The Three Colonies of Australia/Part 1/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
CAROLINE CHISHOLM.
MRS. CAROLINE CHISHOLM arrived in Sydney in 1839, with her children and husband, Captain Archibald Chisholm, of the Madras army, who had been making a tour of the Australian colonies during a limited sick leave. On returning to India he decided to leave his family in New South Wales.
Soon after their arrival, during the first crash of insolvency of 1839, some Highland emigrants, who spoke no English and had large families, found difficulty in obtaining employment. A little money lent them by Captain Chisholm to purchase tools, and a little useful advice, set them up as wood-cutters, and they prospered; while assisting his countrymen, having seen the neglected state of the bounty emigrants, he pointed them out to his wife as fit objects for her charitable zeal and energy. There is a wonderful freemasonry among the poor by degrees Mrs. Chisholm's rooms were crowded by emigrants seeking advice. But it was 'the unprotected position of female and often friendless emigrants that awakened her warmest sympathies. She commenced her work, in the literal sense of the term, by at the same time gathering information and acquiring the confidence of the working classes.
Mrs. Chisholm found young women who had emigrated nominally under the care of friends, but really under that of strangers, at the instigation of the bounty agent, without home, some lodged in tents with companions of indifferent character, others wandering friendless through the streets of Sydney. Many of them having been collected in rural districts, knew more of cows and pigs than housework, and if engaged in town, soon lost their situations, and were superseded by more accomplished servants from ships which arrived daily. Some of these poor creatures slept in retired nooks out in the public gardens and in the rocks, rather than face the contamination of the streets. The total number of respectable females unemployed in Sydney at one time in 1840-1 amounted to six hundred.
There were other and more serious evils attendant on emigration, as then conducted, than the condition of the emigrants on landing. A considerable number of females of notoriously bad character were sent out in the bounty ships for whom bounty was never claimed. The 
Emigration Board sat in Sydney merely to apportion the bounty; the utmost punishment they could inflict was to stop the passage-money due to the agents. So long as the emigrants were delivered in good health, and within the standard, there was neither tribunal nor even organised opinion which could be brought to bear on any of the parties connected with the mercantile transaction. If duly invoiced, the bill for the live lumber was paid, while damaged goods were rejected. In some ships the emigrants were deprived of their fair share of provisions, insulted and assaulted by the crew, even by the officers, and otherwise abused. In others unrestrained intercourse took place between the officers, the crew, and the female passengers. In more than one instance the captain or surgeon selected pretty emigrants for companions during the voyage, and during their stay in Sydney.
On arrival in harbour, not only were single gentlemen allowed to choose housekeepers on board, but notorious brothel-keepers regularly visited the emigrant-ships. The captain and surgeon could not know them, and had no power to impede them if they did. There was no government officer on board to superintend the contracts or protect the emigrants; and thus, while women fell into the hands of seducers and harlots, there were a certain number of keen hands, with whom few in the colony would deal without a lawyer, who skimmed the cream of the labour from the ship on terms of very sharp practice. All these things oozed out in England among the emigrating classes, and made, and continued to make, long after they were to a great extent remedied, emigration very unpopular; but no one cared, or dared to take up the obnoxious and ungenteel position of the emigrants' friend in Sydney. The colonists had not then learned that the cheapest and most powerful mode of colonising is to make the working colonists content.
Mrs. Chisholm had courage and foresight. She began by appealing to the press and to private individuals on behalf of the poor destitute girl immigrants. At first she met with much discouragement, a few civil speeches—no assistance.
The most imperious section of the employer class saw no advantage from the protection of the employed. The officials foresaw more work, some supervision, and no increase of pay. The Roman Catholics, as soon as they found it was to be a universal, or, to use the Irish term, a "godless" scheme of practical philanthropy, and not sectarian and proselytising, opposed it vehemently. A dignitary of that church wrote a letter to a newspaper, in which he termed Mrs. Chisholm a lady labouring under amiable delusions. At the same time the Protestants raised the cry of "No Popery!"
But she pressed on her plan of a "Home," and when almost defeated was nerved to determination by the sight of a Highland beauty, "poor Flora"—whom she had last known a happy, hopeful girl—drunken, despairing, contemplating, and hastening to commit, suicide.
Mrs. Chisholm offered to devote her time gratuitously to a "Home of Protection," and to endeavour to procure situations for the emigrant girls, unengaged and out of place, in the country an offer which was eventually accepted, after "she had given an undertaking not to put the government to any expense." On obtaining this concession she issued the following circular, which will give an example of that practical business talent to which she owes her success, not less than to her genuine philanthropy:—
"Jamieson-street, Sydney, October 21st, 1841.
"Sir,—I am endeavouring to establish a ' Home for Female Immigrants,' and have little doubt but funds will soon be raised to enable me to accomplish this; and, as my first object is to facilitate their obtaining employment in the country, I shall feel obliged if you will favour my intention (should you approve of the same) by giving me the information I require regarding your district; and any suggestion you may think useful will be considered a favour.
"1st. Whether girls who at home have merely been accustomed to milk cows, wash, and the common household work about a farm, would readily get places? at what wages? and how many do you think would in the course of the next two years be required?
"2nd. Good servants, such as housemaids and cooks, the rate of wages? and the probable number required for the same period?
"3rd. Married couples with small families, say two or three children, ditto.
"4th. Could employment and protection be found for boys and girls from seven to fourteen years of age?
"5th. Have you had opportunities of observing if the young women can save any part of their wages? for they are generally of opinion that nothing can be saved in the country, every article of wearing apparel being so much dearer than in town.
"6th. What would be the cheapest and best way of conveying the young women to your district?
"I have to observe that the servants will be classed according to their qualifications, and distributed fairly, so that those who are absent will have an equal chance of getting a good servant with those who are present. Subscribers of £1 will have servants selected and sent to them without any trouble; it will, however, be necessary that an order should be sent to cover the expense of their conveyance.
"I require by donations to raise what will furnish a house; and by subscriptions I expect to support the institution. I am of opinion that when families in the interior can get servants sent them, we shall not hear of young women suffering distress and losing character for want of a situation. I shall feel obliged if you will favour me with a reply by the 10th of November next.
"I have taken the liberty to annex a subscription list, and I shall feel obliged if you would leave it in the hands of some person to receive subscriptions, and acquaint me with the name, that it may appear in the papers."
It was in reply to one of these circulars that the Rev. Henry Styles, of Windsor, the chaplain to the Bishop of Australia, an honest opponent, wrote:—"I fully appreciate the zeal and charity in your endeavours to establish the 'Home for Female Emigrants.' My only reason for declining to co-operate in a design which at first sight appears so entirely laudable is, that it is natural to suppose that an institution established by a lady who is a devoted member of the Catholic Church, which renders allegiance to Rome, should prove rather an instrument for augmenting the numbers of that communion, than merely what its name imports—a home for all destitute female emigrants, without respect to their religious professions. The result would be, that the immigrants in your 'Home' would be advised, restrained', and protected by the clergy of the Church of Rome." After thus expressing himself, the reverend gentlemen replied minutely to every question in the circular.
Mrs. Chisholm's answer to this plain and proper letter produced a second letter from Mr. Styles, in which he said, "Your frank and straightforward avowal of the objects you aim at, and the means you will use for their attainment, disarm suspicion. The assurance in your note that you will not be led by the agents of any ecclesiastical party, but that you will pursue steadily the good of the whole of the emigrants who may come under your care, referring in matters of religion to their respective clergy and teachers, induces me to offer you very cordially whatever support I am able to afford. I beg to enclose £2 as a donation."
Eleven years have elapsed since this correspondence took place. Proselytism and propagandism are not to be done in a corner. For every day during that period Mrs. Chisholm has almost lived in public, yet no case of misuse of her influence has ever been brought against her.
The government building appropriated to the "Home" consisted of a low wooden barrack fourteen feet square. Mrs. Chisholm found it needful, for the protection of the characters of the girls, to sleep on the premises. A store-room seven feet square, without a fire-place, and infested with rats, was cleared out for her accommodation. There she dwelt, eating, drinking, and sleeping, dependent on the kindness of a prisoner employed in the adjoining government printing-office for a kettle of hot water for tea, her only luxury; and there she laid the foundation of a system to which thousands owe their happiness in this world and the world to come—saved from temptation to vice, and put on the road to industrious independence; a system which, if fairly carried out, would save and civilise a great empire from the pollution of nomadic money-earning and unsocial profusion—from the rule of a plutocracy and the horrors of a servile war.
Following the example of our greatest philosophers in every branch of science, Mrs. Chisholm was careful and eager to collect facts, but slow to publish grave conclusions. If she claimed publicity it was not to propound a complicated theory, but to attack some flagrant abuse.
The first party of girls collected within the "Home" amounted to ninety, whom Mrs. Chisholm protected from open insult, covert seduction, and the evil influence of black sheep, inevitably admitted at times, while seeking to obtain them employment. The difficulties were great, the annoyances most wearying. The girls were many of them ignorant and awkward, others too pretty, and others again too proud and idle to work; but Mrs. Chisholm never gave them up while there was hope and a good heart.
She says in her first pamphlet—"If I had entered the office expecting grateful thanks from all, I should have seen in a week my folly; but, having a very fair knowledge of human nature, I was aware that to be able to do a good I must be prepared to encounter certain disagreeables. I did not start expecting to please all, but intending to be just and fair towards all."
As for the mistresses, she told them in print probably the first time so wholesome a truth had been so plainly stated that " the assignment system of convict servants had spoiled them a little; it will take some time to teach them," she observes, "that they have lost a little power, or, in fact, that they must bear and forbear;" "an English servant would not like the ration and lock-up system, and would expect domestic comforts not common in Sydney;" "many of the mistresses are apt to take the law into their own hands."
These statements were unpleasant to make and unpopular; but they worked a cure, which if not effected would have damaged the character of the colony in the home country.
The general public, as distinguished from the official class, when they understood the nature of the plans Mrs. Chisholm was engaged upon, responded very liberally to her appeal for assistance. But before they gained confidence in her plans the "Home" became crowded with a number of girls more fit for rough country work than town service. There was no machinery extant for distributing them, so Mrs. Chisholm determined to avail herself of the information supplied in answers to her circulars, and to send them into the country. The first dray that came to the door was sent away empty: frightened with foolish 'board-ship stories of blacks and bushrangers, not one girl would go. A second attempt, the first failure having been kept a secret, was successful. Mrs. Chisholm, at her own risk and expense, took a party up the Hunter River district by steam-boat. The enterprise was considered so Quixotish by her friends that, as she sat on deck in the centre of her troop of girls, no one of her acquaintance dared to expose himself to the ridicule of owning acquaintance by offering any refreshment.
The plan succeeded; the girls were well placed in the families of often humble but always respectable married people, and competent committees were induced to undertake the charge of "Branch Homes" in the interior. The bush journeys were repeated with parties of young women, varing from sixteen to thirty, who were conveyed to Campbell Town, Maitland, Liverpool, Paramatta, Cross Roads, and Port Macquarie—Yass, Gundegai, Murrumbidgee, Goulburn, and Bathurst—where she went from farm to farm, scrutinising the characters of the residents before she trusted them with "her children."
The settlers came forward nobly, and supplied provisions, horses, and drays; the inns universally refused payment for Mrs. Chisholm's personal accommodation; and the coaches, a most costly conveyance in Australia, carried her sick women and children free. Mr. William Bradley, a gentleman born in the colony, a member of the Legislative Council, gave an unlimited credit to draw for anything for the use of the emigrants—of which she was not obliged to avail herself, so liberally did the colonists of the interior come forward.
Very soon the fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands claimed the same care, and asked to be permitted to form part of her parties. Her journeys became longer and her armies larger: 147 souls left Sydney, which increased on the road to 240, in one party, in drays and on foot, Mrs. Chisholm leading the way on horseback. She established a registry-office for servants, where names could be inscribed and agreements effected on fair terms gratuitously: she drew up and printed a fair agreement, of which the master took one, the servant one, and one was filed. The result of this registration was to extinguish litigation as far as regards servants engaged at the "Home." Out of many thousands only two were litigated. Yet in the course of her experience, before she stirred in the matter, and for want of agreements and speedy justice, fifty-one cases occurred up to 1843 of wages unjustly detained or taxed. For the first time the emigrant found a "friend."
The abuse of power by captains, and the immorality of the inferior sort of surgeons, at that time engaged in the Australian trade, were checked by a prosecution which she compelled the governor to institute against parties who had driven a girl mad by their violence.
When Sir George Gipps, hesitating, said, as officials will say, "A government prosecution is a very serious matter," she answered, "I am ready to prosecute: I have the necessary evidence; and if it be a risk whether I or these men shall go to prison, I am ready to stand the risk." That trial established a precedent and checked the abuse.
By the end of 1842 Mrs. Chisholm had succeeded in placing comfortably two thousand emigrants of both sexes, and then, when slowly recovering from the effects of a serious illness brought on by her exertions, she published the remarkable report to which we have before alluded.[1]
It is a collection of notes and memoranda, interspersed with pithy remarks and pathetic and comic sketches from real life—a valuable contribution to the art of colonisation, and a literary curiosity. It was an outspoken book; it did not mince matters—as, for instance, in the following passage, which went far to kill the bounty system, and so, although people were shocked, the evil was abated:—"One girl, long known at Liverpool as the Countess, arrived per ship; the last time I saw her was on a Sunday; she had evidently started in the morning, with an intention to look interesting at either St. James's or St. Mary's, for her book was in her hand; but she had taken a glass by the way, and was so far aware of her state that she retired to the domain. I saw her fall twice. Now people express their astonishment 'that English girls are not sent out.' We will suppose that some Liverpool families are meditating this step, and, in their anxiety to obtain all information, they learn that the Countess is missing—has left for Australia (by a bounty ship). They condemn all for one—they shrink with horror from sending their daughters where the Countess is received—they are strangers to all on board, therefore all suffer for one. I wish particularly to call attention to the injustice done to girls of good character by a case of association, and not a solitary one like the one I have stated. Again, in Sydney, the character of the Countess is known in less than two hours, and the girls of good character in the same ship suffer."
In this "Countess" story was the germ of one great feature of Mrs. Chisholm's Family Colonisation—Society protection for single girls.
In the same effective manner the letter exposes all the tricks practised on the Bounty Board and on the government agents. The following illustrates a class still plentiful:—
"The 'Do-nothings.' This name will surprise some and offend others, but in the end will do good; and I really do not know any one useful thing they can do. E was entered as a governess; I was glad of this, for I had then, as I have now, several applications for governesses, in the country: she was a pretty girl too; and I know when pretty girls have no money—no friends—Sydney is a very bad place. There is nothing so unpleasant as to question a young lady as to her competency. She could teach music, French, drawing, &c. &c.; she was satisfied with the salary, and her testimonials were first-rate. 'You say you can teach music?' 'Yes ma'am.' 'You thoroughly understand it?' 'Most certainly.' 'One of your pupils is nine years of age; how long do you think it will take her to get through Cramer's Instruction Book?' A pause. 'Perhaps you have not seen it?' 'No, ma'am, but I was very quick myself—I have a good ear for music.' 'What book did you study from?' 'I learnt singing and music at the same time.' 'Tell me the name of the first piece you played? 'Cherry ripe.' 'The second?' 'Home sweet home.' 'The third?' 'We're a' noddin.' I said no more about music. I gave her a sum in addition; and she made sixteen pounds five, eighteen pounds four. Now this girl I afterwards ascertained, at home, had lived in a family as nursemaid, and washed the clothes of five children every week: but she was a pretty girl—something of a favourite at sea. The captain was very anxious about her; had taken her in his own boat, to the North-shore, to try and get her a good place; he devoted seven hours to this work of charity. Nor did his zeal rest here—the following day he took her to Paramatta; they returned to the ship, and this girl was kept four days in it, after the other girls left. When he called at my office he was astonished, horrified, that I knew the detail; said Sydney was a scandalising place; that his feelings were those of a father. However, I received the girl the same evening, and removed her the following day very far from his parental influence."
"But for another specimen; and really, out of fifty, I am at a loss how to select; but I will give . She was another of the would-be governesses; but her views were more humble—for the nursery. Now, she could neither read, write, nor spell, correctly. 'Can you wash your own clothes?" 'Never did such a thing in my life.' 'Can you make a dress?' 'No.' 'Cook?' 'No.' 'What can you do?' 'Why, ma'am, I could look after servants; I could direct them; I should make an excellent housekeeper.' 'You are certain?' 'Yes, or I would not say so.' 'Do you know the quantity of the different ingredients wanted for a beef-steak pie—for that dish—and a rice pudding for this?' 'Oh, no, ma'am, that's not what I mean; I'd see that the servants did it.' 'But there might be great waste, and you not know it; besides all, or nearly all, the servants sent to this colony require teaching.' Nothing but my faith in Providence that there must be a place for everybody enabled me to bear with this infliction; and yet, if I turned them out, I knew their fate. But it was trying to my patience every morning to be up and breakfasted, and in my office first. I never had but one in the Home of this class that fairly made her own bed; they would smooth them over and, night after night, get into them."
The following is in a more serious strain:—
"I may here remark, that in going my evening rounds in the rear of the establishment I never met with any impertinence. And after I had been three months or so in office, on going out, I saw a large party of men at the corner of the Domain-gate, evidently trying to conceal two girls: I knew one of them, the other was a stranger. 'Have you any relations in the colony?' 'No.' 'Then come with me.' She was a young girl, not more than fifteen; she refused, and went into the Domain. I sent the other into the Home, and followed her; in a few minutes she returned with me, and I found myself suddenly surrounded by men, I felt, I must acknowledge, in that lonely place, very uncomfortable, but my fears were groundless; they came to apologise, to express their regret at the great annoyance they had given me, and promised me never again to go near the place. 'We never knew you until to-night; we thought you were well paid for looking after the emigrant girls; but when we saw you follow the strip of a girl and we have been talking to this man, and he says you don't get a penny, and that all you do is for the girls' good,—we do say, that that man is not a man who gives you trouble;—good night, ma'am.' I never saw but one of these men afterwards, and he came on a mission of mercy, to tell me of a girl that he thought would be advised, and kept from ruin; he was in terror lest he should be found out. 'I should be jeered at, past bearing; but somehow it lay on my mind—I ought to tell you.' This girl is now well married; and she may thank this poor man that she, under Providence, escaped the pit dug for her."
This strange little book concludes with the following recommendation:—
The appendix contains answers to a circular from ten magistrates and clergymen, stating that "not one of the girls sent through Mrs. Chisholm's name had lost character as regarded honesty and morality;" and a letter to the "Sydney Immigration Board," with hints not without value, even in 1853.
"The present mode of selecting emigrants must be faulty, as it allows so many bad bargains to creep in. I have heard that this evil is to be remedied by getting the parochial clergy of England to select emigrants for you. The idea amuses me, that you should suppose you can get people to do for you what you ought to do for yourselves." "There are poor rates in the mother country, and to suppose that the clergy and magistrates will send you their best, and keep their worst, is to give them credit for an extraordinary share of kindness." And again, after some comic pictures of pauper hard-bargains, who were "too sick to work, but not sick enough for the hospital," she says—referring to the fall in wages that took place betweeen the time when the crimps published their glowing placards, and the arrival of the ship in the colony:—
"From the opening of the office I had the confidence of the emigrants.[3] In a short time they requested me to fix the wages they should accept. Disappointed, as many of them were, in their expectaations, they never doubted my endeavours to serve them.
"Feeling the responsibility and confidence, I exerted myself to obtain, as far as was possible, an accurate knowledge of what rate of wages the flockmasters could pay their shepherds.
"I first inquired of the wealthy men whose flocks cover the mountains, and whose cattle crowd the valleys. They agreed on £15 and £16 per annum as the most that could be paid. These gentlemen said they acted on principle, and did not care for the money.
"I then inquired of those respectable, but less wealthy settlers who have one sheep and one cattle station, and live retired at a convenient distance from both. They thought from £18 to £20 a year; the latter doubtful. I went lastly to the third class, who, having two stations, instead of employing servants only, live always at one or the other—farm their own farms, in fact. These could afford to pay £20—never wanted, or wished, to see wages less.
"There is nothing, perhaps, that injures a colony more than giving the working population a bad character. Respectable people of capital get alarmed: yet many charges have been brought against servants which I consider unjust."
This plain speaking and unusual style of colonial publication - hard truths without acidity—did its work. A considerable reform was introduced. Government protection was granted to friendless young women; an agent appointed to superintend and witness the agreements with men on board ship; and the colonial press, when furnished with the materials, did good service to emigration reform. The whole cost to government of the guarding and distribution of the emigrants was little more than £100. The other expenses were borne by Mrs. Chisholm and the friends whom her honest, clear-sighted policy had made among persons of all politics and various religious views.
In 1843, before a committee of the Legislative Council, which was appointed to consider the condition of the "distressed labourers," and especially of three hundred parties with large families whom, in the depressed condition of the colony, the settlers could not afford to engage, Mrs. Chisholm took another step forward. She proposed, and entered into, the details of a plan which, at a very trifling expense, would have placed these three hundred families in a self-supporting position on land, instead of continuing to receive 3s. a day for nominal labour on government works.
Sir George Gipps's instructions precluded him from granting or leasing of crown land for this valuable, or any other purpose, except feeding sheep. As he expressed it, "he was sent out to carry out the Wakefield system," and could turn neither to the right nor to the left, Nevertheless, on private property, on clearing leases, Mrs. Chisholm succeeded in placing some families of mechanics.
In the course of her examination it appears that the government had then expended £2,500 in casual relief. For £1,000 she considered the whole distress could be extinguished, and the people not only removed, but placed where they could do some good for themselves. "The distress will increase unless proper measures are taken, but if they are promptly taken it will not be very serious." There are several "trades mentioned in the list that .are not required; for instance, I have only had two applications for shoemakers; for tailors four. The number stated to be unemployed is forty-seven. About twenty months ago forty tailors came to me out of employ. The flockmasters refused to take them as shepherds. With a great deal of trouble I scattered them through different parts of the country as domestic servants, and in other capacities; and it is remarkable that nearly all thus scattered have been able to find work at their own trade. With respect to tradesmen and labourers with large families, there is no way in which they could provide for their families so well as on a piece of land.
"My first arrangement would be to select from fifty families one who was a good judge of land, and one of the women, as women would require to know what kind of a place they were going to, whether the children would be comfortable, &c. I should also require two or three good bush hands [prisoners] from Hyde Park Barracks. With these, as soon as arrived on land, I would set to work to clear half an acre, in order that the people might see what could be done in a given time. There must be some tents provided until more substantial buildings could be erected. One allotment must be set apart as a family allotment, to be first cleared and cultivated, to supply food for the whole community. Then the land must be divided and apportioned to the different families. A schoolmaster will go with the party, to have land rent free. The parents of the children have agreed to pay for the education of their children, the terms settled by me. One day's labour per quarter for each child, and for the whole family 1 cwt. of potatoes and one bushel of wheat.
"I have worked this plan on a small scale for the last three years, where there has been a large family. The eldest girl has, in some instances, gone to service, and given up a portion of her earnings to support them. Upwards of one hundred small settlers have thus received assistance from their relatives. Many have half or a third share in a dray.
"I should advise limiting these people to twenty acres, with a lease of not less than ten or fifteen years. On a less term the tenant works for the proprietor. … The plan is before you to accept or reject. All I ask is that, if you approve it, you will let me work it out my own way. Appoint the government emigration agent treasurer, and two gentlemen to examine and control the expenditure. You will bear in mind, in forming an opinion of my statements, that mine is not a plan of to-day. The working it out will be attended with much trouble and responsibility to me; at the same time I am certain the people will work with me. The distress will be removed, and those persons who are now suffering in Sydney will, if my plan is carried out, within three years, become the employers of labour."
At this last sentence one of the committee allowed his fears of the bugaboo—ever present to the imagination of the Australian capitalist to escape him, a terror carefully nourished by the Colonial Office, and guarded against with endless folds of red tape of the true Wakefield hue. He exclaimed, "I am afraid we should find that these people, becoming employers of labour, would do us mischief!"
Not a word, not a thought of the benefit conferred upon three hundred destitute families, converted from costly paupers to independent peasant proprietors, but only terror lest they should become so well off as to give wages at £20 a year instead of £16.
Mrs. Chisholm answered, "I do not think so, but rather that you would be able to obtain in the children of these people brought up in sober, industrious, and frugal habits, a most valuable description of labourers; this class of persons prefer sending their children at a certain age (and for a limited period) into service with respectable families."
Mrs. Chisholm's plan was rejected, and she was left to work it out as well as she could with private assistance on the land of a speculator; and to go on laboriously registering agreements and distributing emigrants from farm to farm, as we shall presently describe.
The committee in their report recorded "their grateful sense of the valuable services of a lady to whose benevolent exertions on behalf of the unemployed, as well as of free emigrants of the humbler classes generally, this colony is under the highest obligations,—Mrs. Chisholm, whose name is so well known for her disinterested and untiring exertions."
The chairman of the committee was Dr. Lang.
In August, 1844, the distress amongst the labourers and mechanics of Sydney had not ceased. A committee was reappointed to consider it. There was a great clamour in favour of undertaking bridges, roads, and other public works, with public money. The mob and officials were favourable to the scheme. The government emigration agent was examined before this committee. "His knowledge," he states, "of the emigrants who arrived in past years was merely general, of the present year tolerably accurate;" "had no knowledge of the number of destitute families then in Sydney;" had no detailed information, but thought a certain detailed statement delivered in by a former witness exaggerated. This was a gentleman paid for his services, who, according to colonial custom, considered it his duty to perform his strictly office duties, and think and know no more,—a very natural view, considering the ill reward that any zeal obtains, except zeal for the views of the Colonial Secretary of State.
Mrs. Chisholm, being called before this committee, produced a complete statistical statement, exhibiting the numbers, ages, sexes, characters, and trades of the unemployed (in all 2,034 souls), the number of weeks and average number per man they had been unemployed. These tables show some curious particulars: 59 carpenters and 25 joiners, 10 butlers and 10 coachmen and grooms, 15 cabinetmakers, 26 brickmakers, 10 quarrymen and 19 bricklayers, 2 surgeons, 2 hairdressers, and 1 tailor; 244 farm labourers—in all 572. "The large number of children made it difficult to provide for many of these families." * * "The system of relieving distress has now been in operation for a year; we have been consuming capital, we can only remove distress by producing it." "Last year I settled some families on land, and, considering the many difficulties thrown in my way, they have succeeded remarkably well on private land. I wished to try the system of leasing, in order to see whether the people were industrious, and could subsist on land; and I have satisfied myself that, although any gentleman would lose a large fortune if he were to commence as a farmer, where the family are all workers an industrious man cannot do better than get on land. The great difficulty with me has been that I have never had an opportunity of putting a sufficient number of people together; and where they are only a few they have no team, no set of tools, and there is a constant struggle; yet they do succeed."
Now, this in a few words is the true art of colonisation. Locate poor men on waste land in England or Ireland and they sink under the multiplicity of money payments or debts, having to compete with a fund of cheap labour, and inferior land against superior land and skilled cultivation. Locate the same men in a colony, and they rise buoyed up by a surrounding dear labour market, which enables them to barter their chief possession, labour, for seeds, tools, stock, or whatever they may need; a virgin soil, and the absence of money payments for rent or taxes, and of competition of agricultural skill, compensating for the want of capital and rural experience. Thus, a day's labour from time to time with a neighbouring farmer will buy a yoke of bullocks, a dray, a quarter of wheat or maize, and assist both. In England and Ireland a poor man clings to land in hopes of making more than bare wages by extra toil; in a colony a man desires land to keep his family together, even at some sacrifice of money wages. In old countries the little freehold must be divided with sons and sons-in-law; in a colony the full-fledged brood can always, if idle "protective" laws do not impede, go further afield, and find a new site for a nest. So argued in other words Mrs. Chisholm; and many a flockowner, now contemplating his flocks spreading wildly unshepherded over his run, and the deserted huts of his single men shepherds on their way to the diggings, wishes he had followed Mrs. Chisholm's advice, and encouraged children as well as sheep.
Not being able to induce the governor and the influential colonists to go heartily into her land-colonising plans, Mrs. Chisholm continued to employ herself in dispersing the people through the interior, and in teaching the government and the colonists, by example, how the colonial part of colonisation should be conducted. She worked hard for six years, warmly supported by some of the first among the colonists, the Wentworths, M'Arthurs, Bradleys, Fitzgeralds, Suttors, and Dr. Nicholson, the present speaker of the Legislative Council, and by the unanimous confidence of the working classes, but subject to much obstruction and annoyance in official quarters.
Sir George Gipps, who was capable of noble sentiments when his evil temper or home instructions did not override them, took a public opportunity of expressing his sense of the merit and utility of her plans saying, "I think it right to make this public acknowledgment, having formerly thrown cold water upon them."
A characteristic anecdote is circulated in the colony in reference to the privilege of franking letters, which Sir George had given to Mrs. Chisholm. A few days after the permission had been granted, the governor sent for her in a great hurry. She found him much excited, and the table covered with her own letters. "Mrs. Chisholm," he exclaimed, "when I gave you the privilege of franking, I presumed you would address yourself to the magistrates, the clergy, and the principal settlers; but who, pray, are these John Yarleys and Dick Hogans, and other people, of whom I have never heard since I have been in the colony?"
"If," replied Mrs. Chisholm, "I had required to know the opinions of those respectable gentlemen on the subject of the demand for labour, and the rate of wages they could afford, I need not have written; I can turn to half a dozen blue books and find there ' shepherds always wanting, and wages always too high;' besides, to have answered me they must have gone to their overseers, and then answered me vaguely. I want to know, as nearly as possible, what number of labourers each district can absorb, and of what class and what wages. If your excellency will wait until I get my answers, you will admit that I have applied to men humble but intelligent, and able to afford exactly the information I require."
Sir George Gipps was satisfied with the explanation, and still more with the replies of the bush settlers; so the sub-officials were on this occasion discomfited.
By Mrs. Chisholm's exertions, applied to the elastic resources of Australia, before 1845 the distress of 2,000 souls was so far removed that some parties were ready in a few years to assert, forgetting that a detailed list was on record, that it had never existed; and in 1845, as Mrs. Chisholm, in her evidence before the committee of 1844, prophesied, the demand for labour was more vigorous than ever, and has never since been checked, even for a moment; on the contrary, the supply has always been under the demand, both in quantity and quality.
It was while making forced marches at the head of armies of emigrants, as far as 300 miles into the far interior, sometimes sleeping at the stations of wealthy settlers, sometimes in the huts of poor emigrants or prisoners; sometimes camping out in the bush, teaching the timid, awkward peasantry of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Protestants and Roman Catholics, Orangemen and Repealers, how to "bush it;" comforting the women, nursing the children, putting down any discontented or forward spirits among the men; now taking a few
Bushing It.
weary children into her covered tandem-cart; now mounting on horseback and galloping over a short cut through the hills to meet her weary caravan, with supper foraged from the hospitable settlers; it was in the midst of marshes in which she managed the discipline, the route, the commissariat, the hospital, and the billetting, all herself, with such aides-de-camp as each army happened to furnish, that she commenced another great work subsidiary to colonisation, the "Voluntary Statements of the People of New South Wales," for the use of the home country. These were statements in answer to the series of printed questions, taken down in the words of the informant, of which we shall give some examples at the end of this chapter.
They were written down in all manner of dwellings, but chiefly among the humbler; in cottages and bark huts; on the roadside; on the top of a hat; in the field, on a plough; in the forest, on the first log of a frugal bush servant's first freehold.
There were nearly eight hundred of these statements from natives of almost every county of the United Kingdom, from emigrants, from "old hands," and from ticket-of-leave men.
These records proved incontestably that Australia was a country in which any industrious man could thrive; that there was ample verge and room enough for millions; that land which squatters then and now assert to be only fit for sheep pasture would support yeomanry in comfort and independence. They laid bare much injustice, exhibited in a striking manner the demand and necessity for an increased female population, and presented a more perfect, truthful, and valuable picture of bush life, painted by servants and settlers, than had ever been drawn in travellers' tales or parliamentary blue books.
It was in consequence of the habit of collecting these statements that Mrs. Chisholm was able to tell the committee of the House of Lords in 1847:—"I never returned from a journey to the interior without gaining information which would enable me to provide for a second number; and it was frequently unnecessary to go into a district more than once; then I knew the character of the people and the sort of servants that would suit them, and it enabled me to advise people when they called at my residence to say, 'You go to such a place and I can guarantee you employment.' My first object was always to get one female emigrant placed: having succeeded in getting one female servant in a neighbourhood, I would leave the feeling to spread among this class. These girls eventually married best, for the parents were thankful if their son married her.
"One of the most serious impediments to transacting business of hiring servants in the country were the applications for wives. Shepherds left their sheep and would come for miles for this purpose, with their certificates of good character, and of money deposited in the savings banks, and list of their stock, and even bank notes. I had more than forty applications of this kind in two years. One man, according to a note in my register-book, who came down to Sydney for a wife, was very anxious to know 'when we should have a new governor who would attend to matters of consequence like that."
The governor took a different view of the subject, for when, in the early days of the "Home Protection," it was suggested to him that many of the forlorn girls if sent into the interior would marry well, "His excellency drew himself up to his full height, and exclaimed indignantly, 'What, Mrs. Chisholm! is it my business to find wives for bush servants?'" He might have done worse.
In 1845 Mrs. Chisholm was examined before a committee of the Legislative Council, on the best means of promoting emigration, the whole distress having been absorbed, and the demand for labour being urgent. She then produced a few of the "Voluntary Statements."
In the same year she published a "Prospectus of a Work to be entitled 'Voluntary Information from the People of New South Wales, respecting the Social Condition of the Middle and Working Classes in the Colony/ with the view of furnishing the labourer, the mechanic, and the capitalist with trustworthy information, and pointing out obstructions to immigration that ought to be eradicated." She writes:—
"Few persons, if any, are more intimately acquainted with the actual condition of the working classes than I am. Silence, therefore, would be culpable. The servant in Sydney, the shepherd, and the small settler in the bush are known to me; I have visited their homes and witnessed their trials and deprivations; I have the satisfaction of laying before the public proofs of their importance as a body and their merits as individuals: their virtues far exceed their failings their language may be rude, but their hearts are kind and true. To improve the condition of these people is my object; to break up the bachelor stations my design; happy homes my reward. To supply flockmastera with shepherds is a good work: to supply those shepherds with wives a better. To give the shepherd a good wife is to make a gloomy, miserable hut a cheerful, contended home; to introduce married families into the interior is to make squatters' stations fit abodes for Christian men.
"If I meet with the co-operation I expect, it is my intention to submit to her Majesty's commissioners of emigration a plan for female emigration, which will secure the young women the protection which they so essentially require on the passage and on their arrival. If protection is extended to the helpless if Britain's moral banner is to be unfurled in the far interior civilisation and religion will advance until the spires of the churches guide the traveller from hamlet to hamlet, and shepherds' huts become the homes of happy, virtuous men and women.*******
"I feel that a judicious circulation of these statements will promote the best interests in the colony. Personal interest in the labour market I have none. I hope to enjoy the proud satisfaction of laying before the British public several thousand proofs of the good character and persevering energy of her Majesty's subjects in New South Wales."
In the following year, 1846, Mrs. Chisholm left the colony with her family for England, charged with the following missions from the humbler classes:—
Firstly, From a number of freed prisoners, who had been promised by the government that if well conducted their wives and children should be sent to join them. This promise had been forgotten. A return made to the Legislative Council showed that these claimants numbered several hundreds.
Secondly, From successful emigrants, who desired to pay the passages of their wives, parents, and other near relatives.
Thirdly, From parents who, to comply with the regulations of the emigration commissioners, had left young children beyond the standard number to the care of poor relatives or the parish.
In the first and last cases, armed with the facts and proofs necessary, without which she never makes a claim, Mrs. Chisholm succeeded. The other formed the foundation of the Family Colonisation Loan Society.
Before Mrs. Chisholm sailed for England a committee, which included eight members of the Legislative Council, magistrates, landholders, and others of all shades of opinion, raised a subscription for a testimonial to that lady, and presented an address, in which they said:—
"We beg to offer you, on the occasion of your departure from this colony, the expression of our thanks for your active and zealous exertions on behalf of the emigrant population during the last seven years. In establishing emigrants' homes, in establishing great numbers of the emigrant population in the interior as servants and occupiers of small farms, your exertions have proved of signal advantage to the community. In the large collection of 'statistical facts' and 'voluntary information,' derived from the labouring classes, you have accumulated materials for establishing the great advantages which New South Wales possesses as a favourable field for the emigration of British settlers."
In the course of her reply, Mrs. Chisholm said:—"It is my intention, if supported by your co-operation, to attempt more than I have hitherto performed."
During the six years and eight months which she spent in Australia, Mrs. Chisholm, without wealth or rank, or any support except what her earnest philanthropy gradually acquired, provided for eleven thousand souls.
Yet since her sojourn in England she has redeemed her pledge, and done much more. With less than two thousand pounds, between 1850 and 1852, she personally sent out more than one thousand emigrants of the best class, and has advised, corresponded with, or otherwise assisted tens of thousands.
We have devoted thus much space to the colonising career of Mrs. Chisholm, because with her exertions the colonisation of the interior commenced. Before her time, emigrants were merely tumbled out on the shores, like so much live stock, to find their own way to market—to service, marriage, sin, or death.
Mrs. Chisholm first taught the Australian squatters that property had its duties as well as its rights. She tapped the springs of spontaneous self-supporting emigration, and showed how closely the extension of national power was connected with the social and domestic virtues inseparable from family colonisation.
TO MRS. CHISHOLM.
FROM THE "SPECTATOR," SYDNEY, 28TH FEBRUARY, 1846.
The guardian angel of her helpless sex,
Whom no fatigue could daunt, no crosses vex;
With manly reason and with spirit pure,
Crown'd with the blessings of the grateful poor,
For them with unrepining love she bore
The boarded cottage and the earthen floor,
The sultry day in tedious labour spent,
The endless tale of whining discontent:
Bore noonday's burning sun and midnight's chill.
The scanty meal, the journey lengthening still;
Lavished her scanty store on their distress,
And sought no other guerdon than success.
Say ye who hold the balance and the sword,
Into your lap the wealth of nations poured,
What have ye done with all your hireling brood,
Compared with her the generous and the good?
Much ye receive and little ye dispense,
Your alms are paltry, and your debts immense.
Your toil's reluctant freely hers is given;
You toil for earth, she labours still for Heaven.
- ↑ "Female Emigration considered in a Brief Account of the Sydney Emigrants' Home. By the Secretary. Sydney: James Tegg, 1842."
- ↑ Mr. Benjamin Boyd's Club of Squatters the aristocracy of wool.
- ↑ This is the secret of successful colonisation which none of our squatter and capitalist or church colonising societies have yet learned.—S. S.