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Mitchell was appointed to his new position in the year 1827: this was a critical period in the history of British government and of British colonial policy.* For an appreciation of the conditions and fluctuations through which the evolving political system in Australia emerged ultimately into full self-government, some description must be given of the conditions under which the government of the colonies was carried on in London, of the administrative atmosphere in New South Wales, and of. the general administrative, social, and geographical environment in which this evolution occurred.

[* In respect of the material in this chapter grateful acknowledgment is made to two articles in the journal Historical Studies--Australia and New Zealand: J. C. Beaglehole, "The Colonial Office 1782-1854", April 1941; E. T. Williams, "The Colonial Office in the Thirties", May 1943.]

Throughout this chapter it must be remembered that the Civil Service in England was not, at that period, the carefully selected, highly trained, and efficient service which it now is: it was, in fact, only in the very earliest stages of growth, and the allocation of specific departmental responsibilities to ministers of cabinet rank was indefinite and incomplete. Throughout the whole of the period now under review the administration of the colonies, although for all practical purposes a separate entity, was under the control of the Secretary of State for War. This aspect is irrelevant in the present story, except that appointments in the colonies were largely given to officers of the navy and army; to avoid confusion, the terms "Secretary of State for the Colonies", and "Colonial Office", will be used throughout.

After the Napoleonic wars had been ended at Waterloo urgent aspects of domestic policy had occupied the attention of the British Government, and the colonies were given less attention than they might otherwise have received. But they were not altogether neglected. The Colonial Office had been established as an independent administrative unit at 14 Downing Street in 1815. In 1822 a beginning was made in an attempt to place the supervision of colonial administration on a more systematic basis. By 1833 the Colonial Office staff numbered only twenty-five clerks: these had all been appointed at an early age (16-18) on nomination by influential patrons.

R. W. Hay was appointed in 1825 as the first Permanent Under-Secretary. He controlled the Colonial Office from 1825 until 1836: of him it is recorded that his letters give the impression of a kindly and sensible man with many (perhaps too many) social and extra-official interests.[1] Of the staff generally R. M. Martin, writing in 1835, said: Mr Hay, the intelligent, patriotic, and urbane Under-Secretary, has not I believe ever been in the colonies, nor am I aware of any clerk in the Colonial Office who has ever been out of Europe: nay more, the very agents appointed by the Secretary of State to represent the colonies in England have never so far as I can ascertain with very few exceptions crossed the Channel. Let any unprejudiced man ask himself how can our colonies be well managed under such a system.[2]

Hay was the official to whom, as will appear later, Mitchell wrote private letters during his disputes with Governor Darling. In a private letter to Hay (28 March 1832) acknowledging two letters from him Mitchell said:

I have to return you my most sincere thanks for the attention you have given my numerous complaints respecting the late Governor.[3]

Hay was succeeded by James Stephen whose name is indelibly associated with a very critical period of colonial administration. He had been Legal Counsellor to the Colonial Office since 1813, and had assumed the position of Permanent Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office in 1836; he remained in this position until 1847, and during those eleven years he exercised a profound influence on the attitude of the British Government towards the colonies. Verdicts on Stephen are varied. One writer who has made a critical study of this period describes him as

that aloof, austere intellectual, member by heredity and spiritual inclination of the Clapham Sect...a legal training and many years of experience as Counsel to the Colonial Department had confirmed Stephen in habits of thought and criticism precise to the point of pedantry, and confirmed also a respectful awareness of constitutional and legal precedent. His ruthless dissection of colonial acts and ordinances led to an examination of motive which, expounded in his official minutes, occasionally verges on the unduly suspicious.[4]

Another writer who has also closely studied this period has given this verdict:

With an inadequate staff, ineffective leadership combined with unconvincing representation in a bored House, and the overlapping responsibilities of the various branches of the Civil Service it was remarkable that Stephen achieved as much as he did, and that he found time to take thought for the morrow. He was too busy, too shy, and too proud to ingratiate his opponents, and he gave too little time to outside opinion. His opponents and his subordinates exaggerated his power though he had perhaps the tendency of every public man unconsciously to live up to his cartooned self...His subtlety, in so far as he led the Colonial Office, has sometimes made it difficult for the historian, without diligent application, to understand certain areas of colonial policy.[5]

The contemporary opinion of Thomas Carlyle was:

I have seen Sir James Stephen there,* but did not understand him then, or think he could be a "clever man" as reported by Henry Taylor and other good judges. "He shuts his eyes on you," said the elder Spring-Rice (Lord Monteagle), "and talks as if he were dictating a Colonial Despatch" (most true "teaching you How Not to do it" as Dickens defined afterwards): one of the pattest things I ever heard from Spring-Rice; who had rather a turn for such. Stephen, ultimately, when on half-pay and a Cambridge Professor, used to come down hither** pretty often on an evening; and we heard a great deal of talk from him, recognizably serious and able, though always in that Colonial-Office style, more or less. Colonial-Office being an Impotency (as Stephen inarticulately, though he never said or whispered it, well knew), what could an earnest and honest kind of man do, but try and teach you How Not to do it? Stephen seemed to me a master in that art.[6]

[* At Carlyle's public lectures between 1837 and 1840.]

[** To Carlyle's home.]

Stephen's own judgment of himself is on record. He wrote in 1846:

My mind is as sensitive as my eyes and as soon pained, irritated and darkened by any kind of glare. In all truth and honesty I, have but a 50-50 opinion of myself in my relations to my fellow men, and, so far as I can divine, I am unpopular, unsuccessful in the attempt to please--passing indeed for a man of more talents than I really possess, though of less amenity, cordiality, honour, and other social qualities than I should ascribe to myself.[7]

Finally, S. S. Bell and W. P. Morell in the introduction to their book Select Documents on British Colonial Policy, 1830-1860 say:

This book will fail in one of its main purposes if it does not make clear the wisdom, the knowledge, the essential righteousness of Stephen.[8]

That is the almost universal testimony of all who have dispassionately examined the work of the Colonial Office during the years in which he controlled it. This was the man who was in charge of the Colonial Office during and after Mitchell's first prolonged visit to England (see chapter X). As to the staff at the Colonial Office, Stephen himself wrote:

The majority of the members of the Colonial Department in my time possessed only in a low degree, and some of them in a degree almost incredibly low, either the talents or the habits of men of business, or the industry, the zeal, or the knowledge, required for the effective performance of their functions: they were, without exception, men who had been appointed to gratify the political, the domestic, or the personal feelings of their patrons, that is of successive Secretaries of State.[9]

And on another occasion he said that he had never yet served under any Secretary of State who did not at least appear to attach a very high interest to the power of giving such places to his dependents and friends.

As to the attitude of ministers, and his general attitude towards colonial policy, Stephen is on record as feeling that there should be studious and speculative men standing aloof from mere despatch writing, and projecting schemes of comprehensive and remote good:

I do not know my alphabet better than I know that this is not the spirit of the English Government, and that the ambition of every Secretary of State, and his operations, will be bounded by the great ultimate object of getting off the mails.[10]

He believed that England ought never to give up a colony; that the course to be pursued should be that of cheerfully relaxing, one after another, the bonds of authority as soon as the colony itself desired that relaxation, so substituting a federal for a colonial relation--no national pride wounded, no national greatness diminished, no national duty abandoned.

Herman Merivale succeeded Stephen as Permanent Under-Secretary in 1847 and was still in that position when Mitchell's career closed. He had been, before this appointment, Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, and the text of his printed lectures in that capacity indicate an academic approach to the problems of colonial government. In his public functions at the head of the Colonial Office, however, he appears to have shown appreciation of the practical aspects of problems with which he had to deal. He was the head of the Colonial Office during Mitchell's second (1847) and third (1852) visits to England (see chapters XIII and XIV). After his retirement he published a book, Lectures on Colonization and the Colonies, to which reference will presently be made.

C. Gairdner, who had been a senior officer on the Colonial Office staff since 1824, is described as a valuable civil servant, more than a mere scribe, and far from being the traditional privileged pharisee.[11]

Estimates of the characters of the ministers* who, as Secretaries of State for the Colonies, were responsible for all matters concerning Australia, are available from both contemporary observers and from modern students who have studied the period.

[* A list of ministers is given in Appendix A.]

Stephen admired Huskisson and Lord John Russell, the one for his "dominant understanding", the other for his "dominant soul", and both as being naturally fitted for statesmanship: the rest were "mere throwings up of the Tide of Life".[12]

Stephen is reported to have said of Murray that up to the end of 1828 he had done nothing, had never written a despatch: and Hay said, in 1830, that for the many years he had been in office he had never met with any public officer so totally inefficient.[13]

McCarthy says of Goderich ("Prosperity Robinson") that he was one of a class of men who are to be found at all times of parliamentary history, and who manage somehow, nobody quite knows how, to make themselves appear indispensable to their political party.[14]

It is said of Stanley that he scarcely bothered to disguise his contempt for colonial manners: but of Russell, in contrast to Stephen's opinion (quoted above) the same authority says that he never really got inside the minds of his countrymen overseas and was often more pointed than wise.[15]

Of Glenelg it was said that he had the weak man's belief that procrastination is a substitute for incorruptibility: his sluggishness was a by-word in political circles.[16]

There are available two opinions of Lord Grey. A contemporary writer said of him that the House of Commons swarmed with his bitter enemies and he had very few friends.

Notwithstanding his great and undeniable abilities he has committed blunders which proceed from his contempt for the opinions of others, and the tenacity with which he clings to his own: while those who know him are aware that a man more high-minded, more honourable and conscientious does not exist.[17]

McCarthy, writing much later, said:

Lord Grey then and since only succeeded somehow in missing the career of a leading statesman. He had great talents and some originality; he was independent and bold. But his independence degenerated too often into impracticability and even eccentricity; and he was, in fact, a politician with whom ordinary men could not work.[18]

That is a rapid review of the ministers of state who for the most part remotely, but on some occasions directly, influenced Mitchell's career. It is, perhaps, not without significance that every Secretary of State for the Colonies during Mitchell's Australian career--with the exception of Murray--were members of the titled aristocracy. Of their attitude to their responsibilities Froude could, so late as 1885, write:

Our differences with the Colonists have been aggravated by the class of persons with whom they have been brought officially into contact. The administration of the Colonial Office has been generally in the hands of men of rank, or of men who aspire to rank; and, although these high persons are fair representatives of the interests which they have been educated to understand, they are not the fittest to conduct our relations with communities of Englishmen with whom they have imperfect sympathy, in the absence of a well-informed public opinion to guide them. The colonists are socially their inferiors, out of their sphere, and without personal point of contact. Secretaries of State lie yet under the shadow of the old impression that the Colonies exist only for the benefit of the Mother-country. They distributed the colonial patronage, the lucrative places of employment, to provide for friends or political supporters. When this, too, ceased to be possible, they acquiesced easily in the theory that the Colonies were no longer of any use at all.[19]

Two contemporary expressions of opinion might be recorded of the status of the Colonial Office at the end of the period now under review, recalling at the same time Carlyle's opinion, already quoted, of his impression of Stephen's own attitude.

The Marquis of Salisbury is reported as saying, in 1852:

I am not much disposed to yield to popular clamour, but the din of indignation against Downing Street is so bad and so incessant that I cannot help thinking there must be something in it...we alienate the Colonies and harass every Ministry with the solution of a set of problems in order that we may have the exquisite privilege of supporting some thirty useless clerks.[20]

Carlyle was even more vehement:

What these strange Entities in Downing Street intrinsically are; who made them, why they were made; how they do their function--is probably known to no mortal...Every Colony, every agent for a matter Colonial, has his tragic tale to tell you of his sad experiences in the Colonial Office; what blind obstructions, fatal indolences, pedantries, stupidities, on the right and on the left, he had to do battle with...I perceive that besides choosing Parliaments never so well, the new Colonial Office will have another thing to do: contrive to send out a new kind of Governors to the Colonies.[21]

These abrupt verdicts on ministers and secretaries do not, of course, provide an accurate or adequate portrait of any of the persons concerned: other verdicts, in an infinite variety, are probably available. They have, however, been quoted as indication that there was contemporary discontent with, and some lack of harmony within, the Colonial Office. At a time when the parliament and the people of Great Britain were preoccupied with "reform", and the major anxiety of the Colonial Office was slavery and emancipation, it is not difficult to understand that the problems of the Australian colonies were not always wisely solved. It is, indeed, probable that these expressions of opinion were prompted largely by experiences connected with the West Indies, Canada, and perhaps India, and that they had little reference to the Australian colonies.

No one with experience of public administration, who has studied the despatches of the period, can accept this picture of the Colonial Office in its relations with Australia as real: these despatches provide clear evidence of honest and intelligent efforts to find the best answer to every question that was presented: but that Mitchell was unaware of the general dissatisfaction is unlikely, and that it affected his actions is probable.

Apart from these focal aspects of administration there were rapid, almost revolutionary changes in the social and political structure of society in England. The success of the revolt of 'the American colonies, the French Revolution, the writings of Paine and others, had all stirred in the minds of the English people deep questionings as to the rights of the individual man and the form of government. Discontent simmered slowly until the little revolution in France in 1829, resulting in the flight and deposition of King Charles X, crystallized definite reaction in England. The news of the events in France "provoked in England a bewildering storm of popular feeling which swept the country and was most unfavourable to the Government" at the elections in England of August in that year.[22]

Wellington, who had, since Waterloo, held in the minds of the English people a position of extraordinary prestige and authority, was definitely reactionary and unresponsive to the popular clamour for reform. He said, in 1830, that it would be utterly beyond the power of the wisest political philosopher to devise a constitution so near to absolute perfection as that under which Englishmen had been endowed by the wisdom of their ancestors, and that Englishmen already possessed all the freedom that it was good for men to have.[23]

He was, however, powerless to delay reform, and the reform of parliament, of the social structure generally, proceeded steadily during the following decades until many radical reforms, including the fundamental redistribution of electorates, liberalized qualification for voting, voting by ballot, and abolition of the system of purchase of army commissions, had become established features of the social system. These reforms had resulted, during the period now under review, in a large measure of transfer of power from the titled aristocracy to the great middle class. From this new body came a move to cut off the colonies, to give them independence and to let them survive or perish as they could. Froude has reviewed the position:

The Colonies had no longer any special value as a market for our industries; the whole world was now open to us, and so long as their inhabitants were well off and could buy our hardware and calicoes, it mattered nothing whether they were independent, or were British subjects, or what they were. The representatives of the middle classes would have shaken oft, if they had been allowed, Australia and New Zealand, and the Canadas. The politicians who succeeded to power when the aristocracy was dethroned by the Reform Bill discovered that the Colonies were of no use to us, and that we would be better off and stronger without them.[24]

Beside these specific movements, this transfer of power had involved also great reductions in the system of patronage, and of filling important positions through personal favour or family affiliations. All this social reform, until 1855, was contemporary with Mitchell's period of service in Australia. How this flooding revolution affected Mitchell's mind during his three visits to England within this period can only be a matter for speculation, but that he was uninfluenced by these changes is unlikely.

Some indication of the quality of the Governors under whom Mitchell served is necessary and verdicts upon them are available from two sources. Dr J. D. Lang, a public figure in New South Wales throughout the whole period, had many personal dealings with each of them; Dr Frederick Watson as editor of the Historical Records of Australia formed his opinions from an exhaustive study of contemporary official documents and other records. Each of these Governors was an army officer, Darling, Bourke and Gipps being veterans of the Peninsular War.

Lang[25] and Watson[26] both agree that Darling, while possessing good qualities, was not a suitable governor for a colony whose inhabitants were emerging from a period of subservience and were agitating for an extension of civil rights. Lang's opinion was that "the military man is peculiarly unfitted for dealing with opposition when he happens to be invested with civil authority".

Bourke is described by Lang as strictly just and constitutionally humane, but obstinately fixed in his own opinions and impatient of opposition.[27] Watson considers that he was a broad-minded and far-sighted statesman and recognized the advantage of granting to the people a share in their own government.[28]

Gipps is condemned by Lang in severe terms: he says that Gipps was superior both in intellect and acquirements to the generality of mankind: but with these acknowledged mental qualities he was of an essentially narrow and diminutive mind--incapable of enlarged and comprehensive views either of the nature and requirements of his own position, or of the interests of those he governed.[29] Watson does not agree with this estimate; he acknowledges that Gipps had been much criticized, but from a careful study of his despatches he concludes that Gipps was a capable administrator and brilliant statesman with great breadth of vision and almost uncanny foresight.[30]

Fitzroy is condemned by both authorities for his lax moral character.[31] Lang's condemnation is unqualified, but Watson credits him with being an industrious and impartial administrator.[32]

Lang's opinion of Denison is expressed in very unfavourable terms as an arbitrary and unreasonable governor. Watson's verdict is not available as the Historical Records ceased before this period was reached.

Although it is true that the Colonial Office, especially when controlled by Stephen and Merivale, honestly sought the right answer to each phase of a complicated problem, there was, continually, a swaying balance between the recommendations of the Governor, and the contrary representations and pressure from people in the colony to and upon their patrons and influential friends in England. Pathetic testimony is provided by the Governors themselves.

Macquarie had, in connexion with a particular complaint, protested to Bathurst against a rebuke administered by that minister, and had said that he felt assured that his Lordship would not wish him to submit tamely to the subversion of his authority as Governor. The end of it all was that Macquarie resigned:

I must confess, my Lord, I am now heartily tired of my situation here, and anxiously wish to retire from Public Life as soon as possible.[33]

Lang records that, in 1824, he heard John Macarthur say with evident self-satisfaction that he had been the means of sending home every Governor of the colony except Macquarie.[34] Darling was dismissed, as will appear later, because of continued pressure from the discontented factions and the dissatisfaction of the Colonial Office with his administration: "Your Lordship has disgraced me in the very face of people whom I have now governed for nearly six years."[35]

Bourke resigned because the Colonial Office refused to support him in an administrative action which he believed to be necessary: "I lament that Your Lordship has not appreciated my motives in offering my resignation."[36]

Gipps, after more than eight years of valuable service during which he incurred much local hostility in trying faithfully to carry out the instructions of the Colonial Office, resigned. Watson records his opinion that it is certain that his strenuous labour as Governor was the principal cause of his early death.[37]

I beg to assure Your Lordship that to be relieved from the cares and anxieties attendant on the administration of the affairs of this remote Colony will on many accounts be very gratifying to me.[38]

Fitzroy left the colony in disrepute because of disorderly conduct.

It is impossible in this review to trace the steps towards self-government in the colony from the days when Macquarie governed as absolute ruler without any Council, and hoped there never would be one, through the creation in 1824 of a Legislative Council, containing a majority of officials, to advise the Governor upon (but not to initiate) proposed legislation, then in the following year of an Executive Council to advise on administrative actions, through the gradually increasing degrees of local autonomy and elective, as opposed to nominee, representation, to full self-government in 1855-6 with a bi-cameral parliament.

The gradual progress during these thirty years was not attained without considerable and continuous agitation, nor without frequent and sustained clashing of private interests. Merivale was Permanent Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office through all the final stages in the establishment of the autonomous constitutions of New South Wales and Victoria. His verdict on this transition period was:

There was antagonism between the wealthier and the poorer classes, greatly as that antagonism was exaggerated by those who sought their own profit in maintaining hostility between them. There was probably some truth in the assertion that the large proprietors or lessees in Australia conceived themselves to have an interest in impeding the general acquisition of land and in keeping down the wages of labour.

Under these circumstances the revolution which snapped the slight tie of dependence on the mother country left the colonial aristocracy desirous but unable to make head against a numerical majority. And yet this revolution was mainly brought about by that aristocracy itself. Such is the usual course of events. The able and wealthy leaders of the old Australian legislatures wanted to transfer power from Downing Street to themselves: they succeeded in transferring it to their inferiors.

The Home Government gained a release from the unpopular and useless office of interference: relief from wearisome struggles, and kindliness instead of hatred.

Australia gained what all communities appear to gain by emancipation however unfavourable some of the features of the emancipation may have been.[39]

The period of thirty years, which has been covered in this chapter, was exactly the period of Mitchell's association with Australian affairs. This brief, and inevitably incomplete, review is, presented with the object of giving some impression of the conditions under which Mitchell had to carry out his duties and adjust himself to conditions which were rapidly changing in both England and Australia.

He began his career as a Peninsular veteran with a meritorious record and with the prestige then accorded to all such soldiers: but, as Napier said of the Napoleonic wars, the British soldier "fought beneath the cold shade of aristocracy". It was the day of the aristocrat, the day of patronage, when nepotism was the conventionally accepted practice, when a position in the civil service of England or of Australia could not be secured except through the influence of some aristocrat, and when all departmental decisions were susceptible to pressure from some influential source.

At the very commencement of his Australian career all this abruptly changed. With Wellington's fall from power and the inception of "reform": with the rise of democracy, and, especially with the firm hand of Stephen at the Colonial Office, Mitchell found that the anchors in England upon which he had relied were losing strength, and during his later visits to England he was thrown completely upon his own resources.

In Australia he came to a colony which included all the mainland of Australia as far as 129° E. longitude--i.e. the borders of Western Australia--and in which organized settlement was almost completely limited to the strip east of the Dividing Range. Towards the end of his career Victoria and South Australia were no longer under his jurisdiction and the agitation for the separation of Queensland had begun.

Plate III. Governor Sir Ralph Darling From a painting in the possession of Mrs Anderson of Port Sorell, Tasmania

Plate IV. "Craigend", Mitchell's first residence at Darlinghurst/Lennox Bridge

When Mitchell arrived in Australia in 1827 the estimated population was 56,000: when he died in 1855 it was 793,000: and the type of population had completely changed. When he arrived in 1827 the people of the colony were the official autocracy, the squatter autocracy (exclusives), convicts, emancipists, and a limited number of free immigrants. During his first years came an increasing flow of free immigrants from Great Britain, mostly young people inspired with the spirit of reform and newly-found freedom; and, in his last years, the great influx following the discovery of gold, these with still further advanced ideas of reform. From a stage at which the landed aristocracy and the governing group firmly maintained their control of wealth and power there was a steady transition to the stage at which these refused to surrender, and the newcomers sought to secure, a dominant place in this new land. And through all these changes, from beginning to end, were the steadily increasing numbers of Australian-born of whom Commissioner Bigge had written so early as 1822:

The class of inhabitants that have been born in the Colony affords a remarkable exception to the moral and physical character of their parents: they are generally tall in person and slender in their limbs, of fair complexion and small features. They are capable of undergoing more fatigue and are less exhausted by labour than native Europeans; they are active in their habits, but remarkably awkward in their movements. In their tempers they are quick and irascible but not vindictive; and I only repeat the testimony of persons who have had many opportunities of observing them, that they inherit neither the vices nor the feelings of their parents.[40]

During Mitchell's term of office the land problem was unceasingly acute. As Surveyor General he was responsible for all matters such as disposal of Crown lands, of survey of boundaries of alienated land, of titles, supervision of lease-hold tenures, and all related matters, over a territory from Bass Strait to the middle of Queensland. The old system of free grants of land had been abolished by the Home Government in 1831 and from that time followed continual changes in land policy. In these changes the influence of Wakefield's "proposal for colonizing Australia" can be recognized, although his system was not adopted as fully in New South Wales as it was in other colonies.

Mitchell would, without doubt, have known that it was Wakefield's influence which moved the Colonial Office to introduce the basic change in policy in 1831 under which sale by auction replaced the system of free land grants, and even later changes, at a time when Stephen was legal counsellor to the Colonial Office; and it is probable that he knew of Stephen's estimate of Wakefield's character:

I saw plainly that the choice before me was that of having Mr Wakefield for an official acquaintance whose want of truth and honour would render him most formidable in that capacity, or for an enemy whose hostility was to be unabated. I deliberately preferred his enmity to his acquaintanceship and I rejoice that I did so.[41]

The story which follows in this volume is an attempt to describe the course steered by Mitchell through these very troubled waters; to indicate how far he was able to adapt himself to a social environment which changed so fundamentally that the world of 1855 would look back with puzzled wonder on the world of 1827; and to record the great services he rendered to his adopted country under conditions which were always difficult.