SECTION IV

The claims of the churches on the treasury (1838) soon threatened the government with serious difficulties. It was resolved to increase the revenue by prohibiting colonial distillation. This trade had been often interrupted by the ordinances of the governors, but when the crown ceased to purchase wheat at a high fixed price it was deemed unfair to the farmer to restrict the local market for his produce. Duties were imposed, but they discriminated between sugar and cereals, and between colonial and imported grain. This distinction offered ample opportunity for evasion. The distillers employed these various articles at their own pleasure, and paid the lowest duty. Colonial spirits were sold as foreign; and the permits of the police-office covered the transit of quantities greater than they specified. From £5,000 to £7,000 were annually lost. The bill introduced to extinguish the trade was resisted by Mr. W. E. Lawrence and other leaders of the country party. They objected both to the suppression of a lawful trade and the injury inflicted on those who had embarked their capital. The government proposed to include in the bill a provision for the indemnity of the distillers, leaving its amount to be settled by a committee. To this Chief Justice Pedder strongly objected. The government was unwilling to entrust to a jury the claims of the distillers, as proposed by the chief justice; and, not wishing to delay the law, passed it without granting any security beyond admitting the equity of compensation.

The laxity of the distillation laws had enabled the manufacturers to realise double profits, by graduated duties, mostly paid under the lowest denomination. Their gains during the past could not be questioned; but Sir John Franklin was persuaded that it would be ridiculously profuse to pay an indemnity for the loss of profits rated by the success of an illicit trade. A resolution passed the council, "That any applicant having been proved, to the satisfaction of this council, to have been in the habit of distilling contrary to law, has, by such practice, destroyed any claim he might have otherwise had to compensation." To ascertain this fact a "feigned issue bill" was brought into the council. It simply referred the question of illegal distillation to the jury, without assessing their claims. The right of the distillers to compensation was, however, so indisputable, and the retrospective action of the bill so liable to objection, that it was generally opposed; and, by the dissent of the lawyers, the treasurer, with all the non-official members, rejected by the council. The attorney-general, Mr. Macdowell, impressed with its injustice, informed the governor that he could not support the bill; in this resolution he had been fortified by the strongly expressed opinions of his colleague, Mr. H. Jones, the solicitor-general, who denounced its principle as utterly iniquitous and unprecedented: but on the resignation of Mr. Macdowell, Mr. Jones accepted his place, and voted for the bill: defending his conduct by stating that he had expressed his former opinion in ignorance of its details. The public indignation was excited by this apparent perfidy, for which Mr. Jones atoned by a speedy resignation. The financial success of the suppression was mentioned by Sir John Franklin in exulting terms. The law is, however, regularly violated when grain is low. Private stills have supplied spirits more than usually deleterious; and the revenue has shown a decline. The rights of the distillers were recognised by the home government, and their unsettled claims, to the amount of £7,431, were paid in 1843.

The duty of a member of the government to support, at all events, the measures of his chief, was asserted by the secretary of state. If his conscience would not permit his acquiescence, he was expected to resign. Thus, while his oath bound him to advise, as a legislator, according to his convictions, his interest, as a public officer, compelled him to submit to the impulses of another. From this condition the chief justice was excepted,—a condition hard to an honorable man and unfair to the colony. However plausible the reasons for distinguishing between an official duty and a conscientious belief, public morality abhors them; and Mr. Macdowell is entitled to the colonial remembrance, as one among few who have refused to support a measure because unjust.

The extensive land sales, combined with the demand for labor (1840), induced Sir John Franklin to promote emigration. The impression was general that transportation to Van Diemen's Land would cease; such had been announced as the policy of the crown. A vessel was dispatched to Adelaide, where many were suffering severe distress. The New Zealand emigrants were also dissatisfied, and many found their way to colonies where wages were high. This course was inconvenient, and excited great indignation among employers in South Australia, who prevailed on the government to pass a law intended to check emigration to Van Diemen's Land.

Sir J. Franklin disapproved of these methods of supplying the labor market, and proposed to devote £60,000 for the introduction of suitable working families from Great Britain. By many this movement was hailed with strong expressions of approbation, as a pledge of social elevation of the working classes. It was urged by Mr. Philip Smith, of Ross, that "without an extensive emigration and a stop to the introduction of convicts it was in vain to hope for permanent prosperity." Mr. Berthon, of Woodlands, asserted that "before the colony could thrive a better description of peasantry was necessary, which could never be found in the sweepings of gaols" (October, 1841). Pursuant to these views the governor authorised the settlers to select for themselves, by their own agents, the persons they required. Every considerable inhabitant received the necessary authority to ship such laborers, under indentures, at the colonial cost, it being found that useful workmen were indisposed to emigrate except to a master already known. The greater part of the settlers appointed Mr. Henry Dowling their agent. It was the intention of the local government that laborers should be sent out in small numbers by the regular traders; and thus afford time to pay the cost of their transit without difficulty to the treasury. The emigration commissioners objected to all these plans, and set them aside. Indentures were disallowed; and instead of laborers in the proportions required, families were conveyed, or they were sent in rapid succession, hundreds together. On their arrival a financial crisis reduced their wages: the home government changed its views, and resolved to continue transportation: the land fund, which had reached £52,000 in 1841, rapidly declined, and in 1843 Lord Stanley was informed that for years to come little revenue could be expected from the sale of land. The local officers, unable to pay the charge, were induced to dispute it; and they attempted to cast on the agents of immigration the failure of plans disallowed by the commissioners. They evaded the payment for one year. The claims of the shippers were instantly allowed by the secretary of state, with the usual interest; and Mr. Dowling, who had been aspersed by the local government, was amply vindicated by the commissioners. The colonial secretary charged him with collusive sale of his agency to London shippers, and a fraud on the colonial treasury. Mr. Dowling protected his character by an appeal to the supreme court, when Mr. Horne, the attorney-general, admitted that the imputation was unfounded, but succeeded in convincing the jury that no malice is to be inferred from the tenor of a libel when the writer cannot be supposed to be influenced by mere personal animosity. Mr. Dowling lost by his agency more than a thousand pounds.

An exceedingly useful class of emigrants arrived under the commissioners, who readily sanctioned the applications, regard being had to the equality of the sexes. The commissioners defended their opposition to the plans of the local government. They asserted that private agents could never select laborers in numbers sufficient to freight a ship; and they inferred that transferable orders for the payment of bounty on the arrival of emigrants would be either matters of traffic, or that private persons, discouraged by the difficulties of their task, would abandon it in despair.

For two or three years the emigrants were satisfied and moderately prosperous. The sub-division of town property was rapid. On every side small brick tenements multiplied. Every mechanic aspired to possess a dwelling of his own. But Lord Stanley's system of probation rapidly told on the condition of the workman. He stood aghast; he persevered for a time; he appealed to the government for protection against convict competition. For one-fourth its actual cost his property passed into the hands of others: in Launceston especially many suburban neighbourhoods were deserted. The emigrants brought out at so much public and private cost were expelled to the adjacent settlements, to begin the world anew.

One of those seasons of general distress to which small communities are especially liable pervaded the entire colonies (1841-4). A variety of causes contributed to augment its pressure, and to involve the whole in commercial embarrassment. The imports of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land exceeding £20 per head; the high price of grain, reaching 28s. per bushel; the enormous rate of interest, and the boundless extravagance of credit and expense, produced a convulsion all but universal.