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Table of Contents

AN ABLE DEBATER—BETWEEN SERFDOM AND FREEDOM—POPULATION SPEEDILY DOUBLED—IMMIGRANTS FOR PORT PHILLIP—THE COLONIAL OFFICE CLOG—MISAPPROPRIATING REVENUES—THE CUSTOM-HOUSE—MAKING BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW—A GENERAL SMASH—FIRST ELECTIVE COUNCIL—FIGHTING FOR LIBERTY—FAVOURABLE SEASONS—THE GOVERNOR'S DEATH.

THE ninth Governor of New South Wales was Sir George Gipps, who assumed the reins of Government on 24th February, 1838. He was a military man, and although his superior education enabled him to hold his own in debate with 'the old wives of the old Nominee Council,' as Dr. Lang called them, his mind was too narrow to enable him to govern on the broader lines so necessary to advancement in the then condition of the colony, which was in the transition stage between serfdom and freedom. He was an eloquent speaker, a nervous, forceful writer, and could deal out sarcasm as cutting as a two-edged knife. But his manners were repulsive, his disposition arbitrary, and his demeanour overbearing, so that he made enemies of those who would have done good service for him and with him as friends.

The news that a splendid tract of country had been discovered at Port Philip had given a fillip to immigration, and a steady stream of emigrants of a superior class poured in, bringing with them capital, their object being to settle in the colony as stockholders, agriculturists, merchants, &c. So great was this stream that the population of the colony was actually doubled in the course of a very short time, no fewer than 23,200 immigrants having landed during 1841, at the end of which year the population stood at 149,669 persons. At the end of 1846, the last year of Gipps' administration, the population numbered 196,704 persons.

Under favourable conditions the colony would have floated on the topmost wave of prosperity; but the conditions were not favourable. Governor Gipps and the Colonial office at home standing in the way of anything like progress. The returns from land revenue were beginning to swell, and the cupidity of the Home Government was aroused. Although they had declared when the returns were small that it was only reasonable that such revenues should be applied wholly and exclusively for the benefit of the colony, they now demanded that the revenues should be poured into the parental lap, and Governor Gipps was just the man to enforce the selfish regulation.

The case really stood thus: The colonists were expected to defray the cost of their own government, with all the addition of police and gaol expenses incident to a 'periodical inoculation of British-grown felonry,' and with the sham of a Legislative Council and financial discussions, all sources of revenue, except additional taxation, being removed from their control. The price and management of Crown or waste lands, and the expenditure of funds arising from them in emigration, were settled by English commissioners; the Crown appropriating the surplus. The custom-house tariff and the rules for levying it were settled by the English custom-house authorities, who also appointed its officers. As to the funds raised by local taxation, the Colonial Secretary, in the name of the Crown, created offices, fixed fines and salaries, and appointed officers, without the slightest regard to the wants and wishes of the colonists. And under such a condition of things—than which that of the ancient people when condemned to make bricks without straw was not much worse—the marvel is that a rebellion was not bred amongst the colonists, who, as a people, were just beginning to 'feel their feet.'

Animated evidently by a desire to please the Colonial office, Gipps adopted a policy as shortsighted and ruinous as it was heartless, in regard to the waste land and town allotments, only allowing a small quantity of the former to come into the market when the demand was at its highest, and placing a very high upset price upon the latter. The settlement of the lands by the very class who would have turned them to the best account was thus prevented; an unhealthy and even ruinous spirit of speculation was provoked; and although the British Treasury received large sums of money the colony sucked in injury rather than benefit from the transactions, and the result was a general 'smash,' in which individuals, syndicates and monetary institutions alike suffered loss—in some cases absolute ruin being the result. The upshot of the unhealthy speculation is thus described by Dr. Lang:—

"The purchase of Government land and town allotments declined apace, and then ceased entirely. The obligations to the banks and the other leading companies, as well as to private individuals, fell due; and land and stock, and other property of all kinds, were forced upon a falling market to meet them. These articles of property consequently declined rapidly in value, falling as far below the average of former years as they had been unnaturally raised above it; and all but universal bankruptcy ensued. A flock of sheep was actually sold by the sheriff at this period, in satisfaction of a comparatively small debt, for sixpence per head; while another flock the property of one of the oldest merchants in the colony, was purchased at so low a price (one shilling and sixpence per head) that within two months after the sale, which took place in the month of September, just before shearing time, the fortunate purchaser realized upwards of £250 more than the whole amount of his purchase-money from the wool alone, the flock being worth in ordinary seasons, from £9,000 to £10,000. In another similar case, cattle which had been bought at six guineas ahead were sold at seven shillings and sixpence; and horses that cost sixty guineas, the produce of Persian and Arab steeds, brought only seventeen or eighteen shillings; while a house in Sydney, for which £5000 had been offered and refused very shortly before, was sold for £1,200; and sugar, which had been shipped at Manilla at £15 per ton, sold in Sydney for £10. Carriages of all kinds which had previously been numerous both in town and country, beyond all European proportion to the population, experienced a still more remarkable reduction. A first-rate curricle, quite new, which had cost £140, sold for £3, and numerous costly equipages, which it was found were now no longer needed, fell into the hands of the respective coachmen and grooms, who forthwith started them as hackney coaches in the city of Sydney, and managed to earn an honest livelihood for themselves; occasionally taking up their 'old masters,' when they were able to pay them a fare.'"

It was during Gipps' administration (in 1842) that a representative character was given to the Legislative Council by introducing into it twenty-four elective members. By what was commonly called 'The Constitutional Act,' passed by the Imperial Parliament, a Legislature of one House was constituted, to consist of thirty-six members; of whom six were to be Government officers, other six Crown nominees, and twenty-four to be elected by the people, viz., eighteen for New South Wales proper and six for Port Phillip. Concerning this body Dr. Lang says—and even the scant reports of the proceedings published strongly support his statement—"For general ability; for extent and variety of information, available for the business of legislation; for manly eloquence; for genuine patriotism; and for energetic effort and dignified action, I question whether the first Legislative Council of New South Wales, under the constitution of 1842, has ever been surpassed by any Legislature out of England in the British Empire."

And if the colony to-day is in need of one thing more than another it is of that ability, eloquence, and patriotism which characterized such men as William Charles Wentworth, Robert Lowe, Charles Cowper, Richard Windeyer, Dr. Lang, and others whose names appear on the roll among the first members constitutionally elected by the people nearly half a century ago. There was fighting to do in those days and there were giants to wield the weapons in the people's cause. The strife between the Governor and the elected members waxed hotter at each succeeding encounter, but the 'elementary rights of Englishmen' for which the latter fought could not be borne down even by the double despotism which operated through a grasping Colonial Office in London and a narrow-minded Governor on the spot. Even in those early days there was forcefulness in the sentiment uttered by Southey:—

Easier were it

To hurl the rooted mountain from its base,

Than force the yoke of slavery upon men

Determined to be free!

And inch by inch the Imperial authorities and their willing servant were forced to yield the rights for which these patriotic colonial legislators fought. Colonial grievances were ventilated and redressed—grievances relating to the revenues; the price of Crown lands; the assessment on pastoral proprietors; the abuses in connection with Crown patronage; the expense in police, gaols, &c.; the responsibility of judges of the Supreme Court; and a host of other matters which seriously affected the well-being of the rising colony. And if these early heroes were not directly successful in winning the freedom for which they fought, they certainly succeeded in laying the foundation of that liberal form of Government which to-day is accounted as the freest and most enlightened of any known in Christendom.

The administration of Sir George Gipps—an administration extending over eight years—will always be considered one of the most important epochs in the history of New South Wales, associated as it was—to use the words of Samuel Sidney—"with the permanent infliction of the £1 an acre monopoly, the consequent triumph of the great pastoral over the freehold interest, the development of the wonderful pastoral resources of Australia, the abolition of assignment and transportation of criminals, the rise of a free population, the introduction of the elective element into the Legislature, the commencement of a legitimate parliamentary struggle for the establishment of a responsible government, and a crowd of events of great local but minor national importance. All these date back to the period when Sir George Gipps reigned and governed too, and contested every possible question with the Legislative Council, with the judges, with the Crown land Commissioners, with the clergy of all denominations, with squatters, with settlers, with every one who dared to have any other opinion than the opinion of the Governor, except the Secretary of State for the Colonies."

But while the strife thus briefly outlined proceeded, the seasons continued favorable, the grass grew, flocks and herds increased, new pastures were being explored and taken up, and communal wealth was steadily growing under the influence of individual frugality and industry; so that when Governor Gipps left the colony, on 11th July, 1846, he was able to announce that the revenue exceeded the expenditure, and the exports the imports, while the demands upon the labour market were greater than ever before known, and most difficult of supply. And this was not the only period in the history of the colony during which steady advancement towards solid prosperity was made—spite of administration that can only fittingly be described by the term disastrous.

Sir George Gipps died a few months after his return home in 1847.