An Autobiography

by Catherine Helen Spence

The closing year of the century found the Effective Voting League in the thick of its first election campaign. There is little doubt that the best time for advancing a political reform is during an election, and it was interesting to note how many candidates came to our support. We had an interesting meeting at Parliament House for members just about that time. An opponent of the reform, who was present, complained that we were late in beginning our meeting. "We always begin punctually under the present system," he remarked. "Yes," some one replied, "but we always finish so badly." "Oh, I always finish well enough," was the pert rejoinder; "I generally come out on top." "Ah," retorted the other, "I was thinking of the electors." But the doubter did not come out on top at a subsequent election, and his defeat was probably the means of his discovering defects in the old system that no number of successes would have led him into acknowledging. From the two or three members who had supported Mr. Glynn in the previous Parliament we increased our advocates in the Assembly during the campaign to 14. The agitation had been very persistent among the electors, and their approval of the reform was reflected in the minds of their representatives. We inaugurated during that year the series of citizens' meetings convened by the Mayors of the city and suburbs, which has been so successful a feature of our long campaign for electoral justice, and at the present time very few of the mayoral chairs are occupied by men who are not keen supporters of effective voting.

The Hon. Theodore Bruce's connection with the reform dates from that year, when he presided at a meeting in the Adelaide Town Hall during the temporary absence of the Mayor. A consistent supporter of effective voting from that time, it was only natural that when in May, 1909, the candidature of Mr. Bruce (who was then and is now a Vice-President of the league). for a seat in the Legislative Council, gave us an opportunity for working for his return, against a candidate who had stated that he was not satisfied with the working of the system of effective voting, we availed ourselves of it. So much has been written and said about the attitude of the league with regard to Parliamentary candidates that, as its President, I feel that I ought to take this opportunity of stating our reasons for that attitude. From its inception the league has declined to recognise parties in a contest at all. Its sole concern has been, and must be to support effective voters, to whatever party they may belong. To secure the just representation of the whole electorate of whatever size, is the work of the Effective Voting League, and, whatever the individual opinions of the members may be, as an official body they cannot help any candidate who opposes the reform for which they stand.

I remember meeting at a political meeting during a subsequent general election a lady whom I had known as an almost rabid Kingstonian. But the party had failed to find a position for her son in the Civil Service, although their own sons were in that way satisfactorily provided for. So she had thrown in her lot with the other side, which at the time happened to gain a few seats, and the lady was quite sure that her influence had won the day for her former opponents. Leaning forward to whisper as if her next remark were too delicate for the ears of a gentleman sitting near, she said, "Do you know, I don't believe the Premier has any backbone!" I laughed, and said that I thought most people held the same belief. To my amusement and astonishment she then asked quite seriously, "Do you think that is why he stoops so much?" There was no doubt in her mind that the missing back bone had reference to the physical and not to the moral malformation of the gentleman in question.

CHAPTER XXII.

A VISIT TO NEW SOUTH WALES.

Early in the year 1900 the Hon. B. R. Wise, then Attorney-General of New South Wales, suggested a campaign for effective voting in the mother State, with the object of educating the people, so that effective voting might be applied for the first Federal elections. Mrs. Young and I left Adelaide on May 10 of that year to inaugurate the movement in New South Wales. During the few hours spent in Melbourne Professor Nanson, the Victorian leader of the reform, with another earnest worker (Mr. Bowditch), called on us, and we had a pleasant talk over the proposed campaign. The power of The Age had already been felt, when, at the convention election, the 10 successful candidates were nominees of that paper, and at that time it was a sturdy opponent of proportional representation. The Argus, on the other hand, had done yeoman service in the advocacy of the reform from the time that Tasmania had so successfully experimented with the system. As we were going straight through to Sydney, we were able only to suggest arrangements for a possible campaign on our return. Our Sydney visit lasted eight weeks, during which time we addressed between 20 and 30 public meetings. Our welcome to the harbour city was most enthusiastic, and our first meeting, held in the Protestant Hall, on the Wednesday after our arrival, with the Attorney-General in the chair, was packed. The greatest interest was shown in the counting of the 387 votes taken at the meeting. Miss Rose Scott, however, had paved the way for the successful public meeting by a reception at her house on the previous Monday, at which we met Mr. Wise, Sir William McMillan, Mr. (afterwards Sr. Walker), Mr. (now Sir A. J.) Gould, Mr. Bruce Smith, Mr. W. Holman, and several other prominent citizens. The reform was taken up earnestly by most of these gentlemen. Sir William McMillan was appointed the first President of the league, which was formed before we left Sydney. During the first week of our visit we dined with Dr. and Mrs. Garran, who, with their son (Mr. Robert Garran, C.M.G., afterwards the collaborateur of Sir John Quick in the compilation of the "Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth"), were keen supporters of effective voting. Among the host of well-known people who came after dinner to meet us was Mr. (now Sir) George Reid, with whom we had an interesting talk over the much-discussed "Yes-No" Policy. We had both opposed the Bill on its first appeal to the people, and seized the occasion to thank Mr. Reid for his share in delaying the measure. "You think the Bill as amended an improvement?" he asked. "Probably," replied Mrs. Young, "but as I didn't think the improvement great enough, I voted against it both times." But I had not done so, and my vote on the second occasion was in favour of the Bill.

But, as Mr. Reid admitted, the dislike of most reformers for federation was natural enough, for it was only to be expected that "reforms would be difficult to get with such a huge, unwieldy mass" to be moved before they could be won. And experience has proved the correctness of the view expressed. Anything in the nature of a real reform, judging from the experience of the past, will take a long time to bring about. I am convinced that had not South Australia already adopted the principle of the all-round land tax, the progressive form would have been the only one suggested or heard of from either party. Politicians are so apt to take the line of least resistance, and when thousands of votes of small landowners are to be won through the advocacy of an exemption, exemptions there will be. The whole system of taxation is wrong, it seems to me, and though, as a matter of expediency, sometimes from conviction, many people advocate the opposite course, I have long felt that taxation should not be imposed according to the ability to pay so much as according to benefits received from the State. We are frequently warned against expecting too much from Federation during its earlier stages, but experience teaches us that, as with human beings, so with nations, a wrong or a right beginning is responsible to a great extent for right or wrong development. I have the strongest hopes for the future of Australia, but the people must never be allowed to forget that eternal vigilance, as in the past, must still in the future be the price we must pay for our liberty. Later, Mr. Reid presided at our Parliament House meeting, and afterwards entertained us at afternoon tea. But one of our pleasantest memories was of a day spent with the great freetrader and Mrs. Reid at their Strathfield home. I was anxious to hear Mr. Reid speak, and was glad when the opportunity arose on the occasion of a no-confidence debate. But he was by no means at his best, and it was not until I heard him in his famous freetrade speech on his first visit to Adelaide that I realized how great an orator he was. At the close of the no-confidence debate the triumphant remark of an admirer that "Adelaide couldn't produce a speaker like that" showed me that a prophet sometimes hath honour, even in his own country.

Mr. Wise was a brilliant speaker, and a most cultured man, and a delightful talker. Of Mrs. Parkes, then President of the Women's Liberal League, I saw much. She was a fine speaker, and a very clear-headed thinker. Her organizing faculty was remarkable, and her death a year or two ago was a distinct loss to her party. Her home life was a standing example of the fallacy of the old idea that a woman who takes up public work must necessarily neglect her family. Mrs. Barbara Baynton was a woman of a quite different type, clever and emotional, as one would expect the author of the brilliant but tragic "Bush Studies" to be. She was strongly opposed to Federation, as, indeed were large numbers of clever people in New South Wales. Frank Fox (afterwards connected with The Lone Hand), Bertram Stevens (author of "An Anthology of Australian Verse"), Judge Backhouse (who was probably the only Socialist Judge on the Australian Bench), were frequent visitors at Miss Scott's, and were all interesting people. An afternoon meeting on effective voting was arranged at the Sydney University, I think, by Dr. Anderson Stuart. We were charmed with the university and its beautiful surroundings. Among the visitors that afternoon was Mrs. David, a charming and well-read woman, whose book describing an expedition to Funafuti, is delightful. We afterwards dined with her and Professor David, and spent a pleasant hour with them.

I was not neglectful of other reforms while on this campaign, and found time to interest myself in the State children's work with which my friend, Mrs. Garran, was so intimately connected. We went to Liverpool one day to visit the benevolent institution for men. There were some hundreds of men there housed in a huge building reminiscent of the early convict days. If not the whole, parts of it had been built by the convicts, and the massive stone staircase suggested to our minds the horrors of convict settlement. I have always resented the injury done to this new country by the foundation of penal settlements, through which Botany Bay lost its natural connotation as a habitat for wonderful flora, and became known only as a place where convicts were sent for three-quarters of a century. Barrington's couplet, written as a prologue at the opening of the Playhouse, Sydney, in 1796, to a play given by convicts—