Читать книгу Life of Sir Henry Parkes - Charles E. Lyne - Страница 20

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Early in 1858 Mr. Parkes re-entered Parliament, being returned at the general election in this year for a constituency known as the North Riding of Cumberland.

His retirement from Parliamentary life at the close of 1856 had not been as prolonged as he had anticipated. He had made a determined effort to free himself, for at least some years, from the obligations attending the possession of a seat in the Legislature. Twice he had voluntarily returned the trust confided to his care by the electors of the City of Sydney, and each resignation had been followed by a closer attention to his duties in the office of the Empire. With his great newspaper established on firm foundations, and enjoying a prosperous career, Parliamentary labour would have been a delight; with the journal struggling to free itself from its load of indebtedness it was unsatisfactory and burdensome. But his efforts to keep out of the Legislature until he should be able to command more leisure proved futile. Important as unremitting attention to the interests of the Empire was acknowledged to be, there were those among his friends, who, recognising his peculiar fitness for political life were always urging him to seize the earliest occasion for re-entering the Legislative Assembly. These importunities naturally had some effect, though of themselves they were not sufficient to draw him from the course he had resolved to take. But when his efforts to reorganise the Empire office, and make some satisfactory arrangement with the creditors of the paper, had failed, and permanent success in his newspaper enterprise was seen to be, under the circumstances, very doubtful, if not impossible, there seemed to be no reason why he should remain away from Parliament a moment after the opportunity for his return presented itself. So it came about that he re-entered the Legislative Assembly as one of two members for the North Riding of Cumberland.

He might have stood for Sydney, the electorate which had previously returned him, or for two or three other constituencies, but there were weighty reasons why he should present himself for election in the North Riding. At this time he was living at Ryde, an important part of this constituency, and he had many friends there. Some of these friends, without making proper preparations to ensure success, injudiciously nominated him as a candidate for the electorate at a bye-election which took place a few months before the general election at which he was afterwards returned. The result was that he was defeated. This was unpleasant, but as the causes of the defeat were not such as to show that the constituency as a whole was adverse to his representing it, he determined to submit himself to the electors of the North Riding a second time rather than become a candidate for any other electorate.

His determination was supported by a requisition from the electors, numerously and influentially signed. "I may fairly claim", he said in his reply to this requisition, "a place among our oldest public men who are still before the country, and therefore my character, to some extent, may be tried by the test of time. My votes recorded in nearly every division of two Legislatures, and my expressed sentiments on nearly every subject that could be submitted for debate, are open to the severest review, and I am content to stand or fall by such examination."

At this period he had been actively engaged in public life for ten years, and the nature of the political situation at this general election was such as to justify a claim on the electors based upon long and valuable service in the public interest. Responsible government, so far as it had been tried, had not produced the good results which at its introduction had been anticipated. It had been in operation for twenty months; and during that time four Ministries had been in office, parties in Parliament had become disorganized, and legislation was at a standstill. The first popular Parliament in the country had ended in "nothing effectual, nothing real, nothing tangible", and there was a general feeling of disappointment. In the appeal to the constituencies which followed, this feeling was apparent by a disinclination on the part of prominent colonists for public life. It was a time when men who, like Mr. Parkes, could point to several years of labour in behalf of the people, were wanted.

Parliament had been dissolved at the instance of Mr. Cowper, on the land question, though the matter on which the Government had sustained actual defeat was the Assessment Bill, a measure which sought to continue a charge upon the squatters of the country by an assessment upon the stock depasturing on the runs. The principal feature in the programme for the new Parliament was electoral reform, by which there would be a larger number of members in the Assembly, an equalization of the electoral districts,—representation being based upon population,—and an extension of the franchise. With an amended electoral system, it was believed there would be much better means available for dealing successfully not only with the land question, but with such questions as the abolition of State aid to religion, the improvement of the means of education, prison reform, the better management of asylums for lunatics, and of Government charitable institutions, railway and road construction, and an equitable system of finance.

Mr. Cowper and his colleagues were not in high favour, and there was some danger of their meeting with disaster in the elections. They strengthened their position by admitting Mr. Robertson to the Cabinet as Secretary for Lands arid Public Works, but they had more difficulties to meet than those connected with the land question. So insecure did the position of the Government appear that Mr. Dalley, then young and ardent, implored the electors of Sydney, where he with the Premier and two others formed the Government bunch of candidates, to return Mr. Cowper whatever else they might do. Mr. Cowper was elected, but he was fourth on the poll; and Mr. Dalley and another of the Government bunch, and Mr. J. K. Wilshire, were rejected.

Mr. Parkes, not being one of those who professed to approve of everything the Government had done, or one who had been accustomed in his public career to refrain from expressing his disapproval of that which merited condemnation, was charged by some with being an advocate of violent measures, a Radical of the extremest type. But he appealed to the facts of his public life in repudiation of the charge.

"I have ever been opposed," he said, in his address to the electors of the North Riding, "to experimental legislation, and believe that the Parliament of a new country has no graver duty to perform than guarding against the accumulation of special enactments which, introduced upon paltry grounds to meet particular cases, are often at variance with the maxims of common law; and, while they encumber the statute book with unintelligible complications, are calculated to impede the healthful working of the great natural laws so clearly laid down for the moral government of society. Acting upon this conviction, if elected by you, I shall subject all measures, from whatever quarter they may proceed, to those indisputable principles established by a long course of political reasoning, and those great practical truths deduced from legislative experience, which the statesmen of England and America accept as their common landmarks. The liberalism I have ever professed, and ever acted upon, is in reality the true conservatism of mind and intelligence in our institutions—of justice and equity in our laws."

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, not then knighted, writing from Melbourne at this time to Mr. Edward Butler, the well-known barrister of a few years ago, referred to Mr. Parkes as a man who had won general confidence by public services performed in the interests of the entire people. The letter is remarkable for its recognition of the important position in politics which, at this period, Mr. Parkes had attained, and for its expressed belief in his future eminence.

"I wish I knew how, without impropriety," Sir Charles wrote, "I could aid you in securing the election of Mr. Parkes for North Cumberland. I would gladly go to Sydney with that object, if my interference was not liable to be considered unwarrantable. And I am the more anxious because some of our countrymen, you tell me, hesitate to support him. I should be sorry to see the Irish citizens of these colonies separate themselves in any respect from the general muster of Australians; but such a separation would be painful and humiliating, if it were directed against a man who has won general confidence, by public services performed in the interest of the entire people. Mr. Parkes is pre-eminently such a man, and his labours obliterate from all generous minds the recollection of such casual mistakes or misunderstandings as cloud the life of every public man.

"Our friends were angry with him for resisting the election of Mr. Plunkett, for Sydney, in March, 1856. So was I. But the day after that event, or any day since, if I were living in Sydney, I would have felt it my duty to aid, abet, and co-operate with him in politics, as one of the wisest and most disinterested public men that Australia can boast. I am not much in the habit of accepting opinions readymade from any man; but if I were to select the man on your side of the border, with whom I hold most principles in common, I would name him. And to the right opinions he adds that subtile moral force (combined of genius and integrity) which turns opinions into facts. I am confident that ten years hence, and I do not doubt that ten generations hence, the name which will best personify the national spirit of New South Wales in this era will be the name of Henry Parkes.

"At this distance your contemporary annals fall into the perspective of history to us, as those of England do to you; and the shame and regret which the exclusion of Bright and Cobden from the English Parliament must have created in Sydney, would be felt by some of the best men here at the exclusion of Henry Parkes from your Legislature. I cannot doubt that there are many constituencies which would be rejoiced to have him; but the difficulty of the contest which he has undertaken is a touching evidence to me of a generous and lofty character. He is conscious of public integrity, and he scorns to select a friendly jury to pronounce on his career."

And the letter concluded:

"If there be among the constituency any political or personal friends of mine, entreat them to range themselves on the side of Parkes. In all the elections throughout these colonies, there is not one contest in which I would have less difficulty in taking my side, whoever stood on the other, for there is no man entitled to exclude him. And I would hear with the intensest pain and humiliation, that those in whom I have the interest of a common origin, ranked themselves against a man for whom I have not only the highest esteem as a personal friend, but the completest confidence as a legislator and a statesman."

Mr. Parkes was elected for the North Riding of Cumberland, with Mr. Thomas Whistler Smith. He was returned second on the poll, by a small majority; but the contest was severe, and he had many difficulties to contend against. The features of his success lay in the facts that the election cost him nothing, he was not required to make any pledges, and he proved to the community generally that his previous defeat in the constituency was not a correct representation of the feelings of the majority of the electors.

"If Mr. Smith", said Mr. Parkes at the official declaration of the poll, "can feel a sentiment of just pride in being returned for the North Riding of Cumberland, how much more may I, who have been before the country some ten years, who, by the—course I have taken, have created large numbers of hostile opponents, who having taken a most active course in public life, cannot have failed, by the very fact of my having taken so decided a course, to have raised up a large and powerful opposition against me—how much more, under such circumstances, may I feel justly proud of being returned by the constituency which may be considered least favorable to my election."

"The principles on which I have acted," he also said, "are the principles which some of the most enlightened and best men are seeking to carry out in the Government of our fatherland. Those principles I shall not swerve from. I shall to the best of my ability, with whatever energies I possess, seek to carry them out. Though I do not profess to be altogether indifferent to party, believing as I do that responsible government must be carried on by something like constitutional parties, still I will not do violence to my judgment—violence to what I conscientiously believe to be right—for the sake of any party whatever."

In this spirit was he determined to pursue his parliamentary career.