SPEECHES ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS CONNECTED WITH THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS OF NEW SOUTH WALES 1848—1874 HENRY PARKES WITH AN INTKODUCTION By DAVID BLAIR dbonxm GEOBGE ROBERTSON, LITTLE COLLINS STREET WEST Sydney 125 New Pitt Street LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO MDCCCLXXVI JJUw ^cS.^ > <:..- ^>^ PKEFATOKY NOTE. The substance of the speeches here collected has been gathered from various sources, but chiefly from printed reports in the local newspapers; the earlier ones from the Empire, and most of the later ones from the Sydney Morn- ing Herald. In two instances special reports were taken. All the reports have undergone more or less of verbal revision. It is to be added that the introduction was written without any co-operation with Mr. Parkes. It is an entirely independent composition. As the volume was being printed in Melbourne, Mr. Parkes requested me, as a friend, to see the sheets through the Press, and to write an introduction. On the ground of having had some personal acquaintance with that gentleman five-and-twenty years ago, I complied with this request; but of Mr. Parkes personally, or of New South Wales politics, during aU that time, I knew nothing directly. The introduction is based wholly on the speeches. D. B. ^£\A cicin TABLE OF CONTENTS. I. Elective Franchise — Speech at Public Meeting in Sydney, Jan. 22nd 1849 ... 1 „ „ „ Sept. 1st 1857 ... 76 „ on Self-registration of Voters, in Legislative Assembly, March 5th 1873 ... 370 II. Transportation Question— Prefatory Note ... ... ... ... ... 3 Speech at Public Meeting in Sydney, June 11th 1849 ... 4 „ „ „ June 18th 1849 ... 5 „ „ „ Sept. 16th 1850 ... 7 „ „ „ April 3rd 1851 ... 9 „ „ „ April 6th 1852 ... 10 „ „ „ June 30th 1852 ... 14 III. Constitution Act— Prefatory Note ... ... ... ... ... 17 Speech at Public Meeting in Sydney, Aug. 15th 1853 ... 18 „ „ „ Sept. 5th 1853 ... 25 IV. Election Speeches— Election for Sydney, May 1st 1854 ... ... ... 38 V. Agriculture— Speech in Legislative Council, July 3rd 1855 ... ... 43 VI. Taxation and Free Trade— Prefatory Note... ... ... ... ... ... 49 Speech in Legislative Council, July 5th 1855 ... 60 „ „ „ July 25th 1855 51 „ on Ad Valorem Duties, in Legislative Assembly, Dec. 20th 1865 197 „ on Border Duties, at Albury, May 15th 1866 ... 202 „ at Public Dinner at Albury, May 15th 1866 ... 206 „ on Border Customs Duties, in Legislative Assembly, June 19th 1872 ... ... ... ... 339 Speech on Policy of Protection, in Legislative Assembly, Oct. 29th 1873 384 VII. Eight- Hours Movement — Speech at Meeting of Trades, at Sydney, Nov. 17th 1856 ... 70 VIII. Pacific Mail Koute— Speech in Legislative Assembly, Aug. 6th 1858 ... ... 86 IX. Defence of the Colonies— Speech in Legislative Assembly, Dec. 20th 1859 ... ... 97 „ „ „ in reply ... ... 109 iv Table of Contents. X. State of Politics — page SpeechatMeetingofE. Sydney Electors, Nov. 29th 1860 ... 112 „ at Meeting of Electors at Kiama, Aug. 10th 1865 ... 181 „ at Public Dinner at Mudgee, July 3rd 1866 ... 209 „ to Working Classes at Mudgee, Aug. 4th 1866 ... 212 „ in defence of Martin Government, in Legislative Assem- bly, Jan. 10th 1868 ... 259 „ on Coalition of Sir James Martin and Mr. Kobertson, at E. Sydney, Feb. 10th 1872 ... 324 XI. Land Question— Speech on Price of Land, in Legislative Assembly, March 6th 1861 ... ... 136 XII. New South Wales as a Field for Emigration— Speech in Town Hall, Derby, Oct. 7th 1861 ... .. 141 „ Town Hall, Birmingham, Oct. 22nd 1861 ... 148 „ Working Men's College, London, May 17th 1862 ... 154 XIII. Friendless Children — Speech at Annual Meeting of Sydney Ragged School, July 1st 1863 ... ... ... 168 XIV. Eesponsible Government— Speech at Public Dinner, at Braidwood, March 31st 1864 ... 171 „ „ at Kiama, Aug. 15th 1865 ... 191 „ on Evils of a Weak Government, in Legislative Assem- bly, April 27th 1870 ... ... ... ... 305 ,, on Eeform of Legislative Council, in Legislative Assem- bly, Feb. 13th 1873 .351 XV. Public Education — Speech on Public Schools Bill, in Legislative Assembly, Sept. 12th 1866 ... ... ... ... ... 217 „ on Administration of Public Schools Act, at Dundas, Sept. 4th 1869 ... ... ... ... 276 „ on Progress of Education System, at Liverpool, June 4th 1871 316 „ on State of Public School System in 1873, at West Maitland, Aug. 5th 1873 ... ... ... 374 XVI. Federation of the Colonies — Speech at Melbourne, March 16th 1867 ... ... ... 252 XVII. Case of the Prisoner Gardiner— Speech in the Legislative Assembly, June 3rd 1874 ... 404 A Chapter of History [Appendix A] ... ... ... 438 XVIII. Appointments to Magistracy — Appendix B ... ... ... ... ... ... 460 XIX. Appointments to Civil Service— Appendix C ... ... ... ... ... ... 462 INTRODUCTION. The publication in Australia of a volume of speeches delivered, for the most part, in the Legislature of an Australian colony is an incident that marks the political growth of these communities. It is the first contribution of the kind made to our local literature, although single speeches have been frequently printed for general circula- tion. The single speech, however, seldom or never forms an addition to the permanent literature of a country : it is at best a fugitive pamphlet, designed to serve a special and transient purpose. But the collected speeches of a states- man who has also established his reputation as a public orator are always a substantial and valuable contribution to the materials for national history. Regarded in that light alone, the present volume may claim the merit of forming an excellent precedent which, it is to be hoped, will lead in time to the publication of many similar volumes. For there can be no reason why political oratory should not be as sedulously cultivated, and held in as high estimation, by the citizens of these young Australian repubhcs as it was amongst the citizens of ancient Greece and Rome, and as it still is in all civilised countries enjoying the blessings of free" institutions. In merely literary value it stands high amongst the agencies of civilisation. For what factors would express the worth to the world's heritage of intellectual wealth of the printed speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero, of Burke, Grattan, and Canning ? But a still higher value must be assigned to political oratory considered as an agency of popular education. What tests VI « Introduction. and standards could measure, for example, the direct effect in the diffusion of popular enlightenment on all the mani- fold topics of national interest of the reported debates in the British House of Commons? Or of the speeches, whether delivered in Parliament or from the public plat- form, of statesmen such as Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Bright ? And, highest of all, the function of political oratory con- sidered as the public exposition of the principles of wise and just and liberal legislation, as the open defence of the true principles of political freedom, and as the fearless advocacy of all that aids in making a nation prosperous and exalted — this function of an. intrinsically noble art is of simply inestimable worth, not only to the com- munity for whose benefit it is primarily exercised, but to man- kind at large. Its influence for good in this respect is limit- less and imperishable. "To do justice to that immortal person" — said Grattan, in his own grand style, of Charles James Fox — " you must not limit your view to his country. His genius was not confined to England : it was seen 3000 miles off, in communicating freedom to the Americans ; it was visible, I know not how far off, in ameliorating the condition of the Indian ; it was discernible on the coast of Africa, in accomplishing the abolition of the Slave Trade. You are to measure the magnitude of his mind by parallels of latitude." The period has hardly yet arrived in the growth of the Australian republics when due weight will be given to these considerations. The sentiment of nationality has still to be created amongst us. Or if there be some first faint stirrings of any such sentiment, they are confined to a few individual minds of superior stamp. There never, perhaps, was an English " plantation" — to use the fine old Baconian phrase — which, having a magnificent future before it, certain, and not remote, possessed so dim a forecasting of that future. There is probably less of those ennobling anticipations amongst us than there was amongst the American colonists long prior to Introduction. vii their earliest movements towards independence. Nor, let it be observed, is there in the language I am here using any- intentional latent reference to the British connexion. The future of the Australian colonies is now, in fact, quite independent of their continued allegiance to the Crown of England. They are separate, independent, and self-govern- ing republics, to the full extent that they would be such if their common connexion with Great Britain were entirely severed. No such immediate and marvellous expansion in population, trade, commerce, and general enterprise, would result from the severance as followed upon the achievement of independence in the American colonies. The simple truth is that the British supremacy here — in so far as it affects the internal development of the several colonies, the growth of a sentiment of Australian nationality, or the republican freedom and simplicity of our institutions — has ceased to be anything more than nominal. The fact reflects glory on the mother-country. When she gave us our freedom, she gave it in amplest measure, and with no grudging hand. May the silken bond that unites the venerated parent and her children in the sunny South prove of asbestine strength and durability! But, although an Australian Colonial Governor keeps constantly a dutiful watch over the inte- rests of the distant Power whose delegate he is, the change to the colony he governs would be quite imperceptible if, to-morrow, his patent of ofiice were to be exchanged for that of first President of an independent Australian Republic. The absence of the sentiment of nationality, then, is in no degree owing to the presence of the British connexion. It is due, indeed, to far different causes — to the intensity with which individual and purely local interests are regarded, to lurking mutual jealousies amongst the various colonies, and to the littleness of mind and narrowness of view which these engender. A haunting conviction of this littleness and narrowness makes itself felt in every department of our viii Introduction. social and political life. It pervades both the common con- versation of the marts of business and the debates in the Legislature. It shows itself alike in journalism, literature, and politics. Allusions to such subjects as the federation of the colonies, the creation of an Australian national senti- ment, the splendid future awaiting these colonies, or the desirableness of cultivating commercial relations with the populations inhabiting the vast world lying to the north- ward of our continent, usually evoke no worthier comment than a derisive smile or a whispered remark of " talking to Buncombe." For so far, the mind of the youthful Austral- ian is stUl left wholly unoccupied by any feeling either of traditionary or of anticipated national greatness. It is the crowning quality of the speeches contained in the present volume that they are each and all instinct with this feeling in both relations. The speaker glories in being an Englishman, and he equally glories in being an Austral- ian colonist. Genuine home-born loyalty to the land of his birth does not in the least dim his clear perception of the grandeur of the destiny in store for the land of his adoption. In this respect the speeches are not alone superior to, but they hold a place apart from, those of any other Austral- ian politician which I have ever read. There is in all of them that underlying, instinctive sense of national greatness which is so characteristic of the speeches of leading English statesmen, notably of Mr. Gladstone. The immediate subject under discussion may be of the very smallest importance, but the elevating sentiment is always present. It may be the Compound Householder, the Cattle Plague, the dues of the River Weaver, or the Budget for the year : but always the speaker is an English statesman. The second leading quality of the speeches is the con- sistent assertion of the genuine principles of republican freedom. From the first speech to the last, alike in 1849 as in 1874, the speaker clearly discerns and lucidly expounds the right relations of the people to the free institutions they Introduction. ix now enjoy. What he claimed for them before those insti- tutions came into existence, he vindicated and confirmed by his action when he himself became a popular representative and a responsible Minister of the Crown under the better system. The beginnings of freedom in New South Wales were not favourable to its vigorous growth. The people required educating up to it^ and the course of their educa- tion is legibly traced out in these speeches. Both courage and ability were required to fulfil the self-imposed mission of the teacher. The small and rigidly exclusive class that, in the earlier days, had monopolised all the political power and social privilege in the colony were indignant at the bare idea of any man from among the people "coming between the wind and their (sham) nobility." Their fixed idea of the only political institutions suitable for the mass of their fellow-colonists was what, in one of the speeches, is caustically but truthfully described as a " Norfolk-Island Government." The Constitution, as they originally framed it, was merely an elaborate machinery for perpetuating the odious monopoly which they held. They dreaded the people and distrusted their capacity for political freedom. A truer, higher, manlier sentiment — " an ampler ether, a diviner air" —breathes through these speeches. The "Norfolk-Island Government" conception is here witheringly exposed and scornfully rejected. Time and the progress of events have abundantly confirmed the correctness, as well as the innate nobleness, of the views herein enforced. Nothing less than the unconditional simplicity of republican equality would have stood for a single month in a community where all men are of the same political fank. But nevertheless it was a hard and strenuous fight for liberty. The leaders in the struggle had to endure much opposition and persecution of a meanly unworthy kind. The old monopolist class- many of them men destitute alike of good birth, breeding, and intellectual culture — were loud in their parrot-cries of " demagogue," " socialist," "revolutionist," and similar cant X Introduction. phrases. The class has passed away, and the cant phrases have dropped out of use ; but the enduring victory remains with the faithful friends of popular freedom and social justice. As a record of the main points in the bygone struggle, these speeches may claim to have lasting import- ance for the people of New South Wales. As a sustained pleading for freedom, they should be held by the colonists invaluable. " The speeches of great orators," says Lieber, " are a fund of wealth for a free people, from whidi the schoolboy begins to draw when he declaims from his Reader, and which enriches, elevates, and nourishes the souls of the old." The distinctive quality of statesmanship becomes evident in such speeches as those on Taxation and Free-trade, on the Federation of the Colonies, and especially on Public Education. Measures of this high class embody principles of Political Economy and of Civil Government which, like the axioms of geometry, are of permanent and universal application. A clear apprehension of such principles does not, of itself, demand the statesman's faculty; but that faculty is certainly required for their practical application under given conditions of place, time, and social circum- stance. The highest and most diflScult function of Legisla- tion lies, not in the large and comprehensive grasp of prin- ciples, but in the wise discernment of needful limitations. This truth is beautifully wrought-out in one of Tennyson's earlier poems, unnamed, but evidently addressed to some rising young statesman amongst the Laureate's friends, whom he counsels to " watch what main-currents draw the years" — *' Not clinging to some ancient saw ; Not mastered by some modern term ; Not swift nor slow to change, but firm ; And in its season bring the Law." The familiar stanzas of this finely thoughtful poem were frequently suggested by the perusal of the present volume. Introduction. xi The speeches on Taxation and Free-trade in 1855 exhibit a most careful and conscientious study of the writings of John Stuart Mill, and of recent Parliamentary deli- verances from leading English statesmen — certainly the very best text-books that a colonial legislator could have chosen for the purpose of forming his own code of principles in relation to Taxation and Public Finance. For several years subsequently those principles were set aside* and a system of ad valorem duties was imposed by Ministries to which Mr. Parkes was hostile; and on his assumption of office, in 1873, one of the first acts of his Government was to repeal the duties, and to simplify the tariff as nearly to the limits of free-trade as existing circum- stances would permit. This is an example of true states- manship. There is, first, the comprehensive grasp of sound principles, gained by patient study, and next there is the prompt embodiment of the same principles in practical legislation when the opportunity arrives. Such sustained consistency of public conduct is, unhappily, not frequently displayed by Australian politicians. The temptation of winning a brief and uncertain term of office is quite suffi- cient, in most cases, to induce an open recantation of the avowed principles and cherished convictions of a lifetime. On the cardinal question of the Federal Union of these colonies the right key-note is struck in the speech delivered in Melbourne in 1867. But the Australian politician who holds the views set forth in that speech is in advance of his age by at least a generation. Even upon the incidental subject of Border Customs Duties, it is still found impos- sible to induce neighbouring colonies to come to a mutual understanding based on a common interest. In practice, the present state of things is exactly what would exist in England if every two counties separated by a river had different tariffs ; and, in fact, the boundary between neigh- bouring colonies is sometimes not any definite natural feature xii Introduction. at all, but only an imaginary line. Federation, an Australian Zollverein, and the abolition of all the practical absurdities involved in jarring tariffs, will only become possible for us when our local statesmen shall all be imbued with that spirit of generous local patriotism, combined with those sound views upon political economy and the enlarged sentiment of Australian nationality, which are the pervading characteristics of these speeches. But it is as the author of the system of Public Education now firmly established, and working so beneficially, in New South Wales, that the author of the speeches makes good his claim to be ranked high on the roll of Australian states- men. A nobler monument for himself and heritage for his country could not be bequeathed to posterity by any man. On this question, also, a striking example was given of sustained consistency. From the outset of his public career — as these speeches testify — Mr. Parkes had clearly before his mind the paramount necessity of a broadly popular and thoroughly liberal scheme of Education. Upon every fitting occasion he gave expression to this conviction ; and almost his first act upon gaining office was the framing and carrying of the Public Schools Bill. So far as I am aware, the speech delivered on the second reading of that Bill has not been excelled by any Parliamentary deliverance on the same great question, either in this or the mother-country, for compre- hensive grasp of principles, lucidness of detail, and adaptation to the special circumstances of time and place. It is at once exhaustive and unanswerable. It forms a manual of the question to which, on all future occasions when discussions arise either on the principles or the details of the Act of 1866, ultimate reference will be made. And, without repeating any of the well-worn truisms on this subject, a word of warm congratulation must here be given to those Australian statesmen who, in the various colonies, have fulfilled the highest of all their duties to their fellow-citizens by pro- Introduction. xiii viding them freely with ample and efficient means of ele- mentary education. To " make knowledge circle with the winds," as the Laureate counsels, is in a democratic community the truest conservatism. For, an ignorant democracy is self-destructive; and it surely is the first duty of every State — as Paley defines it to be of every Government — to make provision for its own preservation. Nor even upon this open field of public advantage was success won without a hard and prolonged struggle. The opposing foe of the friends of enlightenment was, not popular ignorance, but Sectarianism. To wrest the sacred function of public education from the iron grasp of Secta- rianism was an achievement of itself sufficient to found a lasting reputation for any Australian statesman. It is a fact of the largest significance and the brightest promise, that the legal recognition of Sectarianism is now erased from the Statute-book of every one of the colonies. The religious freedom of the citizens is thus made commensurate with their civil liberty. It may be hoped that the bene- ficent operation of our systems of free and universal educa- tion upon the young Australians will, in the course of a generation or two, completely extinguish in their minds even the traditionary recollections of sectarian hatred. The absence of any speeches on the Land Question strikes me as a peculiarity in the volume. Mr. Parkes, no doubt, has had his full share in the successive struggles that have taken place in New South Wales for the institution of a liberal Land system ; and the omission mentioned may be solely due to the fact that Land-question speeches are never very readable, however important they may be when delivered. But the omission is the more marked for me, because that, in Victoria, the Land question is the key to all the political discussions. Parliamentary embroilments, and IVIinisterial changes, that have taken place since free insti- tutions were first established. The history of the Land xiv Introduction. question, largely written, would really be the entire political history of the colony from its foundation. To gain pos- session of the territory has been the inflexible purpose of one powerful party from the first. That purpose has always domi- nated, and still dominates, every political movement and every legislative measure. Up till the present moment, the one question that ultimately determines both the personal composition and the tenure of existence of any Victorian Ministry is its attitude in relation to the Land question. If this be not so in New South Wales — as the absence of any speeches in this volume on the one supreme topic would imply — then is that colony in a much sounder condition politically than her neighbour Victoria. There are in the volume two speeches in which the personal element is unusually conspicuous. These are the speech on the coalition of Sir James Martin and Mr. John Robertson, and Mr. Parkes's defence of his conduct in the case of the prisoner Gardiner. Now, in deliverances of this character, the point to be specially noted is the serious impeachment conveyed against other persons. A politician cannot successfully defend himself from grave accusations of inconsistency, amounting to a deliberate violation of all honour and principle, without sheeting home to his accusers charges equally grave. In the two instances in question this retributive action of plain truth seems to me to be exhibited with really crushing efiect. Accepting the facts as they are set forth in the speeches, what does an impartial reader of them find ? He finds that Sir James Martin and Mr. John Robertson, having been for twelve years flatly opposed to each other on every cardinal point in politics, and having carried this opposition to the extreme length of declared personal dislike, suddenly join together to form a Cabinet. Upon what grounds ? From what motives ? For what ends ? Certainly upon grounds that include the recantation by Introduction. xv both of all the political principles they had ever avowed. It was a virtual declaration that never for a moment had either of them been sincere in his professions, in his speeches, or even in his votes. For if up till the time of their coalition they had never had any, even the least, common ground of action as politicians, what common ground could they find or frame to render such coalition possible ? There is none conceivable in the case but that of mutual apostasy; and such apostasy must have been a foregone purpose with both. The opportunity for consummating it alone was want- ing, and it came at length. Well might Mr. Parkes challenge any person to find an analogous instance in recent English political history; and he was thoroughly justified in speak- ing of the "infamy " of the combination. Coalitions in English history there have been, but they were grounded on compro- mises that fell far short of wholesale abandonment of all principles and summary sacrifices of all political honour and honesty. One conspicuous instance of a hurried and unhappy combination between two open political enemies stands recorded in the parliamentary history of the last century. It was that between Lord North and Fox ; and it is immor- talised in the famous epigram which tells how the Premier of George the Third's early days, having exhausted his vocabulary of abusive terms on his remorseless enemy — "In spite of his real or fancied alarms, Took the 'fool' to his councils, the 'beast' to his arms." But shameless political profligacy of this character has long been impossible in English politics. There are, unhappily, too many indications that it is becoming the rule rather than the exception in Australian politics. The case relating to the prisoner Gardiner is of a still darker complexion. Here was a case in which certain leading politicians used all their influence as private citizens to induce the Governor to exercise the prerogative of pardon in the summary release of a notorious malefactor, and sub- xvi Introduction. sequently fomented a popular outcry against both the Governor and his chief adviser for the serious crime of having acted upon their own recommendation ! A movement grounded on so glaring an act of injustice could only be sus- tained by persistent falsehood. It was alleged, for instance, that the Chief Secretary had advised the Governor to release Gardiner — an allegation which the official documents show to be wholly without foundation. The Chief Secretary was condemned for releasing Gardiner, when in fact he had not alone not done so, but had even refused to put his name to a petition for the man's release. The Governor was accused of complying with the prayer of a memorial signed by the very men who condemned him, when in fact he had postponed compliance, and had only registered a conditional promise, which he felt himself bound as a gentleman to fulfil. Further, the conditional promise was fulfilled three years after the presentation of the memorial that prayed for a summary release. There is something abso- lutely incredible in the inversion of all truth, honesty, and fair dealing, that marks this memorable case throughout Yet the political ruse was, for the time, successful — just as Wrong, and Falsehood, and Injustice have been successful many a time before. The two cases, nevertheless, are terrible impeachments and the printing of the present volume consigns them to the perpetual keeping of History. Mr. Parkes's oratory is of the same stamp as the late Richard Cobden's — "unadorned eloquence," as Sir Robert Peel charac- terised it. Yet there are not wanting passages which show that the speaker might have risen, had he chosen, to much loftier heights than he essayed. He eschewed rhetoric, how- ever, for plain, straightforward, business-like speaking. Of this kind of Parliamentary oratory some of the speeches are true models ; and it may be safely asserted that no other model will ever be followed by leading Australian politicians. Introduction. xvll Taken as a whole, they are the utterances of a public man who has reahsed to himself with singular vividness the present duties and future destinies of Australian colonists, and of one who forecasts, with the Laureate, that — " A slow-developed strength awaits Completion in a painful school ; Phantoms of other forms of rule, New Majesties of mighty States." D. B. Melbourne, February 10th, 1876. SPEECHES. THE ELECTIYE FRANCHISE. SPEECH DeUvered at a public meeting of the citizens of Sydney, convened for the purpose of petitioning the Queen and Parliament for an exten- sion of the Elective Franchise, January 22nd, 1849.* Mr Parkes said he had been requested to second the resolu- tion which had just been moved, asserting the right of uni- versal suffrage. It was thought advisable to lay down this broad principle, though it was not intended in their petitions to ask for more than political equality with the people of England. To universal suffrage they must come at last ; any measure short of that would be defective, and would fail to satisfy the public mind. The Anglo-Saxon communities of America had obtained this full measure of liberty ; and what other people grew so rapidly and securely in national prosperity? The time would come, more quickly than some dark prophets could foresee, when it would be in the posses- sion of the Australian people. Those who were opposed to universal suffrage directed their attention to France and other Continental nations, and said that there it caused the hands of the *At this time the elective franchise in the colony was, by the Act 6 Vic. 76, confined to £20 householders, and freeholders possessing estates worth £200. But a bill to confer a new and extended Constitution on the colony was then in contemplation by the British Government. The petitions to the Imperial Parliament, adopted at the meeting of Jan. 22, 1849, in favour of a reduction of the qualification, were transmitted by Mr. Parkes, the one for presentation to the Lords, to Lord Monteagle ; and the other for presentation to the Commons, to the late W. Scholefield, Esq. In due course they were presented, and while the new bill was under consideration in the House of Lords, an amendment was moved by Lord Lyttelton, and adopted by the Secretary of State (Earl Grey), who had charge of the measure, reducing the qualification to £10 household, and £100 freehold. B 2 Speeches. people to be imbrued with blood. It might be so ; but if the people had been sooner enfranchised, they would not have abused a power which they already had learnt to use. It was even within the range of probability that Louis Philippe might still have been upon the throne of France if the people had sooner received the concession of universal suffrage. By the exercise of their rights the people would have become enlightened, and might have enforced by moral means such reforms as would have saved the Government from disruption. They need only look at their own country to find reasons for a more extended suffrage. Who had returned the best men to the Legislative Council 1 Were not the best men returned where the franchise was most popularly exer- cised, where the force* of public opinion could be brought to bear most effectually on the election? Sydney had returned Messrs. Wentworth and Lowe, who were both of them men of superior education and ability, while the worst men were sent in by the remote country constituencies. The present meeting had been opposed by some persons on the ground that before political rights were granted to the people, the people should be educated. But who was to educate them 1 — the present legislators 1 With the exception of three or four members, the whole body of their present Legislature ridiculed all sympathy with the popular feeling. Were they the men to provide the means of education for the people ? They must not expect it. Place political power in the hands of the people, and the people would see to their own interests.* * One of the resolutions of this meeting was moved by the Right Hon. Robert Lowe, late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was then one of the members for Sydney. THE TRANSPORTATION QUESTION. [In the latter part of 1848 the English Government proposed the resumption of transportation, in a modified form, to the Australian colonies. The proposal was communicated by a dispatch from Earl Grey, dated the 8th September, and created immediately a perfect storm of dissatisfaction and indignant feel- ing. An agitation sprung up in New South Wales in the follow- ing year, which continued with increasing vitality through 1850, culminating in the formation of a League of all the colonies against what was regarded as a common calamity. Mr. Parkes took an active part throughout this agitation, writing in the papers and speaking at public meetings, until the cause was com- pletely triumphant by the final revocation in 1852 of the Order-in- Council which made the colonies places to which British convicts might be transported. The first convict vessel that arrived in Port Jackson under the new system (for the Secretary of State did not wait to see how his proposal would be received in the colonies) was the " Hashmey," which came in June 8th, 1849, on which day two ships, with immigrants, entered the Heads from England. On the following day three other immigrant ships arrived, so that the convicts lay at anchor amidst 1400 to 1500 newly-arrived immigrants. These circumstances gave intensity to the feeling of resentment which agitated the popular mind. Three days after the arrival of the " Hashmey" an open-air meet- ing of the citizens of Sydney was held near the Circular Quay, under the presidency of the late Mr. Robert Campbell, which was long talked of as " The Great Protest Meeting." The " protest" which was adopted by this great gathering was written by Mr. Parkes. It was moved by the late Mr. John Lamb, and seconded by Mr. Lowe (now the Right Honourable Robert Lowe). A second great meeting was held on the same spot seven days afterwards ; other similar demonstrations followed in Sydney and in most of the country towns. The following is a copy of the protest : — We, the free and loyal subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty, inhabitants of the city of Sydney and its immediate neighbourhood, in public meeting assembled, do hereby enter our most deliberate and solemn protest against the transportation of British criminals to the colony of New South Wales. b2 4 Speeches. Firstly. — Because it is in violation of the will of the majority of the colonists, as is clearly evidenced by their expressed opinions on the question at all times. Secondly. — Because numbers among us have emigrated on the faith of the British Government, that transportation to this colony had ceased for ever. Thirdly.— Because it is incompatible with our existence as a free colony, desiring self-government, to be made the receptacle of another country's felons. Fourthly, — Because it is in the highest degree unjust to sacrifice the great social and political interests of the colony at large to the pecuniary profit of a fraction of its inhabitants. Fifthly.— Because, being firmly and devoutly attached to the British Crown, we greatly fear that the perpetration of so stupendous an act of injustice by Her Majesty's Government will go far towards alienating the affections of the people of this colony from the mother country. For these and for many kindred reasons — in the exercise of our duty to our country, for the love of our families, in the strength of our loyalty to Great Britain, and from the depth of our reverence for Almighty God — we protest against the landing again of British convicts on these shores.] SUBSTANCE OF SPEECH At the Great Protest Meeting, June 11, 1849, on seconding the following resolution — " That it is the urgent request of this meeting that the Local Government do send the prisoners arrived in the ' Hashmey ' im- mediately back to England, if necessary at the expense of the colony." Mr. Parkes said : After the speeches they had already heard it would be unwise in him to detain them, save for one word on behalf of a class to whom as yet no allusion had been made, but who were most unjustly dealt with in this matter. Let him ask that meeting did the fourteen hundred emigrants now afloat on the waters of Port Jackson suspect when they left Great Britain that they would find a convict ship in the midst of the vessels that brought them hither 1 Would they, had they dreamt of such a thing, have sacrificed all home ties and volunteered to degrade themselves 1 In the colony the whole question had been discussed over and over again, but these emigrants when they embarked could know nothing of the injustice to which they were about to be subjected. To place the situation of these people in a true light, let them suppose the Immigration Agent to go on board the ships, and after congratulating the passengers on their safe arrival in health and comfort, tell them how much they had for which to be grateful — let them suppose him to exhort the young men to emulate these convict labourers in the race of industry in their new home, and to assure the young women that the Home Transportation Question. 5 Government had not only provided for them a free passage to this land flowing with milk and honey, but had been so exceedingly paternal in their consideration of them as to send out a ship-load of convicts to be their future husbands. He could but express his deep feeling of indignation at the deception that had been practised on these unsuspecting strangers and the insult that had been offered to the community at large, and the only remedy he could see- the only course consistent with justice to the colonists— was that the convict ship and cargo should be sent back as the resolu- tion proposed. It was necessary to express our willingness to be at the expense of sending these prisoners back, to evince our abhorrence of the importation. SUBSTANCE OF SPEECH At a meeting of the citizens of Sydney held at the Circular Quay, June 18, 1849. [The following resolution was moved by Mr. Archibald Michie — " That it is indispensable to the well-being of the colony, and to the satisfactory conduct of its affairs, that its Government should no longer be administered by the remote, ill-informed, and irre- sponsible Colonial Office, but by Ministers chosen from and respon- sible to the colonists themselves, in accordance with the principles of the British Constitution."] Mr. Parkes seconded the resolution. They had met on that spot a week ago to raise their voice against a grievous act of injustice, with the very heavens weeping for their calamity ; they were assembled there again to assert the spirit of British freemen, in demanding those rights to which they were entitled by birth, and the same Australian heavens smiled and rejoiced. He did not suppose there was a man in the country so careless of his repute for common sense and independence, as to express his disagree- ment with that resolution. It was not in the nature of things that a Minister, placed as far distant from us as this earth could place him — even if he devoted an entire life to the study of our history and condition, our geographical relations, our social pro- gress, our political wants, and our natural capabilities — could do administrative justice to this colony ; still less that a nobleman who never bestowed a thought on New South Wales in his life, till 6 Speeches. some political chance or accident gave liim his ministerial position, should be qualified to govern us. We wanted men practically acquainted with every impulse, effort, transition, and phase of our existence as a people. To show the enormous amount of ignorance concerning New South Wales which prevailed among men of the highest education and possessing the best means of information, he would mention one or two instances. One of our favourite modern poets, the author of the Pleasures of Hope, in that cele- brated poem speaks of the extensive islands of Sydney Cove. We were assembled on its shores. Could anyone see Where the long isles of Sydney Cove extend ? And the poet Southey — a man of most varied and extensive infor- mation — represents Botany Bay prisoners as going to their huts after nightfall, trembling at every step lest they should be devoured by wild beasts. Within the last year or two he had seen it put forth in English papers, as an important announcement, that regular communication was likely to be established between Sydney and New Zealand ! If such was the state of British ignorance with men who spent their lives in acquiring knowledge, it was not surprising that Ministers who often were raised to power or precipitated from office by the accumulative force of a series of accidents, should prove incapable of governing the distant colonies of England. And was it right that such a state of things should continue % No ; we had a perfect right, and it was our duty, to demand a change — to adopt every legal and constitutional means to effect it. We sought not to do this from disaffection or disloyalty, but in the spirit of the truest and best of all loyalty. We had been charged with rebelliousness and dis- affection ; but where was the foundation for such charges 1 We were all warmly and sincerely attached to the institutions of the mother country. He would yield to no man in feelings of loyalty to the British Crown ; but his loyalty did not teach him to shut his eyes to the faults of Government ; it rather constrained him — and the stronger it grew the more it constrained him — to seek a reform of public abuses, that the Government might be established firmly and permanently in the affections of a free people. Certain weak gentlemen told us that we had brought about a " reign 5rf terror." Where was it to be seen 1 The alarm was all moonshine. There was not a sane man in the community who could believe there was anything like intimidation exercised. He denied the Transportation Question. 7 statement. He did not agree with the allusions which had been made to America. He did not see what good would come from such allusions. We were not at a state of advancement to be benefited by separation from the mother country, even if we had cause to desire separation. As a community we possessed little of the stern and sturdy spirit of the old American colonists. If oppressive duties were levied on our imports, he did not think our Sydney merchants would passively resist by entering into a non-importa- tion compact. If our Crown lawyers were called upon to enforce obnoxious laws, he feared none would be found like the young and lofty-spirited George Otis, to resign office and join cause with the people. And he was afraid it would be long before many men would be found on the benches of our senate house like the earnest and impassioned Patrick Henry. It would be wise and well to cherish a feeling of true loyalty towards Great Britain. But that was no reason why we should not peaceably and constitutionally contend for our rights — no reason why we should not insist upon being entrusted with the management of our own affairs. SUBSTANCE OF SPEECH At a meeting oi the citizens of Sydney held in the Barrack Square,* Sept. 16, 1850. [Mr. T. S. Mort moved — " That with a view to ensure the united exertion of every individual in this colony interested in this great question, an association be now formed under the designation of ' The New South Wales Association for preventing the Revival of Transportation.' And that such an association be not dis- solved until the Transportation Question be satisfactorily and finally determined. That the gentlemen who have convened the present meeting be the first committee for managing the associa- tion, with power to add to their number, and that an annual con- tribution of one shilling be sufficient to constitute a member of the association."] Mr. Parkes supported the resolution. At that late hour of the day it would be more becoming in him to give place to the gentlemen who in the order of the business had to follow him ; but he would beg *This meeting was held where Wynyard Square is now laid out, and was attended by 8000 or 10,000 persons. 8 Speeches. to say a few words in support of the resolution. The mover and seconder, in their able arguments on the transportation question, had forgotten the more immediate consideration of the proposition now before the meeting — that a popular association be formed to oppose the renewal of transportation. This resolution certainly- opened up a wide field for remark, if time permitted. The prin- ciple of association for the achievement of great objects was now universally acted upon by the British people ; union of public efforts was one of the most remarkable effects produced by the progress of enlightenment. It was a new and noble feature in the national character of modern Englishmen. At the close of the last disastrous war, the English people, as they settled down into rational feeling again, began to consider for what good they had been contending and overburdening their country with taxes. They looked into the political condition of the country, and a demand for parliamentary reform was at once enkindled. Year by year this spirit grew stronger and stronger, till at last it embodied itself in the form of popular associations. The Political Unions were organised, and the great Reform Bill became the law of the land as a consequence. Thus a revo- lution was brought about, greater and more glorious in its benefits than was ever effected before by the people of any State in their internal policy, without the desolation of any man's home, or the shedding of a single drop of blood. From the pass- ing of the Reform Bill to the present time, every great public movement had been prosecuted by the English people by the means of such peaceful and lawful associations as was contem- plated in the present resolution. He must allude to one other signal triumph of this unity of purpose in the people — the abolition of slavery in our West Indian possessions. It was by the union of the people that that great glory had been added to the diadem of England — the emancipation of her slaves. The struggle they were now engaged in was of the first importance, and demanded the most vigorous co-operation". The men they had to contend against were equally as unprincipled and unscrupulous as the former slaveholders of the West Indies. As far as they could ascertain men's motives by the exercise of reason, the motives of the great employers now clamouring for convict labour were precisely the motives of the slaveholders. It was said that they were anxious to assist the Government in a wise Transportation Question. 9 solution of that great problem — the proper disposal of England's criminals so as to protect society, and at the same time to correct its offenders. But he did not believe that such considerations entered into the philosophy of the squatters of New South Wales. It mattered not to them how men fell into their hands, so that they were completely subservient to the master's will, so that they were in reality his slaves. The people of the colony must therefore unite to ward off the threatened infamy and degradation. He cordially supported the resolution. SPEECH At the Anti- Transportation Conference Banquet held in Sydney, April 3rd, 1851, in acknowledgment of the toast, "The Ladies of Australasia, and particularly those who signed the Anti-Transportation Petitions." Mr. Parkes said he considered it a heavy misfortune that the honourable member for Durham*" was not in their ranks that night ; for who could respond so happily and well to the toast which had just been proposed by their worthy friend, and which had been drunk by them all with such unbounded and becoming enthusiasm 1 It was not till a late hour that afternoon that he became aware of the distinction which had been conferred on him ; and he confessed that when he first saw his name affixed as respon- dent to that important toast, he felt almost startled from his propriety. His first feeling was, how should he escape 1 Under what enchantment had his friends made so singular a selection as to choose him for that pleasing duty 1 Why had he been singled out to return thanks for the ladies of that great colony on an occasion like the present ? For what reason had the duty been allotted to him, a plain and plodding citizen, who was an utter stranger to those gaieties and splendours in which it was supposed that woman had her world, the very honeymoon of whose life was far away behind in the dim vista of the past 1 But when, in a little, he recollected that he had had the honour to originate a petition against transportation which was signed by 12,000 of the daughters, wives, and mothers of that noble city, including the second * The late Sir Stuart Alexander Donaldson. lo speeches. highest lady in the land, he thought he could understand the kindness which had operated with their friends in setting apart for him the present distinction. With that feeling he accepted the honourable duty with all his heart; and he pined at that moment for some power of eloquence, some word of electric might and influence, to speak out the fervour of his admiration and the depth of his reverence for the lofty and angelic character of a virtuous woman. The greatest poets, the purest patriots, the noblest Christians, had ascribed their brilliant successes in life, all the more valuable and enduring of their enjoyments, to the teachings and influence of pure-hearted and exemplary mothers. Let Australia once become a land of virtuous and Christian- minded mothers, and it would be a land of patriots and heroes. But how would the advocates of transportation bring about this happy and glorious condition of society 1 Would it be by sur- rounding the female portion of their kindred by systems of industry and of commerce based on the very element of crime? He trusted a time would soon arrive when no man would dare to raise his voice to advocate transportation in the presence of a daughter of Australia. On behalf of the ladies of Australasia, he begged very sincerely to thank that meeting — as a father, as a husband, as a citizen, he tendered his thanks — for the enthusiastic manner in which the toast had been received. SPEECH Delivered at a meeting of the citizens of Sydney convened by the Austral- asian Anti-Transportation League in Malcolm's Circus, April 6, 1852, *' To take into consideration Earl Grey's determination to continue transportation to Van Diemen's Land." Mr. Parkes said it was a great advantage for any man having to speak toward the close of the proceedings on an occasion like the present, that he had the old staple of all bad speakers to fall back upon — the many excellent speeches already delivered. And cer- tainly few in such a situation could compliment previous speakers with more truth than he might. But that was no time for com- pliments ; it was one of those occasions which oug-ht to make the plainest and the most ungifted men find some sort of utterance for Transportation Question. 1 1 their indignant feelings. After all the pain and toil of the pro- tracted agitation of this question — after an agitation, conducted with the fullest enquiry and the deepest earnestness, which had stirred the heart of the country to its very core — after these communities, having been polled almost to a man, had declared with one voice against receiving English criminals as an evil which all believed was in the highest degree disastrous to their moral and social interests — a canker eating into their very souls, — after all this, they were forced back to its re- newed agitation by the perverseness of one obstinate man who happened to hold a seat in the British Government. He agreed with previous speakers that the time for deliberation and argu- ment was past. Why, they had deliberated for years — they had exhausted all arguments. The matter now resolved itself into a simple question of natural right, and they had only to consider how best to vindicate that right. No man or body of men could have a right to force upon a community a thing from without which they unanimously refused to receive ; which they abhorred and believed would be ruinous to them. Argument and discussion had been of no service to them ; their remonstrances and petitions had fallen upon deaf ears. They had done all in this way which men could do, and they could pursue this course no longer. It was a singular and striking feature of this agitation that a very large amount of talent had been exhibited in it. The last debate in the Legislative Council the year before last was one so ably sustained that it would have done honour to the British Parliament. Their petitions from all parts of the country had been able and argu- mentative documents, and such was their unanimity of sentiment, that when the question was last under discussion in this colony the numbers were 36,000 against, and only 500 in favour of the system. But in the face of all this — notwithstanding their repeated protests and petitions — notwithstanding the intelli- gence which they had brought to bear in the discussion of the question, and their unanimity in the decision which they had arrived at — the tyrannical Minister persisted in thrusting upon them the evil which they were determined not to receive. Well, then, what was to be done ? As a free people, as men, they could not retreat from their position, they could no longer go through the farce of remonstrating against an injustice which was per- severed in with an utter disregard of their wishes and their 1 2 Speeches. interests ; they must do something else. He was well pleased to hear their president, Mr. Cowper, talk of fighting. Knowing the mild, affable, and benignant character of that gentleman, he was at jSrst half-afraid that he was hardly stern enough for the duties which he might be called upon to perform in his mission to Yan Diemen's Land. They had been told that night of the serious consequences which might ensue. Now, he had no desire to bring before them rebellious examples, or he might most properly point to the example of the American colonists : for in the progress of events which led to the loss of those colonies, there was a remark- able analogy between some stages and their own case. He would pass over this, because he believed the meeting did not need to be reminded of the glorious and successful struggle of men who were treated with contumely and oppressed in a manner similar to themselves. There was, however, a suggestive passage in a speech of one of those early patriots which he would with their per- mission repeat to the meeting. When young Patrick Henry, in the General Assembly of Virginia, was moving his resolutions in reference to the odious Stamp Act, he exclaimed, " Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third — " " Treason !" cried the Speaker. The young patriot, standing up more proudly than ever, and fixing his eyes on the alarmed Speaker, concluded the sentence — " George the Third may profit by their example ; if that be treason, make the most of it !" He would point to the successful resistance of the American colonists, and in the name of that meeting tell the British Government to profit by that example. He had no treason to promulgate ; on the contrary, the man did not breathe whose heart beat with a truer loyalty to the gracious and glorious lady who pre- sides over the destinies of the British Empire. But as was said by their chairman, there was a higher loyalty than that to any earthly monarch — our loyalty to our own nature and to the all- wise God, who has planted in us pure and holy sentiments, and warmed our being with the love of justice and truth. To fall away from this loyalty would be to debase ourselves before our Creator— to deface the divine impress of humanity which had been printed on our hearts. They must go right onward in their course. There could be no mistake in the matter. If Earl Grey had indeed been deceived and misled, the last elections throughout the colonies would surely undeceive him. Even under a Constitution concocted Transportation Question. , 13 by his own Government, the people of Yan Diemen's Land had in every instance elected anti-transportationists to their repre- sentative seats. In that unfortunate island — that very sinkhole of English iniquity, where the prison population was so alarming in numbers, and where it could not be doubted many of that class possessed the elective franchise — no representative favourable to the continuance of transportation had been chosen. It was fair to assume that many of the emancipist class in that island had recorded their votes on the side of the anti-transportationists. How could it be otherwise 1 How could men wish to continue to their children the curse of their own lives 1 What was it, this desire to get rid of the infamy and degradation of which they had themselves been victims, but the triumph of all that was good and virtuous and lofty and aspiring in the human breast 1 They were about to send Mr. Cowper as a delegate to the conference of the League at Hobart Town. When he approached the shores of the island- home of those sturdy and stout-hearted patriots, it was to be hoped that the bracing influences of their climate would make him even bolder than he had been in his speech that evening ; and that if the Tasmanian colonists should determine to resist the landing of any more convicts, he would solemnly assure them that the inhabitants of New South Wales were ready to assemble again in some place under heaven, where all the people could be gathered to ratify all the acts so done and to share in all the consequences. The example of the Cape colonists was before them. The time was come when their only course was to follow that example ; and whenever a prison-ship should arrive in the Derwent, or in any other port, to resist at all hazards the landing of the prisoners thus tyrannically forced upon us. He most sincerely hoped they would not be driven to the catastrophe hinted at by their respected member, Mr. Campbell, that of tumbling the prisoners into the sea ; but whatever sufferings might ensue, at whatever sacrifices, they were now bound to stand by each other in the protection of their own liberties. There were times when men had no right to look round for consequences, when they were bound by all that was dear and sacred to advance. He believed this was a time for such conduct. When he was asked by his colleagues in the council of the League to take part in the business of that meeting, he consented, because he considered he had no right to refuse any duty in the cause ; had they asked him to fight, his consent for the 14 Speeches. reasons he had stated would have been as freely and as quietly given. He had come to the meeting determined to put it to them whether the time had not arrived for the Yan Diemen's Land colonists to resist the landing of the convicts. He could see no other way to get rid of this cruel and desolating agitation. He therefore solemnly asked that meeting, if they agreed with him that the time for this decisive action had arrived, to hold up their right hands in the affirmative. [Here the speaker held up his hand, and was responded to by the hands of nearly all in the body of the meet- ing.] This he accepted as a pledge of their honest and serious determination in the matter. In the name of that meeting, their respected delegate might tell the colonists of Yan Diemen's Land that the people of New South Wales were prepared to stand by them in resisting any further landing of convicts on their shores. He would now most cordially move the resolution which had been intrusted to his hands : — " That the previous resolutions be embodied in an address, and that such address be presented by the president, in the name of this meeting, to the Tasmanian delegates at the Hobart Town conference." SPEECH Delivered at a meeting of the citizens of Sydney convened by the Austral- asian Anti-Transportation League, in Malcolm's Circus, June 30, 1852. Mr. Parkes : The resolution which had been intrusted to him to move was an important one. If not a declaration of war, it was a definition of the limits within which men could adhere to peace. Before offering the few remarks which he had to make, he would read the resohition : — " That this meeting, while solemnly denouncing the continuance of transportation to any of these colonies as incompatible with the permanence of British rule in Australasia, earnestly protests against their language being represented as that of wanton defiance or of anti-British feeling; prompted as it is by a deep consciousness that in their case the sense of oppression is increased in the very proportion in which those feelings which arj a Briton's noblest heritage gain strength among the colonists j and that if the fatal Transportation Question. 15 alternative should continue to be thrust upon them of choosing between British connection in name and an unsullied British character in fact, the dictates of principle and the onward course of events must before long lead to the preference of the latter at any sacrifice." It would be admitted that the substance of the resolution was deeply important, that the topics to which it referred were sufficient to carry the mind away to more eventful times, to the bright issues of what was now dark and gloomy and discour- aging around them. That discussion would open up a field of vast speculation into which, even if he had the ability, he had not the time to enter. On a resolution possessing so much importance he would, however, make one or two remarks. In the first place it called upo*i them to denounce the continuance of transportation. Man, woman, and child, throughout the breadth and length of the colony, with very few exceptions, had a hundred times over denounced transportation, but that resolution called upon them to denounce it as incompatible with their present relation to the mother country. They were all unanimous in joining in that feeling if he were to judge by the speeches which had been delivered, and the manner in which they had been received. They were unanimous in their determination that these colonies should no longer continue to be the cesspool of the British Empire, or of any portion of it. Again, the resolution vindicated them from the slanderous charges of native turbulence and anti-British feeling, which had most unmeritedly been made against them. It showed that they had a true British resolve to eradicate those seeds of dissension which would speedily lead to separation, that they were the not unworthy children of their British fore- fathers. They were the inheritors of no common patrimony. They were a people whose ancestors had planted a tree of liberty so uni- versal in its growth that its offshoots, transplanted to savage shores, had sprung up and borne abundant fruit for the advanc- ing nations of more than one world. Their language and the spirit of their institutions had spread throughout the vast American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and were now carrying civilisation over the rich and glorious land of which these struggling colonies were the embryo peoples. They inherited a glory which belonged to no other race, and their highest duty and their truest loyalty to the British name consisted in preserving that inheritance unimpaired for their posterity. If they were 1 6 Speeches. loyal to themselves as true-born Britons they would assert, in the language of the resolution before them, that the continuance of this monstrous system of convictism was incompatible with the preservation of their rights ; and that, if it were forced upon them, resistance would become a duty, so as to vindicate their character at any price and at any sacrifice. On a former occasion in that building he had stated his belief that the time had arrived in Yan Diemen's Land for the colonists to resist. But in the unparalleled circum- stances of that unfortunate colony she had no strength to resist. The same event — the discovery of gold — which had caused new streams of population to flow into these communities, had the effect of draining her of all social life. Society, as at present exist- ing in Van Diemen's Land, was a thing stripped of its natural energies. There was nothing left there now but the convict Government and its subordinate interests, which in the language of the honourable member for Melbourne bound down the colony in a network of degradation: none other except the convicts them- selves, and a few middle men, who were anchored in the colony by their property, and could not escape. If convict ships were again to arrive here, it would be their duty to resist any such attempt at oppression. And in this spirit they had denounced the continu- ance of the system. Therefore the distinct terms of the resolution were necessary when speaking of such a fatal alternative. THE CONSTITUTION ACT. [In the year 1853 a Select Coraraittee of the old Legislative Council was appointed, on the motion of Mr. Wentworth, to pre- pare a Constitution for the Colony of New South Wales. The Committee consisted of Mr. Wentworth, Mr. James Macarthur, Mr. James Martin, Mr. Charles Cowper, Mr. T. A. Murray, Mr. George Macleay, Mr. E. Deas Thomson, Mr. J. H Plunket, Dr. Douglas, and Mr. William Thurlow. The first meeting of the Committee was held on the 27th May, and fifteen meetings altogether were summoned. Half of the members did not attend one half the meetings. The result of the Committee's deliberations was " A Bill to confer a Constitution on New South Wales, and to grant a Civil List to Her Majesty." This Bill was reported on the 28th July, and with important modifications, all of a popu- lar character, is now the law of the colony. On the first publica- tion of the Bill an instantaneous feeling of indignation spread throughout the colony. The whole newspaper press, with the single exception of the Sydney Morning Herald, denounced its more unpopular provisions, which were forcibly summarised in the advertisement convening the first meeting to oppose it, which was held on August 15th. The notice of meeting (which ought to be regarded as historical) reads as follows : — "A Committee of the Legislative Council has framed a new Constitution for the colony by which it is proposed — 1. To create a colonial nobility with hereditary privileges. 2. To con- struct an Upper House of Legislature in which the people will have no voice. 3. To add eighteen new seats to the Lower House, only one of which is to be allotted to Sydney, while the other seventeen are to be distributed among the country and squatting districts. 4. To squander the public revenue by pensioning off the officers of Government on their full salaries ; thus implanting in our institutions a principle of jobbery and corruption. 5. To fix this oligarchy in the name of free institutions on the people irrevocably, so that no future Legislature can reform it, even by an absolute majority. The Legislative Council has the hardihood to propose passing this unconstitutional and anti-British measure, with only a few days' notice, and before it can possibly be con- sidered by the colonists at large." Though this meeting was called after only two days' notice, and held in the middle of the c 1 8 Speeches. day, the attendance was so large that many hundreds could not obtain admittance within the theatre. The gentlemen who took part in the proceedings were Mr. John Gilchrist, Mr. W. R. Piddington, Mr. J. B. Darvall, Mr. Hobert Johnson, Mr. J. L. Montefiore, Mr. J. W. Bligh, Mr. D. H. Deniehy, Mr. T. S. Mort, Mr. J. R Wilshire, Mr. Adam Bogue, Mr. Edward Flood, and Mr. John Brown. Meetings for the same object were sub- sequently held in all parts of the colony. The result was that a longer time was given for the second reading of the Bill, and the hereditary peerage scheme was abandoned. Most of the other objectionable provisions were retained, including the iniquitous pension scheme by which Sir Edward Deas Thomson, K.C.M.G. (who accepted the office of Colonial Secretary at £1500 a year, and received, before he retired, an increase of £500 to his salary, with a retrospective effect for six years), has now received in the shape of pension £40,000 of the people's money.] SPEECH Delivered at a public meeting in the Victoria Theatre, Sydney, August 15th, 1853, to '* resist the flagrant attack upon the public liberty " con- tained in the provisions of Mr. Wentworth's Constitution Bill. Mr. Parkes rose to move the following resolution : — "That this meeting earnestly protests against any attempt, in the hasty manner now proposed in the Legislative Council, to impose a Constitution on the colony which is passed in direct opposition to the wishes of the people." The people were called upon by the terms of this resolution tq enter their deliberate and solemn protest against the constituted legislative authorities of the country, and this was a course which they ought not to adopt lightly, or without good and sufficient reason ; for the legislature of any country depended for its power and stability on the confidence and respect of the people. And even if he possessed the power, he should shrink from inducing any one present to affirm such a resolution as this upon frivolous or trifling grounds. We forget one of our first duties as citizens when we forget the respect due to those authorities which even here, to some extent, we have brought into existence by our own voice. But it did appear that there was an overpowering weight of evidence to lead that meeting to one only course, which was that pointed out in the resolution he had to propose. The meeting would see that this resolution referred more particu- larly to the manner in which this Constitution business had been Constitution Act. 19 conducted by the Select Committee of the Legislative Council. It would be well to advert to the origin of the Committee, and he was the more inclined to go back to the origin of that Com- mittee, inasmuch as he could not concur in the respect for the motives by which it had been actuated that had been avowed by previous speakers. He did not believe that the Committee deliberated with the best possible intentions. He, as a citizen, felt called upon to express his disbelief in their purity of intention. He believed that no one who carefully regarded the manner in which it was first formed could avoid the impression that it was glaringly packed. When Mr. Wentworth first named his Committee, the name of Mr. Cowper, who really appeared to have been the only troublesome presence in this cabal against the public liberty, was omitted ; but he (Mr. Parkes) remembered that the name of Mr. Morris, for one, was included. He had no desire to express any disrespect towards the young gentleman, but he would ask whether that juvenile statesman had been placed on the Committee for his experience in making Constitutions 1 It was evident that there was another and more forcible reason for the selection. It was pretty well understood that the honourable gentleman was Mr. Wentworth's echo. Now, when he (Mr. Parkes) saw Mr. Went- worth (whose great abilities and perfect knowledge of the momentous business in hand he fully admitted) take one of the most inexperienced members in the Council to assist him in framing a Constitution, he was forced to believe that this young gentleman was selected for other reasons than that he might most effectually serve the country. The Committee was, however, eventually elected by ballot ; and, as one result of that ballot, the name of Mr. Cowper was substituted for that of Mr. Morris. Two other names were also introduced by that result, and he thought that with the introduction of those two names a principle was admitted into its composition, utterly unsound and unconstitutional — there were added the Colonial Secretary and the Attorney-General.* Now, there was no one who entertained a higher respect for this latter ofiicer of the Crown, as a public man, than he (Mr. Parkes) did ; but he altogether denied the right of any nominee member of that House * Mr. E. Deas Thomson and Mr. J. H. Plunket, the two leading official nominees of the old form of Government, which was to be abolished by the new Constitution. c2 20 Speeches. to assist in framing a Constitution for the colony. This objection was taken by Mr. Wentworth himself, and it was no doubt a sound and constitutional one. For what was the principle admitted in this appointment? It was nothing short of allowing men who had not been chosen by them — who had in no way been authorised by the voice of the people — not simply to carry on the ordinary legislation of the country — that was bad enough at present — but to uproot the whole existing order of things, to set up a new Con- stitution which was to be saddled upon us and our children. He denied the right of these two gentlemen to act upon that Committee; and he denied, on the same ground, the moral competence of the nominees, as a body, to vote on this question at all. It was simply a matter of absolute right that a Constitution for the country should be framed by persons who had the consent of the people for whom it was to become law. Such a position appeared to him unanswer- able, and he must therefore deny the moral competency of the Legislative Council itself, as at present constituted, to frame a Constitution for the colony. A work of so grand and funda- mental a nature should be delegated to the hands of men elected especially for that task, and for that task alone. The work was one of immeasurable importance, and lay beyond the reach of any such mongrel body as we had in existence here. If any illustra- tion were needed of the truth of this assertion, he would point to the monstrous production which was now before the public — a production to which, if we submitted, we should deserve to lose our status as free subjects of the greatest nation in the world. To return to this select committee : he had carefully examined the abstract of their proceedings, published under their own supervision, and he was struck with the spirit of levity which seemed to have characterised their conduct. They were found doing and undoing, saying and unsaying, in such an extraordinary manner, that one would suppose from their actions they were a parcel of children — what he recol- lected once hearing Daniel O'Connell describe as "pickled youths." It was impossible to read the proceedings of that Committee without being strongly impressed with the extreme slovenliness and inconsistency displayed throughout. He found, for example, that at an early meeting of the Committee, when there were six members present besides the chairman, it was decided that the constituency of Cook and Westmoreland should not have an Constitution Act. 21 additional member, there being one (Mr. Martin) for the pro- position of two members and five against it ; this was the solemnly-resolved decision of the Committee. But observe what followed : at the very next meeting they granted to the con- stituency in question, in the teeth of their own decision, an additional member. Now, he would appeal to the meeting whether men who could thus turn about, and thus jump about from one position to another, without regard to common decency or decorum, in conducting public business, were fit for the con- sideration of a measure of such grave importance. Would we, if we had our choice, select men of such unstable minds to frame a Constitution under which we and our children were to live ? He would now proceed to show something further in opposition to the sentiment expressed by a previous speaker, that this measure had been constructed with a fervent desire for the public welfare. He could assure the meeting that in the draft report of this Com- mittee there was a clause, — which, however, was afterwards expunged, — recommending an Act of Council to send one of their body to England, as their envoy, with plenary powers, to take charge of this Bill and urge its enactment by the Imperial legis- lature. Could there be a moment's doubt who would have been the envoy 1 This clause contained internal evidence that it was written by Mr. Wentworth, who doubtless anticipated that the Council would vote a comfortable sum of £2000 or £4000 towards his expenses in London and on the Continent. Now, did this look like a studious regard for the public interest 1 The matter was so completely cut and dried, that it was impos- sible not to see the design to take the public by surprise. The Committee thought the household were all asleep, and that they might break in and steal our liberties without being observed. The resolution now submitted to the meeting also alleged that the new Constitution had been framed in direct opposition to the wishes of the people ; and no better evidence of the truth of this statement could be adduced than the presence of such enthusiastic numbers on this occasion. And how could it be hoped that a Constitution would find acceptance with the community, which proposed the creation of an order of things that sensible men were now anxious to get rid of all over the world — a Constitution that proposed to appoint a House of Legislature in which the people were to have no voice whatever ; a Constitution that pro- 2 2 Speeches. posed to squander the public money in pensioning off, at full salaries, men still in the prime of life, who were as well able to work as he or any other man in that meeting; a Constitution which proposed to do this and many other monstrous things in direct opposition to the people. One of the speakers had been careful to inform the meeting that he was no Radical. He (Mr. Parkes) could not blame him for this delicacy of feeling on being found in strange company ; but he felt it to be his duty fearlessly to assert that one of the greatest evils in the colony was the present unjust distribution of the representation. He had found an explanation of the wonderful change in the opinions of the Committee as to whether Cook and Westmoreland should have another member — the new-born liberality was to repay the present member for that district for his readiness in proposing that the city of Sydney should have only one additional member. On the same day it was decided that four of the pastoral districts should have four additional members, while Sydney was to have but one. He would not be understood as denying, or wishing to deny, the right of the persons engaged in pastoral pursuits to representation, as he fully recognised that right ; but he main- tained that we were not to go beyond the ordinary limits of the Constitution to create new-fangled and un-English constituencies to meet the peculiar circumstances of their case. In granting the elective franchise to the squatters, it was never intended that these pocket constituencies should be created for their special and exclu- sive advantage. Such was the condition of these constituencies, that it was next to impossible for any vital action of the elective principle to be felt in them. In none of these constituencies had there been an election at all. Some three or four pastoral princes held a meeting in a comfortable log-cabin, and decided on their delegate ; and then, riding over to the place of nomination, they chose him in the presence of a handful of their own shepherds and two or three gum trees. With this rough sort of constitutional brand upon him, the squatting member came down to the Council, where his vote was of course as good as that of a representative of the city of Sydney. Why, this state of things was worse than that of the old rotten boroughs in England before the passing of the Reform Bill. It was worse in this respect : those boroughs, if they were seats of patronage, were yet in the hands of highly- educated gentlemen, who almost invariably nominated men of Constitution Act. 23 parliamentary talent ; but here we always found that the most useless men in the Council were sent down from the squatting districts. In some instances members were returned whose occu- pations prevented them from attending to their parliamentary duties. It was even now stated in the Legislative Council that certain squatting members could not wait to attend the second read- ing of the new Constitution Bill if it were postponed, because they were obliged to return to their stations. These gentlemen would doubtless think it unreasonable that so trifling a matter as the construction of a political Constitution should hinder them from looking after their sheep. Look at the district of New England. In the first session of Council the member for that constituency never presented himself at all. The fact that the existing member stopped away one whole session presented no strong argument, certainly, why that district should have another. Yet such practically was the logic of the Select Committee in the course they had adopted. They had allotted additional members to districts, the representatives of which did not think it worth their while to attend to their duties. He would now advert to the manifest impatience with which it had been endeavoured to hurr^ this Bill through the House. When the honourable and learned author of the Bill first intro- duced the matter, he deprecated any discussion on the occasion, intimating that the principles of his measure would be fully discussed on its first reading. When it came on to be read a first time, the honourable member still deprecated all discussion, hoping that this might be deferred to its second reading as the more proper time j arid he (Mr. Parkes) firmly believed, and those who had closely watched the proceedings must also believe, that the design was to put off as long as possible all discussion — to stifle all consideration of the question till the last moment, and then to precipitate the measure through the House, and fasten it upon the country. Nor could he see, in candour, how such manifestations of conduct in the authors of the scheme entitled them to much consideration at the hands of the people for the purity of their intentions. We were told that great points would be conceded ; that the peerage would be given up ; that Sydney should be allowed three additional members instead of one ; that the pastoral districts should not have the lion's share in the representation. He (Mr. Parkes) did not, of 24 speeches. course, know whether these announcements were authorised; but, if so, it appeared to him only heaping insult upon injury. If this was the purity of motive that was manifested, it was like the purity of motive to be detected in the man who asked you five pounds for what he intended to sell for two pounds ; or who attempted to rob you of your watch and purse, and on finding he could not get it said that you were welcome to keep it. Why, if it was now right that Sydney should have six members, it was equally so when the Committee was sitting. They seemed to hope that, in consideration of such concessions as these, we should spare our denunciations of the other objectionable portions of the measure : that, if they relinquished their plunder, we should not set the police upon them. For his part, he would advise the people to place no trust whatever in the present Legislative Council ; but, at the same time, to insist loudly on the necessity" of having a new Constitution at once formed, and its consideration delayed no longer. It had been urged that the question should be postponed for further consideration. But was it right, when so gross and flagrant an attempt upon our liberty had been made, that we should postpone for a single day this important work of self-preservation, with such manifest proofs before us of the vicious- ness of the body with which the country was saddled 1 What- ever decision might be arrived at that day, the people must meet again and again, and insist upon a Constitution being formed with or without the concurrence of the Legislative Council. So long as it was stamped with the concurrence and approval of the whole community, it would be treated with respect by the Imperial Parliament. He would again urge upon the meeting, not incon- considerately to adopt a resolution which reflected so strongly upon the proceedings of the Legislature. He trusted they would only affirm it after bestowing their best attention upon the subject, as the embodiment of their determined will. But, familiar as all present must be with the noble examples of modern England, with the spirit-stirring associations of England's glorious past, kindling love of country in their souls ; familiar as they must be with the high and eloquent teachings of her famous dead, whose life-words of patriotism pealed like trumpet tones from every period of her national history, and were echoed back from every shore where men were free, they would need no words from him to rouse their indignation, no arguments from him to convince Constitution Act. 25 their judgments, no appeal from him to strengthen their resolu- tion, to resist the iniquitous measure which it was now threatened to inflict on this long-misgoverned country. SPEECH Delivered at an open-air meeting of the inhabitants of Sydney held on the Government grounds adjoining the Circular Quay, September 5, 1853, to petition the Queen and the Imperial Parliament against the new Consitution Bill.* Mr. Parkes said the gentleman who first addressed them had very properly called upon them to give three cheers for the Queen. In his turn he called upon them to give three cheers, three hearty cheers, for the eight patriotic men who formed the minority in the division in the Legislative Council against Mr. Wentworth's mon- strous Bill. It was something, when they saw others falling away on every side from the principles they had espoused throughout their whole lives — it was something to find eight men so thoroughly staunch and determined, so alive to the true interests of the country, and so ready to stand by and defend their threatened liberties. He congratulated the meeting on having a gentleman who stood so high in the esteem of his fellow-citizens, occupying the chair that day. In addressing himself to the resolution that had been entrusted to him, he would endeavour to prove to their satisfaction that it was a just and proper one. It was : — " That this meeting records its surprise and indignation at the unconstitu- tional doctrines advanced in the Legislative Council, during the discussion of the present measure, whereby the great maxim of just and enlightened government, that * All power emanates from the people,' is sought to be denied; and that, viewing the inherent defects of nomineeism and class interest in the existing Legislature, this meeting publicly records its total want of confidence in that body in reference to this measure, which is fraught with the most momentous consequences to the whole people." *Amongst the gentlemen who took part in this meeting (which was attended by 5000 persons) were Mr. John Gilchrist, Mr. T. W. Smart, Mr. John Richardson, Mr. J. B. Darvall, Mr. Eobert Campbell, Mr. J. W. Bligh, Mr. (now Sir Charles) Cowper, Mr, Thomas Walker, Mr. G. K. Holden, Mr. J. L. Montefiore, Mr. John Campbell, Mr. R. A. A. Morehead, and Mr. W. R. Piddington. 26 Speeches. It would be his duty, in the first place, to show that the doc- trines which had been advanced in the Council were unconstitu- tional, and in the next, that they had just grounds to declare that they had lost all confidence in the Legislative Council with regard to this measure, from the inherent defects of nomineeism, and the prevalence of class interests in that body. He would then advert to the speeches that had been made in that House by the honour- able member, Mr. Wentworth, and the honourable member for Cook and Westmoreland, Mr. Martin ; and he should rely mainly on those two speeches, which had been received with so much applause, to prove his case. Mr. Wentworth in the course of his opening speech had informed them, doubtless much to their astonishment, that the mercantile and trading classes were alto- gether unnecessary and did not need representation. That gentle- man could not see what there was to represent beyond the squat- ting interest. This was in strange taste as coming from the senior member for the city, to say nothing of its injustice and absurdity. The other honourable member, Mr. Martin, did not regard the " lower classes" at all. If he understood Mr. Martin's speech aright, he contended that the great body of the people had no right to be considered at all in questions of govern- ment. He told us plainly that man had no inherent right to representation ; that it was for the Legislature to deter- mine to whom should be granted this right ; that the fran- chise was a mere matter of convenience, to be fixed by those who had the power to fix it. The Solicitor- General (Mr. Manning), who he was bound to say had met the question in a more fair and liberal manner than any of the other sup- porters of the Bill, had also talked about the people " as one of the estates of the realm." The learned gentleman repeatedly made use of that expression. Now, he would like to know, if that estate were taken away, where all the other estates would be. According to all the constitutional authorities he had ever read, the people were regarded as the basis of the realm itself. It cer- tainly seemed strange to him to hear the people set down by a law officer of the Government as " one of the estates of the realm." If that estate were taken away, he should imagine that the honour- able gentleman's salary would soon follow. Mr. Martin, in his speech, went on to state, " that he did not recognise the right of any meeting, or any body of men, to sit in revision of the acts of Constitution Act. 27 that Council. The Council was elected for the purpose of legis- lation, and he (Mr. Martin) wanted to know what was the superior body that was to sit in review of their acts." This, let it be remembered, was the legislative body which was condemned by the very Constitution Bill which Mr. Martin himself was endeavouring to pass. Old-fashioned people thought that there was such a thing as the right of petition, as the right of free dis- cussion, — to review in public meeting the conduct of Government, and the conduct of the people's representatives. It would be found that there was an ulterior right when their legislators were acting treason against the liberties of the people — the right to punish, the right to send them back into the obscurity from which they had emerged. These were some of the unconstitutional doc- trines against which he for one protested, and against which the resolution was aimed. And considering how loudly they had been cheel*ed, how cordially they had been responded to in the Legislative Council, he thought the reception they had met with was sufficient to destroy all faith in the Council's intelligence and sense of justice. But having some consideration for the large array of authorities which these members had brought to bear upon the question, he would beg permission to place before the meeting the opinions of men not less distinguished, in order to fortify his own opinions, which were of very little value in themselves. He would assure them that his authorities were not perverted as others had been in the Legislative Council, but that the sentiments expressed in the. extracts he was about to read were in accordance with the doctrines which these illustrious men had spent their lives in establishing. The first authority he would trouble them with was Jeremy Bentham, and he ventured to think that he was almost as great a philosopher as James Martin. Another of his authorities would be a statesman, who was now known in English history as the ^' Great Commoner ;" he meant the illustrious Earl of Chatham. He ventured to think that he might be considered nearly as great as William Charles Wentworth. Bentham, then, said : — " Property, it is continually said, is the only bond and pledge of attach- ment to 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 away 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 28 Speeches. so in the eyes of labourers themselves. Life is not worth more to yawners than to labourers ; and their country is the only country in which they can so much as hope to live. Among a hundred of them not ten exceptions to this will you find." He would now read, in connexion with this extract from Ben- tham, and to elucidate its full meaning, the opinion of one of the truest philanthropists — one of the purest and most elevated intel- lects of this or any other age — the great and good Dr. Chan- ning :— '* Let us not disparage that nature which is common to all men, for no thought can measure its grandeur. It is the image of G-od — the image even of His infinity — for no limits can be set to its unfolding. He who possesses the divine powers of the soul is a great being, be his place what it may. You may clothe him with rags, may immure him in a dungeon, may chain him to slavish tasks, but he is still great. You may shut him out of your houses, but God opens to him heavenly mansions. He makes no show, indeed, in the streets of a splendid city ; but a clear thought, a pure affection, a resolute act of a virtuous will, have a dignity of quite another kind, and far higher than accumulations of brick and granite, of plaister and stucco, however cunningly put together, or though stretching far beyond our sight. Nor is this all. If we pass over this grandeur of our common nature, and turn our thoughts to that comparative greatness which draws chief attention, and which consists in the decided superiority of the individual to the general standard of power and character, we shall find this as free and frequent a growth among the obscure and unnoticed as in more conspicuous walks of life. The truly great are to be found everywhere ; nor is it easy to say in what condition they spring up most plentifully. Real greatness has nothing to do with a man's sphere. It does not lie in the magnitude of his out- ward agency, in the extent of the effects which he produces. The greatest men may do comparatively little abroad. Perhaps the greatest men in our city at this moment are buried in obscurity. Grandeur of character lies wholly in force of soul, that is in the force of thought, moral principle, and love, and this may be found in the humblest condition of life. A man brought up to an obscure trade, and hemmed in by the wants of a growing family, may in his narrow sphere perceive more clearly, discriminate more keenly, weigh evidence more wisely, seize on the right means more decisively, and have more presence of mind in difficulty, than another who has accumulated vast stores of knowledge by laborious study ; and he has more of intellectual greatness. Many a man who has gone but a few miles from home under- stands human nature better, detects motives and weighs character more sagaciously, than another who has travelled over the known world and made a name by his reports of different countries. It is force of thought which measures intellectual, and so it is force of principle which measures moral, greatness — that highest of human endowments, that brightest manifestation of the Divinity. The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in Constitution Act. 29 storms, and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering ; and is this a greatness which is apt to make a show, or which is most likely to abound in conspicuous stations? Perhaps in our presence the most heroic deed on earth is done in some silent spirit, the loftiest purpose cherished, the most generous sacrifice made, and we do not suspect it. I believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude whose names are never heard. Among common people will be found more of hardship borne man- fully, more of unvarnished truth, more of religious trust, more of that gene- rosity which gives what the giver needs himself, and more of a wise estimate of life and death, than among the more prosperous. And even in regard to influence over other beings, which is thought the peculiar prerogative of distinguished station, I believe that the difference between the conspicuous and the obscure does not amount to much. Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind. A man may spread his mind, his feelings and opinions through a great extent ; but if his mind be a low one, he manifests no greatness. A wretched artist may fill a city with daubs, and by a false showy style achieve reputation ; but the man of genius, who leaves behind him one grand picture, in which immortal beauty is embodied, and which is silently to spread a true taste in his art, exerts an incomparably higher influence." He had felt some hesitation in taking up their time with this long extract, which was somewhat out of place at a public meeting, but it became necessary to expose the pernicious and wicked attempts which had been made in the Legislative Council to dis- parage the intelligence of the great body of the people. There was the Postmaster-Greneral — who told them that he had visited many foreign countries. That gentleman appeared a fair illustra- tion of Dr. Channing's remark, that many persons did not profit by their travels. They had been told by Mr. Martin that they were not able to form a serious opinion, or one of any value on important questions; but he would rather take the judgment of Dr. Channing. Let them now hear what Lord Chatham had said upon the subject, speaking in the House of Peers : — " I myself am one of the people. I esteem that security and independ- ence which is the original birthright of an Englishman, far beyond the pri- vileges, however splendid, which are annexed to the Peerage." He hoped these authorities would be sufficient to prove that the people of this colony had been treated with a contumely and arro- gant disregard which were foreign to the feelings of Englishmen of whatever rank, and that the course pursued in the recent debate did not entitle the Council to their confidence and respect. What was the doctrine that had been advanced in the Council but, in 30 Speeches. effect, that the people were unworthy of the free expression of opinion or the exercise of political influence 1 He would now address himself to the other part of the resolution, which declared that, from the inherent defects of nomineeism and the existence of class interests in the Council, that body was not deserving of the confidence of the people. And on this subject he must trouble them with one more quotation. It was from a gentleman born in the colony, one who was now living an active life in their midst, one who was universally regarded as one of the most powerful intellects that this country had produced. He was about to read the opinions of no less a personage than Mr. Went worth himself on the subject of nomineeism. Some twelve years ago, many of them would remem- ber, there was an investigation made into the subject of certain land claims in New Zealand. This investigation was conducted by that most able man, Governor Sir George Gipps; and they would remem- ber with what masterly ease he turned Mr. Wentworth — great as he was now among the pigmies of Macquarie- street — completely round his finger. It would appear that, shortly before that investigation, Sir George Gipps had sent home the name of Mr. Wentworth, whom he recommended for apppointment to the next vacancy in the old JSTominee Council. But in consequence, as it would seem, of facts which discovered themselves to the mind of the late Governor in the progress of this investigation, Sir George felt himself compelled to send another despatch to the Secretary of State, advising that his recommendation in favour of Mr. Went- worth should not be carried out. In course of time the first despatch and the counter-despatch arrived in this colony and were printed. Mr Wentworth immediately wrote a furious letter to a Sydney newspaper, defending himself from what he considered an injustice done to his public character. And what paper did he select for his manifesto ? He did not go to the Sydney Morning Herald then, but to the Free Press^ the most democratic paper in the colony, conducted by Mr. James M'Eachern, who certainly could not be considered as a very high Conservative. This was the paper which was then his political organ ; and the fact had some significance, considering that Mr. Wentworth had so vehemently declared that he never was a democrat. His letter appeared in the Free Press of January 6th, 1842. He wished the meeting to notice how highly Mr. Wentworth spoke then of nominee mem- bers. This was what he said : — Constitution Act. 31 " If the Governor, before he made his recommendation, had condescended to explain his gracious intentions to me, I would have told him, in reply, what all my more intimate friends can vouch for, that even under the government of Sir Richard Bourke, and notwithstanding my reverence for his public character, when it was generally understood that I was to be offered the vacant seat in the Legislative Council which was ultimately given to Sir John Jamison, that I had made up my mind, after the fullest considera- tion, not to accept the office, if it had been tendered to me, even by him. If my repugnance was invincible then to become a mere nominee^ and to lose caste by suffering myself to be enrolled among a body of oflScial and unofficial mem- bers, the former of whom are given to understand, notwithstanding their oaths, that it is a condition of their tenure of office that they are to support all measures of the Government, whether good or bad ; and the latter of whom, for the most part, seem only to have been selected from their utter incompetency to offer any effectual resistance to such measures ; or from their known or expected obsequiousness to the powers that be ; — I ask whether it is probable that I would have submitted, under the rule of Sir George Gipps, to lose my time in struggling against the hopeless majorities of such colleagues, or to sacrifice my independence by becoming one of his puppets, and succumbing to the contumelious treatment which he ever and anon indulges in towards those of his creatures whose sycophancy does not keep pace with his rabid appetite for adulation." Now, these " creatures," as lie called them, whose portraits he had painted so faithfully, for whom he had expressed such bitter contempt — these were the very men whom he now sought to elevate into the region of perpetual nomineeism. No wonder those gentlemen, seeing his vivid powers of description, were now delighted to get him on their side. This was Mr. Wentworth's opinion in 1842; no doubt, if they could penetrate the inmost recesses of that gentleman's heart, they would find that he had the same opinion still of his new allies. But, without any such super- natural scrutiny, they might arrive at what was Mr. Wentworth's opinion now, or at least what it was only a few months ago. He would give them an extract from Mr. Wentworth's speech, on moving for a Committee to draw up this very Bill that they were now discussing : — " In excluding from the list of the Committee which he proposed the name of any nominee, more especially any official nominee, he was actuated by a consideration of delicacy towards these gentlemen. To place them on such a Committee as this would be to place them in a false position — false to themselves and the office they held — and a position in which they ought not to be placed. This was the sole reason why, in the composition of the Committee, he had confined it to the elective members of that House, and to infuse any other element into the constitution of the Committee would be to prevent the sense of the House from being properly arrived at. These were 32 Speeches. his views in reference to the composition of the Committee. He trusted that if any opposition to such a course manifested itself, the elective element in that House was strong enough to put it down." This was an extract from Mr. Wentworth's speech in the Legis- lative Council on June 16th, 1852, and he thought it contained pretty strong language in condemnation of nominee legislators. He would ask, if the nominees were unfit to deal with the Constitu- tion question twelve months ago, how much better fitted were they on Friday night last, when Mr. Wentworth implored these very men to give him their votes. There remained one more point in the resolution, and that was the assertion of the existence of a class ascendancy i'n the House. Since he had been on the hustings that afternoon, he had been told by a member of the House that there were no less than 33 members of that body closely connected with the squatting interest. That was a very significant fact, especially when they took it in connexion with Mr. Wentworth's assertion of the right of fifty or sixty families to erect themselves into an aristocracy, and to form eventually, as he proposed, an Upper House of Legislature. This right on the part of an arrogant few was assumed in Mr. Wentworth's first speech, and in his second speech we were told that he had devised his notable scheme of hereditary titles with a view to the peculiar qualifications of the " shepherd kings" of the country, who already possessed splendid acquisitions of land, and were on the high road to fortunes which would maintain them in a state of nobility. The squatters were, in fact, the only class in the country who could support the dignity and splendour of a title. If they duly weighed all this, and then looked at the last clauses of the Bill they would see, by the pro- visions Mr. Wentworth had made to secure the possession of their lands in the hands of the squatting interest, that a deep design to exalt and aggrandise a class by the spoliation of the people was at the bottom of the present measure. Unless two-thirds of the Legislature, a large proportion of whom they might clearly see would be connected with the squatting interest, gave their assent to any alteration in the Constitution, the lands would be theirs in perpetuity. He thought this was most conclusive evidence that there was this class ascendancy in that body which was denounced in the resolution as dangerous to the liberties of the people. If the members of the Legislature were so daring, so deeply infected with treason — he could use no milder term — Constitution Act. 33 towards the liberties of the people, as to deny their right to meet and express their opinions ; and if they treated their petitions with contumely and disregard, he must say that it was idle to petition that body any longer, and that it was indeed time to express a public want of confidence in its deliberations and its acts. When they remembered that one-third of the members of that House were there without the concurrence of the people at all, and the majority of the elective members — elected, it was true, but by a system which was a perfect mockery of representation — were opposed to the wishes and the interests of the people, surely, in the name of everything that was just and true, in the name of everything that was thoroughly British, it was time to express our total want of confidence in that body. He would now call their attention to the aspersion of the mercantile interest that had been indulged in by Mr. Wentworth ; and he thought he could not do better than contrast his opinions with those of the great Earl of Chatham. Mr. Wentworth boldly declared that the merchants of Sydney were of no use, that the colony could do very well without them. The Earl of Chatham had said, in speaking of the same class — '* I hope, my lords, that nothing I have said will be understood to extend to the honest, industrious tradesman, who holds the middle rank, and has given repeated proofs that he prefers law and liberty to gold. I love that class of men. Much less would I be thought to reflect upon the fair merchjyit, whose liberal commerce is the prime source of national wealth. I esteem his occupation, and respect his character." Though no arguments were required to expose the absurdity of Mr. Wentworth's notions, he could not help quoting the estimate formed of the value of the tradesman and the merchant by the great English commoner. According to Mr. Wentworth, these great classes — whose intelligence and enterprise were of such im- mense importance to every civilised community, and who were themselves generally the most enlightened promoters of the well- being of the State — were perfectly useless, and disentitled to any consideration in the working of representative Government. (Here the speaker was interrupted by much cheering and repeated cries of " Bob Nichols."*) Well, he had been frequently reminded *The late George Kobert Nichols who, though carried away on the Consti- tution question by his admiration for his fellow countryman, Mr. Wentworth, had been identified with most of the liberal movements in the colony, and was the author of many useful measures. D 34 Speeches. of that honourable member, but he had not much to say about him. He would tell them what a witty friend of his had said respect- ing that gentleman a few days ago. On being told that Mr. Nichols had recanted and joined the nominees, he replied, *' poor Robert ! he has been canting all his life, and it is now high time that he recanted." It might be truly said that Mr. Nichols had been canting in more senses than one — canting like a ship without ballast, as well as dealing in all the discarded cant of political quackery. But with respect to Mr. Nichols, who was now so conservative in his ideas, they would all remember that that gentleman not long ago had talked very loudly about 100,000 American sympathisers coming over to enable the colony to obtain its independence. This was said at a public dinner in this city presided over by Mr. Nichols ; and who did they think was the person who on that occasion took exception to the anti-British language of Mr. Nichols 1 Why, it was Mr. Wentworth's arch- anarchist, the humble person now speaking, who in that room protested against the disloyal language of the honourable gentle- man. And now with regard to the aspersions so freely cast upon himself. Mr. Wentworth had honoured him with the title of the "arch-anarchist." He supposed he was regarded as the leader of the imaginary '' ruffians" who were to go down to Yaucluse and pillage it.* He would tell that honourable gentleman that he had no such power, no such influence, as was attributed tp him. The part he had taken in the present movement was a very humble one; -he had done no more than any other member of this Committee ; and with regard to his being an anarchist, he most indignantly denied that he was in any respect a worse citizen than Mr. Wentworth himself. In the opposition he had felt it his duty to give to the measure now under discussion, he was actuated by the same singleness of purpose which he believed actuated all the gentlemen with whom he was associated. Mr. Wentworth had said that if certain persons — the " arch-anarchist," he sup- posed, among them — got the upper hand, they would trample on the country with an iron heel. But the truth was that they were seeking to rescue the country from the *'iron heel" of others. He had himself been charged with want of loyalty to his father- land. It would be more pardonable in Mr. Wentworth than in * Language of the character indicated was frequently applied to the opponents of the Constitution Bill by Mr. Wentworth and his friends. Constitution Act. 35 him to be deficient in patriotic feeling and in loyalty. He, at all events, had right good reason to be proud of his fatherland, and there was no pulse of his life that beat with truer warmth than that which responded to the title of a loyal Englishman. He was born in the heart of Old England, within a few hours' walk of the spot where Shakspeare was born, where some of the noblest associations of English history were fresh in the hearts of even the rural population ; and he had been reared in one of the greatest and most prosperous and public-spirited towns in Great Britain. He spurned the attempt to fix upon him any advocacy of republican government. He was sincerely attached to his native country and her institutions. It was his heartfelt desire that that flag (pointing to the British ensign over the hustings) might wave in peace and security over his grave, and over the graves of his children ; and in ages to come might float the banner of a great and glorious people here, afiiliated by all the bonds of aflection and justice to that dear old land from which they were all descended. In his judgment it would be a great and fatal mistake to attempt in Australia any mere imitation of the noble form of Government under which the great American people had risen to such colossal power. Nor did he imagine that, with the progress of events, the character of any known nation would be slavishly reproduced here. He thought this country was destined to show the spectacle of a great nation perfectly free, profoundly prosperous, and glowing with distinctive national aspirations, and yet united in the bonds of affection and political interests to the mother country. He did not want a " Yankee Constitution" any more than Mr. Wentworth. But by all that was sacred, by the God who had given them a great and fruitful country to dwell in, he for one would never consent to have a Norfolk Island Con- stitution. He objected — and the gentlemen with whom he was proud to act on this occasion objected — to Mr. Wentworth 's scheme, because it was a scheme in violation of the true principles of the British Constitution. He had thought it right thus publicly and explicitly to defend himself and those who were associated with him against the charges which had been so recklessly made ; he flung back those charges with unutterable scorn ; he desired nothing beyond that which he was entitled to ask as a loyal and patriotic subject of the Queen of England. Before he sat down he would briefly advert to some of the misrepresentations of D 2 J 6 Speeches. matters of history which had been put forward in the Council. A gentleman for whose public character he had a high respect, he meant the Attorney-General (Mr. Plunket) had told them, with an air of triumph, that the great men who framed the American Constitution had sat for months and years in discussion on the measure with closed doors, and that when their plan was matured they promulgated it by authority. But the historical fact was that, in the eleventh year of the Confederation, it was found that the Articles of Confederation were so defective for affording adequate power for national purposes — and this con- viction had been forcing itself upon the minds of statesmen for several years — that it was determined to form a Convention for the revision of the form of government. Delegates for this pur- pose were appointed by twelve out of thirteen States, who met in Philadelphia on the 14th of May, 1787, to form a Constitution; and so far from sitting for years, he found that on the 17th of September in the same year they presented their report to Con- gress, which on the 28th of the same month remitted it to the several States for approval. To a certain extent it might be true that the delegates sat with closed doors, for as it was cold in America they probably did not leave them open. But so far from the Constitution being promulgated by authority, he found that one State, Rhode Island, refused to accept it, and stood out from the Union for two years and eight months. Virginia, stirred up by the great eloquence of Patrick Henry, one of the most remarkable men of the Revolution, also opposed it, and refused to accept it for many months. These were the facts of the case, and they showed the false basis of knowledge upon which gentlemen in the Council proceeded when they could listen to such distorted statements, and at the same time brand the people out of doors with ignorance and meddling with matters they did not understand. The Attorney-General had also told them that the Senate of the United States was elected by the Sovereign States, and therefore was appointed by a process ana- logous to the appointment of nominees by the Queen's representa- tive ; this, at all events, was what he understood from the speech of that learned gentleman. But Mr. Plunket must have been greatly misled, for it was known to most of them that the senators were elected by a majority of the votes of the State Legislatures. He was somewhat at a loss to understand why the Constitution Act. 37 Attorney-General had pronounced such a high eulogium on the speech of Mr. Martin. He was ready to admit that that speech in many respects was an able one, but still he was surprised to hear the Attorney-General speak of it in terms of rapture. But he found, on referring to the conclusion of that speech, a very satisfactory reason for Mr. Plunket's admiration. Mr. Martin concluded with a very patriotic avowal that he would pension off the ojficers of the Crown at their full salaries, and doubtless such an idea of constitutional government was very delightful to the worthy Attorney- General. In conclusion, he urged them to consider whether they had not just reason to assent to the resolution he had read to them. After the contumely that had been heaped on them and their petitions, — after the uncon- stitutional doctrines which had been propounded by the Legislative Council — he for one would never send another petition to that body on this question. He denied the right of that House to force this Constitution on the people of the colony ; and it was the bounden duty of all classes to appeal to a higher power — a more impartial tribunal. He had no doubt as to what the result of that appeal would be. Despite the overwhelming majority in the Council, the reasonableness and justice of their petitions would prevail, and the youthful energies of this fair country would be freed from the infliction of this most detestable and un-British measure. ELECTION FOR SYDNEY IN 1854. [Mr. Wentworth had resigned his seat as member for the city of Sydney in the old Legislative Council, and had departed for England. The late Mr. Charles Kemp was a candidate for the vacancy, and Mr. Parkes was proposed in opposition. The suffrage was then held on a property-qualification, with open voting. The result of the poll was— Parkes, 1427 j Kemp, 779.] SPEECH . Delivered at the nomination of candidates for the seat in the representa- tion of Sydney vacated by the resignation of Mr. Wentworth, May 1, 1854. Mr. Parkes said : I shall endeavour in addressing you to avoid the personalities which have supplied the chief staple of these pro- ceedings. This meeting impresses me too deeply, not with any paltry expectation of triumph, but with a sense of my own unimportance and want of merit, to indulge in those feelings which the extent and warmth of the support I have met with hitherto are calculated to inspire. I am not one of those who look out for persons of leisure to fill important public offices, for I believe that every one created in God's image must do what he conceives to be his duty, whether he have leisure or not ; and whatever the sacrifices he may be called upon to make, a man must not shrink from discharging that duty. It is with this feeling, and remembering that my own duties are already numerous and heavy, that I affirm that I would rather support any other candidate whose principles were in accordance, not with those of levellers and seditionists, but with those avowed by the present Government of Queen Victoria. If any man stood before you whose political views were as far advanced as those maintained by Her Majesty's Ministers, I would retire now at the eleventh hour and support that candidate. But I cannot, with this determination, support the election of Mr. Election for Sydney In 1854. 39 Kemp, who is emphatically the stagnant man of New South Wales. Indeed, he is stagnation personified, and if you take him for your member you will be thrown back a century in your political history. I do not say this without having seriously considered what Mr. Kemp's principles are, as expounded by himself during this contest. I believe we can only advance in prosperity and security by adopting those principles of political progress which have, on more occasions than one, saved the mother country from perdition. I believe that had it not been for the repeated reforms in the institutions of England, she would have been shaken to her foundations by the anarchy which has overwhelmed other European states. Believing all this, and seeing that in England at the present day the parliamentary representation of the people comes more closely home to every man than it does here, what on earth is there seditious, disloyal, or un-English, in extending to every man in this country the right to which every British subject is entitled 1 Yet this is regarded as the head and front of my offending with the " Plutocracy" of New South Wales. I shall now enter at some little length into an explanation of the principles which will guide me, if elected to the Legislative Council. I will not express that extravagant confidence of success which Mr. Kemp has expressed. If I am not constituted your representative, I shall not be very sorry for it, but if you do commit your interests to me, it is only right that you should know how I shall seek to discharge my duty. I believe that the danger here will be in limiting, not in extending, the power of the people ; for, as was justly remarked by my friend Mr. Darvall the other evening when supporting me as a fit candi- date, there are very few persons amongst us who do not possess some stake in the country, or who have not the power to acquire that stake. Seeing, then, that the means of obtaining property are within the reach of every man of industrious habits ; seeing that every man here can pursue a course which must lead to com- petence or, at least, a position of comfort, I believe that the only danger which can accrue to the country will and must result from withholding that political power and those full privileges to which the people are entitled as free-born Britons. I should therefore use all my efforts, progressively — for I am fond of beginning with little and improving by degrees — to extend to every free-born man in this country, of unstained character and mature age, those 40 Speeches. rights which I myself possess. With regard to the great question of education, I have already declared myself, as systems at pre- sent stand, in favour of the national system. But so much import- ance do I attach to the work of mental training as the foundation of every social virtue, that I should be prepared to support any modification or alteration of that system which would more adapt it to the peculiar wants of the remote, thinly-populated and scattered districts of the colony. Some questions have been asked of me as to my views on the construction of railways. I, with every other man of common sense, believe that railways on a gigantic scale should be at once commenced, whatever the present cost, or whatever debt, within reasonable bounds, may result to posterity. We must, however, see first that the work is based upon sound principles, which if carried out will render the railways permanently useful. In connection with the construc- tion of better roads, I desire to explain that if I go into the Legislature now or at any other time, I shall constantly bear in mind the vast importance to the country of public works of all descriptions. I shall give particular attention to the condition of our harbours along the whole sea coast, to get the bars and other natural obstructions removed, and thus to render their waters navigable. I am informed that even in our own harbour many of the bays are fast filling up, through want of efficient means of protection. There is one thing in the political reforms of the Constitution to which I promise, if elected, to give my best atten- tion : I shall steadily exert myself to give this city a larger share in the general representation than it at present possesses. The bare idea that possibly I may, at four o'clock to-morrow after- noon, be your representative, instead of stimulating me to feelings of idle vanity, afflicts me with a deep sense of responsibility, and of the difficult task which will be thrown upon me so to shape my course as to be able to advance our infant liberties, and to be — with- out the prospect of which I would not continue to hold my seat — a valued member of the Legislature. If it should be my fortune to be elected, and I should find myself an uninfluential member of the House, my pride would not allow me to remain, whether you asked me to resign or not. That pride would compel me to retreat from a position for which I found myself unqualified, as much for my own sake as for the character of the constituency. Having thus briefly stated the reasons that have induced me to appear before you, and Election for Sydney in 1854. 41 the principles by which I shall be guided, I have nothing more to do than to impress upon you that if you desire to see a free and prosperous country, to see a happy and virtuous population spread over the length and breadth of the land, to see households flourishing in places where now there is nothing but sterility and barrenness, you will not vote for Charles Kemp. This reminds me of some remarks made by Mr. Mort as to the value which the present squatting system has been to the country. He told us, somewhat irrelevantly, of cases of extreme hardship and even of absolute ruin endured by some of those enterprising pioneers who have penetrated the bush and been unsuccessful. Of all such great enterprises, no doubt, painful circumstances in special cases might be detailed ; but what has that to do with the system itself] As to the squatters suffering from the want of labour, if, instead of taking in past years from parsimonious motives unsettled roving men who had no home, and therefore no induce- ment to remain on their stations, they had planted families there, and encouraged the system which nature clearly ordered in the beginning, "they would have had a colonial -born population by this time, and their servants would have been too deeply anchored amongst them by domestic attachments to be tempted away, even by the inducements of the goldfields. I am far from being an enemy to the production of wool; I am as sensible as my friend Mr. Mort is — though I do not derive from it the splendid profits he does — of the vast importance our wool staple is to the country. But if the growth of wool were dispersed amongst more hands the production would be increased, and the staple be finer and more valuable, and it would take a higher relative standing in the markets of the world. I indignantly deny that I desire to injure any class in the community. I would contend for the rights of one man as soon as I would for another. I would support the rights of the richest amongst you, but at the same time with the same vigour, the same determination, the same energy, I would support the rights of the humblest and poorest. So far from being an instigator of class dissensions^ I have ever set myself against class legislation of every kind. I would no more truckle to the working classes than to the highest ; and at the same time, I believe that among the lowest classes there is often to be found the largest amount of virtue, the largest share of those energies which are most valuable to a young country, and on which 42 Speeches. every institution of the country must depend. It has been alleged that I am mainly supported in this election by the labouring and shop-keeping classes. I am proud of having the support of these classes, but if we are to place the rank and file of our sup- porters in array against each other, certainly I have on my side an immeasurably greater amount of education, social standing, and property than my opponent, for T have had the representatives of some of the oldest and most respectable families in the colony, members of the Legislature who are really ornaments of that House, supporting my election, whereas my opponent has gentlemen clinging round him with whom, only a week or two ago, he would have been ashamed to associate. Depend upon it, if Mr. Kemp remains in the country, his qualifications for one particular side of the House are such that he will not remain long without obtaining a seat in it. He is sure to be offered the first nominee seat that becomes vacant. Gentlemen, I thank you for the patience you have given me ; I have declined to solicit a single vote, and if any man thinks in his conscience that I am an unfit man, then, in the name of heaven, lelf him vote against me. I ask for no such vote. I only say to you, exercise your right of suffrage faithfully, holding it, as you do, for the general good of the country. Elect the man whom calmly, deliber- ately, and apart from all personal considerations, you believe to be best fitted to promote the liberty and true interests of this young and beautiful country. As to the result, I may be left in a minority to-morrow. If that should be the case, my judgment will be deceived without my feelings being wronged. If I know this constituency after some years of experience, I shall be re- turned by a triumphant majority. STAT^ OF AGEICULTURE BEFORE RESPONSIBLE GOYERNMENT.* SPEECH Delivered in the Legislative Council, July 3rd, 1855, on moving for appoint- ment of " A Select Committee, to inquire into and report upon the state of agriculture in the colony, with special reference to the raising of wheaten grain, and to the causes of hindrance or failure in that great industrial pursuit, whether arising from the social condition of the people, the policy of the Government, or the physical character of the country." Mr. Parkes said — In submitting to the House the resolution standing in his name, it was not his intention to occupy the public time beyond what was necessary to state the reasons which, as it appeared to him, should induce the House to grant the Com- mittee now asked for. He had, for some few years past, been much surprised that no motion relative to the agricultural con- dition of the colony had been made in that House ; during last session especially he had entertained this feeling, and expressed it to several honourable members. It appeared to him to be, if not a great neglect, at all events a strange oversight on the part of those who directed the public affairs of the country, that no attempt had been made to collect, in some accessible and authoritative shape, such information as might be obtained relative to so important a branch of our indus- trial life, so intimately connected with the welfare of the country. When we reflected that whatever might be the motives * The experience of the last twenty years has abundantly proved that extensive districts of New South Wales are as favourable for the growth of wheat, and for general agricultural farming, as any part of the world. Seventy bushels per acre are often obtained from wheat lands. At the time when this speech was delivered it was, however, a common thing for members of the then-existing Legislature to declare that the interior of the colony was only fit for sheep farming. 44 Speeches. to our private actions, whatever ends we might aim at in our public conduct, those motives and those ends could not possibly be sepa- rated from, and must depend upon, our relations withnour fellow- creatures, it appeared exceedingly strange that the great question as to what provision we possessed within ourselves for supplying the population with the principal article of food had been almost entirely left out of consideration. He thought it would not be disputed that to be in such a state as we now were, without some correct public statistics as to the supply of food from the soil, was to be in a condition not at all in accordance with the public safety. In the mother country the greatest possible attention was being paid to the question of obtaining accurate information as to the returns of wheat and grain, although even there the statistics ob- tained were anything but of the trustworthy character that could be hoped for. More recently, however, these had become more correct, owing to attention having been directed towards them by persons who considered these returns as of the utmost importance to the public economy of the State. It must be admitted that, whatever might be the circumstances of happiness in which we were placed individually, these circum- stances would lose all their importance to us if it were not for the ministrations of the crowds round about us. However fertile and however beautiful the country might be, if it were barren of human life and activity beauty itself would become only another name for desolation, and the very light of heaven would be fearful to our eyes. This extensive city, so cheerful in the sunshine to- day, with its streets of palaces, its thousands of secure homes, its spacious marts and banks, would to-morrow, if population floated away from it, present the awful aspect of the tomb. Seeing then that our importance as individuals was in every respect just in proportion to the progress of the population as a whole, the Legis- lature and Government should pay every attention to supplying the people with that great staple of food, the extreme scarcity of which would be more severely felt in its consequences than the sword of an enemy. At a time when flour was being sold at from £55 to £60 per ton, when it was believed that there was a very inadequate supply of this article of food in the country, it seemed more than ever necessary that attention should be paid to the subject. It might be urged, in reply to his observations, in the usual set terms of one class of Agriculture before Responsible Government. 45 persons, that the land of this country was unfit for agriculture. But if, in reality, this country had been left deficient in this respect by the Creator ; if the soil were proved to be incapable of pro- ducing sufficient food for the people — why, then, that fact admitted, it would be one of the strongest arguments for greater efi'orts to mitigate, as far as the dictates of wisdom could mitigate, the effect of so serious a barrier to- the advancement of the country in wealth and power. At all events, no objection could reasonably be urged against an endeavour being made to ascertain the truth in the matter. If it were the case that the country was unsuited to the prosecution of those agricultural pursuits which, in all really prosperous countries, were of such magnitude and importance ; and that grain could not, under any possible circumstances, be produced in quantity adequate to the wants of the population, it would be best that whatever information could be collected should be brought together and published in a shape accessible to those persons whose energies were likely to be turned in that direction. Individual instances might be given of the failure of persons who had settled on the lands of the country for agricultural purposes, but such cases of failure might be accounted for by the spirit of neglect and suppression which had been manifested towards this interest in the public policy of the country. He was not disposed to take up the time of the House by entering upon any charges against other interests ; but it struck him that towards the present desti- tution of the country a very great deal had been done, insidiously and unknown to the public, and to some extent unconsciously by the persons so acting, to depress the pursuit of agriculture on the one hand, and to encourage that of pastoral occupation on the other. He could give numerous instances to prove such had been the case in the course of legislation in that House, and in the conduct of the Government. One or two would be quite sufficient to put the case in a very clear light. In the first place, then, there had always been a greater facility and cheapness in obtaining lands for occupation as pastures than in obtaining lands for culti- vation. We were all aware that, while pasture lands were held on a merely nominal rental, the other class of land was often bought up at £10 per acre. The system in which the Surveyor-General's department was managed tended largely to the same result. The surveyors were employed by contract to prosecute their surveys, and such was the want of proper organisation in the Survey 46 speeches. department that these officers were frequently kept out of remuneration for their labour for several months ; and they were in many cases compelled to accept private engagements to support themselves. Instances had come to his knowledge of surveyors being obliged to undertake surveys of private properties because they could not obtain payment for their services to the Govern- ment. If this were the case, it would alone account for a great portion of the difficulty which industrious persons had experienced in securing lands for cultivation, because in such a state of things those who were best off would receive first attention. It was also found that laws had been passed by that House to facilitate the borrowing of money by persons engaged in pastoral occupations, while the pursuit of agriculture had obtained no such advantage. The Lien on Wool Act was really copied from an act passed for the West Indies, which was mainly intended to encourage the cultivation of the land. But here the principle was perverted to a species of class legislation for the exclusive advantage of the squatters. If the agriculturist possessed one or two hundred acres of wheat, worth from £1000 to .£2000, he could not possibly obtain any similar assistance to provide for reaping and housing his produce, and conveying it to market ; whereas, if the same amount of capital and industry were directed to pastoral pursuits, every possible facility would be afforded to the person so engaged, the capitalist assisting him having legally a preferent claim against other creditors on his pro- perty. When it was seen that our legislation had been directed to encourage the one pursuit and to place the other at a disadvan- tage, sufficient was presented to our view to account for persons being deterred from agricultural occupations. The bias he pointed out had been manifest throughout the legislation of this country, and the conduct of the Government had been marked by the same neglect of the agricultural interest. Even in the Im- pounding Act — which the honourable member (Mr. Nichols) pro- posed to remodel this session — the freeholder was placed at a dis- advantage ; he sometimes paid <£10 more on an acre for his farm land ; and if the squatter's cattle trespassed on his farm he could drive them to the pound and the squatter would be punished with one shilling per head damages. But if the freeholder's cattle were to stray upon the squatter's run, for which he paid only a mere peppercorn rent, besides the usual damages he could charge Agriculture before Responsible Government. 47 three shillings per head for driving them to the pound. Here was protection given in favor of those engaged in pastoral pursuits to four times the extent of what was allowed to the rest of the com- munity. This was enough to show that the legislation of that Council had been aimed at protecting the interests of this particular party, fencing them round with special privileges, to the neglect of interests equally important to the community. One public benefit would certainly result from the labours of this Committee if it were appointed, namely — the initiation of a system of agricultural statistics. Such returns would be of great use to persons engaged in commerce, as it was absolutely neces- sary for merchants to be provided with correct information con- cerning the country's produce. He would, with the permission of the House, read a portion of a paper read before the Statistical Society of London in February of last year by Mr. PauU, a gentleman who had been all his life paying attention to the subject. After explaining very clearly and fully the two systems now adopted in the mother country, he proceeded to explain the plan he would recommend himself for collecting the agricultural statistics of Great Britain. " In a statistical sense a nation is only an aggregate of parishes, as parishes are of farms ; so that we have a sound means of obtaining the corn statistics of all of them. Let us look at this in detail. We have a terrier or particulars of every parish, with or without maps, and there are in every parish some individuals distinguished for local knowledge in respect of the parish lands ; men who, on looking at the particulars, can recognise every field and its locality. Now, at given times of the year, that is to say when the lands are bearing their crops ; a person so qualified could walk over the parish, map and terrier in hand, and mark every field with its visible crop ; and whilst this individual was so employed, the parish school- master, or some other competent scribe, could prepare a copy of the parish terrier, giving columns for every sort of grain and vegetable crop. Then these two men, their mutual labour being so far advanced, should introduce into its proper column the area of each field, and obtain a correct total for every column. This done, I submit that they would have obtained safe parish statistics, in so far as acreage and produce are cencerned. But here an important question arises as to the ability of the indi- viduals whom I thus propose to furnish the requisite information. In answering this question, we must not allow ourselves to be prejudiced by the personal appearance of the agriculturist or agricultural labourer ; we must not allow the coarseness of his manners — if coarse they be — to blind us to his intelligence, to the faculty always in him of declaring the average produce per acre of his parish for any kind of grain or vegetable, and the consequences of unusually good or bad seasons, as they affect the average 48 Speeches. produce. After a life-long acquaintance with these men, I do not hesitate to assert that this instinctive knowledge of theirs would be justified by elaborate inquiries on the subject of parish produce. This fine faculty, then, being in every parish, we need not go beyond its limits to find men capable of declaring, at any point of the time that a particular crop takes to reach maturity, what the result will be in respect of production, both absolutely and with reference to the average produce ; and were such men furnished by Government with skeleton-printed papers, comprising appro- priate leading questions, with clear directions how to fill them up, I submit that, by these simple means, our Government would have, year by year, safe corn and vegetable statistics of produce from every parish." Such persons might be found in those districts where it was known that the cultivation of grain was most pursued, who would readily perform this duty, and at a comparatively small cost to the State. At the same time he would admit that the information would be of no value whatever unless it were correct ; and it certainly appeared that to employ such persons as were mostly engaged in agriculture would be the most correct mode of obtaining the informa- tion desired. If the House should see fit to grant this Committee, the eliciting of such particulars as might help to originate a satis- factory system would form one of the most important branches of the inquiry. Whatever might prove to be the position of the country as to the allegations so often made, that it was not able to supply sufficient food for its population, notwithstanding the immense extent of its territory, while bread was at so high a price that it caused a large amount of distress in this very metropolis — whatever might be the result of the inquiry, at all events let the truth be known. This Committee ought to be granted, for it was right that we should exactly know our condition. If the beggarly character of our agricultural produce arose from physical draw- backs, it was only right that the labouring population of this country and of the mother country, especially the smaller indus- trious capitalists, who form so valuable a class in all countries, should be made to understand that it would be of no avail to cultivate a soil which gave no guarantee from nature that their efforts would be successful, and where the laws of the country had been made with an utter forgetfulness of the objects of their industry. TAXATION AND FEEE TRADE. [In the last session of the mixed nominee and elective Legislature which existed before the introduction of Responsible Government, several measures were proposed under the auspices of the late Mr. Riddell and the present Sir William Manning, which were strongly opposed to the principles of Free-trade. On the 5th July, 1855, Sir William Manning — then Solicitor-General — moved the second reading of a Bill " to impose a tonnage duty on all vessels entering the port of Newcastle, the money so raised to be devoted to the purposes of constructing wharves and otherwise improving the harbour of Newcastle, and facilitating the navigation of the river Hunter to Morpeth and Maitland." The motion was opposed by the late Sir Stuart Alexander Donaldson, who moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. The original motion, however, was carried by 20 votes against 15. Mr. Parkes seconded and spoke in favour of the amendment, and his short speech on the occasion is included in this selection. The Bill was passed into law, and continued in force until the year 1873, when it was repealed by the Parkes Government. Among the members who advocated the principle of the Bill was Sir James Martin, to whose arguments reference is made by Mr. Parkes. While this Bill was under consideration, the Governor-General (Sir William Denison) sent to the Council a financial minute of unusual length and character, submitting the Estimates of expenditure and revenue, which were largely in excess of those of former years. As the amount reserved by the then existing Constitution Act for the civil departments was found, in consequence of the rise in prices caused by the discovery of gold and from other causes, to be insufiicient by the large amount of £54,763, the Governor- General submitted the " reserved schedules," with the other Estimates, to the Council.* Other partial concessions were made, and at the same time large appropriations were proposed for public works. To meet the increased expenditure, new means of *By the schedules of the Constitution Act of that day, the appropriations for the departments of the Government were placed beyond the control of the Legislature. The first election under the present Constitution took place in 1856. E 50 " Speeches. taxation were required, and the three courses that suggested them- selves to the Government were thus explained by Sir William Denison's minute : — " First, the imposition of an ad valorem duty upon all imports; second, an ad valorem duty upon articles of luxury, such as silks, &c.; third, a general increase in the rate of charge upon the articles in the present tariff, and the imposition of duties upon certain other articles of extensive consumption, where the charge could be determined according to the weight or bulk of the article without any direct reference to the value." The debate opened by the Colonial Treasurer's statement on the financial state of the colony, commenced July 12th, and occupied five nights. It was proposed by the Solicitor-General (now Sir William Manning) to refer the Estimates to the consideration of a Select Committee, and an amendment was moved by Mr. (now Sir James) Martin against entertaining the consideration of the schedules, as not being within the competent power of the Legis- lative Council. This amendment was negatived by 32 to 10. Mr. Parkes spoke on the fourth night of the debate, and the speech giving his opinions at some length on finance and taxation, and also exposing the wasteful character of the public expenditure twenty years ago, is here included.] SPEECH Delivered in the Legislative Council, July 5th, 1855. Mk. Parkes said he intended to vote for the amendment, and he thought every sincere advocate of free-trade must oppose the present measure. Notwithstanding what had been said by one honourable member (Mr. Martin), who had ever appeared as the champion of protection — and who, in fact, was in himself the protectionist party in that House — he regarded the Bill as adverse to the principles of free-trade. What was the object of that policy but to leave the commerce of the country as free as possible — not with reference to the particular classes engaged in trading pursuits, but for the promotion of the general trade by which all were equally benefited 1 Now, the measure before them sought to effect its object by placing a restriction on trade. And it was absurd to attempt to support this proposal in the manner of the honourable the Colonial Secretary, by saying it was carrying out a species of self-imposed taxation. Why, it was the House that was endeavouring to tax the people of Newcastle, if it could be considered as a tax on them at all. The only way to let them tax themselves was to give them corporate powers of taxation for Taxation and Free Trade. 51 local purposes, not by a Bill like the present measure. But, in point of fact, this would be a tax, not on the people of Newcastle, but upon the owners of vessels trading to their port, and it would tend to cripple their trade ; and if Newcastle suffered the colony at large would suffer in consequence. On the other hand, if Newcastle were benefited in her trade by the improve- ments contemplated, the benefits would not in their con- sequences be confined to Newcastle, but would extend to the whole colony; and therefore, the expense, as he thought, should be met from the general revenue. He agreed with the principles enunciated in this respect by the honourable and reverend member for Stanley (Dr. Lang), that works of a national character, like the improvements of our ports and navigable rivers, should be carried out at the expense of the country. If the revenue were not sufficient, then some new mode of taxation based on sound and comprehensive principles should be devised, which would fall with just equality on the general wealth and industry of the nation. The improvement of the navigation of the Hunter would not be for the sole advantage of the people of Newcastle ; for, with the increasing trade of the Hunter, the commercial operations of the colony would also be increased. If they im- posed a tonnage duty in the port of Newcastle, how long could they keep a similar duty from the port of Sydney 1 He regarded the present measure with suspicion, as one that was the fore- runner of other measures opposed to those principles of free-trade which had been laid down by the House. He gave the honourable member for Cook and Westmoreland every credit for consistency in the course which he had pursued that night, as it was in accordance with the views he had always entertained. But he was surprised to see the Bill supported by the enlightened member of the Government who Jbad introduced it to the House. SPEECH Delivered in the Legislative Council, July 25th, 1855. Mr. Parkes : In the course of the debate that night the honour- able member for Durham* had remarked that, if there should be a *Sir Charles Cowper, K.C.M.G. E 2 52 Speeches. division upon tlie amendment before the House, it would be the most singular division that had ever taken place. Certainly he should for his part divide against the honourable member in this instance, much as he desired on all occasions to be on the same ^ide with him ; for, if the amendment were assented to by the House, they would in his humble judgment be led into an error — an error of grave consequence to the whole country, as far as its legislation was concerned. In addressing himself to the important subject brought before them by the motion of the honourable the Colonial Treasurer, he admitted at once that the time had now arrived when this country ought to be prepared — when it was the duty of that House to prepare the people — to submit to an increased taxation. The interests of the country demanded that a much larger revenue should be raised, in order to carry out those important works which were so necessary to the development of the resources of the country; and it was impossible to execute those works without, to some extent, throwing a burden upon posterity. But while he was of opinion that it was the duty of the people to submit to a much larger expenditure, he disapproved altogether of the manner in which the Governor-General proposed to raise the additional revenue. Before proceeding to a full consideration of this topic he would, in support of his view of the advantages of an adequate revenue from taxation, so long as it was strictly and intelligently limited by the actual necessities of the public, read a short passage from the well-known work of Mr. John Stuart Mill, whose words he thought were closely applicable to the present case : — " That part of the public expenditure which is devoted to the maintenance of civil and military establishments is still, in many cases, unnecessarily profuse ; but though many of the items will bear great reduction, others certainly require increase. There is hardly any public reform or improve- ment of the first rank proposed of late years, and still remaining to be effected, which would not probably require, at least for a time, an increased instead of a diminished appropriation of public money. "Whether the object be popular education ; emigration and colonisation ; a more efficient and accessible administration of justice ; a more judicious treatment of criminals ; improvements in the condition of soldiers and sailors ; a more effective police ; reforms of any kind which, like the slave emancipation, require compensation to individual interests ; or, finally, what is as important as any of these — the establishment of a sufficient staff of able and highly-educated public servants, to conduct in a better than the present awkward manner the business of legislation and administration. Every Taxation and Free Trade. 53 one of these things implies considerable expense ; and many of them have again and again been prevented by the reluctance which exists to apply to Parliament for an increased grant of public money, though the cost would be repaid — often a hundredfold — in more pecuniary advantages to the community generally. I fear that we should have to wait long for most of these things, if taxation were as odious as it probably would be if it were exclusively direct." This eminent writer was here speaking in favour of a system of mixed taxation, but he thought that his remarks applied to the present circumstances of the colony, in the view which he took of the duty of the Legislature to prepare the people to sub- mit to a larger taxation in order that they might advance in public improvement. But with respect to the manner in which it was proposed to increase the revenue of the country, he entirely objected to it. He thought that the proposals of His Excellency the Governor-General were to all intents and purposes of a distinctly protectionist character ; that, in fact, they were in every respect opposed to the principles of free-trade. They were in some instances so unwisely in opposition to free-trade principles that he believed that, even if they were sanctioned by the House, they would defeat their own ends for all purposes of revenue. As examples of this, he would mention the proposed taxes upon soap and candles ; the tax of 4s. per cwt. upon soap and that of 18s. 8d. per cwt. upon candles would prove, in effect, a large protectionist duty in favour of the home manufacturers. These taxes, if imposed, would entirely fail in their purpose, and no revenue would be derived from them, as the importation of the taxed articles would for the most part cease. Then as to the proposed tax upon salt, he had been informed on good authority that the colony exported in 1854: no less than 180,000 raw hides, or 89,562 cwt. Now in the preparation of those hides 14 lbs. of salt were required to each, and thus it would be seen that a tax upon salt would actually be an export duty of 3d. per hide on our own pro- duce. It was easy to perceive the evil effects which a tax of this description would have upon the public generally, and it seemed strange to him that such a duty — a duty in fact upon one of the com- monest necessaries — should have been thought of at all. He be- lieved that the intentions of His Excellency the present Governor- General were of the purest and best ; from the time of his arrival he had always given him credit for an earnest desire to govern the country well; and he therefore the more deeply regretted that 54 Speeches. His Excellency had now taken a course which must bring him into some degree of disfavour, and was not unlikely to embroil him with the House. He thought the time had arrived — and in this respect he could not altogether agree with the opinion put forth by the honourable member for the Sydney Hamlets (Mr. Donaldson), to the effect that the tariff of 1852 should be con- sidered a finality; although he fully admitted that that tariff was a great step in the right direction — he thought, he said, that the time had arrived when the broad principles of free-trade which had been so successful in the mother-country, and which were rapidly gaining ground in all countries of a commercial standing, should be adopted in this colony to the fullest extent. The tariff of 1852 was however in some degree protectionist ; he found, for instance, that there was a duty imposed upon wine, which it was hard to reconcile with the principle that taxes should be imposed only for the purposes of revenue. He was so far from thinking that the mode of raising revenue was unex- ceptionable, that he believed the time had now arrived when they should follow the example of England, and as far as possible raise their additional revenue by new modes of taxation. Until that good time arrived, which was looked forward to by many, when the enlightenment of men and the improved condition of society would admit of the abolition of customs duties altogether, the idea which had entered the minds of the financiers of England was, that every step further should be taken in the path that led towards direct taxation. Even in the recent war budget of Sir George Cornewall Lewis this was the characteristic ; and though the new Chancellor of the Exchequer had resorted to the customs for an increase on several commodities of consumption, yet it was observable in the proceedings of Parliament that the members of highest financial reputation strongly protested against this feature of the Government scheme. He (Mr. Parkes) would confess he had to a considerable extent fallen in with the views of the honourable member for Cumber- land with regard to the imposition of a stamp duty. He believed that at the present juncture such a duty would be the most politic and statesmanlike mode of taxation that could be resorted to. How was it that the Government had not suggested the expediency of an income tax 1 He ventured to express a hope that on a future day when there should be in the country a Legislature Taxation and Free Trade. 55 capable of entertaining such a proposal, the propriety of adopting a land tax would be considered. Such a tax he had no doubt would work as beneficially in this colony as a similar tax had worked in the United States of America. Apart from the question of revenue this kind of direct taxation would prove most beneficial to the colony, by preventing that system of speculation in land which had been well described by Earl Grey as a system most disastrous to the settlement of young countries. A land tax would prove most beneficial by forcing land into cultivation and general use, and so stimulating improvement that would react in enhancing the value of all classes of property. Such had been the result of a land tax in the United States, and he did not see why a similar result should not follow here. With regard to what had been said by some of the speakers who addressed the House on former evenings, as to the wisdom of imposing a duty on those articles which were deemed articles of luxury, he noticed that tobacco and ardent spirits were alluded to in a manner indicating that these articles ought to be selected for an increased duty. In reply to the arguments which had been adduced in support of those views, he would simply quote a passage from the eminent economist whom he had previously cited as an authority. Mr. Stuart Mill said : — "There is, however, a frequent plea in support of indirect taxation which must be altogether rejected as grounded on a fallacy. We are often told that taxes on commodities are less burdensome than other taxes, because the contributor can escape from them by ceasing to use the taxed commodity. He certainly can, if that be his object, deprive the Government of the money ; but he does so by a sacrifice of his own indulgences, which, if he chose to undergo it, would equally make up to him for the same amount taken from him by direct taxation. Suppose a tax be laid on wine sufficient to add £5 to the price of the quantity of wine which he consumes in a year ; he has only, we are told, to diminish his consumption of wine by £5, and he escapes the burden. True ; but if the £5, instead of being laid on wine, had been taken from him by an income- tax, he could, by expending £5 less on wine, equally save the amount of the tax, so that the difference between the two cases is really illusory. If the Government takes from the contributor £5 a year — whether in one way or another — exactly that amount must be retrenched from his consumption to leave him as well off as before ; and, in either way, the same amount of sacrifice — neither more nor less — is imposed on him." In addition to this argument it seemed to him to be an extraordinary policy to raise the revenue of the country 5 6 Speeches. from commodities which, at the same time, it was sought to drive out of consumption. No one would deny that it was opposed to the advancement of the public morals and detrimental to the increase of our national wealth that spirits and tobacco should be extensively used, and it therefore seemed to him to be an extraordinary line of argument to urge that on these articles especially should , depend the revenue of the the country. If morality advanced, the very elements from which the revenue was derived would be correspondingly impaired. If on the other hand the revenue prospered, it was evident that it would be at the cost of the public morality. Again, if the revenue prospered, the public expenditure would necessarily increase by reason of the spread of vice and crime which must be the conse- quence of increased consumption. The honourable the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Parker)* had laid before the House the true principles on which all taxation should be based — the principle that taxes should be imposed so as to press proportionately on all classes according to their means to bear the burden ; and that, in the second place, they should be collected in such a way as that they would be least sensibly felt. These were the principles which had of late years guided legislation in England, and these were the principles which had been carried into eflfect, so far as the intelligence of the times and the circumstances of the country would permit, under the guidance of Sir Robert Peel. With regard to the proposed assessment on stock, he confessed that his mind was not clearly decided as to this means of raising revenue. He admitted that there was con- siderable force in the objections of the honourable member for the Sydney Hamlets, that such a proposal savoured of class-legislation. On the other hand, however, the squatters held a different position from all other classes of the people. They were tenants of the Crown — in no respect holding the position of freeholders or ordinary leaseholders — but occupying immense tracts of land which belonged to the whole body of the people. Now if those lands were held at a price altogether disproportionate to their value — and that such was the fact had been admitted by honourable members known to be the organs of the squatters in that House — by the honourable member for the Murrumbidgee, and by one or two honourable members known to be extensively connected with * Now Sir Henry Watson Parker. Taxation and Free Trade. 57 the squatting interests — if, he said, it were admitted that the squatters were thus deriving advantages from the occupation of the public lands altogether disproportionate to the amount they paid towards the general revenue, then he thought the proposal for an assessment on stock might very reasonably be entertained. Mr. G. Macleay rose to explain : What he said was, that the amount paid by the squatters was somewhat disproportionate, not that their contributions to the revenue were altogether dispropor- tionate. Mr. Parkes resumed : At all events he understood that it was admitted on all hands that the squatters should bear a larger share of the public burdens ; and if no other means of increasing their contributions to the State, and no other mode of raising the required revenue presented itself, he should give his assent to the levying of the proposed assessment, although on other grounds he might object to it as opposed to correct principles. With regard to the future mode of dealing with the Estimates — towards which the amendment before the House was directed — he took a different view from the honourable member for Durham as to the manner in which the proposal of the Governor-General, to submit the reserved schedules to the consideration of the House, should be received. He was inclined to adopt the ruling of the honour- able and learned Attorney- General* on the point that there was sufficient power given by the 18th section of the Constitution Act in regard to this matter. He could by no means submit to the doctrine of the honourable member for Cook and Westmore- land (Mr. Martin), that a despatch from the Colonial Office could override an Act of Parliament. If this were a correct view, they would not be safe even under their new Constitution Act itself. If a despatch could define away the provisions of an Act of Parliament, they might possibly have a despatch sent out hereafter declaring that their miniature House of Lords should — in spite of the Constitution — be elected by democratic constitu- encies. But whatever might be the nature and effect of any despatch from the Secretary of State, it was certain that the Governor-General, who was in constant communication with the Colonial Office, was in a better position to put a proper construction on the terms of any such despatch than any member of the House. * The late Mr. John Hubert Plunket. 58 speeches. If His Excellency thought he was justified in submitting to the Council, to be dealt with in good faith, those portions of the public expenditure which had hitherto been reserved under the schedules, he for one was prepared in equally good faith to meet the pro- posal ; and he thought the House would be guilty of a great dere- liction of duty if they threw any impediment in the way of the proposal. So far from assenting to the amendment before the House, he should be more inclined to assent to a resolution of which the following was a draft : — " That this House, in resolving itself into a committee of the whole, for the consideration of the Estimates, desires to express its acknowledgment of the constitutional principles which His Excellency the Governor- General has acted upon, in submitting unreservedly to the disposal of the Council the sums reserved by the schedules of the Constitution Act 1, 2, 3. In meeting this concession on the part of His Excellency with the same feeling of good faith in which it has been made, this House pledges itself that, while it will make proper provision for the efficiency of the public service, it will use its utmost efforts to enforce that strict economy which it believes His Excellency anxiously desires." He would be much more inclined to go into committee on the Estimates, with some such clear exposition of the spirit in which the House received the schedules as that contained in the draft resolution he had read, than with the adoption of the amendment before the House. He believed it would be advantageous to the country to raise an increased revenue, provided such revenue were limited to the amounts actually re- quired for the necessary expenditure in carrying out great public improvements, and for rendering the Government more efficient. But under all the circumstances of the time, and looking to the unsatisfactory state in which they found several of the subordinate departments of the Governmient, he thought it would have been well had the Governor-General*' applied a larger amount of his zeal and energy to discovering those departments where a greater economy might readily be enforced. There were several branches of the public service which might readily be pared down ; and others wherein efficient and useful men might be substituted for men who were notoriously inefficient anti useless. He thought it would have been more creditable to His * Before the introduction of Kesponsible Government the Governor was in reality the sole Executive Administrator, and the heads of Departments appointed by the Imperial Government were his officers rather than his Ministers. Taxation and Free Trade. 59 Excellency had he devoted a larger amount of attention than he appeared to have bestowed in discovering how the public revenue had heretofore been misapplied. Had such an investigation taken place, much cause for complaint would have been brought to light. In support of these assertions he would call the attention of the House to a few items which he had chosen at random, and in connexion with which he had been at some trouble to inform himself. In the first place, he would refer to the expenditure on account of the anchors, chain-cable, hawsers, and other things required for the port of Newcastle, for which he found a total sum of £1363 18s. 7d. asked for in the Supplementary Estimates. Of the anchors which had been sent to Newcastle he had ascertained that five had been lying on the wharf at the Cove for a number of years, and by previous use and natural decay they were worn so as to be now not more than two- thirds of their original weight ; so useless were they for the purpose for which they were intended that in the process of bending one of the flukes, which was necessary for the purpose of sinking, one of them gave way at the crown. He understood from authority derived from several sources that the market value of five of these six anchors was about £11 5s. each; the remaining one being worth about £40. The cost of the chain-cable, anchors, buoys, hawsers, &c., was £853 18s. 9d. Now this chain-cable was a very formidable afiair, fitted for a 74-gun line-of-battle ship. It was 140 fathoms in length; its weight was 2| cwt. per fathom; and altogether it was so monstrously disproportioned to the anchors and buoys that it would sink the buoys, and so render the whole apparatus useless for the purposes for which it was designed. Besides, it was laid down in such an extraordinary manner that it endangered the vessels trading to the Hunter, and was thus calculated to be of enormous injury instead of advantage. It being laid across the channel, vessels arriving at the port were in danger of hooking it with their anchors and thus losing them. Among these items he found £160 for a life-boat. Now he believed that any possible life-boat on the best and most improved principle — that by which the vessel, if she filled with water, could empty and right herself — would be built by any boat-builder in Sydney for £100. Then there was a patent winch, for which he found the sum of £800 set down. He would ask any mem- ber of the House, he would ask any gentleman who had any 6o Speeches. knowledge of the subject, whether he thought a patent winch could possibly cost £300. The winch had not yet gone, he believed, nor had the life-boat ; but there were sums set down for them which seemed to him preposterously high. In the works to which he had referred double the money necessary had been expended ; and the work had been done so badly that it would have been far better left undone. There was another item which to him seemed preposterous — £100 for the conveyance of a boat's crew of six men from Sydney to Port Curtis — a sum that would convey the same number of men to any part of the world. Another point to which he would direct attention was in reference to the celebrated gunboat " Spitfire. " He found from a source of inquiry upon which he had every reason to rely that this gunboat cost the Government some £1500. Now there was at the present time lying off Balmain a boat that would answer the purposes required just as well as the ''Spitfire," was nearly the size, and which he or any other person could buy for £300 — a boat built in the best possible manner, coppered, sparred, and with everything in a state of completion, except rigging. Knowing this, and knowing that nearly £1500 had been paid for the " Spitfire," he could not possibly conceive otherwise than that there had been great neglect, if not something worse, in the manner in which the public money had been expended. There was another case to which he had paid some attention, that of the " Bramble " tender. Last year a sum of money had been voted for converting the *' Bramble " into a lightship for Moreton Bay. This, however, was not carried into efiect, but a vessel was purchased for the purpose. The sum of £1000 was paid to Mr. Want for the yacht called the " Pearl." Now it would strike any person at all conversant with the matter that the yacht " Pearl " was about the least suitable for the purpose of any vessel in the colony; yet £1000 was paid to Mr. Want for this vessel at the very time when, owing to the depression in the coasting trade and other causes, fifty vessels might have been purchased, any one of which would have been more suitable in every respect and would have cost far less. The Colonial Secretaky begged to correct the honourable member for Sydney. The " Pearl" was not bought for a light- ship, she was bought for the purpose of being used to examine buoys, to take pilots out to sea, and other similar purposes. Taxation and Free Trade. 6r Mr. Parkes : Perhaps he might be so far wrong; but the honourable the Colonial Secretary would admit, that £1000 was paid for the vessel ; and even for the purposes the honourable the Colonial Secretary had mentioned, he had no doubt that a far more suitable vessel could have been bought for a much smaller sum. Another item was the provision of mooring chains and buoys for Kiama. He had never been to Kiama, but he believed it was a harbour where the sea broke in with great violence. Those chains and buoys were now lying at the Phoenix Wharf. He had walked down that morning to see them, and he believed that any person shod with a strong boot could kick in the ends of the buoys. They were very small — about two feet long only — a child might almost carry them away. Two or three gentle- men who were present — one of them a gentleman intimately known to the honourable and learned the Solicitor-General — had agreed with him in opinion that the money expended on these buoys might just as well have been thrown into the sea. He would give another instance, and it should be the last he would adduce, in which he thought he should be able to show clearly that there had been most unwarrantable and improvident expenditure of the public money. He referred to the establish- ment at Port Curtis. He would not unnecessarily detain the House, but would state briefly the facts of the case. On the 1 8th June 1853 a surveying party of twenty persons landed at Port Curtis, and for four months afterwards there was no other person at that place, and there was no station nearer than Mr. Little's station, distant about 60 miles. In November a party of twelve native police under the command of a lieutenant arrived ; and a short time after that a Mr. Palmer arrived from Wide Bay and commenced a store. Thus, in the beginning of last year, as he was informed from various sources on which he could rely, there were at Port Curtis only the surveying party of twenty, twelve native police, and two storekeepers. In less than three months afterwards, however, on the 24th March, the Govern- ment Resident arrived in the "Tom Tough"; and to show the importance of the place, when Captain O'Connell arrived there with a salary of £675, including the temporary increase; — as it was called ; but, as he called it, the permanent increase — he held in his hand a return signed by the chief constable on the 24th May, two months afterwards, which represented the popula- 62 Speeches. tioA as follows : — Males, 2 1 ; females, 1 1 ; children, 25. These fifty-seven persons, nearly the whole of whom were in the employ of the Government, constituted the Utopia over which Captain O'Connell was appointed Government Resident. Now they were called upon to vote in salaries alone at this establishment, during the present year, upwards of .£3300 (and he was not sure that he had got all the salaries), besides clothing, ammunition, and other items, and heavy sums for the public works. Then again, with respect to the " Tom Tough," there was something curious connected with the history of that vessel. She was chartered at an expense to the country of £350 per month besides passage and sustenance money. She arrived at Port Curtis with the Government Resident on the 24th March last year ; and she lay there doing nothing till the 12th July — three months and a half. She was then sent back to Sydney, the settlement being in want of supplies, and again returned to Port Curtis, where she arrived on the 23rd A.ugust, after which she lay at anchor for another month. On the 23rd September, she was sent to Wide Bay; and for what purpose did honourable gentlemen suppose she was sent thither 1 To carry six or eight labourers to cut timber ! And during the time they were cutting the timber the ** Tom Tough" still lay waiting, at the cost of £350 per month. She eventually returned with the timber to Port Curtis, where it still lies, or at least did a month or two ago, just as it was landed and stacked on the beach. It seemed that this timber was wanted for no purpose whatsoever ; and it appeared to him that it was a fair inference to conclude that the vessel was sent away on that occasion because the Government Resident was ashamed, even in the presence of the little community over which he presided, to allow her to lie at Port Curtis any longer. Among the sums they were asked to vote for that pet settlement was one of £676 10s 6d., besides rations, for a boat's crew; and this was the boat's crew for whose passage they were to pay £100. As far as he could learn the boat's crew had done nothing except collect oysters, eatch fish, and now and then go out with a picnic party. They had never sounded a single inch of the waters there — never gone out to assist any vessel, notwithstanding that the steamer " William Miskin" had twice been ashore — never performed any duty whatever that might naturally be expected from them. A Taxation and Free Trade. 63 word or two with regard to the " William Miskin." This steamer was laid on for Port Curtis, on condition of the Govern- ment paying a subsidy of £150 or <£200 per month. A steamer, with this heavy subsidy, trading to a place where there was no popu- lation! And the advantages to be derived from the steamer might be estimated from the fact that on her last trip she was about thirty days on the passage, whilst the passages of a number of sailing vessels, the particulars of which he had col- lected, showed that on the average they occupied scarcely more than half the time. In reference once more to the boat's crew he should have stated — and he had no doubt some member of the Government would correct him if he were wrong — he should have stated that this boat's crew, which was placed at the disposal of the Government Resident for the use of the establishment, had entered into an agreement while in Sydney by the terms of which they engaged to work on shore ; and the way in which this clause was carried out was by the employment of the men in the erection of stockyards for the use of private persons. This brought him to another feature in this most shameful and unwarrantable waste of the public money. They were asked in the Supple- mentary Estimates to vote £3000 for constructing a dam for preserving fresh water at Port Curtis, in addition to another item of £757 18s. in the Estimates for 1856 for a similar purpose ; making a total of nearly £4000 for the supply of fresh water to the settlement. And at the very time when the settlement was suffering from the want of water, there were kept there 300 horses, 150 head of cattle, and 1000 sheep belonging to private persons, which consumed more than a thousand buckets of water a-day. This exposure of what was going on led him to yet another feature in the character of transactions at Port Curtis. The sheep to which he had referred were sold to the clerk of the Bench, who kept a butcher's shop, and by whom they were regularly slaughtered and supplied to the Government people. When the settlement was first formed a person put up a store on Government land, and shortly afterwards he was made aware that on that account the building was legally forfeited ; but it was politely intimated to him at the same time that he was at liberty to sell it, and it was ultimately purchased for the purpose of being converted into a kitchen and stable for the use of a private family. After a short time, however, it was found tliat the white 64 speeches. ants had got into the wood of which the store was constructed ; it was then suddenly discovered that the store was admirably suited for a court-house, a court-house it was accordingly made, and had been used for the purposes of a court-house until very lately. Now when they were asked to vote the sum of £10,000 for this pet settlement — which there really seemed great reason to suppose was hit upon to find a comfortable situation for a gentle- man who was, he admitted, the son of a meritorious officer and a respectable colonist — he thought there was an unanswerable charge against the Government of recklessness, if not of profligacy, in the expenditure of the public money. With such instances before them, they had a right to complain that greater care had not been exercised by the Government in reducing the expenditure before proceeding to tax their salt, their soap, and their means of light. As he had said before, he was disposed to take the schedules and to deal with them in all good faith to the country, and in a thoroughly just and candid spirit to make every proper provision for the public service ; the House exercising its judgment as to where retrenchment was required, and taking means to place the public service in a thoroughly sound and useful state. There was one special reason why he would accept the surrender of these schedules. They had at the present time three high administrative officers, whose tenure of office was a matter of colonial arrangement on the spot. The honourable gentleman at the head of the Government— Mr. Riddell — was an acting Colonial Secretary, and his temporary promotion gave them an acting Colonial Treasurer and an acting Auditor-General. He should be sorry to attempt a pun in the matter, but he could not help observing that they had in reality in the House three acting officials, and not one active officer. No merely Imperial authority would protect these officers in their present positions ; and the House would have an opportunity of correcting the mischief that was done by the shuffling of the official cards when Mr. Thomson left the colony on his visit to Europe. They might be able, possibly, to force back to the Audit Office the present acting Colonial Treasurer, and to restore to the Treasury its rightful occu- pant, leaving His Excellency the Governor-General to fill the tem- porary vacancy at the head as he might think fit. He could not leave the subject without adverting to a passage in the speech of the honourable member for Cook and Westmoreland, in relation to the Taxation and Free Trade. 65 character of the late Sir Robert Peel. It was a privilege which Englishmen valued more than any other that they were all the pro- tectors of the reputation of the common benefactors of their coun- try, and he for one would not permit a wanton attack on the character of that great statesman to go forth to the world from an English Legislature without raising his voice against it. The honourable gentleman had characterised Sir Robert Peel's great service in the repeal of the Corn Laws as a mere yielding to the clamour of the people at the time, and had asserted that he continued until his death to hold the opinions which he had held in former years, before the avowed change in his policy. There could scarcely be a more serious charge made against the character of a public man. With the permission of the House he would read a short passage from one of the speeches of Sir Robert Peel, which would show with what earnestness and sincerity he acted. These words of Sir Robert Peel, in the most clear and unanswerable language, gave the sanction of that great statesman's authority to the principles which he (Mr. Parkes) had attempted to impress upon the House that night. Sir Robert Peel, on the second reading of his immortal measure (on the 27th March 1846), said in the course of his speech : — I have not overlooked the circumstance that, respecting this Bill, it has been said to be a good political manoeuvre on my part. Now I ask, what possible advantage can a Bill like this confer upon me as an individual ? I know I have been taunted, and have more than once been told, that my days as a Minister are numbered. But I have introduced this measure, not for the purpose of prolonging my Ministerial existence, but for the purpose of averting a great national calamity, and for the purpose of sustaining a great public interest. I am quite aware of the fact that more than once I have been asked how long I can reckon upon the support of those honourable gentlemen opposite, without whose votes I could not hope to carry this Bill through the House — how long, in fact, I can reckon upon enjoying their support with respect to other subjects ? I know, as well as those who taunt me, that I have not any right to the support or confidence of those honourable members. I acknowledge — and I admit that acknowledgment with perfect sincerity and plainness — that they have supported me in passing this measure, if it will pass into a law. I do not say this as a private man. I do not, on private grounds, attach importance to it ; but I feel and acknowledge every proper obligation to them, as a public man, for the support which they have given to this measure, and for studiously avoiding everything calculated to create embarrassment to its progress ; but then our differences remain the same. I have, sir, no right to claim their support, nor their protection ; nor, I will fairly admit, shall I seek it by departing in the slightest degree from that course which my F 66 Speeches. public duty may urge me to adopt. If this measure pass, our temporary connexion is at an end; but I have not the slightest right to expect support or forbearance from them ; still less have I, after the declarations that have been made, a right to expect forbearance or support from this side of the House. Well, then, that being the case — it being the fact that there are but 112 members to support me — then I might be asked what great measures of national policy I can expect to pursue with these 112 members, constituting, as they do, but a little more than one-sixth of the House of Commons. I am not, I say, surprised to hear honourable members predict that my tenure of power is short. But let us pass this measure ; and, while it is in progress, let me request of you to suspend your indig- nation. This measure being once passed, you on this side, and you on that , side of the House, may adopt whatever measures you think proper for the purpose of terminating my political existence. I assure you I deplore the loss of your confidence much more than I shall deplore the loss of political power. The accusations which you prefer against me are, on this account, harmless, because I feel that they are unjust. Every man has, within his own bosom and conscience, the scales which determine the real weight of reproach ; and if I had acted from any corrupt or unworthy motives, one- tenth part of the accusations you have levelled against me would have been fatal to my peace and my existence. When I do fall, I shall have the satisfaction of reflecting that I do not fall because I have shown subser- vience to a party. I shall not fall because I preferred the interests of party to the general interests of the community ; and I shall carry with me the satisfaction of reflecting that, during the course of my official career, my object has been to mitigate monopoly, to increase the demand for industry, to remove restrictions upon commerce, to equalise the burden of taxation, and to ameliorate the condition of those who labour." He would ask whether that was the language of a man who could have any purpose in acting upon his opinions excepting the single desire of discharging what he conscientiously felt to be a solemn duty? Was that the language of a man who could be suspected of hidden motives on that memorable occasion 1 The passage he had read in very forcible terms proclaimed the principles which he had endeavoured that night to maintain. Then, on the third reading of the Corn Law Repeal Bill on the 15th May 1846, Sir Robert Peel re-asserted these principles in still more clear and expressive language : — " My earnest wish has been, during my tenure of power, to impress the people of this country with a belief that the Legislature was animated by a sincere desire to frame its legislation upon the principles of equity and justice. I have a strong belief that the greatest object which we or any other Government can contemplate should be to elevate the social condition of that class of the people with whom we are brought into no direct relation- ship, by the exercise of the elective franchise. I wish to convince them that our object has been to so apportion taxation, that we shall relieve Taxation and Free Trade. (y^ industry and labour from any undue burden, and transfer it, so far as is consistent with the public good, to those who are better able to bear it. I look to the present peace of this country ; I look to the absence of all dis- turbance, to the non-existence of any commitment for a seditious offence ; I look to the calm that prevails in the public mind ; I look to the absence of all disaffections ; I look to the increased and growing public confidence on account of the course you have taken in relieving trade from restrictions, and industry from unjust burdens ; and where there was disaffection I see contentment ; where there was turbulence I see there is peace ; where there was disloyalty I see there is loyalty ; I see a disposition to confide in you, and not to agitate questions that are at the foundation of your institutions. Deprive me of power to-morrow : you can never deprive me of the consciousness that I have exercised the powers committed to me from no corrupt or interested motives ; from no desire to gratify ambition, or attain any personal object ; that I laboured to maintain peace abroad consistently with the national honour, and defending every public right ; to increase the confidence of the great body of the people in the justice of your decisions, and by the means of equal law to dispense with all coercive powers to maintain loyalty to the Throne and attachment to the Constitution, from a conviction of the benefit that will accrue to the great body of the people." These passages from the speeches of Sir Robert Peel would also show that that statesman was deeply impressed with a high reverence for the voice of the country — most unlike the spirit too frequently- exhibited in the Legislature of this colony, which is a spirit of affected condemnation of any manifestation of public opinion out of doors. The close of the great Minister's term of oj0&ce afforded occasion for the people of England to show how deeply they were actuated by gratitude and an unswerving love of justice, when on his resigning the reins of Government — which he did upon an adverse vote of the House of Commons immediately after the passing of his great measure — the multitude met him outside the House, not with noisy acclamations, but in silence and with bared heads, and accompanied him with those impressive demonstrations of respect to his home. Now that was an exhibition which showed that justice resides in the hearts of the people, who could at such a time appreciate the feelings and the conscientious views of the statesman who at the cost of office had taken away the tax from their daily bread. And yet in this colony the people were spoken of as undeserving of consideration in the work of legislation — as incapable of just feeling or thoughtful action. Adverting for a moment to the suggestion that had been thrown out in favour of a stamp duty, he might state that a calculation of its probable results had been placed in his hands by a gentleman F 2 6S Speeches. engaged in commercial affairs, and which he had had tested by others, who concurred in its accuracy. According to this calculation, it appeared that by a stamp duty on notes in circulation, trust estates, bills current at the present time, bank cheques, instruments for the transfer of pro- perty, receipts, bills of lading, and policies of insurance, £150,000 might be raised. The only item in the list to which any objection could be raised was a stamp duty on bank cheques, which however would not yield more than £16,000 out of the £150,000. With regard to a stamp duty on ordinary receipts, he thought there was an argument of a moral nature which would go far to support such a mode of taxation. It would tend greatly to introduce into business a practice of regularity and precision, and a proper seriousness of action. Considering that a stamp duty would not oppress any class, and would fall equally on those engaged in large transactions connected with property, it was a most legitimate tax. That they should soon have to prepare to raise a larger revenue he was deeply convinced ; and he did not see any just way of doing it unless they resorted to new means of taxation. It seemed to him that the amount of money which was annually drawn from the colony by absentees afforded a strong reason why the Government should do all in their power to promote such public improvements as would facilitate the settlement of the colony, and render it more agreeable for the residence of those possessed of large fortunes. He had a list in his hand by which it was shown that half-a-million of money was annually withdrawn from the colony by three or four institu- tions and some dozen wealthy individuals. Anything that could be done to make the colony more attractive as a place of residence to those who may retire from active life in circumstances of opulence should be an object of great anxiety to all of us For these reasons the money expended in the erection of the University and other public institutions of a similar character had been well expended, because by such means they might induce those who would otherwise go where they could have the benefit of such institutions to remain in the colony. He thought the mode of taxation proposed by His Excellency was entirely wrong. It was utterly opposed to the principles which regulated English legislation, and also opposed to sound principles of political economy. He would therefore, when they went into committee, Taxation and Free Trade. 69 vote against many of the new items of expenditure, provision for which rested on the imposition of those taxes. At the same time he was disposed to take the schedules in good faith, and to deal with them with a desire to promote efficiency in the public service, combined with the maintenance of a wise economy. THE EI&HT HOURS lOYEMENT. SPEECH Delivered at a meeting of the Trades of Sydney held in the new hall of the School of Arts, November 17th, 1856, to advocate the reduction of the hours of daily labour to eight. Mr. Parkes, by invitation, occupied the chair. The Chairman iu opening the meeting said : — G-entlemen, if I were to say I do not feel gratified by being called upon to preside over this meeting I should do an injustice to my feelings. I am well aware that this meeting must contain, to a very large extent, the heart and soul, the true manly feeling, and the genuine self-cultivated intellect of the working classes of the metropolis. I am well aware that in the men assembled here this evening must be concentrated much of the strength, much of the intelli- gence, much of the constructive skill, much of that spirit of self-reliance, upon which society itself largely depends for everything that is valuable, serviceable or ornamental to its various grades and interests. I know that the trades which have been most conspicuous in this movement are trades remarkable for those qualities. I therefore felt particularly gratified that you should think of asking me to preside at a meeting of such a character in preference to many other much better men all around me, whose sympathies you may rest satisfied are with you. I feel gratified because I have worked as a journeyman tradesman, and so supported my family, for a number of years, and am well able to sympathise with you in all the disadvantages under which you labour, and in all the higher objects of recreation and instruction which the best and most intelligent amongst you seek to obtain. I come to this meeting believing it in no way partakes of a political character ; I come to this meeting believing you have no purposes of combina- tion against the just interests of your employers ; I come to this meeting because I think you assemble to exercise your reason to Eight Hours Movement. 71 the best of your judgment, in rightly determining your capabilities and the responsibilities under which you lie in disposing of that greatest of all properties, the labour of your right arms. If I had thought that by coming here I could by any possibility create division between you and any other class of the community, I certainly should not have come ; if I had thought that your object was to extract from your employers an unfair recompense for what you give, I should not have been amongst you. But I believe, so far as I understand your proceedings, that you maintain that you have a perfect right to exercise your reason as to how far it is proper for you to give your labour to meet the needs of society, and how far you require it for the preservation and cultivation of the faculties with which you are endowed, and for the performance of those varied duties and the fulfilment of those pressing responsibilities which have been cast upon you by an all-wise Creator. The only argument which I have heard against your having this reasonable limit set to your hours of labour is, that if you had the greater leisure you would not employ it well. I have heard it said repeatedly that if the hours of labour were shortened the time so granted to you would be ill-spent — spent in unfitting rather than in fitting you for the discharge of the duties and responsibilities to which I have alluded. I don't believe in these dark foreshadowings. Why should it be so ? Does not the whole history of the world prove that among the working classes there is as much thought for the morrow, as much penetration into surrounding circumstances, as much anxiety and providence for the interests of those belong- ing to them, as among any other class 1 I affirm that the history of the world proves all this. I say, moreover, that the history of literature, the history of manufactures, and the history of science, also prove that we owe more — incomparably more — to the working classes for new and original thoughts in the various handicrafts of our industrial economy, in the various appliances by which social life is made more pleasant and agreeable to all, than to any other class whatsoever. I am one of those who believe that some of the holiest thoughts, some of the loftiest purposes, have birth and are cherished during hours of labour. And this very subject has been the theme of some of the holiest and most touching eloquence of gifted and cultivated men. Dr. Channing has dwelt upon the noble thoughts that are cherished by men 72 speeches. amongst the working-classes until these pass into great and enduring actions, without even their relatives or fellow-workers suspecting that such sublime conceptions ever entered their minds. I could point to many illustrious names in proof of this ; and when I think of the many striking instances of poets, philo- sophers, and contributors to the welfare of society in every way, who have sprung directly from the working classes, I cannot believe such a thing as that you more especially than others would make an ill use of the increased leisure you are seeking to obtain. When I think of the boy astronomer Ferguson who learned his first lessons by lying down in the open fields and measuring the distances of the stars with a string of rude wooden beads ; when — ■ I think of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride ; Of Burns, who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough upon the mountain side ! when I think of William Cobbett, one of the sturdiest and bravest of the political characters of the last generation ; of Burritt, one of the greatest linguists of the present day, — the one a peasant boy, the other a working blacksmith ; when I think of these, I cannot for a moment listen to such weak predictions of your misspending time. Only a very short time ago I read an account by Mr. William Howitt of his visit to a mechanic in a small two-roomed house in a back court in Birmingham, whom he found, while his wife was cooking his supper, engaged in the two-fold employment of nursing his baby and learning the German language. That is only one instance that comes to my mind now, only one out of thousands, of patient striving to perfect their faculties, of quiet endurance of sufferings and reproaches and neglects, of disinterested bene- volence in those who, to quote Dr. Channing's words, often give what the giver needs himself ; it is only one out of thousands of instances of the virtues which live, although they have no witness, among the humbler classes of society. But I shall be answered that the particular instances of individual distinc- tion I have named are those of men of singular natural endowments. I confess it is so. They are, however, not the less a glory for the class to which you belong. But I would turn to the very numerous class of men who spring from the ranks of Eight Hours Movement. 73 labour — the small farmers, the small tradesmen, the small manu- facturers, the small contractors — the men who emerge all around you from the wages-receiving class, and who actually carry on the great mass of the business of society. In a debate in the liCgislative Assembly a few nights ago relative to the construc- tion of a bridge at Albury, it was stated that a sum of money was voted for building a punt there some years since, but the punt was never built until two mechanics saw that a means was there opened for them to raise themselves a little above the situa- tion they had hitherto occupied, and by their joint labour and enterprise they built the punt which has served to connect the two colonies ever since. Numerous instances we have of men who were yesterday journeymen starting as shipwrights on our rivers, building small vessels for themselves which become of great value to our commerce, while the position and prospects of their owners are steadily improved. And similarly in the building trades, whilst in other callings we owe more than enters into our calculation to men who are impelled by the promptings of a humble ambition in obscure spheres of action. But how would these unseen stragglers for something better be sustained, if there were n!c ;;< >ic ^Q some other situation would increase his usefulness. Not one of them, I apprehend, would take him into his own service at a higher salary and with lighter duties. In England an order has been issued by the Lords of the Treasury against persons in the public service seeking to use this kind of influence on their own behalf. It is pointed out very justly that either they are not prepared to rest their claims upon their merits, or they suppose that the heads of departments will be open to considerations apart from the public interests. You have frequently yourself made observations reflecting on the manner in which appointments have been made in this colony. But I think you would find great difficulty in pointing out ^ny situation for which Mr. ******* is specially fitted in the sense of best serving the public. Say the Customs : the public ought to have young, vigorous, active men in every branch 464 Appendix C. of that service. In my judgment the time is come when the public service of this colony ought to assume the character of a profession, and only young men ought to be received into it, who should all have a " fair field " to work themselves up through the varying ranks of official employment. I hope I shall not be misunderstood in what I have said. I certainly have no feeling adverse to Mr. * * -f * * * *^ and shall be glad to see him receive any appointment for which his capa- bilities really qualify him. Yours very truly, Henry Parkes. Mason, Firth & M'Cutcheon, Printers, Flinders Lane West, Melbourne. ^ i& ^^xx- ^^. 'SXT}-> o^ ?4in "*^«^Oo.. ^^S.^?^^ 'O^ •rs So, '^t.o, J'^^ipis^ f>cr^ ^j^ ^^^ii; ^JJj^ '-/?f.^'rv'*el,*».o>l« Per, ^n.!%^A%°^«^dr« ^o a ^otf. '^ ^^PT/^l.tfa;: ^eat ^e. 5i2. ^0^1 301660 1 . L.i r UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY