powerless, for in
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTKALIA. 173 
 
 his good intentions he was checked at every turn. Macqiiarie 
 was sincere in his desire to inaugurate a period of prosperity, 
 and his adoption of measures which tended to prevent it were 
 certainly due more to necessity than choice. He urged the 
 allowance of local distilleries ; he wished to develop a taste for 
 agriculture among the emancipists ; he endeavoured to raise 
 the physical and moral status of the convicts by giving them 
 higher aims. True, his main principle, the keeping up the 
 colony as a penal settlement to the exclusion of a free popula- 
 tion, was a false one ; but in the main his views would, if put 
 into operation, have largely promoted the reformation and 
 respectability of the convict class. But, as has been seen, the 
 fetters which had been riveted on the commercial enterprise 
 of the colony had crippled the agricultural interest ; the ex- 
 pirees had no inducement to settle down as farmers ; and in 
 order to give them employment the Governor was obliged to 
 institute public works in Sydney. His scheme for dispersing 
 the expirees had failed, and the concentration instead of the 
 dispersal of the criminal element was thus in great measure 
 forced upon him and upon the colony as the direct conse- 
 quence of the commercial policy of the Colonial Office — a 
 policy which met every attempt at reform or improvement, at 
 the outset, with an obstinate negative. 
 
 Until Brisbane's time the administration of affairs was 
 confided to the care of Governors who, as utter strangers to 
 the colony, could know nothing about it, and yet who fi'om 
 the moment of their landing were under the necessity of 
 carrying on the government without any advisers, except 
 those whom, in their ignorance, they might choose to encour- 
 age. Nor were the Governors bound to act upon the sugges- 
 tions of these if not disposed to do so, but they might, if they 
 so inclined, pursue a course of their own from the outset, in 
 defiance of all local advice. 
 
 We may imagine, if we cannot altogether realise, the 
 numerous intrigues for private influence brought to bear 
 upon a Governor who, according as he inchned to one indi- 
 vidual or another, might ensure the success of private schemes 
 or promote the discomfiture of an adversary. Bligh, as we
 
 174 BO^^DS OF LISUKION. 
 
 have seen, guided bis policy by tbe direction of a transported 
 attorney. Macquarie e\inced a decided preference for tbe 
 counsel of convicts, wben be sougbt for advice at all. Botb 
 were enclosed in a circle of corruption, intrigue, sycopbancy, 
 and dissatisfaction ; for none but tbose ui power for tbe time 
 being at Govermnent House could partake of tbe loaves and 
 fisbes ; and tbe knowledge tbat favour was dependent on 
 caprice stimulated tbem to belp tbeniselves as plentifully as 
 possible duruig tbe sbort period of tbeir ascendency. Tbis 
 state of tbings, bowever suitable to tbe morals of a reforma- 
 tory, became mtolerable wben tbe first considerable driblets 
 of fi-ee settlers began to arrive ui tbe colony. Tbis was in 
 Brisbane's time, and it was tben tbat tbe first Legislative 
 Council was formed. It was at best a bad apology for a 
 cbeck on tbe proceedings of any arbitrarily-disposed Governor, 
 for it consisted only of tbe Governor, tbe Lieutenant-Governor, 
 tbe Cbief Justice, tbe Arcbdeacon, and tbe Attorney-General — ■ 
 a crew of officials wbose guiding pruaciple was to pull togetber 
 in subservience to tbe meddlesome decrees of tbe bome Govern- 
 ment. Durmg Sir Ealpb Darling's administration tbe numbers 
 of tbe Comicil were extended to fifteen members, including tbe 
 Governor and otber officials, togetber witb seven otber members 
 selected exclusively by tbe Crown. Naturally tins nommee 
 Legislature failed to command tbe sbgbtest respect m a com- 
 munity in wbicb tbe free element now figured largely. It 
 was of considerable assistance to tbe Governor in aiding bim 
 to pass ' Gagging Acts ' for tbe colonial press, and in counte- 
 nancing numerous acts of petty tyramiy and a system of 
 espionage wbicb produced a universal state of distrust, sus- 
 picion, and consternation tbrougbout tbe colony. Darling's 
 administration bas been styled tbe ' Eeign of Terror ' in New 
 Soutb Wales, and, tbanks to tbe opportunity given bim of 
 sbielduig bis responsibility bebind tbis flimsy de\ace of a 
 Council, be was enabled to give full vent to tbe promptings 
 of a singularly arbitrary nature. 
 
 During tbe wbole period of Darling's government tbere 
 was a constant agitation kept up, in tbe sbape of public 
 meetmgs in tbe colony and petitions to tbe autborities at
 
 UNPEOGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA, 175 
 
 home, on the part of the majority of the colonists, for the 
 concession of fi'ee institutions. ' But these efforts were uni- 
 formly and successfully opposed, chiefly in the way of secret 
 communication with Downing Street by those whose personal 
 interest lay the other way, and who professed to believe that 
 the colony was mifit for such a boon.' * 
 
 A very simple but useful test of the fitness of rulers for 
 their posts is to be found in the degree of willingness with 
 which they lend their attention to the well-estabhshed com- 
 plaints of their subjects, wdth a view to rectify grievances or 
 to pmiish flagrantly unjust dealings. Judged from this stand- 
 point, the home Government durmg Darling's reign proved 
 itself thoroughly unfit for the task of governing New South 
 Wales, Although reiterated complamts were sent home 
 against Darling's measures, it was not till 1835, four years 
 after his returii from the seat of his government, that a 
 Parliamentary Committee was appomted to investigate the 
 charges against him, although various attempts had from 
 time to time been made to procure one. Even then the Com- 
 mittee was only granted on the condition of its not dealmg 
 with the case of Captam Eobison, which was the prmcipal 
 item in the list of accusations. The conduct of a British 
 Governor at the other end of the globe must be pecuharly 
 flagrant if it cannot be sheltered from the condemnation of a 
 ParUamentary Committee m London, and Darling was not 
 only honourably acquitted, but he received the distinction of 
 knighthood as a mark of royal favour on the occasion. Had 
 the Committee been appomted four yea^rs earlier, when the 
 circumstances were still fresh in men's memories, when the 
 sense of injury was strong, and when the evidence had not 
 been weakened by the lapse of years, the conclusions of the 
 Committee might have been different. But, however that 
 may have been, the delay hi mvestigating complamts of so 
 serious a nature was of itseK sufficient to show how necessary 
 it was that the colonists should not be governed fi'om home. 
 
 The greater the extent and the more absolute the degree 
 of power possessed by the Colonial Governors, the smaller was 
 ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 241.
 
 176 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 the importance attached to their personal characters by those 
 who selected them. ' Who having lost his credit, pawned his 
 rent, is therefore fit to have a government,' seems to have 
 been the principle on which the supply of Colonial Governors 
 was provided, so long as their authority was unbounded and 
 michecked. If one of them occasionally happened to be the 
 right man in the right place, this could not be laid to the 
 credit of a careful choice ; indeed, such a man would have 
 been looked vipon as likely to prove troublesome if his good 
 qualities had been known beforehand, and he would have stood 
 small chance of becoming the chosen vessel of the Colonial 
 Office. And yet no nation can be safely indifferent to the 
 characters of its representatives abroad any more than- it can 
 afford to blind itself to the imperfections of its own political 
 chiefs. ' If,' says a leader in an old Sydney newspaper,^ ' we 
 wished ill to the personal character of our Queen, and to the 
 stability of her claims on the affections of her subjects, we 
 should promote, not resist, the wicked injuries of the Colonial 
 Office perpetrated in her name, and the appointment of im- 
 moral Grovernors to corrupt the people. A better mode of 
 undermining the moral respectability of Her Majesty's name 
 and the security of the throne we can hardly imagine than the 
 modes adopted for the government of most of the Colonies of 
 the Empire, and the appointments so favoured in Downing 
 Street.' 
 
 After Darling's retirement in 1835 the influence of the 
 Governor of the colony was not so important a factor in 
 colonial politics as it had been. Wakefield had at length re- 
 ceived a hearing at home, and his suggestions as to the dis- 
 posal of land by sale instead of by gift were to be put into 
 practice in New South Wales as well as in the projected 
 colony in South Australia. Governor Bourke, who succeeded 
 Darling, therefore found himself differently situated to his 
 predecessors m that he had no land to give away as a means 
 of dispensing patronage, and as ' land is everythmg ' in a new 
 colony, he was by no means so supreme and important a 
 personage as the holder of his office was wont to be. But 
 
 ' 27ie Sydney Empire
 
 UNPEOGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 177 
 
 altliotigli the range of his power was thus curtailed, it was 
 still competent to the Governor to interfere very prominently 
 in the methods of disposing of the land by representing to 
 the Home Government the necessity, to his mind, of the 
 modification of existing rules to suit his own peculiar views, 
 and he might always be assured of the support of the nominee 
 advisers who yielded sycophantic obedience to the expression of 
 his opmion. This mattered little mider such a ruler as 
 Bourke, who, except in one instance — that of his pet scheme 
 for allowing emancipists to serve on criminal juries, when, 
 after his vote had equalised the numbers for and against the 
 proposed measure, he gave a second or casting vote in favour 
 of his own proposition — was content to act the negative part 
 of strictly conforming to his instructions from time to time ; 
 but it signified a great deal when the Government was in the 
 hands of his successor, Sir George Gipps. How actively he 
 made his own peculiar tenets influential in regulating the 
 supply of land in the market will be treated of in another 
 chapter, and the reader must turn to that if he would see how 
 potent was still the authority of the local Governor over a 
 matter that gravely affected the interests of the entire com- 
 mmiity. It is sufficient to show here how, by the help of the 
 Home Government, despite the nominal check of a Council, the 
 Governor contmued to pose effectually as king — and certainly 
 not to the benefit of the colony. 
 
 Acts of a despotic nature on the part of an individual 
 ruler are more provocative of indignation when done counter 
 to the wishes of a controlling body to a certain degree repre- 
 sentative of the people, than when carried into operation either 
 in opposition to, or by the assistance of, the vote of a mere 
 nominee Council, so framed that the public reposes no confi- 
 dence in its ability or willingness to counteract high-handed 
 measures. The tendency of the legislation may, in either 
 case, be the same ; but popular feeling and expectation is 
 more thoroughly aroused where the dicta of the people's repre- 
 sentatives are contemptuously set aside than where there is 
 no pretence of popular representation at all. Further, where 
 the legislative body is partly elected by the people, questions 
 
 N
 
 178 BONDS OF DISUNIOJT, 
 
 of policy are keenly discussed by men wlio know tliat tlieii' 
 future return by constituencies depends chiefly upon the 
 thoroughness and bitterness of their opposition to despotic 
 legislation ; and the assertion of supreme authority must 
 therefore be carried through with a harshness proportioned to 
 the degree of resistance offered. Where, then, the popular 
 party possesses a numerical majority in the legislative body, 
 its resolutions can only be overridden by proceedings of a 
 highly despotic character, such as outrage the feelings of the 
 commmiity, and drive its representatives to a resort to the 
 most ready means of obtaining their objects. Obstruction, 
 vilification, and demagogy in its most extreme form take the 
 place of the useless system of debate and vote ; and while the 
 comitry has to bear the burden of laws imposed upon it in de- 
 fiance of its own protest, it has also to bear the blame of the 
 scandalous excesses too often laid to the charge of the local 
 politicians. Yet the real responsibility for the mtemperate 
 course occasionally conspicuous in colonial politics must lie 
 with those who promoted it by rendering none other possible, 
 or at least efficacious. 
 
 The very extension of the Legislative Council in 1842 was 
 calculated to discredit political strife by embittering the rela- 
 tions between the Governor's party and the bulk of the people, 
 and so driving the popular representatives to avail themselves 
 of every means at their disposal to check the exercise of arbi- 
 trary power. The Legislature, as then constituted, was to 
 consist of thirty-six members, of whom six were to be Govern- 
 ment officials, six to be Cro^\ii nominees, and twenty-four to be 
 elected in the proportions of eighteen for New South Wales 
 and six for Port Phillip. The quahfication for these elective 
 members was to be the possession of a freehold property 
 valued at 2,000Z. or rented at 100^. per annum. They were to 
 be selected by men paying a 20Z. rental or owning a freehold of 
 200/. value. That is to say, that the counterpoise to the 
 twelve oflicial and nominee members who were welded to- 
 gether by firm bonds of a mutual self-interest necessarily coin- 
 cident with the maintenance of the existing regime, who were 
 in the possession of the confidence of the Governor and of
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 179 
 
 Dowiiiiig Street, and who were constantly associated together 
 and always on the spot, was to be formed of double their 
 niunber of men, chosen from the most distant points of a vast 
 territory, miacquainted with each other, without cohesion as a 
 body, not easily brought together from remote distances, re- 
 presentative of a multiplicity of conflicting interests, bound to 
 possess qualifications so onerous as to ensure only a very 
 limited range of choice, and chosen by a minority incapable 
 from its constitution of giving fair representation to the wants of 
 the great bulk of the population. The elective members might 
 be earnest and zealous in their advocacy of the popular cause, 
 but they were too few m numbers and too deeply engaged in 
 their private business, many hmidreds of miles away from 
 Sydney, to be able either to devote very much of their time 
 to the care of the mterests of their constituents or to be in a 
 position to bring the weight of their nmnerical majority to 
 bear hi case of necessity. The majority of the elective mem- 
 bers was just large enough if united and on the spot to carry 
 the day on a division, but it was not nearly large enough or 
 homogeneous enough to supply a constant working majority. 
 On many important questions the sympathies of some of the 
 elective members were strongly with the official body, and 
 their presence at a division could generally be self-excused by 
 the pressure of private busmess, so that the official party by a 
 little judicious management could usually contrive to put thtir 
 opponents m a mmority. 
 
 If, on the other hand, a popular measure was actuallypassed, 
 it had to rmi the gauntlet of the Governor and of the Colonial 
 Office; and if the one was ever ready to transmit the Bill home 
 with an adverse criticism appended, the other was equally 
 prone to veto it out of hand. 
 
 A legislative body so constituted was no more efficient for 
 the assertion of popular rights than the Council composed 
 entirely of nominees. It first raised the hopes of the people, 
 and then excited their passions by disappointing expectation. 
 This was the best result that could have been attamed, para- 
 doxical as the assertion may seem, when considered m its bear- 
 ing on future results. For the unsatisfactory working of the 
 
 X 2
 
 180 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 Council as reformed in 1842 stimulated the political dissatis- 
 faction of the colonists far more quickly and in a greater degi'ee 
 than a more smoothly working Constitution would have done ; 
 and so hastened on the time, for the establishment of free re- 
 presentative institutions not only in New South Wales, but 
 in all the Australian colonies. At the same time the reflex 
 action of conviction gradually permeated the minds of the 
 home authorities, and made it evident to them that the un- 
 natural combination of elective and official members in one 
 deliberative body was better calculated to promote the violent 
 separation of the colony from the mother-country than to 
 strengthen the natural tie between them. These results 
 furnish some consolation, but they were far from compensat- 
 ing for the evils with which the official system had saddled 
 the colony, 
 
 A few examples will be sufficient to illustrate the impotent 
 position of the elective members in the Comicil formed m 1842. 
 Their first struggle was to cut down the enormous expendi- 
 ture of the colonial Government. Begunimg with the 
 Governor himself, one of the elective members brought m and 
 carried through a Bill having for object the reduction of the 
 salaries of all future Governors from 5,000/., the amomit at 
 Avliich it had been fixed by the Secretary of State, to 4,000Z. a 
 year. Although the salary in question was charged upon the 
 colonial revenue, this Bill was disallowed at home ; the inten- 
 tion of the Colonial Office bemg that the Governor of the 
 colony should receive as large a salary as the President of the 
 United States. 
 
 This was a bold attempt on the part of the colonists to 
 secure the services of the Governor for themselves, and to sub- 
 ject his actions to their own control. The Colonial Office, on 
 the other hand, was well aware that by allowing the colonists 
 to take upon themselves the onus of paying the Governor's 
 salary, sanction would ua effect be given to the prmciple that 
 the Governors should be responsible to the colony instead 
 of remaining the mere tools of the Office. The obligation to 
 pay the Governor conferred the right to direct and to remove 
 him. It also gave him a direct interest m conciliating the
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 181 
 
 colonists — a consideration intolerable to the English official 
 mind, and enough of itself to secure the rejection of the Bill. 
 
 When Hutchmson, the last royal Governor of the colony 
 of Massachusetts, informed the Legislature of that province 
 that ' he no longer required a salary from them, as the Kuig 
 had made provision for his support,' the Assembly informed 
 him in reply ' that the royal provision for his support, and his 
 own acceptance of it, was an infraction of the rights of the in- 
 habitants, recognised by the prmcipal charter, an insult to the 
 Assembly, and an invasion of the important trust which, from 
 the foundation of the commonwealth, they had ever con- 
 tinued to exercise.' This was the language of men reared to 
 independence and self-help, and contrasts strongly with the 
 acquiescence of New South Wales in the Downmg Street 
 
 veto. 
 
 Another grievance callmg for immediate remedy was the 
 withdi-awal of a large portion of the ordmary revenue to the 
 extent of 81,500/. a year— nearly half which was yearly appro- 
 priated for the support of religion, and the remamder for 
 official, mcluding the Governor's and the judicial salaries — 
 from the control of the Comicil. The local Government, 
 ' whose powers of absorption were somewhat extraordinary,' ' 
 havuig found the reservations in certain cases too small, ap- 
 plied to the Coimcil to make good the estimated deficiency. 
 This the Comicil refused to do unless every item of the expen- 
 diture should be submitted for their revision, and this condition 
 having been acceded to, they went to work to cut down the 
 salaries of certam officers. Immediately upon their dohig so, 
 however, his Excellency promptly checked their action, on the 
 ground that the Council had no right to interfere with salaries 
 fixed by the Colonial Office. The result was that the expendi- 
 ture went on as before. 
 
 The duties on wines and spirits were, in Sir George 
 Gipps's time, so exorbitantly high that great encouragement 
 was virtually given by them to smuggling and illicit distilla- 
 tion, ' both of which were carried on on so large a scale as to 
 give rise to extensive demoralisation.' ^ A large mmority of 
 
 ' Lang's New Soiith Wales, vol. i. p. 329. « Ibid. p. 350.
 
 182 BONDS OF DISUN'ION. 
 
 the Council was strongly in favour of reducing these duties* 
 but the Governor's specific consisted in passing more stringent 
 measures to put down breaches of the revenue laws, and in 
 instituting a most abominable system of espionage, mider 
 which the excise and revenue officers were instructed to re- 
 ceive bribes from the principal distillers and to betray the 
 fact to the Government, so that the police might be on the 
 watch at the proper times and places to etfect seizures. 
 Despite the protest of the Council, these regulations were put 
 into active operation, ' but they failed egregiously of their 
 desired effect, smuggling and illicit distillation being practised 
 more extensively and openly than ever.' ' 
 
 The fact that the officials Avere always in opinion, and 
 sometimes in voting power, in a minority in the Council pro- 
 duced no difference in the contemptuous treatment of that 
 body by the Governor. For example, the Council by its vote 
 declared itself strongly in favour of the adoption of a general 
 system of education on an unsectarian basis. A Bill was 
 passed through for the purpose of effecting the new arrange- 
 ments, but the Governor, having an individual preference for 
 the denominational system, refused his consent, and education 
 had to be continued on the old limited lines. A measure for 
 the extension of the electoral franchise to squatters and 
 tenants, strongly recommended by a Select Committee of the 
 Council, met with a similar fate, and a proposal to establish 
 a uniform twopenny postage rate throughout the colony 
 had to be withdrawn in consequence of the Governor's 
 opposition. 
 
 So, whether the elective members secured the passing of a 
 vote or were left in a minority, no alteration in the course of 
 legislation was effected. The officials, not being responsible 
 to the colony, kept their places and offices whether triumphant 
 or defeated on any question, and everything went on in the 
 Council as before. 
 
 The farce of representative legislation went even further. 
 A popular measure, even if assented to at home, had still to 
 penetrate through the pigeon-holes of the Colonial Office — 
 ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 350.
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 183 
 
 receptacles where colonial aspirations and royal assent might 
 find equal oblivion. This was becomingly exemplified by the 
 fate of the petition for the separation of Victoria from New 
 South Wales. The Port Phillip members were mianimous in 
 favour of the object of the petition, and it also received the 
 support of Mr. Robert Lowe (now Lord Sherbrooke), who was 
 at the time one of the New South Wales elective members. 
 It was, moreover, acquiesced in by the then Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies (1845). The favourable reception of the 
 petition was a source of inexpressible delight to the inhabitants 
 of Port Phillip, but they would have done well to reserve their 
 transports till 1851, for it was not until six years had elapsed 
 that the pigeon-holes gave up their prey and suftered Port 
 Phillip to be at length proclaimed as a separate and distinct 
 colony under the name of ' Victoria.' 
 
 No matter what the object that those members of the 
 Council who wished well to the colony might have in view, it 
 had apparently only to be pressed and backed up by colonial 
 public opinion in order to be opposed by the Colonial Office, 
 and by its pliant tool the Governor. Geographical discovery in 
 Australia was, in 1845, in a very backward state, as a glance 
 at more recent discoveries may render evident. At that time 
 the Council recognised the importance of discovermg an over- 
 land route to Port Essington, and addressed the Governor in 
 favour of that object, pledging itself to vote whatever funds 
 might be necessary for its accomplishment. ' But his Ex- 
 cellency, who was doubtless somewhat mcensed against the 
 Council at 'that time from the opposition he had himself 
 experienced from that body ' (in the matter of the official and 
 judicial salaries), ' and who probably wished to mortify the 
 Opposition members, with wdiom the idea had originated, 
 refused to place any amount on the Estimates for tl>e purpose 
 without the previous sanction of the Secretary of State. Such 
 was the miserable state of thraldom in which the colony was 
 then held under Downmg Street domination.' ' 
 
 Despotic, ignorant officialism had still to resort to a 
 measure which exceeded in its unreasoning arbitrariness 
 ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 340.
 
 184 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 almost anj-thing that had been done before, and that in the 
 way best calculated at the same time to lower the character 
 of the home Government for ordinarily fair dealing, and to 
 stimulate the hatred of the colonists for the connection with 
 the mother-country. This was the manner of it. By an 
 Order m CouncH, dated May 22, 1840, for which Mr. Glad- 
 stone as the then Secretary of State for the Colonies was 
 responsible, it had been announced that a penal colony had 
 been designed in the north-east corner of Austraha, north of 
 the twenty-sixth parallel of south latitude, to which convicts were 
 in future to be sent instead of to New South Wales. All the 
 necessaiy arrangements had been made for this change when 
 Earl Grey succeeded to Mr. Gladstone's office. His lordship 
 at once repudiated the idea of the new penal colony, and set 
 himself to work vrith might and main to re^ave and re- 
 estabhsh transportation to New South Wales. ' The colonial 
 Government, of course, lent itself to the accomphshment of 
 this favourite object of Earl Grey's in every possible way, and 
 every species of influence was exerted in the cause to satisfy 
 his lordship. Indeed, till the final settlement of the question, 
 the colony exhibited the edif\-uig spectacle of the local 
 Government pulliug one way and the great body of the people 
 pullmg another, as if their interests had been contrary and 
 irreconcilable.' ^ 
 
 A small but influential body of squatters was hi favour of 
 the resumption of transportation. These squatters were men 
 of the aristocratic class of colonists, who held vast tracts of 
 country in temporary occupation under their squatting 
 licences — m not a few cases at the yearly rent of one-eighth 
 of a penny per acre — and they had therefore no permanent 
 tie in the colony. Very few of them were married ; they had 
 no mtention of becoming permanent settlers, and consequently 
 had no great interest in the moral welfare and social advance- 
 ment of the colony. Tliey disliked the idea of the growth of 
 a middle class of fi'ee emigi-ant settlers, which would be the 
 ine^•itable result of the cessation of transportation, and much 
 preferred the old division of dommant and slave castes to one 
 • Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 357.
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA, 185 . 
 
 where general equality might have the effect of permitting 
 any one to raise himself by hard work and good fortime 
 to as lofty a position as their own. The Governor, Sir 
 Charles Fitzroy, and the squatters employed themselves in 
 sedulously misrepresenting to Earl Grey the feelings of the 
 colonists on the transportation question, and that nobleman 
 was only too willing to give ear to suggestions which accorded 
 with his own wishes. Accordingly he amiounced m a de- 
 spatch of September 8, 1848, ' that he proposed at once 
 recommending to Her Majesty to revoke the Orders in Council 
 by which New South Wales was made no longer a place for 
 receiving convicts under sentence of transportation.' At the 
 same time it was announced that a ship laden with convicts 
 was about to be sent out from England to Sydney. The 
 indignation of the colonists on recei\ing mthuation of this 
 breach of faith was intense. Crowded meetings were held in 
 quick succession, at which the suggestion of ' cuttmg the 
 painter ' was enthusiastically received ; and it is highly 
 probable that, had the colony been brought up on that self- 
 reUant system which was so influential in mouldhig the 
 mdependent character of the early American settlements, the 
 landing of the convicts would have been opposed by armed 
 force. As it was, on the arrival of the con\dct ship m 1849, 
 the landing of its crimmal cargo was only effected under cover 
 of the gims of the man-of-war in the harbour brought to bear 
 upon the masses of people assembled on shore to protest 
 against the disembarkation. This, by far the largest and 
 most uifluential public meethig ever held in the colony, was 
 described by the Governor in a despatch as ' an insignificant 
 assemblage.' Upon the accidental discovery of this document 
 a year later, a crowded meeting of the colonists mianimously 
 resolved ' that, considering the faithless manner m which the 
 colony had been treated by the Eight Honourable Earl Grey, 
 the meeting humbly prayed Her Majesty to remove that noble- 
 man from her councils.' A petition to this effect and m 
 protestation against the continuance of transportation was 
 signed by nearly 40,000 colonists— an enormous consensus of 
 onhiion when the population of the colony, its sparse distribu-
 
 186 BONDS OF DISU^'ION. 
 
 tion, and tlie consequent difficulties of getting signatures are 
 taken into consideration. The petition, too, was only one of 
 several similar expressions of opinion, and in one of the 
 principal of them the petitioners, in praymg for the removal 
 of Earl Grey from office, stated that ' they would not disguise 
 from Her Majesty the persuasion that what was lately but a 
 grievance was ripening into a quarrel,' and professed their 
 opinion that ' the continuance of transportation in opposition 
 to the united resolution of Australasia leagued together 
 against it would imperil the connection of these colonies with 
 Great Britain.' The wrathful, even msurrectionary, spirit of 
 the colony had become too serious to be any longer treated 
 with utter contempt, and on an Address to Her Majesty being 
 moved in the Council in 1850 demandmg the cessation of 
 transportation, the squatters and official members, making a 
 virtue of necessity, retired from the council-chamber, in imi- 
 tation of a notable home precedent, and the Address was voted 
 unanimously by the Liberal members. The consent of Her 
 Majesty was given thereto, and the transportation system 
 was settled by the ignommious defeat of the home Govern- 
 ment. Earl Grey had not the grace to put up with his 
 discomfiture manfully ; but as the logical consequence of the 
 victory of the colonists had not been followed up, in his case, 
 by liis being deprived of office, he was still able to inflict 
 considerable annoyance, and accordingly he vented his spleen 
 by every now and again threatening the resumption of trans- 
 portation durmg the remainder of his period of authority. 
 However, the effect of the discovery of gold in May 1851 was 
 to put a stop to all such efforts. There appeared to be no 
 further necessity for any anti-transportation agitation, but the 
 fears of the colonists were again aroused m 1852 by the in- 
 temperate language of his persistent lordship. 
 
 The four colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Van 
 Diemen's Land, and South Australia' had formed a league for 
 the discontinuance of transportation, and Mr. King had been 
 sent home as the delegate of the Victorian Government to lay 
 before Parliament the views of his colony. An official report, 
 * Queensland was not then in existence as a separate colony.
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTR.4LIA. 187 
 
 corrected by Earl Grey himself, of a conversation between 
 himself and Mr. King, furnished a full display of his obstmate 
 infatuation on the transportation question, while his offensively 
 contemptuous remarks on the occasion proclaimed his extreme 
 unfitness for exercising even the most limited control over 
 colonies super-sensitively alive to their own importance. In 
 that interview, after expressing his beUef that Pentonville and 
 Portland convicts ' would in many instances be fomid to bear 
 a very favourable comparison wdth the free emigrants who went 
 out mider the bounty system,' his lordship added that ' he 
 could hold out no hope that transportation to the origin- 
 ally convict colony of Van Diemen's Land would be abandoned, 
 nor that the Government would not continue to send trans- 
 ported offenders to such other of the Australasian colonies as 
 had consented, or might consent, to receive them.' 
 
 On the receipt of this mformation in the colony, crowded 
 meetmgs were held to applaud the idea of ' cutting the painter,' 
 and but for the belief that Earl Grey's declarations were 
 merely blustering ebullitions of temper, serious consequences 
 would have certainly resulted. 
 
 The hisult directed at the characters of the colonists was 
 not one to be easily overlooked. It prominently revealed a 
 want of tact which of itself ought to have incapacitated Earl 
 Grey from ruhng the Colonies. Young communities are apt to 
 be peculiarly sensitive, and are only too likely to mterpret out- 
 side criticism or suggestions as gross insults. Nothing more 
 powerfully contributed to the disaffection of the North- American 
 colonists than their contemptuous treatment by the home 
 authorities. To take only two individual mstances. Franklin 
 when in London was laughed at, snubbed and cut by ofiicialism 
 and society ; and it is probable enough that the first feelings 
 of disloyalty were planted in the breast of Washmgton by 
 the contempt accorded to his position as an officer in the 
 Provincial army. Earl Grey's expressions were scarcely 
 less forcible and hardly more polished than Avere those 
 of an Attorney- General of William and Mary's reign, who, 
 being urged to prepare a charter for a proposed clerical 
 college in Virginia, replied to the contention that the people
 
 188 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 of Virginia as well as the people of England bad souls to be 
 saved, ' Damn your souls — make tobacco ! ' But Earl Grey's 
 language was infinitely more impolitic, because made in an 
 era when official language was usually studiously courteous and 
 ambiguous, and because it was certain to be known through the 
 length and breadth of the colony almost as soon as published. 
 It stood out by contrast to ordinary official communications 
 as a deeply meditated insult, and it was addressed to a people 
 of rapidly- ri shag power and importance, cherishing a healthy 
 and to a large extent well-founded belief in their o^vn supe- 
 riority to colonists anywhere else. And yet this man, who 
 ruled the colony by alternate threats and insults, was kept on 
 as England's chosen colonial chief, and no succession of proofs 
 of his hopeless incapacity could induce his removal to a 
 humbler sphere more suited to the exercise of his peculiar 
 talents. 
 
 Earl Grey's admmistration of the Colonies was eminently 
 successful in promoting the accomphshment of the object to 
 which he was most bitterly opposed — the estabhshment of 
 local representative mstitutions in the Australasian colonies, 
 on the present basis, with only a nominal, perfectly harmless, 
 because inoperative, subjection to the mother-comitry. But 
 the credit was not wholly his. On the contrary, the fact that 
 the home Government kept him in office despite the colonial 
 remonstrances was perhaps the ultimate exciting cause of the 
 fierce indignation that gave strength to the demand for com- 
 plete self-government. Between the one and the other, how- 
 ever, sufficient cause of discontent was generated to make the 
 Constitution Act of 1855 a necessity, and it accordingly was 
 passed and came mto operation in 1856. By that Act it was 
 provided, inter alia, that the actual members of the Govern- 
 ment should retain their respective offices until outvoted and 
 reheved by a Parhamentary majority, m which event they 
 were to be entitled to pensions or retirmg allowances equal to 
 the fall amounts of their respective salaries. But the new 
 Governor, Sir William Denison, was an instrument specially 
 selected for his despotic tendencies by Earl Grey, and because 
 of the universal detestation which his pro-transportation
 
 UNPROGRESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 189 
 
 principles had procured for him during his rule iu Van Die- 
 men's land. He was just the man to labour most sedulously 
 to counteract the free working of the newly -acquired Constitu- 
 tion. His first act went far to justify the confidence reposed in 
 him by his political sponsor, for, without subjecting the 
 members of the Government to any Parliamentary trial at all, 
 he relieved them of their offices at once, on his own authority 
 giving them their pensions forthwith and appointmg to the 
 ]\Iinistry men entirely of his ovni choice, who had no other 
 claim to the distinction than that they had uniformly voted for 
 the resumption of transportation. 
 
 During the whole period of his government Sir William 
 Denison showed an utter indifference to the requirements of 
 the colony. He made no attempts to acquaint himseK with the 
 actual condition of things by actually traversing the country ; 
 but he was never weary of writing didactic despatches thereon to 
 the Colonial Ofiice, who in return posted out equally instructive 
 documents of like tenor to his own. His power of making mis- 
 chief was, however, minimised by the strong poprdar determi- 
 nation to work the new Constitution on a thoroughly Hberal 
 and micontrolled basis. But, like the boy who chalked up 'No 
 Popery ' and then ran away, he distinguished himself at the 
 close of his administration by yet another arbitrary act. This 
 was in connection with a question as to whether the Great 
 Seal should be appended to a certain document, by which a 
 wealthy emancipist of the name of Tawell, who had been 
 hanged in England for the atrocious murder of his concubine, 
 had conveyed his property to his widow. Tlie IMinistry unani- 
 mously refused to append the Seal to the document, and re- 
 signed their offices rather than comply with the Governor's 
 orders to that effect. His Excellency, being thus left alone in 
 the Cabinet, went down to the Colonial Secretary's office and 
 appended the Seal himself — after douig which he left the 
 colony. 
 
 He was succeeded in 1861 by a very different stamp of 
 man — Sir John Young,' who wisely left the machine of 
 
 ' Afterward Governor-General of Canada, and subsequently Lord 
 Lisgar.
 
 190 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 government to its own unchecked operation, and who conse- 
 quently earned in a high degree the confidence and respect of 
 the pubhc. The important Land Bill passed during his 
 period of rule will be treated of in an ensuing chapter. It is only 
 necessary to mention it here to point out an instance of the 
 unhealthy working of the system of two Legislative Houses 
 from the very commencement of their institution in New 
 South Wales. 
 
 The Bill passed the Assembly, but was rejected by the 
 Council. The country was in a fever-state of ferment for ' the 
 Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill.' Li this emer- 
 gency the Ministry took the bull by the horns. There was no 
 law limiting the number of members of the Legislative Council 
 in New South Wales any more than there was for restrict- 
 ing the number of Peers in the House of Lords, so the 
 Ministry nominated a number of gentlemen of Liberal views to 
 take their seats in the Council, in order to swamp the Opposi- 
 tion. The history of the closing scenes over the Keform 
 Bill in England was repeated with scrupulous fidelity, for 
 the President and the Opposition members of the Council 
 walked out from one end of the House while the swampers 
 walked in at the other prepared to take their oaths and their 
 seats. No actual swamping took place, thanks to the virtual 
 suicide of the Council, but that body had been eftectually 
 frightened into consenting to the Bill. 
 
 That the working of free institutions in Australia has been 
 attended with considerable friction was only what was to be 
 desired as well as expected. The Constitution Act was studded 
 with anomalies, better suited to the temper of an old country 
 abounding in well-established social distinctions than for 
 countries where the fabric of society was to undergo constant 
 and radical modification. The main blot was that two Legisla- 
 tive Houses were established by the Act where one would have 
 done far better. Artificially restricted qualifications, partly 
 pecuniary, partly educational and professional, were alone to 
 confer the right to membership or to the privilege of electing 
 members of either House. The elective bases and qualifications 
 were speedily lowered by the colonists, but, notwithstanding,
 
 UNPROGKESSIVE AUSTRALIA. 191 
 
 the conflicts between the two Houses have been bitter and 
 lasting, and will become more so the longer the dual system 
 lasts. So far, it has served the purpose of raismg up and 
 fostering distinct class prejudices, and its function in the imme- 
 diate future will probably be to excite still further the hatreds 
 of contending factions. The Upper Houses in all the Colonies 
 have perseveringly and persistently thrown out, blocked, or 
 mutilated the most important measures passed by the Lower 
 Houses, in furtherance of their mission as the champions of 
 the satisfied few against the discontented many ; and the 
 Lower Houses have, "with periodical regularity, insisted on the 
 total alteration of the constitution of the Upper as requisite to 
 the carrying on of legislation at all ; and so, unseemly wrang- 
 Img has become the prominent feature of colonial politics until 
 at length is reached the necessary point where agreement is 
 possible or compromise miavoidable. 
 
 Ever since 1856 the colonists have had the undisturbed 
 control of their own affairs. The vetoing power of the 
 home Government was restricted by the Constitution Act to 
 certain well-defined cases, and even where exercised it has 
 been made to give way to any evident re-expression of colonial 
 feeling. It is m the highest degree improbable that the 
 nominal right of interdicting Colonial Bills will ever in future 
 be insisted upon. Should it ever be made use of as m times 
 past, as an instrument for checking, to any considerable 
 extent, the passing of measures seriously demanded by the 
 mass of a colonial population, the consequences are not 
 difticult to forecast. So soon as the legislative tie becomes 
 oppressive to any Australasian colony, so soon will it, and the 
 other members of the group, in sympathy and m apprehension 
 of a similar result to themselves, assert the right to settle for 
 themselves their own course of legislation in every detail, freed 
 from every vestige of parental control. 
 
 The experience of our troubles with the early North- 
 American colonies is at length beginning to make itself 
 apparent in comisels wiser than of yore. Somider and more 
 generally diffused economical laiowledge, subversive of long- 
 established heresies as to the functions of Colonies ; the growth
 
 192 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 of popular institutions at home, and of British popular feeling 
 in sympathetic admiration for the sturdy colonists working out 
 for themselves problems not yet considered in England as 
 being witliin the range of practical politics ; above all, the 
 fast increasmg behef in the present immense power and wealth, 
 as well as in the probable future of ahnost illimitable prosperity 
 in store for Australasia — all conspire against the likeUhood of 
 home interference with colonial legislation being actively exer- 
 cised. It is, on the contrary, far more likely that even the 
 nominal right of veto will ere long fall mto desuetude, and 
 signs are not wantmg that England \d\\, ere long, readily 
 turn for precedents to colonial statute-books instead of furnish- 
 ing them herself. Already we see how valuable to us are the 
 lessons taught by the continual struggles m the Colonies 
 between wealthy land monopolists and nations ranged in 
 opposition to their extravagant claims ; how the operation of 
 manhood suffi-age at the Antipodes has paved the way for a 
 similar extension of the suffrage at home ; how the workhig of 
 the erst forbidden Deceased Wife's Sister Bill is called forth 
 in evidence by the English advocates of a hke measure ; and 
 chiefly we see how the bold experimentahshig spirit of the 
 colonists, in treating grave social and political questions, is 
 insensibly penneatmg the thoughts and actions of every section 
 of society at home.
 
 193 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INJUEIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES — MISMANAGEMENT OP 
 EMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA. 
 
 Some of the writers on systematic colonisation have not 
 scrupled to express their desire to put mto operation a scheme 
 of colonisation which should present as great attractions to the 
 upper as to the lower classes of the home population. In 
 their opinion the most ideally perfect colony is that which, 
 from the outset, imitates most faithfully the manners, customs, 
 and social gradations of the mother-country. Just as the old 
 Greek colonies were sent out ready-made and complete in all 
 the requisites of the older society — philosophers, musicians, 
 ancestral images, and gods inclusive — so the modern colony, 
 we are told, ought to start on its career with upper, middle, 
 and lower classes carefully pre-arranged and distmguished fi'om 
 each other by regularly defined differences in their respective 
 scales of rights or ranges of duties. To a colony thus furnished 
 with all the inequalities, evils, and anomalies that in the 
 parent State have been the slow growth of comitless ages 
 there need be no delay m imparting the privilege of self- 
 government, of course on the home model of Sovereign, Lords 
 and Commons. The Colonial Governor is to represent the 
 first, an hereditary legislative body is to be established in 
 imitation of the second, and the Lower House alone is to be 
 elective. It is assumed that such arrangements would suit 
 the wishes of the vast majority of emigrants, and would most 
 powerfully conduce to the welfare of the colony, as well as to 
 the future growth of emigration. 
 
 These speculations might have earned an honourable posi- 
 tion for their authors at the University of Pagoda, as carrying 
 
 o
 
 194 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 out the plan of liousebuilding from the roof downward. That 
 EngHsh colonies may m time furnish almost exact counterparts 
 of the mother-country in their social usages and political 
 institutions is probable enough, but that they should be 
 founded as such and continue as such is the extreme of 
 impossibility. The colonial copy, too, will never in any case 
 be typical of the country from which the original colonists set 
 out, but of an England whose usages, laws, and institutions will 
 have undergone continuous and radical changes derived from 
 the teachings of the colonies themselves. 
 
 The history of the first emigration movement of any impor- 
 tance from England is that of small bodies of men and 
 women who made their way across the Atlantic in order to 
 secure for themselves that rehgious and political ascendency 
 which was denied to them at home. Far from seeking to per- 
 petuate m a new country the likeness of the old, each of these 
 bodies or sects at once set to work to organise itself on the 
 most essentially democratic basis. Many of these emigrants 
 were men who, 'hi the country of their birth, could have claimed 
 high social rank, but, except at the very outset, this availed 
 them nothing m commmiities professing a strict equality of 
 rights. The aristocrat, as such, ceased to exist from the 
 moment he enrolled himself as a colonist. A certain concession 
 might at first be made to the superiority of position he might 
 have claimed at home, by emigrants not yet emancipated fr-om 
 the fetters of habit, but his after-maintenance of superior right 
 had to depend entirely on the exercise of his own thrift and 
 ability. 
 
 The North-American colonies were the most vigorous and 
 flourishmg that the world has ever seen. And that because 
 they were fomided on no plan or system ; because they were 
 left to their own devices ; because, in effect, they recognised no 
 distinctions of class, and because they held out no inducements 
 to attract aristocratic rather than plebeian immigrants — be- 
 cause, in short, they ran comiter to every one of the maxims 
 which certain theorists have laid down as essential to the 
 I)roper conduct of colonisation. 
 
 According to these, the emigration of a superior class —
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 195 
 
 superior either in point of wealtli, social standing, or educa- 
 ion — ouglit to be encouraged, and special inducements should ' 
 be held forth with that object. It is certain, however, that 
 the most successful colonies of modern timers owe their pros- 
 perity entirely to the adoption of the very opposite course — 
 namely, to the encouragement given by their institutions to the 
 emigration of a lower rather than to that of a higher class. 
 
 Between the free emigration to the early North-American 
 colonies and that to Austraha, there are many wide points of 
 difference. The former ow^ed its origin to principle ; the 
 latter to cupidity. The American settlers were associated 
 together before their departure by the strongest bonds of 
 religious or political sympathy. The members of each body 
 of emigrants were well acquainted ^\ath each other, and joined 
 themselves together in companies for the purpose of seeking 
 new homes where their own peculiar tenets might be pre- 
 dominant. They looked upon emigration as a species of 
 perpetual banishment to a country where life would be beset 
 with peril and difficulty ; where mdividual resource must be 
 called forth to supply the means of existence, as well as to 
 furnish an organisation for mutual protection and assistance. 
 Whatever form of government they might ultimately resort to 
 was one which must of necessity be fashioned by the pressing 
 requirements of their position. 
 
 The early /ree AustraUan emigrants, on the other hand, 
 were men who went out on their own individual accounts. 
 They set forth with high hopes to a fondly imagined El Dorado, 
 where slave-driving would be their hardest task ; where they 
 were not to be called upon to devise schemes of government ; 
 where their sojourn would be brief, and their occupation easy, 
 profitable, and devoid of danger. That the nature of these m- 
 ducements was likely to prove attractive to men of the upper 
 class can easily be understood. Con^■ict labour and free land to 
 any one who would employ the one by cultivating the other 
 were the baits held out by the governing powers. Until free 
 emigi'ation began to be conducted on a large scale, a large 
 proportion of the emigrants were of a rank above that of the 
 labourer or mechanic, and many of them were men of good 
 
 02"
 
 196 BONDS OF DBUNION. 
 
 birth and education. Indeed, the very considerations which 
 attracted these last were powerful to repel ' labourers ' in the 
 ordinary sense of the term, A despotic form of government 
 was unsuited to their tastes ; the great distance from England, 
 which forbade the prospect of return ; the uncertainty of em- 
 ployment ; the necessity of having " to compete with convict 
 labour ; the association in their minds between emigration and 
 transportation, which to their thinking made the one as un- 
 palatable as the other ; the very fact that their betters in 
 social position were wending their way thither — all conspired 
 to check any aspirations they might have for going to the 
 penal colonies. With the gentleman or small capitalist the 
 case was different. He saw that in Australia he could 
 at once secure a position beyond that which he might hope to 
 attain to at home. As a lando^aier and slave-master at the 
 same time, he would find things made tolerably easy for him 
 immediately on his arrival in the new country. In comparison 
 with America, Australia appeared to him a very Utopia. He 
 would not there, as in Canada or the States, have to rub 
 shoulders with men from the loAver walks of life, who perhaps, 
 from greater physical power or from a more natural aptitude 
 for rough-and-ready conditions of existence, might soon surpass 
 him in the struggle for wealth, and take up a position superior 
 to his own. Besides, across the Atlantic his small capital 
 would have to be devoted to paying high rates of wages to men 
 over whose service he had but an uncertain and limited con- 
 trol, while any advantage that his command of capital might 
 give him at the outset would almost certainly be quickly 
 neutralised by the power which every labouring man possessed 
 of becoming himself a greater capitalist. In Australia there 
 need not be any wage-paying. A beneficent Government was 
 ready to supply servants and labourers at the expense of the 
 nation, and he had but to work them, or to exchange them for 
 others out of whom he could force more work, in order to 
 realise a fortune and return to England, The despotic form 
 of government was far from disagreeable to him, for by re- 
 pressing men of the lower class from rising higher, it secured 
 the monopoly of his own set. Then, too, he had no intention
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 197 
 
 of beconiing a permanent settler, and had therefore no interest 
 in the system of rule except that it should not be subjected to 
 disturbing influences such as might depreciate the value of 
 his colonial possessions. A set of free labourmg immigrants 
 would be certain to be dissatisfied with thmgs as they were, 
 and would agitate for representative institutions. The despotic 
 system deterred such people from coming to the comitry, and 
 in so far as it had that operation it was highly convenient and 
 useful. 
 
 These were the chief reasons which determined the emi- 
 gration of men, of far higher social rank than that to which 
 the ordinary colonist can pretend, to Austraha. Many of 
 their hopeful anticipations were rudely upset by painful reali- 
 ties of experience, but in the main their expectations were in a 
 great measure fulfilled. 
 
 That this class of emigrants was not the one most capable 
 of advancmg the progress of the colony is apparent enough 
 fi'om the stationary condition of New South Wales during the 
 whole of the time that the squatter class predominated m propor- 
 tionate numbers and influence over the rest of the free popu- 
 lation. The reason is not far to seek The squatters wished 
 to keep themselves as a separate caste in the land, while they 
 were absolutely inchfferent to the welfare of the colony. 
 Acting on this guiding principle, they ranged themselves on 
 the side of the home authorities in endeavourmg to render the 
 colony yet more unwelcome to the Enghsh working classes. 
 
 They had good reason to be satisfied with their own posi- 
 tion and to be undesirous of change. They could rmi tlieir 
 stock over unlimited areas, and they were too few in number 
 to compete with each other in brmguig down the prices of 
 beef and mutton. Their wool, too, was acquiring a rising 
 value which promised soon to be productive of great wealth. 
 Whatever the depression from which the colony was sufferhig, 
 they could always make sure of a good market for their pro- 
 duce, and until wool and tallow became staple articles of com- 
 merce, some thirty years after the foundation of the colony, 
 they troubled themselves little about the removal of the 
 onerous restrictions upon trade which environed the colony.
 
 198 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 Few of tliem had wives ; and in their deahngs with the 
 female convicts they set an example of depravity to the com- 
 munity which gave rise to the most hideous forms of vice. 
 
 Let it be granted that immigrants of good social rank and 
 position are not midesirable acquisitions to a new colony. Let 
 it be even asserted, in the most unqualified form, that men 
 possessing these attributes ought to be welcomed as emigrants 
 by reason of the ameliorating effect which association -with 
 them may cause in the manners of colonists of the usual type. 
 But such benefits can only result from the admixture of 
 such men with the ordinary tide of emigration. A large pro- 
 portion of the early American colonists consisted of men of 
 superior position, and there their presence was as conducive 
 to good as in Australia it was productive of harm ; because in 
 America social distinctions were altogether sunk in the struggle 
 for existence, and because the energy and ability of the gentle- 
 men colonists was devoted to the cause of the common weal, 
 and not to the acquisition of exclusive rights and monopolies. 
 In America, it was to the interest of every member' of the 
 immigrant body to frame a system of government which 
 should allow to each and all the freest exercise of their powers, 
 for relative positions were continually shifting. The master 
 of to-day might be the servant of to-^morrow ; the penniless 
 labourer might become the local capitalist, and this last, in 
 turn, might have to yield his pride of place to some more facile 
 Avorker. Labour, too, was difficult to get, except on condi- 
 tions of mutual advice and assistance — ' log-rolling ' in its 
 primitive and best form. The colonists were thus forced by 
 their circumstances to mingle freely with each other, and on 
 equal terms, with the result that the gentleman instinctively 
 acquired the sturdy qualities and industrious habits of his 
 lowly-born fellow-labourer, while he, for his part, imparted to 
 the latter much of his own more cultivated manner and higher 
 tone of thought. 
 
 In Australia there Avas no such community of interest 
 between all sorts and conditions of men. The few labourer 
 immigrants who made their OA\'n way out from time to time were 
 not wanted by men who could get labour for notlimg, so there
 
 INJUEIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 199 
 
 was no mutual commingling between the free inhabitants of 
 the colony. The squatters kept themselves apart as a holy 
 caste whose special function it was to maintain its own sacred 
 rights, at whatever cost of injury to the commmiity. How 
 the immigration of the squatter class alo7ie affected the pros- 
 perity of New South Wales may be ascertained by comparing 
 the respective rates of progress before and after Brisbane's 
 time. 
 
 No imnaigrants could have been so useful to the colony in its 
 earlier days as people of the working class. Not the shovelled- 
 out paupers who have ever been the pet colonists of the 
 Colonial Office, but men capable of undergoing hardship and 
 toil. They would have been of special value to Australia not 
 merely as workers, but as the most efficient instruments for 
 reforming the convict population. Had large numbers of free 
 labourers been introduced, the convicts would have had before 
 them the spectacle of persons of a rank of life not inferior to 
 their own working, prospermg, and rising by honest toil to 
 wealth and influence. Between the convicts and these immi- 
 grants there would have been a certain degree of association for 
 social and business purposes, such as must have powerfully 
 contributed to stimulate the better disposed convicts to aim at 
 bettering their oato condition. It may be said that the reverse 
 effect would have been produced — that the free would have 
 been contammated by association with the bond — but even with 
 every impediment cimningly devised by Government to prevent 
 men of the labouring class from becoming anything but 
 convicts themselves, it was not found that any large proportion 
 of the one descended to the level of the other. On the contrary, 
 the most adverse conditions failed to altogether check the 
 tendency to moral improvement actually shown among the 
 convicts as the result of the introduction of a mere handful of 
 free labourers. If the colony had been freely supplied with 
 such immigrants, it cannot be doubted that the bulk of the 
 criminal population would have been won back by honest 
 habits to their lost position. 
 
 Of the importance of the labouring class of immigrants 
 from an economical point of view there can be no question.
 
 200 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 There are those who thiiik that emigration should be so regu- 
 lated that labour and capital should be planted together and 
 simultaneously on the virgin soil of a new colony, in certain 
 definite proportionate quantities, and who maintain that the 
 permanent disarrangement of these proportions must of ne- 
 cessity involve a young colony in hopeless disaster. It is 
 impossible, however, to treat this argument seriously, for re- 
 lations or proportions between capital and labour in a virgin 
 territory are the very things which no human mgenuity can 
 settle beforehand. Capital may safely be trusted to follow in 
 the wake of labour, and the relations between the two must 
 vary according to local requirements or development. To 
 endeavour to establish such relations beforehand is to realise 
 by .anticipation the circumstances of an unknowable future. 
 \Vakefield and his followers, while bitterly and justly in- 
 veighing against Colonial Office red-tapeism, Avere themselves 
 red-tapeists of the deepest dye. It is to them that we are 
 indebted for colonisation schemes in which the useful sug- 
 gestions are so bomid around with reels of red-tape that sound 
 principles and unsound theories are at first sight almost 
 inseparable from each other. It is in these speculations that 
 we find visionary pleas for the establishment of antecedent 
 ratios between capital and labour, and between land and labour ; 
 and how mischievous were the consequences of the reduction 
 of these rules to practice will appear in treating of the questions 
 connected with the foundation of South Australia. 
 
 If it be desirable to attract capital to a new colony, the 
 best inducement is the most natural — namely, a ready supply of 
 labourers on the spot. The Colonial Office utihsed the convicts 
 as a labouring staff, and emigrants with capital came as of 
 course. So they would have done, in smaller proportion to 
 the fi'ee labourers, but in all probabihty in greater numbers, if 
 a plentiful influx of free labourers had been encouraged. The 
 opposite policy was, however, adopted, and a contact labouring 
 staff, consisting of slaves who did only the modicum of work 
 extorted from them, together with the taskmasters who con- 
 sidered the welfare of the colony as opposed to their own, 
 formed the whole industrial population.
 
 INJUEIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 201 
 
 I have spoken of the inducements given by the forming of 
 the convicts into a labouring staff as being ' natural ' induce- 
 ments. They were so only in the sense that the home 
 Government, by maintaining the settlement as a penal one 
 only, had closed the way to the more powerful inducement 
 that would have been offered by the early and continuous 
 introduction of free immigrants of the labouring classes. It 
 was the natural result of a forced non-natural system of colon- 
 isation, and of the home policy Avhich was responsible for 
 having created conditions which could not produce a mixed 
 colonisation of men and women of all classes, but only of one 
 class. It was a natural inducement as regarded the small or 
 large capitalist, but it was an unnatural one as regarded its 
 formation. 
 
 From the very outset the home authorities were urged by 
 the first Governor of the colony to send out free labourers. 
 More labour, he told them, would have been performed by a 
 hmidred free labourers from any part of England and Scot- 
 land ' than had at any time been performed by 300 convicts 
 with all the attention that could be paid them.' In conse- 
 quence, a few pauper families were let out to contractors and 
 transmitted out in dniblets from time to time. 
 
 The lot of these emigrants was not, as a rule, a happy one. 
 The produce they raised had to be exchanged against 
 ' property,' as it was called — that is, against rum, tea, sugar, 
 or such other goods as the purchaser, the Government, 
 might choose to offer at an enormous over-valuation. These 
 labouring settlers were objectionable to the s(j[uatters, hateful 
 to the emancipists, and obnoxious to the Governor who 
 exercised absolute power over the colony for a longer period 
 than any of his predecessors or successors.' His Excellency's 
 maxim was, ' New South Wales is a country for the reforma- 
 tion of convicts ; free people have no right to come to it ; ' 
 and, in accordance with this maxim, he diligently strove to 
 disgust free settlers with the colony by elevating emancipists 
 to magisterial offices and special privileges. The dislike ot 
 both Macquarie and the emancipists to free immigrants of the 
 
 ' Governor Macquarie.
 
 202 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 humbler sort was founded on the opposition of these last to 
 having whilom gaol-birds promiscuously set in authority over 
 them. There was probably a certain amount of reason on 
 both sides, but the Governor had his own way, as being 
 possessed of the greatest power of inflictmg annoyance — a 
 process to which he resorted so effectually as to discourage 
 any attempts at fi"ee immigration hy any class until just before 
 the close of his period of administration. Even the system of 
 giving free passages and free grants of land to upper-class 
 immigrants had been discontinued since 1818, thanks to 
 Macquarie's action. Nevertheless, or rather in consequence, 
 so greatly was his policy appreciated at home that he was kept 
 in power for twelve years. 
 
 Towards the close of Macquarie's administration the 
 capabilities of the colony became better known, and the tide 
 of immigration began to set in towards its shores on the 
 arrival of Brisbane ; but as the possession of a capital of at 
 least 5001. by each intending colonist was insisted upon by 
 the Government, labourers and artisans were precluded from 
 emigrating. Slave-drivers were taken out instead of working- 
 men. Of course a good many of these who failed to prosper 
 had to descend to humble walks of life,<'and it was well for 
 the colony that they did so, for they formed the nucleus of a 
 labouring body which was of immense benefit in forming a 
 counterpoise to the political preponderance of the convicts, 
 and they did more by their mfluence to pave the way for free 
 institutions than could have been done by a more highly- 
 placed body of men or by any other means, under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 Their miited voice was the first expression in the history 
 of the colony of a public opinion which regarded the interests 
 of the commmiity as matters of paramount importance. 
 Gradually that voice grew powerful for remonstrance and then 
 for control. By degrees the hifluence of the emancipists sank 
 as that of the free working-men rose. In 1831 some fifty or sixty 
 famihes of Scotch mechanics — stone-masons, carpenters, brick- 
 makers, and the like — were brought out from home ; and, 
 although in consequence of the bitter feeling that had grown
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 203 
 
 up against them among the emancipists generally, under the 
 fostering care of Macquarie and the Colonial Office, they were for 
 months after their arrival subjected to gross abuse and to every 
 form of petty annoyance , their patient and inoffensive demeanour 
 gradually disarmed hostility and conciliated general respect. 
 
 The example of these immigrants worked wonders for the 
 moral improvement, as well as for the material advancement, 
 of the colony. The more meritorious of the emancipists now 
 began to compete for an honourable position in a society now 
 for the first time launched on a career of commencing pros- 
 perity. These in turn attracted others to uadustrious conrses, 
 while the success of the Scotchmen, together with the im- 
 proved aspect their exertions and mfluence imparted to colo- 
 nial life, was instrumental in procm'ing the emigration of many 
 more, respectable, skilled labourers from the mother -country. 
 
 From this emigration dates the progressive rise of the 
 country, and it seems almost minecessary to remark that it 
 was not assisted in any way by the Colonial Office, but that 
 the labourers were brought out at the expense of private 
 indi\aduals anxious for the welfare of New South "Wales. 
 True, Lord Goderich, who was then at the head of the Colonial 
 Office, ordered the advancement of a small sum of money 
 from the Colonial Treasury to part pay the expenses of ship- 
 ping out the first batch of the Scotch mechanics ; but even 
 this much was done under protest, and by enforcing the con- 
 dition that a like amount was previously to be expended for 
 the purpose by the private promoters of the undertaking. 
 This was in strildng contrast to tlie readiness displayed by 
 the home Government in shipping out cargoes of convicts sunk 
 in the lowest depths of depravity. 
 
 The year 1831 was, as has been seen, a great epoch, or, 
 perhaps, it might be more appropriately termed, ' a landmark,' 
 in the history of Australia. It was then that the "Wakefield 
 theory of selling instead of granting land, and of devoting the 
 proceeds of land sales to the promotion of free emigration, 
 began to be put into practice. The change was eminently 
 disagreeable to the Colonial Office, for it deprived that institu- 
 tion of a large amount of the patronage which was made to
 
 204 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 conduce to the solidification of its power in the colony. But 
 pubUc opinion had at last commenced to take a languid 
 interest in colonisation, and the Office for the time bemg was 
 suppressed. Unfortunately, the conduct of emigration was 
 left in the hands of the Imperial Government, who, according 
 to time-honoured precedent, let out the busmess to contractors. 
 At the time of effecting the change m the mode of the disposal 
 of land, a pledge had been virtually given to the colonists that 
 the land revenue should be appropriated mainly towards the 
 encouragement and promotion of the emigration of virtuous, 
 industrious, and able-bodied persons. This pledge was in- 
 continently broken. Not more than one-fifth of the land 
 revenue was applied to emigi-ation at all, and that amount 
 was devoted to picking up paupers on easy terms from the 
 workliouses. To remedy the disproportion of the sexes in 
 New South Wales the Government appropriated part of the 
 land fund in 1832, 1833, and 1834 to the purpose of exporting 
 unmanned females. This delicate mission, though nominally 
 carried out under the superintendence of a Female Emigration 
 Board in London, was in fact handed over to a notorious 
 speculator, who, looking at the matter on the strictest business 
 prmciples, procured and shipped out the women who were 
 most easily and cheaply procurable. These were, as a rule, 
 to be foimd amongst those leading immoral lives, and without 
 supervision or question they were shipped off ; and in conse- 
 quence the streets of Sydney and the public-houses of the 
 colony swarmed with free immigrant prostitutes from the 
 cities of London, Dublin, and Cork, the expense of whose 
 passage had been defrayed fi-om the land revenue of the 
 colony. 
 
 Over and above what was expended on emigration, there 
 was a large surplus remaining from the land fund. This, 
 under conscientious management, might have been utilised 
 for the purpose of introducing an active, intelligent, thrifty 
 population, mth the certain result of effecting an entire moral 
 revolution in the characters of the colonists within a com- 
 paratively short period of time ; but the home Government 
 was still hankermg after the fostering of a penal settlement in
 
 INJUEIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 205 
 
 preference to ccnsulting for the good of New South Wales. 
 The Secretary of State for the Colonies therefore determined to 
 appropriate this balance for the maintenance of the police and 
 gaol establishments of the colony, thereby diverting the funds 
 wliich ought to have been applied for the furtherance of the 
 colonial prosperity towards the perpetuation of its low and 
 degi-aded condition as a sink for the criminahty of the empire. 
 The resolute opposition of the colonial population to the 
 proposed measure was ineffectual to prevent the nominee 
 Council fi'om passing a vote in favour of it ; but as the ordinary 
 revenue of the colony proved sufficient to meet the whole 
 expenditure of the Government during the last three years of 
 Sir Richard Bourke's administration, that vote was in reality 
 a dead letter, and the balance of the land revenue remained 
 untouched. Yet the wants of the colony for several thousand 
 additional free labourers and mechanics were, at the time, 
 extremely urgent, and the absolute indifference of the Home 
 Government to the necessity of promotmg their emigration 
 was extremely prejudicial to the colony. ' It checked the 
 march of its general improvement by preventing the impor- 
 tation of the large amount of skilled labour which might 
 otherwise have been secured to it ; it retarded the progress of 
 its moral advancement by \"irtually repelling fi'om its shores 
 the numerous industrious, virtuous, and free emigrant 
 population which would otherwise have been attracted to its 
 territory ; and at a time when the colonial treasury was over- 
 fio'WT.ng with funds available for the promotion of emigration, 
 but locked up from the public under the hand of the Governor, 
 it ^artually compelled the colonial proprietors, very shortly 
 thereafter, to enter into associations for importing, at their own 
 private expense, Hill Coolies from India, Chinese labourers 
 from Canton and Amoy, South Sea Islanders from the New 
 Hebrides, and expiree con\-icts from Tasmania to till the 
 places that might otherwise have been occupied so much more 
 advantageously for the colony in every respect by thousands of 
 the redimdant and comparatively virtuous population of the 
 British Isles.' ^ 
 
 ' Lang's New Soutli Wales, vol. i. p. 254.
 
 206 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 The indignation of the colony at this shameful misappro- 
 priation of its funds had now grown into so much positive 
 discontent, especially on account of the expressed determina- 
 tion of the Home Government to apply the local revenue to 
 extend the comfort and accommodation of the convicts, that in 
 1837, Lord Glenelg, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
 organised an agency in England for the promotion of emigra- 
 tion to New South Wales at the expense of the land fund. 
 For a while emigration was carried on on a better system, but 
 the old evils crept in again ; and though, on the whole, large 
 shipments of a more reputable class of colonists were exported, 
 the pauper and immoral element still permeated the mass in 
 no small degree. Colonisation was still looked upon as a 
 convenient means of freeing the mother-comitry from the 
 destitution her own laws had caused, and, under the pretence 
 of philanthropy, the Highlands of Scotland were ransacked 
 for the lowest types of pauperism procurable for export. 
 
 The dissatisfaction of the colonists with these arrange- 
 ments became at length so deep and widespread that the 
 Home Government found itself obliged to virtually relinquish 
 the conduct of emigration. In consequence, the ' bounty ' 
 system, as it was called, was maugurated. If this change 
 had been made simply with a view to meet the wishes of the 
 colonists, and if the working of the details had been left to the 
 guidance of the colonial public, the business of emigration 
 might have assumed an improved character. As it was, the 
 adoption of the bounty system was due to the hue and cry got 
 up by a few mercantile houses in London and Sydney, who 
 perceived that, if they could get the exclusive management of 
 emigration to New South Wales into their owii hands, they 
 could easily turn the large revenue available and expenditure 
 necessary for the purpose to their own private advantage. 
 The whole business was now confided to the miscrupulous 
 care of the speculators, who were to receive a certain fixed 
 payment as a bounty for every emigrant of the whole 
 number whose transmission had been previously authorised 
 by the local Government. 
 
 The Home Govermiient, during the time that emigration was
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 207 
 
 carried on by it, had occasionally, as has been seen, gone to some 
 expense in ferreting out paupers from the most distant parts 
 of the kingdom. The funds for this purpose came fi'oiii the 
 colony, and it was as well to find some employment for the 
 numerous staff of fussy Government emigi-ation agents. 
 Therefore, remote districts were sometimes di-awn upon for 
 emigrants. The syndicate, however, to whom the business 
 had, at its own suggestion, been assigned, thought only of 
 working on the most unexceptionable commercial basis. As 
 with commodities, so with emigrants ; they were to be bought 
 in the cheapest and sold m the dearest market. The cheapest 
 market was undoubtedly the south and west of Ireland, and 
 thither the contractors despatched busmess-like agents, or 
 ' whippers-in,' to collect the refuse of the rural and workhouse 
 population. The characters or capacities for work ' of these 
 wretched creatures was a matter of complete miimportance 
 They were to be got on cheaper terms than sturdy unemployed 
 Lancashire operatives or able-bodied but destitute High- 
 landers, and were therefore best fitted for export, as yielding 
 the largest margin of profit. During the eight and a half 
 years of Sir George Gipps's administration,'^ the bounty system 
 was m full swing, and, mainly by its operation, the population 
 was more than doubled in the time. But by far the gi'eater 
 number of the immigrants thus introduced consisted of the 
 lowest description of Irish, while the remainder comprised the 
 most depraved classes of English. ' The workhouses and the 
 streets were ransacked, and certificates, both of kindred and 
 character, were systematically forged. Li one case, for 
 example, a man and woman, both single, m another, a 
 mother and her son, had hved on board in one berth, ha\-ing 
 in both instances been passed off as man and wife. One of the 
 
 ' Bonwick quotes the following from the official coiTespondence of 
 Captain Hunter, the third Governor of the colony : — ' I have discharged a 
 wheelwright sent out by Government at a salary of 10')I. per annum. 
 He had not earned 51., although he had cost the public (iOOZ. or more. 
 Anxious as I was to get a mill erected, I could not effect it until I found 
 an ingenious Irish convict, who has finished a very good one, and as an 
 encouragement I gave him 251. and abolished the above salary.' 
 
 - From 1837 to IB^G.
 
 208 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 clerks employed in this emigration system appears to Lave 
 held a conspicuous position for the facility and variety of his 
 devices. He had been in tlie habit of directmg single men 
 who applied for a passage to obtain fi'om the streets or brothels, 
 or whence mattered not, the requisite appendage of an un- 
 married female ; and it seems that in these golden days all 
 that mdividuals had to do was to say that they would go, and 
 the clerk would make it right for them. Many of the single 
 women, according to the evidence of Mr. Merewether, the 
 emigration agent in the colony, alluding to the same system 
 and period, " proved to be of notoriously bad character ; and 
 many have also been of a class much above that prescribed by 
 the regulations, and in every way imsuited to the demand of 
 the colony." ' ' Again, Westgarth tells us that ' large 
 quantities of spirits were sold to the emigrants on board, and 
 a promiscuous intercourse of the sexes h'equently occurred to 
 a shameful extent during the voyage, sometimes directly 
 encouraged by the captain and surgeon, at others defying the 
 authorities who were disposed to attempt restraint. The 
 parties who were engaged in despatching the emigrants at the 
 shipping port were also in the habit of living with the females 
 who were awaiting the sailmg of the vessels.' ^ 
 
 Loud and long-continued were the complaints of the 
 colonists at the glaring misuse which was thus being made of 
 their money. Fervent and eloquent were the lengthy com- 
 positions of the Land and Emigration Commissioners in 
 England, devoted to prove, in a style worthy of Pangloss, that 
 all was for the best, that their eftbrts were laboriously directed 
 to selectmg only the most useful emigrants, and that it was 
 the fault of the excessive demand for labour if Irish men and 
 women of lower intellectual calibre than the Australian 
 aborigines ^ were shipped as fast as they could be collected. 
 The fact was that the nominal supervision of the contractors 
 by the Commissioners was no supervision at all. The trans- 
 
 ' Westgarth's Australia Felix, pp. 298, 299. 
 ■' Ibid. p. BOO. 
 
 ^ Evidence of Mr. Alexander Thompson before a Select Committee 
 of the Legislative Council in 1843.
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 209 
 
 port of tlie emigrants was carried out in shocking defiance of 
 all the rules of humanity and decency. A considerable per- 
 centage died on the voyage from putrid fevers, brought on by 
 overcrowding, want of nourishment, and improper attendance, 
 and Camidian emigration history was reproduced in all its 
 gross details. As to those who landed at Sydney and Port 
 Phillip, notwithstanding the great demand for labour that 
 prevailed, not a few amongst them were so incompetent for 
 work of any Idnd that they could procure no employment, and 
 were thrown on the charity of the community. At last the 
 colonial Government began to wake up to the necessities of 
 the situation, and proclaimed its resolve to withhold bounties 
 for such emigrants as were incapable of work, if men, or who, 
 if women, were falsely described as married, or were notorious 
 prostitutes. To meet the risk of losing the bounties on indi- 
 vidual emigi-ants, the contractors raised the scale of freight, 
 but the colony reaped the advantage of gaining a more care- 
 fully chosen and more reputable set of emigrants, though at 
 great expense. 
 
 Let us listen to what the Land and Emigration Com- 
 missioners themselves say of the system : ^ — 
 
 The first theory was that private persons in the Colonies should 
 be allowed to send for their own immigrants, and should be repaid the 
 cost when the people safely reached the colony. It is evident that 
 gentlemen residing at the distance of New South Wales had no 
 peculiar facilities for selecting, fitting out, and despatching labourers 
 living in the United Kingdom. They had to cast about for others to 
 do the business for them ; but the only others who had a motive to 
 transact it were shipowners who looked for a return in the profits of 
 their trade in the conveyance of the passengers. Hence it soon came 
 to pass that one party sold and the other bought pemiissions which 
 were useless to the one and valuable to the other. The bounty orders, 
 as they were called, became notoriously vendible commodities, and tlie 
 fortunate procurer of one of them from the colonial Government could 
 put the price into his pocket without any further trouble or risk what- 
 ever. . . . 
 
 The next plan was that the business should avowedly be committed 
 by the public to the hands of shipowners. These, who . . . might be 
 
 ' Appendix to their Fourth Annual Eepovt. 
 P
 
 210 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 eminently qualified for supplyincr g-ood ships, were totally unversed in 
 the mass of miscellaneous business which had to be transacted in 
 procuring, selecting, advising, and controlling the equipment of emi- 
 grants. 
 
 The evils which might otherwise have been apprehended were for 
 some time avoided by contriving on one ground or another to confine 
 the business to the hands of one or two respectable persons. . . . But 
 by degrees other merchants complained of this virtual monopoly, and 
 it became necessary to throw the business more open. 
 
 The result was, that every one concerned was a loser. . . . Intending 
 emigrants were exposed to suffer from the incautious communications 
 of persons not possessed of the requisite experience and knowledge, 
 while unduly stimulating pictures of the state of the ('olonies might 
 be presented to them by private agents, ready to fill their employers' 
 pockets, and, in case of complaint, there was no well-known ad- 
 ministration likely to be strictly called to account, on which to come 
 for redress. Shipowners, on the other hand, were saddled with a 
 very unsuitable responsibility, after they had honestly and well 
 furnished excellent ships and good provisions, at the sheer will of 
 one or more public officers in the Colonies, because, more perhaps 
 from inexperience than inattention, they had not procured people 
 equal to the standard considered right in the Colonies. Before the 
 practice came to an end, serious discontent had been excited in some 
 of the shipowners who had the largest dealings in emigration, on 
 account of the heavy pecuniary losses which were inflicted on them 
 jpon this ground. 
 
 The bounty system was a thoroughly bad one, and probably 
 could not have produced satisfactory results — except possibly 
 to the contractors — under any given set of conditions, even if 
 conscientiously supervised. The essence of the system con- 
 sisted in holding out temptations to the greed of the con- 
 tractors, and yet these were relied upon as affording incentives 
 to honest and careful selection. It threw into the hands of 
 unprmcipled speculators enormous powers for good or evil — 
 the supplying materials for a new world — and provided no 
 check against their flagrant abuse. 
 
 The colonial Government was to blame for having urged 
 the adoption of the system, and for having adhered to it, but 
 let it not be forgotten that the colonial Government until 
 1856 was utterly out of sympathy with the wants of the
 
 INJUEIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 211 
 
 great majority of colonists, and was merely the complement 
 of the Colonial Office. 
 
 Contemporaneously with the bounty system, the practice 
 grew up of prepaying in part the outward passage of some 
 nominee selected by the colonial payer. This ' remittance 
 system,' as it was called, was a vast improvement on the 
 bounty system, for the home nominee was in many cases the 
 indi\ddual whom the colonial nominator knew to be fitted for 
 colonial life. On the other hand, it was liable to be grossly 
 abused by fraudulent or worthless nominees, who first in- 
 trigued for nomination orders for themselves, and, having got 
 them for notlnng, sold them to the highest bidders. Or, 
 again, speculators in ' orders ' would, by practising on the 
 fears or credulity of bond fide nominees, induce them to part 
 with their orders for a trifle — a transaction which left a 
 chance of a good profit on the resale. As this sort of thing 
 grew into a regular trading operation, systematically indulged 
 in by the numerous firms of shipping contractors, it followed 
 that a goodly proportion of those who came out with assisted 
 passages were not those for whom the colonist had gone to 
 the expense of prepaying a passage ; and as the essence of the 
 system was that the individual shipped out should be the one 
 actually chosen by the nominator, its actual working was 
 provocative of much dissatisfaction. Under the circximstances, 
 remittances were not sent home by many colonists who would 
 willingly have done so had they possessed the assurance that 
 the money deposited by them would be expended in bringing 
 out their nominees ; but still the system grew into general 
 favour, as was evidenced by the numbers of the persons for 
 whose passages remittances were made. These rose fi.-om 20 
 in 1848 to 4,159 in 1853, and a total sum of between 15,000Z. 
 and 16,000/. was the value of remittances sent home from 
 New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia in the latter 
 year. This does not at first sight compare favourably with 
 the 1,439,000/. remitted home from North America hi 1853 
 for the purpose of prepaying emigrants' passages out, even 
 when the dilfercnce between the respective populations of the 
 States and Canada, as compared with that of Australia, is 
 
 p2
 
 212 BONDS OF DISUNION, 
 
 taken into account, for the Australian settlers were more re- 
 cently from home, and might therefore be supposed to have 
 many more home relatives and friends whom they would be 
 desirous of assisting to emigrate, and the average individual 
 means of the Australians were probably at the time greater 
 than were those of American colonists at a corresponding 
 period of settlement. 
 
 A large proportion of the Australians were, in 1853, mere 
 rovers, who had gone out to dig for gold, and had no idea of 
 residing permanently in the colony. These men did not 
 trouble themselves about introducing emigrants, so the 
 remittances came from a very limited number of actual 
 settlers — a fact which must be taken into consideration in 
 estimating the comparative results of the remittance system 
 in America and Australia. Nor should it be forgotten that, 
 side by side with the remittances system, a large free-passage 
 Government emigration was being briskly carried on. 
 
 The system had a very noteworthy effect upon the character 
 of the emigration. As the Commissioners tell us : — ' The labour- 
 ing classes were in former years driven to emigration only by 
 the pressure or the immediate fear of destitution ; they are 
 now induced to do so by the hope of advancement.' ^ This 
 change of feeling and of the standpoint from which emigration 
 was regarded was undoubtedly owing to the proofs given, by 
 the remittances, of the previous emigrants' prosperity. Thus, 
 by means of the system, an inducing instead of a compelling 
 cause was made the medium of promoting emigration, and 
 that which Government had striven to press forward as a 
 necessity for paupers had through the action of private enter- 
 prise become an advantage to be sought after by the best of 
 the artisans and labourers. 
 
 There is nothing more instructive in the records of the 
 remittance system than the prominent part played in it by 
 remittances from Irish settlers. One of the most constant 
 subjects of complaint against the home Government and the 
 home Commissioners was that they sent out an undue pre- 
 ponderance of Irish emigrants to Australia. That the 
 > Fourteenth Annual Eeport.
 
 INJUEIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 213 
 
 colonists were justified in so complaining need not be doubted. 
 At the same time nothing can more fully illustrate the advan- 
 tageous effects produced upon the most ignorant and helpless 
 of men by introducing them to a thriving colony than the 
 fact that the major portion of the remittances for passages 
 came from Irish settlers. Both in America and in Australia 
 the Irish have ever been a disturbing element. The Bowery 
 Boys of New York and the Larrikins of Sydney and Mel- 
 bourne are unquestionably of Irish origin, and, as the rowdy 
 and criminal class in both divisions of the globe, their pro- 
 ceedings have naturally excited comment far more than have 
 the orderliness and industry of the large numbers of Irish by 
 whom so much has been done to advance colonial and 
 American prosperity. Let it be remembered that the large 
 sums remitted home every year represent an available sur- 
 plus of earnings after all the necessities, and probably many 
 of the small luxuries, of life have been provided for by the re- 
 mitters, if we would see how tangible a proof is supplied by 
 the remittances of the improved condition of the emigrant 
 Irishman. The comparison in favour of the emigrant as 
 compared with his previous impecuniosity and worthlessness 
 while in his native country is strengthened by the consideration 
 that the great mass of Irish emigrants from whom the remit- 
 tances came were at the time of their expatriation sunk in 
 ignorance, poverty, and slothful habits, mitrained to skilled 
 pursuits, and totally devoid of the sense or habit of self-de- 
 pendence. Yet these same people, when transplantcnl to 
 American or Australasian soils, are quick to furnish examples 
 of industrious thrift fully equalling those displayed by English 
 or Scotch emigrants of far more cultivated intelligence, and 
 are found powerfully to contribute by their conduct and pros- 
 perity to the welfare of the home population. 
 
 Great indeed must be the magic of colonisation, if it can 
 produce results such as these out of the worst materials. That 
 a considerable number of Irishmen should become the life and 
 Boul of rowdyism when suddenly transplanted to new and 
 freer conditions of existence ; that, unaccustomed to self- 
 restraint, they should at once become pliable, willing instru-
 
 214 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 nients for evil in their adopted countries ; and that, of a sudden 
 emancipated from serfdom, they should give the rein to the 
 indulgence of unbridled passions, ignorance, and vice — the 
 only qualities that their English governors have for centuries 
 endeavoured thoroughly to develop in them — is surely not to 
 be wondered at. But it is a matter of surprise that colonisation 
 should so effectually curb the evil propensities almost ingrained 
 into the characters of the lower orders of Irish as to resolve 
 the vast majority of indolent good-for-nothings into orderly 
 industrious citizens. 
 
 The remittance system had the great recommendation of 
 giving play to the operation of private enterprise. Economi- 
 cally the bounty system is hardly defensible, for it is difficult 
 to draw a line between bomities on the export of goods and 
 on that of human beings. The principle is practically the 
 same in both cases. But no objection on economical grounds 
 can fairly be maintained against private individuals bringing 
 out immigrants, partly at their own private cost, unless it be 
 that not jmrt merely but the whole of the expense of immigra- 
 tion should be borne by them. 
 
 The objection was frequently raised in the Colonies against 
 the remittance system, that it occasionally brought out a glut 
 of immigrants, and that at other times it failed to bring out 
 enough labourers to supply the local market — in short, that it 
 was fitful and irregular in its working. For this, rapidly alter- 
 nating rushes of extraordinary speculation, followed by the ine- 
 vitable reaction, were to blame rather than the remittance system 
 itself ; moreover, the same irregularity of supply was at these 
 periods a feature of both assisted and voluntary emigration. 
 
 The frequent statements made in the respective Colonial 
 Legislatures as to ' gluts ' of labour are totally misupported 
 by any evidence worth the name. It was rather a protectionist 
 cry got up by colonial workmen, to prevent others of their 
 class from outside from coming in to break down their mono- 
 poly of high wages. We find, for example, that in 1857, when 
 the ' glut ' cry had attained great prominence, a motion in the 
 Victorian Assembly to send a supply of labour to Villiers 
 Coimty, ' in order to save the crops,' was carried in the House.
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGEATION SCHEMES. 215 
 
 The terms offered by the local farmers were thirUj shillings 
 per diem, and seven glasses of grog per man, besides the pay- 
 ment of the labourers' expenses from ]\lelbourne and back. 
 Yet we find Mr. Childers ' objecting to the motion, on behalf 
 of the Government, on the gromid that labourers ought not to 
 be forced to go to Villiers. Imagine a country ' glutted ' with 
 labourers, where they had to be forced to accept thirty 
 shillings and seven glasses of grog per man per diem, besides 
 having all expenses paid ! 
 
 At that time, too, a great deal of philanthropic discourse 
 was expended over the ' unemployed ' in Melbourne, and the 
 Government, after taking the tenderest care of them for a few 
 days, had to announce to the Assembly that some of the 
 unemployed were still out of work. Here was evidence of a 
 ' glut,' had it not been for the Ministerial explanation that the 
 ' unemployed ' still left on their hands were men who refused 
 to work for less than sixteen shillings a day. It may be added 
 that the whole of the original ' unemployed,' about whom 
 the devotees of the ' glut ' theory were so solicitous, were 
 freshly landed immigrants, and that many of them, having 
 been improperly selected at home, were quite mifitted for 
 work of any kind. 
 
 But perhaps the strongest disproof of the ' glut ' theory is 
 to be found in the followuig letter : — 
 
 o 
 
 Belvedere Hotel Lodge : May 27, 1857. 
 
 Gentlemen, — In answer to the notice issued by you, intimating 
 your intention to lower the wages of the men row in your employ, 
 we beg to say it was duly submitted to this Society for its considera- 
 tion and discufsed in all its hearings. It was resolved that a proceed- 
 ing so unconstitutional and so repugnant to the feelings of the Society 
 be strenuously and determinedly resisted ; and it was also further 
 agreed that no member resume your employ without an advance of 
 one shilling per day, sliould you persist in your intention by keeping 
 the men out of your employ for more than three days, thereby iucur- 
 
 ' Now the Eight Hon. Hugh Childers, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 1883.
 
 216 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 ring expenses on the Society, and wliich we consider entirely uncalled 
 for. We are, gentlemen, your obedient servants, 
 
 (Signed) The President and Members of the 
 
 Operative Masons of Melbourne. 
 To Messrs. BeU & Co., Builders, Contractors, &c. 
 
 When to this are added instances of jobbing labourers 
 refusing ten shillings per day and lodgings for simply cutting 
 wood and di'awing water, it seems impossible to doubt that, 
 though it might be authoritatively declared by a majority of 
 the Legislature that the colony was glutted with labour, the 
 reason of the thing was in favour of those immigi-ationists 
 who appealed to the foregoing facts in proof of an actual dearth 
 of labourers. 
 
 The fact was that the labour was unequally distributed. 
 The policy of keeping large numbers of workmen engaged on 
 expensive public works beyond the requirements of the 
 colonists caused the retention of many labourers in and about 
 the capital towns ; and the rushes to the gold-fields, besides 
 their efi'ect of tm^ning the labourer into a miner, centralised 
 the supply of labour m the neighbourhood of the gold-fields, 
 while the rest of the country could not get labour for love or 
 money. 
 
 If the remittance system was to blame, it was for not 
 bringing out enough labouring immigrants at the times when 
 it was said there were too many ; and if not enough then, 
 certainly not enough when it was admitted on all hands that 
 the country was suffering from a dearth of labourers. 
 
 It would, indeed, be an unhealthy sign if the supply of 
 labour in vast and Avealthy territories, such as are the Austral- 
 asian colonies, was at any time in the immediate future to be 
 found more than sufficient to meet the demand for it. Now 
 and again may come a commercial crash, which in its effects 
 may throw every industry in the country, for a brief space, 
 out of gear, as in 1842, but the check would be an insignificant 
 one, and would but clear the air for a renewal of the normal 
 state of industrial activity in which there is a constant cry for 
 more and more labour. Therefore, to urge against the re- 
 mittance system that it did not bring out enough labouring
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 217 
 
 immigrants was merely to say that the Colonies were pro- 
 gressing satisfactorily. Still, theii- prosperity would have been 
 augmented had the labour supply been larger, but there were 
 several causes why this should not be so. Fii'st there was the 
 fact that emigration, instead of being supervised by colonial 
 agents at home — that is, by men whose chief interest lay in 
 working for the Colonies — was regulated by the Land and 
 Emigration Commissioners, a body composed of men desirous 
 of domg weU, and capable, perhaps, of carryhag into efficient 
 execution the uuportant duties imposed upon them had they 
 possessed any knowledge of the wants of tlie Colonies, and been 
 at the same time under du-ect responsibility to them. But 
 they were answerable merely to the English Parliament — a 
 responsibility that might mean much or nothing, according as 
 Parliament might take great mterest or none at all in the 
 matter. The Duke of Newcastle thought that he had made 
 out an unanswerable case when, in reference to the complaints 
 conveyed in a Eeport of the Legislative Council of Victoria on 
 the conduct of emigration, he replied, on the question of 
 responsibihty, that ' it is enough to answer that every sliilling 
 of the Commissioners' expenditm-e is rigidly scrutinised by the 
 Commissioners of Audit, . . . and that not an item, hoAvever 
 small, is passed without the production both of vouchers and 
 of an express written authority for the expenditure incurred. 
 ... I have merely to observe that the Emigration Commis- 
 sioners are answerable to the Government, and are subject to 
 the same penalties as all other public servants for any neglect 
 or maladministration in their office ; that their Reports ai'e in 
 constant com-se of production to Parliament, and through that 
 channel to the pubhc ; and that their whole credit depends on 
 the ability and success with which they may serve the interests 
 of the Colonies for which they act.' ^ 
 
 How absurd was the principle of responsibility implied in 
 the auditing of the accomats by the Audit Commissioner's is 
 apparent from the confession of the Duke in the same despatch ^ 
 that no accounts had been furnished by the Land and Emigra- 
 
 • Despatch of September 19, 1853, to Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe. 
 ^ Paragraph 12 of Despatch.
 
 218 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 tion Commissioners to the colonial Government since 1847 — 
 six years back. Tlie auditors themselves, notmthstancling the 
 formidable parade of a paraphernalia of vouchers and express 
 written authorities, seem to have affixed their signatures to the 
 statements of accounts as of course, without any examination. 
 Had the auditing been done with any care or system, it is un- 
 likely that the complaint would have been brovight forAvard by 
 the colonists, m July 1852, that a sum of 129,000Z. was 
 totally miaccoimted for, and that the Duke, writing towards 
 the end of the following year — an interval which gave him 
 abundant opportunities for investigation — would have had to 
 admit that ' respecting the sum of 129,000Z. which the Com- 
 mittee described as totally miaccounted for, no sufficient 
 information is afforded to admit of giving any clear answer.' ' 
 The responsibihty to a Parliament which manifested not 
 the slightest interest in emigration may be dismissed as a 
 stock phrase inured to useful service in many a Downing Street 
 despatch, but without any meaning at all as a practical fact. 
 
 The Commissioners themselves would appear to have had 
 but a scanty stock of local knowledge of the Colonies. New 
 South Wales and Victoria were to them terms having a dis- 
 tinctive meaning as political divisions, but their geographical 
 acquaintance with the two colonies was not sufficient to pre- 
 vent their falling into errors which, being miaccompanied by 
 a detailed statement of accomats, were productive of much 
 intercolonial wranghng. For example, the Commissioners 
 charged upon Victoria the expenses of sending emigrants to 
 Twofold Bay, in Neio South Wales, an occurrence which 
 would have been impossible had they troubled themselves even 
 so far as to consult the maps at their offices. 
 
 The prmciples laid down by the Commissioners for their 
 own guidance were extraordinarily incompatible with their own 
 actions. Thus they declare that ' the character of a Govern- 
 ment emigration should be mainly decided with a view to the 
 permanent mterest of the colony, and therefore to the infusion of 
 the greatest possible number of active, healthy, and industrious 
 colonists; yet,' they add, 'the peculiar exigencies of the 
 ' Paragraph 6 of Despatch.
 
 INJUKIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 219 
 
 moment could not be properly neglected, and we were bound to 
 remember that these exigencies rendered it of paramomit im- 
 portance to send out large numbers of persons possessing the 
 now all-important qualification of unfitness for the gold-fields,' 
 Instead, therefore, of sending out ' active, industrious, and 
 healthy ' emigrants, they despatched cargoes of weavers, 
 spinners, and the like — men whose inferior physique would 
 prevent their resorting to the gold-fields or dispersing them- 
 selves over the colonies. This Avas the application of the 
 grand principle of conducting emigration for the best interest 
 of the Colonies — to send out cripples incapable of enterprise. 
 Could anything more conclusively show than this one fact 
 does how utterly incompetent the Commissioners were to 
 manage the momentous business of emigi-ation ? It was of 
 itself complete proof of their extreme ignorance of the real 
 condition of the Colonies, and throws considerable doubt upon 
 their vamited solicitude for the prosperity of Australia. But 
 it was also indicative of a deep-seated belief in their ofticial 
 minds — a belief worse than mere ignorance — that emigration 
 should be conducted in the interests of only the small 
 squatter class of colonists, consisting though it did, at that 
 time, of men who had not bought Aheir lands, and who there- 
 fore had contributed nothing directly towards the expenses of 
 emigration. Further, it was significant of the attention given 
 to squatter suggestions by the Colonial Office. For these 
 invalid emigi'ants were selected "with a view to their being 
 physically incapable of wandering beyond the limits of their 
 squatter-masters' sheep-runs, and thus it was hoped that a 
 supply of shepherds might be always secured to the squatters. 
 It seems almost incredible that this emigi-ation of invalids 
 should have been actively carried into practice, but it was so, 
 until the colonists raised up their voices against the continued 
 inpouring of men physically unfitted for the rough usages of 
 colonial life. Then the Commissioners naively gave their 
 reasons as above quoted, and actually concluded by expressing 
 their surprise at the ■svidespread dissatisfaction of the colonists 
 with measures conceived ' in their best interests,' et cetera. 
 "Where the Commissioners had "rievouslv erred was in mis-
 
 220 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 taking the wishes and representations of a small bocly of 
 wealthy lando"\^aiers for those of the community, between 
 whom and the landowners there was a complete disaccord of 
 feeling on most subjects ; an error of no trifling description 
 when considered in connection with the vast importance to 
 young countries of a proper miderstandmg of their internal 
 wants on the part of those to whom is confided the charge of 
 emigration. 
 
 Another scheme of the Commissioners is especially note- 
 w^orthy as significant of their non-appreciation of the practical 
 working of things in the Colonies. In pursuance of an Act 
 passed at their suggestion for the purpose, they endeavoured to 
 inaugurate a system of ' deferred payments ' of passage-money. 
 The Act provided that all emigrants sent out at the public 
 expense should before embarkation enter into an agreement 
 with the Land and Emigration Commissioners either to repay 
 the amount still remaining due from them for passage-money, 
 where a part had been originally paid, within fourteen days 
 after their arrival in the colony, or to take service for two 
 years with an employer who should guarantee to repay that 
 amomit out of their accruing wages. But a power was reserved 
 to the emigrants to terminate such agreements after the first 
 twelvemonths by giving three months' notice and paying up 
 the mipaid instalments of the passage-money. It was also pro- 
 vided that the indentures of single women should be terminable 
 at any time on their marriage upon the like conditions of pay- 
 ing up their unpaid instalments, and that where the parents 
 of a young woman were in the colony, their approval of the 
 person to whom she was to be indentured should be obtained. 
 
 Wherever and whenever this principle of deferred j)ayments 
 — or, as it -practically was, a principle of loans to be repaid by 
 instalments — had been tried, whether in America or Canada, 
 or, earlier in date, in New South Wales itself, and whether 
 applied to land purchases or payment of emigrant passages, it 
 had thoroughly broken down, but Government official bodies 
 possess a power of perseverance in revivifying exploded theories 
 not easily separable from blinded infatuation, and the Colonial 
 Office was for setting the ' deferred payment ' farce going again.
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 221 
 
 Mr, G. W. Eusden ' thus characterises the workinj^ of the 
 system m New South Wales : — ' On the subject of promoting 
 hmiiigration on the principle of loans to intending immigrants, 
 the experience of New South Wales seems by no means 
 encouraging. . . , Immigi-ation was to be provided of a 
 partially self-supporting character — immigrants assisted under 
 its terms engaging to pay the whole or a fixed proportion of 
 the cost of passage out of their earnings in the colony. . . , 
 In 1854 the experiment was tried, . . , but the Act must ere 
 long become a dead letter. So averse were employers to 
 engage servants under the bond, . . . and so little were 
 immigrants inclined to respect those bonds, that as regards 
 female immigration the Act was in a short time superseded 
 with the hope of clearing the Government depots and of in- 
 ducing a more useful class of immigrants. 
 
 ' It appears to me that it cannot be expected that a large 
 number of promises to pay can be enforced against either 
 themselves or their employers. , . , Then, too, the palpable 
 absurdity of putting the community into court to sue for the 
 balance of the passage-money against every recalcitrant immi- 
 grant shows that the defects of the system are not profitably 
 to be evaded in the colony.' 
 
 Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe also states as his belief 
 ' that in this colony [Victoria] such engagements are so much 
 waste-paper ; that in many cases the emigrants are not aware 
 of what they have signed, and that experience has proved the 
 futility of any attempt to enforce such undertakings.' ^ 
 
 The system was found unworkable, as it always had been 
 and as it always will be, under similar conditions, to the end of 
 the chapter. Had the Commissioners been allowed to have 
 their ovm way they would have applied it to all the Colonies. 
 Then every immigrant would have been the indentured slave of 
 his master, every master would liave been a Government debtor 
 under bond, and in addition would have had to do the policeing 
 of his entire working staff to see that none of them ran away 
 to prospect for themselves. In the end, after a vast deal of 
 
 ' Report on Immigration to Victoria, paragraph 32. 
 -' Letter to Sir George Gipps, January 21, 1853.
 
 222 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 vexation and despatch-writing, either the home authorities 
 would by pressing for payment have forced the severance of the 
 imperial tie, or, as is much more probable, the home Govern- 
 ment would have had to consent to erase all pecuniary obliga- 
 tions on account of deferred payments, at a single pen-stroke. 
 It must be confessed that the path of the Commissioners 
 was in some respects a thorny one. Jealous and easily 
 irritable colonial populations were perpetually calling for more 
 immigrants, and then volubly condemning the increased ex- 
 penditure per head necessary to procure the extra supply. It 
 is not to be supposed that the Commissioners were particularly 
 economical in their distribution of funds for whose application 
 they were not responsible to the providers. No one is, mider 
 such circumstances. But there can be no doubt that the cost 
 of conveying immigrants was enhanced by the necessity for 
 extra ship-room with every increase in their numbers. How- 
 ever, the attraction of the gold-fields furnished a far more 
 efficient cause of expense, for not only was a voluntary emi- 
 gration set on foot by the discovery of gold, but in 1852 it 
 had attained to such dimensions that immigrants landed, in 
 Melbourne alone, at the rate of 300 a day. This gigantic rush 
 of itself raised the cost of the outward passage ; but what added 
 to it more than anything else was the fact that no sooner did 
 ships arrive in the colony than their crews deserted en masse 
 for the gold-diggings. In August 1852 there were no fewer than 
 seventy-four vessels lying in Hobson's Bay emptied of all hands. 
 The sailors scarce consented to remain on board till the cargoes 
 were discharged before rushing wildly off to the diggings. 
 ' The dropping of the anchor on every arriving vessel was the 
 usual signal for a war between the captain and his impatient 
 crew, who must be forthwith ashore in order to proceed to the 
 diggings, and who were neither very nice in intimating their 
 wishes, nor very long, of some fashion, of carrying them out. 
 Entire crews, obstinate and refusing to w^ork, were trans- 
 ferred to prison to be again put on board when their ship 
 was about to leave the port.' ' Or else — when tired of dig- 
 ging, or having spent in drink their newly-acquired Avealth— 
 ' Westgarth's Australia Felix, p, 155.
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCHEMES. 223 
 
 tliey could with difficulty be induced to re-engage for the home- 
 ward voyage at 50Z. or GO/, for the straight run home, and this 
 was demanded to be put do\M^i in gold upon the capstan before 
 a hand would be put to the cable. Under these circumstances 
 freights, of course, rose. Tenders from contractors for the 
 emigration business went up from 10/. per head in 1851 to 23/. 
 in 1852 — a sudden increase which excites little sui-prise when 
 placed side by side mth the increase in the numbers of emi- 
 grants to Australia from 5,744 m 1851 to 57,2G8inthe follow- 
 ing year ; the numbers of Government emigrants out of the 
 whole having risen to 20,313 in 1852, as compared with 8,724 
 in the preceding year. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the task of procuring the best 
 descriptipns of labourers and artisans for the Colonies was one 
 of some difficulty, for home employers were unwillmg to part 
 with their good workmen, lest their example should be conta- 
 gious, and so should produce a rise in wages all roimd. Em- 
 ployers, therefore, were sedulous in circulating false statements 
 prejudicial to the Colonies amongst their labourers; and the 
 Commissioners were, by their official constitution, but little 
 fitted to dissipate the prejudices against emigration carefully 
 fostered by artful masters. Indeed, it is certain that the 
 Commissioners did not possess that intimate knowledge of 
 the Colonies which was necessary to enable them to rebut 
 damaging statements privately circulated, and their efforts to 
 do so were neither vigorous or well-directed. Still, even if 
 the difficulty is admitted to the fullest extent claimed, it can- 
 not excuse the conduct of the Commissioners in selecting the 
 worst emigrants because they could not easily procure the 
 best. 
 
 There appear to be, then, a formidable list of reasons for 
 excusing the Commissioners from charges of paying unduly 
 high prices for costs of passage ; and indeed it is likely enough 
 that this matter of cost was one with which a body of men at 
 home could deal more satisfactorily than could the colonists 
 themselves. The functions of the Commissioners should have 
 been confined entirely to the cliartering of ships— a business 
 which they had peculiar facilities for transacting on more
 
 224 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 favourable terms for the colony than could have been made by 
 any agent sent home, at that time, by any of the colonies, 
 because of the superior credit granted to the Government 
 Department by virtue of its position. But, as has been seen, 
 they were eminently unfitted for the more delicate and infi- 
 nitely more important busmess of gauging the real wishes of 
 the colonists, and of selecting, out of the multitudinous appli- 
 cations before them, the emigrants most likely to be of service 
 to the colony. The incapacity of the Department was per- 
 ceived with growing distinctness every year, and when in 1857 
 Victoria notified her intention of sending home her own emi- 
 gration agent to supersede the Commissioners — so far as she 
 herself was concerned — her action in the matter was in perfect 
 agreement with that of New South Wales and South 
 Australia. At that time the voluntary emigrants were coming 
 forward in considerable numbers, and the comparatively small 
 sums placed on the Estimates of New South "Wales and Victoria 
 for immigration were almost entirely for the purpose of stimu- 
 lating female emigration so as to equalise as far as possible the 
 great disproportion between the sexes. 
 
 There can be no question as to the disadvantages which an 
 exceedingly great proportion of men to women entails upon a 
 community. After the gold-field rushes the disproportion 
 became more marked than ever, and vigorous efforts were 
 made to send out single women. Here, again, the old miquity 
 of faulty choice became painfully conspicuous, and it was 
 found that the carelessness of the authorities at home en- 
 trusted with the selection of the single women was so culpably 
 great that, until the colonists became seriously angry -nath 
 those who sent out immoral ^•iragoes, and carried out the 
 resolution to take the matter under their o^\m control, it is 
 probable that the female immigration left but small balance 
 of good as the result of its vigorous prosecution. 
 
 For several years after the colonists had begun to conduct 
 the immigi'ation biisiness themselves, the mtroduction of single 
 women into the Colonies was the chief business of the Immi- 
 gration Department, and the appointment of colonial agents 
 at home, specially selected for their supposed aptitude
 
 INJURIOUS EMIGRATION SCUEMES. 225 
 
 or tlie purpose, and immediately responsible to their em- 
 ployers, was instrumental in procuring a good-class female 
 immigration. Now, instead of prostitutes being brought out 
 at the expense of the Colonies, the women assisted with pas- 
 sages were respectable and useful either as wives or servants, 
 in both of which capacities they were eagerly snapped up. 
 The rapid social improvement consequent upon this extensive 
 well- chosen immigration natm'ally stimulated the volimtary 
 inunigration of women of higher social position, and so by 
 degrees the relative disproportion between the nmnbers of the 
 sexes was reduced to a wholesome equality. 
 
 It is not witlun the scope of the present work to dwell upon 
 the improved suavity of tone between man and man that re- 
 sulted fi-om the gi-adual filtration of female influence through 
 the rough young colonial communities. Manners were 
 softened and improved as a matter of course, but probably 
 the greatest and best efi'ect was that it induced rovers to 
 become settlers. Men married, fomid themselves surromided 
 with increasing social and domestic comforts, and took thought- 
 ful interest in the new colonial home, now furnishing attrac- 
 tions pre^dously only dreamed of in connection with that 
 ultimate return to the old country for which every colonist 
 devoutly prayed. As their families increased, so the novel 
 allurements towards colonial life resolved themselves into 
 ties to the soil. The man who had to work for his children 
 now set to work in earnest if he had never done so before. 
 Australia had at length grown to be his home, by force of 
 circmustances, and it had become his business to do the best 
 for it and for himself. This, then, was the chief good effected 
 by the reduced disproportion between the sexes, that it made 
 the colonists settle down and work hard for the prosperity 
 of Austraha, instead of roaming over the face of the land 
 Micawber-like, trusting to something ' to turn up,' or dashing 
 headlong into any fresh scheme that might suggest itself to a 
 fevered imagination as likely to lead to immediate fortune 
 with the muiimum of toil. 
 
 In order to confer beneficial results on the Colonies, it was 
 above all things necessary that the female immigrants should 
 
 Q
 
 226 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 be respectable and virtuous, capable of becoming intelligent 
 helpmates to men and to themselves in countries where self- 
 denial and physical and mental activity were required for the 
 enjoyment of life or even for procuring an existence. The 
 combination of qualities required for the formation of a 
 society is of a far higher order than that which should be 
 possessed by those who administer the regulations of an exist- 
 ing community. The pioneer female immigrants to the Colonies 
 had before them the task — which Governments cannot hope to 
 achieve with success — of welding into a homogeneous whole 
 innumerable discordant elements ; of investing social relations 
 at once with decorum and attractiveness ; and of making respect 
 for social observances a bond of cohesion between colonists of 
 whatever grade. To pitchfork into the Australian colonies the 
 most ignorant and abandoned females of the British Isles was not 
 only to delay, but seriously to injure, the structure of society. 
 Where the best women obtainable should have been chosen, 
 the worst only were accepted as emigrants by Commissioners 
 better fitted for the utterance of moral sentiments than for 
 the work of carrying them into execution. 
 
 It would be superfluous to attempt to prove that to fill a 
 colony from home with immoral and unintelligent characters 
 of either sex is the most unlikely means of generating mutual 
 feelings of esteem and confidence between the colony and the 
 parent State. The conduct of emigration by the British 
 Government never failed to excite the wrath of the colonists, 
 and had not the former wisely relinquished its claim to control 
 the management of emigration, wrath might have grown into 
 hatred, and hatred into violent antagonism.
 
 227 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 DENATIONALISATION OP THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 
 
 It has been seen how the home Government, where it en- 
 couraged emigration to New South Wales at all, evinced a 
 marked preference for emigrants of comparatively high social 
 position over those of the labouring and artisan classes. I 
 have endeavoured to show how, under the peculiar circum- 
 stances of the convict colony, the aristocratic settlers were but 
 ill fitted to secure the prosperity of the colony in comparison 
 with the capacity and willingness of free labourers to attain 
 that end ; and that because the aristocratic class strove to 
 maintain itself as such, and succeeded in establishing itself as 
 a caste apart fi'om the mass of the community. In its own 
 exclusive view, therefore, its interests were identified solely 
 with the pecuniary aggrandisement of members of its own 
 body, and it was consequently generally to be found in alli- 
 ance ■with those who devoted themselves to crushing popular 
 aspirations by a consistently despotic policy. These aristo- 
 cratic settlers had procured considerable grants of land to 
 themselves, and by devotmg themselves to gi-azing pursuit." 
 had gradually built up a foundation of wealth and possessory 
 rights which, when added to their superiority of social rank, 
 necessarily gained for them a far more overpowering influence 
 with both the home and colonial authorities than was due to 
 their small proportionate numbers. Their influence was un- 
 fortunately but naturally thrown into the scale which weighed 
 down the counteracting balance of popular demands, except 
 on the occasional questions in which they conceived their own 
 interests to be identical -with those of the population. All- 
 powerful for good or evil, they were assured of governmental 
 
 «2
 
 228 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 support in contesting any popular demand, while tliey were 
 equally certain of gaining the respectful ear of Downing Street 
 and Government House whatever might be the object to be 
 attained. When free immigrants began to pour in at last, 
 their power as a separate distinctive caste became gradually 
 less and less in the ascendant, and although their existence as 
 a body, separated from the people by class feelings and by 
 their position as landowners, was at all times a menace to the 
 welfare of the colony, the growth of wealth and freedom 
 amongst the mass of increasing population would in all pro- 
 bability have effected the assimilation of the squatter class 
 with the body politic as part and parcel of it, had the natural 
 course of events been allowed an unimpeded issue. But it 
 was not to be so, and the why and wherefore it is the object 
 of the present chapter to narrate. 
 
 Previously to 1836 men had squatted where and as they 
 listed. At that time the demand for agricultural produce was 
 very limited as compared with the demand for wool, of which 
 there was a large and growing export, and all the waste 
 lands in the neighbourhood of Sydney were greedily taken up 
 for the purpose of grazing. Attracted by the facilities for 
 plunder afforded by large vmfenced tracts sparsely overspread 
 by sheep and cattle, runaway convicts and expirees soon 
 began to ' squat ' on their own individual accounts, ha\Tng in 
 view the ready possibilities of sheep- stealing and sly grog sell- 
 ing. To admit the legitimate graziers on the lauds and to 
 drive away these bad characters was Governor Bourke's 
 object in framing the ' Squatting Act,' as it was termed. By 
 this Act, no one was to be allowed to depasture live stock on 
 the Crown lands unless he had procured a licence for that pur- 
 pose from the Crown Lands Commissioners. A 101. fee was 
 payable for this licence, which was renewable annually at the 
 pleasure of the Crown, so that an official check might be im- 
 posed upon the character and doings of the licensees. Besides, 
 small semi-annual assessment was, at the instance of the 
 squatters themselves, imposed upon the live stock, in order to 
 defray the costs of a body of police for the squatting districts. 
 
 It cannot be denied that sheep and cattle-farming first
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 2-29 
 
 brought the Australian colonies into favourable notice with 
 the outer world, and contributed enormously to secure the 
 prosperity of the colony ; so that regulations framed with the 
 vieAV of givmg fair play to the squatters were fully deserving 
 of the best consideration. In so far as grazing was instru- 
 mental in developing the resources of the colonies, and in 
 attracting population tliither by giving proofs of the great 
 wealth-producing capacity of Australia, the pastoral interest 
 was synonymous with the general interest. That it was so 
 was in the sequel strangely unfortunate, for the first move 
 made in the matter of Crown lands occupation was of such a 
 nature as to bring to the aid of the squatter class the whole 
 of the popular sympathy of the comitry. 
 
 In 1844, Sir George Gipps, the then Governor of New 
 South Wales, either wdth the object of replenishmg an empty 
 Treasury, as is alleged by Dr. Lang, or with the view of giving 
 he squatter a permanent holding in the land, such as might 
 operate as an inducement to him to ' settle ' instead of merely 
 to ' encamp,' and so that at the same time the monopolisation 
 of the surface of the country by licensees might be prevented, 
 issued a set of regulations under which it became obligatory 
 on the squatters to purchase a small portion of their runs 
 every eight years, at a minimmn price of 11. per acre. Also 
 they were required to take out, not 0)ie 101. licence to cover 
 their occupancy of tracts of land, however large, but a separate 
 101. licence for each area occupied by them which possessed an 
 estimated capacity for carrying 4,000 sheep. The sting of 
 these regulations consisted, not in the extra avwunt imposed 
 by them on the pastoral interest, but in the fact that, they were 
 framed and gazetted without concert, consultation, or eveii 
 prior uitimation to the Legislature. 
 
 The colonists had for long been loud in their claims to ad- 
 minister their own land and the revenues derived from it. 
 They were daily becomuig more self-assertive in their demand 
 to be permitted to regulate their own affairs in every respect, 
 and therefore regarded with extreme jealousy any action on 
 the part of the Government which savoured in the slightest 
 degree of prerogative. Under the circumstances, it may
 
 230 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 readily be believed that these regulations were excellently cal- 
 culated to provoke in them deep and righteous indignation. 
 However desirable the measures resolved upon might be in 
 themselves was a matter of small importance. Their signifi- 
 cance from a political pohit of view, as imposmg taxes upon 
 the people without even the pretence of the consent of their 
 representatives in the Comicil ha\ing been asked or obtained, 
 was alone to be considered. The colonists had been insulted 
 by the contemptuous treatment accorded to their representa- 
 tives, as well as unfairly treated by miconstitutional action. 
 There was felt to be imminent danger lest the precedent sup- 
 plied by the Executive of imposing taxation without the con- 
 currence of the Legislative Comicil — to whom the initiative 
 of recommenduig taxation belonged — might be extended to 
 every interest in the colony whenever a deficiency of fmids 
 had to be made up to the Treasury, and that concm-rently with 
 this liability there was no real check upon the extravagance of 
 the home Government. 
 
 The squatter cause was at once converted into the cause of 
 the people. The after-action of the Legislative Coimcil in 
 refusing to reinstate the Act for the assessment of live stock, 
 and in expressing their determination not to tax their fellow- 
 colonists ' ui a department in which the Executive took upon 
 itself to increase their taxation at its pleasure,' was received 
 with popular acclamation, and the apprehension of further 
 arbitrary proceedings similar to the regulations banded to- 
 gether all classes of the community in common hostility to 
 their arch-enemies the Imperial Government and the imperial 
 representative. 
 
 ' But,' says Westgarth, ' the circumstance that was eventu- 
 ally attended with most important effects was the formation 
 of " The Pastoral Association." The origmal object of this 
 body was to place the squatting interest upon a more secure 
 and satisfactory footmg. The pecuniary amount involved in the 
 change effected by the Executive was regarded as quite unim- 
 portant in the contest. Prosperity dawned apace upon the 
 squatters. They would admit that the rate was not unreason- 
 able, although, perhaps, imposed prematurely ; but they pro-
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 231 
 
 tested against the principle by which an irresponsible authority 
 of its own accord, without any notice, without any guaranteed 
 principle of action, could thus impose changes upon a great 
 colonial interest involving an important body of tlie public. 
 The object therefore was twofold — first, to obtain a guarantee 
 against such arbitrary changes in future, and secondly, to 
 secure the occupants of the pastoral lands against the un- 
 certaui and unconstitutional influence of the Commissioners 
 of Crown Lands, who had already been enacting some vexatious 
 and fantastic proceedings among their numerous tenantry. 
 . . . But the views of the squatters enlarged with the pros- 
 perity of their cause. By the original understanding, they 
 held their lands until these territories were otherwise required 
 in the progress of the colony, making of them in the meantime 
 what advantage they could, and being subject to no charge 
 save the trifling one for licence and assessment. To render 
 these holdings more satisfactory they had asked for pro- 
 tection against the arbitrary power of the Crown and its agents 
 the Commissioners. They now resolved the still superior 
 position of holding the lands, not only against Commis- 
 sioners and fellow-squatters, but against the colonial public. 
 When it was resolved to agitate the question before Parliament 
 and the home Government, the squatters had already deter- 
 mined to make a stand for definitive and exclusive leases of 
 the waste lands. The proposal of a term of fourteen years, 
 although at first a subject of some sceptical merriment, 
 became at length a familiar theme ; and as they arrayed the 
 forces they could brhig to bear upon the home Government 
 in the battle, hope gradually dawned upon the horizon, and 
 eventually became reahty and victory.' ' 
 
 The home Government had through its representative 
 thus put the entire colony in antagonism to itself. It had by 
 its arbitrary mode of acthig identified the squatters' cause 
 with that of the community. By so doing it had stimulated 
 pretentious claims, at first deemed worthy of uncriticising 
 derision, and now it was to pose as the ready tool of a class 
 whom, by uijudicious treatment, it had stirred up to vigorous 
 ' Westgarth's Victoria, late Axistralia Felix, pp. 103, 104.
 
 •232 BO^'DS OF DISUNION. 
 
 action for the purpose of procuring for itself alone, to tlie in- 
 expressible injury of the comml^nity, a set of privileges as un- 
 just to the colony as unexpected by the squatters themselves. 
 
 Taking advantage of the political support which the 
 peculiar complexion assumed by the land question had for the 
 time assured to them, the squatters pressed their claims upon 
 the home Government with renewed insistance, and, largely 
 by dint of private backstairs influence, they procured for them- 
 selves in 1846 an Act of the Imperial Parliament, followed up 
 in the succeeding year by the famous Orders in Council, by 
 which an amount of injury was inflicted upon the colonial 
 population, especially in Victoria (then known as Port Phillip) 
 which no excuse can palliate or lapse of time thoroughly 
 obviate. The chief features of the Orders in Council of 1847 
 founded upon the imperial Act were, first, the division of all 
 the Crown lands into three classes — namely, the settled, inter- 
 mediate, and unsettled districts. 
 
 The settled lands comprehended that small part of the 
 colony already divided into nineteen counties, and all lands 
 withui certain distances of chief towns and other valuable 
 parts of the comitry. In Victoria, for example, a circuit of 
 twenty-five miles round Melbourne, of fifteen miles round 
 Geelong, and of ten miles round Portland, was to be considered 
 as being within the settled district, as were also lands within 
 three miles inland from the sea-coast. The intermediate dis- 
 tricts comprised tl:e other counties then established or to be 
 established prior to December 31, 1848. The unsettled districts 
 embraced the remainder of the territory. 
 
 Secondly, leases to the squatters. The local Government 
 was empowered to expose the runs situated within the settled 
 districts to auction for a lease for each year. The occupants 
 of the mtermediate lands were to have eight years' leases, sub- 
 ject to sixty days' notice at yearly intervals, regarding such 
 parts as were required for sale, and those who had runs in the 
 unsettled districts were to be entitled to fourteen years' leases, 
 with a right, if the lands were still unsold, to a second term 
 of fourteen years. 
 
 No one in the colony objected to the squatters having
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 233 
 
 leases made out to them for definite terms of moderate length. 
 It was clearly enough perceived of what vast importance the 
 pastoral interest was to the development of the colony ; and it 
 was recognised as being for the welfare of the commmiity that, 
 especially in remote regions, the squatters should have a fair 
 measure of encouragement given them to improve their runs 
 to the best of their capacity ; but it was firmly held by the 
 people as an axiomatic principle that the leases should confer 
 nothing beyond the mere right to graze. In the popular view 
 the occupant under lease was not to be invested with rights 
 of an exclusive nature over the timber or stone quarries of his 
 run ; nor was he to be empowered to prevent the public from 
 searching for minerals thereon, or to impound at wall such 
 cattle of neighbouring cultivators as might stray into his 
 domain. The right to use the grass for a certain fixed period 
 was the only right that the people were willing to give, or that 
 the squatter, who had paid highly for his live stock but 
 nothing for his land, could in reason expect. His property 
 was in his sheep and cattle. With them he had been accus- 
 tomed to wander on from one grazing ground to another mitil 
 lie fomid unoccupied pasture to suit him, when he built him 
 a homestead and settled down, but all merely as a stock, not 
 a land proprietor. ' Let him keep his stock,' said the popular 
 voice, ' as a property which belongs to him on every principle 
 of right and justice. Let him even have a recognised ex- 
 clusive right to depasture his flocks and herds for definite 
 periods of time over such lands as may be necessary for the 
 most profitable production of wool and tnllov,'. Let him keep 
 what he has got by purchase ; let a right be conferred upon 
 liim to feed his flocks over particular areas in retiun for the 
 benefits derived by the commmiity at large from the successful 
 results of his occupation.' Thus far the people were in favour 
 of leases, but no further. They wished to encourage the 
 squatters in the successful prosecution of the business of 
 grazing, but they were resolved not to give more than was 
 necessary for the purposes of that business. The grass and 
 water tcere necessary; the soil, the timber, and the impound- 
 ing rights of the landlord icere not ; for, as the entire popula-
 
 234 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 tion of New South Wales was in 1847 less than 190,000, 
 while that of Victoria was scarcely over 42,000, there was no 
 possible risk of trespassing being carried on on a scale suffi- 
 cient to impair the grazing capacity of any run, and therefore 
 there was no reason why the squatter should have protectmg 
 powers given to him. Moreover, the vast majority of the re- 
 spective populations of the two divisions resided in Sydney or 
 Melbourne, so there was not the slightest reason to apprehend 
 that any injury would be done to the squatters' business by en- 
 croachments on the bomidaries of their runs for many years to 
 come. If these were the popular views, what were those of the 
 squatters ? Strange to say, they were precisely the same ! 
 As will be seen, the injurious efiects of the Orders in Council 
 were far more felt in Victoria than in New South Wales, and 
 yet the Victorian squatters had had no hand in the agitation 
 and misrepresentation which procured the Orders. At the 
 very outside they wished for mere grazing leases in lieu of the 
 old licences, and the Orders in Council were for them an 
 unasked-for boon. 
 
 But had it been merely a question between leasing a 
 grazing right and leasing the land itself, it is possible enough 
 that the people might have consented to the latter mode if 
 that had stood alone, m the hope that the acquisition of self- 
 government, that seemed now a near prospect, would enable 
 them to correct any injurious results. But the leases were, 
 in the Orders, only the foundation for the regulation that both 
 in the intermediate and in the unsettled districts the lessees 
 might, at any time during the currency of their leases, 
 exercise a pre-emptive right over any portion of their runs at 
 11. per acre. This pre-emptive right was the keystone of the 
 system promulgated in the Orders. A few hundred men were 
 to be permitted to monopolise three-fourths of the whole 
 available territory of New South Wales and Victoria at IZ. 
 per acre, while in the settled portion, where the pre-emptive 
 right was not exercisable, the price of land, under the influence 
 of the competition forced on purchasers by the narrowness of 
 the limits open to free bidding, would average many-fold the 
 price of twenty shillings per acre.
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 235 
 
 It may be as well now to consider the whole question in 
 its most typical form as affecting Victoria rather than the 
 older colony. ' In New South Wales the hiterspersed areas 
 of unalienated land were either too sterile or too remote to be 
 the subject of much contention, and the vast extent of lands 
 beyond the boundaries might be generally described to the 
 same effect.' In Victoria, on the other hand, the country in 
 nearly every direction was beautiful, fertile, and available for 
 man; and the land sales had been only commenced, the 
 quantity previously sold being a very inconsiderable fi'action 
 of the territory. 
 
 According to the latest computation, the area of Victoria 
 is 87,884 square miles, or 56,245,760 acres, and is therefore 
 slightly less than that of Great Britain. Of this extent the 
 land contained in the settled district covered an area of rather 
 more than 2,000,000 acres, and the intermediate and un- 
 settled districts therefore extended over 56,000,000 acres, only 
 a part of which was occupied when the Orders were issued, 
 but the whole of which was then made subject to the opera- 
 tion of pre-emptive rights. Withm the comparatively small 
 Hmits of the settled districts were centred nearly the whole 
 population of the colony, grouped together, pruicipally, in the 
 large towns of Melbourne, Geelong, and Portland. For 
 reasons of convenience, the land returns made to the Victorian 
 Legislature of the lands sold up to July 1851 may be used to 
 illustrate the principal points in the situation. By that re- 
 turn it appeared that of holders of 25,000 acres and upwards 
 there were : — 
 
 £ Acres 
 
 339 (squatters, who paying an- , 3 , held for , 4599304 
 
 t nually m the aggregate 1 ( this sum ) 
 
 256 do. do. 3,420 do. 12,443,121 
 
 54 do. do. 990 do. 7,7")1,7U7 
 
 11 do. do. 320 do. 4.670.108 
 
 Totals 660 do. do. £8,200 do. 2y, 464, 240 
 
 Besides these there were seven persons who refused to return 
 the quantities of land they held. This shows an enormous 
 disproportion between the lands occupied by the squatters,' 
 
 ' The total amount of stock returned as depastured over this immense
 
 236 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 which were locked up from the people by pre-emptive rights, 
 and the small area over which the members of a rapidly- 
 growing population could only acquire land by raising prices 
 by free bidding against each other. Over the whole of these 
 twenty-nme millions and a half of acres — more than a moiety 
 of the lands of the colony — these 660 occupiers were given 
 pre-emptive rights, and not only that, but any man could, 
 under the Orders, take up the unoccupied remamder of the 
 unsettled districts, and the simple fact of his doing so and 
 paying a small licence fee would entitle him to the right to 
 purchase the land at 1/. per acre. True, it was provided that 
 a valuation should be made of the land over which the pre- 
 emptive right was exercisable, but good entertainment and 
 a certain fellow-feeling between the squatter and the Valuing 
 Commissioner, as well as a little judicious hoodwinking, 
 could easily be brought to bear to secure a valuation which 
 might be low or high accorduig as the squatter's pleasure was 
 to buy himself or to prevent others from buymg. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the Orders were in great part due 
 to the extreme ignorance of local conditions that distinguished 
 the framers of them. Misrepresentation on the part of the 
 agents of the Pastoral Association at home had led the imperial 
 authorities to believe that beyond the settled districts the 
 lands of the colony were utterly worthless. Thus Port Phillip 
 was classed with the barren parts of New South Wales, and 
 the fertile lands of the former were made subject to rules 
 framed primarily to suit the waste territory of the latter. 
 Driblets of limited extent were here and there reserved in the 
 intermediate districts in the supposed interests of the agri- 
 cultural population, and nothing could be more suggestive of 
 the culpable recklessness of the authors of the Orders than the 
 way in which these reservations were determined. Let Dr. 
 Lang give us an example : — 
 
 territory, exceptionally rich as a large portion of it was in nutritious 
 grasses, and not affected by lengthened droughts, was not more than 
 5,550,000. In Hayter's Victorian Year Book the total quantity for 1852 
 is put down at 7,000,000, but I prefer taking the returns of the day, 
 whether accurate or not, as more thoroughly exemplifying the position 
 which the land conflict assuined in the minds of men at the time.
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 237 
 
 From Sydney to the Tropic of Capricorn — that i"*, for ien degrees 
 of latitude, or nearly TOO miles along the sea coast — there are not 
 fewer than twelve rivers, all available to a certain extent for steam 
 navigation, on one of which, the Richmond river, in latitude ^Si^" 
 south, and on its principal tributarie.-;, there are not fewer than 300 
 miles of navigable water. Now, 1 suggested tluit a clause should be 
 inserted into the Orders in Council, exempting all lands within four 
 miles of navigable water from the operation of the Squatting Act. 
 A measure of that kind would have encouraged and promoted the 
 settlement of an agricultural community in the very locality in which 
 the land, while unavailable for squatting purposes, is usually best 
 adapted for cultivation, and in which the facilities for steam naviga- 
 tion render the settlement of such a popidation highly desirable. 
 
 But the Emigration and Land Commissioners, refining upon my 
 ideas, as they thought, but in entire ignorance of the subject, made it 
 an Order in Council that two miles on either side of the Richmond 
 river down to its mouth shoidd be reserved from the operation of the 
 Squatting Act fur the settlement of an agricultural population. Had 
 my suggestion been simply embodied as it stood in the Orders in 
 Council, numerous families of cedar-cutters then on the river, who 
 ■were left unfortunately to a life of vagabondism, dissipation, and ruin, 
 would have purchased small farms by its navigable waters, transfer- 
 ring the country into a perfect garden and themselves into an orderly 
 and virtuous population. But the Richmond river, running parallel 
 to the coast line, for twenty miles from its mouth is still within five 
 miles of the sea, and the whole of the intervening land on either side 
 of it is a dismal swamp ail'ording- no means of sustenance either for 
 man or beast. ^ 
 
 According to their o^ii computation, the squatters paid in 
 the aggregate for their enormous hokhngs the amount of 
 30,000Z. annually, partly in payment for licences, and partly 
 in pajrment of an assessment of one halfpenny per slu'ep. No 
 other payments were made hy them to the colony for the 
 privilege of depasturing, and everything, over and ahove the 
 cost of carriage and superintendence, that their flocks could 
 produce went into their pockets as clear profit. As the price 
 of wool then averaged from 35. to 4s. (id. per pound, wliile 
 each sheep might be expected to give two or three pounds of 
 wool, to say nothing of the proceeds of sales of young stock, 
 
 ' Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. pp 304, 305.
 
 238 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 which even in these expensive days of wire-fencing and land- 
 taxing usually cover the entire yearly expenses of a station, 
 and not to mention the gain from boilmg doA^Ti mto tallow, 
 the profit must, to say the least, have constituted a handsome 
 return for an average annual payment of 11. i^er thousand 
 acres. 
 
 In comparison with the thousandth part of a pound paid 
 yearly per acre, the purchase price imposed as a condition of 
 the pre-emptive right may seem high, and, so far as regarded 
 great part of New South Wales, and every here and there 
 small tracts in Victoria, it was undoubtedly so high as to be 
 prohibitive to any purchaser. But the major portion of 
 Victoria was considered to be worth far more than 11. per acre 
 to any man who had the means to stock or cultivate it. Up to 
 July 1851 the average price realised for lands sold hi the 
 colony by public auction had been over dl. per acre ; and taking 
 private sales together vvith the others, the average had been 
 2Z. per acre. Of course the high price of town and suburban 
 lots in and about the principal towns had helped to raise the 
 average, but against this must be set the fact that large 
 quantities of land had been sold in blocks of 5,000 to 20,000 
 acres at upset price in the days when the upset price was 
 5s. and afterwards 12s. per acre, and at the time when 
 the population was a mere fraction of what it was in 1851. 
 Further, in the intermediate and unsettled districts were 
 many localities where land forming part of squatters' runs 
 was, by reason of its proximity to a township or market centre, 
 in eager demand at prices varying from 51. or 8/. to lOQl. per 
 acre. Although, therefore, a squatter holdmg several thousand 
 acres might, through want of capital, be unable to purchase 
 his holding outright, his lease and pre-emptive right together 
 might be the means of keepmg land locked up for which 
 many bidders would be anxious to compete. The squatter, 
 too, could almost certainly procure an advance on his ' clip ' 
 to the full value of it from bankers and agents, and could 
 purchase portions of his run in chessboard pattern, enclosmg 
 the water frontages so as to render the remaining portions of 
 it worthless to a purchaser. He had another advantage given
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 239 
 
 him which was quite as operative as the actual payment of 
 money to keep his rmi in his own hands. If he improved his 
 rim a purchaser would have to compensate him for improve- 
 ments by paying an increased price. So by digging a few 
 water-holes, forming a rough road at small expense, or by 
 fencing in part of his outlying boundaries, he could get his 
 whole run valued at a price far above the capacity of any but 
 the wealthiest capitalists. Or, again, he might purchase at 
 the Government price a few acres in an exceptionally advan- 
 tageous position, and so force an mi willing purchaser, to whom 
 the land was a necessity, to buy those acres at an enormous 
 advance. ' This,' said Mr. John Bingley in a letter of com- 
 plaint to Earl Grey, ' is no hypothetical case, but one which 
 to a certain extent has been already realised. A squatter in 
 the neighbourhood of Colac had, as he himself reports, ac- 
 quired by his privilege of pre-emption a section of land adjoin- 
 ing that towaiship, and commanding all its supply of water, at 
 the Government mmimmn price, while the next adjoining 
 section, being divided into small portions, was sold at prices 
 varying from 51. to 20/. per acre a few days pre\dous to his 
 purchase, and within a week after he authorised an agent to 
 offer it at 51. per acre to persons who had attempted in vain 
 to purchase it direct fi'om the Crown at a regular land sale. 
 These facts, incredible as they appear, I am prepared to prove 
 on the spot by the oath of the gentleman whose application 
 to purchase was refused and to whom the land has since been 
 offered by the pm-chaser at 51. per acre.' Mr. Bingley's illus- 
 tration went to the very root of the general popular complaint, 
 and typified a condition of things which was not only usual 
 but which was the necessary consequence of the perfunctory 
 drawuig-up of the Orders in Council. Why this should have 
 been so is capable of easy demonstration. 
 
 The Orders were published in New South Wales in October 
 1847, and regidations were made under them directing claims 
 for leases by existing occupiers to be handed in within six 
 months from that date. By an oversight, however, which 
 would have been extraordinary had not the fault been that of 
 a Government department at home which laicw nothing
 
 240 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 about the Colonies, and was absolutely careless as to' what 
 complications might arise from ill-considered legislation, ?to 
 provision whatever had been made for establishing proper 
 boundaries bettveen the several districts, and no survey had 
 ever been made of the limits of the several runs. In the 
 sparsely-peopled, uncleared, and largely unexplored territories 
 over which rights of lease and pre-emption were given to a 
 handful of men, no survey had been made, and ajjproximate 
 areas or supposititious boundaries could not be made the basis 
 of descriptions of particular rmis even to the satisfaction of 
 the squatters themselves. The whole of an immense area 
 might have but a small water frontage, and no squatter 
 would tamely submit to a mode of description which might 
 include within his neighbour's rim the cherished portion of 
 water frontage which he considered essential to the success of 
 his own grazing business. By the end of 1849, more than a 
 year and a quarter after the local publication of the Orders, 
 the classification of the settled, intermediate, and unsettled 
 districts had been determined ; but the far larger matter of the 
 limits of rmis was still left midecided. 
 
 The applications for leases having been sent in and 
 gazetted, a local Act ' was passed in New South Wales 
 under which Commissioners were appointed to examine into 
 the boundary claims. About one-seventh of the total number 
 of applications were disputed by the lodging of caveats against 
 them, and the Commissioners had every prospect of plenty of 
 work. Surveys were now to be made at a cost pre-ordained 
 by the Governor of 21. per linear mile, a rate which was so 
 ridiculously excessive that six months later — after full time 
 for a consideration that might have been accorded beforehand 
 ■ — it was reduced to ten shillings a Imear mile, a rate as far 
 below as the existing one was above existmg requirements. 
 This low rate was of itself sufficient to ensure mdefinite pro- 
 traction of the surveying operations, and, independently of 
 that, it was soon fomid that no practicable extension of the 
 survey staff could effect the object without interminable delay. 
 Shortly afterwards, it being evident that a considerable time 
 ' Disputed Boundaries Act, June 1848.
 
 DENATIONAI.ISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 241 
 
 must elapse before leases could issue, even under the most 
 favourable circumstances, the Governor issued a notice sanc- 
 tioning the purchase under pre-emptive right of certain por- 
 tions of runs, beyond the ' settled ' districts, for which proper 
 applications for leases had been sent in. 
 
 In the meantime two additional Orders in Coimcil ' had 
 been issued authorising the squatters to transfer their leases 
 under certain conditions, and extending the privilege of 
 limited pre-emption to occupants of Crown lands beyond the 
 settled districts for other than pastoral purposes, as well as to 
 certain squatters whose runs had been unexpectedly included 
 by the Orders within the settled districts, and also authorising 
 the issue of annual leases to occupants of Cro^vii lands for 
 other than pastoral purposes throughout the colony. The 
 regulations ultimately issued in Victoria, after separation, to 
 carry out this Order, bore date December 9, 1851. 
 
 The nature of the main hindrances which were necessarily 
 opposed to the prompt issue of leases may now be briefly 
 stated in Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe's own words : — '^ 
 
 The nature of the legal instrument contemplated, and of the con- 
 ditions under which it was to be held, demanded, in the words of a 
 Govei-innent notice on this subject, ' that the boundaries should be 
 sufficiently defined to satisfy the rule of the law which holds any 
 grant or conveyance from the Crown to be absolutely null and void 
 if the property to be conveyed be not described with certainty and 
 correctness.' Of the 820 claims first enrolled uj) to June 30, 184S, it 
 is not probable that one-eighth part assigned boundaries of this cha- 
 ractt-r. The great majority were neither accompanied by a clear 
 definition of boundary or area ; and even where attempts were made 
 to give the former there was every probability that one line or other 
 might be disputed. Many were of the vaguest description, "\^'heu 
 the circumstances under wbicb the country was so recently taken up 
 are considered, this can scarcely be matter of surprise. 
 
 Moreover, before any detailed surveys of runs preparatory to the 
 issue of leases could be undertaken, it was necessary, not only that 
 the general features of the province, which included many rugged and 
 
 ' July 18, 1849; published in the colony in April 1850. Second 
 notice, June 19, 1850 ; published in the colony in February 1851. 
 ■■' Despatch of September 3, 1852. 
 
 R
 
 242 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 mountainous tracts, should be correctly laid down, but that the pro- 
 posed reserves to be exempted from lease should be clearly defined. 
 Every practicable extension of the Survey Department made to this 
 end could only secure a certain progress. The latter duty involved a 
 far closer knowledge of the details of the country than could be 
 possibly obtained without much time and labour. 
 
 The disputed Boundary Act of June 1848, and the trouble and 
 expense which it entailed upon both the Government and individuals, 
 was not productive of the advantages which might have been antici- 
 pated. In fact, as far as Port Phillip was concerned, the time had 
 hardly arrived when it could have been made generally effective. It 
 is true, as I have before stated, a certain number of caveats were 
 entered, examinations made, and decisions given. But a great number 
 of these were felt, both by the Commissioners and the parties con- 
 cerned, to be inconclusive and unsatisfactory, from the fact that no 
 actual survey of boundai'ies or of lines in dispute had been made, or 
 could be achieved under the circumstances. Further, it was gene- 
 rally conceded that a very large number of questionable boundaries 
 were never brought forward for supposed adjustment, in many cases 
 because one or other of the parties really interested would not take 
 the trouble to come forward, and in others because until actual survey 
 of what was really claimed on either hand the existence of any cause 
 for dispute might remain unsuspected. There are large tracts of 
 country in the province without any marked physical features what- 
 ever sufficient to form or clearly indicate boundaries of runs, not only 
 on the plains but in the ranges ; and where this is the case nothing 
 but actual survey will obviate discrepancies and overlappings and 
 render the limits of runs undoubted. 
 
 To make matters worse, and to throw yet greater doubt upon the 
 effect of the measure, and the decisions arrived at by the Caveat Com- 
 missioners on examination of disputes, as far as might be, purely upon 
 their merits and bearings upon the Government regulations and pre- 
 scriptions, divers of these decisions were reversed hj actions at law. 
 
 Thus it happened that the Home Government, by their 
 Orders of 1847, had given away territories which the terms of 
 their own notice ' had precluded them from dealing with 
 either by way of lease or grant. They were pledged to issue 
 leases to the squatters, and yet they could not carry their 
 pledge into execution until vast regions, of the physical 
 features of which they were for the most part totally ignorant, 
 
 ' January 1, 1850.
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTOKIA. 243 
 
 had been accurately surveyed by a very limited surveying 
 staff. Without the very slightest knowledge of the capacity 
 or resources of the country, without having made the smallest 
 effort to ascertain either the one or the other, with not the 
 most remote conception of the topography of the land beyond 
 the outskirts of Sydney and Melbourne, the Home Government 
 had promised the whole of it to a few hundred men, and ig- 
 norantly regardless of what might be its value in the imme- 
 diate future, they had placed upon it a fixed, unalterable 
 price. Even the mode of sale urgently pressed upon the 
 colonial authorities by successive Secretaries of State as essen- 
 tial to colonial prosperity— that by public auction — had been 
 made to give way to the system of sale most condemned by 
 them — that by private valuation between the Cro^Mi and the 
 vendee. And all this merely to gratify the wildest dreams, 
 as they themselves regarded them, of a small clique, whose 
 hope in asking much had been to obtain a little, and who 
 were now to be rewarded with a more than ample recognition 
 of their demands — a recognition which was certam to place 
 them in bitter antagonism to the vast majority of the 
 population, and to provoke a spirit of uncompromising 
 hostility to the Home Government itself. And for whom 
 was this monstrous injustice perpetrated ? ' For a few 
 men,' said John Pascoe Fawlaier, ' who have not done any 
 one act for this colony or for this people to entitle them 
 to such undue advantages as they claim — namely, to hold 
 possession of nearly 60,000,000 acres of land, a great part 
 of which is rich agricultural land, for which to the extent 
 of from '61. to il. per acre would have been given at public 
 auction, had not the squatter interfered and prevented the 
 sale after the lands were advertised, and people collected at 
 the auction-room from fifty miles distant prepared to buy 
 these lands.' 
 
 ' The squatter,' he adds, ' has not done any act to entitle 
 him to hold his eight or nine lumdredth part of near 
 60,000,000 acres for his proportionate share of 14,000/. a 
 year ' — the extreme total amoimt paid for licences, on the 
 
 ' Letter to the Governor in 1852. 
 r2
 
 244 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 squatters' own showing — ' and it is a well-known fact that the 
 land cultivated by the squatters is worth far more than this 
 sum yearly, 5s. per acre being the lowest sum annually paid 
 in the ulterior for poor land to graze stock upon — that is to 
 say, wherever the lands are sold. 
 
 ' The squatter has not made any roads, nor paid for making 
 any ; the squatter has not paid any money to import emigrants 
 from Great Britain or Ireland, but he has done so to import 
 pagans and savages from China, from India, and from the 
 South Sea Islands.' 
 
 ' The present squatters, with very few exceptions, did not 
 explore the country, did not venture their lives amongst the 
 simple aborigines ; and the early squatters who did assist to 
 found this country and open up this colony received no 
 reward or encouragement save a yearly licence to graze their 
 flocks and herds ; and the men in truth and sober fact who 
 have ousted the earlier settlers have been rewarded vsdth what 
 should have fallen to the real squatter settlers who explored 
 the country.' 
 
 Principally owing to the initiative of Mr. Eobert Lowe,^ a 
 measure was passed disenabling the Governor from issuuig 
 leases mitil the bomidaries had been properly determined in 
 accordance with the notice of January 1850. A few days 
 subsequent to the promulgation of the famous Orders in 
 Council, but before the six months within which applications 
 for leases were to be sent in, proclamation had been made of 
 the sale by public auction of certain lots of land in the county 
 of Grant. These lands had been surveyed, and marked out 
 for general sale when occasion offered, five or six years pre- 
 viously. Under the regulations then existing it had been 
 competent to the Government at any time to bring them into 
 the market, although until they were sold they were left in 
 the occupation and covered by the aimual depasturing licence 
 of the licensees ; and this was their position at the time when 
 
 ' The importation ct yellow-sliinned and dark-skinned labour does not 
 appear tome at all repn hensible. However, it was odious to Mr. Fawkner, 
 whose letter is express've of the popular feeling of that day. [Author.] 
 
 - Now Lord Sherbrcoke.
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 215 
 
 they were, at the request of private individuals, applied for to 
 be sold. These lands, as it happened, turned out to be in the 
 intermediate district, and therefore the hcensees applied to 
 have them withdrawn from sale on the gromid that they Avere 
 entitled to a lease of them. The opinion of the law officers 
 of the colony was in favour of the sale being held, but the 
 colonial Government, aware of the home bias in favour of the 
 squatters, decided to avoid the chance of possible censure by 
 withdrawmg the lands from auction. No doubt it was ques- 
 tionable m the extreme whether, under the Orders in Council, 
 the land could legally be sold, but a strong local Government, 
 if its own sympathies had been with the popular cause, 
 would never have consented to a withdrawal fraught with 
 consequences certam to be fatal to the immediate prospects of 
 the settlement of the colony. For the withdrawal was a pre- 
 cedent which, if acted upon in other cases, would have the 
 ineA-itable effect of locking up from sale all the lands m the 
 intermediate districts for which leases might be claimed. 
 Several other cases, precisely similar to this first one, after- 
 wards occurred. In all of them it was contended by tlie 
 advocates of popular rights that mitil the leases had been 
 actually issued outside purchasers Avere entitled to bid for 
 lands in the intermediate district, while it was maintamed 
 on the other side that the conditional promise of a lease was 
 equivalent to its actual issue. 
 
 That the promise was in no case unconditional can hardly 
 admit of a doubt, for the Governor could, under his powers, 
 exercise some discretion as to the persons to v/hom he should 
 grant leases, and he had an unfettered authority as to the 
 duration of the lease witliin the maximum limits specified in 
 the Orders. If, then, mider any conceivable circumstances, 
 the Governor had a discretionary power of withholding a 
 lease, no man could assert a right to one until the discretion 
 had been determuied in his favour ; and until the Governor 
 had irrevocably fixed the duration of a lease, no man could 
 say, as matter of law, that he was in the Aartual position of a 
 lessee for a definite term, and that at the particular moment 
 at which a sale took place he Avas possessed of rights para-
 
 246 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 mount to those of the vendor — the Government — so as to 
 obhge the latter to withdraw the land from sale. Moreover, 
 the ophiion of the Attorney- General of Victoria ' was that it 
 did not admit of question that the Governor might make sale 
 of these lands if they were required ' for facilitatmg the settle- 
 ment of the colony.' On the first point the law officers sub- 
 sequently gave another opinion contradictory of their previous 
 one, now stating that ' we are of opinion that until a lease of 
 the land has been granted and has either expired by lapse of 
 time, or been determmed by notice as provided in the Orders, 
 no portion of it could be legally put up for sale.' 
 
 Action Avas immediately taken in accordance with this 
 opinion, and, says Mr. La Trobe,^ 
 
 The consequence has been unfavourable to the interests of the 
 public. 
 
 The Government has considered itself disabled from effecting sales 
 in every instance where the individual, whose temporary interest 
 might be supposed affected, thought proper to exercise the right thus 
 conceded him of keeping land out of the market for what might be 
 an indefinite period. 
 
 Not only has individual enterprise received a check, but the gradual 
 development of the resources of the country, in one quarter or other, 
 has been seriously retarded, the public interests and requirements 
 being temporarily set aside and made subservient to what must, in 
 truth, be considered the private interests of individuals. 
 
 This state of things has been productive of considerable dissatis- 
 faction, and 1 think that the concession now made in favour of the 
 squatter, enabling him to exercise a right which he could, in strict 
 law, only expect to exercise after th*^ issue of his lease, at the same 
 time that the public remains strictly shut out from the exercise of the 
 privilege of purchase of land in the 'intermediate' district, which 
 would be secured to it by the provision of the Orders in Council after 
 that lease were issued, may form a very just subject of complaint. . . . 
 
 There are localities marked as reserves, portions of which are 
 urgently required for the public use, were it only for the establish- 
 ment of inns and other facilities to the settlement of the country dis- 
 tricts, which the gradual growth of the province requii-es, but which, 
 under the circumstances stated, cannot be made available for sale for 
 
 1 Mr. W. G. Plunket's opinion in 1848. 
 * Despatch of July 22, 1850.
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 247 
 
 an indefinite period, at the same time tliat the obstacles which stand 
 in the way of the issue of occupation licences disables the Government 
 from attending to the public wants by that temporary expedient. 
 
 This was the expression of the opinion of a Governor by no 
 means celebrated for his popular sympathies, and who by his 
 position was bomid to criticise existing regulations with mild- 
 ness rather than with acerbity. 
 
 The people were prevented from getting at the land outside 
 the settled district except by purchasing at an enormous 
 advance on 11. per acre the land, or the rights to it, secured to 
 the squatters at that price. But how fared it with the squatters ? 
 The situation was productive of the greatest dissatisfaction even 
 to the members of that specially favoured class. 
 
 Let us take their own view of the position in which the 
 Orders had placed them. They divide the eifects following 
 from the delay in the issue of leases under two heads, 
 diametrically differing from each other in kind, as follows ; — 
 1. By reference to Lord Grey's despatch dated November 29, 
 1846, it will be seen that the special object contemplated by the new 
 Orders in Council was to present inducements to the settler to make 
 permanent improvements on his run, so as to accommodate a larger 
 amount of stock ; but it is notorious that few persons have engaged 
 in such enterprises, from the uncertainty of their position, and the 
 doubts which they have justly entertained as to the issue of leases, 
 and consequently they cannot be said to have enjoyed all the privi- 
 leges intended to have been conferred upon them ; neither have they 
 been able to dispose of their stock and stations to the same advantage 
 in the public market of the colony as they would have done had the 
 faith of the Government been fulfilled. 
 
 2. On the other hand, there are persons who have placed a more 
 unlimited faith in the pledges of the Government, and have made im- 
 provements on their runs, or purchased new runs, on the expectation 
 of a definite and guaranteed enjoyment for a number of years. Such 
 cases present examples of vested interests created on the faith of the 
 Crown, and ought not to be disturbed on any consideration of mere 
 expediency, without an equivalent compensation.* 
 
 Such, then, was the result so far of the unjustifiable and 
 
 ' Minute of arguments addressed to the Lieutenant-Governor at an 
 audience afforded by a number of squatters on August 3, 1852.
 
 243 BONDS Oi^' DISUNION. 
 
 ill-conceived measures of the home Government for depriving 
 the then and the future population, in perpetuity, of the lands 
 of the colony. Never was there a more solid proof of the folly 
 of attempting to direct the affairs of the colony from a depart- 
 ment of State many thousands of miles distant. The repre- 
 sentations of a small knot of New South Wales squatters who 
 knew little or nothing of the circumstances of the neighbour- 
 ing colony were held, at the Colonial Office, to be all that was 
 requisite to justify the adoption of the same measures for both 
 colonies. 
 
 It was barely a decade since Batman and Fawkner had 
 inaugurated the settlement of Victoria. We know now how 
 little was known of the interior of the country within the fii'st 
 ten or twelve years, for although individuals had penetrated to 
 remote parts of it, scarcely one of them v/as capable of 
 scientifically investigating the future possibilities of the soil 
 or of devoting himself to the most elementary form of survey- 
 ing, and but few of them troubled themselves to record their 
 experiences for the benefit of the general public. So far as 
 official knowledge was concerned, any systematic classification 
 of the broad general features of the colonies was entirely 
 supposititious. Distances and heights were approximate only. 
 Elvers were mapped out where their courses were surmised to 
 be ; and it was a moot point whether the greater part of the 
 land far inland was covered with dense scrub, whether it was 
 a collection of barren stony ridges, or abounding in rich agri- 
 cultural and pastoral soils. Of the geological character of the 
 interior nobody did or could know anythuig. Whether the 
 colony rejoiced in golden treasures and in other minerals 
 were matters as to which no one could do more than hazard a 
 conjecture. This dearth of knowledge might well have ren- 
 dered the official mind fearful of legislating for the colony, 
 until at least some mformation was procurable to allow of the 
 formation of opinions as to what the country was really like 
 and what might be expected from it. Instead of this, the 
 home Government rushed into legislation to be applied to 
 Port Phillip, not legislation of a tentative order, but of a kind 
 which was to regulate at once, decisively and mialterably, the
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 2 iO 
 
 whole future of the colony, and such as, if they had possessed 
 a small share of local knowledge, the law-makers would them- 
 selves have condemned as the extreme of lunacy. 
 
 The Orders in Council satisfied nobody. They had raised 
 up hopes on the one hand which could not be satisfied, and 
 had, on the other hand, excited sullen discontent capable of 
 ripening mto a more active form by taking from the people 
 that which they regarded as their o^vn property. ' The 
 further acquisition of land through great part of the colony 
 was thenceforth to assume the aspect of an incessant battle 
 with parties in actual possession, who either set their disturbers 
 at defiance by pre-emptive ingenuities, or challenged them to 
 prove an adequate public necessity for the interference with 
 their rights in the ungracious task of destroying a vocation 
 that had been the mainspring of the colony.' ^ 
 
 How vast were the e\i\ consequences which might be pro- 
 duced by the carrying out of the Orders in their integrity was 
 not fully perceived until the discovery of gold brought a sud- 
 den and vast rush of population. The gold-fields were almost 
 uniformly in those intermediate and vmsettled districts where 
 the public had been forbidden to trespass. Now was confusion 
 worse confounded. The surveying staff went off to the diggings 
 like all the rest of the world, so no surveying could be done, 
 and the prospect of the issue of leases became more remote 
 every day. But the tension of the situation became greater, 
 for although many diggers were successful, a gi-eat many wei'e 
 remarkably unfortunate, and these last felt keenly how greatly 
 the locking up of the lands contributed to the cost of livmg 
 on the gold-fields. A tent full of stores was second in value 
 only to a tent full of the gold itself. Flour, which could be 
 purchased in Melbourne at 201. a ton, was sold in Bendigo at 
 tlie rate of '200/. a ton. These high prices were largely instru- 
 mental in causing, even whilst the yield of gold remained im- 
 diminished, a substantial subtraction fi'om average gams ; and 
 they were to a large extent due to the chaotic state to which 
 the Orders in Coimcil had reduced the country during the past 
 four years, so that no proper roads had ^-ithin that period 
 ' Westgarth's Victoria, late Australia Felix, p. 120.
 
 250 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 been constructed even in the settled districts. In June 1852 
 the rates of carriage rose to 120Z. per ton, and contracts were 
 said to have been freely made at 1501. per ton. The squatters 
 afterwards took to themselves great credit for having supplied 
 an abundance of beef and mutton to the crowds of gold-diggers, 
 but it was a virtue that brought large profits in the way of 
 enhanced prices of meat, and it opened the eyes of the diggers 
 to the vast capabilities of profit rendered possible to those who 
 had the exclusive possession of the land, inspiring them with 
 a wish to possess themselves of a portion of it, while it also 
 forcibly impressed them with the fact that pastoral settlement 
 had prevented agricultural settlement, and that consequently 
 agricultural produce was only obtainable at vast expense. 
 How important it was that agricultural produce should be 
 supplied fi'om the neighbourhood of the growing towns rapidly 
 arising in the mining districts will at once appear from the 
 consideration that during six months of 1852 no less than 
 three-quarters of a million sterling were paid for the 7nere 
 carriage of the necessaries of life to the gold-fields — exclusive 
 of beef and mutton, which were supplied, so to speak, on the 
 premises. 
 
 Besides this, the miners found themselves obliged to pay 
 30s. a month each for a piece of ground measuring sixty- 
 four square feet, in the midst of land for which the squatters 
 were paying less than a farthing per acre, with the right of 
 buying the fee simple of the whole, enhanced as it iniglit be 
 in value by contiguity to the mining tovniship, at the ridicu- 
 lously low price of 11. per acre. 
 
 It has been seen how under two additional Orders in 
 Council ' the squatters had been empowered to transfer their 
 leases, or rather their rights to leases, under certain conditions, 
 and also to exercise their pre-emptive rights over a portion of 
 their nms independently of the after issue of leases. It was 
 therefore open to them to deal with their lands pretty much 
 as if they had been made over to them. For they might 
 either sell a portion or the whole of their rights to lease, or 
 
 ' Published locally on April 26, 1850, and February 1851, re- 
 spectively.
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 251 
 
 they might, where not entitled to do so, lock their lands up 
 from purchase ; or, again, they might buy up a part of their 
 runs at 11. an acre, and sell it again to a competing crowd 
 who could not get a large supply put up to piiblic auction, in 
 small driblets at a great profit. These pre-emptive rights had 
 been exercised to a considerable extent over the more fertile 
 lands in the neighbourhood of the gold-fields, and miners or 
 farmers wishing to acquire land in these districts could only 
 do so by buying it direct at fancy prices from the squatters 
 who had just got it at the minimum price. Every one at the 
 gold-fields — that is, nine-tenths at least of the whole popula- 
 tion — was interested in getting cheap tillage and an immediate 
 supply of produce in the vicinity. The money derived from 
 the sale of lands prior to the Orders of 1847 had been expended 
 in great measure in introducing labour for the squatters, and 
 very little of it had been devoted to purposes of road-making 
 or other internal improvements ; hence the extravagant rates 
 of 80/., 1001. , and even 150/. per ton, charged to the miners 
 for the carriage of agricultural produce and other requisites 
 of existence ; and, as one way of reducmg the cost of mining 
 so as to make it a profitable occupation, it was absolutely 
 necessary to inaugurate extensive farming around the gold- 
 fields themselves. So men were found willing to pay the 
 high prices for agricultural lands about Bendigo, Mount 
 Alexander, and Ballarat demanded by the squatters. But 
 when they had got the land they found that farming was by no 
 means such a profitable speculation as they had anticipated. 
 For every farmer had to possess a certain stock of horses, 
 cattle, sheep, and pigs, requiring pasturage over a considerable 
 acreage. The commonage reserves for this purpose were 
 absurdly inadequate, and the stock had to be fed on the pro- 
 duce, which otherwise would have been eagerly bought in the 
 market. Around the dearly-purchased farm lay rich pasture 
 land on which, as yet, no sheep had ever fed— for, as has been 
 observed, the flocks and herds in the possession of the scpiatters 
 were totally insufficient to cover the worst grazing land in 
 Victoria, while the rich grasses of the western district in 
 which lay the principal gold-fields, could have supplied food
 
 252 EONDS OF DISuNIOX. 
 
 for many times the number of head depastured on them. But 
 the Orders m Comicil were strict and precise in preventing the 
 buj-ers of land and their tenants from grazing on any un- 
 bought lands. The farmer, therefore, when he put his work- 
 ing team, for example, out to graze, had either to undergo the 
 expense and labour of fencing his boundaries aromid, and of 
 superintending their proper repair, or he had to run the risk 
 of his team straymg on to the adjoining ' waste lands ' so called. 
 The squatter, on his part, was prompt to pounce on these 
 four-footed trespassers and to charge fourpence damage, and 
 frequently from one shilling to ten shillings per head for 
 dri^dng the plough-horses and oxen to the pound, even where 
 it was less than a mile distant. These proceedings bemg 
 profitable to the squatter, but ruinous to the farmer, engen- 
 dered constant disputes ; and as the magistrates before whom 
 they were determined were themselves of the squatter class, 
 and animated by feelmgs of uncompromising hostility to 
 farmers and miners, the decisions in these cases tended still 
 further to aggravate the bad blood between the different sets 
 of colonists. 
 
 The settled districts contained, by computation, rather over 
 2,000,000 acres, and it was contended by the monopolists that 
 the land situate within them were those that should be sold, if 
 required 'for facilitating the settlement of the colony,' before 
 the lands in the intermediate and unsettled districts could be 
 touched. But a great part of the settled district was sterile 
 and utterly unfitted for agriculture. Besides, it was far from 
 the region where the conflux of mmers had formed the chief 
 centres of demand. It would mdeed be a novel rule of political 
 economy that should lay dowai the advisability of production 
 being conducted at the most remote distances from the pur- 
 chasing market, if baldly stated ; but it was attempted to 
 apply it in all its literalness to the colony of Victoria. The 
 consequences were such as might without difficulty have been 
 foreseen. In one part of the country, where the customary 
 barrenness had given place to an area of rich well-watered 
 soil, crops were rotting on the ground, partly because of the 
 immense cost of procuring labour from the distant gold-fields
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN ^^CTORIA. 253 
 
 to harvest them, partly because there was no market imme- 
 diately adjacent to which the farm produce could be taken 
 without the risk of spoiling in the transit. In another part 
 were closely-packed masses of men craving for agricultural 
 food, and who, unable to procure it cheap and fi-esh from the 
 fertile waste around, had to pay enormous prices for it when, 
 stale and unnutritious, it finally arrived at the gold-fields after 
 a lengthy toilsome transit. So the districts which did not 
 want farmers were full of them, and in those where farmers 
 were m-gently wanted farms could not be got except by 
 private contract involving so large an expenditure and such 
 harassing restrictions that would-be purchasers were frightened 
 off, and it resulted that the supply of farm produce from the 
 neighbom-hood could rarely suffice for the local demand. 
 Many hmidreds, perhaps thousands, of people — shepherds, 
 miners, and persons of all sorts — had fi-ugally saved their 
 earnings in the hope of buying land on which they could set 
 up as farmers, and in the reaction of their disappointment at 
 finding that they could not acquire land in the only parts of 
 the colony where farming could pay, they recklessly set to work 
 to * knock down their cheques,' as the expression was, in one 
 long bout of drink. These proceedings on their part were 
 welcomed and encouraged by the squatters, who saw that by 
 this impro\-idence men of small means were agam obhged to 
 earn a livelihood as labourers, and they congratulated them- 
 selves on the circumstance as ensurmg to them an unfailing 
 supply of labour, while at the same time givuig them mcreased 
 facilities for extending their own monopoly. Thus the limita- 
 tion of the purchasable area of land contributed to the forma- 
 tion of habits of vice which it was directly to the supposed 
 interest of the squatter to stimulate by insistmg still further 
 on his pri%-ileges. 
 
 ' Extend the settled districts,' clamoured the people, ' to 
 parts more settled than the settled districts themselves.' But 
 this extension would have endangered the appHcation of the 
 economical rule — of discouraging production except at the 
 greatest possible distances fi-om markets— to which the home 
 and local Governments had given their adhesion ; so the plan
 
 254 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 went no furtlier than discussion and adverse vote in the 
 squatter-driven Legislative Council of the day. Besides, to 
 extend the settled districts would have been to encroach on 
 the principle sanctioned by the Orders in Council, and such a 
 thing was not to be contemplated with equanimity. 
 
 The necessity for such extension was becoming more 
 apparent every day. The demand for land in the interior was 
 rising with the advent of each fresh emigrant shipload, and 
 while a larger number of people than ever were on the gold- 
 fields, a larger proportion of the whole were beginning to find 
 gold-mining an unprofitable pursuit, and were looking eagerly 
 around for the opportunity of acquiring small blocks of land 
 on easy terms in the unsettled districts. The squatters' terms 
 rose responsive to the demand. They could now lease un- 
 stocked areas, for rentals varying from 100/. to 5001. a year, 
 to other persons desirous of taking to the grazing business, 
 and could sell or let small lots for agriculture at proportion- 
 ately high rates. Also, by reason of the enormous quantities 
 of land that had been thrown open to them for purchase at tlie 
 minimum price of 1/. per acre, without competition, the value of 
 lands of a similar kind which had been purchased at public 
 auction at a much higher rate had been sensibly depreciated, to 
 the great injury of the proprietors. And this because, on the 
 thing of most fluctuating value in the colony, the land, the 
 Government had put a value fixed as between itself and a few 
 individuals, while those few in turn might retail it as what it 
 was — the one thing in the colony that was most susceptible to 
 extreme variation in value. 
 
 In an old settled country there might be comparatively 
 little difticulty in estimating the value of land over a short 
 term of years ; but even there any attempt to settle before- 
 hand the price that land might be worth a quarter of a century 
 on, could never be more than conjectural. Within the last 
 twenty or thirty years the variations and the ultimate rise in 
 land values in many of the most thickly-populated districts of 
 England have been such as no prophet could have ventured to 
 predict at the beginning of the period, and it would be equally 
 impossible to forecast any future value with confidence. But
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 255 
 
 ill a new covmtry situated as Victoria was, undergoing changes 
 of unexampled rapidity and subjected to the influence of an 
 extraordinary course of events, nothmg could be more un- 
 certain than the value of land property. 
 
 ' It is impossible,' says Mr. La Trobe, ' to value that the 
 value of which has never been tested, and for the estimate of 
 which no certain and fixed data of any description exist. 
 The land which to-day is valued and fixed at 11. is seen before 
 a month's end to be estimated at 50/.' Yet it was this vu-gin 
 territory, teeming wdth wealth of all kinds, of which the value 
 could by no possibility be conjectured even for the moment, 
 and which a slight preliminary examination might have ascer- 
 tained as excellently fitted for the future home of thousands 
 upon thousands of English men and women, that, without a 
 moment's hesitation on the part of a home Government which 
 delighted to pose ' as trustee for the inhabitants of the empire ' 
 of the vast colonial possessions, et cetera,' was made over to 
 a handful of squatters, in defiance of the rights of future 
 generations as well as of those of the then scanty population. 
 Not that plenty of warning was withheld from the Govern- 
 ment as to the gross impolicy and mjustice of the application 
 of the Orders to Victoria, not only by the oldest settler then 
 li^'ing m that colony, John Pascoe Fawkner, but by their own 
 representative Governor — to say nothing of numerously-signed 
 petitions forcibly presenting the true situation and foreshadow- 
 ing the more immediate inevitable consequences. 
 
 A few extracts from the correspondence in the Blue-Books 
 will best exemplify the nature of the waniings conveyed, the 
 relative positions of the squatters and the people, and also 
 alibrd cogent illustrations of some of the salient points at 
 issue. Nor will the language be found intemperate or the pro- 
 positions on the popular side at all illiberal : — 
 
 Only fanoy [writes Mr. Fawkner''^] the fee simple of this fine pro- 
 vince vested iuone ihoudaud persons — a country capable oi supporting 
 in peace, plenty, and conteutment many millions of the human family. 
 
 My advice is, and it is the counsel of an old colonist, one of the 
 
 ' Despatch from Earl Grey in 1851. 
 
 ' Letter to Earl Grey, written at commencement of 1851.
 
 256 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 year 1803, tbat in no instance shall a lease be given to any man for 
 more than fifty thousand acres, and that no man shall hold more than 
 one lease. 
 
 Facts are good weapons I trust, and these are facts, my Lord. 
 
 In 18;^5, a poor but industrious man came over to Port Phillip to 
 settle, shortly after I liad founded Melbourne ; that is, he brought 
 with him fifty-three sheep, as he himself then told me. of his own, 
 and a flock of some hundreds of which he was only overseer. Shortly 
 after his arrival, say in 18.36, another stockholder landed with four 
 hundred sheep. The man with the four hundred sheep was shut in 
 and kept closed until he had only about seven thousand to eight thou- 
 sand acres of land on which to run his flocks and herd ; but the man 
 of fifty-three sheep, as I find by the returns published in 1848, claimed 
 in the unsettled districts no less than four runs, each of fifty thousand 
 acres, and another run in the settled districts of say twenty to twenty- 
 five thousand acres. 
 
 Thus you see the wisdom of the officers holding power here, and 
 the grasping spirit of the monopolist. 
 
 I have no hesitation in saying that one of those runs of fifty thou- 
 sand acres was quite competent to the agistment of all the sheep this 
 man then had, and that the other four runs authorised by the local 
 Government to this forestaller were not occupied by sufficient stock 
 to consume the grass ; consequently a serious loss was inflicted on the 
 colony, for many persons were prevented from becoming stockholders, 
 and from benefiting themselves, as well as providing for and inducing 
 their friends to emigrate. 
 
 If these people get their leases of these vast quantities of land they 
 will stock them very leisurely, or else they will partly ruin the new- 
 comer by selling or letting him parts of these runs at very high, nay 
 at enormous, rates as compared with the sums they pay to the down. 
 This is daily taking place ; the squatters when they sell their right of 
 grazing, a ten pound a year licence, frequently charge from one to 
 five hundred pounds for their right. What right ? how acquired ? 
 Let them show, I say — a right only got by favouritism upon monopoly. 
 
 Then, if leases are granted, great care must be taken that the 
 right of the leaseholder only extends to the use of the land for the 
 sole purpose of grazing. 
 
 Already, my Lord, it is whispered amongst the class squatter, that 
 they will not allow people to cut timber on the lands they thus claim 
 to hold ; and now it is a fact that may perhaps astonish you, but the 
 local Government let a piece of land known as the Strhig}' Bark 
 Itanges to a squatter for ten pounds a year.
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTOKIA. 257 
 
 These ranges are covered with timber fit for house and ship build- 
 ing, and each pair of industrious sawyers and woodcutters have to 
 pay the sum of fifteen pounds a year for the privilege of cutting any 
 of the timber, 
 
 I lately presented a petition to the local authorities here, handed 
 to me for that purpose by a committee of the body of sawyers and 
 woodcutters, in which they assert, and I believe it to be true, that 
 these industrious men pay about one thousand a year for only a part 
 of the same land for which the squatter pays simply ten pounds a 
 year. And the squatter and the local Government forbid these 
 working-men to feed the cattle that draw their timber to town on 
 the wild grass of these land — a monstrous injustice. 
 
 This, my Lord, is a great fact, and plainly points out to you the 
 vast good you have done by holding the authority over these lands in 
 your own hands. 
 
 But look at this question. The woods and mines and minerals, 
 and all other rights over these lands, must be withheld from the 
 squatter ; all, all except the right of grazing his stock, and residing 
 thereon ; or how are we, who bought our lands and paid from one to 
 four, five, aye, to sixty pounds an acre — how are we to obtain timber, 
 &c. for our various wants ? Why, solely by buying of the squatter, 
 who pays less than one halfpenny an acre of yearly rent ; whereas 
 we landholders have paid from twenty shillings up to above sixty 
 pounds (in \iDages) per acre to the Crown. 
 
 Mr. Fawlmer goes on to show that the total amount of the 
 squatter's licence and assessment fees is not equal in the year 
 to the mterest on the amount actually paid for their small 
 holdings by the ordinary agricultm-al settlers, and he asks : — 
 
 Who has the most right to pri-^ileges and immunities ? The man 
 who, for every square mile of land he hnlds, pays from six hundred 
 and forty pounds and upwards, or the man who only pays ten pounds 
 a year for the use of twelve thousand eight hundred acres, upon which 
 he exercises all the rights of ownership ? 
 
 Now hsten to Mr. La Trobe : '— 
 
 The propriety of granting a lease to the occupant of the vraste 
 lands of the Crown for pastoral purposes within the ' imsettled dis- 
 tricts ' for the long term of fourteen years need not in itself be subject 
 to question, pro\'ided due care were taken that such continued licensed 
 
 ' Despatch of September 3, 1852. 
 S
 
 258 BONDS OF DISUNIOlSr. 
 
 occupation carried with it no other advantage, which might prove, 
 sooner or later, inimical to the general interests. But Section six 
 orders that during the lease the land shall be saleable only to the 
 occupant ; and this brings me to the question of pre-emptive right. 
 With a certain class of colonists the concession of such pre-emptive 
 right of purchase, under any circumstances, is held to have been im- 
 called for, and opposed to the general interest ; yet I have never been 
 led to qu&stion the propriety of such concession to the stockholder, to 
 the extent of the purchase of one or two sections containing home- 
 steads or bond fide improvements ; and for the purpose of raising 
 what is required to supply the wants of the station, even though it 
 might to a defined and limited extent involve a departui-e from the 
 general system of open sale by auction. 
 
 But beyond this I am not disposed to go, and I think the argu- 
 ments that may be adduced, under a full acquaintance with the local 
 circumstances of the colony, against any such wide extension of the 
 ' pre-emptive right ' as that contemplated by the Orders in Council, 
 whether in the ' intermediate ' or ' unsettled districts,' are not to be 
 lightly disposed of. I think I shall be borne out in asserting that 
 beyond a firm assurance that he would not be disturbed in his occu- 
 pation of the waste land of the colony for pastoral purposes so long 
 as the land comprised in his run was not really required for sale or 
 other appropriation in due regard to general interests, and further, the 
 acquisition, without the necessity of open competition, of the land 
 containing homesteads and improvements, the settlers of this province, 
 as a body, had formed neither wish nor expectation. In fact, that 
 the extension of the ' pre-emptive right ' over the whole of the land 
 covered by then- lease, whether in the * mrermediate ' or the ' unsettled 
 districts,' with the exception of such portion as the Crown may be 
 considered legally empowered to reserve from, or withdraw from, 
 occupation, under the 9th section, &c., was neither asked for nor 
 dreamed of in this colony, either by the settler or by the Executive 
 Government. I speak for myself. At this very hour, I believe that 
 if the truth were told the acquisition and maintenance of such a privi- 
 lege, unless claimed now as a matter of conceded right which may 
 seem to be attacked, would be a matter of indiifereuce to the great 
 najority of the class in question, and that, if even left undisturbed, 
 he cases in which the privilege would be exercised to any extent 
 Tould be very few in number ; — always taking it for granted that 
 maintenance and better carrying out of ivLrehj imstoral pur&uits, 
 vhich I assume was originally intended to form the primary, if not 
 ke sole, object of its exercise, were the bond fide end which the pur-
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 259 
 
 chaser might have in view. As matters stand, however, no provision 
 has been made to secure that this shall be the case. 
 
 I think I shall be borne out in asserting, that beyond such home- 
 steads, sections, Sec, laud purelj' and solely fitted for pastoral pur- 
 poses, wherever situated, would not be in one instance in a hundred 
 purchased by the lessee, and in tlie instance where it might be pur- 
 chased it would be with other views than the mere advantages which 
 its acquisition might lend to pastoral pursuits, and because the extra- 
 ordinary or ordinary march of events gave that laud a present or pro- 
 spective value which would render its acquisition desirable. The 
 question arises then, if such be the case, why should the lessee of the 
 Crown have the advantage of that purchase under a pre-emptive 
 right ? I cannot, for my part, assign a satisfactory answer. 
 
 'I am constrained,' he adds, 'to look upon the whole 
 question as one of a very serious character, and to conclude 
 that the revision of the Orders m Council of March 1847, as 
 far as it may legally be practicable, is most undoubtedly called 
 for.' 
 
 And how were these representations received at home ? 
 To Mr. Fawkner came a contemptuous reply from Earl Grey, 
 while the views of the Lieutenant-Governor were not allowed 
 to influence the latest official decision — which was, to make 
 the commencement of the term of each lease run from the 
 future date of its actual issue, instead of from the date of the 
 promulgation of the Orders. The request of the squatters, 
 made in the latter part of 1852, for the extension of the date 
 of commencing the lease, was, in the state of the colony at the 
 time, about as impudent a proposition as could have been 
 put forward. The squatters could hardly have dared to hope 
 that it would be granted, and yet granted it was in the terms 
 of the petition, while all representations in the popular interest 
 were completely ignored. 
 
 The leases were not, in fact, actually issued ; but a legacy 
 of claims to leases, which met with bitter opposition and 
 with a comiteracting wave of sweeping anti-squatter legislation 
 that has often tlireatened to run to a height of unreasonable- 
 ness in some measure approaching to that of tlie Orders in 
 Council themselves, was handed down to the first representative 
 Victorian Assembhes. The Orders to a large extent failed of 
 
 s2
 
 260 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 their immediate object, as measures of glaring injustice must 
 ine'S'itably do in a community vigorous enough to claim the 
 right of self-government at a very early period of its career, 
 but they thoroughly succeeded in turning the mhabitants of 
 the young colony into two hostile bodies, and m importing 
 periodical convulsions mto the whole political, social, and com- 
 mercial life of the colony. Instead of all the colonists work- 
 ing together for a common object, the one class has miiformly 
 sought to defeat or delay the constructive and reforming 
 policy of the other. This last has in its turn persistently 
 endeavoured to ride with roughshod violence over the pri^d- 
 leges and prejudices of the party still in possession of the lands 
 of the colony. The assertion of the rights of the people, which 
 under the natural circumstances of forward progress would 
 have been an irresistible, gradual, and peaceful process, 
 has been made to assume the aspect of mifair encroachment 
 upon established concessions. As the pressure of population 
 upon obtainable space has increased, so the dividing line 
 between the landed proprietors and the bulk of the people has 
 become more strongly accentuated ; and the gi'owmg numbers 
 of each succeeding generation can but furnish a fairer reason 
 and a fresh excuse for the modification of the land system in a 
 popular direction. The evik of the monopolisation of land in 
 a comparatively few hands become daily more apparent, as 
 population grows apace and gives greater preponderance to the 
 power of the growing masses, with whom mereasing rent, 
 decreasmg wages, and an envious regard of the luxurious posi- 
 tion occupied by a small caste of landowners, operate as 
 inducements to endeavour to secure for themselves the posses- 
 sion of the soil which almost homdy confers great and appa- 
 rently never-ending advantages. The bitterness of the strife is 
 yet to come. A comitry fitted by nature for the support of 
 millions has as yet acquired but a small modicum of popula- 
 tion m proportion to its undoubted capacity. The bomidaries 
 within which industrious cultivators of small capital can settle 
 themselves at triflmg prelimmary cost are speedily becoming 
 insufficient for existmg demands. A \'igorous population is 
 for the time bemg almost stationary m numbers as compared
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN YICTORLA. 261 
 
 with the rapid rate of increase in adjoiiimg colonies, where 
 large quantities of available land are obtamable on easy terms. 
 Eents are rising, -while wages and the pui'chasing powers of 
 wacres are dimiuishing as the inevitable result of a monopoly 
 of landholding in a few hands, such as must woefully cramp 
 the energy which would gladly devote itseK to the develop- 
 ment of the vast resom'ces of the country. To New South 
 Wales, to South Austraha, to Queensland, go emigi'ants in 
 plenty — all in the well-gi-ounded confidence that the reward of 
 theu' labour will be for them the acquisition of a remunerative 
 block ; but to Victoria they go not but m scanty shiploads, 
 and the emigi'ation fi-om that colony more than balances the 
 immigration to it. And why but because, hi Victoria alone 
 of all the colonies of the Australasian group, none but capital- 
 ists can hope to purchase a share iii the soil ! 
 
 Victoria is still prosperous, but relatively to the other 
 colonies less prosperous than she was. It is no longer to her 
 that her neighbom-s must concede the right of virtual headship, 
 at one time acquired for her by the energy of a population not 
 chcumscribed or hedged in by artificial boimds. That it is hi 
 her power to regain her position of supremacy there need be 
 no doubt ; but it can only be by recom'se to more efficient 
 methods of legislation with regard to the masters of the land 
 than have been resorted to so far. So far, the many-acred 
 landowner still bears with ever -increasing weight on the broad 
 backs of the Victorian people, and every effort to dispossess 
 him of his monopoly has reacted injm-iously on his necessitous 
 assailants. May the experience of the past give better direc- 
 tion to the endeavours of the future, so that by temperate 
 measures of orderly pressure on the one hand, of timely con- 
 cession on the other, the evils of the struggle which violent 
 proceedings may engender may be happily averted ! 
 
 It may at some time be my task to trace hi extenso the 
 long-contmued struggle between the landowoiers and the people 
 of Victoria that has strewn the path of legislation with obstacles 
 ever since the boon of self-government was accorded to the 
 infant colony, and which for many a year to come may invest 
 with wulent animosity the political struggles of the more
 
 262 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 matured State. In the foregoing pages I have but briefly 
 sketched the cause and growth of a land system fraught 
 with disastrous results to a people unjustly deprived of a fair 
 heritage. 
 
 Fortunate it was for the maintenance of the imperial tie 
 that within a very short time after the real pressure of the 
 Orders in Council had come to be realised, the charge of regu- 
 lating their own land policy was handed over to the colonists 
 themselves. Popular indignation now found a safety vent in 
 constitutional agitation, and the Orders were deprived of their 
 grosser features in relation to the future working of the land 
 system. Had the Orders been maintained in their integrity by 
 the distant imperial authority, the waning loyalty of the 
 injured colony would have set itself in firm opposition to the 
 power of the Crown, and had the execution of the principle of 
 the Orders been then persisted in, violent disruption from 
 England would have taken the place of the peaceable connexion 
 which now subsists. And who can say that the other Austral- 
 asian colonies would not have followed the vigorous lead ? 
 
 The Imperial Government in Australia had begun by pro- 
 pagating crime and infamy throughout its dependency ; it had 
 ended by perpetrating one of the most glaring acts of injustice 
 to which the annals of England give recital. Beginning with 
 a strenuous attempt to fashion Australia into an Elysium of 
 vice for hardened criminals, the supreme effort of Government 
 to close the chapter of imperial rule over the older colonies, by 
 establishing the curse of a landowning monopoly, was in con- 
 sistent keeping with the accustomed tenor of its way. From 
 first to last no system could have been better devised to ensure 
 the forcible disseverance of the relations between ourselves and 
 the lands beneath the Southern Cross. 
 
 The work of emigration is one that calls for the constant 
 exercise of careful supervision, watchful forethought, and ready 
 attention. The task of effecting the settlement of a country is 
 infinitely more difficult of satisfactory accomplishment than 
 is the business of transporting emigrants to distant colonies. 
 So difficult is it, in fact, that the qualifications necessary, even 
 to initiate settlement, cannot by any possibility be possessed
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 263 
 
 by any far distant body of State officials. Intimate acquaint- 
 ance with local, geological, geographical, and topographical fea- 
 tures ; extensive knowledge of the probable resources of the 
 new country, and of the readiest means for developing them ; 
 knowledge of climate and of climatic influence upon the maimers 
 and customs of the colonial population ; of difficulties to be en- 
 countered ; of individual and general requirements ; above all, 
 an absorbing interest in, and complete identification with, the 
 progress of the youthful community — these are amongst the 
 qualifications which legislators bent upon framing a scheme of 
 settlement for a country ought to possess, and such as a remote 
 Government department cannot possess. Nor can even the 
 local Government, however zealous in the cause of colonial 
 prosperity, be fitted to plan out any but a temporary arrange- 
 ment to suit the necessities of the hour, and that, too, one 
 liable to be varied from day to day. 
 
 In a new country, individuals certainly ought to be allowed 
 to be the best judges of their own requirements, and it can 
 only be by giving the freest play to the expression of the 
 largest number of individual wishes that the preliminary 
 knowledge for even the most temporary scheme of settlement 
 can be acquired. Wakefield tells us that what a colony 
 principally stands in need of at the outset of its career is 
 ' plenty of good government.' Granted — if good, but govern- 
 ment can never be more than comparatively good ; that is, in 
 its best form it cannot pretend to perfection, but only to a 
 greater degree of efficiency than in its worst form. It seems, 
 on the contrary, to be greatly to the n,dvantage of the young 
 colony to have as little Government direction as possible, and 
 that that Government should rest on the widest and most 
 popular basis. It is only a Government of this popular de- 
 scription that can pretend to prescribe for the wants of the 
 colonists, and that can be prevented from mapping out auda- 
 cious plans to control the arrangements of future generations. 
 So soon as a Government does this last, it becomes dangerous ; 
 for in inventing legislation for the future it takes as its guide 
 merely the experiences and facts of the day, and the plans 
 formed by it for the settlement of a sparsely-peopled territory
 
 264 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 are in the highest degree mihkely to be accepted when elbow- 
 room becomes scarcer. The temptation to colonise on a plan 
 must present powerful attractions to those to whose keeping 
 is confided a wholesale supply of colonies. To form one plan 
 for the whole, and to follow it ■without reference to the distin- 
 guishing features of each ; or to make the plan adopted for 
 each colony, if discrimination is so far exercised, an invariable 
 one, is a far simpler and less laborious mode of transacting the 
 official business of the Colonial Office than it is to lend atten- 
 tion to varying special circumstances calling for separate 
 treatment on new lines. The less that is known of the 
 Colonies, the bolder is the plan and the greater the local 
 obstacles to its practical working. 
 
 In young colonies the land is everything ; and to settle 
 what is to be done with the land is to attempt to arrange 
 beforehand the future tendency of legislation. Let it be con- 
 ceded that rules should be made as occasion requires, to regu- 
 late to a limited and necessary extent the rights of mdividual 
 landlords and the legal relations between them and the landless 
 majority. But this gradual method of tentative legislation is 
 nothing else than the gradual codification of requirements 
 and inter-relations resolving themselves by degrees into the 
 system best adapted for the country and the people. It is the 
 assimilating of an evolutionary process, which as it grows 
 contains within itself all the elements of stability derivable 
 from a foundation of custom and habit ; and as its rise is slow 
 and noiseless, so its continuance will be long-lived and popular. 
 The fear, indeed, is lest the system thus evolved should become 
 too strong ; lest it should so ingrain itself into the prejudices 
 of a part of the people and so weld itself into the institutions 
 of the country that the claims of those uiterested in the main- 
 tenance of the land system should become, in time, demands 
 for the extension of peculiar privileges against an increasing 
 outcry for popular and sweeping modifications of the land 
 laws. This is a danger inherent in the constitution of im- 
 perfect human nature — that rights based on custom should 
 insensibly lead to the assertion of exclusive rights. As popula- 
 tion crowds closer against the boundaries of the acred magnate,
 
 DENATIONALISATION OF THE LAND IN VICTORIA. 2G5 
 
 SO will his lot appear more enviable to the thickening mass ; 
 so will the value of his possessorship become more actual and 
 more visible to himself, and so will he claim for himself a 
 closer-bound network of legal protection. No forms and no 
 amount of legislation can prevent this tendency, and its 
 development must be awaited with patient apprehension. 
 But in the ordinary course of events, in a popularly-governed 
 country, the evil will not be an all-absorbmg one until a 
 matured and prosperous commonalty has advanced far on the 
 stage of progress, and has arrived at a height of political 
 intelligence, based on the lessons of experience, which may 
 enable it skilfully to unloose, instead of violently to dissever, 
 the environing cords of an oppressive land system. 
 
 To fetter the rising life of a people with a pre-arranged 
 land system is but to stimulate from the outset the worst 
 passions of the people ; to goad the community into mifitness 
 for thoughtful, organised political action; to raise up opposing 
 classes throughout the country, and to pre-ordain bitter, intem- 
 perate conflicts between them. 
 
 Let it be remembered that there is not in Australia a 
 supreme despotic authority against whom all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men must be banded togetlier in common cause. In 
 England, noble and vassal were united in joint antagonism to 
 overweenmg kingly power. This is not the case in Australia. 
 There, no universal cause of fi-eedom induces sympathetic for- 
 bearance between the large landowner and the working-man. 
 There, each has to oppose tlie other, and each strives to do his 
 best for himself and his worst for his opponent. Each day 
 lends increasing bitterness to the conflict between them. The 
 flame may lull for awhile, but it may one day burst forth into 
 fiercer volume, which in its spread may involve the universe 
 in vast disturbance.
 
 266 BONDS OF DISUNION 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 WAKEPIELDISM — ' THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 
 
 Apology is unnecessary for putting before the reader a 
 Memorandum drawn up by Governor Sir George Gipps as an 
 introduction to the comparatively few remarks I would make 
 on the subject that his observations almost exliaust. The 
 Memorandum is strong evidence of the penetrating, caustic 
 mtelligence of a Governor who ruled the then united colonies 
 of New South Wales and Port Phillip at a very critical period 
 of their history, and who, had he been able to bring his force 
 of will mider subjection to his reasoning powers, must infal- 
 libly have elicited the admiration of his contemporaries as a 
 wise and fearless administrator. 
 
 But the chief value of the document consists in its exhaus- 
 tive treatment of questions which will probably ever be subjects 
 of unsatisfied discussion, and which at the time were hotly 
 contested between those who advocated or opposed the 
 doctrines of Gibbon Wakefield. 
 
 It is rarely given to any one man to identify his name with 
 the successful promotion of more than one great principle. 
 Wakefield's ' System of Colonisation ' endeavoured to do a vast 
 number of things which never can be done on system, and he 
 elaborated every detail with so great a regard to its ready- 
 made perfection as to almost ensure the complete failure of 
 the whole whenever and wherever it might be put into prac- 
 tice. He wished to make of colonisation an exact science, in 
 which human beings might be treated as numerals with defined 
 and invariable values from the moment of their being ranged 
 on colonial soil, instead of regarding it as a haphazard
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 267 
 
 process, even under the most careful superintending rules, and 
 as one which could best acquire vitality by being left as much 
 as possible to itself. 
 
 But all these fanciful speculations may be left out of sight 
 in view of the great and useful principles miderlying the whole. 
 These were, that the land in new colonies should not, as pre- 
 viously, be recklessly granted away, but that every acre of it 
 should be sold, and that the funds so derived should be appro- 
 priated to the purpose of introducing emigrants. The colony 
 would thus be made self-supporting, and emigration itself 
 would receive a certain degree of systematisation; regulated in 
 accordance with local interest by being placed under the 
 charge of the colonists themselves. These principles were 
 undoubtedly of great value, but it mifortmaately happened that 
 their importance was almost obscured by the prominence given 
 to other principles, not only of no value at all, but, in the case 
 of some, of positively injurious tendency. The establishment 
 of definite ratios between land and labour in a country where 
 there was neither the one nor the other, and the discovery of 
 the best means of restraining a vigorous young nationality 
 from overstepping a narrow boundary which did not exist, 
 were put m the foreground as the chief ends to be attained in 
 the formation of a colony — and with singularly disastrous 
 results. 
 
 One of the main contentions of Wakefield was that land 
 should not be sold by public action, but at a fixed miiform 
 price per acre. The question has been vigorously threshed 
 out by many a colonial Legislature, where it has been in turn 
 the theme of the orator, the stalking-horse of the demagogue, 
 the text of political factions, and the study of publicists. But 
 it has never been more lucidly or vigorously criticised than in 
 those sentences of the master of epigrammatic despatch-writing 
 whose ]\Iemorandum may now be allowed to speak for itself on 
 this and on other subjects connected with the history of land 
 tenure in Australia.
 
 268 BONDS OF DISUNION, 
 
 ^Meiiobandtjm on the Disposal ov Lands in the Austraitait 
 
 Provinces.^ 
 
 The disposal of lands in the Australian colonies has become a 
 matter of such importance, not only to the colonies themselves, hut to 
 the people of the United Kingdom, that any information on the sub- 
 ject derived from authentic sources must, it is presumed, be an object 
 of interest to Her Majesty's Government. 
 
 The question of the way in which the lands should be disposed of, 
 or rather of the best method of disposing of them, is very distinct 
 from that of the way in which the money derived from the sale of 
 them shall be spent. On this latter question there is little, if any, 
 difference of opinion. All parties are agreed that the largest possible 
 portion of the proceeds ought to be spent in the importation of 
 labourers from the United Kingdom to the colonies. The desire that 
 it should be so spent is certainly not less intense in New South "Wales 
 than in South Australia; whilst, on the other hand, the pretension of 
 being able to apply the gross proceeds of the land sales to the purposes 
 of immigration, without even deducting the expense of the survey and 
 sale of the lands, has been given up by the persons with whom it 
 originated. It might perhaps very fairly be even further argued, that 
 whilst the money derived from the sale of agricultural or pastoral 
 lands should be applied to the importation of labour, the proceeds 
 derived from the sale of lands in towns should be applied to public 
 purposes in the towns themselves ; and that even in the country some 
 portion of the proceeds should be applied to the making of roads or 
 the erection of places of worship ; but this is a question on the dis- 
 cussion of which it is not proposed at present to enter. The different 
 methods in which lands may be disposed of may now be considered as 
 reduced to two — one is that of sale by auction, the other that of dis- 
 posing of them at a fixed price. 
 
 The sale of land by auction was introduced into New South Wales 
 in 1831, the minimum price at which any could be sold being fixed at 
 58. per acre. 
 
 This minimum price was decidedly too low ; but still, little if any 
 evil would have resulted from it if the distinction between the mini- 
 mum price and the upset price had been sufficiently preserved. 
 
 In practice, however, the minimum price was made almost univer- 
 
 ' Sir George Gipps to Lord John Bussell, December 19, 1840.
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE W.IXEFIELD GAMBLE.' 269 
 
 sally the upset price ; and such large quantities of land were brought 
 into the market at that upset price, that there was a complete glut of 
 it. This glut was considerably increased, if not entirely occasioned, 
 by the practice of allowing land to be brought to sale on the demand 
 of any one who chose to apply for it, without even the precaution of 
 forcing such person to buy it at the upset price, if no one offered 
 more. 
 
 Under such circumstances the land seldom produced at auction 
 more than 5s. per acre, and the impression became general in the 
 colony that the Government did not desire to get more for it. 
 
 At a trial in the Supreme Court in 1836, it was even deposed that 
 the Government officer under whose direction the sales were conducted 
 had declared that the Government did not wish to get for it a higher 
 price than 5*. per acre. 
 
 In 1839 the minimum price was raised to 125., and the practice 
 introduced of varying the upset price according to the presumed value 
 of the laud, making it, as a general rule, fi'om 10 to 20 per cent, less 
 than the last selling price of land of the same quality and in the same 
 locality ; and in the Port Phillip district, land was only brought to 
 sale at the discretion of Government, applications from individuals not 
 being received or attended to. 
 
 Under this improved system, the rise in the price of land was very 
 rapid, and the productiveness of the land sales proportionally in- 
 creased. 
 
 The average price of all land sold in the old parts of the colony 
 was, in 1838, os. 7hd. ; in 1&40, 11. Os. G^d. In the Port Phillip 
 district, the average of all lands was — 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 In 1838 17 9^ 
 
 In 1840 2 12 10 
 
 The total amount of land sold was, in the old parts of the colony — 
 In the year 1838 . . . 278,508 acres. 
 And in 1840 .... 94,568 „ 
 
 and in the Port Phillip district — 
 
 1838 38,694 acres. 
 
 1840 82,898 „
 
 270 
 
 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 
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 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GA3IBLE.' 271 
 
 In explanation of this return, it is, perhaps, proper to observe that 
 the rise in the minimum price of country land from os. to 12s. pro- 
 duced for a time an indisposition on the part of the puhlic to purchase 
 such land, and that a great deal of money which might otherwise 
 have teen laid out in the purchase of ordinary land came to he in- 
 vested in town allotments ; in fact, a sort of rage for speculation in 
 town allotments ensued, the consequence of which was the gi'eat in- 
 crease in the price of them that is shown in the return. 
 
 The practice of selling laud at a fixed price was introduced in 
 South Australia in 1836 or 1837, and the system was based upon a 
 theory of which the leading points appear to be — 
 
 1. That there is some assignable ratio between land and labour, 
 and that therefore the price of land should be regulated by the cost of 
 conveying labourers to the country where the land is situated. 
 
 2. That the occupation of land shoidd be made difficult, instead 
 of easy, in order to ensure the combination of labour, and to prevent 
 the dispersion of the settlers ; also to prevent persons from becoming 
 proprietors or cultivators on their own account who properly belong 
 to the class of labourers. 
 
 3. That in order to secure the early cultivation of good land, or, in 
 other words, to secure the cultivation of lands in the order of their 
 natural advantages, all land should be disposed of at the same 
 pi-ice. 
 
 The South Australian plan of disposing of lands was moreover 
 marked with two pecuhar features, which contributed greatly to make 
 it acceptable to persons intending to emigrate from the United King- 
 dom ; one was the system of special surveys, the other the disposal 
 of building allotments in new towns by means of a lottery or raffle, 
 the tickets of which lottery were given gratuitously, or next to gra- 
 tuitously, to the purchasers of a certain number of country acres. 
 
 The first of these inventions secured very great advantages to early 
 settlers. The second added to the attractions of the scheme some of 
 that excitement which is produced in the human mind by gambling. 
 
 TLat both acted powerfully in the first settlement of South 
 Australia cannot be doubted ; but as it is not proposed to introduce 
 either of them at Port Phillip, it may be, perhaps, concluded that 
 they are no longer to form a part of what is called tbe South 
 Australian system. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the settlement which has recently been formed on 
 the South Australian principle at Port Nicholson, the same plan has 
 been pursued : to each purchaser of 100 acres of land a lottery ticket 
 was given, by which he had a good chance of obtaining a prize of a
 
 272 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 thousand pounds ; indeed, it is asserted on good authority that many 
 of the prizes in this lottery have already sold for sums varying from 
 1001. to 1,000/. 
 
 The invention of special surveys was certainly well calculated to 
 advance one of the main objects of the system, that of causing the 
 lands to be occupied in the order of their natural advantages, for 
 under it any person might demand to have a survey made of 15,000 
 acres in the best locality he could select, on binding himself to take 
 no more than 4,000 ; w^hich 4,000 he might select as he chose, pro- 
 vided only that he took them in portions of not less than 80 acres 
 each. With such a privilege, a purchaser of course selected all the 
 good land, and left the bad. 
 
 The system of special surveys, as at first introduced into South 
 Australia, was not even guarded by the precaution of preventing a 
 purchaser from selecting a narrow strip of land along the bank of a 
 river, and thus possessing himself of a vast extent of what is called 
 ' water frontage' at a price infinitely below its value. 
 
 It is well known in New South Wales that wlioever has the water 
 frontage on any river has the command of all the land in the rear 
 of it, often for many miles, or of the lands which are familiarly called 
 ' the back run.' 
 
 Even iu the early days of the colony, when grants of land were 
 made with the greatest profusion, so well was the value of water 
 frontage understood, that the extent of any grant of land along the 
 bank of a river was never allowed to be more than one-fourth of the 
 breadth of it, measured at right angles to the course of the river. 
 
 Thus, though tlie Governor for the time being had the power of 
 granting four square miles, under certam conditions and qualifications, 
 these four square miles (or 2,560 acres) could never carry with tliem 
 more than one mile of water fi'ontage. 
 
 When land was no longer given away, but sold, this regulation of 
 the Government was considerably relaxed ; but even at present in 
 New South Wales no person can, in pastoral districts (and the whole 
 country, with very few exceptions, is pastoral), obtain a mile of water 
 frontage unless he buy all the land to the rear to the extent at least 
 of a mile. 
 
 For such a square mile, or section, as it is called, even if he get it 
 at auction at the present minimum price of 12s. per acre, he must pay 
 384/. ; but for good land of this sort he would, in all probability, 
 have to pay at auction at least 500/. 
 
 in South Australia, where laud is divided into sections of 80 acres 
 each, he might get the same extent of water frontage for 160/., or he
 
 w-'U\;efieldism. 'the wakefield gamble.' 
 
 273 
 
 mi^Lt have to pay for it 320/., accoidiug as his special survey had beea 
 measured for him by a friendly or unfriendly surveyor. 
 
 In New South Wales he would have to buy the whole square mile 
 (.\) ; in South Australia lie would have to buy either the two sections 
 abultinir on the river, as shown in (B), or the four, as shown in (C), 
 
 (B) 
 
 
 (C) 
 
 
 ■'- 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 Riier 
 
 according as the surveyor had divided the land. In either case he 
 will get it cheaper than he could in New South Wales ; it would, 
 therefore be a fallacy to say that land is dearer in South Australia 
 than in Nsw South Wales, even if other documents did not exist to 
 pi'ove that during the year 1840, at least, the price obtained for land 
 in New South Wales has considerably exceeded what it is sold for in 
 South Australia. 
 
 Having got possession of the water frontage, the purchaser may 
 be perfectly sure of remaining in undisturbed possession of his back 
 run for many years, and his danger of being molested will be reduced 
 in proportion as the price, whether miuimum or fixed, of land is in- 
 creased. Few persons in New South Wales will give 20s. an acre for 
 grazing land, devoid of water frontage ; and it may be doubted 
 whether many will be found to do it (except in the neighbourhood of 
 towns) either in South Au-tralia or Port Phillip. 
 
 Old settlers m New South Wales, indeed, who were often forced 
 to purchase their back run, to prevent its falling into the hands of 
 strangers, when the minimum ja-ice of land was 5s., feel secured in 
 their possession of it for years without purchase, now that the mini- 
 mum price is raised to 12.s. per acre. 
 
 The theory ot forcing persons to cultivate, or even to occupy, lands 
 in the order of their natural advantages, seems altogether to fail in 
 Australia, where not the hundredth part of the land sold by the 
 Government is purchased with any intention of cultivating it, and 
 where scarcely one acre in a thousand is cultivated of the land that 
 is occupied without being purchased. 
 
 The Australian wool-grower or grazier cultivates very little, and 
 desires to cultivate no more than is necessary to feed his herdsmen or 
 heplierds ; his gnat aim is to secure water, the scnrcitv of water 
 being, as is well known, the great characteristic of the country. 
 
 T
 
 274 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 In a colony like Demorara, where land is used for scarcely any 
 purpose but cultivation, and cultivation too of the most expensive 
 sort, the theory might perhaps be practically applied ; but to a pas- 
 toral country like Australia, it is evidently altogether inapplicable. 
 
 It may be essential, however, here to observe, that wherever land 
 is of a quality or in a locality which renders it tit for cultivation, as 
 in districts of superior fertility, or in the neighbourhood of towns, it 
 is usually divided into much smaller lots than sections of square 
 miles. Such smaller divisions are called ' cultivation allotments ' (the 
 word section being made use of only for grazing land), and they 
 are made to vary from 20 to 320 acres. When in the neighbourhood 
 of large towns, such as Melbourne, they are called suburban allot- 
 ments. 
 
 But if the theory by which it is sought to make persons cultivate 
 lands in Australia in the natural order of their advantages be alto- 
 gether incapable of good, that which would seek to prevent the dis- 
 persion of the people is only incapable of mischief because it is utterly 
 impossible to reduce it to practice. As well might it be attempted 
 to confine the Arabs of the Desert within a circle traced upon their 
 sands, as to confine the graziers or wool-growers of New South Wales 
 within any bounds that can possibly be assigned to them ; and as 
 certainly as the Arabs would be starved, so also would the flocks and 
 herds of New South Wales if they were so confined, and the pros- 
 perity of the country be at an end. 
 
 The time will come, if the colony continue to prosper, when it 
 may be more advisable (that is to say, more profitable) for a pro- 
 prietor to improve the land he holds, so as to make its produce suffice 
 for his increasing flocks, than to seek (as is the present practice) for 
 new lands in distant regions ; but it may, perhaps, be wiser to let this 
 time arrive naturally, as it will, than to attempt to accelerate it by 
 any contrivances. 
 
 The largest landholders of New South Wales have not land enough 
 of their own for their flocks ; there is scarcely a man of any property 
 who has not a cattle run, or a sheep station, beyond the boundaries — 
 that is to say, upon the unalienated lands of the Crown. 
 
 The evils, therefore, that have residted in New South Wales from 
 the lavish grants of land which were made in former years are evils 
 only as they affect the revenue : could all these grants be resumed, the 
 Government would have thera now to sell, but no further advantage 
 would be derived from the resumption of them. Moreover, under the 
 present system of selling land by auction, at an upset price, not fixed, 
 but made to vary so as generally to bear a proportion to the prices
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 275 
 
 already realised, it is scarcely to be feared that persons will purchase 
 any undue quantity of land, or more than it is salutary for them to 
 bold. 
 
 The last advantage sought to be derived from a uniform price of 
 land is that persons on arriving in the colony may at once acquire 
 the land they want, without being exposed to delay or to competi- 
 tion at auction. 
 
 More may be advanced in favour of the system on this ground 
 than on any other, for whilst on the other points it can be proved 
 almost to demonstration that the system of selling by auction is the 
 best, it may be admitted that the supposed certainty of being able to 
 settle at once on their own laud on arriving in the colony has had 
 some considerable effect in inducing people to emigrate from England. 
 
 The supposed advantage when strictly examined will, however, 
 prove to be altogether delusive. So long as the delusion lasts, it 
 doubtless produces its effect ; but such is the case also with other 
 delusions. 
 
 It is in reality an attempt to put, by artificial means, a newly- 
 arrived emigrant on a par with the settler who has gained experience 
 in the colony ; and it may safely be asserted that this is what no 
 measures, however artificially devised, can accomplish. 
 
 Let us suppose a person to have paid in England 100/. or 1,OOOZ., 
 and to arrive in New South Wales with an order to take immediate 
 possession of his land, how is he to proceed ? He may be put into 
 possession of such land as the Government may choose to give him ; 
 or he may with others draw lots, or throw dice, for a number of 
 portions to be distributed amongst a given number of them ; or, 
 lastly, he may be left to make his own selection. 
 
 The first mode wiU assuredly not give him satisfaction ; the 
 second, it is hoped for the sake of public morality, will never be 
 adopted ; and, consequently, the third is the only one that remains to 
 be seriously examined. 
 
 He arrives a stranger in a strange country, and he has to choose 
 his 100 acres out of any land that may be open to his selection. If 
 only small districts, or a small number of di.-<trict8, be open to him, he 
 will iufallibly find that all the good land has been previously taken, 
 and occupied by those who, residing on the spot and having far better 
 means of information of the comparative value of land than he can 
 pretend to have, liad an exceedingly great advantage over him •, if, 
 on the contrary, a vast extent of land be opened to him, he will be so 
 puzzled how to choose, and so much afraid of choosing wrong, that he 
 will in all probability waste his time, as well as bis resources, before 
 
 T 2
 
 276 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 he makes up his miud to choose at all. Land indeed he will he able 
 to get, but unless he be perfectly indifferent to the quality of his 
 land, his difficulty in determining where to settle himself will be 
 still almost as great as ever. This has been completely exempliiied in 
 New South Wales. A person arriving in New South Wales with an 
 order for land from the CoramisNioners in England will be in pre- 
 ci'^ely the same condition that a person formerly was who (during the 
 time of gratuitous grants) arrived with an order for laud from the 
 Secretary of State ; also in the same situation that military and naval 
 settlers were in up to the end of the year 1838, permission having been 
 granted them to select land at 5*'. an acre, precisely on the same 
 grounds that it is noAv proposed to give it to emigrants generally at 
 20.'>\ per acre — namely, that they might avoid the delay and inconveni- 
 ence of waiting for an auction. So great, however, in either case was the 
 delay which usually occurred in their making their choice, that it was 
 found necessary to prescribe a limit within which they were required 
 to choose: and, though the period of four months was fixed as the 
 limit, a,Dplications ibr an extension of the time were very irequent, 
 and generally complied v/ith ; whilst amongst military or naval 
 settlers the practice of late became almost universal of selling their 
 right of selection to persons whohadmoreexperience than themselves. 
 As it was with one class of men so will it be with the other ; it is in 
 the nature of things that it should be so, for the selection of a spot on 
 which to tix for life is a matter of too great importance to be done in 
 a hurry. 
 
 from one or other of those difficuities it seems impossible to 
 escape ; if small districts only of the colony be opened successively to 
 purchasers at tlie hxed price of 11. per acre, all the good land wiU be 
 bought up by speculators on the spot ; if extensive districts be opened, 
 a new-comer must be sd perplexed in making his seleclion that he will 
 lo<e as much time or more than he would do if he had to buy at 
 aution, where, though he might be opposed, he would not be so 
 liuely to be misled. If it be sought to meet this difhculty by reserv- 
 ing entire districts or parishes for settlers from the United Kingdom, 
 and by not allowing persons on the spot to select out of such p irishe.s or 
 districts, the regulation would be very easily evaded by the employ- 
 ment of agents in England ; and it may probably be pretty safely 
 assumed that, however prudent, politic, wise, or ingenious may be the 
 regulations laid down by the Commissioners in England, the specu- 
 lators or land sharks in Nsw South Wales will be ingenious enough 
 to defeat them. 
 
 It may fuither here be remarked that it is by no means desirable
 
 WAXEFIELDI3M. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 277 
 
 for jwrsons on their first arrival in Australia to become purclnsers <-it' 
 land. The settler who has only a few huudn'ds of pounds at com- 
 mand will, in general, find on his arrival that he was wrong in think- 
 ing to invest any portion of his capital in land, and his first endeavour 
 will probably be to disembarrass himself of his land order by selling 
 it for what it will i'etch. So long as land is rising in the market he 
 will be able to sell it at a premium, and if land orders are to take pre- 
 cedence according fo their dat e, the buying of tliem will become a source 
 of very profitable speculation. The newly-arrived emigrant may not be 
 able to wait for his land, but the speculator, or land shark, can wait, 
 and of course he will wait until laud that he likes be opened ; if, on the 
 contrary, the priority in choice be not in any way dependent on the 
 priority of date, then a real scramble will ensue, in which it is also 
 only reasonable to suppose that the experienced land shark will have 
 an advantage over the inexperienced and newly-anuved emigrant ; in 
 fact, the whole scheme seems, as it was before said, to be conceived 
 in the delusion that it is possible by any artificial means, such as 
 regulations of Government, to put the one upon a par with the other. 
 
 It has hitherto been assumed, that the lands open to selection at 
 a uniform price are to be limited to such quantities as may fiom 
 time to time be proclaimed by the Government; also that no land is 
 to be opened that is not surveyed. 
 
 Tf this be the case, a fresh source of pressure from without will 
 be opened to the Government. Persons will not be content to buy 
 refuse lauds, as they will be called, after the best lots of any district 
 have been culled out ; but the opening of new lands will be constantly 
 demanded, and the authority of the Secretary of State will be adduced 
 to prove that it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government that 
 nobody is to buy inferior land. 
 
 It may be reasonable to ask, will the local Government be strong 
 or steady enougli to resist such demands, and if not, will any snrvev- 
 ing staff that can be sent out from England be strong enough to supply 
 the demand ? If, on the contrary, unsurveyed lands are to be open 
 to selection, the chaotic confusion into which the colony will be 
 thrown is beyond conception. 
 
 A very large proportion of the land which is to form the new 
 district of Port Phillip is already in the licensed occupation of the 
 squatters of New South Wales, a class of persons Avhom it would be 
 wrong to confound with tliose who bear the same name in America, 
 and who are generally persons of mean repute and of small means, 
 who have taken unauthorised possession of patches of land, \mongfet 
 the squatters of New South Wales are the wealthiest of the land
 
 278 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 occupying, witli the permission of Government, thousands and tens of 
 thousands of acres. Young men of good family and connexions in 
 England, officers of the army and navy, graduates of Oxford and 
 Cambridge, are also in no small number amongst them. 
 
 At the end of 1839, the cattle depastured beyond the boundaries 
 was returned as follows, though probably the real quantity was much 
 greater : — 
 
 Sheep 1,334,593 
 
 Plorned cattle .... 371,699 
 Horses 7,088 
 
 The number of acres in cultivation was also returned as 7,287. 
 
 If unsurveyed lands are to be open to selection, or if the South 
 Australian system of special surveys is to be introduced, all the lands 
 of which our squatters are in the licensed occupation, the houses, or 
 huts, folds, and stock-yards which they have built, the provision-fields 
 which they have cultivated, the streams or pools at which they water 
 their cattle, may henceforth be wrested from them by any one who 
 can run faster than they to the Laud Office, and there deposit a few 
 pounds. 
 
 It is true that the occupiers or squatters themselves will have an 
 equal chance with the rest : but they will have only an equal chance, 
 and therefore it is that there must be a scramble. It is true also, that 
 the squatters have at present no secured possession of their lands, nor 
 even any right of pre-emption over them. They are well aware that 
 they have not, and they know that such lands will eventually be 
 taken from them, or that they will have to purchase them at an ad- 
 Tanced price. But they have always reckoned on having some time 
 to prepare themselves for such an event ; they have considered that 
 the Government would continue to act upon the same system which 
 has been so long in use, and that the country would be opened suc- 
 cessively to location, one district after another ; that even when the 
 evil day came they would have a fair chance with others at a fair 
 auction ; and that no person could at any rate get possession of their 
 lands, with the improvements they had made on them, without pay- 
 ing to the Government the value of them. But under the new system 
 (if it be to extend to unsurveyed as well as to surveyed lands) the 
 unhappy squatter may see his lands and his improvements wrested 
 from him by his nearest neighbour or by his bitterest enemy, and 
 himself reduced to ruin, unless he can in his turn beggar somebody 
 else ; and he will not even have the poor consolation of knowing that 
 the public revenue is a gainer by his loss. The lands for which he
 
 WAKEFIELDI8M. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAIMBLE.' 279 
 
 would (if allowed time to do so) willingly give 20/. per acre, will be 
 sold for twenty shillings before he can look around him. 
 
 The matter is of too great importance to be hastily dismissed ; 
 therefore, even at the risk of some repetition, the principles on which 
 the new system is founded must be again examined. 
 
 First. There is, it is said, some definable ratio between land and 
 labour, and therefore the price of land should be regulated by the 
 price at which labour can be supplied, in such quantitv, that the 
 profits derived from land and labour may be at a maximum. The 
 proposition, as applied to Australia, may be enounced somewhat in 
 the following terms. In order to obtain a maximum quantity of pro- 
 duce from a given quantity of labour, that labour must be employed 
 in the ratio or proportion of three men to 100 acres. But these men 
 must have (or ought at least to have) each a wife ; consequently, to 
 cultivate 100 acres of land in the most advantageous manner six 
 persons must be sent from the United Kingdom to Australia. 
 
 But the passage of these people will cost lOOZ., therefore the 100 
 acres ought to be sold for 100/. ; and the value of land is consequently 
 at once authoritatively fixed at 1/. per acre. This is henceforth to be 
 the sufficient price : anything more is too much, anything less is too 
 little. 
 
 If the assumed facts be true, the conclusion that no land should 
 be sold for the purpose of cultivation at a less price than 11. per acre 
 mav seem to follow, but why none shoidd be sold for more, if more 
 can be obtained for it, does not seem quite so satisfactorily proved. 
 
 It might be convenient to the three labourers and their wives to 
 have a blacksmith, or a carpenter, or a tailor in their neighbourhood : 
 and any extra price obtained for the laud might be employed in 
 supplving one. But U. per acre is said to be the sufficient price, and 
 therefore they must get tailors or blacksmiths as they can. 
 
 Without at all questioning the accuracy uf the ratio of labour to 
 land, which requires three men to 100 acres when that land is to be 
 cultivated, it is quite sufficient to repeat that scarcely one-himdredth 
 part of the land sold by the Government in Australia is ever pur- 
 chased for the piirpose of being cultivated. 
 
 AustraUa is essentially a pastoral country, and must remain such 
 for ages. 
 
 Allowing, therefore, the above ratio to hold good in respect to 
 land purcha.sed for the purposes of cultivation, it remains to l)e in- 
 quired wliat the sufficient price of pastoral land would be upon the 
 same principle. 
 
 A shepherd in New South Wales commonly takes care of from
 
 280 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 700 to 1,000 sheep ; but as 600 are considered the proper niimher for 
 a flock, no more than 600 shall be assumed as under his charge. 
 
 To obtain a maxiinuui return of wool and mutton from the flock, 
 it is necessary that an extent of four acres for each sheep, or 2,400 
 acres for each flock, should be allowed. 
 
 The shepherd must have (or ought at least to hare) a wife ; con- 
 seqtiently it will be necessary to provide for the pass.tge of two persons 
 from Europe, instead of one. Their passage wiU cost 40/., which 
 consequently ought to be the price of the 2,400 acres of land ; there- 
 fore the sufficieut price of land is 4d. per acre : anything more than 
 4:d. is too much ; anything less than 4c/. is too little. 
 
 By introducing dift'erent elements into the calculation, such as the 
 probability of either the agriculturists or shepherds having children as 
 well as wives, and by affording in a greater or less degree the assist- 
 ance of carpenters, blacksmiths, &c., any sum whatsoever might just 
 as well be called the sufficient price as either 4:d. or 20s. 
 
 The only sufficient price of any commodity formerly used to be 
 considered that which it would sell for when judiciously brought to 
 market ; and any attempt to control by laws or regulations the value 
 of things in the market was cut lately considered contrary to the 
 clearest principles of political economy. 
 
 The lands at Port Phillip are now bought ewgerly at prices vary- 
 ing from 125. to 600Z. ; and surely it may be asked why, when per- 
 sons are found to buy them at such prices, they should aU be sold 
 indiscriminately at 20a'. 
 
 Had Port Phillip been opened on the South Australian system, a 
 loss would already have been sustained of 17l),000/. out of 331,000/. 
 which has been realised. If the recent Order had been put in force ' 
 v/ithout waiting for further instructions from the Secretary of State, 
 a further loss of 800,000/. and upwards would, according to the 
 estimate formed by the chief officers of the Government of New South 
 Wales, have been incurred in less probably than three weeks from the 
 promulgation of the Order. 
 
 Amongst the numerous articles of which a new settler stands in 
 need, there are perhaps very few which it would not be more for his 
 advantage to have at a fixed price than land ; it is rarely advan- 
 tageous in any part of Australia for a newly-arrived emigrant to 
 become a proprietor of land, unless his capital be considerable. 
 
 It woidd be far more advantageous to him to be supplied with 
 slieep or oxen at a fixed price, or, on his first arrival in Sydney, that the 
 price of his lodgings should be so regulated. 
 
 The second great object of the South Australian sj-stem is to
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 2.'^! 
 
 ensure the cultivation of tlie lands in the order of their natural 
 advantages ; and this is supposed to be secured by means of the 
 uniform price. 
 
 That the uniform price secures the appropriation of the best land 
 first is pretty evident ; that it secures even the occupation of them is 
 doubtfid ; that it secures the cultivation of them is very much more 
 than doubtful. If there be any great advantage in selling all the 
 good land first, then the system of special surveys ought not to be 
 abandoned. It is true that the system requires the survey of 15,000 
 acres in order to secure the sale of 4,000 ; that it increases the 
 dispersion of the agTiculturists, and therefore renders combination or 
 co-operation amongst them difficult; that it lays each small settler 
 under the necessity of making a road for himself ; but still it seems 
 to secure the object of selling the best land first, and therefore it 
 should, according to the new theory, be good. 
 
 The third great principle of the South Australian system is that 
 of checking the disjiersion of the settlers (and therefore at variance 
 with special surveys, the tendency of which is to create dispersion), 
 so as to enable them to combine their efl'orts ; and this is acknowledged 
 as far as agricultural purposes are concerned to be most desirable ; 
 but Australia, it must be once more observed, is not an agricultural but 
 a pastoral country, and dispersion is essential to its prosperity. 
 "Whatever the inconveniences (and without doubt they are many) 
 which dispersion bring.s with it, the country must be content to bear 
 with. 
 
 In order to prevent dispersion the South Australian system pro- 
 poses to put a high price upon land when it is sold, and either to pre- 
 veiit the occupation of unsold land (squatting) or to render such occu- 
 pation dithcult. 
 
 That land should be sold at a high price, or at a much hig:;er 
 price than it formerly was, is equally t!ie argument herein maintained 
 as it is the argument of the South Australians. In fact, the main 
 object of this paper is to en.sure a higher price than can be obtained 
 in South Au.stralia by getting rid of the South Australian maximnni, 
 a fixed price being evidently a maximum, as well as a minimum. 
 
 That the occupation of the unsettled lands of the colony should be 
 rendered difficult instead of easy is a very different proposition, and 
 as it is directly opposed to the squatting system of New South Wales, 
 some further explanation of this latter system may be necessary. 
 
 The occupation of the unsold lands of tlie Crown was, probably, 
 in tlie first instance made easy becau.se the Government in the early 
 days of the colony scarcely thought it worth while to prevent it . Under
 
 282 • BONDS OF DISUNION- 
 
 the easy permissive occupancy thus introduced, liowever, tlie flocks 
 and herds of New South Wales now stray over an extent of country 
 900 miles long by 400 broad ; and it may safely be said that all the 
 power of the Government would not suffice to bring them back 
 within the narrower limits.^ One great advantage (possibly an unfore- 
 seen one) which lia? grown out of this system is that persons make 
 money beyond the boundaries, with which they afterwards pur- 
 chase land within them. The desire to be possessed of a portion 
 of the solid globe is strong in all men ; and the additional importance 
 which is given to a man in New South Wales, as elsewhere, by being 
 ranked as a landed proprietor is found quite sufficient to ensure the sale 
 of land faster than in all probability it could be sold if the price to be 
 paid for it were not produced on the land itself. Another great 
 advantage of this extensive system of authorised squatting is, 
 that the flocks and the herds of New South Wales have increased 
 under it to a degree that is almost unprecedented. The older settl*^- 
 ments have, under it, become the hive from which swarms of sheep 
 and cattle have been driven, to give a value to the lands of Port 
 Phillip and South Australia which, without them, would to this day 
 have been an unprofitable wilderness. 
 
 It is this system wliich has in reality enabled South Australia to 
 avoid the fate of Swan River, for if South Australia has prospered 
 more than Swan River, it is principally, if not solely, because it is 
 nearer to New South Wales. The enterprising colonists who first 
 drove sheep and cattle from New South Wales to South Australia 
 rescued that colony from ruin. 
 
 It is under this system, moreover, that New South Wales, after 
 having, without the expense of one shilling to the mother-country, 
 and without the aid of borrowed money, silently founded a settlement 
 of unexampled prosperity at Port Phillip, is now rendering similar 
 services to Great Britain in securing to her the islands of New 
 Zealand. 
 
 Before this paper is brought to a conclusion, it will be necessary 
 to say a few words on the subject of town allotments. 
 
 The original plan in South Australia was, as has been observed, 
 to play at dice for them. This has been given up ; and in order to 
 get rid of the embarrassment which the disposal of them in any other 
 way (except the prohibited one of auction) would occasion, they are 
 
 ' Mr. E. G. Wakefield, when examined before a Committee of the 
 House of Commons in 1836, said, in answer to Question No. 634, ' That 
 he considered it not more difficult to prevent squatting in the Colonies 
 than it is to prevent it in the Principality of (Old) Wales.'
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 283 
 
 to be got rid of altogether ; in other words, the formation of all 
 minor towns is to be left to private enterprise. As this is a return to 
 the natural order of things, and to the way in which most towns in 
 the Old World have been formed, the proposal is objectionable only in 
 as far as it tends to reduce the average price of lands, and conseq^uently 
 to lessen the revenue derived from the sale of land in the colony. It 
 has already been shown, that in the old parts of New South Wales, 
 though the average price of country land was only, for the year 1840, 
 ISs. l^d. per acre, the general average of all land was, by means of 
 town allotments, brought up to 205. B^d. 
 
 In the new districts of New South Wales, it is not intended en- 
 tii'ely to do away with Government towns, though very few are to be 
 founded, and such only as are likely to become the seats of district 
 administrations. 
 
 In these towns land is to be sold at lOOZ. per acre, whilst beyond 
 the town the uniform price is to be 11. per acre. 
 
 "\(\Tiatever limits, therefore, may be assigned to the town, there 
 must be a boundary within which all land is to be sold at 100/. per 
 acre, and beyond it at 1/. per acre. A state of things will therefore 
 be produced somewhat of the same natui-e as would arise in London, 
 if a regulation could by possibility be enforced that all land beyond 
 Hyde Park Corner should be sold for tlie one-hundredth part of the 
 price of land in Piccadilly, and that all the laud east of Hyde Park 
 Corner, from Piccadilly to St. Giles's, should be sold at the same 
 price. 
 
 I have, &c. 
 
 Sydney : Dec. 19, 1840. (Signed) G. Gipps. 
 
 To attempt to concentrate the population of a new colony 
 \\'itliin narrow artificial limits is to endeavour to inflict the 
 most serious injury .upon the young community. Every de- 
 duction from the liberty of man as a free agent is, in an 
 economical sense, a diminution of liis power ; and to restrain 
 the natural enterprise of colonists by confining theii" action 
 within limited bounds is to minimise working power by pre- 
 venting energy fi'om having the free scope which, m the 
 ordinary course of events, would develop it to the highest 
 extent. The mere effort at concentration is well calculated to 
 repress the natural inclination to wander far afield in the 
 hope of bettering one's condition— an mclination which if un- 
 restrained will m all certamty be productive of the best
 
 284 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 results. Forced concentration obliges the more enterprising 
 portion of the settlers to relinquish the advantage of appro- 
 priating the most fertile land within their reach, in order to 
 secure the real or supposed benefits of congregation. It forbids 
 the pioneer to war with the ^dlderness around, and to keep 
 ever enlarging the area of settlement, until population has 
 crept close to its restricted boundary, and is beginning, in the 
 proximity of a vast uninhabited territory, to undergo the bitter 
 experience of an old and over-peopled State. The labourer is 
 reduced to be the slave of a certain set of regulations devised 
 with a view to curb his enterprise and activity and to destroy 
 his sense of self-reliance by the exercise of his capabilities being 
 made dependent upon Government direction ; and thus State 
 vacillation, incompetency, and hesitancy are substituted for 
 individual energy founded upon the wholesome instincts of 
 self-interest. 
 
 Fertile soil is the machine with which the settler works, 
 and to make him put up with a less fertile instead of a more 
 fertile machine is to diminish his productive power. The con- 
 centration theory, where put into practice, could not fail to 
 limit the settler's choice of land, and therefore to circumscribe 
 his productive powers. 
 
 It is strange indeed that so vigorous and acute a thinker 
 as Gibbon Wakefield should have advanced so palpably 
 erroneous a theory as that artificial concentration of colonists 
 could be productive of other than most disadvantageous con- 
 sequences. It is still harder to conceive how, with his varied 
 colonial experience and great critical ability, he could ever 
 have reasoned himself mto the belief that forced concentration 
 would be possible, as a system, in a State composed of free 
 people. 
 
 A certain amount of herding round a common centre there 
 wdll always be amongst every people and in every locality 
 under the sun, so soon as mankind has advanced a step beyond 
 the pastoral stage, and has begun to recognise the advantages 
 derivable from combination and division of labour ; and day 
 by day the gregarious tendency more prominently asserts 
 itself. But, together with this natural process of concentration,
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 285 
 
 an overflow of population is surely dispersing itself further and 
 further from the common centre ; for natural concentration 
 is in itself the promoter of dispersal. Dispersal is a con- 
 sequence, and if checked, the concentration becomes forced 
 and unhealthy. It was to prevent this natural overflow that 
 Wakefleld directed his efibrts. 
 
 It need never be feared that any considerable number of 
 persons in a new colony will acquire the habit of wandering 
 far, or at all, beyond the bounds of location, so as to place 
 themselves out of the reach of markets. Some men there are, 
 of the celebrated Daniel Boone type, who, for reasons of their 
 own, endeavour to interpose a wide intervening margin between 
 themselves and civilisation, but neither do they count for any- 
 thing in the economical life of a nation, nor are they amenable 
 to laws mtended to regulate the more settled society. It was 
 not, in truth, against the wanderhigs of men such as these that 
 Wakefield directed his ' concentration ' policy, but his was a 
 • subtler, if an equally visionary, aim. He had seen capital lying 
 idle and valueless for want of labour to give it vitality, and he 
 hastily jumped to the conclusion that labour should be bound 
 down as a servile handmaid to capital. In his vievr, if labour 
 were confined within a definite area, capital would be attracted 
 to it, and so the greatest development would be aflbrded to 
 local resources. He thought that the convenience of capita- 
 lists ought alone to be consulted, and that labour was to be 
 regarded as the mechanical tool of capital. In accordance 
 with his theory he devised a fantastic set of rules providhig 
 for the introduction into his ideal colony of capital and labour 
 in certain whimsical quantities, pre-arranged as ' due propor- 
 tions.' To ensure the 'due proportion,' it was necessary to 
 have a ' sufficient price ' for land — a price just enougl) to pre- 
 vent the labourer fi-om leaving his employer in order to settle 
 on a block of his own, and just enough to allow of the sum 
 paid for any block being exactly equivalent to the cost of im- 
 porting the right amount of labom* to work the purchased 
 land in the most etficient mamier. He attempted, in short, 
 to organise that of which no organised plan is possible out- 
 side the limits of a State bound over at once to s'iverv and
 
 286 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 despotism ; where prices, wages, and the whole social existence 
 of a community may be predetermined by the undisputed fiat 
 of a meddlesome absolute ruler. 
 
 The truth is that this careful elaboration of ideas was due 
 to an extraordinary confusion of thought which, in Wakefield's 
 case, must have proceeded rather from persistent attachment 
 to a cherished prejudice than to his perception of a balance of 
 reason in its favour. If, he thought, capital was being wasted 
 for want of labour, it must follow that labour was suffering 
 from absence of capital. There was a reciprocal action between 
 the two, a co-relation, which rendered the operations of the 
 one profitless without the aid of the other. Therefore, he 
 argued, that as capital might employ many labourers, while 
 impecunious labourers could not employ the capital which they 
 had not got, capital was necessarily the more valuable member 
 of the co-partnership, and that consequently its possessors 
 ought to be put mto the position of being able to use it to the 
 best advantage for themselves. The theory when worked out 
 came to this— that a new colony ought from its earliest founda- 
 tion to be handed over to the fostering care of speculative 
 capitalists. 
 
 To enter into the questions so vehemently disputed be- 
 tween rival schools of economists as to the relations between 
 capital and labour, or to argue for or against the strongly- 
 held but as strongly-reprobated creed that wages are in- 
 variably advanced out of capital, is foreign to my immediate 
 purpose. Without trending on that debatable ground, it may 
 be observed that in a virgin territory the chief, at first the 
 only, means of producing wealth is by physical toil. Hardy 
 labourers, inspired by the stimulus to exertion arising from 
 the conviction that they are working for their own mdividual 
 benefit, are the colonists who, in the first stages of settlement, 
 are best fitted for making the most of the material resources 
 of the colony. Gradual development, gradual settlement, 
 form the elements of the society into which capital naturally 
 flows to give direction and cohesiveness to the efforts of the 
 labourer. Capital then sets itself to attract labour as the 
 only means of acquiring for itself a value ; and so in the
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 287 
 
 earlier stages of the formation of a society we find the 
 capitalist seeking for labour rather than labour seekmg for 
 capital. The first developing power is labour ; and therefore 
 to commence the process of settlement by placing it in forced 
 subordination to capital is to discourage the immigi-ation of 
 labourers, and at the same time to place labour in a position 
 in which it can afford no aid to capital except as a fettered, 
 and consequently a more or less miwilling, uiefficient 
 agent. On the other hand, to encourage the expenditure of 
 capital on a virgin soil before the work of the labourer has 
 laid the foundation of future prosperity is merely to court the 
 operations of ' land sharks,' who make no effort to cultivate or 
 improve the land, but who use their capital for purely specula- 
 tive purposes. The more encouragement there is given to 
 the latter course — and it is the only com*se certain to result 
 from the plan of giving over a new colony to capitalists — the 
 more speedy and overwhehning will be the ruin of bona fide 
 settlers. 
 
 Let us summarise the leading propositions advanced by 
 Wakefield on these points. Fii'st we are told ' that the pros- 
 perity of new colonies depends mainly upon the abundance of 
 available labour at the command of capitalists m proportion 
 to the extent of territory offered ; ' or, to adopt Merivale's 
 rendering of the proposition, ' that it is desirable to provide 
 colonists requiring land with a greater supply of labourers to 
 work on theii* own account than their capital would naturally 
 attract.' 
 
 I have tried to show, in the foregoing pages, that the pros- 
 perity of new colonies is dependent upon exactly opposite 
 considerations ; and if Merivale's translation is the true 
 rendering, it is hardly necessary to say more than that 
 capitalists could never be provided with an amomit of labour 
 Ijeyond the attracting power of their capital, unless the labour 
 was forced and the country reduced to a state of slavery — 
 contingencies which Wakefield certainly did not contemplate 
 as desirable.' 
 
 ' Of course Wakefield never really meant to initiate slavery as the 
 principal feature of his model colony ; but it is not easy to see how a
 
 288 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 The second proposition is ' that this abundance of labour 
 is to be secured by introducing labourers from the mother- 
 country and other well-peopled regions, and by takuig care to 
 keep them in the condition of labourers living by wages for 
 some considerable time.' 
 
 Taking the two propositions together, we find that an 
 equilibrium is to be established between the quantity of land 
 purchased, the amomit of capital seeking employment, and 
 the supply of labour to carry out the work to be done by the 
 capital. If labour would not be employed, then it must be 
 forced into employment, and yet the labourer was to be a free 
 agent. The single proposition thus formed seems as intricate, 
 as difficult of correct statement, and as impossible of being 
 practically applied, as could well be desired. It is a problem 
 for which there is no apparent solution but rejection, for each 
 step in its examination is beset with increasing difficulty. 
 
 If human beings were mere implements of trade to be 
 stored up ready for future use against the call of the all- 
 powerful capitalist, and to be put aside as manimate tools 
 when the work expected from them had been accomplished : 
 or, to put it in another way, if a number of human beings, 
 incapable of acting or thmking for themselves, were to be 
 forced to emigrate and to give their services to any capitalist 
 who might come forward, the possibility might be imagined 
 of establishing the equilibrium between land, labom*, and 
 capital so devoutly wished for by Wakefield, till, at any rate, 
 the advent of new comers without capital, but gifted with 
 intelligence, endowed at the same time with freedom of 
 action, and allowed unrestrained power of access to fertile 
 and easily available lands. The equilibrium would then be 
 immediately disarranged, and beneficially so for the colony ; 
 for can any one doubt that the labour of these free immigrants 
 would, in a brief space of time, yield far more valuable results 
 than would accrue from the previous combination of capital 
 and forced labour '? 
 
 ready-made labour force for capitalists can be formed and maintained 
 in a new country, without a degree of compulsion which, for the time it 
 exists, is nothing if it is not slavery.
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 289 
 
 If, then, immigrants are to be introduced just in propor- 
 tion to the wants of capitaHsts, it follows that no immigrants 
 should be allowed to come in, in excess of the proportionate 
 number, for fear of disarranging the equilibrium. That is, the 
 supposed wants of capitalists and not the real requirements of 
 the colon)' are alone to be provided for. 
 
 Again, as the labourers obtained and planted on the land, 
 in pursuance of the system, were not to be prevented from 
 land prospecting after a certain time, there was every chance 
 of capitalists losing the services of their labourers after that 
 time. The funds for the introduction of labourers, so far as 
 any one man's land was concerned, have been exhausted in 
 bringmg on his land the labouring immigrants first placed on 
 it, and who have now, we will suppose, left him. If he could 
 not afford to get more labour himself out of his private 
 resources, he would probably find himself with an estate 
 which, in view of the contingency of his labourers leaving him 
 at the end of the ' certain time,' he had worked to its utmost 
 producing power, and which conseqitently now requii-ed more 
 labour than ever if it was to afford him a living at all. The 
 chances of his being able to get labour out of his private re- 
 sources were at least doubtful, for the ' certain time ' allowed — 
 two or three years — was probably not more than enough to 
 give him a partial return of his expended capital, even under 
 the most exhausting mode of cultivating the soil. It is likely 
 enough that he would, instead, claim a fresh supply of labourers 
 as an obligation due to him from the State, and that a number 
 of men combining to make such a claim would procure its 
 concession — at the expense of the community. Thus the 
 system of ' State aid,' or ' protection ' to the landowning 
 capitalist, would be further extended. 
 
 The other alternative before him was to buy fresh land 
 further afield and to leave his first purchase neglected behind 
 him. This, if ' protection ' Avas withheld fi'om him, would be 
 the alternative nearly every fresh settler would be forced to 
 choose unless his land had been so remarkably prolific of 
 produce, and his produce so capable of being exchanged under 
 altogether exceptionally favourable circumstances, during the
 
 290 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 ' certain time ' as to have left him a large surplus of available 
 funds wherewith to procure fresh labourers to replace those 
 who had deserted him. Again, another alternative was that 
 he should submit to be taxed for the purpose of importing 
 fresh labour ; but the experience of the history of new colonies 
 only slightly peopled does not favour the supposition that 
 direct taxation would be endured. The position, then, of the 
 vast majority of landowners would be this — they would not 
 be able to import fresh labour from their private savings ; 
 the natural increase of population in the colony during the 
 ' certain time ' would be totally insufficient to supply the 
 gaps in labour occasioned on the whole aggregate of pro- 
 perties ; and their owners could not afford, or would refuse, 
 to be taxed directly to the full extent that would be required 
 if a fresh supply of labour was to be imported. So they 
 would have to disperse to fresh fields, repeating a similar 
 process so long as they had endurance enough to put up with 
 the system. Thus dispersal would be forced on instead of 
 concentration. 
 
 There are, of course, other means of procuring a fresh 
 labour supply, of which the most obvious one is by raismg a 
 State loan for the purpose, and this method will be treated of 
 later on. 
 
 Even in the oldest and most settled countries, an equili- 
 brium between land, capital, and labour, such as Wakefield and 
 Colonel Torrens based their principles upon, is a term without 
 a meaning. For such an equilibrium to be possible, land, 
 capital, and labour must bear a certain fixed and constant 
 ratio to each other, so that any one of them can always be ex- 
 pressed in terms of each of the others ; but that is a condition 
 which never has existed, nor ever can exist, so long as fresh 
 labour, increased efiiciency of labour, or an extension of the 
 field of employment, daily produce fresh wealth capable of 
 employment as capital. 
 
 Wealth is the product of the development by labour of 
 the resources of the land. The more unfettered is the action 
 of labour, the greater is the production of wealth. The less
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 291 
 
 free scope there is for labour, the smaller will be the amount 
 of wealth produced. Capital is that portion of wealth which 
 furnishes the power of combining the operations of labour, or 
 else of specialising and subdividing labour into particular 
 channels, and so of procuring a larger remuiieration for itself 
 from the increased efficiency it gives to labour. The relation 
 between the two, then, and between land which has not, as yet, 
 become the subject of rent, is that of parallel and allied forces 
 to a large extent mutually interdependent ; but it is not re- 
 presented by the balance between opposing forces necessary 
 to constitute an equilibrium. 
 
 Be the technical argument worth what it may, there are 
 other and more serious objections to be advanced against the 
 plan of the compulsory subordination of the labourer to the 
 capitalist. 
 
 The plan amounts to a proposal to ' protect ' capital at the 
 expense of labour ; that is, to increase the profits of the 
 capitahst by preventing labour fi-om applyuig itself to develop 
 local resources under the far-seeing stimulus of individual 
 self-interest. The effect of such a restriction, if it were 
 capable of being enforced in a new colony, would be to retard 
 the prosperity of the young society, by preventing the natural 
 production of infinite wealth, in order to localise a labour 
 supply for the capitals from time to time introduced into the 
 colony for purposes of speculation. But labour would not be 
 attracted to a country where it was forcibly localised, because 
 both freedom of action and the hope of acquiring a block of 
 land — the two chief incentives to the emigration of labourers 
 worth their salt — would be, to say the least, considerably mter- 
 fered with ; and also because of the distrust that would be 
 felt by the would-be emigrant labourer in the future of a 
 colony whose first legislation was in favour of ' protection ' 
 to the capitalist. Ergo, the plan which would ensure a con- 
 stant supply of labour to the capitalist would necessitate tlie 
 country, where such a state of things was contemplated, being 
 rendered unpopular with the best individuals of the working 
 class, and would require a staff of forced labourers — convicts, 
 for example — to be recruited in order to satisfy the require- 
 
 u2
 
 292 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 ments of capitalists. So we come back again into the vicious 
 circle of slavery in some form or other if a country is to start 
 its business with an established ready-made equilibrium 
 between land, capital, and labour. 
 
 In the longest- settled countries it is quite impossible to 
 strike even a proportion between capital and labour de- 
 finitely. The ratio between the two is always a varying one, 
 and this no one could see more clearly than did Wakefield 
 himself when he prominently put forward the proposition 
 that the rate of wages is regulated rather by the extension or 
 contraction of the field of employment than by any imaginary 
 or actual proportion between capital and labour. He rejected 
 the idea of a proportion, but he schooled himself mto belief in 
 an equilibrium, although equilibrium must of necessity be 
 dependent on adjustment of proportion. 
 
 In plain reason, then, the only possible conclusion seems to 
 be that an ' equilibrium ' between capital and labour is a term 
 without a meaning, and that the ' most convenient propor- 
 tions ' between the two are those which actual requirements 
 call forth. To endeavour to establish a proportion, an equi- 
 librium, or what you will, by previous regulation, is to 
 demolish the whole basis of natural formation on which 
 either of them, if possible of being found, could alone rest. 
 I would conclude this portion of the discussion by remarking 
 that if it is impossible to establish, by previous arrangement, 
 an ' equilibrium ' between capital and labour, it is equally 
 impossible to pre-arrange one between land, capital, and 
 labour ; because, for the purpose of the equation, land has an 
 equal value for both. 
 
 Unless, then, forced labour is resorted to, the supply of 
 labourers in a new country where capital is ' protected ' is 
 likely to prove insufficient and inefficient. Under these 
 circumstances, the introduction of masses of capital is certain 
 to be attended with the very consequences that Wakefield 
 most wished to avoid. For the capitalist, unable to find 
 labour when he boi glit land, would do so merely as a specu- 
 lator in its prospective value. He would buy the best lands 
 in contiguity to the centre of settlement, and he would
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 293 
 
 endeavour to keep it out of the market until his resale would 
 give him a large profit. In the meanwhile he would keep his 
 land as ' waste,' uncultivated, unimproved, and without any 
 means of communication across it. The longer he so kept it, 
 or the greater the numbers of capitalist purchasers who kept 
 their lauds in this state, the further would it be necessary for 
 the bona fide settler to go in order to find a block for him- 
 self. Settlers of limited means, but who, as is the invariable 
 rule with new colonists, have resolved upon acquiring land 
 immediately on arrival — not for speculative purposes, but for 
 purposes of cultivation and residence — these men, the very 
 life-blood of the young settlement, must, if they would really 
 wish to settle down and develop the riches of the soil, go far 
 away fi'om the common centre ; and thus again dispersal 
 would be promoted instead of concentration. 
 
 But this would be a forced, not a natural dispersal, and it 
 would be effected in the most expensive way for the colony, 
 by leaving interposed an uncleared, unroaded area between 
 the dispersed cultivators and their market. 
 
 Dispersal, as has been said, will never proceed on any 
 considerable scale beyond the range of markets ; so it would 
 result that when the best land outside the uncultivated area 
 possessed by speculators had been taken up, the value of the 
 area between outside cultivation and the centre of settlement 
 would be greatly increased by the demand of would-be fresli 
 cultivators, miless new markets had grown up inland — an un- 
 likely occurrence. The speculators would then be able to sell 
 their land at enormous profit, and tliat, to the injury of the 
 new purchaser, whose pecuniary means for cultivation would 
 be diminished by just the extra price paid for his land. This 
 profit would go into the speculators' pocket, and would not, 
 therefore, be available to the State for the purpose of procuring 
 fresh immigrants. The introduction of capital on a favoured 
 basis, without provision made for a staff of forced labourers, 
 would then have resulted m forced dispersal, in great gain 
 to the land shark, and in incalculable economical loss to the 
 commimity. 
 
 It is possible enough that Wakefield foresaw these conse-
 
 294 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 quences, and that it was with a view to avoid them that he 
 endeavoured to provide labour on a quasi-compulsory footing. 
 But he did not see that compulsion would be ineffectual in a 
 new country unless supported by a complete system of 
 slavery ; and as he did not contemplate or provide for that, 
 every detail of his plan broke down utterly and hopelessly — ■ 
 except the sound principle of selling, instead of giving away, 
 the land. 
 
 The reign of the capitalist was to be secured by a ' sufficient 
 price ' being put upon land. The sufficient price was to be 
 one that would answer two conditions. First, it was to pre- 
 vent the premature purchase of land by individuals of the 
 labourmg class ; second, it was to be a price that would 
 enable the purchaser of land to command the necessary quan- 
 tity of labour. 
 
 In old comitries, the purchase price which land bears is 
 regulated by the capitalised amomit of its rental value over 
 a short period of time. The yearly rent derivable from the 
 land is a thing that it is comparatively easy to estimate 
 from time to time. But, at best, the value so taken is but 
 an arbitrary one, and does not hold good for periods of any 
 considerable length. Even in the oldest and most settled 
 countries rent varies from day to day, according to improve- 
 ments in existing modes of production, according to the 
 development of some new centre of industry, to discoveries 
 of mineral wealth, to increased facilities for exchange, and 
 to numberless other causes. Whatever basis of valuation 
 may be taken is therefore, even there, evidently a very 
 shiftmg one. 
 
 But the value of ■wild land in a new colony is, properly 
 speakmg, nothing. The purchaser only hopes that by the 
 application of labour and capital it may be rendered otherwise. 
 To endeavour to make its price suffice for the two objects in 
 view must, then, be either to ignore its value altogether by 
 placing on it a price fixed without reference to the supposed 
 value of the land, or to fix an arbitrary value for the land for 
 all time, without having any guide to indicate what its presetit 
 value may be. The only rough test that could be given —
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 295 
 
 namely, the average price bid for land over a period of time — 
 was forbidden by the system, so it is necessary to suppose that 
 the price fixed referred merely to the attamment of the objects 
 described, and not at all to the value of the land. 
 
 This was actually the case. Proceeding on the assump- 
 tion that a certain number of labourers were required for a 
 certain number of acres, Wakefield fixed his sufficient price by 
 taking as a basis the quantity of labour presumed to be neces- 
 sary to produce the best working results. 
 
 Now nothing is more certain than that Nature permits of 
 no such ascertamed proportion of labourers to acres. To dis- 
 cover siich a proportion, even approximately, it would be 
 requisite to gauge accurately qualities of soils, as well as the 
 capabilities of every individual labourer, climatic mfluences 
 and variations, and every circumstance that might in any way 
 affect, not only land cultivation, but general industrial opera- 
 tions ; to do, in short, what no one in his senses would attempt 
 to do. 
 
 Further argument against so impossible a systematisation 
 is perhaps not called for. The weakness of the theory is 
 apparent enough from the mere statement of it. It is as 
 follows :^-' The quantity of labour necessary for an acre of 
 land must determine what is the sufficient price for that acre ; 
 that, and no other price, is to be given for it, and the quantity 
 of labour by which the price is determined must be imported 
 to cultivate that acre.' The labourers are to be forced, or 
 induced, to stay on that particular acre, and, as nothing is said 
 as to the rate of wages to be paid in such a case, it may be 
 presumed that Wakefield did not think the question of wages 
 worth consideration. It might well be, however, that the 
 landowner called upon to receive a number of labom-ers pro- 
 portioned to his acreage would regard wage-paying in a 
 serious light ; for his 11. per acre — supposmg that to be the 
 sufficient price — would involve not only the acquisition of so 
 much land, but also the obligation of feeding, housing, and 
 waging the ' proportionate ' amount of human flesh and blood 
 imported for him. 
 
 The only reasonable view to take of what ought to be u
 
 296 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 ' sufficient ' price seems to be that the price which a purchaser 
 is wilHng to give for the land is the true ' sufficient ' price. 
 Tliis could only be ascertained by sale at public auction ; and 
 with all the evils attaching to that system, it appears to be, on 
 the whole, the fairest, where security is taken that the land 
 bought shall be substantially improved or cultivated by the 
 purchaser. But if sale by public auction is deemed undesir- 
 able, and if the ' sufficient ' price theory is still insisted on, the 
 price fixed should be based on the advisability of extending 
 settlement as fast and as far as the natural conditions of the 
 country will allow of with bona fide settlers ; as, also, with the 
 view of collecting a revenue, from sales of land, large enough 
 to cover the general expenses of government and of opening 
 up the country. 
 
 This was the view afterwards taken by the more popular 
 section of colonial legislators, who in advocating a fixed uni- 
 form price system were desirous of seeing it in operation, 
 because they believed that it would induce labouring men to 
 become purchasers of land, and would at the same time dis- 
 courage the land speculations of capitalists. To them, the 
 capitalist, Wakefield's delight, was an object of aversion. I 
 do not maintain that the colonists, if they had adopted the 
 proposed system, would have succeeded in discouragmg land- 
 jobbing • and encouraging settlement, but it is a curiously 
 instructive commentary upon Wakefield's line of reasoning 
 that, although the system was, in fact, Wakefield's own, the 
 reasons put forward for its adoption, first by him and after- 
 wards by the colonists, were diametrically opposed to each 
 other. Wakefield wished for it in order to encourage land 
 speculation as the greatest blessing ; the colonists wanted it 
 because they believed it would be the readiest means of putting 
 an end to land speculation, which they looked upon as the 
 greatest curse of the colony. 
 
 ' Unfortunately, no enactment has ever yet been framed which has 
 had more than a temporary effect in doing so. Land, the thing of most 
 increasing value, is ever the most attractive bait for the speculator, and 
 by one means or another he has always succeeded in evading the most 
 Blringent laws devised to check him.
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 207 
 
 The Wakefield colonisers were in too great a hurry. They 
 wanted to establish m new colonies an exact reproduction of 
 the economical condition of old countries. In the Old World, 
 capital was a more gainful possession than in the New, because 
 it could always command an unfailing supply of cheap labour ; 
 therefore it was supposed that capital could be made vastly 
 more profitable in the Colonies if labour could there be secured 
 to it. Undoubtedly so ; but the ' if ' was a fatal bar to the 
 theory. 
 
 The relations between capital and labour, at home, were the 
 results of gradual growth over a period coeval with that of 
 the life of the nation itself ; and to import those relations, in 
 the shape of regulations, was to attempt to supersede the pro- 
 cess of natural development by clapping the oldest head on to 
 the youngest shoulders, in the hope of its fittmg there. 
 Naturally it did nothing of the sort. 
 
 A comitry must go through many initial stages of adversity 
 before it can attain to the height of prosperity fondly miagined 
 by Wakefield as its necessary startmg-point. Any efforts to 
 anticipate the evolutionary process by previous regulation of 
 the grandmotherly despotic type must ultimately delay the 
 attaimueut of prosperity just in proportion as it forces it on 
 for a time. Supposmg labour had been compulsorily concen- 
 trated witlun defined lunits in servitude to capital m Melbourne, 
 or even on the squatters' runs (if capitalists had been allowed 
 to squat anywhere — a license in opposition to the strict theory, 
 but permitted as a supplement), when would the gold dis- 
 coveries have taken place? and for how long would tlie rush 
 of population consequent on these discoveries have been 
 delayed ? Nay, would not the rapid development of Melbourne 
 itself have been sensibly retarded, the settled districts them- 
 selves prevented fi'om progressing, and cultivation limited to 
 a very small area ? 
 
 The example of South Australia has sho^^'n the danger of 
 accumulating immigrants on a newly-occupied spot to find 
 employment, instead of encouraging them freely to disperse 
 until an eftective demand for labour stimulates a certain degree 
 of concentration.
 
 298 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 ' It was from the conviction of the difficulty of preventing 
 labourers from disseminating themselves over the country as 
 lando's\'ners that the suggestion was pressed on the Colonial 
 Society, in 1830, of fixing a comparatively high price on 
 Government land, in order at once to furnish a fund that might 
 be exclusively appropriated to immigration purposes, and to 
 prevent the poorer immigrants from acquiring a dominion over 
 the soil on too easy terms, and from becoming occupants in lieu 
 of labourers. The first-fi'uit of the project was the foundation 
 of South Australia.' ^ 
 
 The prmciples of the system on which it was founded were, 
 to use Merivale's summary — 
 
 1. That the prosperity of the Colonies mainly depends upon 
 the abundance of available labour at the command of capi- 
 talists, in proportion to the extent of territory occupied. 
 
 2. That this abmidance is to be secured by mtroducing 
 labourers fi'om outside, and taking care to keep them in the 
 condition of labourers livmg by wages, for some considerable 
 time^ — at least two or three years, accordmg to Colonel 
 Torrens. 
 
 3. That the revenue derived from the sale of new land is 
 the fmid out of which the cost of introducing them is best 
 defrayed. 
 
 4. That the most convenient way of preventing them from 
 rising too rapidly from the condition of labourers into that of 
 independent landowners is, to sell the land at a sufficiently 
 high price. 
 
 5. That the entire proceeds of the land sales ought to 
 be devoted to the purpose of obtaining immigrants, and 
 that only by devoting the whole, and not any portion, will 
 the exact equihbrium between land, labour, and capital be 
 secured. 
 
 6. That the sale of land should be at a fixed uniform price 
 per acre for all qualities and all situations, and not by 
 auction. 
 
 7. (Which is not necessarily connected with the others, 
 and is rather a deduction than a principle.) That this system 
 
 ' Merivale on Colonisation, Lecture XIX.
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 299 
 
 will tend to concentrate the population and to check that 
 inconvenient dispersion which is apt to take place in new 
 colonies. 
 
 The projectors put these principles forward as a connected 
 system, of which no link could be uijured without rendering 
 the chain valueless. 
 
 This bundle of red-tape was energetically wound round 
 the A-irgin territory of South Australia. By an Act of the 
 Imperial Parliament, a Governor and Comicil were appointed 
 for the colony. Also a Board of Commissioners was consti- 
 tuted to regulate the disposal of land and to arrange the 
 management of emigi-ation. The wliole of the land fund was 
 to be applied to emigration. 
 
 No specific provision was made for preparatory works, but 
 50.000/. was to be le\'ied on land, on the security of the land 
 fund, for defraying the necessary ' costs, charges, and expenses 
 of founding the colony.' The Commissioners were also em- 
 powered to raise 200,000/. on the secui'ity of the 'future 
 colonial revenue," while the future land fund was to serve as a 
 collateral security. 
 
 The settlement was to be self-supporting, and the self- 
 supportmg principle was to be initiated by the borrowing of 
 money in anticipation of futm-e revenues. In practice, how- 
 ever, the notion of raising 200,000/. on the future revenue from 
 an unbroken soil, even at 10 per cent., was found impossible. 
 Only 39,000/. had been borrowed under the power up to 1838, 
 when a new Act was passed giving increased borrowing 
 facilities.' By it, all the funds of the colony were to be made 
 security for loans ; nevertheless, so that the total debt due from 
 the general fund to the land fund should never, at the end of 
 any one year, exceed one-third of the whole amount of the 
 land fund for that year. 
 
 The general revenue was almost certain not to be sufficient 
 to meet even local requirements for years to come, so the 
 whole system rested on the veriest speculation. Nothing wa.s 
 real but the land fmid, and that was appropriated. Therefore 
 
 • 1 & 2 Victoria, c. 60.
 
 300 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 tlie general revenue must be forced into existence by making 
 the land fund larger. To effect tins every means of specula- 
 tion was resorted to. ' The original price of town lands in 
 Adelaide was 12s. per acre ; only three days before the com- 
 pletion of the plan of the town 560 sections were sold at an 
 average of 61. 3s. per acre ; and m 1839, it was thought that 
 those in the best situations were worth l.OOOZ. to 2,000/. per 
 acre.' ' 
 
 By the end of 1838 the colony numbered, as its population, 
 some 6,000 persons. The price of land had been raised from 
 12s. to 11. Nearly 50,000L had been raised by the sale of 
 land and applied to the introduction of immigrants, but 
 almost the whole of the sales up to that period had been 
 effected in England and were purely speculative. 
 
 In 1839, the colony was apparently in the full swing of 
 prosperity. Over 5,000 immigrants arrived from the United 
 Kingdom m that year, while 50,000 acres of the land of the 
 colony were sold in England, and some 100,000 in the colony 
 itself, at 1/. per acre. Up to the end of 1839, 125,000/. had 
 been borrowed on the credit of future revenues out of the 
 200,000/. authorised to be raised under the Act.^ The 
 average interest on the amount borrowed was 10 per cent., 
 while the revenue was inadequate to meet even the local 
 expenses, or the charges for the civil hst and the police 
 department. 
 
 Now follows an extraordinary chapter of financial extra- 
 vagance. ' The one thing needful,' said the Commissioners, 
 ' is to give liigh bounties on the introduction of capital ; ' 
 Adelaide must at all costs be made a good port, land must be 
 surveyed and sold as fast as it could be got rid off. With the 
 enormous cost of labour the expense of surveying rose to lOcf. 
 per acre. Thousands of emigrants arrived, and entailed 
 a heavy burden on the Government before they could find 
 employment. Whether from ostentation or necessity, the 
 disbursements for the police department were twice as high 
 in this colony without convicts as in New South Wales. 
 
 ' Fourth Report of the Commissioners. 
 2 4 & 5 Wm. IV, c. 95.
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAIUBLE.' 301 
 
 Everything was done on a similar scale of reckless extrava- 
 gance. A Government House was erected at a cost of 25,000/. 
 Within four years from the foundation of the colony, the 
 expenditure was at the rate of 140,000/. per annum,' on an 
 actual revenue of 20,000Z. In 1840 the Governor di'ew bills 
 on the Commissioners for 123,000/. The original Com- 
 missioners for South Australia had been lately superseded by 
 a general Board of Land and Emigration Commissioners, who 
 refused to accept the bills. Then came the crash ; the colony 
 became bankrupt, and emigration and land sales ceased in 
 August 1840. 
 
 Parliament interfered, and empowered the home Govern- 
 ment to advance a very considerable sum on security of the 
 colonial revenue. So ended the ' self-supporting ' part of the 
 scheme. 
 
 Merivale accounts for the collapse^ — firstly, because 
 South Australia was not a country calculated by nature to 
 ■become suddenly rich ; secondly, because no ' preparation ' 
 (reading, bridging, &c.) had been made; thirdly (and this 
 cause was the most injurious of all), because of the unnatural 
 encouragement given to speculation, and to its mseparable 
 companion — extravagance. Further, he says : — ' Time was 
 wasted and the interest of capital sacrificed in land-jobbing 
 operations which might have been profitably employed in 
 sheep-farmmg and agriculture.' 
 
 ' A community urged on by the spirit of speculation, which 
 they (the Conunissioners) sought in every way to encourage, 
 cannot be morally or socially healthy. The one thing need- 
 ful, thought they, is to encourage the rapid influx of capital, 
 by high bounties, . . . and they never thought of the tide of 
 evils which flow in along with a rapid influx of capital, when 
 that capital is not gradually attracted by the opeumg field of 
 employment, but comes in hopes of finding or creating such a 
 field. The wealthier immigrants, finding no useful occupation 
 for their means, took to land-jobbing, i.e. gambling, while 
 waituig for it. The poorer immigrants, attracted by the hope 
 
 ' In the last quarter of 1840, the Government expenditure was at 
 the rate of 240,O0OL per annum.
 
 802 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 of large wages, were disappointed by tlie liigli prices, and found 
 even the liigli sums which they actually realised insufficient 
 to satisfy their anticipations.' 
 
 In 1840, 8,000 people, nearly half the population of the 
 colony, were congregated at Adelaide. ' At the end of 1842, 
 one- third of the houses m Adelaide were deserted ; their 
 tenants, the surplus population created by the land-jobbers, 
 had turned to the cultivation of the soil. Now, instead of 
 paying 270,000/. in one year (1839) for the necessaries of life, 
 the only want of the colonists was a market. Wheat was at 
 2s. 6d. a bushel ; sheep were fattened with it. Communication 
 with the other Austrahan colonies soon rectified this.' ^ 
 
 The land sales fell from 170,000 acres in 1839 to about 
 600 in 1843. The new Governor, Captain Grey, reduced 
 the expenditure in a single year from 90,000/. to 30,000/.,' 
 and nearly 2,000 persons were thrown on the Governor's 
 hands as absolute paupers at the end of the first year of his 
 administration. 
 
 ' In a year or two more the colonists were poor indeed ; but 
 they were out of debt, and workmg their way to prosperity ; for 
 the Governor by his sturdiness and far-sighted economy had 
 redeemed their financial position — though not until the self- 
 supporting system appears to have cost the mother-comitry 
 about 200,000/.' 2 
 
 Never was there a system more fraught with all the 
 elements necessary to failure ; the whole of it was a reckless 
 gamble. From its very foundation the whole colony was put 
 in pawn, and its first struggles were eftbrts to free itself from 
 pre-contracted debts. To do this it had, by previous arrange- 
 ment, to plunge headlong into the wildest speculation, and 
 financial ruin was achieved before the infant settlement had 
 got a fair start. At the same time the policy of the system 
 was towards concentration to such an extent that individual 
 prospecting, the great agent for the development of the country, 
 was completely paralysed. Thus the only possible means of 
 
 ' Report of the Land and Emigration Board for 1840. 
 2 Merivale on Colonisation, Lecture XIX.
 
 WAKEFIELDLSM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 303 
 
 making the country quicldy rich, and so of paying off debt, 
 wa$ prevented from operating in that direction. 
 
 The colony was, as has been said, to be self-supporting ; 
 and the best way of achieving that end was thought to be — to 
 get money anyhow. In pursuance of this view, every effort 
 was made to encourage the purchase of the lands of the colony 
 by people at home, and agencies were established in England 
 where maps of South Australia — plans of an miknown and 
 unsurveyed territory — were displayed, in order to attract, not 
 emigrants, but speculators. These last came forward in shoals, 
 and brought up the vacant spaces on the maps mth fervid 
 zeal. Nothing was further from their intention than to go out 
 themselves to the colony, and their sole hope was to resell 
 the pieces of paper they had marked out for themselves, at an 
 advance, as soon as possible. ' Large profits and quick 
 returns ; ' such was the principle on which the lando^^■nulg 
 rights in South Australian soil were jobbed about, and for a 
 while a roarmg trade was driven merrily along. 
 
 The collapse that speedily took place was probably owurg 
 at least as much to this plan of selling land to speculators 
 outside the colony as to any other cause ; for, apart from the 
 evil consequences of the speculation itself, the system was 
 framed to encourage speculation to the utmost possible extent. 
 Thus, sale by public auction was not to be permitted because 
 purchasers at home could not be present at auction sales. 
 Instead thereof, the land was to be sold at a fixed uniform 
 price of 1/. per acre. Other reasons, doubtless, were present to 
 the minds of the promoters in advocating the fixed uniform 
 price regulation, but they are dealt with in Sir George Gipps's 
 Memorandum in a way that absolves me from the necessity of 
 further treating of them. The price fixed was, of course, the 
 ' sufficient price,' and under that name, its evils, when directed 
 to procure the dominion of the capitalist, have been already 
 adverted to at considerable length. For and against the 
 uniform fixed price theory when standing by itself, without 
 reference to Wakefield's views in regard to the results to be 
 derived from it, there is enough to be said to require lengthy 
 and separate treatment, but the discussion would be foreign to
 
 304 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 the purpose of this work. It is enough to venture the observa- 
 tion- that sale by pubhc auction, where the purchaser is put 
 under conditions, and where the laws are rigidly enforced 
 against illegal combinations to raise or lower prices, is a mode 
 of disposmg of land far preferable to that of sale at a fixed 
 uniform price. Also, that the latter system, as applied, with 
 the definite object prescribed, to South Australia, was pro- 
 ductive of grievous misfortune to that colony. 
 
 Nothing could be more objectionable than the proposition 
 to devote the entire proceeds of the land fund to the introduc- 
 tion of emigrants. If the land fund should be devoted in its 
 entirety to that one purpose in any colony, the question 
 arises, out of what fmid preliminary surveying, reading, and 
 other public works are to be carried on. Taxation on imports 
 or exports must be resorted to for providing the means ; or 
 else the colony must raise a foreign public loan. The advo- 
 cates of the ' equihbrium ' theory could not propose the 
 former expedient, because they did not approve of indirect 
 taxation ; and the carrying out of their theory forbade the 
 imposition of direct taxation. Direct taxation would, m 
 effect, have been an addition put on to the price the pur- 
 chaser had paid for his land. The price, then, would have 
 been more than sufficient to establish the ' equilibrium,' and 
 as the ' equilibrium ' was very delicately balanced, the 
 slightest addition to the price of land would have upset it 
 altogether, beyond the reconstructmg powers of the most 
 ingenious designers. So the Wakefieldians were driven to 
 raise a public loan by way of initiating the colony mto the 
 practice of ' self-support.' 
 
 Injury upon injury. The failure of the loan policy in 
 South Australia was undoubtedly assisted by the general 
 framework of the system on which it was founded, more than 
 by any extraneous cause ; but even though, mider more favour- 
 able circumstances, it might not have been so signally un- 
 successful, there can be little doubt that the mere fact of a 
 colony startmg on its career pledged to a loaning principle 
 furnished an unfavourable augury for its future prosperity. 
 
 To a young country, strong in its confidence m its own
 
 WAXEFIELDISM. ' THE WAKEFIELD GA3IBLE.' 305 
 
 resources, and believing itself tlie possessor of inexliaustible 
 wealth, but wanting an immediate supply of ready-money to 
 enable it to open shop, to borrow money abroad seems the 
 most economical way of getting it. The interest may be 
 high — or low, what matters it '? If low, it is a proof of the 
 general outside belief in the credit of the colony, and a sign 
 that lenders uill not readily recall their principals. If high — 
 weU then ; both prmcipal and interest will soon be paid off, 
 and there will be an end of the business. 
 
 The reasoning is hopeful, and creditable to local patriotism ; 
 but how stands the case really ? 
 
 The interest on the loan may be less than the rate current 
 in the colony itself, and the actual charge on that account 
 may be insignificant. So much the worse, for the less the 
 burden is felt, the greater is the danger of encouragement to 
 fi'esh loan transactions, which the colony will not be willing 
 to pay off at maturity except by the time-honoured, mjurious 
 expedient of raising new loans to pay off old debts. 
 
 Further, the knowledge that money can be borrowed is 
 tolerably certain to generate spendthrift habits in young 
 commmiities, already disposed to extravagance by the con- 
 sciousness of the ease and certamty with which the -s^irgin 
 soil can be made to yield a fortmie. A gi-eat many of the 
 early settlers, too, are totally regardless of the future of the 
 colony, and regard purely their o-vvn welfare, whether in op- 
 position to that of the community or not. All causes com- 
 bine to promote careless expenditure, and soon the colonists 
 proceed to the erection of public works on a scale altogether 
 mmecessary — but which in time becomes almost necessary — in 
 order that the large numbers of labourers engaged oh the 
 works may be kept provided with the Government employ- 
 ment and Government pay that they have now come to con- 
 sider as their due. The picture may be mdefinitely extended 
 and filled in with an extraordinary train of indirect conse- 
 quences. 
 
 A Government will tlmik twice before committing itself 
 to expenditure, however likely to prove reproductive in the 
 future, if it has only to rely, for the purpose, upon funds 
 
 X
 
 306 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 raised in the colony itself ; but it will scarcely hesitate if any 
 temporary extravagance can be made good by a loan, which 
 can in all probability be raised at far below the average rate 
 of interest prevailing in the colony. On the contrary, the 
 eclat consequent on successfully floating such a loan on better 
 terms than their predecessors has the effect of inducing com- 
 petition m loan-mongering amongst responsible ministers. 
 On the mass of the people, too, the effect is demoralising. 
 Estimates are not criticised by them with any great severity, 
 except for party purposes, when it is known that money can 
 always be borrowed abroad to set everything right ; and the 
 country in its ignorance points with pride to its high credit 
 abroad, and to the stability of its position as evidenced by 
 the high rate of indebtedness per head. The new loans are 
 looked upon as certain panaceas for distress, and as certam 
 guarantees of prosperity. People laugh at the burden of four 
 to five per cent., when for their own personal borrowings they 
 pay interest at the rate of eight or ten per cent. Extravagance 
 and waste become the inevitable rule in the department of 
 public works, and decay and corruption become inseparable 
 from the conduct of the public service. A steady opposition 
 to direct taxation is gradually set on foot, and strengthened 
 with each fresh proof of improved facility of loaning power. 
 Local bodies, m turn, begin to borrow from the central 
 Government, and the evils of the system are dissemmated 
 through the length and breadth of the community ; while 
 last but not least, is the imminent risk of the colony resorting 
 to heavy indirect taxation and protective duties, in order to 
 attempt the clearance of the growmg burden of the yearly 
 interest on its loans. 
 
 Even the application of a, fixed portion of the land fund to 
 emigration purposes is objectionable. The sum so applied 
 may amount, in bad times, to far more than sufficient for its 
 purpose, and yet, unless conscientiously administered, it may, 
 in great part, find a mysterious path into the capacious 
 pockets of shipowners or ageiits. This risk must always be 
 run, but it may be to a certain extent minimised, if the fund 
 allotted to emigration purposes is one based on actual emigra-
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 307 
 
 tion statistics, or on the view of the local demand for emi- 
 grants taken by the majority of members of the colonial 
 legislature in discussion on the estimates. If actual statistics 
 of past emigration be looked at in considering the amount 
 that ought actually to be expended on emigration, the sum 
 necessary will be found, since 1852, to bear a very small pro- 
 portion to the average annual revenues from land sales in 
 each and all of the older colonies. Moreover, since that date, 
 State-assisted emigration has only accounted for a fraction of 
 the total number of emigrants. Also it is a matter of no- 
 toriety that a great part of the fund devoted to State-assisted 
 emigration was lavished in a variety of ways in ' pickings and 
 stealings,' and much of the remainder was expended in re- 
 lieving the mother-country of paupers, criminals, and infirm 
 people. 
 
 No system, however ingeniously devised by the colonists 
 themselves, deeply interested as they were in procuring full 
 value for immigration funds sent home, ever yet sufiiced to 
 prevent fraud, and misappropriation of the money, from being 
 largely carried on, and we may find that in Victoria, at a time 
 when she possessed a population barely as large as that of a 
 fair sized provincial town at home, one of the earliest expres- 
 sions of the popular will was directed to the material curtail- 
 ment of the scale of State-aided emigration. Even mider the 
 limited scale mider which that colony consented to continue 
 the system, it was thought expedient to exact from the emi- 
 gration agent sent to England the enormous security of 
 10,000^., as a guarantee for his proper administration of the 
 funds entrusted to him. And yet this was an agent selected 
 by the colony for his presumed integrity and fitness for the 
 post. It almost seems then, on the whole, that the smaller 
 the proportion of the land fund allotted to immigration, the 
 better for the colony ; because the expenditure of small sums 
 is capable of being more rigidly checked, while giving less 
 opening to peculation, than would be the case with a larger 
 amount. Whether this be so or not, however, it is clear that 
 the amount should always be carefully scrutinised, and that to 
 sanction a vote for a larger amount than may be called for by 
 
 x2
 
 308 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 ascertained requirements may prove a serious blunder. That 
 Wakefield's views in appropriating to immigration the whole 
 of the indefinite revenue derivable from land was an erroneous 
 one, has been conclusively demonstrated in the histories of the 
 Australian colonies. 
 
 It only remains now to briefly refer once again to Wake- 
 field's desire to prevent the labourer from rising too rapidly to 
 a superior position. He was to be prevented from rismg by 
 a network of State-framed discouragement being imposed upon 
 him. That is to say, he Avas to accept State superintendence 
 or dictation as the rule for his direction in his private aims. 
 The labourer who had traversed half the globe to seek for free- 
 dom, was, on arriving at his destuiation, to renomice even the 
 degree of freedom that he had experienced at home. Surely 
 not a ' consummation devoutly to be wished,' and least of all 
 desirable in a new country, where vigorous independence on 
 the part of the working-man is the most important factor in 
 its political and economical progress. 
 
 How are widely disseminated centres of local and municipal 
 government to grow up, if the labouring and artisan classes— 
 those most actively interested in decentralised self-government 
 — are confined within narrow limits and subjected to Govern- 
 ment dictation m the conduct of their private affairs ? The 
 spirit of independence dies out under the withering blight, and 
 with it decays, not only the hopeful vigour of the energetic 
 worker, but also the healthy interest which he would, if left to 
 himself, throw into the consideration of all questions connected 
 with the government of the colony. 
 
 Is it unreasonable to hazard the suggestion that it was in 
 the hope of such a result that the home Government consented 
 to allow of the application of W^akefield's theories to South 
 Australia? It is certain that for some time the Imperial 
 Governors would not consent to their being put into practice, not 
 because they deemed the economical regulations impracticable, 
 but because the whole system seemed to aim at effecting too 
 great a transfer of power to the colonial population. When at 
 length they conceded to Wakefield an opportunity of trying his
 
 WAKEFIELDISM. 'THE WAKEFIELD GAMBLE.' 309 
 
 system in a modified form, tliey had previously satisfied them- 
 selves that the principles on which it was based were m no 
 degree calculated to stimulate political activity in the minds 
 of the colonists. Their supposition as to this was correct in 
 one way, but at the same time, it is likely enough that had 
 any new attempts been made from home to re\'ive the system 
 in its original form, after it had collapsed under its own 
 cumbrous weight, a very active degree of hostility would have 
 been excited against it m the colony ; and. the unexpected 
 result of the forced separation of South Australia from Eng- 
 land — if the settlement had not been entirely abandoned — 
 might have formed the fitting termination to the history of 
 the ' Great Wakefield Gamble.'
 
 310 BONDS OF DLSUKION. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SYSTEMATIC FLEECING. — ' HIGH PEICE ' IN VICTORIA, LATE 
 
 POET PHILLIP. 
 
 We are assured by Merivale that the good fortune of Port 
 Phillip was owing mainly to the high price of its land. He 
 says : — ' The increasing capital of Van Diemen's Land, unable 
 to find sufficient profit in that island, Avhere so much had been 
 appropriated, found a new field in this adjacent region. Its 
 land has sold at the great average price of thirty shillings per 
 acre. If land had been given away at low prices, capitalists 
 would not have got the land at all : it would have been appro- 
 priated for the most part by numerous settlers, if they had 
 had equal chances of obtaining it with the rich, and in the 
 next place the few capitalists who might have settled there 
 could not by their united efforts have procured labour half so 
 cheaply or effectually as the Government has been able to do 
 it for them, besides the other advantages which the territory 
 has derived from the application of its land fund to other 
 branches of necessary expenditure.' ' 
 
 Merivale believed that the future prosperity of colonies 
 was best secured by the monopolisation of the public lands in 
 the hands of capitalists, and like most devotees to a theory, he 
 doubted not that whatever height of prosperity the colony might 
 rise to, would be due entirely to the operation of ' high price ' 
 in procuring that monopolisation. It is fortunately not a 
 matter of difficulty to show that while monopoly was the effect 
 of which ' high price ' was the cause, yet both together tended 
 in no small degree to retard the progress of Port Phillip or 
 Victoria in onward prosperity. 
 
 ' Merivale on Colonisation, Lecture XIX.
 
 SYSTEMATIC FLEECING. . 311 
 
 Victoria speedily became prosperous, and its lands sold 
 from the first at high prices. Therefore, according to Merivale, 
 prosperity Avas the consequence of high price. A very slight 
 examination of the early land history of Australia will prob- 
 ably suffice for the complete restatement of the proposition. 
 It will then be seen that Port Phillip owed most or all of its 
 early success to the fact that it was started into being by un- 
 systematised private enterprise, instead of on a fanciful syste- 
 matic basis, and that its progress might have been far greater 
 and more stable had it not been for 'the high average price to 
 which the lands were raised by means which may fairly be 
 written down as artificial. 
 
 It was in Governor Bourke's reign in 1831, that the system 
 of selling instead of granting land in New South Wales was 
 first initiated. Former Governors had been in the habit of 
 giving aAvay land as they pleased, and charges of impartiality 
 and injustice in the distribution were freely indulged in 
 by disappointed applicants, and m many cases with good 
 reason. The right of giving away land involving, as it did, an 
 onerous responsibility, was a weighty charge to be given up to 
 the keeping of Governors completely irresponsible to the colony, 
 and it furnished them with an overwhelming power of patron- 
 age which, if they had not to some extent made it available 
 for the furtherance of their own private whims or predilections, 
 would have argued in them integrity almost more than human. 
 By orders from home, Bourke was deprived of the power of 
 granting land in any quantity or to any person whatever, 
 except to a specified extent for schools, churches, glebes, or 
 other public purposes. Crown lands were now to be sold by 
 public auction, and none were to be sold at all miless applied 
 for by an intending purchaser. A minimum upset price of 
 five shillings per acre was fixed for country lands. 
 
 In 1889 the upset price was raised to twelve shillings, and 
 again in 1843 to twenty shillings per acre. ' At the time 
 when the change was first made, from grant to sale, a pledge 
 had been virtually given to the colonists that the revenue from 
 the sale of land should be appropriated mainly towards the 
 encouragement and promotion of the emigration of virtuous
 
 312 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 and industrious families, and individuals from Great Britain 
 and Ireland ; and considering the original character of the 
 colony as a general receptacle for the accumulated criminality 
 of the empire, no appropriation of that revenue could possibly 
 have been more judicious on the one hand, or more important 
 in the eye of enlightened philanthropy, on the other. For 
 there was thus provided the means of infusing, to almost any 
 conceivable extent, the salutary ingredient of a virtuous and 
 industrious population into the mass of a convict colony, and 
 of thereby elevating that colony, in a period of time compara- 
 tively short, to the rank of an intelligent, respectable, and 
 religious community.' ' 
 
 This promise was, however, not fulfilled, for up to the end 
 of Sir Eicliard Bourke's governorship, out of a total revenue 
 from land during the six years of 439,625^., only about one- 
 fifth or 91,167/. was found to have been expended on immigra- 
 tion during that period. 
 
 Sir George Gipps entered on his administration in 1838, 
 and during his reign the free (that is, not convict or freed) 
 immigrants and the native-born population together out- 
 numbered the other classes, and all the more prominent traces 
 of the convict origin of the colony disappeared. Now was the 
 time to affiliate the free immigrant, in especial, to the soil, by 
 giving him the opportunity of settling on the land, and now 
 was just the time chosen by the Imperial Governor for inter- 
 posing difficulties in the way of his acquiring land. The price 
 was fixed at a minimum of 1/. per acre, in itself a price 
 by no means prohibitive. The object of the Governor seems 
 to have been to fill the Treasury, and to impress the value of 
 his stewardship upon the home authorities, by showing the 
 largest possible revenue from the smallest possible area. He 
 played the part of the ' land-shark ' to perfection, and as long 
 as he could show an overflowing balance-sheet, his proceedings 
 met with the applause of his titular superior. The expedient 
 adopted was to throw a very limited quantity of land into the 
 market at one time, and competition amongst a lot of eager 
 buyers soon ran prices up to heights more satisfactory to the 
 * Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 262.
 
 SYSTEMATIC FLEECING. 313 
 
 governing powers than to the purchaser. Port Phillip was, 
 at that time, a part of New South Wales, and the rush of 
 population thither indicated to Sir George Gipps the most 
 desirable spot in all Australia for fleecing the early settlers by 
 means of high land prices. 
 
 The immediate consequence of limiting the quantity of 
 land in the market to a very small amount was to compel the 
 unfortunate immigrants, who were almost obliged to obtain 
 land or building allotments, to bid against each other till the 
 price of land rose to fancy height. They were thus ' crippled 
 in their means, involved in debt, and in many instances 
 hopelessly ruined, while millions of acres of the richest land 
 around them were lyhig utterly waste. Mr. Eichard Howitt, 
 who went out amongst the first emigrants to Port Phillip, but 
 who left the country in disgust after a few years' trial, on 
 finding that he had been all but ruined in the very midst of 
 all the elements of prosperity and plenty, through the absurd 
 policy of the local Government in regard to the disposal of the 
 waste lands, published a work • in which he details his own 
 bitter experiences on the subject, and in which the reader 
 will find that these statements have been by no means 
 exaggerated.' ^ 
 
 Another favourite device of Sir George Gipps was to place 
 a high upset price upon all town allotments. The evils of 
 this were heavily enough felt in the towns already formed, 
 but they pressed more grievously upon the would-be inhabi- 
 tants of those inland towns which as yet only existed on the 
 map. There labour and necessaries were far dearer than in 
 the established chief towns on the coast, and in addition to 
 the tax thus entailed upon the slender resources of the local 
 settler, he had to pay high rents to recoup their outlay to the 
 speculative purchasers of lots in the unformed town. 
 
 Says Dr. Lang : ^ ' The evil consequences of this injudicious 
 policy, in addition to the serious evil of crippling the hnmi- 
 grants by depriving them of their available means, were two- 
 fold. First, the allotments actually purchased in the towns 
 
 ' First Impressions of Australia Felix, by E. Howitt. 
 
 2 Lang's New South Wales, voL i. p. 287. » Ibid. p. 287-8.
 
 314 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 were in numerous cases cut up by the calculating speculator 
 who purchased them into insignilicant fragments, to be resold 
 to a humbler class of purchasers at an exorbitant profit ; and 
 numerous narrow lanes and culs-de-sac were thus formed, in 
 which the labouring population, by whom the buildings 
 erected on these fragmentary allotments were chiefly in- 
 habited, were very soon almost as densely crowded together 
 as in some of the largest capital cities or manufacturing towns 
 of Europe — an arrangement which in a comparatively warm 
 climate like that of New South Wales constitutes a perfect 
 nursery of fever and other forms of contagious or epidemical 
 disease. Second, knowing people bought large suburban 
 allotments, which they obtained at comparatively low prices — 
 at 2L or 5Z. an acre — beyond the limits of Sir George Gipps' 
 towns, and cutting them up into half-acre or quarter-acre 
 allotments, immediately advertised other to^wiis, as rivals to 
 the Governor's, in their immediate neighbourhood. Hence it 
 is that all the principal towns of the era of the Government 
 of Sir George Gipps, from Geelong and Portland, in latitude 
 38° south, to Brisbane and Ipswich in the Moreton Bay 
 country, in latitude 27° south, resemble respectively so many 
 hens and chickens, each consisting of a larger town in the 
 centre with a number of smaller ones all around it. In this 
 way the peculiar advantages of towns — the concentration of 
 the population within a reasonable space, and the consequent 
 ability of the inhabitants to provide for themselves all the 
 requisite public improvements at a comparatively trifling 
 cost — were lost on the one hand, while all the disadvantages 
 of the comitry — distance and discomfort — were entailed upon 
 the community on the other.' 
 
 The money thus extracted from the pockets of the settlers 
 was employed in bringing out fresh batches of immigrants 
 who, as they were landed, formed an additional formidable 
 body of competing land buyers, who, by force of necessity, 
 had no alternative but that of trying to get blocks of land at 
 high prices. For this purpose they could get money freely 
 advanced by the numerous banks then recently established, 
 and so the immigrants were afforded every facility for plmiging
 
 SYSTEMATIC FLEECING. 315 
 
 headlong into debt, and bought not only land that they did 
 want, but land that they did not require except for purposes 
 of mere speculation. 
 
 The good fortune of the colony was, to all appearance, 
 great about the year 1839 ; but the structure of prosperity was 
 but a house of cards ready to topple over at a touch. For- 
 tunate it was in eft'ect, though disastrous at the moment, that 
 just about this time Sir George Gipps exerted a pressm-e upon 
 the local banks, which brought down with a rim the artificial 
 edifice built up of high prices and wholesale credit, for every 
 day that it remained erect the mischief was spreading itself 
 over a wider area. 
 
 The manner of the collapse is briefly told by Lang : — 
 
 The local Government [he tells us] were at this period in the 
 habit of depositing the large amounts that accrued from the different 
 land sales in the different banks of the colony, and charging interest 
 on these deposits at the rate of four per cent. ; but Sir George Gipps, 
 speculating doubtless on the soundness and permanency of the wonder- 
 ful prosperity which the colony was exhibiting under the extraordi- 
 nary influx of capital, and desiring to secure the largest share of that 
 prosperity for the State, insisted upon having either seven or seven 
 and a half per cent, in future as the interest on the Government 
 balances in the banks ; and as these establishments were now work- 
 ing against each other, his imperious mandate had to be obeyed, under 
 the penalty of a withdrawal of the Govemmeut funds from the refrac- 
 tory establishment. 
 
 To enable them to pay this high interest and to make a large 
 profit besides, the banks had to enlarge their discounts, and to take 
 security for their advances in the descending scale of best, better, and 
 (jood, till they crossed the line of safety and included a great many 
 which had not even the positive degree of this commercial quality to 
 recommend them, but which were notoriously bad, icorse, and worst. 
 
 With these extraordinary facilities for all sorts of money operations, 
 the rage for speculation, not only in land and town allotments, but in 
 sheep, cattle, and horses, reached a much greater height than it had 
 ever done, even during the sheep and cattle mania of the era of Sir 
 Ralph Darling ; and the most unbounded extravagance of living was 
 in manv instances the natural accompaniment of so unnatural a state 
 of tilings. Everybody bought land and town allotments, or sheep, 
 cattle, and horses at enormous prices ; adopting at the same time a
 
 316 BONDS OF DISUNION". 
 
 scale of domestic expenditure proportioned to the profits they expected 
 to realise, and giving their promissory notes for due payment to the 
 banks, or mortgaging their lands and houses to one or other of the 
 loan and trust companies for sums not unfrequently far below their 
 real value. t)ne mercantile house in Sydney, which of course fell 
 ■when the storm came, and great was the f;ill of it, had purchased land 
 on speculation at Port Phillip to the extent of upwards of 100,000^. ; 
 and a property vv'hich was mortgaged to one of the companies for 
 10,000/., and which afterw^ards fell into the bauds of the company, 
 realised to its proprietors not more tban lOOZ. a year.^ 
 
 The upshot of all this might liave been foreseen, and was ex- 
 perienced at lengtli in full force. The purchase of Government lands 
 and town allotments declined apace, and then ceased entirely. The 
 obligations to the banks and other lending companies, as well as to 
 private individuals, fell due ; and land and stock and other property 
 of all kinds were forced upon a falling market to meet them. These 
 articles of property consequently declined rapidly in value, falling as 
 far below the average of former years as they had been unnaturally 
 raised above it ; and all but universal bankruptcy ensued. A flock 
 of sheep was actually sold by the sheriff at this period, in satisfaction 
 of a comparatively small debt, at sixpence per head ; while another 
 flock, the property of one of the oldest merchants in the colony, was 
 purchased at so low a price (one shilling and sixpence per head) that 
 within two mouths after the sale, which took place in September, just 
 before shearing time, the fortunate purchaser realised upwards of 
 2o0l, more than the whole amount of his pui'chase money from the 
 wool alone. In another similar case, cattle which had been bought 
 at six guinea^s a piece were sold at seven shillings and sixpence each ; 
 and horses, that cost sixty guineas, brought only sixteen or seventeen 
 shillings, while a house in Syduey, for which 5,000Z. had been offered 
 and refused very shortly before, was sold for 1,200/.'- 
 
 Tlie local writers of that day could furnish an infinite 
 number of such examples, if examples were needed, to prove 
 that everything and everybody was insolvent. The prosperity 
 raised on a system of artificial high price had been but a 
 bubble, to which the slightest prick was fatal. 
 
 It was calculated that the losses immediately consequent 
 on the collapse were equivalent to ten pounds per head of the 
 colonial population. So miiversal was the ruin that bank- 
 
 ' Lang's New Sonth Wales, vol. i. pp. 291-3. 
 2 Ibid. p. 293.
 
 SYSTEMATIC FLEECING. 317 
 
 ruptcy ceased to be considered a disgi'ace, because it was no 
 longer a distinction. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, the real prosperity of the colony 
 had been materially advancing during this period of mflation. 
 The seasons had been unusually good, the flocks and herds of 
 the colony had been multiplymg with rapidity, and during the 
 whole time the necessaries of life were abmidant and cheap. 
 At this period, too, pastoral pursuits had acquired an extra 
 value by reason of the discovery of the boiling-down process 
 for extracting tallow from the carcasses of dead stock. 
 
 This last was unsystematised, unforced, natural prosperity, 
 and it formed the basis on which the industrial future of the 
 colony was gradually to erect itself. 
 
 It has been seen how mjurious to the colony were the 
 effects of high speculative prices, how general was the specu- 
 lation m the settled districts, and how vast the ruin its col- 
 lapse produced. Are we to beheve Dr. Lang and e%-idence 
 like to his, given by contemporary chroniclers of the period, or 
 are we to accept Merivale's assertion that the progress of 
 colonisation in Australia ' w^as almost entirely free (thanks to 
 the rigid provision of its institution) from those e^'ils which 
 have so extensively arisen from the engrossing of land by 
 speculators in free grant or low price colonies ? ' 
 
 That free grant is an erroneous and highly-dangerous 
 system may be readily admitted, but that high price, as tried 
 in Victoria, contributed to the prosperity of that colony, is a 
 statement directly contradicted by the most glaring and in- 
 disputable facts. 
 
 Agam, Merivale observes : ' The success of high price in 
 Austraha was oAving to the small cost of clearing, and to the 
 facility the even surface of the land gave for roads, or rather 
 for dispensing with roads, in the first stages of settlement. 
 The easy acquisition of pastoral lands, and the rapidity with 
 which wealth had been created by sheep-farming, has furnished 
 a contmual stimulus to agriculture and a constant field for the 
 employment of surplus labour. The mere purchase-money of 
 the land has formed consequently a very considerable part of 
 the purchaser's expenditure. He can afford to pay to the
 
 318 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 land fund what the Canadian farmer had to devote to clear- 
 ing, . . . He consequently reaps the full benefit of his expen- 
 diture by the importation of immigrants.' 
 
 Merivale is here treating of a period anterior to the time 
 when the squatters acquired pre-emptive rights over their rmis. 
 Hardly a single acre had, up to then, been bought by the 
 pastoral interest ; therefore, it is not easy to see how ' high 
 price ' could have contributed to the success of the interest 
 which was then the backbone of the colony. The number of 
 labourers required to do the work of a sheep or cattle station 
 is extraordinarily small in comparison to acreage, and a very 
 small portion of the land fund would have sufficed to bring 
 out aU the labour demanded by the squatters. Squatting, or 
 rather its favoured conditions and profitable results, had \m- 
 doubtedly the effect of attracting many men of superior posi- 
 tion to the colony, but it certainly did little or nothing 
 towards brmgmg labouring emigi-ants there or towards giving 
 them employment on their arrival. 
 
 Had Merivale known the actiial circumstances of the 
 colony, he could never have advanced so untenable an argu- 
 ment as that high price assisted pastoral pursuits, and that 
 pastoral pursuits ' furnished a stimulus to agriculture.' This 
 last it did not do, for even before the date of the Orders in 
 Council — when, as has been seen, the position of the squatters 
 was made the means of directly discouraging agricultural pur- 
 suits — the squattmg stations were always possessed of their 
 own cultivation paddocks, on which they grew produce for 
 their own consumption, and therefore even then they gave no 
 direct assistance or stimulus to the farniuig interest. 
 
 The assertion made by Merivale is really a romidabout 
 attempt to prove that whatever degree of prosperity farming 
 had attained to, was mainly ascribable to the operation of 
 ' high price.' The benefit of high price to the farmer was 
 supposed to be that it enabled enough labouring emigrants to 
 be imported to give him a constant certain supply of labour, 
 while at the same time it prevented the labourer from rushing 
 to acquire a block of land immediately on landing in the 
 colony.
 
 SYSTEMATIC FLEECING. 319 
 
 Now, in so far as high prices given for farming land — 
 by which I mean the artificially enhanced prices which Meri- 
 vale eulogises — were concerned, their first efi'ect was to reduce 
 the quantity of land which the farmer might have got mider a 
 system which would have mduced cheaper prices, and also to 
 reduce the private capital which he might otherwise have 
 made available for improvements. He was, therefore, driven 
 to borrow money at high rates, as a preliminary to the suc- 
 cessful prosecution of his business. He was thus greatly 
 handicapped at starting, and it is exceedmgly doubtful 
 whether he was benefited at all by the use made of the 
 purchase-money to import labouring emigrants. It may 
 safely be asserted that he would have got his labour cheaper 
 than he actually did — even had the land revenue for emigi'a- 
 tion purposes been far smaller than it was during the high 
 price period — if the smaller revenue had been raised in a 
 natural, non-speculative manner. 
 
 As evidence in support of this last assertion, it may be as 
 well to glance at some of the ascertained consequences of 
 artificial ' high price ' in Port Phillip. 
 
 The highest average prices and the greatest amomit of land 
 revenues were together derived from the purchase of town and 
 suburban lots for building purposes. The immigrants, as they 
 landed, were eagerly competed for by the buyers of these lots, 
 with the result that the labouring immigrants, who would 
 under ordinary circumstances at once have gone up country, 
 were turned mto bricklayers, plasterers, &c,, at enormously 
 high wages, and were consequently very well satisfied to 
 remain in Melbourne. The farmers, heavily fleeced by the 
 high prices they had paid for their land and by the heavy 
 weight of advances under which they lay, could not afl'ord to 
 offer wages equal to those given by the builders, and could at 
 the best only employ one labourer instead of two. 
 
 The builders, in order to recoup themselves for their large 
 expenditure — for which they too were, as a rule, under heavy 
 advances — had to charge exorbitant rents. The traders in the 
 principal towns found their high rents a serious tax upon their 
 profits, and were therefore under the necessity of selling their
 
 320 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 goods at high prices, at a time when, the community generally- 
 being out of pocket — a necessary consequence of the speculative 
 craze — every one was more anxious to sell something of his 
 own than to buy what some one else had to sell him. The 
 farmers under these circumstances were either obliged to 
 resort to the roughest and most unproductive methods of 
 agriculture, or they had to procure agricultural implements, at 
 great cost, from a remote seaport town. Thus they too had 
 to pay in enhanced prices for the difficulties in which Mel- 
 bourne and Geelong had been placed by the system which 
 gave a speculative value to town lots ; and thus an artificially 
 stimulated speculation, engendered by the high prices produced 
 by the system of limiting the quantity of land open for sale 
 below the popular demand, acted adversely alike on those 
 interests furthest away in point of distance from the chief 
 centre of speculation, and on those nearest to them. 
 
 Plenty of immigrants were brought into the country by 
 means of the land fund, but as they remained in the seaport 
 towns, the farmer got but small return for his purchase 
 money in the shape of the immigrant labour he was supposed 
 to have paid for when he bought his land. His ' high price ' 
 therefore did not benefit him just in the very particular in 
 which Merivale assures us that he derived most advantage 
 from it. 
 
 If a considerable portion of the land revenue had been 
 appropriated to road-making — an amomit proportioned to the 
 high prices paid for farms in the most naturally favoured of 
 the agricultural districts — a boon would have been conferred 
 on the farmers which would have largely compensated them 
 for their extravagant outlay in purchase. But the policy of 
 the Government was to make use of the funds to bring in 
 fresh supplies of immigrants to swell the lists of competitors 
 for lands. So the farmer had to have extra teams of oxen 
 and horses to do the work of the heavy transport of his pro- 
 duce to the nearest large markets, instead of employing a 
 smaller stud to do the work of easy transport over good roads. 
 All this increased cost constituted a heavy deduction from the 
 profit on his produce and left him a miserably small margin 
 wherewith to carry on the struggle for existence.
 
 SYSTEMATIC FLEECING. 
 
 321 
 
 To the economist the following tables will be full of 
 interest, as showing at a glance the effect produced upon the 
 cost of transport by improved means of communication. It 
 shows how preferable the lot of the agriculturists might 
 have been compared to what it actually was, during a period 
 when communications were hardly opened at all betAveen 
 Melbourne and the farming districts not more than a hundred 
 miles distant. The comparison in the tables is between railway 
 and road prices. To estimate the true position of the Port 
 Phillip farmer in and about 1840-2 it must be borne in mind 
 tliat then there were few or no roads, so that the length and 
 difficulties of transport were far greater than in 1857 ; and so 
 also was the risk of loss or damage of the produce carried. 
 
 Table showing the comparative effects on prices of produce, 
 in 1857, by transport over roabs as contrasted with 
 transport over railways. 
 
 Table I., shmdng effect on prices of produce hy transport over Roads. 
 
 
 ^1 ^ 
 
 
 in 
 
 fe s 
 
 13 
 
 
 §5 
 
 ■u :3 
 
 1° 
 
 O ° 
 
 &2 
 
 
 SR 
 
 
 a a 
 
 n 
 
 tt| 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 & s. d. 
 
 £, s. d 
 
 £ s . o 
 
 Price at market . 
 
 22 8 
 
 6 10 
 
 40 
 
 8 
 
 Value, 20 miles from market 
 
 19 6 8 6 m 
 
 3 16 8 
 
 37 6 8 
 
 5 6 8 
 
 
 16 13 4 5 If 
 
 13 4 
 
 34 13 4 
 
 2 13 4 
 
 „ 60 „ „ 
 
 14 3 8f 
 
 not given 
 
 32 
 
 not given 
 
 1! 80 „ ,, 
 
 11 6 8 2 3g 
 
 »» 
 
 29 6 8 
 
 »» 
 
 „ 100 
 
 8 IB 4 9f 
 
 M 
 
 26 13 4 
 
 ») 
 
 Table II., showing effect on prices of produce by transport by Rail. 
 
 
 S3 
 
 o -^ 
 
 0) 
 ^1 
 
 Potatoes 
 per ton 
 
 ^ U 
 
 H P. 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 .«. d. 
 
 £ s-. d. 
 
 £ .V. d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Price at market . 
 
 , , 
 
 22 
 
 8 
 
 6 10 
 
 40 
 
 8 
 
 Value, 20 ] 
 
 niles from 
 
 market 
 
 21 13 4 
 
 7 9f 
 
 6 3 4 
 
 39 13 4 
 
 7 13 
 
 „ 40 
 
 
 
 21 6 8 
 
 7 7f 
 
 5 16 8 
 
 39 6 8 
 
 7 6 8 
 
 „ 60 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 7 54 
 
 5 10 
 
 39 
 
 7 
 
 „ 80 
 
 
 
 20 13 4 
 
 7 32 
 
 5 3 4 
 
 38 16 4 
 
 6 13 4 
 
 „ 100 
 
 
 
 20 16 8 
 
 7 If 
 
 4 16 8 
 
 38 6 8 
 
 6 6 8 
 
 „ 120 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 6 Hi 
 
 1 10 
 
 38 
 
 6 
 
 „ 140 
 
 
 
 19 13 4 
 
 9;, 
 
 4 3 4 
 
 37 13 4 
 
 5 13 4 1
 
 322 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 The tables ^ furnish an excellent illustration of the immense 
 benefit derivable by settlers in a young colony from the 
 material quickening and cheapening of existing modes of 
 transport, and point with equal force to the immense dis- 
 advantage under which the country labours when supplied 
 with inferior means of communication. We find, from the 
 first table, that in the case of some articles, the necessity of 
 having to transport them in drays over roads, for even the 
 short distance of from twenty to twenty-five miles, was enough 
 to bring down their value to one-half of the ' price at market,' 
 and if we may draw an inference from the omissions in the 
 table it would appear that at a greater distance than forty 
 miles the expense and delay of sending potatoes and hay to 
 market was sufficient to prevent the attempt being made at 
 all — by road,. On the other hand, it is evident from Table II. 
 that better modes of transport were instrumental in stirring 
 up the energies of farmers at remote distances from Melbourne, 
 to raise and to send thither produce which otherwise would 
 have been either not raised at all, or else left to rot on the 
 ground for want of a market to which they could be conveyed 
 with profit. It is obvious from the tables that the best means 
 of encouraging agricultural pursuits would have been by 
 making good roads, and had a considerable portion of the 
 large revenue derived from the sale of land been applied to the 
 purpose of making good roads at a time when there were none, 
 or of improving bad ones later on, the high price of land might 
 have really benefited the colony. As it was, the land revenue 
 being devoted to no other purpose than the introduction of 
 immigrants, the new arrivals fomid no resource open to them 
 — after their first rush to the diggings — in the remote rural dis- 
 tricts : for the want of roads prevented the possibility of their 
 working there profitably as farmers, and they had therefore to 
 return to Melbourne, to swell the multitude struggling for 
 room in the already umiaturally distended metropolis. 
 
 The ' high price ' system as practised in Port Phillip was a 
 
 ' The tables are included in a return made to the Victorian Parlia- 
 ment in 1857-8.
 
 SYSTExMATIC FLEECING. 323 
 
 but too successful effort to fill the Treasury, in order to import 
 additional crowds to replenish it more vigorously at greater 
 expense to themselves. Those venerated appearances of pros- 
 perity, plenty of money and plenty of people, were to furnish 
 the world with proofs of the thoughtful wisdom of the colonial 
 Governor, and everything was to be strained to subserve this 
 end. No matter that the money was extracted from people 
 who beggared themselves in paymg it, and that the fresh 
 immigrants were fleeced, as soon as landed, by the graspmg 
 policy of the Government land shark. Plenty of money in the 
 Treasury, plenty of people in the colony : that was the text of 
 the perpetual self- laudation of the Imperial representative, and 
 which procured for him the esteem of an enraptured Colonial 
 Office — mitil the crash came, and with it an empty Treasury, 
 a bankrupt colony, and a sharp contraction of prices to nothing 
 at all. In the history of the mad speculation, the reckless 
 extravagance, the impeded industry and the total collapse of 
 Port Phillip, read the necessary sequel of ' high price ' and the 
 bitter converse of Merivale's mistaken eulogy. 
 
 t2
 
 324 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 Past I. — the dual house system in austeaTjIA. 
 
 PaBT II. — PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL 
 COKEUPTION. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 In a foregoing chapter,^ reference has been made to the 
 unsatisfactory results to which the estabhshnaent of the Dual 
 House system in the Austrahan colonies, under their paper 
 constitutions, has given rise. It may be worth while here to 
 allude to the system at slightly further length, mainly with a 
 view to indicate the obstacles which interfere with its smooth 
 working in the colonies, and which give colour to the local 
 objections to the system. 
 
 In England, the House of Lords is representative of a 
 long-established and influential caste which, while the cause 
 of the people against the encroachments of monarchy was its 
 own, did yeoman service for the national liberties. The right 
 of peers to an important share m the legislation of the country 
 was therefore recognised as being the natural outcome of 
 efforts made by them to curtail the powers of despotic 
 authority, and there was thus some reason for the existence 
 of the House of Lords ab initio, although there may be none 
 for its continuance on an hereditary basis. But in Australia 
 there was absolutely no reason, beyond English precedent, for 
 he establishment of Upper Houses. There was not, in the 
 Australian colonies originally, any recognised separate class 
 demanding for itself special legislative rights or even desiring 
 burden itself ■with the cares of legislation. Unfortunately 
 the effect of setting up Upper Houses there has been to foster 
 amongst wealthy and influential colonists the belief that they 
 
 ' Chapter Y.,ante,
 
 THE DUAL HOUSE SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA. 325 
 
 occupy a peculiarly lofty position as of right, and that it is 
 necessary to conduct thenaselves as if there is no identification 
 possible between their own prosperity and that of the general 
 body of the people. In other words, the institution of an 
 Upper House, in the one case, was due to the pre-existence 
 of a class whose members occupied the position of popular 
 leaders ; in the other, there were no similar circumstances to 
 justify the erection of Upper Houses, but the consequence of 
 their establishment has been to procure the rise and growth 
 of a class straining after an exceptional and privileged position 
 for itself. 
 
 It may be well that colonial seK- government should have 
 begmi on the Dual House system, for the difficulty of working 
 it on that footing has been exposed from the outset ; and being 
 a part of a ready-made paper constitution, it will be far easier 
 to remedy or modify it than if it had been gradually evolved 
 by the necessities of the nation. That the system has acted 
 injuriously for the immediate uaterests of the colonists, seems 
 evident enough. Life in Australia, and notably in Victoria, is 
 now divested of much of its former ease for the working class. 
 By slow but certain degrees, the struggle for existence is 
 beginning there to assume acuter phases. Men and women 
 work harder than they used to do and for smaller returns. 
 For the working man, any one of the Australian colonies is 
 still a paradise, but a paradise where exhausting toil and 
 thought for the morrow are gradually trending upon the 
 normal conditions of ' a fair day's work for a fair day's wage.' 
 And why ? Let anyone who cares to supply a ready answer 
 peruse the parliamentary records of Victoria, the colony 
 which has been foremost in political activity. There he will 
 read a tale of Reform Bills rejected, of Land Bills thrown out, 
 of Education Bills mangled, of bitter class hatreds engendered, 
 of long-continued conmiercial depression produced and main- 
 tained, of universal discontent and trouble, caused mamly by 
 the anti-popular action of the Legislative Council — the House 
 of Lords of Victoria. Consistently and constantly that Council 
 has striven to limit the rights and to depress the condition of the 
 people, by favouring the opposing claims of a small class,
 
 326 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 until it has at length succeeded in establishing an almost 
 stationary condition of mdustrial existence as the normal 
 characteristic of the colony, in place of the rapid forward 
 development, which ' Protectionism ' by itself could not have 
 wholly checked. 
 
 ' Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever 
 makes a distinction produces rivalry,' and the tendency of 
 Upper Houses to embrace the unpopular cause is undoubtedly 
 strengthened by placing them in juxtaposition with Lower 
 Houses representative of the people. A distinction is made 
 between the functions of the two bodies, and rivalry — the 
 rivalry of enmity — follows as of course. 
 
 So long as the Dual House system, on its present basis, 
 remams unaltered in Victoria, an unsettled, restless condition 
 and consequent industrial depression vdW be stimulated by 
 the purely selfish action of one of the two Houses, and 
 we may fairly conclude from past evidence, as well as from 
 the nature of the case, that the House whose selfishness 
 will be the most powerful to retard the progress of the 
 colony, will be the one that sets itself in opposition to 
 measures designed for the extension of the privileges of the 
 people. At the same time, the Lower House — the Assembly 
 — has been and probably will continue to be impelled, by the 
 merest spirit of opposition to the Council and all its works, to 
 make its legislative proposals extravagant and mireasonable, 
 rather than moderate and therefore acceptable. For this the 
 Dual House system is responsible, and from its existence is 
 derived the tendency of Victorians to make of the course of 
 legislation a mere struggle for mastery between the two 
 Houses, and to appeal, on disputed questions, rather to the 
 passions than to the good sense of the community. With 
 regard to this, take, for instance, the question of Free Trade 
 versus Protection. The Legislative Council in Victoria has 
 usually advocated Free Trade principles, while the Lower 
 House has given its adhesion to Protectionist measures. In 
 the Free Trade endeavours of the Council we have, it may be 
 observed, a notable exception to the general anti-popular
 
 TIIE DUAL HOUSE SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA. 327 
 
 tenour of its legislation ; still the fact need not be credited to 
 the beneficent intentions or to the greater wisdom of the 
 Council. On the contrary, the difference between the two 
 Houses on this particular point is little more than evidence of 
 the uuworkability of the Dual House system. For it is probably 
 the bitter antagonism between the two Houses that produces 
 so essential a difference of view ; and with regard to many 
 other important questions, divergencies of opinion between 
 Council and Assembly are to be largely accounted for by the 
 prevalence of this feeHng of mutual hostility. But assuming 
 it to be otherwise ; supposing the Free Trade-ism of the Council 
 to be due to a pure and intelligent desire to forward the pros- 
 perity of the colony, the fact, if fact it be, may place the 
 Comicilin a more favourable light, but it does not advance the 
 argument in favour of the Dual House syscem any further. 
 For the hoisting of the Free' Trade banner by the Council does 
 little beyond exciting the Assembly to an extravagant extreme 
 of Protectionism ; and Protectionist policy, being associated in 
 the minds of the people with the maintenance of the power of 
 the Assembly as long as the Council is anti-Protectionist, is 
 piu-sued by them with an insistance fervent enough to override 
 the adverse vote of their natural enemy, the Council. So with 
 land legislation ; each House strams every nerve to gain the 
 mastery over the other, only in a more marked degree. In 
 this case the breach is wider, because each side is firmly con- 
 vinced of the justice of its own cause ; but, m either case, the 
 proposals for legislation and the opposition to them at length 
 come to assume an extreme form, and the colony is divided 
 into two hostile camps, one for the Council policy, right or 
 'MTong, the other for the Assembly policy, wrong or right. 
 
 There are one or two considerations which affect the work- 
 ing of the Dual House system in Australia which it is necessary 
 to bear in mind, as constituting an all important difference 
 between the system as practised there, and as established in 
 England. Let me begin my allusion to them by asking what 
 would be said in England if it were seriously proposed to 
 accord to peers the right to vote for members of the House of 
 Commons ? Surely the majority of the nation would scout the
 
 328 BONDS OF DISU:SION, 
 
 proposition as intolerable, so long as the peers had a House of 
 their own. Yet in England the admission of the right of peers 
 to vote formembers of Parliament would, in all probability, have 
 little or no direct effect on the composition of the Lower House, 
 because the number of peers is too limited to permit of their 
 exercising any numerical influence over parliamentary elections. 
 But in the Colonies, the electors who have the exclusive right to 
 vote for members of the Council have also the right to vote for 
 members of the Assembly. Besides, there the number of electors 
 for the Council forms a large proportion of the total electoi"ate : 
 so, as they can duplicate their votes by voting for Assembly as 
 well as for Council members, it is evident that they may acquire 
 a preponderating share of power by exercising a great direct 
 influence over the election of the Assembly, in addition to 
 choosing members for that house which is supposed to be 
 peculiarly representative of their own views. By the opera- 
 tion of this system of voting, the Council is furnished with a 
 certain number of supporters in the Assembly, and its position 
 for insisting on its own course is strengthened, a result all 
 sufficient to excite the dislike of those electors who possess only 
 the right of voting for Assembly members, to a dual system 
 which appears to them to trick them out of the logical con- 
 sequence of their natural numerical preponderance. 
 
 There is yet another consideration worthy of mention. In 
 the Australian colonies, members of the Legislative Councils 
 are not, as in England, men of a class long recognised as 
 being, in point of social standing, far above the commonalty. 
 There is none of that instinctive reverence for a member of 
 Council that the average Englishman feels for a peer. The 
 lowliest in the land does not teel himself separated from the 
 most highly placed by an impassable social gulf, as he does in 
 England, and the member of Council is not regarded with any 
 peculiar respect, either by reason of his membership or of his 
 position in society. Where such comparatively small differences 
 of level are found, the community is naturally unwilling to 
 surrender exceptional advantages to any portion of its citizens, 
 and is inclined to watch jealously the proceedings of those to 
 whom special privileges have been given.
 
 THE DUAL HOUSE SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIii. 329 
 
 On the other hand, the privileged class casts an equally 
 suspicious eye upon the community, and is quick to stigmatise 
 each assertion of popular claims as an unwarrantable inter- 
 ference with its own rights. Hence, the extreme bitterness? 
 of the contests between the two Houses in colonies where 
 political activity is great, and where the magnitude of the 
 cause at issue comprises directly and palpably the dearest 
 interests of the entire population. 
 
 It is far from my intention to enter into a discussion of 
 the benefits or evils that might be expected from a system of 
 government by one House. All schemes for government on a 
 popular basis are little more than so many make-shift com- 
 promises, and are therefore necessarily highly imperfect and 
 open to criticism. That any scheme should work fairly well 
 is all that can be expected. The opinion that a one House 
 system in the Colonies would fulfil that condition may be 
 an erroneous one ; but there can be little room for doubt that 
 the dual system, as it prevails to-day in the Colonies, must be 
 greatly modified if it is to continue to exist at all, or to pro- 
 duce results satisfactory to the mass of the colonists. It is in 
 Victoria that its unworkability has, so far, been most keenly 
 felt. It needs only a greater pressure of population on space, 
 in the other Australian colonies, to stimulate political activity 
 in them to a high degree, and to bring home to each of them 
 the consequent necessity for radically altering the Dual House 
 arrangements in their existing constitutions. 
 
 Kule by two Houses is too often a convenient synonym for 
 the worst form of rule by one alone — the one that thwarts the 
 popular will. It was so wholly in England not so very long 
 ago ; it is still so to a very pronounced extent on all questions 
 which do not command a very large share of public interest, 
 and on which the Lords believe they may safely differ from 
 the House of Commons. On all Irish matters, for instance, 
 until the interest of the public is fairly aroused, the sole 
 legislative body is the House of Lords— the uncompromising 
 opponent of the progress and prosperity of Ireland. As with 
 .England, so with the Colonies. The Council in any colony —
 
 330 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 the House of the few — can at all times cripple the legislative 
 functions of the House of the many, and if this difficulty is to 
 be successfully met, the interminable power of the Upper 
 House to defeat or mangle Bills sent up from the Lower 
 House, must be strictly bounded by some reasonable limit. 
 If it be thought wise to retain the principle of the Dual House 
 system, provision must be made that the will of a propor- 
 tionate majority of the people's representatives shall become 
 the law of the land without further reference to a hostile 
 Council ; or that a twice or thrice passed measure, which has 
 been rejected by the Council as often as passed by the Assembly, 
 need not be again submitted to the criticism of the obstructive 
 House. 
 
 In all probability, future modifications will proceed upon 
 the lines indicated, but it is in the highest degree improbable 
 that they will be effected except at the cost of much political 
 and social disturbance, and of many a legislative dead-lock. 
 
 Pabt II. 
 
 PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION. 
 
 So much misconception prevails amongst Englishmen as 
 to the efl'ect produced by payment of members of colonial 
 Legislatures, in stimulating the growth of corrupt practices in 
 all departments of colonial politics, that an examination of 
 the subject which may tend to place in a clearer light the 
 reason of the practice, and the absence of any necessary con- 
 nection between it and political corruption, may be fitly 
 enough introduced into a work that deals, to some extent, 
 with various incidents attaching to colonial self-government. 
 At any rate, the interest taken by many politicians and writers 
 in the subject is unquestionably great, and that alone may 
 serve as a sufficient excuse for dealing with it here. 
 
 Englishmen are never tired of prating of the corruption 
 that distinguishes the working of self-government in the
 
 PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION. 33l 
 
 Australian colonies. It is certain that it is present there, 
 for all governments must pass through certain stages of the 
 corruption malady before the process of fermentation has been 
 perfected and the mass works itself clear. But colonial cor- 
 ruption is integrity of the brightest and most conspicuous type, 
 •when brought into comparison with that which distinguished 
 parliamentary government in England up to some fifty years 
 back. At that date, too, political and parliamentary pro- 
 ceedings were model expositions of immaculate purity, when 
 compared with the jobberies actively assisted by the advisers 
 of His Gracious Majesty King George III. of ever blessed 
 memory, and influentially supported by the royal counte- 
 nance. If we wish to find more recent examples of gross 
 corruption, let us turn not to colonial or American history for 
 those of greatest magnitude, but to the recorded proceedings 
 of European States administered by individual wills. Let us 
 instance the late French Empire, the past and present Rus- 
 sian despotisms, the rule of a Spanish Queen, of petty Italian 
 despots, of a Turkish Sultan ; let us place them side by side 
 with colonial illustrations, or even let us cull incidents at 
 random from the last general election in our own purified 
 and reformed country, if we would see that by comparison 
 with them colonial and American corruption furnishes a 
 lofty standard of morality, to which less popularly-governed 
 countries have as yet failed to attain. Of courtesy, the 
 courtesy that obscures the plain meaning of ordinary lan- 
 guage, the veneer that conceals the hidden thought and gives 
 colour to a false sentiment, there is in European States 
 enough and to spare, and in the Australasian colonies a very 
 meagre supply. But these esthetic refinements are scarcely 
 proof of excellence in political arrangements, or even of the 
 absence of corruption. They are rather indicative of the 
 absorption of power by a leisure class, versed exclusively in 
 the amenities of discourse, than significant of the healthy 
 participation of the lower orders in the government of the 
 country, through the medium of popular, energetic, and 
 earnest representatives. 
 
 It was during the period when parliamentary eloquence in
 
 332 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 England was most plentifully besprinkled with classical tropes 
 and similes, when polish of language and style were the con- 
 venient substitutes for profundity of thought or depth of 
 sympathy with popular needs, that corruption and jobbery 
 ran their greatest riot. Language, not legislation, assertion 
 of pri\dlege, not performance of a delegated duty, were the 
 chief requisites for parliamentary success ; and corruption in 
 all things, not correction of abuses, was the invariable object 
 to which the struggles of everyday political life were directed. 
 How could it be otherwise when all power and all influence 
 were monopolised by a small but rapacious clique ? 
 
 The more limited the basis of representation, the less 
 limited is the monarchy of a ruling class composed of men of 
 wealth and leisure, whose guiding principle is the preservation 
 of their own narrow monopoly of the right to misrule. The 
 more pronounced their general tone of courtesy, the less 
 likely is it that they concern themselves with discussing 
 questions of popular reform ; for as soon as they do this, 
 violent language is sure to take the place of studied courtli- 
 ness of expression. 
 
 The revenue, the multitudinous sinecure posts of emolu- 
 ment, the seats in Parliament, were conveniently apportioned 
 between the members of one small ruling class ; and debate 
 was rather confined to general declamation, or to contests of 
 invective between rival leaders on points of personal interest, 
 than used as an instiiiment for ventilating and asserting urgent 
 popular demands. There was none of the ' Sfeva indignatio ' 
 which is the invariable accompaniment of conflict between 
 distmct classes at opposite ends of the social scale. The voice 
 of the people was unheard in the House of Commons, and 
 there was nothmg to interfere with the general tone of suavity 
 and harmony of the assembly. Courtesy was, however, an 
 incident of the situation rather than a merit. For no sooner 
 had the wants of the lower orders found forcible expression, 
 than the polished classical orators were found capable of 
 descending to a depth of abusive and incendiary language with 
 which colonial debaters would with difficulty vie, and such as 
 would not be tolerated in any colonial legislative House.
 
 PAYMENT OF MEMBEES AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION, 333 
 
 The truth is, that general suavity of bearing or poHsh of 
 language, when characteristic of a pojDular legislative assembly, 
 are indications of a spirit of contentment with existing con- 
 ditions, and of a general desire to do as little as possible 
 towards reforming them. What business has to be transacted 
 is done mechanically, perfunctorily, and badly, according to 
 recognised forms. Such a body can never be representative of 
 the people at large, for if it were so, it would be overwhelmed 
 with business, and that of a type that, where there is an 
 aristocratic opposition, is eminently productive of envy, hatred, 
 malice, and all uncharitableness. A courteous legislative 
 assembly, therefore, must be one which is not mider popular 
 control. It is, therefore, practically unchecked in its power of 
 disposing of public offices, or of appropriating the public 
 money according to its own sense of the fitness of things. 
 Who can doubt that power so milimited and centralised would 
 be utilised by the possessors of it entirely or chiefly for their 
 own benefit ? that the habit of doing so would, m time, acquire 
 the strength of an organised system, to be branded by an un- 
 appreciative posterity wdth the name of — Corruption ? 
 
 ' In a democratic comitry,' says an Australian writer, ' cor- 
 ruption exists only as a parasite or adventitious disease, caused 
 by a number of dishonest men trying to live by politics in any 
 possible way. In England, it existed as a system established 
 for the purpose of poisoning the springs of government, and 
 diverting; them fi-om their several channels solely for the benefit 
 of a ruling caste, who saw power slipping from their hands, 
 and were ready to resort to the most degrading means to 
 retain it.' The reasonmg seems to be, that the prominent 
 cause of corruption is Australia is attributable to the fact tliat 
 politicians there make a trade of their calling. Cut one may 
 perhaps be permitted to doubt, while agreeing generally with 
 these conclusions, whether the cause assigned as peculiarly pro- 
 ductive of corruption in Australia is not equally the cause of 
 it everywhere where it exists. 
 
 During the period of English history just glanced at, what 
 were politics but a trade — and that too the sole trade of a 
 class? Bargain and sale of office, of places of trust, of
 
 334 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 parliamentary boroughs, of church dignities, of all appoint- 
 ments great or small, whether in the Army, or Navy, the Law, 
 the Church, or the Civil Service, and nothing but bargain and 
 sale, go far to establish politics on general trade principles. 
 The wholesale dealers were the Lord Chancellors and heads 
 of departments ; the retail dealers were the boroughmongers, 
 members of Parliament, minor officials, and a host of sub- 
 ordinate agents. A roaring trade was politics, but its palmy 
 days are over, and the self-seeking colonial politician of to-day 
 can but hope to do a little underhand risky dabbling in the 
 local trade of politics, in feeble imitation of the open, re- 
 munerative, and extensive dealings of Englishmen more 
 fortunate in their time and opportmiity. 
 
 Between the trading politician and the professional politi- 
 cian there is this world-wide difference, that the one lives by 
 politics, the other for them. As a plunderer on an extensive 
 scale, the first is out of date nowadays, and the last is by 
 no means necessarily immoral in his aims, but may, and in 
 the colonies generally does, become a valuable custodian of 
 the charge imposed upon him by his constituency. Profes- 
 sional politicians are frequent enough there, and it is the 
 fashion both to cry down the pretensions of such to dis- 
 interestedness or capacity, and to attribute their choice of a 
 calling to the payments they derive, in most of the colonies, 
 as members of one or both of the legislative Houses. Un- 
 doubtedly many of them would not seek for membership if 
 they were not remmierated for their services ; but it is contrary 
 to the fact that the majority of them are worthless, or disposed 
 to be public wreckers. If a certain number of reckless, self- 
 seeking men are attracted to politics in the colonies to gratify 
 ambition on trade principles, it is because of the large amomit 
 of patronage unfortunately thrown into the hands of political 
 men — a consideration quite outside the inducement offered by 
 the small salaries paid to members of the legislative bodies. 
 
 It we set to work to reason ourselves mto the belief that 
 legislation, the most important because the most compre- 
 hensive in its scope, and the most wide-reaching in its effects, 
 of all businesses, is to be carried on at the expense of con-
 
 PAYJIENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL COREUPTION. 335 
 
 centration of energy and specialisation of fmiction, if, in brief, 
 we arrive at the conviction that it is better to have two 
 Houses to do legislative business badly than to have one to 
 do it comparatively well, we shall have little or no difficulty 
 in addmg, as an additional article to our creed, that the less 
 mdi\Tidual members care and know about the matters they are 
 chosen to transact, the more wisely and effectively will legis- 
 lation be conducted. But if imagination fails to grasp the 
 line of reasoning by which the major premiss is supported, it 
 is difficult to follow out the conclusion, except on the general 
 supposition that everything that is right in private life is 
 wrong in public life. That that is a principle consecrated by 
 use may be mihesitatingly admitted ; but that it is a sound 
 one may be stoutly denied. 
 
 Li legislation, as in ordinary affairs, it is desirable that the 
 men chosen for the purpose of moulding the national laws 
 should find their chief interest m politics as a busmess, rather 
 than as a recreation. The more they know about the bushiess 
 delegated to their charge, and the more they are mclined to 
 stick to it, as one calling for miremittmg attention and thought, 
 the better for the country at large. But how are such men to 
 be procured m sufficiently large numbers to constitute the 
 sense of any legislative body, miless inducements to compe- 
 tition for membersliip are held out to make pohtical life 
 attractive as a profession ? Look at the personnel of our own 
 House of Commons. If the recurrence of the same names ui 
 the lists of members year after year, election after election, 
 does not mean that a majority of the House of Commons 
 consists of professional politicians, what does it mean ? It 
 means unfortunately just the opposite, if work is to be taken 
 as the test of the applicabihty of the term, for it is certam that 
 very few of these members can pretend that they come up to 
 Westminster to practice politics. They come, not to a work- 
 room, but to a playground, where there are few workers and 
 plenty of playfellows. They are professional politicians of a 
 sort, the worst sort ; for they neither know nor care anythmg 
 about the duties of their profession. More corresponding to 
 the model professional politician are the men who Hve but for
 
 336 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 politics, and who, by strict attention to business, attain by 
 degrees to the highest offices of the State. But how infinitesi- 
 mally meagre a minority of their fellow members do these pro- 
 fessors represent. The rest were better out of the House, to 
 make room for others anxious for and interested in the national 
 business. So long, however, as the House of Commons is the 
 leisure-lounge of the rich, so long will every means be adopted 
 by the drones to prevent any considerable number of poorer 
 but more earnest politicians from supplanting them. 
 
 ' An unpaid legislature,' says John Stuart Mill, ' and an 
 unpaid magistracy, are institutions essentially aristocratic — 
 contrivances for keeping legislation and judicature exclusively 
 in the hands of those who can afford to serve without pay. 
 ... Of the able men the country produces, nine-tenths at 
 least are of the class who cannot serve without pay. ... In 
 political as in aU other monopolies, if you would stimulate 
 exertion you must throw open all monopolies.' The cry 
 against professional politicians is a cry against entrusting the 
 national business to those most interested in carrying it on in 
 the best possible way, in order to keep it as an exclusive pos- 
 session for those interested in doing it in the most careless, 
 that is, in the worst possible way. To offer an inducement to 
 capable and earnest men to become legislators is the readiest 
 means for breaking down the monopoly of uncaring, whip- 
 driven, rich legislators. And why not offer it ? ' Because,' 
 say the monopolists, ' the form of inducement suggested — a 
 money payment — can procure none but corrupt legislators.' 
 Let us be reasonable. The proceedings of a paid member will 
 be watchfully scanned by his constituents. Is corruption the 
 necessary or probable course of tactics to which poor men 
 responsible — probably more so than if unpaid — to a keen-eyed 
 constituency, will resort ? Is it not certain that bribery, cor- 
 ruption, and treating are the weapons on which our wealthy 
 legislators can rely in the last resort if so disposed '? and is it 
 not equally certain that without those means of nursing and 
 fostering venal boroughs, corruption, in the style we are 
 accustomed to in England, would be impossible ? 
 
 Let it not be supposed that bribery represents merely the
 
 PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION. 337 
 
 power of wealth to secure the return of a member. By just so 
 much as it secures the return of one does it prevent the return 
 of another. When, therefore, wealthy legislators unite their 
 efforts to keep less wealthy politicians out in the cold, by 
 refusing to sanction the payment of their services, what is this 
 but bringing the power of wealth to bear in the most extended 
 form of bribery, aimed too at the suppression of popular rights '? 
 The present system affords a fine field for the exercise of every 
 variety of corruptive influence, but to say that ' payment of 
 members ' would probably eventuate in corruption is to rashly 
 foreshadow an agreement between what Paley would call 
 ' opposite improbabilities.' The hard facts are against such a 
 supposition ; deductive reasoning is opposed to it ; there is no 
 connection between one and the other, so it may safely enough 
 be dismissed from consideration. 
 
 If it be wrong to pay those who make the laws, why 
 should it be right to pay those who carry them into execu- 
 tion ? Why should the money-prize attached to Ministerial 
 oftices be so great as to constitute a potent attraction, even to 
 men of considerable wealth, to make politics their sole pro- 
 fession, if the objection to payment of private members is 
 that it would induce them to turn their attention to nothing 
 but politics ? The principle of payment to the Executive is 
 exactly the same as that which regulates the payment of a 
 bank clerk — that is, to secure the services of the best men 
 available and to make it their interest to attend faithfully and 
 assiduously to their duties. Is not the carrying out of laws 
 dependent on their being framed efficiently to secure their 
 end ? If so, then why should it be necessary to stimulate 
 the due execution and not the right framing of a law ? ' All 
 very well,' it will be said, ' but high Ministerial officers re- 
 ceive, not payment for their services, but salaries to enable 
 them to support high social positions.' Is it really true that 
 Lord Chancellors, Prime Ministers, and others are heavily 
 subsidised in order to give a round of balls and garden 
 parties ? If so, then Lord Chancellors and Ministers should be 
 (lualilied for their posts by their capacities for social dissipa-
 
 338 BONDS OF DISUNIOX. 
 
 tion, and youth and volatility should confer the right to 
 administer the high departments of State. 
 
 "We know that this part of the Constitutional theory has 
 not yet sunk to so low a level. We know that high oflBcial 
 position requires a high expenditure to support its manifold 
 duties, but these duties are official, not social, and are paid for 
 as beinsr all in the dav's work. High official salaries are 
 paid partly for the maintenance of Ministerial salons on- a 
 respectable footing, as an official, not a social necessity ; and 
 these salaries carry with them the obligation of advancing 
 the national business. The drawing-room work is but a part 
 of the office work, and is paid for as such. Leave hair-splitting 
 as to tenns on one side and it is evident that the salary, 
 remuneration, payment, or what you will, is given to secm-e 
 efficient service — not only to secure it, but to attract it, for 
 the latter is imphed m the former — to attract men, that is, 
 to pohtics as a profession by the offer of a large money pay- 
 ment. It may be said that these payments do have the effect 
 of stimulating the best efforts of mdividual members, or that 
 at any rate they are de\ised so as to operate in that direction. 
 K that is the ca^e, it must be admitted that the Constitutional 
 theory is not averse to the payment of members, but that its 
 intention is to induce every member to devote himself ex- 
 clusively to politics ; m other words, to become a professional 
 poHtician- that the existing system, in effect, contemplates 
 general professionalism m politics as an object to be attained. 
 We know that members of the House of Connnons used to 
 be paid m order to secure theu' attendance, and as Constitu- 
 tional theories seem never to wear out through decrepitude, 
 it may reasonably be presumed that what was once desirable 
 m the -siew of the Constitution is so still, only with the 
 difference that Ministerial salaries are now substituted as 
 inducements to political work mstead of mdi^-idual pavments 
 being made Tvitli that object. Would that the result accorded 
 with the expectation, but it is clear that only a very few men, 
 of exceptional talent and industry, can hope to arrive at the 
 highest dignities of the State, and that the official payments 
 are no premium on the exercise of the talents and industry
 
 PAYJJENT OF MEMBEES A^'D COLONIAL CO EUPTION. 339 
 
 of the nineteen members out of eveiy twenty who cherish 
 membership as a privilege instead of regarding it as a duty, 
 however much they may stimulate intrigues among the 
 would-be official iudi^"idual ' outs ' to grasp at the sweets of 
 Office. The working of the system proclaims, in effect, that 
 a very li mited number of men are to be encouraged to become 
 professional pohticians for the sake of place and office, while 
 veiy large nmnbers of men are to be discouraged from taking 
 any interest in current questions by the iuducements to be- 
 come professional VL-orhing pohticians being withdrawn fi-om 
 them. This last effect is produced by the exclusion fi'om 
 membership of all who are not wealthy enough to legislate 
 without being paid for it, quite as much as by the fact that 
 the prizes are hopelessly beyond the reach of the vast majority 
 of actual members. 
 
 In a youthful and widespread community the necessity for 
 pa^-ing the members of the local Parhament is most easily 
 apparent. Inferior means of locomotion and communication 
 prevent the candidatm-e of men pursuing busy avocations 
 requiring constant personal super\ision and residing at remote 
 distances fi-om the place of assembly. The representation is 
 therefore chiefly confined to men h%-ing within the city which 
 is the seat of government. It was found that in Victoria, in 
 1858, out of a total number of sixty members of Assembly no 
 fewer than forty-five were residents in Melbourne. In all the 
 Austrahan colonies, as weU as at the Cape or iu Canada, the 
 great majority of members of the respective Assembhes were 
 resident iu the several capitals and knew Uttle or nothing of the 
 cotmtry beyond the m'ban limits. To secm-e adequate repre- 
 sentation for the countrv district, it was absolutelv necessary 
 to compensate country members for having to employ paid 
 superintendence for their private concerns ; otherwise the en- 
 tire conduct of affairs would have continued to be monopoHsed 
 by a knot of metropohtan lawyers. 
 
 But is not the reason for the advocacy of payment of 
 members m England the same as it was m the Colonies ? Is 
 it not the cost of representation in. owe ovm. country that 
 prevents representation from being representative *? Distances 
 
 z 2
 
 340 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 may be short and easily traversible in quick-running trains, 
 but still the fact that most men cannot delegate their private 
 duties to others, in order to enter on political life without 
 incurring heavy additional expense, reduces the question to 
 one of cost just as is the case in new colonies. 
 
 Supposing a wealthy class, enjoying plenty of leisure, to 
 be established in the youthful colony ; supposing railway and 
 other modes of communication to be brought to a high point 
 of perfection, then it may be said that the original reason 
 for payment of members of the Colonial Legislature falls to the 
 ground. By no means is this so. Let the rich men become 
 legislators if they can, but let poorer men have inducements 
 to strive for the honour and burden if they will. If it was 
 politic to pay members once, it is right to pay them still, for 
 the principle — the extension of representation over the widest 
 possible area to all sorts and conditions of men, so as to get 
 the benefit of the most diversified intelligence — holds good 
 equally now as then. 
 
 A paid member must, it is said, be a delegate. If by this 
 is meant a delegate with a general mandate, why not ? Is it 
 disgi'aceful to redeem pledges given on the hustmgs, or to 
 conform to the wishes of a constituency with which one can 
 conscientiously sympathise, preferably to becoming the tool 
 of a party leader ? Those Avho declaim against the evils of 
 delegation seem to think that it is better for a man to be the 
 delegate of his own political chief rather than of the con- 
 stituency to which he stands pledged. The mind obedient 
 to the crack of the party whip is all honour and purity 
 according to them ; while he who, in accordance with his 
 convictions and promises, keeps faith with the majority who 
 elected him to serve a purpose is the personification of dis- 
 honest sycophancy. He may -wreck his own hopes of personal 
 advancement by so doing ; and yet we are told that the mem- 
 ber who regards the interests of his constituents as of prior 
 importance to his own is necessarily devoid of the first princi- 
 ples of honour. 
 
 It is usually assumed — why it is impossible to say — that 
 delegates who would endeavour to give eifect to the instructions
 
 PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION. 341 
 
 of their constituents must necessarily surrender their right of 
 private judgment. Even if so— and the supposition is by no 
 means an admission — how would delegates compare in point 
 of morality with the present unpaid members of the House 
 of Commons ? Do these last never surrender their private 
 judgment, nay, even their firmest convictions, according to 
 the exigencies of party tactics ? Is it not constantly and 
 notoriously the case that party, not prmciples, moves, not 
 measures, convenience, not conviction, regulate the political 
 lives of our blameless senators '? Pledges may be broken by 
 them, principles trampled on by them, to suit the whims of 
 an intrigimig party leader, and yet ' are they all, all honour- 
 able men.' ' Let the system of representation be what it 
 may,' says John Stuart Mill, ' it will be converted into one of 
 mere delegation if the electors so choose. As long as they 
 are free not to vote, and free to vote as they like, they cannot 
 be prevented from making their vote dependent on any con- 
 dition they think fit to annex to it.' In efi'ect members of 
 Parhament will become delegates if it suits the convenience of 
 the nation that they should be such, whether they receive 
 payment or not. 
 
 But is it certam that paid members would of necessity 
 become delegates either in a general or particular sense? 
 The probabilities are not all in favour of such a result. 
 Muiisters in receipt of payment are not delegates, however 
 nearly a Premier, who has to submit the outlines of every 
 proposition for the approval of the country, may resemble one 
 by virtue of his position. Why then should private members 
 become delegates as a consequence of being paid ? Whether 
 they would so become or not would depend upon the fund out 
 of which they were paid. If out of the imperial revenue, 
 they would probably be much on the same footing with their 
 constituents as they are at present ; if out of local funds, it is 
 more hkely that they would become delegates, but only in a 
 general sense. At any rate, a member so paid would be more 
 of a delegate than he is at present, for he would certainly feel 
 himself under a greater sense of responsibility to his con- 
 stituency ; while the latter, in turn, would be more jealous of
 
 342 BOJS'DS OF DISUxNION. 
 
 the proceedings of its salaried representative, and would be 
 able to secure from liim better service. Payment out of local 
 funds would probably in time take the form of payment by 
 results — a prmciple which it might be as well to establish m 
 politics as in other things as being far and away the most 
 equitable, unless we are to reject the belief that constituencies 
 are as a rule the best judges of their own. concerns and of the 
 services rendered to them by their representatives. 
 
 To speculate thus is to wander off into a future which may 
 be far distant. In those countries, whether European, 
 American, or colonial, where members of the legislative bodies 
 receive payment for their services, no representative has as 
 yet become the delegate m all thmgs of his constituency. The 
 inconvenience of such a system, even with much shortened 
 Parliamentary terms, would be too great to allow of the 
 practical application of such a method of representation. The 
 members of the States-General of the Dutch United Provinces 
 were delegates of the most particular type ; but m our OAvn 
 times such an arrangement as referring back to constituents 
 for instructions on every pomt of principle that might arise 
 would be out of the question. Locomotion and means of com- 
 munication may be quicker than they were, but they have not 
 been quickened so much m proportion as has the political 
 intelligence and activity of modern nations. A general man- 
 date renewable periodically may be possible and even desirable, 
 but a particular mandate for every detail of legislation would 
 be foiuid miAvorkable in practice as involving constant mcon- 
 venience and political ferment on the one hand, constant risk 
 and expense on the other. 
 
 A Parliament, the members of which are paid, need not 
 by any means be a perfect assemblage, but it Avill in all 
 probability contain a far greater percentage of men of serious 
 purpose than are to be found in an unpaid legislative chamber. 
 It might possibly consist of men to whom the annual payment 
 would be a matter of small consideration ; but even in that case 
 it would throw open the entrance to political life to a keener 
 competition than can be expected in England at present. The 
 mere dread of bemg supplanted by a large number of possible
 
 PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL COERUPTION. 343 
 
 rivals -would stimulate the energies and the liberal instincts 
 of members, however wealthy. The system, too, would tend 
 to prevent the re-election of men who had shown themselves 
 incapable of work or unwilling to midertake it, of those who 
 obstructed legislation for obstruction's sake, or who turned the 
 political debatmg-gromid into an arena for the continual 
 exliibition of private animosity. 
 
 Pajanent of members is not an ideally perfect system. 
 Nothing is ui political arrangements. The most that can be 
 expected of the best is that it will not work as badly as the 
 worst. But this system of paymg members is not so bad as 
 the one prevailing in England to-day. It has, on the whole, 
 worked well in the comitries in which it is in use, and that is 
 high praise considering the adverse conditions interfering with 
 its fair workuig. In the Australian colonies in especial, ex- 
 cessive centraHsation in the hands of Government of business 
 midertakings usually conducted in other countries by private 
 enterprise has introduced an element of corruption into 
 political dealmgs which is usually placed to the account of 
 ' payment of members ' by people too careless to analyse cause 
 and effect. In the United States the system is held answer- 
 able for evils entirely unconnected with it as a consequence, 
 but which permeate through the political and social hfe of the 
 people. The immense area of patronage thro^vn open to every 
 member of the Legislature, as the result of the periodical re- 
 distribution of every official appointment, down to that of the 
 pettiest post-office clerk in the most remote corner of the 
 Union, furnishes an incentive to men to become political 
 jobbers, incentives such as the small salaries of members of 
 the Legislature could never furnish. 
 
 It is unfortmiate that a vicious principle can never be 
 associated with another, however harmless m itself, without 
 impairing the benefits that might have flowed from the 
 unhampered operation of the latter. Good and bad are con- 
 founded together in sweeping condemnation by indiscrimi- 
 nating mankind, ever ready to accept what they are willing to 
 believe. In Australia, and also in the United States, ' payment 
 of members ' and ' manhood suffrage,' the two bugbears of wise
 
 344 EOI^DS OF DISUNION. . 
 
 and wealthy men of leisure, are written ddwn by them as the 
 authors of all the e\'ils attendant on the otherwise excellent 
 working of thoroughly democratic forms of government, because 
 it suits their inclinations that there the fault should be placed. 
 The allegation is a false one. It may be unhesitatingly 
 asserted that no one who has attentively and impartially seen 
 for himself the actual political conditions of those countries 
 can fail to be satisfied that the two alleged causes of evil are, 
 by themselves, at once beneficial and necessary to their 
 prosperity. 
 
 There is nothing so calcvilated to infuse activity of political 
 interest throughout a commmaity as the throwing open of the 
 possibility of entrance to the Legislature to worth miaccompa- 
 nied by wealth, to all men of ability, however devoid of grace of 
 manner and polish of diction. It is one of the most satisfactory 
 features of a liberal system of self-government in the Colonies 
 that it has introduced to public life a number of men who, at 
 home, would probably never have had an opportunity of an 
 audience outside the limited circle of their immediate 
 acquaintances. That these men have done excellent, useful 
 work ; that they have taken the mitiative in all the great re- 
 forming acts which mark the difference between Home and 
 colonial legislation, is conclusively shown by the local 
 Hansards and the local di\-ision-lists. It is because men of a 
 class which is part and parcel of the working mass of the 
 people make up a large proportion of the members of the 
 colonial Assemblies that legislation in the various parts of 
 Australia has always been, by comparison mth our own, 
 drastic, popular, and to the point. All the power implied in 
 working-men membership of ascertaining the requirements of 
 the multitude, and applying to them effectual remedies, is 
 notably absent from the English Legislature, and prolonged 
 outside agitation has consequently to be resorted to if urgent 
 reforms are to be pressed through Pai'liament. There, they 
 have to make their way against opposing class prejudices of 
 members who, though con\dnced of the necessity of popular 
 measures, are unwilling to concede their expediency, or who, 
 however earnest in support, must lack the knowledge which
 
 PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION. 345 
 
 practical experience of working class life can alone give. 
 However well informed, these last are never more than an m- 
 significant minority which may give shape, but cannot impart 
 life, to the measures it advocates. So, popular legislation is 
 rendered sIoav, partial, and shifty ; ambiguous, too, m meaning 
 and construction, instead of being terse, clear, and easily 
 workable. 
 
 Colonial statutes cannot claim an absolute degree of 
 efficiency or thoroughness, but the materials for improving 
 them are always to hand, and it takes but little time m the 
 Colonies for a badly-framed measure to be superseded by a 
 better. The men whose chief interest is in forward progress 
 are present in force in the Legislative Assemblies, and are 
 ready and eager to push on reforms to completion. Not to 
 finahty — for such a state is neither to be expected or desired, 
 but so as to comprehend the popular wants of the day. This 
 is the stamp of member of which every legislative body term- 
 ing itself representative stands in the greatest need ; because 
 the aim of legislation should be to give as fair play to the 
 legitimate aspirations of the lower orders as to those of the 
 upper classes. Many will difi'er in toto from this view. ' Let 
 laws be made,' they will tell us, ' for the behoof of the pro- 
 pertied classes, as those who have the greatest stake in the 
 country, and let the law-makers be of the " great stake " class, 
 men who have everything to lose and notliing to gain.' They 
 assert, in effect, that the wealthy mterests of the Idiigdom are 
 those which are most in need of privilege-conferring legislation. 
 Is it in any sense true that those who have nothing to gain are 
 as interested in good legislation as those who have all to gain ? 
 Which of any two men has the greatest stake at issue, depend- 
 ing upon the course that Government may take ; the man who 
 need anticipate no more than decreased luxury, even fi'om 
 the worst of measures, or he to whom bad government 
 brings scanty food and low wages ? — the man of leisure, m- 
 different to the wish to better his condition, or the humble 
 toiler, feverishly anxious to avail himself of every slice of legis- 
 lation that may by possibility afford him a fresh avenue for 
 subsistence? The answer is too plain for argument. The
 
 346 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 man who has the greatest stake in the estabhshment of the 
 best or worst form of government is undoubtedly he who has 
 all to gain, and whose nothing to lose is all his livelihood. 
 Listen to Jeremy Bentham : — ' Property, it is continually said, 
 is the only bond of pledge and attachment to the country. Not 
 it, indeed. Want of property is a much stronger one. He 
 who has property can change the shape of it and carry it with 
 him to another country whenever he pleases. He who has no 
 property can do no such thing. In the eyes of those who live 
 by the labour of others, the existence of those by whose labour 
 they live is indeed of no value ; not so in the eyes of the 
 labourers themselves. Life is not worth more to yawners 
 than to labourers, and their own country is the only country 
 in which they can so much as hope to live. Among a hundred 
 of them are no ten exceptions to this, you will find.' 
 
 Which is the class whose well-being is most beneficial to 
 the State ? The class of those who by their work increase the 
 national wealth and prosperity, or of those who add nothing 
 to either ? Should Parliaments legislate for the benefit of 
 bread-wasters or of bread-winners — if legislation ynust be pre- 
 ferential ? of idle consumers or of thrifty producers ? of men 
 who have the means of procuring every luxury, or of those 
 who must struggle and toil to avoid starvation ? of the men 
 who enjoy fortunes, or of those who are adding to the re- 
 sources of the nation by striving for a competence ? 
 
 Heaven forbid that there should be exclusive legislation 
 for one set of men more than for another — the country has had 
 centuries of it — but if it must incline to one side or the other, let 
 it lean in favour of those who are most willing but least able to 
 help themselves, rather than toAvards those who have no 
 wants that they cannot easily supply for themselves. Let the 
 working-man have his full share of representation. If that 
 cannot be hoped for while membership of the Legislature 
 is tabooed to all save the representatives of the rich, who need 
 no preponderance of representation, let means be taken to 
 give the working-man a working majority of his own kidney. 
 If it cannot be done so long as members are not paid, by all 
 means let them be paid. It has been done in the greatest of
 
 PAYMENT OF MEMBERS AND COLONIAL CORRUPTION. 347 
 
 all free countries, in the most progressive of all communities, 
 in the United States and in Australia. Those portions of the 
 globe derive their unexampled prosperity from the reign of 
 the working-man, rendered possible by the system of payment 
 of members. 
 
 The privileges of the wealthy stand on the most secure 
 footing where the working-man is king, for the kingship is 
 representative of those whose interest is the universal in- 
 terest. There, the demands of the rich for exclusive social and 
 political supremacy may be scouted as fanciful, their would-be 
 social distinctions may be ignored as presumptuous ; but 
 where the paid member, the poor man's representative, holds 
 undisputed sway, legitimate rights are best preserved and 
 equitable claims of property chiefly respected. > 
 
 ' The above (Part II.) appeared as an article in the Westminster 
 Review for July 1883.
 
 348 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 IMPEEIAL FEDERATION — CONCLUSION. 
 
 Perhaps some future historian will be tempted to enter into 
 colonial history more thoroughly than I have done, with a 
 view to demonstrate how each one of the colonies could 
 furnish its all-compelling ' Bonds of Disunion ' in the inci- 
 dents of its direct subordination to or legislative connection 
 with England. For my part, I have confined myself to 
 treating of those only of our colonies which appear to me 
 most typical for the purposes of this book, and which present 
 a comparison ready to hand between their condition to-day 
 imder self-government, and but a few years ago under the 
 direct rule of the imperial power. On the subject of the ad- 
 muristration of our Crown colonies I have said nothing, for, 
 however injurious to them may be the application of the 
 principle of government from a distant centre, the considera- 
 tions relatmg to them must materially dilfer from those which 
 are suggested by the experiences and circumstances of free 
 colonial communities, composed of populations of British 
 race. 
 
 I have alluded in the mtroductory chapter to the question 
 of Imperial Federation, and have in doing so claimed for this 
 work that it would show hi unmistakable fashion that the ten- 
 dency of centralised imperial rule over the prmcipal British 
 colonies was to create feelings of distrust between the 
 mother-country and her dependencies that would, if the 
 imperial system had been persisted in, have led to acts of 
 positive hostility on either side such as might in all likelihood 
 have resulted in the disruption of the Empire. I have there
 
 IMPEEIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 349 
 
 also given my reasons for supposing that no Federal Council, 
 however carefully limited its functions might be to matters 
 of imperial concern, could fail to intermeddle with the internal 
 concerns of the Colonies. Also I have, I trust, established a 
 fair ground for supposmg that if such a Council were to be 
 attempted to be formed, it is doubtful in the extreme whether 
 the Colonies would be willing to concede a preponderating 
 share of authority in it to England ; that it would be still 
 more doubtful whether in course of time England would not 
 find herself under the necessity of taking only a subordinate 
 part in its deliberations ; and that if England's claim to the 
 foremost position should be rejected the entire federation 
 scheme would fall to the ground. 
 
 If centralisation of colonial rule in London has been ti*ied 
 in times past and found miserably wanting' in all the requisites 
 of good government, is it likely that even in a modified form 
 it would give happier results in the future ? That is the 
 question to which I would now supply an answer by dealing 
 further -with the suggestions of the advocates of federation ; for 
 federation, if accomplished on the lines laid do^\Ti, can mean 
 nothine; short of centralisation of colonial rule m the hands of 
 the federal leader. 
 
 It may be as well to deal briefly with plans ha\'ing for their 
 immediate object the representation of the Colonies in the 
 House of Commons, for no serious-minded person can suppose 
 that either England or the Colonies would consent to their 
 being put into practice. The vote of a ' corner ' composed of 
 colonial representatives might sound the death-knell of the 
 most popular Ministry and the most urgently-needed measures 
 of the day, and the bare possibility of such a contingency is 
 sufficient of itself to condemn the proposed arrangement. If 
 the experiment were ever to be tried, the colonial members 
 might possibly be found useful for party purposes ; but as hi 
 order to be really representative the number of colonial 
 members must periodically increase in proportion to the ex- 
 panding populations of the Colonies, it might result that alien 
 representatives despatched fi-om the Antipodes, from Canada,
 
 350 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 and from the Cape, would in time become the arbiters of 
 Enghsh political measures and the controllers of English 
 Legislatures. 
 
 The probability, however, is that the claim of the colonial 
 members to a voice in general legislation would speedily be voted 
 intolerable, and that their right of interference would soon be 
 limited to criticisms on colonial measures — criticisms to which 
 the House of Commons would be disposed to pay only a scant 
 and ignorant attention that would bring prominently before 
 colonial populations the contempt accorded to the treatment 
 of their affairs at home. The Colonies are daily becoming 
 proportionately more imperious than England herself, and can 
 any one in his senses suppose that they would yield to English 
 members of Parliament the power of regulating any matters 
 relating to the Colonies while the right of making their votes 
 felt in English politics was denied to colonial representatives ? 
 Those who think so mistake indeed the dispositions of free 
 colonists. 
 
 But one word more from another point of view. Nothing 
 can more conclusively show the incapacity of the English 
 Legislature for dealing with any but purely English bvisiness 
 than does London legislation for Ireland. Irish members 
 have but to be sincere in the expression of beliefs founded on 
 acquaintance with the real condition of Ireland to have every 
 abusive epithet at the command of an unsympathetic English 
 press indignantly showered upon them. They have only to 
 be impassioned in defence of the local liberties of their 
 country to be treated with contumely and the accusation of 
 the foulest motives. They have but to insist on procuring 
 indispensable, drastic measures of reform in order to be 
 denied access to the House of Commons ; and when the Irish 
 party has been thus temporarily gagged, measures of unreason- 
 ing coercion, such as under no circumstances would be allowed 
 to be applied to England, are presented to Ireland as the expres- 
 sion of the sense of the United Parliament of Great Britain 
 and Ireland. Even when, in submission to absolute necessity, 
 the House of Commons finds itself forced to concede to Ireland 
 the very reforms for insisting on which the more zealous of
 
 IMPEKIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 351 
 
 the Irish members have suffered contemptuous expulsion and 
 arbitrary imprisonment, it can balance the pain of the conces- 
 sion by the comforting assurance that the House of Lords 
 may be safely relied upon to cut to shreds whatever beneficial 
 features any portion of Irish legislation may contain. What 
 does this show but that the narrow barrier of St. George's 
 Channel is wide enough to prevent Irish matters from being 
 either intelligently or considerately treated in England ? also 
 that England is quite unfitted to legislate for any but its own 
 requirements. Then how would it be with Colonies separated 
 from England by the half-distance of the globe ? Long 
 intervals of distance cannot fail to promote a complete 
 paralysis of interest between countries remote from one 
 another, and ignorance coming to the aid of lack of interest 
 would speedily ensure a type of legislation as unpalatable to 
 the colony whose representatives would be in a minority in 
 the British Parliament as English Irish legislation is to the 
 Irish. The stronger the colonial opposition the harsher and 
 more accentuated would grow the hostility between the home 
 and the colonial members, and the more embittered the 
 conflict between the home and the colonial press, until the 
 worst features of Irish mismanagement would be attempted to 
 be reproduced in our dealings with the Colonies — a mode of 
 treatment that the latter would certainly not tolerate. 
 
 The plan breaks down hopelessly under examination, and 
 it is rejected even by so ardent an imperialist as Earl Grey.' 
 That nobleman gives as his main reason for its rejection, that 
 the colonial members when on the Opposition side of the 
 House would be debarred from free communication with the 
 advisers of the Crown — a technical point of its kind, but 
 powerful enough of itself to be a fatal bar. He might 
 have added, had he been disposed to deal more broadly with 
 the question, that it would be open to colonial members on 
 the Government benches to attain to the highest offices of the 
 State, and that it might happen that those members might at 
 some time form the majority of an English Ministry. In 
 such a case the interest and the business of the colonial 
 
 ' See Earl Grey's article in the Nineteenth Century for June 1879.
 
 352 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 members elevated to office would be no longer with the 
 Colonies, but would be mainly confined to English legislation — 
 a condition of things that would be considered unbearable by 
 both England and the Colonies. Either, then, colonial 
 members must be introduced into the home Parliament on an 
 exclusive basis, or they must be left out altogether. The 
 former plan would be productive of conditions intolerable to 
 the Colonies, and the adoption of the latter would ultimately 
 become necessary — only it might under certain circumstances 
 present the appearance of a forcible expulsion of colonial 
 members. 
 
 Let it be here again repeated that the attention of legisla- 
 tors ought to be devoted, primarily, and as exclusively as 
 possible, to the concerns of their own country. Government is 
 at best but an inefficient machine, and its mefficiency is to be 
 measured by its opportmiities for legislation. The smaller the 
 area which any governmg body has to admuiister, the smaller 
 is the chance of misgovernment and error. On the other 
 hand, the greater the multiplicity of interest for which a 
 governing body is to be provided, the more probable it is that 
 government will be a series of misatisfactory mistakes. It 
 must surely be admitted that even popular Governments 
 of the best description can but furnish as their record of 
 legislation a series of hand-to-mouth compromises — com- 
 promises based on views of temporary expediency ; that to 
 make of Acts of Parliament fairly efiective machines for any 
 immediate purpose in view must require the concentrated 
 intelligence, attention, and concurrence of the vast majority of 
 a nation for long antecedent periods ; and that fresh circum- 
 stances are perpetually arising in the nation's life which demand 
 for their consideration indefatigable toil, the minutest examina- 
 tion, and the most thoughtful application of principles old or 
 new. Admit this, and the conclusion is imavoidable that a 
 country which would govern itself decently well cannot afford 
 to devote its attention to its Imperial rather than to its OAvn 
 local concerns. 
 
 Not so, however, thinks Earl Grey. In his opinion the 
 Imperial interest is first and foremost. He would therefore
 
 IMPERIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 353 
 
 employ the valuable time of the advisers of the Crown in 
 interfering with the commercial regulations of the Colohies in 
 order to assimilate English and colonial customs tariffs on a 
 Free Trade basis. According to him, the protectionist tariffs 
 of most^of our colonies are antagonistic to the interests of 
 Englarf'd as well as destructive of their own. Of this there 
 can be no reasonable doubt ; but it is impossible to believe 
 with Earl Grey that either remonstrance or dictatorial legisla- 
 tion from a Council at home, or from the Crown itself, will for 
 a moment tend to bring the colonists to wiser views. On the 
 contrary,, any proceedings on England's part directed to that 
 end will only stimulate colonial protectionists to greater 
 excesses. Nationalities rarely or never arrive at sound eco- 
 nomical principles for their own government until internal 
 pressure — the growing contrast between progress and poverty 
 — demands Free Trade as the only remedy for a distressed 
 condition. In England Free Trade was scouted as an absurdity 
 until it was seen to be the natural, the sole efficacious antidote 
 for the people's emptiness of stomach. Sheer starvation it was 
 that brought conviction of the folly of Protection, and sheer 
 necessity alone will bring conviction to protectionist colonies. 
 So long as the masses of the colonial populations are well-to- 
 do, so long will we find that English exhortations to Free 
 Trade will be regarded by them as impertinent interferences 
 with their rights of internal legislation, and the hand that 
 would administer the healing medicine will be repulsed with 
 a vigour proportioned to the strength of the intention to force 
 a remedy upon them. No amount of imperial legislation or 
 advice could make the Colonies Free Traders, but it might 
 and very probably would lead them into the adoption of an 
 aggravated system of Protection specially directed against 
 ourselves. 
 
 Again, Earl Grey would cement the political tie between 
 England and her Colonies by forming a Council of colonial 
 agents at home with power to advise the Crown on matters of 
 imperial concern. But let us ask his lordship how he pro- 
 poses to work out his project. Is the Crown to act on the 
 advice of the colonial agents in Council or not ? If the 
 
 A A
 
 354 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 former, then the imperial politics of any one colony must 
 either be regulated by the vote of a majority of the members 
 of the Comicil — however unpalatable the decision arrived at 
 may be to the colony affected, and however little to its taste 
 the composition of the majority may be — or else the Crown 
 will be enabled to exercise its own discretion and so to 
 arrogate to itself the right to direct colonial policy. There 
 can be no doubt whatever that no one of our colonies would 
 consent to place any part of its external policy under the 
 charge of a Colonial Comicil formed as suggested, nor would 
 the Colonies for a moment permit the Crown to regulate for 
 them matters of which they would be apt to consider them- 
 selves the most competent judges. 
 
 The imperial policy of a realm is but a conventional term 
 for the general tenour of the aggregate of the local policies of 
 different parts of the whole empire, and to effect an alteration 
 in imperial policy is therefore equivalent to eflectmg a modi- 
 fication in the local policy of each colony to the extent re- 
 quired for the new departure. For mstance, in this very matter 
 of commercial policy to which Earl Grey specially invites 
 attention, it must be evident that a system of Free Trade 
 throughout the empire could not be erected without radically 
 altering the fiscal arrangements of nearly every one of our 
 colonies. Or take the question of a mutual association for 
 offensive and defensive purposes. As the essence of the 
 proposition relating to that is, that every part of the empire 
 should furnish its proportionate quota to the expenses of the 
 imperial armament, it follows that a portion of each colonial 
 revenue must yearly be voted for the pm'pose, and that can 
 only be done by local taxation direct or indirect m each 
 colony ; in other words, local colonial legislation must always 
 be the groundwork of imperial policy, and to impose the 
 latter upon the Colonies would be equivalent to demandhig 
 from them adaptations of their local principles of legislation 
 to imperial requirements. 
 
 But suppose, as is only too probable, that any one of the 
 colonies distinctly refuses to acquiesce in the measures 
 advised by the Comicil or sanctioned by the Crown, does Earl
 
 BIPERIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 355 
 
 Grey imagine that the rest of the Confederation is to set to 
 work to coerce the recalcitrant member into submission ? 
 We are wiser than we were in the days when Earl Grey 
 himself ineffectually attempted to make the Colonies the 
 catspaw of Downmg Street ; and it cannot seriously be 
 supposed that coercion in any form or shape would ever be 
 resorted to. If coercion were to be attempted, the miwieldy 
 confederation must infallibly fall to pieces. The Australian 
 colonies, some years ago, were frank enough to inform us that 
 they would no longer consent to have their hands tied by 
 clauses in their Constitution Acts binding them down to a 
 specified course with regard to differential duties betweei 
 colony and colony. We pocketed the affront and let them do 
 as they pleased, and so we would have to do again under 
 similar circumstances. Whatever com^se might approve it- 
 self to the Crown or to a majority of the Council would, then, 
 be merely the declaration of an abstract principle incapable 
 of being enforced except at the risk of the certaui dismtegra- 
 tion of the empire ; and being, in fact, miaccompanied by a 
 ccmpelling sanction, would be as valueless as the resolutions 
 o! a village debating club. Worse than that, the assertion of 
 £ policy which could not be imposed on any dissenting 
 member of the Confederation would certainly bring the decrees 
 of the central consultative body, as we may call it, uito well- 
 merited contempt, to the loss of the dignity and real power 
 of the imperial Government which endorsed those decrees as 
 the embodiment of its o"\vn imperial policy. 
 
 Federation and centraHsation are convertible terms. To 
 federate the empire for particular purposes would be to 
 rule its constituent members from London for all purposes ; 
 for, as has been shouii, imperial and local politics are the 
 reciprocals of each other, and interference with the one is 
 intermeddling with the other. The colonists tliemselves are 
 quick enough to perceive that this is so, and this is promi- 
 nently the conviction in the Australian colonies, no one of 
 which has yet been able to agi'ee upon a plan of inter-colonial 
 federation with any other colony in its own group because of 
 the impossibiHty of separating local from uiter-colonial 
 
 aa2
 
 356 EONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 interests. If two adjacent colonies, between whose laws, 
 usages, occupations, and institutions there is a very general 
 similarity, and in both of which there is a strong belief in the 
 advantages derivable from federation between them, cannot 
 find a via media for a loose federal union, is it reasonable to 
 suppose that far-distant colonies — between whom and the 
 mother-country there is no apparent community of interest ; 
 whose laws differ widely even in principle fi"om the laws of 
 England ; whose inhabitants are rapidly diverging even in 
 physical type from the type of the parent stem, and whose 
 satisfaction with their present systems of government is 
 intensified by contrast between their present circumstances 
 under self-rule and their past unprosperity when subordinated 
 to the domination of Downing Street — would ever of their own 
 consent commit themselves to any scheme of federal union 
 with England which might subject them once again to be 
 made the sport of the Avhims of English officials — or of future 
 Earl Greys ? 
 
 Some colonists there undoubtedly are who would willir.gly 
 consent to any plan which might perchance bring them iato 
 closer contact with the English official world. And vfhsi 
 manner of men are these ? Land-monopolising colonists whc 
 would crown the edifice of their wealth with those titular dis- 
 tinctions which sycophantic loyalty conjoined with large 
 possessions may expect to claim from appreciative British 
 Ministers, and who see their opportunity in drawing closer the 
 connecting link with England ; greedy politicians hankering 
 after marks of imperial favour which may enable them to dis- 
 play the appearance of a respectability which their own 
 characters cannot supply ; and the generality of men composing 
 the small castes who in each colony set themselves in bitter 
 opposition to the aspirations of colonial populations. These 
 are men the excess of whose vaunted loyalty to English insti- 
 tutions is a proof of their disloyalty to the laws of the com- 
 munity in wliich they live, as well as evidence of their ignorance 
 of the reahties of English life, and these are the men who 
 alone among colonists give assent and feeble vigour to impos- 
 sible schemes for imperial federation.
 
 IMPERIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 357 
 
 Highly-coloured pictures of the power and magnificence of 
 the federated empire are always pleasing to the drawer, and 
 long may they remain so. But it is impossible to regard them 
 except as allegorical sketches where playful fancy revels in 
 extravagance of conception. If such an empire could not co- 
 here for a day, it is needless to examine the effect its existence 
 might produce on the universe subordinated to its federated 
 might. But suppose for the moment that federation for 
 purposes of imperial offence and defence has become a possi- 
 bility. Then it behoves us to consider the result. For argu- 
 ment's sake let us assume several premisses standing greatly in 
 need of proof. Assume, for instance, that at first the contri- 
 butions of the Colonies to the imperial armament fund are 
 contentedly paid ; that no colony cements the alliance by 
 reservuig to itself the right to grumble over the payment of its 
 quota ; that each of the colonies is willing at the commence- 
 ment to submit to the dictation of the mother-coiuitry as to 
 the objects to be attained at any time by the federal forces ; 
 and that the separate contributions may be yearly raised with- 
 out interference with the principle of local self-government in 
 any of the colonies. The schemes most plausibly advanced 
 for the purpose of federal armament are two in number. In 
 one it is suggested that England should furnish the men, ships, 
 and materiel of war, and that the Colonies shovild supply the 
 funds for the purely colonial portion of the military and naval 
 expenditure. In the other it is insisted that each colony should 
 form its own army and navy, and should allow of the employ- 
 ment of both by England for imperial purposes. 
 
 It is evident that under either plan the mother- country 
 would be rendered vulnerable in her remotest and weakest 
 colonies — at just the very points in her armour, in fact, which 
 she can least easily defend. It must also be evident that in 
 order to make the empire invulnerable at any pomt, the arma- 
 ments to be kept on foot must be of enormous proportions and 
 must be maintained at enormous expense. 
 
 The military danger would be great, the military prepara- 
 tions would at length become intolerable, and would be first 
 felt to be so by the colonies militarily most secure. The
 
 358 BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 colony wliich by reason of its superior population or resources 
 bad contributed tbe largest amount to tbe federal armament 
 fund, or wbicb, under tbe alternative plan, bad provided the 
 largest local armament for itself, and could fairly claim to be 
 tbe strongest of tbe colonies, would, in all probability, be tbe 
 first to complain of any addition to its burdens for tbe pm-- 
 pose of defending a weak and poor dependency wbicb could 
 ill afford eitber men or money. Does it not follow as of course 
 tbat tbe imperial armament must be curtailed in its dimen- 
 sions, and so tbe defensive power of tbe empire must be 
 weakened ? or else, tbat tbe objecting colony will promptly 
 release itself from tbe federal tie ? What otber consequence 
 could result ? And yet, tbe curtailment of armaments would 
 mean tbe submission of tbe leader of tbe federation to tbe dic- 
 tation of one of its parts, and would imply an amenability to 
 dictation from every otber of its parts sucb as would introduce 
 endless confusion into tbe wbole prmciple of bnperial leader- 
 ship ; wbile tbe withdrawal of the objecting colony from tbe 
 federation would mean tbe addition of our strongest colony to 
 tbe list of our possible enemies, and would demand more ex- 
 tensive armament than ever to meet tbe mcreased danger. 
 The strength of a chain is that of its weakest link ; tbe cir- 
 cumstances tbat led to tbe first withdrawal would by repe- 
 tition speedily force on other defections, and thus the 
 necessity of strengthening tbe weakest suburb of tbe empire 
 would wreck tbe scheme in toto. 
 
 A country that believes itself to be in little danger of inva- 
 sion by any outside Power will be apt to think itself entitled 
 to proportion its armaments to its own apprehension of risk, 
 and although it has been assumed, for argument's sake, that 
 the Colonies might consent to arm themselves or to pay for 
 armaments on a scale deemed fitting by imperial authorities, 
 it would be contrary to all probability to suppose tbat they 
 would for any length of time continue to provide men or money 
 on a scale which would appear to them unnecessarily high. 
 Li the end the federal armament scheme would come to this, 
 that each colony would arm itself for its own and not for 
 imperial requirements.
 
 IMPERIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 359 
 
 But notwithstanding what has just been said, let us once 
 more make an extreme assimiption. Suppose the federal 
 armament to be maintained for awhile on the most bloated 
 scale. It is difficult indeed to see how the strength of the 
 empire could fail to deteriorate under the weight. The men 
 and money given up to the mihtary exigencies of the empire 
 would, in all the Colonies, constitute an important subtraction 
 from then- productive powers. The direct economical loss 
 thus perpetually being incurred would perhaps do more to 
 weaken the Colonies than vast armaments would do to 
 strengthen them. But beyond and besides the direct economi- 
 cal loss there would be a still more serious disadvantage con- 
 sequent on the maintenance of federal forces for imperial 
 purposes, and this I would here advert to. 
 
 K a colony is justified in believing that it can always rely 
 upon imperial aid to extricate it from a difficult position, it is 
 tolerably certam that it will neither show any very serious 
 disposition to avoid unnecessary risks, nor hesitate to call upon 
 the imperial forces to extricate it from the danger it has 
 courted, preferably to stirring a finger in its own defence. 
 How often have om- African colonies, relying confidently on 
 our assistance, rushed headlong into quarrels which, if they 
 had had to provide their own means of defence, they would 
 have avoided or peacefully settled ? How often has the cer- 
 tainty of speedy military aid from England impelled them to 
 some fi-esh advance into a hostile country, or incited them to 
 some reckless outrage agamst a friendly neighbour? How 
 far, in consequence, have the frontiers of those colonies been 
 advanced beyond the abihty of the colonists themselves to 
 maintain or defend them ? 
 
 On the one hand, the self-dependent proclivities of the 
 colonists have been repressed by their belief in the certainty 
 of imperial backing, and they will never be developed while 
 England is ready at hand to help them. On the other hand 
 their greed for more territory than they can pretend to guard 
 has been aggravated by the fo-equent opportunities afi'orded 
 them by British military assistance of gratifying their grasp- 
 ing propensities. They have been taught by the miwise
 
 360 - BONDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 fostering of England to advance, not peacefully and therefore 
 substantially, not by pressing forward their boundaries foot by 
 foot in the manner of the irresistible advance of the American 
 settlers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but by the uncertain 
 and unstable process of military conquest. Yet withal, can 
 the British African colonists pretend to a tithe of the ability of 
 the unassisted Dutch Boers for military purposes ? They can- 
 not, because they have never been brought up m the sturdy 
 training-school of self-help. Can they pretend to a record of 
 successful progress to compare with that of the early North- 
 American colonies over a corresponding period of settlement, 
 beset though the latter were vnth perilous obstacles to advance- 
 ment ? Again they cannot, and for no other reason than that 
 the African colonists have never been called upon to fight their 
 own battles as the Americans were. The imperial assistance 
 so freely supplied to South Africa has had nothing but injuri- 
 ous results. It has left behind it a crop of quarrels ripe for 
 the harvesting, an unnatural extension of territory beyond the 
 unaided power of the colonists to defend — an extension to 
 stragglmg boundaries begirt with tribes whom our military 
 policy has rendered warlike and hostile ; and last, but not least, 
 it has been effectual in retarding the gro-wih of a spirit of self- 
 reliance amongst the colonists themselves. 
 
 How was it with NeAv Zealand ? So long as the assistance 
 of the imperial forces was accorded to it, the colony made 
 comparatively slight forward progress ; so soon as the New 
 Zealand colonists were thrown on their o"wn resources and left 
 to fight their own battles, self-reliance based on the necessity 
 of existence effected the victory which the British soldiery 
 could not achieve. When the regiments were withdrawn and 
 the colonists had to make the best of the situation for them- 
 selves, the efi'orts of the Maoris were speedily quelled by 
 volmiteers, not more valorous than the soldiery, but far more 
 interested in a satisfactory solution of the native difficulty ; and 
 from thenceforth commenced an unchecked era of extraordinary 
 prosperity. New Zealand and South Africa, in their recent 
 history, have impressed upon us maxims winch may be of great 
 value in our future dealings with the Colonies, and they are
 
 IMPERIAL l-EDERATION. COXCLUSION. 361 
 
 these : — Leave a nationality, however young and immature, to 
 fight its o%TO battles, and it will satisfactorily work out its own 
 destinies. Give it the unnatural stimulus of a belief in the 
 military aid of an imperial Power, and though its frontier may 
 be mmaturally distended so as to give it an appearance of 
 prosperous advance, the fomidation of its prosperity will be 
 for the time a treacherous shifting quicksand, momentarily 
 threatening to engulf the superincumbent structure. 
 
 What has imperial military assistance done for the 
 Colonies, wherever applied, whether in Africa, New Zealand, or 
 Canada ? Has it not prevented the early development of the 
 mdustrial might which alone can irresistibly war with the 
 wilderness and with the savage ? The progress of New Zea- 
 land since the entire withdrawal of the imperial forces has 
 been out of all proportion to its advance mider their protection, 
 while Canada has exhibited a healthy vigour since the curtail- 
 ment of the imperial military force maintained withm its 
 borders, such as it never gave e\ddence of when England was 
 ever ready to rush into a quarrel on behalf of some fancied 
 colonial necessity ; and the Cape Colonists will show a similar 
 spirit when they are compelled to rely upon their own re- 
 som'ces, but not till then. 
 
 Consider, again, the periodic disturbance each fresh military 
 expedition inflicts upon the peaceful march of ordinary trade 
 in the Colonies ; look at the inducements thus given to 
 thrifty colonists to become miscrupulous contractors for the 
 supply of stores and means of transport to the expeditionary 
 force, and at the tendency thus imparted to the colonial mind 
 to regard wars as blessings productive of great and easify- 
 earned pecuniary profit. Hence, the colonists come to wel- 
 come war as an excellent commercial speculation in which 
 their risks are small, their personal responsibility nothing, 
 and their gains enormous. Into what pernicious courses this 
 feeling, if widely spread, may lead a young community, it is 
 needless to inqiiire. Suffice it to say that it does not seem as 
 if South Africa, for example, can ever be peaceful so long as 
 its colonists get handsomely paid for creating disturbances 
 which they are not themselves called upon to terminate. 
 
 B B
 
 362 BOXDS OF DISUNION. 
 
 Even if the colony bad to pay the bill, there must still be 
 always a number of influential people interested in promoting 
 war when they are certain that a sufficient military force \\ill 
 be furnished by the imperial Power to make the war successful, 
 and therefore popular ; and it seems altogether impossible to 
 escape from the conclusion that federation for purposes of 
 imperial armament would involve a constant supply of small 
 local wars as long as any part of the federation could furnish 
 a surplus of troops to be sent to the assistance of any beUicose 
 member. But, more important by far, it would mean the 
 temporary utter extinction of those principles of self-reliance 
 and self-help without which no nationality can become great 
 and prosperous, and the indefinite weakening of colonial 
 strength and resources by the pei-iodic paralysis inflicted at 
 intervals on regular, industrial, and commercial occupations. 
 
 We are sometimes assured that federation of the empire 
 for commercial purposes would induce an immense increase 
 in the trade of the empire — because ' trade follows the flag,' 
 How ? when ? and why ? let me ask. Is it erroneous to sup- 
 pose that trade seeks the most profitable and surest market — 
 the market where exchanges are effected on the best and 
 safest terms, whatever the flag that floats over it ? If Eng- 
 lish ships are the chief carriers of goods, is it not because 
 private EngUsh shipowners supply the greatest facihties for 
 the carriage of cargoes? Private English shipowners , 1 re- 
 peat ; for it is smce British shipping has been emancipated 
 from the weight of regulations, which kept the shipping in- 
 terest as a kind of a State industry in close dependence on 
 the State and made the national flag a symbol of State 
 direction of English commerce, that the commencement of 
 the development of our present great carrying trade fairly 
 dates. The ■ emphasis is important as shomng that our 
 carrying trade is not the consequence of hoisting the British 
 flag on our ships, but that it is due to causes not necessarily 
 connected with the cover of any particular flag — namely, to 
 the activity and enterprise of mdi^•iduals associated together. 
 But suppose the contention I uphold to be imtenable, what,
 
 DIPEEIAL FEDERATION. CONCLUSION. 3(53 
 
 let me ask again, is the conclusion to be deduced from the 
 fact that not only our Colonies but all nations employ our 
 ships as carriers in preference to their o^^^l ? Obviously it 
 must be that ' trade does 7iot follow the flag ' in the carrying 
 trade any more than for the purpose of finding a market. 
 
 The flag of Free Trade — the common property of all nations 
 if they so will — is the flag that commerce most eagerly follows. 
 Were the United States, with their vast resources of exchange- 
 able wealth ready to hand, to unfurl the Free Trade banner side 
 by side with the Stars and Stripes, then commerce from all 
 parts of the most closely confederated of empires would rusli 
 to the States in perhaps larger volume than it now does even 
 to England's open markets. 
 
 Finally, we are told that the stream of emigration would fol- 
 low the flag of the Confederation. The assertion is a bold one, 
 because m contrariety to the lessons which he who runs may 
 read in the records of emigration past and present. Over the 
 period of forty years from 1840 to 1880, it was ascertained tliat 
 considerably more than two-thirds of the emigrants from the 
 United Kmgdom went direct to the United States, besides 
 large numbers who made their way thither by Canadian 
 routes. They went to the States because they saw, .or 
 thought they saw, readier prospects of bettermg themselves 
 there than anwhere else — and that must be the main 
 reason which will always determine the set of the tide of 
 emigration in any given direction. The matter is almost too 
 plam for argument. 
 
 From a very early date in English emigration history the 
 primary desire of emigrants was to escape fi'om the immediate 
 influence of the national flag ; and whether that be now their 
 main object in leaving their native land or not, it is certain 
 that the majority of them do not emigrate with the view of 
 following the British flag. Let those who think that it would 
 be otherwise were the empire federated, and as a consequence 
 of federation — those on whom lies the 07U(s jnohandi — ad- 
 vance, if they can, a single reasonable ground for a supposition 
 opposed to the suggestions of all previous experience.
 
 364 EO^'DS OF DISUNION. 
 
 Let us by all means endeavour to promote good-will and 
 harmony between England and her Colonies, nor let us 
 patiently labour out schemes Avhich may force the disruption 
 of the powerful ties of mutual interest and affection now 
 firmly linldng together the remotest portions of the empire. 
 Let us be warned by the evil results of centralised colonial 
 government in the past to avoid the merest semblance of the 
 re -introduction of the principle of centralised rule in the future. 
 Only by leaving the free Colonies alone to work out their own 
 destinies can we expect to retain them in permanent union 
 Avitli ourselves. But if, instead of playing the passive part 
 which experience and reason would alike suggest, England 
 should attempt to interfere where she has neither the right 
 nor the power to intermeddle, to command where she has no 
 claim to obedience, and neither the means nor the ability to 
 put her decrees into execution — to attempt, in short, ' to bring 
 the Colonies into firmer dependence ' — she will infallibly find 
 each fresh endeavour powerful as an incentive to permanent 
 disunion between herself and her loyal and friendly self- 
 governing Colonies. 
 
 LONDON' : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTrlSWOODE .\ND CO., NF.W-STRKET SQL'ARB 
 
 AND PAULIAJIEST STUIiliT
 
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 8 
 
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