What the law could not effect was produced by a less exceptionable process. The merchants and professional men addressed the banks, and urged an abatement of interest, then 10 per cent. for short-dated bills, and 12½ for renewals. They appealed rather to liberality than to abstract right. This was followed by a reduction in the Van Diemen's Land Bank,—an example which the other establishments did not readily adopt. Eight per cent. soon, however, became the highest amount usually exacted in regular transactions.
The difficulties of the agriculturists from the low price of grain, induced them to look for artificial relief. With too much facility Wilmot gave hopes which he could not realise. The imposition of a heavy duty on New South Wales tobacco, amounting to prohibition, and that just as it was reaching considerable perfection, led to the imposition of a duty on our grain. It was the wish of the Tasmanian settlers to restore free trade between the colonies, and to impose discriminating duties on the produce of foreign countries; but the harsh and ridiculous system of colonial government, which discriminated between Australian and Canadian grain, compelled one British colony to treat another, its next neighbor, as an alien, and that while England demanded free admittance for English manufactures. The peremptory instructions of Stanley were conveyed to the local governors in terms of intimidation.[233] They were forbidden to allow any kindred colony the least advantage over foreigners, or to pass any bill for that purpose, and were told that any evasion of this restriction would occasion the high displeasure of the crown. The reason alleged for this interference was that colonies could not be expected to understand the treaties and trading system of the parent state; as if any treaty should have hindered a commerce actually not more distinct than the trade between London and Liverpool. Wilmot warmly espoused the claim of the Australian colonies to share in the privilege of Canada, in favor of which the duties had been relaxed on colonial grain. Mr. Hutt brought their petitions before the attention of parliament; but he could not plead a political necessity, and the ministers were able to resist without the risk of a rebellion. They asserted that the distance made the concession of no practical value, while it would tend to augment the alarm of the English farmers! Thus, while they humored the empty fears of their own constituents, they afforded another example of the futility of colonial petitions which, however just, it is convenient to disregard.
To assist agriculture, the council passed an act interdicting the use of sugar, under certain conditions, by public brewers. The trade strongly objected to the restriction, as impolitic, vexatious, and impracticable. Their objections were admitted by the secretary of state, who quietly observed that he had been advised that sugar could not be considered deleterious. This is the last attempt at protective legislation.
To benefit the rural interest the governor proposed a grand scheme of irrigation. An eminent engineer, Major Cotton, was employed to report on the subject, and suggested the detention of the waters of the vast lakes which overflow from the heights of the western mountains. A rate to be imposed on the various estates was to discharge the cost. Thus in those seasons of drought which sometimes occur the lowlands would be made increasingly fertile. The immediate object—the employment of probation labor at the colonial cost—detracted something from the charms of the project. Nor did it seem just that the settlers should risk the ultimate cost of an undertaking they could not limit. Sir E. Wilmot earnestly recommended the scheme to the home government, but Lord Stanley hesitated until the evils of the probation system enforced a change, and lessened the labor at the disposal of the crown. Had the men been employed on a work so popular they would have been withdrawn from the colonial eye, and the interest of their new labors might have extinguished the prevailing discontent. But while the governor waited for instructions the men were idle, or employed in useless attempts at cultivation on barren land, of which the produce rarely defrayed the cost of the implements destroyed.
The charge for police and gaols had always been borne by the legislative council with impatience. The estimates were accompanied by an annual protest against entailing on the colony any pecuniary consequence of British crime. But when the convict labor was withdrawn from the roads, and new taxes demanded, the time arrived for the most decided resistance, and the event proved that the councillors who refused their consent acted with prudence. The minister himself was compelled to own at last, that the exaction of twenty shillings per head for police, was unexampled in civilised governments.
In 1836 Mr. Spring Rice (now Lord Monteagle) took advantage of a considerable local land fund to throw on the council the police establishment of the colony, occasioned by transportation. The sum then required (£14,000) was comparatively unimportant, and it was urged that the labor of convicts employed on public works at the cost of Great Britain, except £4,000 for superintendence, was a sufficient compensation. But the charge for constabulary and prisons gradually increased to £36,000. The land fund, after deducting £97,000, expended for emigration, for the support of aborigines, and the working of the land office, yielded in ten years a surplus of £207,000, carried to the general revenue; but during this time the charge for police and gaols exceeded £311,000. The increase of judicial expenses, and especially of witnesses, was proportionately great; and this last item in one year (1846), although most lighter crimes were disposed of in a summary way, rose to £6,000. The execution of public works by the crown had been the sole vindication of these charges. From this arrangement Lord Stanley departed, and in peremptory terms prohibited a spade to be moved but on payment from the colonial treasury. Thus at a season of commercial stagnation the benefit of convict labor was withdrawn, while the charges for police and gaols rose to one-third of the entire revenue of the colony, and in two years and a-half a debt accumulated to £100,000.
Notwithstanding the obvious injustice of this burden, the treatment of the New South Wales legislature gave slight hope of redress. Lord Stanley directed Sir George Gipps to obviate the threatened resistance of that council by hastening pardons to the prisoners, by withdrawing them from the service of the settlers, and by sending those not otherwise disposable to Van Diemen's Land. He was forbidden to relieve extreme financial difficulties by drafts on England, or draw from the military chest, although at the period an immense body of convicts remained long after transportation had ceased. This disregard of a more powerful colony led the people of Van Diemen's Land to infer that from a minister so unscrupulous no justice could be expected while evasion was possible.
Wilmot was deeply embarrassed, but he determined to adhere to the instructions of the secretary of state, whose distance prevented his perceiving the hopelessness of his project until that discovery was unavailing. The positive nature of these injunctions left no room for discretion. The governor was commanded not to adopt any detailed regulations at variance with the scheme prescribed by the crown, or to depart from its provisions without express authority.[234]
Sir Eardley Wilmot resolved that the utmost extent of taxation should be tried rather than infringe the orders of Stanley. A bill to raise the duties on sugar, teas, and foreign goods from 5 to 15 per cent. encountered an earnest but unavailing opposition. This bill was still more obnoxious from a clause, afterwards abandoned, to levy the duty on the current value of goods at the market of consumption, instead of export—a mode which taxed all the expenses of shipment. Mr. Gregson proposed the rejection of an impost required only by the extraordinary pressure of convictism. Several of the non-official members voted with the governor for the last time.
A committee of the council had been appointed to ascertain how the expenditure could be reduced and the revenue augmented. They enumerated various forms in which further taxation might be practicable. These were proposed by the governor. Auctioneers, pawnbrokers, publicans, butchers, eating-house keepers, stage-coach and steam-boat proprietors, cabmen, and watermen, were to be subject to new or increased license fees.