SOUTH AUSTRALIA
AND
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
AND
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
BY
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
BEING A PORTION OF THE WORK ENTITLED “AUSTRALIA AND
NEW ZEALAND,” BY THE SAME AUTHOR
LONDON
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY
1874
LONDON:
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO.,
CITY ROAD.
CONTENTS.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
CHAP. PAGE
I. EARLY HISTORY 3
II. ADELAIDE 19
III. LAND 29
IV. WOOL 44
V. MINERALS 58
VI. NORTHERN TERRITORY.--TELEGRAPH AND RAILWAY 68
VII. LEGISLATURE AND GOVERNMENT 75
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
I. EARLY HISTORY 85
II. ROTTNEST AND FREEMANTLE 106
III. PRESENT CONDITION 115
IV. FUTURE PROSPECTS 131
INDEX 145
[Illustration: MAP OF THE COLONY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
]
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY HISTORY.
South Australia has a peculiar history of its own, differing very
much from those of the other Australian colonies, though similar in
some degree to that of New Zealand, which was founded after South
Australia, and with aspirations of the same nature. New South Wales
was taken up by Great Britain as a convict depôt, and grew as such
till the free inhabitants who had followed and surrounded the convicts
became numerous and strong enough to declare that they would have no
more such neighbours sent among them. Van Diemen’s Land, which is now
Tasmania, and Moreton Bay, which is now Queensland, were occupied as
convict dependencies to the parent establishment. Moreton Bay was still
part of New South Wales when New South Wales refused to be any longer
regarded as an English prison, and Van Diemen’s Land did for herself
that which New South Wales had done before. Even Port Phillip, which
is now Victoria, was first occupied by convicts sent thither from the
parent colony,--though it is right to say that the convict system never
took root there, and that the attempt never reached fulfilment. On the
same principle New South Wales sent an offshoot convict depôt to King
George’s Sound, which is now a part of Western Australia,--an unhappy
colony which, in its sore distress, was destined to save itself from
utter destruction by delivering itself to the custody of compelled
immigrants, who could be made to come thither and work when others
would not come. In this way all the now existing Australian colonies,
except South Australia, have either owed their origin to convicts, or
have been at one period of their existence fostered by convict labour;
but South Australia has never been blessed--or cursed--with the custody
of a single British exile.
In 1829, when Australian exploration was yet young, Captain Sturt, who
had already travelled westwards from Sydney till he found and named the
Darling River, and had done much towards investigating the difficult
problem of the central Australian waters, received a commission from
the government of New South Wales to make his way across to the
Murrumbidgee River, and to discover by following its course what became
of it. It was then believed by many, and among others by Captain Sturt
himself, that the great waters of the continent, which had been reached
but of which the estuaries were not known, ran into some huge central
lake or internal sea. With the view of proving or of disproving this
surmise, Captain Sturt with a few companions started on his journey,
carrying with him a boat in detached pieces, in which he proposed to
solve the mystery of the river. For, it must be understood, none of
those maritime explorers who had surveyed, or partially surveyed, the
eastern, southern, or western coasts of the continent had discovered
any river mouth by which it was supposed that these waters could escape
to the sea. Sturt was very zealous and ambitious to make for himself a
great name among Australian explorers,--as he has done. In his account
of a subsequent journey,--made into the interior after he had found
that the river did not conduct him thither,--he thus describes his
own feelings:--“Let any man lay the map of Australia before him and
regard the blank upon its surface, and then let me ask if it would not
be an honourable achievement to be the first to place foot upon its
centre.” This he did, subsequently, in 1845; but in 1829-1830 he and
his companions made their way down the Murrumbidgee till that large
river joined a still greater stream, which he first called the Murray.
The upper part of this river had been crossed by Hovell and Hume in
1826, and had then been called the Hume. But the name given by Sturt
is the one by which it will hereafter be known. He followed it till
it was joined by another large river, which he rightly presumed to be
that Darling which he had himself discovered on a former journey. Still
going on he came to the “Great Bend” which the Murray makes. Hitherto
the course of the wanderers down the Murrumbidgee and down the Murray
had been nearly due west. From the Bend the Murray runs south, and from
henceforth it waters a territory which is now a part of the province or
colony of South Australia.
Sturt, when he had progressed for a while southwards, must have begun
to perceive that that surmise as to a great inland sea was incorrect.
For the waters both of the Murrumbidgee and the Darling he had so far
accounted, and he was now taking with him down to the Southern Ocean
the confluence of the three rivers. It is not my purpose in this book
to describe the explorations of Australia, and I will not therefore
stop to dwell upon the dangers which Sturt encountered. But it should
be remembered that he was forced to carry with him all the provisions
for his party, that he had no guide except the course of the waters
which he was bound to follow, and that as he went he was accompanied
along the banks by tribes of black natives, who, if not absolutely
hostile, were astonished, suspicious, and irascible. Why they did not
surround and destroy him and his little party we can hardly conceive.
As far as we yet know, no white man had been there before, and yet it
appears from Sturt’s account that the natives frequently evinced no
astonishment whatever at firearms, looking on while birds were shot,
and not even condescending to admire the precision with which they were
killed.
He went on southwards till he entered a big lake,--now called Lake
Alexandrina. There are indeed a succession of lakes or inland waters
here, of which Lakes Alexandrina and Albert are very shallow, rarely
having as much as six feet of water, which is fresh or very nearly
fresh,--and the Coorong River, which is salt, and, although as much
within the mouth as are the lakes, must be regarded as an inlet of
the sea. Of Lake Albert and the Coorong River, Sturt appears to have
seen nothing, but he did make his way with extreme difficulty through
the tortuous, narrow, and shallow opening of the river which takes
the waters of the lake down to the sea in Encounter Bay,--and then
perceived that for purposes of seaborne navigation the great river of
which he had followed the course must always be useless. “Thus,” he
says, “were our fears of the impracticability and inutility of the
chain of communication between the lake and the ocean confirmed.”
Having so far succeeded, and so far failed, he was called upon to
decide what he would do next. He could see to the westward ranges of
hills, which he rightly conceived to be those which Captain Flinders
had described after surveying the coasts of Gulf St. Vincent and
Spencer’s Gulf. Flinders had called these hills Mount Lofty, and Sturt
could perceive,--at any rate could surmise,--that there was a fertile,
happy land lying between him and them. But he had not the means nor
had his men the strength to go across the country. He could not take
his little whale-boat out to sea, nor could he venture to remain on
the shores of Encounter Bay till assistance should come to him from
seawards. He had flour and tea left, and birds and kangaroo might be
killed on the river banks. So he resolved to go back again up the
river, and thus with infinite labour he returned by the Murray and
Murrumbidgee, and made his way to Sydney.
The results of this journey were twofold. Though Sturt did not discover
the land in which the colony of South Australia was first founded, and
on which the city of Adelaide now stands, the history of his journey
and the account which had previously been given by Captain Flinders,
led to the survey of the land between the two gulfs and the Murray
River. There stands a hill, about twenty miles from Adelaide, called
Mount Barker; in honour of Captain Barker, who was killed by the
blacks while employed on this work. The land was found to be good,
and fit for agriculture; not sandy, as is so large a proportion of the
continent, nor heavily timbered, as is a larger portion of it. The
survey was made immediately on the receipt of Sturt’s account, and the
operations which were commenced with a view of planting the colony,
were no doubt primarily due to him. And he solved the great question as
to the Australian waters, proving, what all Australia now knows, to its
infinite loss, that the river Murray,--the only considerable outflow
of Australian waters with which we are as yet acquainted,--makes its
way into the sea by a mouth which is not suited for navigation. There
is already much traffic on the Murray, and no doubt that traffic will
increase;--but there is very little traffic indeed from the Murray to
the seaports, even on the Australian coast, and it is not probable that
that little will be extended. It is yet possible that on the north or
north-western coast navigable rivers may be found. Just now men who
have visited the northern shore are beginning to tell us that the Roper
River and the Victoria River may by certain processes of blasting and
dredging become serviceable, not only for inland but also for maritime
navigation. But hitherto Australia has had no river into which great
ships can make their way, as they do on the open rivers of America,
of Europe, and of Asia. The narrowness and shallowness,--or, as I may
perhaps call it, the meanness,--of the mouth of the Murray is one of
the great natural disadvantages under which Australia labours.
Tidings of the land between the Murray and the Gulfs came home, and
then a company formed itself with the object of “planting” a colony,
as British settlements were formerly planted in North America. The
plan to be followed was that which came to be known as the Wakefield
system, the theory of which required that the land should be sold in
small quantities, at a “sufficient price,” so that the purchasers
should settle on their own lands, and hold no more land than they would
be able to occupy beneficially for themselves and the colony at large.
This theory of occupation was to be adopted in distinct opposition
to that under which large grants of land had been made in Western
Australia,--the territorial estates so granted having been far too
extensive in area for beneficial occupation.
In establishing new homes for the crowded population of old lands it
has been found almost impossible to follow out to any perfect success
the theories of philanthropists. The greed of individuals on one
side, and obstinacy and ambition on other sides, have marred those
embryo Utopias in the prospect of which the brains of good men have
revelled. Machinery, if the means and skill be sufficient, can be
made to do its proposed work in exact conformity with the intentions
of the projectors; but men are less reliable. They are, however, more
powerful, each being the owner of a new energy; and though the Utopian
philanthropist may be disappointed,--even to a broken heart,--the
very greed and obstinacy of his followers will often lead to greater
results than would have been achieved by a strict compliance with the
rules of a leader, however wise, however humane, however disinterested
he may have been. The scheme proposed for the colonization of South
Australia was not carried out in strictness; but the colony is strong
and healthy, and it may be doubted whether it would now be stronger or
healthier had a closer compliance with the intentions of the founders
been effected.
In 1834 an Act was passed for founding the colony of South Australia.
Under this Act it was specially provided that the proceeds of the land
should be devoted to immigration. This, however, was no necessary part
of Mr. Gibbon Wakefield’s plan. In his evidence given subsequently
before a committee of the House of Commons in 1836, he thus speaks
of his own scheme: “The object of the price is not to create an
immigration fund. You may employ the fund in that way if you please,
but the object of the price is to create circumstances in the colony
which would render it, instead of a barbarous country, an extension
of the old country, with all the good, but without the evils, of the
old society. There is no relation,--it is easy to see one which is of
no consequence, but I can see no proper relation,--between the price
required for land and immigration.” He repeats the same opinion in his
book, called “A View of the Art of Colonization.” This is written in
the form of letters, and in Letter 55 he says: “So completely is the
production of revenue a mere incident of the price of the land, that
the price ought to be imposed, if it ought to be imposed under any
circumstances, even though the purchase-money were thrown away.” Again
in the same letter he continues, speaking of the money which would
arise from the sale of land: “It is an unappropriated fund which the
state or government may dispose of as it pleases without injustice to
anybody. If the fund were applied to paying off the public debt of the
empire nobody could complain of injustice, because every colony as a
whole, and the buyers of land in particular, would still enjoy all the
intended and expected benefits of sufficient price upon new land. If
the fund were thrown into the sea as it arrived, there would still be
no injustice, and no reason against producing the fund in that way.”
This is a very strong way of putting it; but Mr. Wakefield meant to
assert that the consideration of the use to which the fund arising from
the sale of land might be applied, was no part of his plan. Let others
decide as to that. He had seen that the grants of vast areas of land to
men who had taken themselves out with a certain amount of capital and a
certain number of fellow emigrants, had not produced colonial success.
There was the terrible example of Western Australia before him. The
land was not occupied, and was not tilled. Each new-comer thought that
he should have a share of the land, rather than that he should perform
a share of the labour. I would not, however, have it supposed that I am
an admirer generally either of Mr. Wakefield’s system of colonization,
as given in his book, or of his practice as carried out in New Zealand.
He was right in maintaining that all land should be sold for a price
so high as to prevent, at any rate for a time, the formation of large
private estates in the hands of individuals, who would be powerless
to use such estates when possessed. In almost all beyond that,--as in
regard to his idea that English society, under the presidency of some
great English magistrate, should be taken out to the young colony “with
all the good, but without the evil,”--he is I think Utopian. Of his
own doings as a colonizer I shall have to speak again in reference to
New Zealand.
Mr. Wakefield’s plan was by no means adopted as a whole by the Act
of 1834, in conformity with which the new colony was to be founded.
In 1831 an attempt had been made to obtain a charter for forming a
company, by which the new colony was to be planted in strict accordance
with Mr. Wakefield’s principle. But this scheme broke down, and in
1834 the Act was passed. Under this Act it was provided that the land
should be sold in small blocks,--no doubt at a “sufficient price,”--and
that the money so realised should be applied to immigration. What the
“sufficient price” should be Mr. Wakefield had never stated. Indeed
it would then have been impossible, and is still equally impossible,
that any price should be fixed as the value of a commodity, whose value
varies in accordance with climate, position, and soil.
The impossibility of fixing a price for land, and yet the apparent
necessity of doing so, has been the greatest difficulty felt in
arranging the various schemes of Australian colonization. At first
sight it may seem easy enough. Let the land be put up to auction, and
let the purchaser fix the price. But when the work was commenced it
was necessary to get new settlers on to the land, who knew nothing of
its relative value, who could not tell whether they could afford to
give 5_s._ or £5 an acre for it and then live upon it. These new-comers
required to be instructed in all things, and in nothing more than as to
the proper outlay of their small capitals. And the system of auction,
when it did come to prevail in the sale of crown lands, was found to
produce the grossest abuses,--I think I may say the vilest fraud. Men
constituted themselves as land agents with the express purpose of
exacting black-mail from those who were really desirous of purchasing.
“I will be your agent,” such a one would say to the would-be purchaser.
“I will buy the land for you, at a commission of a shilling an acre.
You can buy it for yourself, you say. Then I shall bid against you.”
This system has prevailed to such an extent that the agency business
has become an Australian profession, and men who did not want an acre
of land have made fortunes by exacting tribute from those who were in
earnest. As a rule, 20_s._ an acre has been the normal price fixed in
these colonies generally,--though from that there have been various
deviations. In South Australia proper,--that is in South Australia
exclusive of the northern territory,--the Crown has never alienated
an acre for less than 20_s._ an acre. Mr. Wakefield seems to have
considered that 40_s._ an acre should have been demanded from the early
settlers in the new colony,--but he would fix no sum, always adhering
to his term of a “sufficient price.”
The Act required that the money produced by the sale of lands should be
employed in bringing immigrants into the country; but this requirement
has not been fulfilled. A public debt was soon accumulated, and the
colony decided that the proceeds of the land should be divided into
three parts,--that a third should go to immigration, a third to the
public works, and a third to the repayment of the public debt. But this
arrangement has again gone to the wall, and the money produced is now
so much revenue, and is like other revenue at the disposal of the House
of Assembly. But the Act of 1834 enjoined also that no convicts should
ever be sent to South Australia, and this enactment has never been
infringed. It also decreed that, as soon as the population of the new
colony should have reached 50,000, a constitution, with representative
government, should be granted to it. This, too, was carried out with
sufficient accuracy. At the close of 1849 the population was 52,904,
and in 1850 the British Parliament conferred on the colonists the power
of returning elected members to serve in the Legislative Council.
I should hardly interest my readers, if I were to dilate upon all
the success and all the failures which the promoters of the South
Australian plan encountered. But it is well that they should understand
that there was a plan, and that the work was not done from hand to
mouth,--that South Australia did not progress accidentally, and drift
into free institutions, as was the case with the other Australian
colonies. There was much both of success and of failure; but it may
be said that the attempt was made in a true spirit of philanthropy,
and that the result has been satisfactory if not at first triumphant.
Mr. Wakefield, Mr. Hutt,--now Sir William Hutt,--Colonel Torrens, and
Mr. Angas were chief among those to whom the colony is indebted for
its foundation. The first vessels sent out were dispatched by the
South Australian Company, of which Mr. Angas was the chairman. They
arrived in 1836, but the new-comers knew nothing of the promised land
before them. At the bottom of Gulf St. Vincent, lying off a toe of the
land, as Sicily lies off from Italy, is Kangaroo Island. It is barren,
covered with thick scrub, and deficient in water. No more unfortunate
choice could have been made by young settlers. But here the first
attempts were made, and here still linger a few descendants of the
first pioneers, who live in primitive simplicity together. They have
a town called Kingscote, on Nepean Bay. Mr. Sinnett, in his account
of the colony, says that he was there in 1860-61, and that then there
were about half-a-dozen houses, chiefly occupied by the descendants and
connections of one old gentleman. Such was the fate of the earliest
settlement formed by the South Australian Company.
But Nepean Bay was soon relinquished as the future home of the
would-be happy colonists. Later in 1836 Colonel Light arrived, sent
out as the surveyor-general by the government at home, and Captain
Hindmarsh as the first governor of the new colony. There was still much
difficulty before a site for the new town was chosen, and apparently
much quarrelling. Adelaide, which was to be the earthly paradise of
perfected human nature, was founded amidst loud recrimination and
a sad display of bitter feeling;--but the site was chosen, and was
chosen well, and the town was founded. Captain Hindmarsh, however,
was recalled in 1838, as having failed in his mission, and Colonel
Light died in 1839. Captain Hindmarsh was replaced by Colonel Gawler,
who went to work with great energy in making roads and bridges,--and
running the colony into debt over and above the funds on which it
was empowered to draw. The colony was insolvent, and they who had
advanced cash on bills drawn by the governor were for a while without
their money. It seemed as though the great attempt would end in
failure. The colony, with a revenue of only £30,000, had attained an
annual expenditure of £150,000 and a public debt of £300,000.[1] Such
was the condition of South Australia when Captain (now Sir George)
Grey succeeded Colonel Gawler. Under his influence the expenditure
was checked, and money was lent by the British Parliament. From that
time forward the colony flourished. The debt was repaid, and Elysian
happiness was initiated.
[1] I take these figures from Mr. Sinnett’s work.
The real prosperity of South Australia commenced with the discovery
of copper at the Burra mines in 1845. As I shall say something of
the great wealth which has accrued to the colony from her copper in
a following chapter, I will only remark here that as gold produced
the success of Victoria, so did copper that of South Australia. But
the gold in the former was very nearly ruinous to the success of the
latter. In 1851 began the rush of diggers to the Victorian gold-fields,
and so great was the attraction that for a time it seemed that the
whole male population of South Australia was about to desert its
home. I will again quote Mr. Sinnett: “Shipload after shipload of
male emigrants continued to leave the port during many consecutive
months, while thousands more walked or drove their teams overland;
the little-trodden overland route becoming the scene of active
traffic,--the principal camping-places being every night lighted up
by the numerous camp-fires of parties of travellers. At the same time
that the men went, the money went with them. The banks were drained
of coin, and trade partially ceased. Scores of shops were closed,
because the tradesmen had followed their customers to the diggings.
The streets seemed to contain nothing but women; and strong feelings
were entertained that no harvest would be sown, and that, allured by
the more glittering attractions of the gold colony, the small landed
proprietors, who formed so important a section of our society, would
permanently remain away, selling their land here for whatever trifle
it would fetch.” This is a strongly drawn picture of the state of
all Australian society at the time. There was one general rush to the
gold-fields, and men for a time taught themselves to believe that no
pursuit other than the pursuit of gold was worthy of a man’s energies.
South Australia had no gold-fields, and therefore the current of
emigration was all away from her. For a time the gloom was great.
But the runagates soon found that everything was not bright in the
rich land,--and they returned to their homesteads, many of them with
gold in their hands. Though there was great terror in the colony when
the exodus was taking place, the opinion is now general that South
Australia gained more in wealth than it lost by the discovery of the
Victorian gold.
South Australia is at present possessed of a representative
government,--as are all the other Australian colonies, except Western
Australia. But during the early years of her existence she, as well
as the others, was subject to government from our Colonial Office at
home. There was from the first a feeling averse to this, which no doubt
greatly assisted in producing the troubles by which the early governors
were afflicted. They who had been instrumental in founding the colony
were hearty Liberals, attached to religious freedom, altogether averse
to Established Churches, and anxious for self-rule. For men coming
out in such a spirit, but coming out nevertheless with the aid and
furtherance of the home government, there were of course trials and
crosses. They desired to rule themselves,--as the Pilgrim Fathers had
done in Massachusetts. But the office in Downing Street would not
relinquish its authority to colonists who might be visionary, and were
certainly ambitious. On the other hand, men who were disposed to devote
their time and fortunes to a system of philosophical colonisation
were apt to feel that their scheme should not be made subject to the
interference which a convict colony might probably require. There
were troubles, and those two first governors, Captain Hindmarsh and
Colonel Gawler, had hot work on their hands. Colonel Robe, who in 1845
succeeded Captain Grey as governor, and who as a military man felt that
he was governing the colony on behalf of the Crown rather than on that
of the colonists, gave great offence,--especially by providing State
endowment for religion, a point as to which the founders of the colony
had been particularly sensitive. But a good time was coming. When
50,000 inhabitants had settled themselves on the land, then would those
inhabitants be entitled to govern themselves; and then any governor who
might be sent to them from the old country would be no more than that
appanage of royalty which serves as a binding link between the parent
country and its offspring. Then they would make laws for themselves;
then they would not have State endowment for clergymen more than for
doctors or lawyers; then would their Elysium have truly been initiated.
The work of governing the colony had indeed been commenced with some
little attempt at double government. There was a board of South
Australian Commissioners in London, and when Captain Hindmarsh came
out as governor, there was appointed a certain member of this Board
to act as resident commissioner in Adelaide, and to report direct to
the commissioners at home. Colonel Gawler and his successor, Captain
Grey, held, however, the joint offices of governor and resident
commissioner,--so that very little came of the arrangement as a check
upon the power of Downing Street. In 1842 the office of resident
commissioner was altogether abolished, and the Act of Parliament by
which this was done provided for the appointment of a Legislative
Council of eight, the whole of which, however, was to be nominated by
the Crown. In 1850,--when the requisite population had been achieved,
the colonists were allowed to elect two-thirds of the Legislative
Council, the number of councillors being raised from eight to
twenty-four. But this did not long satisfy the cravings of the people
for self-government. In other Australian colonies,--especially in the
neighbouring colony of Victoria,--demands for free constitutions were
being made at the same time; and what colony could have a better right
to be free than South Australia, established, as she had been, on
philosophical and philanthropical principles?
The Council gave way to the people, and the governor gave way to
the Council; but they did not at first give way enough. In 1853 they
passed a bill,--subject to confirmation at home,--creating two houses
of parliament, of which the Lower House,--to be called the House of
Assembly,--should be elective. The members were to be elected for
three years, subject of course to dissolution by the governor. But
the members of the Legislative Council, to consist of twelve members,
were to be appointed for life by the governor. It should be remembered
by all who desire to study the form of government and legislative
arrangement in these colonies, that members of the Upper House are
nominated by the Crown,--and therefore, in fact, by the minister of
the day,--in New South Wales and Queensland, but are elected by the
people in Victoria and South Australia. In 1853, however, when the
Council in South Australia was sitting, with the view of framing a new
constitution for the colonies, the question was still unsettled as to
any of these colonies. Queensland had not commenced her career. In New
South Wales it had been decided that the existing Legislative Council
should pass a constitution, but that it should be one under which the
future Upper House of the colony should be nominated by the Crown;
and an Act to this effect was passed accordingly on 21st December,
1853. No doubt the proposed action of the sister colony was well known
and well discussed in Adelaide, the party of the government feeling
that a constitution which was supposed to suit New South Wales might
well suit South Australia; and the colonists themselves feeling that,
however willing the old-fashioned people of New South Wales might
be to subject themselves after the old-fashioned way to government
nominations, such a legislative arrangement was by no means compatible
with the theory of self-rule, under which they had come out to the new
country. A petition against the bill was sent home,--a petition praying
that the assent of the Crown, for which it had as a matter of course
been reserved, might not be given to it. The petition was supposed to
represent the feeling of the colony, and the bill was therefore sent
back for reconsideration. The Legislative Council was dissolved, and
a new Council elected and nominated,--with sixteen elected and eight
nominated members. This Council was obedient to the will of the people,
and passed the constitution which is now in force. The new Legislative
Council was to be elective, and not nominated; and the governor was to
be without the power of dissolving it. It was to consist of eighteen
members, six of whom should retire every four years,--so that when the
arrangement came to be in full force, as it is now, every member would
have a seat for twelve years. The elections were to be made by the
country at large. At each election any man possessed of the franchise
for the Upper House would vote for any six candidates he pleased, and
the six having the majority of votes would come in as returned by
the entire colony. When speaking in a future chapter of the acting
legislature of the colony, I will give my reasons for disapproving of
this form of election. It was adopted, and, having the general approval
of the colony, was confirmed by the Crown at home, and is now the law
of the land. The second chamber was to consist, and still does consist,
of thirty-six members, to be elected for three years each. An elector
for the Council must possess a £50 freehold, or a leasehold of £20 per
annum, or occupy a dwelling-house valued at £25 per annum. Manhood
suffrage prevails in reference to electors for the Lower Chamber, it
being simply requisite that the elector’s name should have been six
months on the roll, and that he shall be twenty-one. A member of the
Council must be thirty-four years old, born a subject or naturalised,
and a resident in the colony for three years. The qualification of a
member for the Legislative Assembly is the same as that for an elector.
This constitution was proclaimed in the colony in October, 1856, and
the first parliament elected under it commenced its work on April 22,
1857. Thus constitutional government and self-rule were established in
South Australia. With such a parliament responsible ministers were,
as a matter of course, a part of the system, and on 24th of October,
1856, five gentlemen undertook the government of the colony as chief
secretary, attorney-general, treasurer, commissioner of crown lands
and immigration, and commissioner of public works. From that day to the
period of my visit to the colony,--April, 1872,--there had been no less
than twenty-four sets of ministers; but the cabinet remained the same,
with the five officers whom I have named.