"Go then forth, and fortune play upon
Thy prosperous helm."
--2nd part Henry IV.
When I made my first Home trip, in 1847, I resolved to open, if I
possibly could, German emigration to Port Phillip. Quite a number had
already been settled, some from the earliest years, in South Australia,
where their industry, frugality, sobriety, and general good conduct had
made them excellent colonists. This favourable testimony was confirmed
to me by correspondence on the subject with my late much-lamented
friend, Alexander L. Elder, one of South Australia's earliest, most
esteemed, and most successful colonists. My first step on arrival was to
write to the "Commissioners of Emigration," an officiate since dispensed
with, pointing out this South Australian success, and suggesting that a
certain charge upon the Colonial Land Fund, authorized in special cases
of emigrants--an aid of 18 pounds a head, I think--might be made
applicable to German vinedressers emigrating to Port Phillip. In due
course, I received a most cordial reply from the secretary, Mr.
(afterwards Sir) Stephen Walcot, to the effect that Lord Grey, then
Colonial Secretary, highly approved of the project, and that the aid
asked for would be forthcoming for properly qualified German
vinedressers. Armed with this letter, I went to Hamburg with
introductions to Messrs. John Caesar Godeffroy and Son, at that time the
chief shipowners of the city. They were evidently well disposed, and had
been, I think, concerned in the previous out-flow to Adelaide, as they
referred me to Mr. Edward Delius, of Bremen, who had been an agent in
the work. My visit to Delius resulted in my proceeding at once to
Silesia, where I got as far as Liegnitz, whose gilded or tin-covered
minarets reminded me that I was approaching the fanciful or gorgeous
East. Here I met a number of the peasantry, all eager to hear about
Australia, friends of some of them being already there. Hearing that a
Moravian headquarters was also there, I introduced myself, stating that
I was a subject of, and personally acquainted with, their brother
Moravian, Mr. La Trobe, our Superintendent. I found other La Trobes
there, his relatives or namesakes. Several of the body spoke good
English, and so I got fairly on with the peasantry, explaining as to the
class entitled to the assistance in emigrating, and that to vinedressers
only would the aid apply, so as to enable the Messrs. Godeffroy to give
them a free passage. I left them with the understanding that they would
make up a party and communicate with Delius.
About six months later I went again to Hamburg, this time to see the
first party away. They were in a good deal of trouble, for most of them,
in spite of all advice, had clung to old family lumber, things mostly
quite unsuited to Australia, and the carriage-cost of which drained
their narrow means at every stage. But, worst of all, the cholera was
then raging in Hamburg, and it attacked several of the party during some
few days, while they waited, under such shelter as they could improvise,
until the ship could take them. Delius and I visited them, to cheer them
with the near prospect of the sunshine and plenty of Australia.
A rather motley crew was this first German party landed at Melbourne. I
fear they were not all vinedressers. But the difficulty was to get them
to describe themselves as such, even when they were so. This was almost
as hard upon them as for an Indian Brahmin to write himself down a
low-caste Hindoo. Upon any pretence they would class themselves as of
some trade, and one, who doubtless expected great things from it,
entered himself, to the serious damage of our case, as "Doctor of
Philosophy." There was considerable difficulty and delay in getting the
grant. Mr. La Trobe helped us as much as he conscientiously could. Of
course, the said doctor had to be excluded, and others with him. But
eventually a substantial sum was handed to the shippers, sufficient to
encourage them to continue the business.
Several expeditions, larger or smaller, followed. I have no record of
their total. One of their great delights was the superabundance of fresh
beef and mutton. Our ever-active colonist, Dr. Thomson, of Geelong, who
took great interest in Germans, invited a party of them, just arrived,
to Geelong, where he gave them a supper upon the grass around his pretty
residence, killing and roasting a large fat sheep, and serving out
chops, and all the rest of it, ad libitum. One man was noticed to have
eaten a couple of pounds' weight right off, and no doubt he felt, in
consequence, like the boy in "Punch", just as though his jacket were
buttoned. My late esteemed friend, Mr. Otto Neuhauss, himself one of the
emigrating throng, although not of the very first party, gave me, from
his complete mastery of English, most material help in managing their
affairs. I had afterwards the pleasant duty of recommending him to our
first Colonial Secretary, Captain Lonsdale, for a Justiceship of the
Peace, to the great satisfaction and convenience of his co-emigrant
countrymen. I am under much like obligation also to Mr. Brahe, who long
acted, and I hope still acts, as a solicitor amongst the Germans.
But the grand prize for these Germans was the acquisition of land.
Accordingly Captain Stanley Carr (then on a visit with the German Prince
of Schleswig-Holstein) and myself took up, in trust for such Germans as
desired it, and had the means of payment, one of the square miles of
surveyed land, as yet unapplied for, about twelve miles north of
Melbourne, which was divided amongst them in lots as agreed upon. And
there they are to this day, a thriving community. When, in company with
Neuhauss, my wife and I visited them in 1857, just before finally
quitting the colony, we found considerable progress in the form of a
scattered village, with a little Lutheran church, and some show of
gardening and cultivation. They seemed delighted to stick to their
German speaking, and would not even try to speak English. One amusing
feature in the scramble as to allotments was that each tried, in most
cases, to get trees, stones, and rocks in preference to clear ground, as
if so much additional wealth. The trees might have had value for
firewood, but in the other items they had probably more than they
bargained for. We secured the land for them at a pound an acre, and the
fact of their being so largely settled upon it raised its value at once
considerably. All the land thereabout has now risen to many times this
first cost. Many more Germans have since, as I understand, settled upon
other land.
The exact value of the German immigration to Australia may be to us a
differing estimate, but I think we mostly give it a decided welcome.
Lord Grey, as I recollect, was attacked in Parliament by the political
opposition for thus spending money on foreigners which might have better
gone to our own destitute, etc., etc. And I myself was repeatedly so
attacked, but always in a like merely political opposition way, when
anything is let fly at an opponent that will serve the momentary
purpose. In the heat of the O'Shanassy contest for Melbourne, for
instance, I was accused of having told the Silesian peasants that they
were wanted to set an example of sobriety to the drunken Irish. But I
easily escaped from that noose by the rejoinder that, if I did say
anything of the kind, it must have been of my own countrymen, as an
Irishman can never stand to a Highlander at whisky. The true point of
the question is the denationalizing of our race, which is so seriously
threatened, for example, by the import of Chinese. We know that
something of French, Flemish, Dutch, and Danish-Norse, along with a
leading dash of German, all grafted on the old British stock, have
evolved the modern Englishman. Substantially, therefore, we are only
reopening this useful manufacture, which was effectively begun for
England fifteen centuries back.