HOW VICTORIA OBTAINED ITS CONSTITUTION.

Bush Advocate, Volume V, Issue 354, 16 August 1890, Page 8

HOW VICTORIA OBTAINED ITS CONSTITUTION.

by sir cn.vr.fsa «aya?? r-jri'Y i:r ''the co^TEMrOKAIIY KEVIE'W." The history of colonial liber ly would bo incomplete without some account of transactions in a province uf New South 'Wuies, then known us Port Phillip, but which has binco become famous as thu colony of Victoria. Sixty years ago, "while England was .struggling I'oi 1 £mv Hint Reform Bili, and Ifrance was iv the crisid of her second revolution, the loot of a civilised man had never bcou set on the .soil of this territory. But half-a-dozen years late.- it became widely known by an exploration inado by the Surveyor-General of Now South Wales, who published a glowing 1 dcduriptiou oi its soil, climate, and resources. It speedily got occupied, and gradually became organised as an outlying province of iScw SouUi Wales. From the beginning it w;w entirely soli-made ; the Colonial Cilice having only interfered to declare that no settlement, ought to be planted in that district, and the Governor at Sydney d olio wed up this decree by warning the enterprising settlers that. s hoy would bo prosecuted as intruders on the public iands of the Crown. Colonists who denounced the injustice of the mother country ■were not always just to their own dependencies. Port Phillip was inuuh discontented with_ the Executive and Legislature at Sydney. Its half-dozen representatives in the latter body proved quite powerless to protect tho interests of their constituents. After a short experiment it was found impossible to get lit men to reside a thousand miles away from their daily pursuits ior results so iusignitioant aa could be obtained. The Mndful. of inhabitant!} petitioned tho Imperial Parliament over and over again that Porb Phillip should be created a. separate colony, but were not listened to. To mark their discontent with the existing Bvstein in a manner which could not l»e misunderstood, they at length elected tho Secretary of State in London to be their representative in Sydney. This stroke told ho:ne in Westminster, and in 1800 it waj at length. determined to yield to their wishes and to create Port Phillip a separate colony. One of the duties entrusted to the expiring council in Sydney was to frame an electoral Act for the Legislative Council of tho now colony, and it cannot bo denied that they did this work in an unfriendly and grudging spirit. I must not be supposed to paint the > loaders of colonial enterprise as heroes of romance. They were contending for just rights, and so far entitled to cur sympathy, but they were sometimes greedy and unreasonable in pursuing thoir private interests. Port Phillip had constantly complained that the money raised by sale of land in their district -was epeut in local improvements in Sydney, and the new Electoral Act threw" political power in the new colony mainly into the hands of Crown tenants, or squatters, as they were called, of whom Mr. Wentworth was one of tho. leaders. The town population got one member to every. 5,000 inhabitants, the farmer one member to every 7,000, while tho squatter got one member to every 2,000. This was the parting gift of the Legislature at Sydney ; when it could hold them no longer, it sent them to sea in a boat built to capsize And it may bo feared that Mr. Weatworth was scarcely moro generous to his unhappy- fellow-countrymen, the aboriginal inhabitants of Australasia. After the first Legislative Council of Port Phillip was elected, but before it began to sit, & transaction occurred which ohanged for ever tho fortunes of tho settlement. The maddening vision -which inspired Columbus to explore unknown seas, and which drew Covtez, Pizarro, and Raleigh in his adventurous true>, was realised among them in a land seamed and sown with virgin gold. I have elsewhere told tho story: — "(xold was found on the surface, and a feyr inches or a few feet under the su/faee; 'sometimes in Bolid lumps of immense value (which tho miners, after the C-tlifornian example, called 'nuggets'); sometimes iv ' pockets/ where a number of smaller nugget* lay close together; sometimes in scattered particles mixed with tho soil, but easily separated by sluicing the oartk in water. The new Legislature, created to regulate the simple interests of graziers and traders, would soon, it was plain, find itself culled upon to rule the turbulent population of a gold country, and to face large and unexpected problems of policy and government." Tho colonists encountered theso unexpected difficulties with reasonable vigour and promptitude. After a few sessions had given them parliamentary experience, they pronounced the system of an Executive completely independent of a Legislature an abortion, and demanded a constitution like that of New South Wales. They wer6 authorised to frame such a measure, and soon sent ono to Downing street, differing from their exemplar chiefly in having an elective Upper Chamber, with a high property qualification, instead of a nominated one. Tho Bill was promised speedy consideration, but month followed month, and session followed session, before the promi«ed was fulfilled. It was delayed, indeed, till the colonists ■were fevered with wrath and iudiirnaXion. A deputation was sc7it homo to flap tho colonial Minister, iv vain. But though he had no desira to send thorn a constitution, ho had another boon in store for them. They had repeatedly refused to pollute thoir community by tho admission 01 convicts, but the Colonial Office thought their objections futilo and unreasonable. " And now, when the desire of self-govern-ment was about to be gratified, tho rouewal of the attempt wounded their pride, as much as it alarmed their fears. A meeting was immediately held, at which the chief men of the settlement — English, Irish, and Scotch — wero spokesmen of tho popular determination that the convicts should not be received. And not in the masquerado of savages, like tho patriots of Boston, but without disguise or fear, th<\v delivered their will. Tho magistrates of the city and district met soon afterwards, and endorsed tho popular decision. The Governor at Sydney at thia timo, a ci-dvvant dandy, aiming only to keep things quiet, promised for peace sake that no convicts should be permitted to land in PortPhillip until • the feelings of the commanity wero made known in Downing street.' Tho colonists on their side determined that no felons should be intruded upon thoir wives and children, whatever might bo the response of the distant oraclo. A. second meeting agreed nemine contradiienle that tho prisoners should not be permitted to Iw.d. This intrepid resolution, 4iko all during action, was originally the work of a few, but it suited tho temper of the people, and was adopted with is near an approach to unanimity as can ever bo attained iv communities where individual opinion is frco. ' Tho convicts must not land/ became the popular watchword. Tho Governor at Sydney, having us littlo tho temper as Iho resources necessary to play tho part of a tyrant, adhered to his promise; and tho captuin, under his peremptory ordeiv, .set sail for Sydney." litre the story of how colonies obtained their political rights might stop, but that its most incredible chapter remains to be written. At this period (1854) responsible Government was in full operation in Canada and in all the neighbouring colonies. It had been obtained 1 1 the cost of two insurrections indeed, and tho lives of three Governors, who wero Bacrilioed in the conflict as surely as if they had fallen in battle ; but the victory of the people in the Atlantic colonies was complote and confessed, and tho future course of tho Colonial office was plain. The constitution of Victoria was promised us soon as the House of Commons could find leisure to scrutiuise tho Bills sent home. Tho interval need not have exceeded a few months, and might have passed iv perfect tranquility, interrupted only by public rejoicings — a species of revolry for which colouists have always showu an uncommon aptitude. But the Imperial Government so employed it that tho worst blunders which disgraced the contest in the West were now renewed iv the South. A fierce insurrection was provoked, and another I infatuated Governor, chosen to perform a task for which he had no faculties or training, died, a. 1 * Metcalfe and Sydenham h;jd died on another continent. It will probably be inferred that the permanent offiecta of the Colonial Department, in whoso hutwJa the threads P* policy must n\w&p {

rest, were weak and iuoapabb. But thin assumption would bo a grave mistake. The Undcr-Secretfuy was a ni:m whose historical essays in the Edh>!»n\r/h llcncw rivalled Sraeaulay's", and were often mistaken for them. Onoof hi* uoUcujnics has uiil-K-noed political thought in En-rla-nl'by hi.s wi'-tuurs more than Cobden or Bright iiii'iner/'.r-.l ih by oratory, and another is author of a, dwiKi, the gru.ii.o3fc, perhaps, pi*oJui:?-.i in England since tho Elizabethan era. Nor were they ovorborne by the ftrom? porsunality of tlieir political chief. ; T!io See-Lvlsr-,- of Btato for tho Colonies Was if country «rcntloinun in office for the first time, aad whose highest achievi.-r.irsnt had been 'to preside benignly at tho Quarter Sessions of his district. All the trouble came from another source, from the practice of sacrificing the largest^ colonial interests to the smallest convenience in Palace Yard. There was a steady supporter of the Government at this time rarely heard in debate, bat never absent from a. division, who had a cousin to provide for, and as the salary of Governor in the gold colony was fixed on an oriental ecale, nnd waf , in fact, as great as tbo salaries of the President of the United States, the Prime Miuister of England, and the Speaker of the House of Commons united— he claimed this prize as the reward of his party fidelity. His protege was a posfc-captain, trained on the quarter-deck, and as ignorant as a Pasha of all that concerned Parliamentary government. His achievementa in Victoria will complete the history of tho long struggle for colonial rights. '