South Australia and Western Australia

by Anthony Trollope

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 5s. 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, 20s. 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 20s. an acre. Mr. Wakefield seems to have considered that 40s. 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.