South Australia and Western Australia

by Anthony Trollope

The importance of the telegraph to the colonies cannot be overrated, and the anxiety it created can only be understood by those who have watched the avidity with which news from England is received in all her dependencies. Australia had hitherto been dependent on one arrival monthly from England,—and on a very little credited monthly dispatch reaching her shores via New York, San Francisco, and New Zealand. The English monthly mail touches first at King George’s Sound, in Western Australia, but thence there are no wires into the other colonies. The mail steamer then passes on to Melbourne, while a branch boat takes the mails to Adelaide. As the distance to Adelaide is considerably shorter than to Melbourne, the English news generally reaches that port first, and is thence disseminated to the other colonies. That happens once a month. Then comes, also once a month, the so-called Californian telegrams, not unfrequently giving a somewhat distorted view of English affairs. This is now changed for daily news. We who have daily news,—as do all of us in England every morning at our breakfast-table,—are sometimes apt to regard it as a bore, and tell ourselves that it would be delightful to have a real budget on an occasion after a month of silence. The only way to learn the value of the thing, is to be without it for a time. In the single item of the price of wool in the London market, the Australian telegraph will be of inestimable value to the colonies. When the scheme was first brought forward there was a question whether the line through the Australian continent should be made by the joint efforts of the colonies or by the energy of one. South Australia is justly proud of herself, in that she undertook the work, and has accomplished it.

The telegraph line has certainly been the means of introducing the northern territory into general notice; and now a much larger project has been formed,—which, if it be carried out, will certainly create a new colony on the northern coast. The proposition is to make a railway along the telegraph line, a railway from Adelaide right across Australia, over the huge desert of the continent, to Port Darwin! Who will travel by it? What will it carry? Whence will the money come? How will it be made to pay? And as it cannot possibly be made to pay,—as far as human sight can see,—what insane philanthropists or speculators will be found able to subscribe the enormous sum of money necessary for such a purpose? These are of course the questions that are asked. The distance to be covered by the new line is very nearly 1,800 miles, and the money said to be necessary for it is £10,000,000! There are no inhabitants in the country,—at any rate none who would use a railway, and at the distant terminus there is no town,—not as yet a community of 200 white inhabitants.

I soon found that the railway was but a portion of the plan,—and indeed the smaller portion of it. The scheme is as follows:—The parliament of South Australia is to pass a bill authorising the formation of a small preliminary company, which company shall be empowered by the colonial legislature to make over no less than two hundred millions of acres in freehold to the shareholders of the proposed railway company. The small company is to give birth to a large company, the residence of which is to be in London, and this large company is to consist of shareholders who will subscribe the money needed for the railway, and take the land as bought by their money. The great object of the promoters, who, when I was in Adelaide, were chiefly gentlemen having seats in the parliament of the colony, was to open up to human uses an immense track of country which is at present useless, and in this way to spread the reputation and increase the prosperity of the colony at large. There can be no doubt that population would follow the railway, as it has always followed railways in the United States. The pastures would be opened to sheep; and contingent advantages are of course anticipated,—such as mineral fields of various kinds. Within 250 miles of the southern end copper exists in large quantities, and the expense of carriage alone suspends its extraction. At the Port Darwin end, on the northern coast, gold has been found, and they who are hopeful declare that a few years will see the richest gold-fields of Australia near the banks of the Victoria and the Roper Rivers. A world of hopes rises to the mind of the sanguine proprietor as the largeness of his scheme endears it more and more to his heart, till he sees the happiness of thousands and the magnificence of himself in the realisation of his project.

That such a railway should be made on the speculation of trade returns is impossible; but if the South Australian parliament be in earnest, and if the colony will give her land,—land which she at present has in such abundance that she cannot use it,—it may be that funds sufficient for commencing the railway will be produced. It is proposed that the land shall be given as the line is made,—so many acres for every mile of railway. The entire territory contiguous to the line is not to be given. The land is to be divided into blocks, of which alternate blocks are to be surrendered, and alternate blocks retained, by the government, so that the new owners of the territory may be constrained as to price and other terms of sale. Of course the company would fail in selling if it charged more than the government, or proposed terms less advantageous than those offered by the government. But there seem to lack two ingredients for the thorough success of such a scheme,—a town at the end, such as was San Francisco when the railway was proposed across the Rocky Mountains from Chicago to that city, and a wheat-growing country for its support, such as California,—and such as Oregon is, and the Utah territory.

I do not believe that I shall live to see a railway made from Adelaide to Port Darwin, or even that younger men than I will do so. The greatness of many accomplished enterprises is now teaching men to believe that everything is possible; and they who are sanguine are falling into the error,—directly opposite to that of our grandfathers,—of thinking that nothing is too hard to be accomplished. I cannot believe in the expenditure of £10,000,000 on the construction of a railway which is to run through a desert to nowhere. But I do believe in the gold-fields and pastures of Port Darwin, and in the beauties of the Roper and Victoria Rivers; and, hot though the country be, I think that another young colony will found itself on the western shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

CHAPTER VII.
LEGISLATURE AND GOVERNMENT.

With some small variations the scheme as to parliament and executive government is the same in South Australia as in the other colonies. There are king, lords, and commons,—or in other language, Governor, Legislative Council, and House of Assembly. The most remarkable variation is to be found in the mode adopted for getting together the Legislative Council or House of Colonial Lords,—which mode I regard as the worst ever yet invented for summoning a chamber of senators. In England our House of Peers is hereditary, the Crown having the power to add to its number as it pleases,—and thus, at any rate, the country does acquire the services of a body of legislative magnates without any trouble to itself. It is a great thing to be a peer, and the peers as a rule live up to the position which the country assigns them. In the United States the senators of the National Congress are elected from their different States by a complicated machinery which certainly effects its object, by bringing the leading politicians of the day into the Upper House, and by conferring on that House dignity and reputation. In some of our colonies, in New South Wales for instance, and in Queensland, the members of the Upper House are nominated by the Crown,—or rather, in fact, by the responsible ministers of the day, who are accountable for the selections which they make, and who confer the honour on men anxious and for the most part able to take a part in public affairs. As one party becomes stronger than another in the colony, so does the minister of one party have more frequent opportunities of introducing his friends into the Legislative Council than the ministers of the other party,—and the preponderance of public opinion is represented by the Upper as well as the Lower Chamber. In other colonies, as in Victoria and South Australia, the members of the Legislative Council are elected by the people,—but the manner of doing so is different. In Victoria the whole colony is divided into provinces, and each province periodically elects its members. Even then the interest felt is not very great, as I endeavoured to explain, when speaking of the Victorian legislature,—but the provinces do in some sort identify themselves with their own members; and, though the political feeling in the matter is mild, it exists and has its influence. In South Australia the members of the Upper Chamber are elected by the colony at large, and therefore when elections come round, no political feeling is excited.

This Upper House consists of eighteen members. Every fourth year six members retire, in February, and the votes of the entire colony are taken as to the election of their successors,—so that the members are elected for twelve years. There is a property qualification for voting,—£20 leasehold, £25 household, or £50 freehold. Very slight interest is taken in the elections,—as might be expected from such a scheme. The distances in the colony are enormous, and each district feels that as the election is to be made by the colony at large, its own effect must be very small. When the result of a national election is of extreme importance to parties,—as is the case with the election of a President in the United States,—the country can be awakened to the work; but no political animation can be aroused by the national importance of sending six members to the Upper House. As a consequence men do not vote except in the towns, and do not vote there with any regularity. At the election of 1869, 4,468 votes only were cast, by a body of 15,773 electors. Certain members who have long been in the House keep their seats when the day for their re-election comes round, because no one cares to disturb them; but every now and then some obscure but ambitious and probably absolutely unfit individual puts himself forward, and is elected, to the scandal of the House,—because there has been no interest felt in the matter. The expenditure of a few hundred pounds would almost certainly carry an election,—not because a few hundred pounds have much force in the colony, but because the amount of antagonistic force used is very small. I look upon this as the very worst plan yet adopted for maintaining the existence of a legislative chamber.

The Lower House consists of seventy-two members, who are elected by thirty-six districts,—two members for each district. They sit for three years,—or would do but for dissolutions. Manhood suffrage, with vote by ballot as a matter of course, prevails; but residence for six months is required for an elector,—so that the nomad tribe of wandering vagrants who call themselves workmen, but are in truth beggars, is excluded. The competition for seats in the House of Assembly is sufficiently lively to show that a seat is desired, but it is not very keen. At the time of the election for the House of Assembly in 1870, there were 39,647 men in the colony entitled to be electors, but only 17,233 voted.

I found the ballot to be generally popular,—because it tended to make things quiet at elections. Sir James Fergusson, the governor of the colony,—who as a Conservative member for a Scotch county, and as one of the Conservative government at home, cannot have loved the ballot here, in England,—thus expresses his opinion on the subject to the Secretary of State:—“I am bound to state that the ballot is generally and remarkably popular in the colony. To the people of the colony it appears to give entire satisfaction.” I am bound to report this as the opinion which I found to prevail among almost all classes as to the use of the ballot in Australia. I give my evidence unwillingly, because I myself very much dislike the ballot for English use, and believe that a mistake is made by those who argue that because it suits the colonies, therefore it will suit ourselves. With us the object is secrecy, which I think should not be an object, and which I think also will not be obtained. In the colonies secrecy is not desired, but tranquillity is felt to be a blessing. It is clear that the ballot does assist in producing tranquillity.