Letters from Australia

by John Martineau

This state of things is not cheering. Men of by no means conservative or retrograde instincts will tell you sadly that it was not always so, that sixteen or seventeen years ago, in the days of mixed government, not only was the colony better governed, but it was in many respects in a sounder and healthier condition generally. The wealthy were not so wealthy, but neither were the poor so poor. There was work for all who wanted it, and at high wages. Now there is not a little pauperism and distress. Immigration was steadily increasing then; now it has almost ceased.

What is the cause? It is always dangerous to attempt to couple cause and effect in political matters, especially when events are so nearly contemporary. But there can be no doubt that the discovery of gold, if it has conferred wealth and brought advantages, has also brought serious temporary disadvantages which have not yet passed away. It would be hard to strike a balance between them. The population was greatly increased. But the whole framework of industry was put out of gear, and has hardly yet recovered the shock; and the stream of immigration was not, as in Victoria, so great as to give an entirely new character to the colony and its population, and to build the framework afresh. It gave, too, a sudden and undue impulse to extreme democratic tendencies; and I think that the majority of well-informed men look upon the extreme democratic character of the existing constitution as amongst the principal causes of much of the misgovernment and corruption that exist. There are indeed few who ever say so publicly, and withstand Demos to his face; but at least one man, long the foremost champion of the anti-bureaucratic or popular party, to whom that party, in the days when they had real grievances to complain of, owed more than to anyone, has not shrunk from saying openly what he thinks or from deploring publicly the evil results of universal suffrage in the colony.[14]

It is bad enough to have bad legislation. But it is a much worse 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.