PART I.—OUR NATAL YEAR.
CHAPTER I.
THE BIRTH OF QUEENSLAND.
Issue of Letters Patent and Order in Council.—Appointment of Sir George Ferguson Bowen as First Governor.—Continuity of Colonial Office Policy.—Instructions to Governor.—Munificent Gift of all Waste Lands of the Crown.—Temporary Limitation of Electoral Suffrage.—Responsible Government Unqualified by Restrictions or Reservations.—Governor General of New South Wales Initiates Elections.
Fifty years ago an emphatic expression of confidence in the self-governing competence of the people of North-eastern Australia was given by the British Government of Lord Derby. On 6th June, 1859, Queen Victoria in Council adopted Letters Patent—which had been already approved in draft on 13th May—"erecting Moreton Bay into a colony under the name of Queensland," and appointing Sir George Ferguson Bowen to be "Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the same." On the same day an Order in Council was made "empowering the Governor of Queensland to make laws and provide for the administration of justice in the said colony"; also to constitute therein a Government and Legislature as nearly resembling the form of Government and Legislature established in New South Wales as the circumstances of the colony would allow. This meant that representative and responsible government had been granted to the people of the new colony to the full extent that it was enjoyed by the people of New South Wales under the epoch-making Constitution Act of 1855. It meant also that the whole of the unalienated Crown Lands of the colony were vested in the Legislature.
Next day, the 7th June, the annual session of the Imperial Parliament was opened, and four days later an amendment upon the Address in Reply was carried in the House of Commons, whereupon Lord Derby and his Conservative colleagues forthwith resigned, and were succeeded by a Liberal (or Whig) Ministry under Lord Palmerston. The new Government included men of such distinction as Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Lord John Russell, and the Duke of Newcastle, the last-mentioned assuming the office of Colonial Secretary. The change of Ministry, however, caused no interruption in the continuity of Colonial Office policy; and no time was lost in despatching Sir George Bowen to discharge the highly responsible duties imposed upon him by the Queen's Commission.
In notifying Sir George Bowen of his appointment, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton tendered him some friendly advice. He said that Sir George would experience the greatest amount of difficulty in connection with the squatters, and he went on in these words:—"But in this, which is an irritating contest between rival interests, you will wisely abstain as much as possible from interference. Avoid taking part with one or the other.... The first care of a Governor in a free colony," he continued, "is to shun the reproach of being a party man. Give all parties and all Ministries formed the fairest play." In public addresses Sir George was advised to "appeal to the noblest idiosyncracies of the community—the noblest are generally the most universal and the most durable. They are peculiar to no party. Let your thoughts never be distracted from the paramount object of finance. All states thrive in proportion to the administration of revenue." A number of excellent maxims followed, among them—"The more you treat people as gentlemen the more 'they will behave as such.'" Again, "courtesy is a duty which public servants owe to the humblest member of the community." And, in a postscript, "Get all the details of the land question from the Colonial Office, and master them thoroughly. Convert the jealousies now existing between Moreton Bay and Sydney into emulation." All these generous didactics from the great novelist and Tory statesman, followed by congratulations and good wishes, must have been stimulative to the aspirations of the embryo Governor charged with the foundation of a new colony at the Antipodes.