"But I thought there was more in him than I could think."
--Coriolanus.
"Methinks there is much reason in his sayings."
--Julius Caesar.
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The subject of this sketch
might put in a claim for at least something towards redeeming Jack's
dulness, for he had a few odd ways, and a fertile turn for
epigrammatics, some of them not bad. He boasted of having Beau
Brummell's antipathy to certain vegetables. During the early but brief
allotment mania he said that he feared he was to become "disgustingly
rich," one of his epi's which became a by-word, and scored him a decided
success. When some colonist, hearing him called by the name of Ebden,
asked him if he was related to "the great Mr. Ebden," his
humorously-delivered response, to the effect that he was himself that
happy individual, scored him another, perhaps smaller, success. I have
often seen him score yet another, which, perhaps, in his own view, was
not at all the least of that sort of thing, when, after writing in a
rather neat and most distinct hand, the pen seemed suddenly under
paralysis, and a sadly dilapidated signature was the result. He always
signed his name in that fanciful way.
Ebden's name was so well known in the earlier years--indeed his gait and
ways, his sayings and doings were so marked throughout--that to omit him
from my list would leave a decided blank. But if the man had consisted
of these little oddnesses just alluded to, whether first class or
second, little would have survived of him, as business-like John Bull
fails to appreciate people who have no more solid backing than that.
Underneath all this very gauzy surface, Ebden, as all who had his
intimacy were aware, was withal a man of ability and good common sense,
and, what was practically more, he was reputed to rank high in the role
of success in the early allotment rig. Indeed, in the rapid
fortune-making of that time, he contemplated a palatial residence for
himself upon an ample frontage to Collins-street, next above the Bank of
Australasia. Two back offices had been built towards the full idea, but
the allotment game had already turned ere he got further, and there the
incomplete work stood. The "offices" were readily sold or let, and from
intended sculleries or what not, rose to be the places of business of
two early firms of solicitors--Meek and Clarke on the one side, and
Montgomery and McCrae on the other. The spacious frontage remained long
unbuilt upon, but it has since been taken as part of a "Temple"--not,
however, of the gods, but of very different people--the lawyers.
He and I were on opposite sides of the political hedge, at least in the
times when we were together in public life, both in Sydney and
Melbourne, during the pre-constitutional era. He belonged, almost beyond
any others--the exceptions being perhaps limited to William Forlong and
my friend A.R. Cruikshank--to the anti-popular and pro-squatting party;
although, subsequently, when there was the "fact accomplished," and no
help for it, he accepted "fully and cheerfully," as his election
addresses put it, the reigning democratic platform. But he was not
unkindly withal, and he helped my comparative legislative inexperience
at Sydney, when we were both there to represent Melbourne and Port
Phillip. He had done me a great favour also in making himself most
serviceable with the German immigration which I had started from Hamburg
in 1849. He was quite a German scholar, having finished his education at
Carlsruhe, a name which he transferred to his pastoral station in the
Port Phillip District.
Ebden, like most others in it, did not bring much out from the allotment
mob. When returned afterwards to represent the district along with me in
Sydney, I heard that a draft of cattle from the station was needed for
expenses. These were still the reactionary times of such small things
for all of us. But in after years he went on and prospered, and he left
behind him what might have been called a large fortune in any place
where there were not a W.J.T. Clarke and a Henry Miller, and perhaps
some few others besides, in the rival category.
EDWARD WILSON, CHIEF PROPRIETOR OF "THE ARGUS," "THE TIMES" OF THE
SOUTH.
"The good I stand on is my truth and honesty;
I fear nothing
What can be said against me.
--Henry VIII.
I was long and intimately acquainted with Wilson. He was a man of high
qualities and noble longings, and scorned meanness of all kinds; and he
had, like his predecessor Kerr, some good and pungent literary
pretensions, although he could not be placed on a level with Kerr while
the latter enjoyed adequate health. But, on the other hand, he greatly
marred his influence by what might be called impetuous intemperateness
in his early press career. Indeed, "The Argus", in its later stages,
must needs emerge, as in fact it did, from its chief owner's editing, if
it was to take the position of "The Times" of the South. He had a great
antipathy to indecision in public men, and he entered upon a furious
crusade against the Superintendent and his surroundings, as the prime
causes in the delay in "the unlocking of the lands." Mr. La Trobe was
dubbed "the Hat and Feathers," as though these trappings were the most
of him; and this vulgarity, excusable only under small "Eatanswill"
conditions, passed into the great developments of the golden age. Some
of us, who were doing our best in the same general direction, often had
to wish, with reference to Wilson, to be saved from our friends, while
Mr. La Trobe, if affected at all, was only encouraged or scared into
still more decided indecision.
Wilson was not much of a man of practical business. He was not
successful in his early life at home, where business is a harder ordeal,
and with fewer of the "flukes" that cross the path in young colonies.
Arriving in Melbourne shortly after myself, and in company with a
friend, one of the brothers Kilburn, he squatted upon a small cattle run
to the south-east, towards Dandenong. But as this did little beyond
merely keeping soul and body together, as things were all now subsiding
from the riot of the earlier years, it was given up. Foregathering next
with Mr. J.S. Johnston, they between them bought "The Argus" from Kerr
for a very small sum--I think under 300 pounds--and the paper then
started upon its successful career under the increased vigour and
improved method of its management.
Although, as I have said, not a business man himself, Wilson was
fortunate in business partners--first Mr. Johnston, as above said,
succeeded by my old friend James Gill, who, retiring, was replaced by
Lauchlan Mackinnon whose energy and application piloted the paper
financially into its later grand position. He had latterly, besides, a
surpassing business agent in my old friend James Rae, whose firm of
Jackson, Rae and Co. had retired comparatively early, after attaining
the mercantile headship of the colony; thus leaving the colonial field
open to other early friends, Fred. G. Dalgety and Fred. A. Du Croz, who
have since, as Dalgety, Du Croz and Co., and Dalgety and Co. Limited,
taken the first position in Australasian commerce.
For some years Wilson took full charge of the editorial and general
literary work, which, after the gold discoveries, was labour second to
none. In the sudden expansion of all colonial interests, there was
constant fear for years together of falling short of adequate supply.
Now it was type, again it would be paper, and, worst of all, it would at
times be the inadequacy of staff. The Australian press had at times to
be content with such dress of paper as could on emergency be had, and
for some time, as I recollect, one of the Sydney issues came out on tea
paper from China. Wilson, as I have repeatedly seen him, would occupy
his corner in the comparatively large room into which the narrow old
premises in Collins-street east had been latterly expanded. There most
of the work was done, he receiving, during nearly the whole night, news
and messages, correcting proofs, and passing instructions in his quiet
off-hand, and, when needful, peremptory or commanding way, and, amidst
the ceaseless noise, writing or correcting leaders when possible.
With the gold tide came at first such heavy expenses, much of them quite
unforeseen and unprepared for, that the press interest was run, of
necessity, into heavy debt, where there was no adequate capital. It was
either this or to give up the game in those changing times; and those
who had not the money or the credit went to the wall, to make room for
others less embarrassed. "The Argus" thus got heavily into debt to its
agents and bankers; but after 1854, which had been a most trying year of
inevitable reaction, there was gradual recovery, and eventually a due
reward in commissions and interest to its supporters.
The prosperity of "The Argus" about this time was unprecedented in the
antipodes, and for a considerable interval the paper stood unrivalled,
not only in Victoria but in Australasia, having at last surpassed, both
in circulation and in the profits of business contents, even the
long-established and highly respectable "Sydney Morning Herald", it was
allowed, and not unfairly, to be "The Times" of the Southern Hemisphere,
for Wilson had retired in favour of more temperate editorship; and in
supporting, and being supported by, the mercantile interests, and in the
adoption generally of the Freetrade policy of the parent state, the
paper followed its northern prototype.
But the clearing of the ground had left room for other and better
accoutred rivals, and "The Age" arose to enter the lists with "The
Argus". The latter had taken up Freetrade and the "classes;" the former
took up Protection and the "masses;" so far, at least as these terms
might, as to either application, distinguish democratic Victoria's
condition. Protection had been quite in abeyance under the old regime,
beyond at least, an occasional sigh from agricultural Geelong for higher
prices for the farmer, "the mainstay of every country." Even during the
interregnum of semi-constitutionalism, 1851-55, the tendency had been
effectually checked, chiefly by the energy of the Collector of Customs,
Mr. Cassell, then one of the Official Legislative Members, who,
supported by the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, was bent upon a tariff
of the Home kind, of half-a-dozen leading articles, with perfect freedom
of exchange over the world for all products of the colony's labour. But
Mr. Cassell, to universal regret, on general as on commercial grounds,
died in November, 1853, leaving the colony a less obstructed road to
those restrictions which it has since seen fit to impose upon its own
industry. "The Age", with remarkable ability and as remarkable success,
has always advocated Protection. But at first, as my recollection goes,
it was in that qualified way which is not necessarily against trading
freedom, reasonably considered. I perfectly recall the late Mr. Syme's
main argument, or excuse, to the effect that the Western United States,
for instance, should, on social considerations, restrict universal
wheat-growing, even at economic loss. But if one may judge from some
recent Freetrade and Protection controversy as between Victoria and New
South Wales (see "Age" for April-May, 1887), all qualification seems now
dropped, and even direct economic advantage expected from Protection.
None the less "The Age" gained upon "The Argus", and has, I understand,
long surpassed it in that most prominent of all tests, the circulation.
Perhaps in profits also. When I inquired lately of one of "The Argus"
chiefs upon those delicate points, the reply was, that "The Argus" was
not up to "The Age's" circulation, "but, further, deponent sayeth not."
This does not mean, however, the loss of position as the Southern
"Times", for "the leading journal" is by no means at the head of the
London press in point of circulation. Where it may be, however, when it
comes down from the aristocratic threepence to the common penny of its
brethren remains to be seen; and I am told that all has long been in
readiness for the change when the fitting times arrives. And so, as "The
Argus" is still twopence to "The Age's" penny, inverted relations as to
circulation may some day not be impossible there also. The circulation
of the daily "Age", by my last account, is close upon 70,000, which is
not "a poor show for Kilmarnock," in that sense of the joke.
In 1858, Wilson quitted the colony "for good," as the phrase is,
followed by Mackinnon, and later on by their third and only other
partner, Mr. Allan Spowers. "The Argus" was now an established principle
of Victoria, and prosperity was assured. After a few more years of
economizing, until the business debt was finally cleared off, the
partners could enjoy to the full their great and well-merited fortunes.
Wilson and Mackinnon took up palatial country residences--the one at
first at Addington, ten miles from London, and later at the pleasant and
classic Hayes Place, the favourite abode of the great Chatham; the other
at Elfordleigh, in Devonshire; while Spowers lived chiefly in London,
where, as the common favourite of both, he, with his genial temper, kept
the peace between his seniors, who, with an infirmity too common to
human nature, were prone to disagree, for want, let us suppose, of
anything else to think about.
Mackinnon, with his energetic mind, had been the most concerned in
building up the later stages of the "Argus" fortunes. Both Wilson and I
had a high opinion of his qualities, as the following incident may show.
He and I, as I have said in my sketch of the Henty family, were
anti-transportation delegates to Tasmania in 1852, and, proceeding by
steamer to Launceston, we had for fellow-passengers a considerable body
of returned diggers, most of them with their bags of gold, and a good
proportion of them with expressions of face one would rather not meet if
beyond call of the police. In short, a good sprinkling of returned
convicts were of the number, with their "piles," acquired possibly quite
as much by robbing as by digging. After a few hours at sea, a rumour
reached the cabin that there had been a robbery, one of these ruffians
having seized a bag of gold from one of the other digger passengers. The
thief had at once disappeared below and secured himself within a
surrounding of his own chums, so that it was feared he might escape with
his booty, as no one seemed "game" to descend the fore companion ladder
and encounter this sinister crowd below. Mackinnon at once took the
cause in hand. Telling the robbed man to follow him, so as to help
identification, he, without an instant's hesitation, descended the
ladder. A few of us followed, to support our gallant leader. "I want the
thief," he said; "he must restore the gold. You honest diggers are not
to lose your earnings in this way." So saying, he pressed forward into
the crowd, followed by his guide; and when at last the latter pointed
out the culprit, he seized his arm and dragged him back to the ladder's
foot, where he peremptorily ordered him to restore the stolen gold. All
this was done in less time than I have taken to tell it. The thief,
overwhelmed by the suddenness of the action, and still more, perhaps, by
the want of expected support from his "pals," promptly brought out the
gold; and thus ended a little drama highly illustrative of those
stirring times.
On my return I mentioned this circumstance to Wilson, and we both agreed
that Mackinnon was just the man we were all looking for at that critical
period for the headship of the colony's police. Wilson was in full power
as owner and editor of the rising "Argus", while I was senior member for
Melbourne; and between us we reckoned upon influencing the Government to
make at once this appointment, and in that view we went straight to
Captain Lonsdale, our Chief Secretary. We were just too late, for the
appointment, as we learnt, had already been decided in favour of Mr.,
afterwards Sir William, Mitchell. I do not doubt that this incident had
something to do with Wilson's subsequent invitation to Mackinnon to join
him in the "Argus" interest. And here he worked so effectively as to
make Wilson just a trifle sensitive as to people thinking that the new
hand did even more for the common cause than the old one. But, as the
saying has it, "Comparisons are odious." They are, besides, quite
unnecessary, for both have proved themselves most worthy men, fighting
their life's course valiantly and well, and that, too, with a rare
success.
There can, I hope, be no betrayal of confidence in repeating what rumour
gave as to "Argus" fortunes. The net profits about this time--that is to
say, towards 1878, when Wilson died--were put at between 22,000 and
24,000 pounds; but this, I believe, must have since very considerably
increased. Wilson had the larger moiety; Spowers, who was the later
importation, having a comparatively small interest.
Wilson was now the country gentleman, able to live in almost princely
style. With his amiable and highly-cultured sister, who lived latterly
with him, he kept a hospitable house, inviting the old colonists of his
acquaintance, as they came and went to and from the old country. He was
not without faults of temper and impatience, increased probably by a
feeling of physical weakness which denied him activities of mind and
body to the extent his ambition for life's utility would have preferred.
His tall, well-developed form and commanding presence, backed by his
ample means, placed him easily in a leading position. Now he would be
pacing Hayes Place grounds with the frank and genial Archbishop Tait,
who, on a visit to the parish, had dropped in with the Vicar, Mr. Reid.
Again he would be a well-known and welcome figure at dinners, "at
homes," picnics, and what not, with the Darwins, Lubbocks, Farrs, and
the rest of the neighbourhood, scientific and otherwise, but the former
by preference. His chief trouble was a weak action of the heart, which
for the last year or two kept him constantly in view of death. He calmly
regarded the prospect of the great change, put his affairs in order as
he wished, and awaited "the call of God." He passed away with but slight
suffering in the beginning of 1878, before completing his 64th year. His
remains were, by his own request, returned to the colony which, as he
always insisted, he had served so long and so faithfully. His large
means were left chiefly to various charitable and other useful
institutions in the colony. Besides larger legacies to his relations,
twenty-six of his oldest colonial friends enjoy for life a bequest of
100 pounds each per annum, and as these were the friends of the early
and small times of Port Phillip, few of whom had prospered at all like
himself, the help is not unneeded in most cases. That all of these
legatees were of the other sex is explained by the fact that, having
been always a bachelor, he had an intense, although only a general
admiration for the sex. Very many others will, over an indefinite
future, have reason to bless the name of Edward Wilson.