Читать книгу Life of Sir Henry Parkes - Charles E. Lyne - Страница 9

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The early portion of the parliamentary career of Sir Henry Parkes was passed in one of the most interesting and momentous periods of Australasian history, the period of the close of the struggle for the introduction of responsible government and its establishment.

Until 1843, when the Constitution Act which first introduced the representative principle in the Parliament of New South Wales came into force, the Legislature of the colony was a purely nominee body consisting of officials appointed to positions in the country by the Imperial Government, and nominated to the Legislature by the Governor for the time being. The Act of 1843 accorded the privilege of electing representatives to certain portions of the colony, and this was recognised as an important step towards full representation, but it was thirteen years from that time before representative government as it now exists in New South Wales became an established fact.

From 1843 to 1856 an incessant agitation for responsible government was carried on. Satisfactory as was in some respects the representation afforded the people by the Act of 1843, the nominee element in Parliament, whenever it cared to exercise its numerical strength, was successful in division, and this led the representative members and others of similar opinions outside the Legislature to do all in their power to bring about a change. In the Legislature there were William Charles Wentworth, Dr. Bland, George Robert Nichols, Charles Cowper, Terence Aubrey Murray, William Henry Suttor, and Edward Flood; and these formed the first advance guard of Liberalism. Later on Sir James Martin was elected to the Legislative Council, and he joined the party of Liberals, though with the liberal tendency of his opinions there was combined a conservative instinct which prevented him from going as far as the others in the advocacy of liberal measures.

Sir Henry Parkes entered Parliament for the first time in 1854, two years before the introduction of the system of government for which he, with the Liberal party in the colony, had been vigorously and persistently fighting. In later life he often alluded to the slow development of his parliamentary career towards the position of Minister of the Crown, as exemplifying the patience with which he performed the duties of a private member of Parliament before he thought of filling any office in the Government. He was similarly patient in awaiting the time when he could fittingly enter Parliament. Fifteen years had passed after his arrival in the colony before he took a seat in the Legislature, and for most of that period he had in one way or another, largely as the conductor of the Empire, done useful service in the public interest. Unremittingly he had worked, always for the good of the country, with no definite intention of taking a special part in politics, but at the same time, by the very nature of his everyday duties, steadily qualifying himself for the important part he was destined to perform in Parliament.

Very quickly he attracted notice as a public speaker. The anti-transportation movement was a suitable means for the encouragement and growth of public oratory, and as a member of the Anti-Transportation League he made some thoughtful and vigorous speeches, in which indications of the eloquence for which in later years he became remarkable are plainly to be seen. Then came the question of responsible government, and with that, in due course, the subject of a new Constitution.

The latter question was brought prominently before the public mind by what was known as Wentworth's Constitution Bill. This measure, afterwards greatly altered and now with those alterations the law under which New South Wales enjoys self-government, contained in its original form a number of very objectionable provisions which aroused a feeling of indignation and protest from one end of the country to the other. The creation of a colonial nobility with hereditary privileges, the establishment of a nominee Upper House of Legislature, the giving of undue representation in the Lower House to the country and squatting interests at, it was considered, the expense of Sydney, and the infliction upon the people of a heavy pension list in the interests of those officers of the Government who on the introduction of a new Constitution would be expected to retire from their offices, were among its proposals. Mr. Wentworth, liberal-minded as he was in most matters concerning the colony and its progress, framed portions of his great measure in a manner which met with almost universal disapproval, and from being a very popular man he became very unpopular. Eventually the proposal for a colonial peerage was abandoned, but the nominee Upper House exists now, and the pension list also.

The bill was powerfully assailed by Mr. Parkes on the public platform, and in the columns of the Empire; and as vigorously did he denounce the proceedings of the Imperial Government of the day on the transportation question. Inevitably he came to be regarded as a prominent man in the community,—an unflinching advocate of all that appeared for the advantage of the people, an uncompromising opponent of everything detrimental to their interests, and withal possessed of the power to express his opinions effectively. While a capable journalist associated with a well-conducted journal is a person of position and influence in whatever part of the world his work may be performed, when, in addition to his public services by means of his journal, he exerts himself unselfishly and in pure patriotism as a speaker on the popular side, he becomes, particularly in a young and progressive country like New South Wales, a leader among his fellow-men, respected, trusted, and honoured.

So it came to pass in the circumstances surrounding the position which Mr. Parkes had by this time acquired in the community that he was urged to allow himself to be nominated to a seat in the Legislature vacated by Mr. W. C. Wentworth with the intention of visiting England in support of the Constitution Bill; and on the 2nd May, 1854, he was triumphantly elected Member for the City of Sydney.

The election was a more than ordinarily important one. Mr. Wentworth's Constitution Bill, and the squatting system, by which appellation was known a system in operation in the colony beneficial to the squatting class, and of little or no advantage to anybody else, were the immediate questions of the hour, and those upon which the election was fought. "There never was an election in this colony," said the Empire in its leading article on the day the result of the polling was published, "in which political principles were so plainly the gauge of the contest as in that which has just terminated. There never probably was an election before, in which political principles so important to the future career of the colony were brought to the issue of a contest."

There was some excuse for the tone of self-laudation in which the writer of the article had indulged. The contest had been severe; the victory was unmistakable; the total number of votes polled by the successful candidate was larger by over a hundred than on any previous occasion in the colony had been recorded for a representative, and in every ward in the city Mr. Parkes had obtained a majority. He had been opposed in the election by Mr. Charles Kemp, a journalist like himself but not so clearly identified with the popular cause, and he defeated Mr. Kemp by 1,427 votes as against 779.

Mr. Parkes' speech at the nomination of candidates is interesting, for it outlines the course of conduct which marked his political life from that time to the end.

"I am not one of those," he said, "who look out for persons of leisure to fill important public offices, for I believe that every one created in God's image must do what he conceives to be his duty, whether he have leisure or not; and whatever the sacrifices he may be called upon to make, a man must not shrink from discharging that duty."

He considered the power of the people should be paramount in a country such as New South Wales. "I believe that the danger here will be in limiting, not in extending, the power of the people. . . . . that the only danger which can accrue to the country will and must result from withholding that political power and those full privileges, to which the people are entitled as free-born Britons."

On the question of education, he said,—"I have already declared myself, as systems at present stand, in favour of the National system. But so much importance do I attach to the work of mental training as the foundation of every social virtue, that I should be prepared to support any modification or alteration of that system which would more adapt it to the peculiar wants of the remote, thinly-populated, and scattered districts of the colony." Railways, he was of opinion, should, on a gigantic scale, be at once commenced, whatever the present cost, or whatever debt, within reasonable bounds, might result to posterity. "We must, however," he explained, "see first that the work is based upon sound principles, which, if carried out, will render the railways permanently useful." Of the vast importance to the country of public works of all descriptions he was very conscious.

He earnestly hoped he might prove "a valued member of the Legislature". "If it should be my fortune to be elected," he went on to say, "and I should find myself an uninfluential member of the House, my pride would not allow me to remain, whether you asked me to resign or not. That pride would compel me to retreat from a position for which I found myself unqualified, as much for my own sake as for the character of the constituency."

And with regard to his position in relation to the wealthy, as well as the poorer classes of the people, in the event of his election: "I would support the rights of the richest among you, but at the same time, with the same vigour, the same determination, the same energy, I would support the rights of the humblest and poorest. . . . I have ever set myself against class legislation of every kind. I would no more truckle to the working classes than to the highest; and at the same time I believe that among the lowest classes there is often to be found the largest share of those energies which are most valuable to a young country, and on which every institution of the country must depend."

There is much in these extracts from the nomination speech that marks the lines upon which the subsequent career of Sir Henry Parkes in Parliament was conducted, as there was much in the incidents of the election resembling the features of later contests when the triumph was equally pronounced. Shoulder high the future Premier was raised by his supporters at the close of the proceedings after the declaration of the poll; and, followed by an enthusiastic crowd, he was carried amidst vociferous cheering through the streets. It would almost seem from the manner of the crowd, the large support accorded in the voting, and the satisfaction expressed on all sides at the result of the contest, that there was abroad in the city a presentiment, if not a conviction, of the great public services which the successful candidate was destined to perform in Parliament, and of the high political position he was to attain. "This election," said the writer of the Empire's leading article in his concluding paragraph, "so full of strong and spontaneous support to the popular cause, so crushing to the faction of an old and corrupt misrule, we trust is the opening of a new era of progress for the country."

In his speech at the declaration of the poll, Mr. Parkes alluded to the circumstance of his having been elected the successor of Mr. Wentworth, whom he styled the greatest man who ever trod this country. "In assuming the position which he has vacated," he said, "I shall endeavour to copy all that was great in his political career, and avoid his errors." Great as Wentworth undoubtedly was in his services to the colony, not many years were to pass before the man who succeeded to his place in the Legislature would be acknowledged universally to be greater, and in important public services and statesmanship to have no superior in Australasia.

Mr. Parkes was sworn in a Member of the Legislative Council on 9th May, 1854, and for a few days he was silent.

The period was critical, for it was the eve of the Crimean War, and there was a feeling of alarm in Sydney at the unpreparedness of the city and of the port to resist attack. But Mr. Parkes, probably seeing that as a new member among a number of old and experienced legislators, his opinion expressed in the House might for the time have little or no effect, contented himself with saying what he had to say in the leading columns of his journal. So, for a time, though he was a regular attendant in the House, and took an active interest in everything, his voice was not often heard. He sat with the small band of elected members who were generally opposed to the official members or nominees, among them being Charles Cowper, James Martin, Terence Aubrey Murray, J. B. Darvall, G. R. Nichols, Robert Campbell, W. Thurlow, Daniel Cooper, and Stuart Alexander Donaldson.

Cowper, active, adroit, and generally capable, aimed at securing the leadership of the Liberal Party; and, by the time the new Constitution of 1856 had been brought into existence, he had attained this position. Martin was a rising solicitor, young in years, slim in appearance, with considerable power of speech in which invective was frequently prominent, and generally recognised as a young man of very good ability. From his first election he had taken a very active part in the Council, and had shown indications of future prominence in legislative work. Murray (afterwards Sir Terence Aubrey Murray), though of pronounced liberal views, was aristocratic in appearance and in manner, and was not popular. The sharp lines by which society in the colony had been divided up to this time had thrown the gentlemen of the country together, and as a class they were very exclusive. G. R. Nichols, a solicitor, was a very able man and a very advanced radical; and Donaldson was a man of large financial knowledge combined with liberal views, the latter being tempered by a moderate conservatism.

John Robertson had not yet appeared as a public man, but he and Henry Parkes had met. One day a young man, with something of the rough appearance of the bush about him, entered the editor's room in the Empire office, and immediately set about introducing himself. Extending his hand he grasped that of the editor, and saying how glad he was to see him and how he had long looked forward to the meeting, announced himself as "John Robertson of Yurundi". Not long afterwards young Robertson was a witness before a select committee of Members of the Legislative Council, of which Mr. Parkes was chairman, on the state of agriculture in the colony; and from that time until Sir John Robertson's death a more or less close acquaintance existed between the two statesmen.

Henry Parkes' acquaintance with William Bede Dalley commenced about the same time. Then a very young man, Mr. Dalley was in the habit of watching the proceedings in the Legislative Council from the Strangers' Gallery, in the company of two or three companions about the same age as himself, and it was in the Strangers' Gallery that Mr. Parkes first saw him. Introduced to each other, they were at once intimate friends. Mr. Dalley became a contributor to the Empire, writing frequently; and subsequently was appointed with Mr. Parkes to visit England with a view to promote emigration to New South Wales.

The first subject upon which Mr. Parkes addressed the Legislative Council was the lighthouse at Gabo Island; not a very great matter though undoubtedly important, for it had been alleged that through a want of supplies the men on the island had been reduced to a condition of starvation, and there was danger of the light being extinguished. It was not long before he took in hand a much larger question. A little more than a month after he was sworn in, he gave notice of a series of resolutions for the establishment of a system of immigration from Great Britain and the countries of continental Europe, "based on sound economical principles, and having for its primary object a broad identity of interest between the individual immigrant and his adopted country"; and from that time, until the Legislative Council to which he had been elected was about to give way to the Parliament under the Constitution of 1856, he was among the most energetic of members.