matter when those who originate it do so from weak or selfish motives,
_knowing_ that it is bad. In view of much that has been done, it
is almost impossible to doubt that this has not infrequently been
the case of late years in some of the Australian colonies, when we
consider the comparatively high intellectual abilities of some of the
leading statesmen, and consider also the notoriously low character
of the various Legislative Assemblies with which they have had to
deal. I believe the worst measures, amongst which the land-laws are
pre-eminent, will in general be found to have been simply bids for
popular support at the expense of common sense, common honour, and
common patriotism, by men clinging selfishly to office for its own
sake, and indifferent to the ultimate consequences of their policy.
In Tasmania things are not so bad. And that colony is at the present
time singularly fortunate in possessing a Colonial Secretary whose name
is a guarantee of fair and honourable dealing in the conduct of public
affairs, who, unlike too many Australasian Colonial Secretaries, does
not live with the love of office and the fear of Demos ever before
his eyes. But the religion of Demos is not without a footing even
there. I will give an instance, slight in itself, but significant. The
Tasmanian climate does not admit the wine being made. Beer is made,
but it is almost as dear as imported English beer. There is no cheap
beverage, and as the climate (compared with that of England) is hot
and dry, it would be a great boon, one would think, to be able to
get the excellent, cheap light clarets and hocks of New South Wales.
Unfortunately, there is an import duty of eight shillings a dozen,
which, added to other charges, is, of course, simply prohibitory.
Customs’ revenue is sorely needed, as the returns have been falling off
alarmingly for some years; and it is indisputable that a reduction of
the duty on light wines would increase the amount of revenue from that
source. But Demos does not drink light wine. His particular libation
is rum. And so it is admitted that no one could venture to propose
the reduction, because Demos, though his own pockets would gain by it,
would raise an irresistible outcry at anyone getting wine cheap which
he does not care for, unless at the same time the duty on rum were
lowered, which the revenue cannot afford.
Great is the god Demos of the Australians! He is lavish in his rewards
to his votaries while his favour lasts. But he is fickle, and must
be humoured to the top of his bent, and worshipped with unswerving
devotion. As long as statesmen bow at his shrine, so long will there
be danger that Legislative Assemblies will be contemptible, individual
members corrupt, magistrates incompetent, and the mass of the people
tempted to lose reverence and regard for Queen, country, and law; so
long also will successive ministries be compelled to go from bad to
worse, to foster class prejudices and jealousies, to persistently
misstate points at issue between them and their opponents, as the
Victorian Ministers are doing at the elections now going on; so long
also will their supporters not shrink even from exciting sedition
by using language like the threat uttered the other day by the
ministerialist candidate for North Gipps Land that ‘the crack of the
rifle may yet be heard beneath the windows of the Legislative Council.’
Some day or other, it may be, the question will be asked, Who destroyed
a great empire? Who prematurely broke, or indolently suffered to be
broken, a dominion that might have endured for generations? It will
not, indeed, be easy to apportion the blame justly. Doubtless it would
have been as practicable to dam up the river Hawkesbury in flood as to
have simply defied the torrent of popular impulses in Australia. But
all need not have been given up without a struggle. Something might
have been saved, as by a little courage and skill a homestead here, an
acre of corn there, is rescued from the flood. A Pitt, a Cromwell, even
a Wellington with his simple straightforward love of good government in
any form, would surely have done, or at least tried to do, something,
whether popular or unpopular, to secure the ‘carrying on of the Queen’s
government’ firmly and honestly in her Australian colonies. But for the
last sixteen years or so, since the old traditions of the conservative
party have been abandoned, and it has been bidding for popular support
by seeking to outdo its opponents in democratic concessions, the
government of Australia by the Colonial Office has been gradually
tending to become a simple ‘cutting of straps,’ and attempting, with
very little regard to ultimate consequences, to please everybody, and
fall in with the popular cry for the time being, whatever it might
happen to be.
It is true that there were no aristocracies worthy of the name in
the Australian colonies in whom a restraining power could be reposed
(although in Victoria an aristocracy of mere wealth—perhaps the
least desirable form of aristocracy—has by its representatives, the
Legislative Council, just made a conspicuously steadfast and honourable
stand against lawlessness and wrong). But surely some substantial
power might have been left to the Governors. It would not have been
difficult to have established some plan for so doing, with which the
great majority of the colonists would have been well satisfied. It
has been suggested to me by one who has had great colonial experience
that the simple expedient of giving the Ministry for the time being
_ex-officio_ seats in the Legislative Assembly, would have had
considerable effect, especially in the less populous colonies, in
increasing the political influence of the Governor.
If this is not apparent at first sight, a little consideration will
perhaps make it so. It must be remembered that in a colony where the
population is comparatively small and public questions less numerous
and intricate long parliamentary experience and skill in debate are not
so absolutely essential to a Minister. It is quite possible that the
fittest man to be Colonial Secretary or Treasurer may have had neither
the opportunity nor the desire to obtain a seat in the Parliament; for
the worthiest and fittest men have ordinarily little temptation to seek
for one. Under the present system the Governor’s choice of Ministers is
practically confined to those who are in parliament. But if Ministers
held seats _ex officio_, the Governor might choose anyone he liked and
seat him at once. No doubt the Houses must so far ratify the Governor’s
choice as to give his Minister a majority, otherwise he could not carry
his measures or remain in office; and this would suffice to prevent any
specially unpopular man or policy from being put forward. But, in the
first place, the mere addition of from three to seven votes in a House
of from thirty to seventy members would be some slight addition to the
strength of Government. This, however, is but a small matter. What is
more important is that it would do much to prevent the growth, and to
interfere with the organisation, of a merely factious Opposition. This
sort of Opposition, based, as is generally the case in the colonial
parliaments, on no sort of political principle, but cohering merely
with the selfish and almost avowed object of seizing an opportunity for
ousting Ministers and occupying their places, is a serious impediment
to good and honest government. It is always on the watch to catch
any passing breeze of popular clamour as a means of tripping up the
Government, and the Government is in self-defence obliged to be equally
amenable and subservient. When the Administration appears strong,
and seems likely to remain in, the Members of the House crowd their
ranks for the sake of the loaves and fishes; and the Opposition is
left scarcely strong enough to exercise legitimate control over the
expenditure. But when the loaves and fishes are nearly all gone, and
especially if there is any suspicion of ministerial insecurity, there
comes a serious defection from their supporters. Thus the Opposition
may be composed chiefly of disappointed deserters from the other side,
and in a small colony may sometimes contain scarcely a single man of
weight or ability, or who is in any way fitted to be entrusted with
office. Yet it is worth while for them to persist and to watch their
opportunities, for sooner or later every Ministry must fall, and
under the present system the Governor has no choice but to send for
the leader of Opposition, or, in the absence of anyone entitled to
be so considered, for the mover of the motion the success of which
has caused the crisis. Now the effect of giving _ex-officio_ seats
to Ministers would be this. The knowledge that the Governor might,
if he thought fit, make his next selection of advisers from outside
Parliament altogether, would make the objects pursued by a merely
factious Opposition too uncertain of attainment to be worth contending
for with such persistence. The prospect of being possibly left out in
the cold altogether would weaken their cohesion and diminish their
strength; while to a corresponding extent the Government would be
strengthened, and would be better enabled to dispense with those means
of conciliating their supporters which are so fertile a source of
one-sided class-legislation and of corruption.
In its Colonial Governors, England possesses a body of tried and
faithful servants in whom it may well place confidence. Many of
them have had experience and training from their youth upwards in
the work of governing. The Home Government can select them from any
profession; it can appoint them on the simple ground of fitness without
any arbitrary or technical qualification; it can recall them at its
pleasure. Gentlemen by birth and education, many of them picked men
from the army or navy (almost the only callings in modern times where
men learn to obey, and therefore the fittest for learning to command),
impartial upon the petty local questions which vex colonial statesmen,
they are (with an exception here and there) eminently well qualified
for governing new and unsettled communities, and in three cases out
of four infinitely superior in ability, as in everything else, to the
Ministers whose advice they are now obliged to follow. Of course,
there have been exceptions, and because of them no one would for a
moment wish to see restored the almost absolute power which Governors
possessed in the very early days when they had no one to rule over but
soldiers and convicts. But surely it was a fatal mistake by a stroke
of the pen to limit the functions of the not unworthy successors of
the Phillipses, the Collinses, and the Bourkes, to holding levées and
giving balls.
Sir Charles Hotham, when Governor of Victoria, foreseeing what would
happen, when some modifications of the Constitution were sent home for
ratification, wrote a despatch pointing out the powerless condition to
which his authority was being reduced. It was not perhaps altogether a
logical or judicious despatch. Sir Charles Hotham was a sailor, without
any previous experience in government, promoted from the quarterdeck
to a most difficult and responsible position, at a most critical
time; and it was not surprising if he had not thoroughly mastered the
intricate clauses of a Constitution Act. But if Lord John Russell
(then at the Colonial Office) had wished to discredit the Queen’s
Representative, he could hardly have done it more effectually than he
did by publishing the despatch, to be a butt (which at that time,
from its Conservative tone, it was sure to be) for the vituperation
of the colonial press.[15] Up to this time the Colonial Governors had
found it impossible to obtain from the Colonial Office at home even an
outline of the course they were to pursue with reference to the new
Constitutions. No instructions whatever were vouchsafed in answer to
their enquiries. But at last the Secretary for the Colonies had spoken
out. There was a significance about the publication of this despatch
which could not be mistaken. Sir Charles Hotham died a few months
afterwards, worn out by overwork, anxiety, and hostility on all sides.
And since that time every Governor in a constitutional colony knows
that his office is all but a cipher, and that the Colonial Office is
content to have it so.
I have known a Governor ask his Ministers for a simple Return, for
the information of the Home Government, for three years, without
succeeding in obtaining it. Even their social power is curtailed.
Marks of distinction, instead of being conferred according to their
recommendation, are given at haphazard, often to the most unfit
recipients. Perhaps as effectual and desirable a means, as far as it
goes, of preserving a close union and sympathy between the colonists
and the old country would be to induce the sons of colonists to serve
in the British Army and Navy. It was accordingly suggested that
Governors should have the power of recommending for a certain number of
commissions. The Home Government approved, and expressed its approval
by according to each of the Australian Governors the astonishing
privilege of presenting to _one_ cadetship in the Navy _once in three
years_!
XIII.
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
There exists in England a school of politicians, or economists, which
considers it desirable that the Australasian colonies should at once,
or before long, be cast loose from the Mother-country. There are
doubtless some amongst the colonists who are of the same opinion; but I
believe that they are very few in number, and that it will be England’s
fault, more than that of her colonies, if—in our day at least—the
Empire is broken up.
Of course it is easy to point to mistakes made by the Home Government
in the old days when it had all the power and responsibility in its own
hands. And since self-government has been accorded to the colonies,
faults of a different kind have been committed on both sides. Latterly,
and while Administrations in England have been displacing each other so
rapidly, and throwing out feelers for all the support they could get,
there has been an increasing disposition to yield indolently to every
passing cry of the hour with too little regard to ultimate results,
and sometimes to the discouragement of the most loyal, temperate, and
far-seeing among the colonists. On the other hand, the colonists have
now and then shown themselves eager to claim the privileges without
bearing the responsibilities of Englishmen.
Chief amongst vexed questions, in old times, was that of
transportation. For many years there was frequent vacillation in the
policy of the Home Government. Each new Head of the Colonial Office
had his own plan to carry out, and the consequence was either to flood
the colonies with convicts, or else to stop the supply too abruptly.
One unfortunately expressed despatch was misunderstood, and gave rise,
not unnaturally, to a charge of breach of faith with the inhabitants
of Van Diemen’s Land.[16] The excessive and unreasonable number of
convicts which had been poured in upon them gave the Tasmanians just
cause for protesting as they did (not unanimously indeed, but by a
large majority) against the continuance of transportation in any form
to their own shores. But, on the other hand, it gave the Victorians
no excuse for so unreasonable a demand, as that it should cease
thenceforward to all Australia, lest a stray convict should escape now
and then to their own colony. Western Australia, for instance, has an
impassable desert between it and any other colony, and communication
by sea is very infrequent; and its free inhabitants, like the free
inhabitants of most of the other colonies in their early stages of
development, have been asking for convicts as a boon. And there
is still an enormous amount of coast-line and territory unsettled,
where it is very probable that convicts may, at some future time, be
an advantage. It is unreasonable that colonies should claim to draw
from the able-bodied and politically untainted population of the
Mother-country just as they choose; that they should have the power to
bribe them out, or discourage their coming, just as it happens to suit
their ideas of what will benefit themselves; and yet that they should
exclaim against taking at least their share of the criminally-disposed,
or even pauper, part, which their vast extent of country renders
comparatively innocuous, and for the amelioration of whose condition
it affords such advantages. It is as unreasonable and selfish and
‘colonial’ (to use the word in the bad sense which it sometimes bears
in Australia), as if Torquay or Madeira were to refuse to admit
consumptive patients among their visitors, or Belgravia object to
afford a site to St. George’s Hospital.
If the wishes or demands of the colonists were in old times treated
with too little consideration, the reaction has been excessive. When
the colonies were given up under their new Constitutions, almost
without reserve, each to its own local government, the arrangement
under which it was effected was a most one-sided one. In its origin
Australia, taken as a whole, is essentially a Crown settlement. But
for Captain Cook, a king’s officer sailing in a king’s ship, and but
for transportation, which followed soon after, it might not have
held an Englishman till half a century later; or it might have been a
French possession, as the Middle Island of New Zealand was within six
hours of being. Phillip, Hunter, Collins, Flinders, Bass, the early
heroes and discoverers of Australia, were king’s officers, military
or naval. Millions from the Imperial treasury were spent in wharves,
lighthouses, roads, bridges, public buildings. With this money, and
by convict labour, was the country made habitable and valuable. Even
Victoria, though no convicts ever were sent direct to Port Phillip, was
colonised from New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, and it was by
convict shepherds that it was first made productive and opened up—of
which the discovery of gold was the consequence. All the public works,
and the whole of the territory of each colony, occupied or unoccupied,
surveyed or unsurveyed, were surrendered as a free gift. I say as a
gift; for that a quarter or half a million of inhabitants should assert
an exclusive claim to millions of acres never utilised and hardly
explored, would be about as unreasonable as was John Batman’s claim
to possess all the shores of Port Phillip because he was the first to
pitch his tent there. What the value of the Crown lands thus given up
may amount to in fifty or a hundred years it is impossible to give
the wildest guess, but at any rate it will be measured by hundreds of
millions. And for all this the only obligation given in return was the
annual charge of the Civil List—a mere payment to the Governor and his
staff. And even this has sometimes been grudged. The payment to the
Governor of Victoria was reduced, and an attempt has lately been made
to reduce that to the Governor of Tasmania, with as much reason as if
half the price of a horse were to be claimed back by the buyer years
after it had been bought.
Nor was any pledge asked or given that Australian markets should be
kept open to English manufactures. The result already has been that one
colony after another has been establishing and increasing protective
duties, which as respects some articles are almost prohibitory to
English goods. The only stipulation made was that duties charged to
England should be charged equally to all the world, so as to let in
English manufactures on the same terms with foreign and those from
other colonies. Even this it is now sought to have relaxed, so as to
establish intercolonial free-trade, in which the Mother-country is not
to be admitted to share.
But there is no use in dwelling too long on past mistakes. As to the
future, I must confess myself unable to understand how any Englishman
could fail to feel it as a deep disgrace, if, unsolicited and for the
sake of any real or imaginary commercial advantage, or from sheer
laziness and unwillingness to bear an honourable responsibility, we
were to renounce our inheritance in our colonies. Great as the loss
would be to us, to them it would assuredly be far greater in every
respect. Without the protection of a strong naval Power they would be
simply at the mercy of the first powerful fleet and army which France,
Russia, or the United States might send to take possession of them.
The smallness of the population, the extent of coast, and the wide
distances between the few large towns, would make defence, however
resolute, against any considerable force altogether unavailing. The
gold-mines of Ballarat and Bendigo and the copper-mines of Burra-burra
are as rich and tempting to an invader as anything in Siberia or
Persia, or in Algeria or Mexico.
No doubt it is possible that a Federation or union of some kind might
be devised, not under the British Crown, but having an alliance
offensive and defensive with it. But it is difficult to conceive of
any such which would last. If Australia were to enter into distinct
diplomatic relations with other Powers, European or other, it would
soon become impossible for us to take up their quarrels, or for them
to take up ours. As their union would not be very close, their policy
would not be likely to be a very steady or consistent one.
For the climate of different parts of the continent differs widely,
the productions are increasingly different; hence, and from many other
causes, men’s habits, ideas, and tastes tend to divergence rather
than to convergence. Already there are occasional manifestations of
antagonism between some of the different colonies, which, though slight
and comparatively harmless under a common but separate allegiance,
might become more serious between members of a Federation. It was a
good joke, and not an ill-timed one under the circumstances, for
Melbourne, before Victoria was a separate colony, to elect Lord Grey
as its representative to the House of Assembly at Sydney, by way of a
hint that it really was time for them to be a colony by themselves.
But it is a little too much, now that it has been all settled to their
satisfaction years ago, and Melbourne has long since shot ahead of
Sydney in population and importance, to keep ‘Separation-day’ as a
general holiday and day of rejoicing, as if New South Wales were the
one thing on earth from which they were thankful for deliverance. Such
manifestations do not bode well for future union.