The Three Colonies of Australia/Part 1/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
SIR GEORGE GIPPS.
1838 TO 1846.
SIR RICHARD BOURKE was succeeded by Sir George Gipps, who was sworn in on the 2nd February, 1838; the government, during an interregnum of ten weeks, having been administered by the Lieutenant-governor, Colonel Snodgrass.
Sir George Gipps, who was a captain in the Royal Engineer Corps, owed his appointment entirely to the talent he had displayed while acting as secretary to the commission issued for inquiring into the grievances of rebellious Canada. During his residence in that colony he had devised and published a plan for educating colonists to the use of representative institutions by "district councils" for the administration of local affairs. It was an ingenious theory, but, as we shall hereafter show, no more suited for the state of society in pastoral Australia than an American river steamboat for crossing the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the forcing this district council scheme on the unwilling colonists was the one great idea of Sir George Gipps's colonial career, to which he sacrificed them and himself.
He was a man of abilities far above the average; an eloquent speaker, a nervous writer; with industry, energy, and a special aptitude for the details of administrative business; but haughty and narrow-minded; impenetrable to reasoning which did not square with his preconceived views; filled with inordinate ideas of his own importance as "the representative of majesty;" with a violent, temper, which in dealing with the colonists he took little pains to control, although his communications with the Colonial Office displayed a pliability almost amounting to subservience. He claimed to receive the deference due to a viceroy, and at the same time to exercise the duties of an English prime minister. With sharp and ready tongue he introduced and pressed legislative measures for carrying into effect theories most distasteful and unsuitable to his colonial "subjects;" but opposition, or even that fair criticism and discussion which a British premier would expect and even invite, he treated as personal insult to his authority; almost as high treason.
The period of his accession to power was in every respect most inopportune. Backed by a Secretary of State as fiery and obstinate as himself, with the sanction of a House of Commons utterly ignorant of the condition of Australia, Sir George Gipps came determined to govern on high prerogative principles, at a time when the colony had advanced from the Algerine rule of Phillip and Darling, to enjoy the externals of a free state. A Legislative Council no longer secret, although not elective, had superseded the irresponsible decrees of the governor. Courts regularly constituted, with juries in political cases, had taken the place of courts martial. The press was free; the liberty of assembling to discuss political questions had been sanctioned and exercised. A rapid, enormous immigration from the mother country swelled the ranks of the thousands who, however descended, were born free; and, under the guidance of the burning eloquence of a native-born Australian, claimed to exercise those rights of representation and self-taxation which they had forfeited by becoming colonists.
The history of this long contest would fill a volume; but the time has not yet come for writing at full length the details of the struggles in which the liberties of Australia were born* That must await the growth of a colonial public. It is, however, not venturing too much to assert that if ever—which Heaven forbid!—Australia should rise up and violently sever her connection with the British crown, the origin of so dire a calamity may be distinctly traced back to the period when, with the high approval of the home authorities, and of politicians of all colours, Sir George Gipps coerced and insulted the colonists of Australia, forcing, with threats and blows, legislative shoes, modelled in Downing-street, upon their unwilling feet. Yet Sir George Gipps was not without noble as well as brilliant qualities. His hands were clean. He took no share in the jobs of the servile crew whom he used and despised. But he was intoxicated by the greatness thrust upon him. At one stride he passed from a subordinate military rank to the government of a great province of wealthy and discontented men; having in his hands authority which could make or mar a whole class or a whole district. In a different sphere, and subdued by the even competition of English parliamentary life, he might have done himself honour and the state service.
In the temper of the governor and the governed, questions of difference were not long in arising.
Under Sir Richard Bourke the Legislative Council, although composed of salaried officials and an equal number of the colonists nominated by the governor, had nurtured enough of the spirit of independence to occasionally dissent from the views of the home government or its representative. But Governor Bourke took a colonial view of colonial subjects; he did not hesitate to dissent from the views of a Secretary of State; he treated the opinions of his council with deliberate consideration and respect, even where he came to a contrary conclusion. Sir George Gipps adopted an opposite course. Nothing could equal the contempt with which he treated colonial opinions, except the zeal with which he echoed and carried out the instructions issued by the Secretary of State.
The following were among the more prominent political questions which formed the subject of contention and agitation on the part of the colonists against the governor:—
1st. The appropriation of the revenue of the colony.
2nd. The extent to which the colonists were taxed for gaols, police, &c., rendered necessary by the transportation system.
3rd. The manner in which the home government exercised the patronage of the crown, passing over colonial claims, and appointing unfit persons, at high salaries paid by the colonists.
4th. The price of land, and the arbitrary manner in which it was raised, lowered, and raised again, at the will of the governor.
These four grievances were discussed in one or more distinct cases. On each the governor took up the position of "high prerogative" in the most offensive manner, and found his policy approved by the home government.
It is very odd that, whether Whigs or Tories hold office, the most obnoxious regulations issued, the most discreditable rights of patronage exercised, have been defended under the plea of asserting "the sacred rights of the crown" in the colonies. Thus ignorant bushmen were taught, when a few acres of waste land were not granted, as the Legislative Council prayed, to the worthy captain who had saved a shipwrecked crew; or when a worn-out attorney was sent out to fill a useless office at an extravagant salary, that the ungracious refusal and disgraceful job were both the effect of the "Queen's Prerogative."
Such are the modes in which Downing-street, before the days of unrestricted political competition, used to drag the sacred name of the sovereign through the dirt.
No sooner had Sir George Gipps commenced his government than he became involved in discussions involving very important principles, which were carried on with such feeble means of attack as the colonists possessed, until, in 1842, an act of the Imperial Parliament bestowed upon New South Wales a Legislative Council, which consisted of twenty-four elective members, and twelve who held their seats either in an official capacity or on the recommendation of the governor. The opening of the Colonial Parliament took place on August 3rd, 1843, and in his "speech from the throne," Sir George Gipps described the Council as "composed of three elements or three different classes of persons the representatives of the people the official servants of her Majesty, and of gentlemen of independence the unofficial nominees of the crown."
The nominees were soon taught that so far from being independent, they were expected to follow the lead of the governor without discussion or hesitation.
The questions which had already occupied the attention of the colonial press and the nominee council, afforded ample employment for the elective chamber; among the first and most important of these was
THE REVENUE.
The revenue dispute commenced in 1832, when Lord Goderich, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, directed Sir Richard Bourke to submit annually to the Legislative Council an estimate of the expenditure proposed to be charged on the colonial revenues. This estimate, if passed by the Council, was to be embodied in an ordinance, and forwarded to the home government for his Majesty's approval. If rejected, the majority were to be requested to furnish their estimate, and the two were to be forwarded for "his Majesty's approval." With this illusory control, the non-official but nominee members and the colonists were obliged to be content. It was not of much use to object to an estimate that had to travel round the world; and although the non-official councillors sometimes protested against any particularly scandalous job, their protests were received, and laid up with other dusty papers.
At the period to which we are alluding, the administrative powers of the governor had been so clipped, without addition to the legislative powers of the colonies, that he could scarcely erect a pair of stocks without first reporting to Downing-street, with plan and estimate. No wonder that almost all the non-official party in the colony were republicans.
In 1835 the expense of maintaining the police establishment and gaols was made a colonial charge. Every non-official and two official members of the council protested against this heavy burden, on the ground that these expenses were largely increased by the presence of all the transported felonry of Great Britain, either as prisoners or freedmen. To this it was answered, that the colony had had the benefit of their work. However, as a per contra, the surplus of the fund derived from the sale or lease of crown land was allowed to be taken to assist the colonial revenues, after defraying the expenses of emigration. The terms of this arrangement or contract, as the colonists assert, are to be found in despatches with enclosures from Mr. Spring Rice, and from Lord Glenelg, dated respectively 15th November, 1834, and 10th July, 1835. It is not now worth while to quote or discuss them. The truth seems to be, that, while the returns from the land revenue were trifling, the officers of the crown did not care to have the spending of them, having admitted that it was "just and reasonable that the revenues should be applied wholly and exclusively for the benefit of the colony." But, when the land revenues rose to hundreds of thousands of pounds annually, the question assumed a different aspect in the eyes of a young but accomplished bureaucrat like Sir George Gipps.
Sir Richard Bourke, after receiving the despatches in question, believed that the Legislative Council had the complete control of the land revenue. He seems to have been always anxious to extend the legislative powers of the colonies.
Sir George Gipps commenced what may be called, to use a slang term of modern politics, his reactionary course of policy, by repudiating the assumed contract in the extract from a despatch, dated November, 1838, which alone affords a complete key to the favour in which he was held at the Colonial Office, and the detestation in which he was held in the colony:—
"It is asserted in the colony that the right to appropriate this revenue was conceded to the governor and council by a despatch, &c., and that this right was recognised by Sir Richard Bourke … Notwithstanding the strength of these expressions, I must say that I very much doubt whether, by the Treasury letter of the 24th September, 1834, it was intended to give up unreservedly, and for ever, the right to select the objects on which the crown revenue (viz., from colonial land) should be expended; and I therefore, whenever occasion required, maintained, during the last session of the council, that the crown has still power to do so—feeling that, if wrong in this opinion, I could easily set myself right with the council; but, if I committed an error the other way, I might involve myself in difficulties from which there would be no escape." And he proceeds with great ingenuity to "get up a case" to enable the Colonial Office at home to shear the colonists of the trifling powers recently conceded to them.
This was a very pretty quarrel to begin with, and the governor lost no opportunity of improving it.
Whether the contract existed or not, it is quite clear that the powers claimed and exercised by the governor and the colonial secretary, in the much-abused name of the sovereign, amounted to revolting despotism under a caricature of free discussion. The colonists were expected to defray the cost of their own government, with all the addition of police and gaol expenses incident to a periodical inoculation of British-grown felonry, while, with the sham of a Legislative Council and financial discussions, all sources of revenue, except additional taxation, were removed from their control. As to the crown or waste lands—the price, the management—the expenditure of the funds arising from them in emigration—were settled by English commissioners; the surplus was appropriated by the crown. The custom-house tariff and the rules for levying it were settled, and the officers appointed, by the English custom-house. As to the funds raised by local taxation, the Colonial Secretary, in the name of the crown, created offices, fixed fines, salaries, and appointed officers, without the slightest .regard, to the wants or wishes of the colonists.
The grievance with respect to the appropriation of the land revenues became more unbearable inconsequence of the orders and acts of the home government in respect to the land question, which were in direct opposition to the feelings and interests of the colonists.
It was with the representative members of the Legislative Council, while the colony was in a state of insolvency, that Governor Gipps's battles commenced, and were carried on with an acerbity on both sides which did not breed a rebellion, because the materials in the shape of coercive powers had not been conceded to the governor. The new council lost no time in investigating the grievances of the colony, and soon collected a most formidable list, although the most oppressed class of all, the small settlers, were entirely unrepresented.
The revenues, the price of crown lands, the assessments on the pastoral proprietors, the abuses in the exercise of crown patronage, successively attracted the attention of the opposition, vigorously led by William Wentworth, a gentleman of brilliant talents and great oratorical powers, whose influence was to a certain extent unfortunately impaired by a violent temper and want of tact, the result of a provincial education among men vastly his inferiors in intellect, and long exclusion from a legitimate exercise of his powers.
Without the evidence printed by these Legislative Councils of New South Wales, it would be impossible to credit that a government at home, professed to be formed on "reform" and "retrenchment," could have perpetrated and maintained powers so oppressive and jobs so corrupt. But jobbery and despotism seem incident to all corporate bodies which have the control of sea-divided territories. It was impossible to imagine anything worse than the administration of the Colonial Office, until the New Zealand Company, composed of colonial reformers, showed in. perfection what a colonising Robert Macaire could do with a large capital, a directorate of credulous capitalists, and an array of still more credulous colonists.
The following cases, gathered from the reports of the committees of the Legislative Council appointed to inquire into certain gross cases of embezzlement and mismanagement, afford examples of the "patronage grievance," of the sort of persons selected for colonial office, the nature of the powers they assumed On the strength of holding a home instead of a colonial appointment, and the manner in which they performed their duties.
THE REGISTRAR.
In 1841 the Registrar of the Supreme Court became a defaulter; in the following year he took the benefit of the Insolvent Act, and eventually paid a dividend of sixpence in the pound. The committee which investigated his case, with the view of obtaining redress from the home government for the sufferers by the malversation of their appointed, reported, that the first registrar, Colonel Mills, was a decayed gentleman, with no knowledge of business, and who, therefore, left what there was to be done to other officers. On his death the governor and council recommended that the office, in the then state of the colony not needed, should be abolished; but, before receiving or without attending to this recommendation, the defaulter in question, Mr. M, was appointed. His antecedents were not more encouraging than those of Colonel Mills. In 1811 he had executed a deed of assignment of all his property for the benefit of his creditors; and in 1823, after returning from an eight years' residence on the Continent, had taken the benefit of the Insolvent Act; in 1828 had been appointed Chief Justice of Nova Scotia, and had been permitted to exchange the appointment for that of Registrar of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, with the duty of collecting the effects of intestates, and, according to his own account, the privilege of investing the money for his own benefit pending its distribution.
On arrival at the colony Mr. M took up a high position. That part of his duty which related to registering deeds of grants of crown land he entirely neglected and suffered to fall into an arrear, which eventually involved great numbers of the humbler class in litigation and ruin. But the collection of the estates of intestates he entered on as zealously as any wrecker on the spoils of storms. The presence of near relatives was no protection for the moneys of the deceased: in defiance of son, brother, or father, the registrar grasped all the estate, invested it in his own name for his own benefit, and from 1828 to 1838 kept neither day-book, cash-book, nor ledger, but one account at his banker's, rendered no statement for audit to any one, and paid over what balance, if any, to the next of kin of intestates when and how he pleased.
In 1838 the judges made rules of court requiring the registrar to pass his accounts and pay the balance into the savings' bank. The great man remonstrated against these rules in a most indignant tone, "as threatening to take from him a source of legitimate income, on the faith of which he immigrated to the colony," and intimated that, "unless he was permitted to retain and make use of the money himself, he would use no exertions to obtain it."
At this audit he reported himself to be in possession of £1,980 17s 0½d., but the court, after argument, found £3,085 18s. 2d. due, compelled him to pay it into court, and, in spite of violent resistance, in which he was supported by one of the official legal advisers of the governor, had a set of rules of court sanctioned by the governor in council, under which the registrar was bound to account regularly and pay in the proceeds of every intestate estate within a certain fixed time (three months from the period of the intestacy); the injured registrar all the time protesting that "the judges were reflecting on his honour by calling for accounts, and depriving him of the legitimate profits to be derived from the employment of other men's money, which had induced him to settle in the colony." The judges being firm, and supported by the council, the registrar then resorted to fraud, and in the course of two years became possessed of £9,000. When no longer able to conceal his appropriations, he announced his insolvency in a debonnair yet dignified manner—a condescending, much-injured style—which could only come from a colonial official. The sufferers by this embezzlement petitioned for compensation from the home government. The correspondence with the appropriator is extremely rich and racy. Throughout he appears to consider himself deeply injured. The home government rejected the prayers of the petitioners.
THE PROTHONOTARY.
The next case is illustrative of the confidence with which colonial secretaries set aside colonial recommendations; the avidity with which they embrace opportunities of patronage; the indifference with which they increase salaries; and the admirable skill with which certain governors imbibe the principles of the chiefs.
The judge, Chief Justice Dowling, finding it needful to recommend that certain offices included in the charter of justice should be filled up, and especially that of prothonotary, at a salary of £800 per annum, for which he recommends one Mr. John Grover, late chief clerk, "who, from his long services, indefatigable industry, and experience, is admirably qualified for the office," Governor Gipps, the late captain of engineers, enters into a correspondence, as was his custom, with the judges, in which he instructs them how to manage the business of their courts, and save £50 a year. The judges demur, and show the governor that he knows nothing about the matter.
The question is referred to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Stanley, who settles the question in King Stork fashion, without a moment's loss of time. He does not appoint the gentleman recommended by the judges. In other respects he follows out their recommendations, but sends out two new officers, one at £1,000 a year, and the other at £850; and creating a third appointment, at £650, to be filled up by the governor; thus at a blow saddling the colony with increased salaries to the extent of £400 a year, on the ground that in England competent persons could not be induced to accept these offices for less. An early act of one of these gentlemen was to set the local legislature at defiance on a matter of salary; the other was a worn-out, ruined attorney.
We have only to imagine, in order to understand colonial feeling on these subjects, the case of the town council of Liverpool applying to the Home Office for a stipendiary magistrate, stating their willingness to pay a salary of £800, and suggesting a particularly well-qualified gentleman to fill it, and their having a total stranger thrust upon them, with orders to pay him £200 more than they had offered. It seems the rule with all officials appointed from England to treat with the greatest contempt the colonists who pay them.
THE LUNATIC ASYLUM.
An inquiry into the management of the Colonial Lunatic Asylum brought out facts equally characteristic of the independence and irresponsibility of all officials, up to the time that the elected members of the Legislative Council began to exercise their privilege of inquiry. In 1846, a select committee of the Legislative Council investigated the condition of Tarban Creek, the only lunatic asylum in New South Wales. In the course of this inquiry it appeared that the head keeper and his wife, the matron, in consequence of having received their appointment direct from the Secretary of State, habitually resisted all attempts to control, or even investigate the performance of their duties, by the visiting magistrates or colonially-appointed physician. Lunatics are sufficiently neglected and abused even to this hour in England, but it is only in a colony that a sort of turnkey for lunatics would presume to set the dignity of his office against both magistrates and medical men.
The visiting magistrate "had occasion to refer to the governor for definite instructions in consequence of the superintendent considering that he was interfering." He states, "My authority is repudiated by Mr. Digby; he says I have no right to interfere. Although he gives me every information in his power, he does so in courtesy, protesting against my right to interfere."
The committee found "no books or registers such as ought to be kept in a public establishment; no record of cases; no written statement of the appearance of any patient at the time of his admission, or of the progress of the disease, or of the treatment, medical and moral." They report that—
"The medical officer is not in his proper position." According to evidence, "he gets all his information from me [the keeper] as to the particulars of the case and form of insanity." The keeper stated, that in going round with the doctor, if he suggests any alteration in their moral treatment, and it appears to him [the keeper] an improvement, he acts upon it; but if he does not approve of it he does not yield to him. "For instance, he might recommend that restraint should be taken off a patient, but if, from a better knowledge of the party, he might not deem it advisable, he should refuse to do so."
We quote this passage because it so perfectly illustrates the manner in which colonists and colonial interests are treated.
It is quite evident that the merits of this worthy officer of the order of the strait-jacket were not duly acknowledged. He ought to have been a colonial governor or a colonial secretary. Colonists are treated like the Tarban Creek lunatics: they do not know what is good for them neither do their representatives. The governor is the man; he is responsible to no one; and although the Legislative Council, like the doctor, may recommend removing restraint, he knows better. We have not space to go into the jail cases, where the governor provided himself with coachman, footman, gardener, and a crew of boatmen, out of the criminals sentenced to imprisonment for colonial offences, and the convicts of Hyde Park Barracks were left under charge of a convict turnkey, who let them out to rob at so much a night, with pistols hired at ten shillings for each case.
With these examples we leave the subject of official responsibility, and return to the two great questions which agitated the colony during the whole administration of Sir George Gipps, and which still continue to excite the interest and apprehension of all who look ahead—"The Land," and "Emigration."
THE LAND QUESTION.
The question of the terms on which the waste lands of the colony were to be sold, and, until sold, occupied by flock-owners and stock-owners, formed the subject of the most bitter contest between Governor Gipps and the colonists. To the colonists the question was one of existence; it involved not only the liberties so dear to every English-speaking race, but the means of existence.
Just before the departure of Sir Richard Bourke, the pastoral proprietors of New South Wales, as well as all the merchants, capitalists, and every one else possessed of money or credit, were seized with a land mania, which can be compared to nothing less than the share and stock-jobbing manias which, from the period of the Mississippi scheme down to the last rage for railway scrip, have, from time to time, carried bankruptcy, ruin, and roguery through the length and breadth of the infatuated nation.
The disease arose in South Australia in the manner which will be found described in the chapter devoted to the foundation of that colony, and it received a great stimulus from the foundation of Port Phillip, where a considerable extent of picturesque, and more than ordinarily fertile land, easy of access from the port, became the object of competition among English colonists with more money than colonial experience. Mr. Gibbon Wakefield's theories seemed to receive, in one important respect, confirmation from the large sums paid into the colonial treasuries by colonists bidding one against another for land at government auctions. These large funds were placed in the colonial banks. The banks, in order to employ the government deposits, gave unusual accommodation to their customers, until, moving in a circle of fallacies, the whole colony dreamed of growing rich by selling to each other land which produced nothing.
The series of Secretaries of State for the Colonies, Lords Aberdeen, Glenelg, Normanby, and John Russell, who succeeded each other in rapid succession up to 1842, and Lord Stanley, who held office until 1845, seem all to have taken the promised results of the Wakefield theory for granted—assumed that it was the duty of the government to obtain the highest price for crown lands—that a high price of land would keep down wages, and check dispersion; and to this notion their successor, Lord Grey, adhered, in face of an unbroken line of colonial evidence of the most practical character.
Thus, in August, 1838, Lord Glenelg instructed Sir George Gipps to substitute 12s. for 5s. an acre as the upset price of ordinary land, adding, "If you should observe that the extension of the population should still proceed with a rapidity beyond what is desirable, and that the want of labour still continues to be seriously felt, you will take measures for checking the sale of land even at 12s."
It would be an insult to the powerful understanding of Sir George Gipps to doubt that he was as well aware of the fallacy of this idea as his predecessor, but he came out with the fixed principle of earning the approbation of his official chiefs by zealously and actively carrying out their desires and orders. As he once answered a colonial remonstrant, "I was sent here to carry out the Wakefield system of land sales, and whether it suits the colony or not, it must be done."
Animated by this spirit he adopted two measures which soon transferred the greater part of the ready money of the colonists, new and old, into the colonial treasury. He limited the quantity of land offered for sale so as to raise the competition between new arrivals to the highest pitch, and he successively raised the upset price to the last sum given by the last land-lunatic under the excitement of an auction.
Thus, at a land auction on the 10th June, 1840, at Port Phillip, the price was run up by emulation and competition to such a height, that shipmates of Richard Howitt, with a capital among them of £20,000, only ventured to invest £600. Land was sold at £30 and £40 acre, which, for years afterwards, remained in a state of nature.
In the New South Wales district Sir George Gipps offered and sold land at Illawarra at 12s. and £1 an acre; when raised to £10 an acre it remained unsold; it was then reduced to £1, and, being worthless refuse, still remained unsold. In a second and third district, the upset price was raised to £10 in one instance, and £100 in another, and afterwards reduced to £2 an acre. And all this was done repeatedly against the advice of the official surveyors, on the principle that it was the duty of the governor to wring the uttermost farthing from the settler.
The land mania was followed by a crash of universal insolvency. Land became unsaleable; live stock fell to nominal prices; and the importers of British and foreign luxuries had nothing better to offer their creditors than the dishonoured bills of their customers.
It was in 1841, in the commencement of this crisis of insolvency, that the British Parliament, in utter ignorance of colonial affairs, under the influence of a band of stock-jobbing theorists, attempted to prop up the insolvent colony of South Australia by an act which fixed the minimum price of land in Australia at £1 an acre.
In 1843, when the elective Legislative Council commenced its labours, the dissatisfaction of the colonists with the fixed minimum price of £1 an acre had become universal.
The wealthy parties who had expected their free grants, and their purchases at five shillings an acre, to be augmented in value by the increased price, were disappointed—the speculators who, following the example of the South Australians, had purchased large estates in the hope of realising large profits, by laying out paper towns and villages, were either insolvent or encumbered with tracts of useless waste land, unsaleable and unprofitable—the small settlers were deeply discontented with the impediments thrown in the way of purchasing small farms in good agricultural districts—while the great pastoral proprietors, or squatters, who were many of them also landowners in the settled districts, were worried—(no other word will express the policy of Sir George Gipps) by taxes, regulations, and restrictions imposed, repealed, and reimposed in a most arbitrary manner, with a view of compelling the purchase of their occupations at the ruinous price of £1 an acre.
Live stock became absolutely valueless; cattle were allowed to rove wild, unbranded on the hills; and sheep which had cost 30s. a piece were unsaleable at 1s. 6d., until it occurred to an ingenious gentleman to boil them down for tallow, by which the minimum price was raised to 3s. Land sales had ceased; the fund, which had previously imported labouring emigrants to take the place of convicts, was exhausted. The pastoral interest, whose fortunes had already been seriously injured by the depreciation of their stock, determined to resist the governor in his attempt to regulate their taxation, and to virtually confiscate their property on the fiat of himself and his irresponsible representatives, the Crown Commissioners.
In the same year Lord Stanley's despatch, accompanying the act of Parliament which gave legislative fixity to the land system, arrived in the colony, and damped the expectations of those who had hoped that the failure of the £1 an acre panacea for promoting concentration, regulating wages, and encouraging cultivation, would induce the home government to consult a little more the wishes and interests of actual colonists.
Under these circumstances, the first of six committees of the Legislative Council which have examined and reported on this question—viz., two committees in 1843, one in 1844, one in 1845, and two in 1847—was appointed, held its sittings, examined witnesses, and made its report.
The committee of 1843 on "the crown land sales" examined, amongst others, the surveyor-general, Sir Thomas Mitchell, one of the M'Arthurs, and several landed and pastoral proprietors. They reported that "the act of Parliament under their consideration cannot but be injurious in its operation—that it is calculated to prevent emigration (of small capitalists), to withdraw capital, and to prevent the permanent occupancy of the soil."
In the same year the select committee on immigration also reported by its chairman, Dr. Nicholson (since elected speaker of the Council, and knighted), "that the measure of her Majesty's government for raising the upset price of land from 5s. to 12s., and subsequently to 20s. an acre, had completely annihilated the land fund, which, in six years previous to the change, had produced one million sterling;" and they recommended, in a series of resolutions, one for "rescinding the present land regulations and effecting a return of the old system of sales by auction, at an upset rate not exceeding 5s. an acre for pastoral land."
In 1844 a "select committee on grievances connected with land in the colony" examined twenty-six witnesses, and received answers to a printed circular of questions from one hundred and twenty-two justices of the peace. The attention of the committee was directed, among other subjects, to the minimum price of land, and to the attempts to harass the squatter, not being a purchaser of land, by rendering his tenure of crown lands as uncertain and onerous as possible.
All the witnesses who were asked the question (except Mr. Deas Thompson, the Colonial Secretary, who declined, on the ground of his official character, to give an answer), and all the replies to the circulars, except three, expressed decided opinions against the measure which raised the minimum price of crown land from 5s. to £1; all justly taking it for granted that at £1 an acre the purchase of pastoral lands was impossible, claimed fixity of tenure by lease, and right of pre-emption for the squatter. The latter was the grand point with the squatters; that gained, their interest in the land question, except in promoting sales to create an emigration fund, ceased.
The opinions of the three dissentients from the report of the committee exhibit very exactly the feelings of the small class, resident chiefly in Port Phillip and South Australia, who advocate the high price of land.
These three gentlemen are—John Leslie Foster, of Leslie Park, Melbourne—Peter M'Arthur, of Arthurton, Melbourne—John Moore Airey, of Geelong.
Mr. Foster[1] says, very candidly, "I look on the price of one pound as not too much for agricultural land, and as a prohibition on the purchase of mere pastoral land. Being both a landowner and a settler, I would in both characters regret to see any reduction in the price, as it would not only reduce the value of my (purchased) land, but, by rendering it easier for others to purchase my (rented) runs, would diminish the permanent interest I now hold in them."[1]
Mr. Moore thought "the country destined, from its physical character, to become an aristocratic one;" that "the class of emigrants really beneficial to the country, English country gentlemen with some property, but with large families and limited means, would not be deterred by £1 an acre; that a class of small but independent farmers will never be generally adapted to the country; that it will eventually fall into the hands of a landed aristocracy, who, possessing the frontages to water convenient to the residence of tenants, will possess capital sufficient to guard them against the vicissitudes of the seasons, as well as means to cultivate the interior to advantage."
Mr. Peter M'Arthur (no relation to "the M'Arthur," of Camden) "arrived in the colony in 1834, specially introduced to the favour and protection of the governor by the Secretary of State." He recommends that "the governor shall have the power to grant twelve thousand eight hundred acres to respectable parties of station and education, and capital, and of habits worthy of being imitated by the humbler class;" one thousand acres to be purchased at £1 an acre, payable by instalments in ten years; the remaining eleven thousand eight hundred to be held on a perpetual quit rent of £12 per annum.
These three gentlemen evidently considered that imperial and colonial interests were bound up in the encouragement of their class, in the protection of their interests, and the keeping down of aspiring yeomanry.
The report of the committee on crown land grievances was the foundation of a fierce agitation on the part of the pastoral interests for the suppression of the obnoxious regulations as to the pastoral occupations, and for fixity of tenure. In this agitation, which was also directed against the £1 acre minimum, the whole colony joined. Public meetings were held in every part of New South Wales; petitions and memorials addressed to the home government were signed, sent to England, and placed in the hands of political men of influence; and influential organs of the English press were enlisted in defence of the great pastoral interest.
In the same year the whole Council adopted resolutions condemning the high price of land in the terms suggested by the committee.
In 1845 a fourth select committee reported against the 1 an acre Act, supporting their opinions with a great body of facts and statistics, and concluded by observing, that "the practical evils resulting from the augmentation of the upset price of land had already been fully developed in the Report on Immigration and the Report on Waste Lands in 1843, and in the Land Grievance Report of 1844, and in the opinions of your honourable Council, distinctly pronounced on the same subject, in the resolutions of the whole Council of the 17th September, 1844."
To complete the history of the land question we will add, that in 1847, under the administration of Sir George Gipps's successor, a select committee on immigration, of which Mr. Cowper was chairman, reported "the disastrous results and impolicy of the high upset price;" and also that a select committee, presided over by Mr. Robert Lowe (now so well known in England), made an elaborate report against the high upset price of land, to which we shall have occasion to allude more minutely in describing the compromise effected between the government and the squatters under the government of Sir Charles Fitzroy.
But Governor Gipps stood firm; determined to make war on the squatters, determined to maintain the obnoxious £1 an acre, and to carry out the spirit of the act which imposed it, by throwing, as he was instructed, all possible obstacles in the way of men of small capital investing their savings in land; and he was supported by the British Colonial Office.
For while the governor was courageously attacking the most wealthy and powerful body in the colony, he took no pains to foster that class of yeomanry which were the object of Sir Richard Bourke's peculiar care. He divided the land into large lots; discouraged small holdings, whether of land or stock; and treated emigrants as merchandise or live stock consigned for the benefit of the purchasers of land.
It certainly was most unfortunate for the colony that the initiation of a representative government, the substitution of free emigrant for prisoner labour, and the attempt to establish local self-government, should have fallen under the direction of one who, with great talents, was obstinately determined not to learn anything from experience, and not to permit any measure of reform he did not originate. His want of pliability was strikingly displayed in the conduct of emigration.