The Three Colonies of Australia/Part 1/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT.
BESIDE the questions involved in the price of land, the tenure and tax on pastures, the abolition of assignment of prisoners, and cessation of transportation on all of which the governor and his chiefs were at issue with the colonists, from the day of the opening of the Legislative Council, when the word "humble" was struck out of the motion for an address in answer to the governor's speech certain constitutional questions of great importance were at issue between Sir George Gipps and the Legislative Council.
The Colonial Parliament was justly incensed at finding that the new constitution gave them nothing more than the liberty of talking and taxing themselves. Three schedules appropriated upwards of 80,000 to the payment of officials, over whose appointment, from the colonial secretary down to the prothonotary, they had no sort of control. The council attempted to regulate the distribution of the funds secured by the schedules, by taking from those who did nothing to give to those who worked hard. The governor successfully resisted the attempt, and in other words told them, as Lord Ellenborough told Hone, "to protest and go about their business." Whereupon the Colonial Parliament being unable to cut down the sinecure salaries included in the schedules, retaliated by refusing to vote the estimates for the sums required over and above the estimates. The governor responded by cutting down that part of the public service which was most needed by the colonists. For instance, he retained the Prothonotary and Master in Equity, and closed the office of Registrar of Deeds, who regulated all the titles and mortgages in the colony. From that time forward the struggle between the governor and that part of the council which was not official, became relentless. Evil breeds evil—so in proportion as Sir George Gipps was despotic and insolent, the opposition became virulent and factious. Between both it was war to the knife.
A great battle was fought upon the "District Councils." The idea of district councils made Sir George Gipps Governor of New South Wales. He had had influence enough to have the scheme embodied in the Act of Parliament (5 and 6 Vict. cap. 79, sect. 47), which gave the colony representative institutions. The theory was plausible: it might have suited Canada, it may suit England. It met the high approval of Lords Stanley and John Russell. To this day Earl Grey believes it failed through the spiteful obstinacy of the colonists. Sir George Gipps, during the few years of his administration, postponed measures for establishing schools, for repairing and constructing roads, and other practical works of the utmost importance to the colony, at first in order that "his district councils" might reap a harvest of glory, and afterwards to spite the scoundrels for rejecting so admirable an institution. And so it was admirable on paper, but perfectly impracticable in a pastoral colony. Had any other than himself originated it, the governor would have seen its fallacy in a month, and dissected it in a masterly despatch.
According to Sir George's plan the inhabitants of each district were empowered to elect, and if they neglected to elect, the governor had power to appoint a council, which should decide on the sum required for a year for the district. Half such sum was to be contributed from the colonial treasury, and the other half to be levied on the property in the district. If no local treasurer was elected, the colonial treasurer could issue his warrant, and sell up as much of the property of the district as would raise the requisite sum. But the scheme would not work.
In the first place, there was no population sufficiently dense to work such a system, there were very few electors, and no councillors; in the second place, there was no ready money to pay the taxes.
In a pastoral colony like Australia wages are high, consumption is large, and by taxes on consumption, levied at the ports, a considerable revenue may be raised, but by direct taxation very little. The colonists have, or rather had—for it is impossible to say what changes a gold currency may effect—sheep and cattle, which they exchanged, in meat, wool, and tallow, for what they needed in tea, sugar, tobacco, and clothing, but very little money.
When Sir George Gipps attempted to introduce his district councils he found the colonists unprepared to travel for miles to elect a councillor, or pay five or ten pounds per annum for roads over which they never travelled, and bridges a hundred miles from their farms, and indignant at suddenly finding their property at the mercy of the colonial treasurer, the irresponsible officer of the governor. The colonists determined to resist the district council scheme. The governor was determined to enforce it. It was his darling child; he had conceived it while looking out from his study on the dense population of a different state of society, and he was not the man to be beaten by circumstances. Like the Abbé Sieyes, and other celebrated manufacturers of constitutions and governing machines, he was blind and deaf to all facts which militated against his theories,—prepared that everybody should suffer so long as he maintained his character as a legislator. Thus he answered a deputation of the Legislative Council, and other influential colonists, who waited on him to point out the practical difficulties in the way of executing his district council scheme: "Whether it ruins the colony or not, an Act of Parliament must and shall be carried out."
On this question the battle began. The inhabitants, except in one district, neglected to elect committees. The governor appointed them. Then came the question of levying, after assessing, a rate. A flaw was discovered in the Act of Parliament. It was decided that the word "levy" did not empower the council to distrain. The governor applied to the Legislative Council for an Act to amend the flaw. The Legislative Council refused to help him. He was thrown back on the powers vested in the colonial treasurer; the "Algerine clause," as it was called in the colony, he threatened, but he dared not put in force. The struggle was carried on for years. The governor was supported by the approval of the home authorities; but the passive resistance of the colonists was too much for him. At length, in 1846, Earl Grey called for a report from the principal officials, including Mr. Deas Thomson, the colonial secretary for New South Wales, and Mr. Latrobe, the lieutenant-governor of Port Phillip, and they reported in a manner which effectually, and for ever, shelved Sir George Gipps' district councils.
In 1844, before the district councils had been shelved, a select committee of the Legislative Council investigated "grievances unconnected with land," and drew up a report, which was a kind of Australian declaration of rights.
These grievances, of which the following is a summary, remained unredressed until the advent of Sir John Pakington and the Duke of Newcastle to the Colonial Office opened up "unrestricted competition" in colonial concessions.
The colonists' committee complained of "being saddled with taxation for a civil list which they were not empowered to discuss, to the extent of 81,000." By the Act of 1850 this civil list was increased.
Of the total failure of the "District Councils, which created municipalities where the sparse population render popular election and local taxation impossible, and which placed in the hands of the governors the nomination of an officer with powers of taxation."
Of the want of a "responsible government," the governor being, in fact, merely a subordinate officer of the Colonial Secretary of State for the time being; and the governor's official advisers in a position which made them practically as independent of the Legislative Council as if they had been merely his private friends. Thus, so long as the governor and his official advisers satisfied the home authorities, the colonists were without remedy for any illegality committed by the colonial government, however flagrant. As an instance of the working of the system, the report cites £127,000 applied to various illegal (not fraudulent) purposes by the governor in the course of seven years; "and a sum of £30,743 15s., which was not only expended by his excellency without any authority of the Legislative Council, but applied, by the governor's mere fiat, to the payment of debentures and other purposes to which the ordinary revenue was not applicable by law."
They further protested against the expense in police, gaols, and judicial expenditure inflicted upon the colonists in consequence of New South Wales being made a receptacle for the felons of England, after it had ceased to derive the profits of their labour on the assignment system; and of the violation of the [alleged] compact by which the surplus land revenues and other casual revenues of the crown had been ceded to the colonial treasuries. Under this head the committee claimed a large sum—£831,742 3s. 7d., and for the future an annual payment towards police, gaols, and courts of assize of £74,195 6s. 8d.
And finally, they requested that persons having claims of any description against the local government should, by special Act of Parliament, be enabled to sue a public officer as nominal defendant, and that the judges of the Supreme Court should be placed in the same position as to tenure of office and security of salary as the judges of the mother country, and no longer be liable to be suspended by the fiat and removed by the report of the governor.
But it would be impossible within any reasonable space to detail the series of overt acts which characterised the sedition-breeding policy of Sir George Gipps.
Nominally, a portion of the land revenue was set apart for the benefit of the aborigines; but when application was made for curing a native of a dangerous infectious skin disease, the governor "had no funds for such a purpose," and poor Jemmy Nyrang was pushed out of the government hospital.
Session after session it was a game at cross purposes and crooked answers between the representatives of the colonists, the governor, and his patrons in Downing-street.
For- instance, the colonists proposed to reduce the salaries of certain colonial custom-house officers; in the next session of the British Parliament, it is presumed at the instigation of Governor Gipps, the British Colonial Secretary passed a special Act, taking that department from the control of the newly-created colonial Parliament. The colonists proposed to spend £9,000 of their own money in building a lighthouse in Bass's Straits; they were informed that they must first consult the home government on its situation—a matter of two years' delay. The colonists passed an Act, establishing mortgage and register for mortgages on wool; the Colonial Secretary of State, without consulting the colonists, disallowed the Act, as "repugnant to the laws of England." See p. 164. But after long delay and great loss of property, the home government was obliged to yield and sanction a measure indispensable in a pastoral country. The colonists examined and unanimously protested against the land system established by the Imperial Parliament, arid still more unanimously against the ordinances affecting pastoral occupation. Lord Stanley, without regarding petitions which, as Sir George Gipps admitted, expressed the almost unanimous opinions of the colonists, hastened to pen in a despatch "his determination to uphold the land system, and his perfect approval of the arbitrary powers exercised by the governor against the squatting interest." A bill was introduced into the British Parliament for establishing the new system of pastoral occupation—the ex-governor was consulted—the Legislative Council were left in ignorance of the provisions of the bill.
In fact, the records of the Legislative Council are largely occupied with discussions between the governor and the elected members on every possible subject, the governor constantly adopting a line of defiance, always treating the opposition as if it were rebellion. On the one side were the colonists, on the other the governor, backed by the home government, concentrating in his own person all power and patronage, supported by the official members, and the nominees, who were plainly instructed that, unless prepared to support the governor, "right or wrong" (if a governor could be wrong), they must resign.
The ability and integrity of the colonial secretaries of state during the administration of Sir George Gipps, and of Sir George himself, are indisputable; but they obstinately insisted on knowing whether shoes fitted or not better than the people who wore them, and insisted too, that they should wear them, whether they pinched or not. Fortunately the prosperity of the colony did not entirely depend on the crotchets of a colonial minister, or of a governor, although both could, and did, seriously retard its progress.
But while the Legislative Council were contesting, inch by inch, the "elementary rights of Englishmen," the grass was growing, the sheep were breeding, the stockmen were exploring new pastures, and the frugal industry of settlers was replacing and increasing the capital lost by wild speculations. And in 1845–6, Sir George Gipps was able to announce that the revenue exceeded the expenditure, and the exports the imports, while the glut of labour which followed his arrival had been succeeded by a demand which the squatters termed a dearth.
In July, 1846, Sir George Gipps retired from the government of New South Wales, and embarked for England, worn out in body and mind by the excitement of perpetual contests with colonists as unscrupulous in their attacks as he was obstinate and haughty in maintaining his opinions and position. It was a war to the knife on both sides. The last measure he presented to the Legislative Council (a bill to renew the border police) was rejected, and an address voted, by a large majority, after two nights' debate, which was virtually a vote of censure on his government, after which the council adjourned itself for a month.
During an administration of eight years, distinguished by unusual official and literary aptitude, Sir George Gipps succeeded in earning the warm approbation of the Downing-street chiefs, and the detestation of the members of every colonial class and interest, except his immediate dependents. The squatocracy, the mercantile, and the settler class were equally opposed to him. Yet even with the same political and economical views, erroneous and baneful as many of them were, with much less talent, but with a more conciliatory temper, he might have been a happy, a popular, and a really useful governor. The value, as well as the popularity, of a colonial governor depends more on the manner in which he conciliates and advises the people under his charge, than on the manner in which he pens a despatch or delivers a speech from the vice-throne.
We have dwelt on Sir George's unhappy career - unhappy for himself and for the colony under his charge—to show what manner of policy was approved and rewarded by the Colonial Office of Lord Stanley and Earl Grey, and why discontent has been chronic in New South Wales for so many years.
Had he been a man of less mark, or a governor of less power, his faults and foibles should have been buried with him; but unfortunately they form an important part of the history of the colony he misgoverned. We may yet have to reap a bitter harvest from the seeds he sowed. Imperfectly as our task has been performed, we have said enough to show that his administration must always be considered one of the most important epochs in the history of Australia.
The permanent infliction of the £1 an acre monopoly—the consequent triumph of the great pastoral over the freehold interest—the development of the wonderful pastoral resources of Australia—the abolition of assignment and transportation of criminals—the rise of a free population—the introduction of the elective element into the legislature—the commencement of a legitimate parliamentary struggle for the establishment of responsible government, and a crowd of events of great local but minor national importance,—all these date back to the period during which Sir George Gipps "reigned and governed too," contesting every possible question with the Legislative Council, with the judges, with the crown land commissioners, with the clergy of all denominations, with squatters, with settlers, with every colonist who dared to have any other opinion than the opinion of the Governor.