Town Life in Australia

by Richard Ernest Nowell Twopeny

The colony, of South Australia has, to my thinking, been peculiarly favoured. Conceived by political economy and born of religious nonconformity, it has ever been the most sober and respectable province of Australia. Thanks to Mr. Gibbon Wakefield's principles, on which the colony was founded, but little of the land fund has been squandered to fill the coffers of influential squatters, and by a system of credit to small freeholders in districts proclaimed suitable for agriculture--i.e., free selection after and not before survey-a large class of yeomanry have been established on their own farms. The stamp of the lower middle class (chiefly Dissenters) who formed the bulk of the early settlers has not yet been erased from social and political life. Never making giant strides, nor stumbling into pits of gold, like her nearest neighbour, South Australia has yet progressed year by year at an even jog-trot along the road of material prosperity. Although copper-mining has contributed no insignificant quota to the national wealth, the foundations have been laid in pasture, and the main structure is built up in wheat-growing. Owing to a combination of these circumstances, the division of wealth approaches much nearer to equality than in any of the other provinces. There are fewer rich and fewer poor. The standard of wealth is lower. The condition of the working-class is better and healthier; their chances of becoming proprietors and employers are greater. The middle class preponderates, but its very size, the diversity of interests it represents, and the stake it has in the general welfare of the country, prevent it from abusing its political power to any serious extent. Except with its aid, neither the squatters nor the working-class can gain undue advantages; and as this aid has rarely been lent without good reason there is an almost total absence of class antagonism and an excellent public spirit throughout the community, all classes working well together for the common weal.

Definite political parties there are none, except on the few occasions when a stirring question has temporarily divided the community. The spirit of the colony is thoroughly liberal, without being democratic in the narrow sense. In most important reforms--such as the withdrawal of State aid to religion; the registration of landed property; the acquiring of Constitutional Government, and the placing of the Constitution on a liberal basis; the introduction of the credit system for the purchase of small farms, and refusal to sell large tracts of country; and the adoption of State Education--South Australia has either led the way or been amongst the first. Thanks to the more advanced views of the earliest settlers, the abuses to be done away with have never been so flagrant as in the other provinces. Hence the work of reform has in every case been carried out in a more just and moderate spirit. The chief fault to be found in the political temper of the people lies in their apathy. When they do go to the poll, not a few of the electors prefer to vote for the candidate whom they believe to have the most honesty and public spirit, even if they do not happen to agree altogether with his political views. But the preference of men to measures is by no means an unmixed evil under the circumstances. A new country not only offers great facilities for political adventure, but rarely sins by going too slow, and when any policy of real import comes to the front, the evil corrects itself in proportion to the importance of the occasion. To this preference, also, it is due that, although South Australian politics are for the most part personal, yet the evils of personality are less prominent than in the sister colonies. Political consistency is rated higher, and the tone of the debates is infinitely better, than in New South Wales, where there is the same absence of important questions. Indeed, the Legislature is famed throughout Australia as being the most hard-working and best behaved.

With regard to Free Trade, a compromise has been adopted, and there are not wanting signs of a disposition to follow the example of New South Wales; but I fear this is rather out of dislike to Victoria than from any abstract recognition of the advantages of a Free Trade policy.

Warned by the troubles to which the question of Upper House reform gave rise in Victoria, the South Australians tackled it last session, when both Chambers were on the best of terms with each other, and an Act was passed by which the franchise was reduced from £50 freeholders and £20 leaseholders, to £20 leaseholders and £10 freeholders; the tenure of a seat shortened from twelve to nine years; the colony divided into electoral districts instead of voting in block; and a scheme introduced for finally dissolving the Council in the event of the occurrence of certain circumstances tending to produce a deadlock. All parties were agreed as to the general principles of the Act, and beyond a little skirmishing over matters of detail, it passed through both Houses with as little excitement as any petty measure. Public opinion has also declared itself in favour of imposing a tax either on income or on property, which is felt not to be paying its fair share towards the Government of the country. A land-tax was talked of, but in view of the re-action on the land question, which has extended in a modified shape from New South Wales, and of the present distress of the landed interest, such a tax is not likely to be imposed. Certain it is that additional revenue to meet the interest on the money borrowed for public works must be raised from some source. The land revenue, which had been used for ordinary revenue purposes, is now beginning to drop; and since the colony is but slightly taxed, in comparison with its neighbours, it has no reason to grumble at an increase of taxation. Amongst the more important measures passed last session, was one for providing compensation for improvements to selectors surrendering their agreements, and for remission of interest to those who have reaped under a specified average during the last three seasons. Another sets apart a million of money for making a railway to the Victorian border to place Adelaide in communication with Melbourne. The distressed condition of the selectors, who have taken up land in country which all experts pronounced unfit for agricultural purposes, except in exceptional seasons, will necessitate a measure next session to give special advantages for improved cultivation. Here also, as in New South Wales, the antagonism between the squatter and the selector, though less pronounced, is beginning to be found artificial. Owing to the clause in nearly all pastoral leases which provides for the resumption of all lands leased for pastoral purposes at three years' notice, and the want of inducements to capitalists to open up the interior, local capital is travelling over to Queensland. The probability is that the impossibility of selection beyond a certain area will be recognised, and special inducements will be offered to persons wishing to depasture unused land in the centre of the continent. There is some talk of a trans-continental railway between Adelaide and Port Darwin, which a syndicate has offered to construct on the land-grant system. But it looks as if the Government, which will never for years be able to construct the line itself, were unwilling to allow anybody else to do it.

The present Ministry, like its predecessor, which lasted four years, is eminently respectable. The Premier, Mr. Bray, has shown himself to be one of the best leaders of the House ever known in Adelaide. The Minister of Education, Mr. Parsons, is distinctly able. The Treasurer, Mr. Glyde, represents caution, and the Minister of Public works, Mr. Ramsay, shrewdness and enterprise. Altogether it is a strong combination of administrative ability, and in Messrs. Bray and Parsons it has two good speakers. It cannot be said that the Ministry has any particular policy, though it represents the farmers and working-classes rather than the propertied section of the community. It will probably make use of the recess to find out what proposals are likely to meet with least opposition, and the Opposition will pronounce no definite opinions till the Ministry have made up their minds. And this is the chronic state of affairs. On minor differences Governments go in and out, but the broad lines of policy are laid down by the country, and remain the same whoever may be at the head of affairs. Nowhere is the theory of government by the people more fully and fairly illustrated.

To write with any comprehension on the politics of a country, one should have lived in it and be acquainted with the principal actors on its political stage. A mere visitor's impressions must necessarily be superficial, however much they may be backed up by reading. Hence, I shall only say as much about Queensland as is absolutely necessary to the rest of my subject. Originally Moreton Bay was a branch penal settlement of New South Wales, and as only the worst and most troublesome characters were sent there, the history of the district up to the cessation of convict immigration in 1839, was none of the brightest. The discovery of the Darling Downs led to a certain amount of pastoral settlement, but it was not till its separation from New South Wales, in 1859, that, Queensland really began to flourish. Ever since, with the exception of two short periods of depression in 1866 and 1877-78, the youngest of the Australian provinces has been catching up its elder sisters with rapidity. The northern half of the colony offers unlimited opportunities for growing sugar, cotton and other semi-tropical products; and the area is so vast that there are not wanting prophets who say that Queensland will, twenty years hence, be the leading colony of the group. It is more than probable that, long before that period, she will have split up into two provinces--the older and southern settlement resembling New South Wales in character, and the more recently occupied northern district, with its semi-tropical industries, forming a half-way house between Australia and India. A country of squatters and planters is naturally Conservative in its politics. This is the only colony where manhood suffrage does not obtain, the qualification for the franchise being £100 freehold or £1 leasehold. The members of the Upper House are nominated by the Crown for life.

The political parties of the day may be said to represent the interest of Northern and Southern Queensland respectively. The Ministry, at the head of which is Sir Thomas McIlwraith, represents the Northern portion. Hence they have recently signed a contract with an English syndicate for the construction, on the land-grant system, of a trans-continental railway to join Townsville and other north-east coast settlements with the Gulf of Carpentaria. Reproductive works and free immigration form a principal item in their policy; but that which has attracted much opposition is a proposal for the introduction of regular supplies of Cingalese. The Opposition, led by Mr. Griffiths, represents the cooler climes, where coolie labour is little wanted, and which cannot be benefited by the railway. These contend that it would be impossible to confine the coolies to the sugar plantations, and that they will interfere with the legitimate labour of Europeans. They look for the support of the working-classes. The Northern interests are those of planters and capitalists.

Although Western Australia occupies a third of the total area of the continent, it has so little connection with the sister colonies that it can hardly claim to be considered as a factor in Australian politics. The colony was founded in 1829, under the name of the Swan River Settlement, by a number of gentlemen, many of them retired officers, to whom the Imperial Government gave far larger land grants than they had capital to manage. For twenty years both settlement and settlers had to struggle for bare existence, until in 1851 they persuaded the Home authorities to establish a convict station there. This supplied much-needed labour for public works and a market for the stock and produce of the settlers, while the maintenance of the convicts necessitated the expenditure of £80,000 to £90,000 a year of Imperial money in the colony. With these aids, the settlers kept their heads above water, till, owing to the Victorian outcry against what was termed 'a blot' on the already rather shady 'escutcheon 'of Australia, the immigration was stopped in 1868. Since then the convicts have dwindled down from 5,000 to 500. Happily the discovery of new pastoral lands occurred almost simultaneously with the cessation of convict immigration, and the colony has slowly but gradually progressed, until now it has a population of 30,000 inhabitants. During the past year exploration has been vigorously prosecuted. Large tracts of country have been taken up for pastoral purposes by capitalists in the other colonies, and several projects for the construction of railways, to be paid for by grants of land, are now under consideration by the Government. At the present moment nothing but capital and population of a more energetic kind than the old settlers seems to be wanting for Western Australia to become a prosperous colony; and provided he is not afraid to rough it, there is no part of Australia in which a capitalist--whether large or small--can more remuneratively settle than in this out of the way part of the world; and this I say after having myself temporarily lost heavily there. Capital is the great need of Western Australia. At present, you feel yourself more out of the world in Perth than in Siberia. The people are poor, old-fashioned, warm-hearted, and slow-going, with no belief in the resources of their own country. Whatever wealth is made there, is made by outsiders--mostly Victorians--who are gradually galvanizing the place into life. But that Western Australia is destined to become a great country, no one who has lived there long enough to know something of it, and not long enough to become impregnated with the prevailing indifferentism, can doubt.

The province is still under Crown Government, although there is a Legislative Council, two-thirds of the members of which are elected by £10 householders, which is yearly gaining power. The advent of Constitutional Government will depend entirely upon the progress of the colony; but at present it is far from being desirable, the elected members of the Council being distinctly the obstructive party, while the Governor and the Imperially appointed officials are the only persons who look beyond the squatting interest to that of the colony as a whole.

The politics of the country consist of discussions as to whether settlers should be bound to pay half the value of the fences a neighbour has erected or wishes to erect between them; whether the railway should be allowed to go through a certain square in the township of Guildford; whether police protection, at the expense of the whole colony, should be afforded to settlers in the outlying districts, who are exposed to attacks of natives. People living within hearing of St. Stephen's can hardly imagine the virulence with which these petty questions are gone into, still less that for months they have formed the only topics of conversation. Liliput must, I feel sure, have been a far noisier place than Brobdingnag, and with the kindest feeling towards the most hospitable people in the world, I cannot forbear a smile at the recollections of the boredom I underwent on the subject of the Fencing Bill.