VII.
TASMANIA(continued).
Circumstanceshave made Tasmania lean more than any other of the Australian Colonies towards sober conservatism in its ideas and its social and political aspect. Perhaps the youthful ideal of those who are now middle-aged and influential was generally the British regimental officer, as he was to be found, some twenty or thirty years ago, in quarters at Hobart Town, or retired and occupied with his grant of land up the country. For in those days there were sometimes a couple of regiments in the colony, which formed no unimportant or inconsiderable proportion of its population, besides a number of government officials in various capacities. The original landed proprietors were mostly retired officers of the army or navy, army doctors, or other government officials, to whom up to about thirty-five years ago grants of land were made by the Crown.
Land was not worth very much then. Ploughing your field with a sentry keeping guard at one end of it lest you should be speared by a black fellow crawling out of the bush, was farming under difficulties: to say nothing of the probability of having the stationcleared out by bushrangers from time to time, and the chance of being shot, as a precaution against identification, by men who had already forfeited their lives.
It is better than any novel to get an old Tasmanian settler to tell you about those old times, the uproarious, dare-devil, killing and robbing heroic age of the colony. The crowning event, the great joke of the time—soon after which things began to get comparatively peaceable and prosaic—was the ‘black war,’ as it is ironically called. This was one of the wildest and most impracticable schemes ever devised by a really wise man, for catching the black fellows alive and unhurt and deporting them to some island where they might be both harmless and safe. All available soldiers and settlers were mustered and posted in a continuous line across the south-eastern corner of the country, which line, advancing day by day and gradually converging, was at length to enclose and catch them as in a trap. It was like sending half a dozen mastiffs to drive rabbits out of a wood, as almost every one knew beforehand it would be. Somebody caught (I think) one black man and a woman, very much by accident, and no more were evenseen. But 30,000l.or 40,000l.had been spent on the campaign, and when the campaigners sent the bill home accompanied by a memorial setting out magniloquently the glorious results attained, John Bull unsuspectingly paid it, and the colony was so much the richer for its ‘black war.’
Very soon after this—but in no sort of way in consequence of it—the whole race of aborigines came oneby one and voluntarily gave themselves up to a man named Robinson, who had acquired an extraordinary influence over them, and who deserves to be nominated patron saint of the colony. They were settled on Flinders Island and kindly treated, but nevertheless died off fast. The small remnant was afterwards settled at Oyster Cove, an exquisitely lovely spot on D’Entrecasteaux’ Channel, where the survivors, now only three in number, are to be seen.
The bushrangers too were put down soon after the black fellows had been removed; and though others appeared from time to time, they could never escape capture very long, not having, as escaped convicts had in New South Wales, any sympathisers among the settlers; and now for many years past no such thing as a bushranger has been heard of in Tasmania.
As the country became safe, land became valuable, and was sold instead of being granted away, and sheep and wool brought a certain degree of prosperity. Still no great amount of wealth was made by the settlers up the country, and in the towns those who made money by trade generally migrated with it to Victoria, and settled there where there was more scope for them, and the less adventurous built themselves comfortable houses in or immediately around Hobart Town; so that the original landowners have not been supplanted so much as might have been expected, considering the events and changes which have taken place, by rich mercantile men or tradesmen; but in the bad times of late years have either disappeared altogether, leavingtheir places vacant, or continue on the same property, seldom richer, and often much poorer, than when they were younger. In the list of magistrates there are still[9]fifteen who were on the commission before 1835.
Very many persons have not once left the island since they came to settle in it, or were born in it. It is quite a new sensation to live amongst people, comparatively few of whom, rich or poor, old or young, have ever seen a railway. The old came before railways were made anywhere, and both live in a country where a Bill to make the first has only this week passed the Legislature.
Nevertheless, with all their conservatism, during the ten years since the first Parliament under the new Constitution met, the Government has been changed seven times, four Parliaments have been elected, and only three Members of the House of Assembly have kept their seats during the whole time. The latter contains a considerable ‘rowdy’ element, which has introduced a degree of scurrilousness and coarse personal abuse, astonishing to decorous English ears, into hustings speeches and occasionally into parliamentary debates. On one occasion, the Head of the Government, when received with disfavour by the Assembly, appealed from it for sympathy to the spectators. Shortly afterwards, when he had left office, he was, for gross misconduct, expelled by a vote of the House from sitting there for a year. Yet he is still a prominentmember of the Opposition, and is one of the three Members who have been returned for every Parliament.
The administration ordinarily consists of a colonial secretary, a treasurer, and an attorney-general, one of whom is Premier. The duties of office are not so onerous as to prevent a minister pursuing his ordinary avocations, such as those of barrister or merchant.
The legislative power is vested, as in all the Australian colonies which have a constitution, in two Houses, corresponding to our Lords and Commons, and actually using May’sParliamentary Practiceas their text-book on points of order. The upper House or Legislative Council of Tasmania contains fifteen members, each of whom sits for six years from the date of his election. This House is not subject to dissolution by the Governor. Its members are chosen by electoral districts, the electors being freeholders to the amount of 50l.a year, doctors, ministers of religion, graduates of a university, barristers, and army or navy officers, resident twelve months prior to the election. The Lower House, or Legislative Assembly, is chosen by ten-pound householders, and is subject to dissolution by the Governor, who now has much the same powers in the colony that the Crown has in England.
This ten-pound franchise is in the towns practically equivalent to household suffrage. In the country the labourers in general have no votes, as they live rent-free in houses belonging to their employers. No lowering of the franchise has ever been seriously demanded or proposed, and indeed there has been hardly any such thingas a genuine democratic cry; but from time to time sham ‘poor man’s friend’ cries are got up for election purposes. Those who get them up are so notoriously worthless, that most honest people here are inspired with contempt for democratic cries and democrats everywhere, and when they read their English news have less toleration for noisy demagogues than an average English Tory would have. Yet here, as in England, such opinions are oftener expressed in private than in public, and there is apparently the same shrinking from plain outspoken denunciation of the evils of an unmixed democracy—evils the approach of which so true a lover of liberty as De Tocqueville constantly deplored, as certain to be, sooner or later, fatal to both freedom and patriotism.
Intimidation of voters is out of the question in a country where there are scarcely any large employers of labour, and where the relation of landlord is comparatively rare, has none of the traditions of feudalism in it, and is subject to no obligation but that of money payment. In general a seat in the House of Assembly is not so much coveted as to have any money value, so that there is no inducement to bribery. The only constituency, I was told, amongst which it has been practised is that of Hobart Town itself. In this, the only instance in which the ballot could have been of use, it (on one occasion at least) signally failed. An ingenious method was practised of evading its secresy, and making it certain that the bribees carried out their contract. The system of voting was for each voter tobe presented, on entering the polling-booth, with a voting-paper, duly signed, containing the names ofboththe candidates. This the voter took into the room containing the ballot-box, where he erased the name for which he didnotwish to vote, and then deposited it in the box. The trick was done as follows: Bribee number one was instructed to pass through without depositing his voting-paper at all, but to give it after he came out to the bribing agent. The agent then erased from it the hostile candidate’s name, and gave it to bribee number two, who deposited it in the ballot-box, bringing out hisownpaper entire, which, after the Opposition name had been erased, was in like manner handed to bribee number three, and so on, the bribees having thus no opportunity of voting wrong without being discovered.
In conversation members not only of the Legislature but of the Ministry do not hesitate to avow their conviction that the granting of the new Constitution has proved to be a mistake and a misfortune to the country, and that the old one worked better, under which ministers held office permanently and a proportion of members of the Assembly were nominated by the Governor. It is not that the government, as compared with that of the neighbouring colonies, has not on the whole been well carried on. Under the discouraging circumstances of a steadily diminishing revenue, which had to be met from time to time by increased taxation, the public debt amounts to 5l.10s.per head as against 13l.17s.6d.in prosperous Victoria; and the taxationto 2l.11s.per head annually against 4l.12s.4d.in Victoria. The men of education and respectability have in general succeeded in maintaining an ascendancy over the unprincipled and rowdy element, though the latter is always at least a strong minority. But there is something unsuitable and almost comical in adapting the ponderous machinery ofquasiCrown, Lords, and Commons to so small a community. A popular House requires numbers to give it any appearance of importance, and it is impossible that there can be very much dignity in a very miscellaneous assembly, containing when all are present only thirty members; although a reasonable proportion of them are men of fair average ability, and there is nothing of pomposity or self-importance in the demeanour of the speakers. Strangers are admitted into the body of the House, and sit on benches or on the floor all about the Speaker’s chair, and though this arrangement is rather disorderly, it is perhaps an assistance to the speakers to have their small audience a little increased.
The title ofHonourablehas been accorded to members of the upper House; but so conscious are they, apparently, of its inappropriateness, that in assuming it they do not drop the title of esquire, and Mr. Smith of the Legislative Council is the Honourable John Smith, Esquire.
And there is a very practical, and not merely æsthetic, inappropriateness and inconvenience in too soon conferring almost complete independence, and consequent isolation, on a small community. It is true themere possession of a sufficient amount of territory rightly gives importance and a position of dignity in the world. Tasmania being about the size of Ireland, and geographically very well situated, is quitebigenough to stand almost alone. But its entire population, town and country, is under a hundred thousand, less than that of a moderately large manufacturing town in the old world. Making it self-governing tends to cut off the supply from home of educated men who used to go out in various official positions. As a new generation grows up, its ranks are no longer increased by those who have had a more complete education and a wider experience in the old world. By most of the older generation of colonists this isolation is felt and deplored as an evil. But the younger ones cannot be expected to look upon the matter in the same light; and as an instance of this, an attempt was lately made to abolish two scholarships which are annually given out of the public money by competitive examination for sending and maintaining two students at an English University. The Bill passed the lower House almost without opposition, and the scholarships were only saved in the upper House by a narrow majority obtained by the strenuous protest of one of its Members.
Interest in the details of imperial questions of necessity grows weaker year by year. It is not that loyalty to the old country and to the crown is decaying. None would repudiate such an idea more than the Tasmanians. Their Tasmanianism is to them scarcely more than an accident, which the fact of their being English far transcendsin importance. Considering its age, this colony retains a more completely English character than any of the others. But the rising generation knows England only by tradition and by books. And of the older men throughout Australia many feel somewhat keenly the indifference shown to the colonies by England.
Those in particular who by tradition or by the natural bent of their minds are conservative, have, in fighting their hopeless battle against the excesses of democracy, looked almost in vain during the last fifteen years for support or sympathy to the political party in England from whom they had a right to expect it. Such neglect could not fail to alienate their interest in English politics. And when the news came that the cause of their old party at home was not only lost, but its political honour indelibly stained by the unprincipled and time-serving policy of its leaders, it seemed like a last act of painful severance from their old hopes and traditions of political life.
The parliament of a colony, especially one so small in population as Tasmania, can have in general only petty local questions to discuss. With no foreign relations, such as an altogether independent state has, and therefore no foreign policy, and generally with no clearly defined or special domestic policy either, there are no opposing principles for opposite parties to adopt. The result is that, so far from agreeing, they divide with tenfold greater hostility and rancour on personal and private grounds. It is sometimes difficult, when a government is defeated and resigns, for the Governor to know whomto send for to form a new Ministry. The plan at first resorted to, of sending for the proposer of the hostile motion, might not improbably result in obtaining a new Premier with no other claim or qualification for the office than his hostility to his predecessor.
An instance of personal and party feeling overriding plain public justice occurred some years ago, in the case of one of the judges—with this one exception always a good set—who endeavoured to borrow money of a suitor pending the decision on his case. The suitor refused and made the scandal known; whereupon the judge, fearing the consequences, pleaded ill-health and applied for a retiring ill-health pension in the ordinary way. This the government, under the circumstances, refused; but afterwards, finding that the judge would not voluntarily resign without a pension, and that his partisans and friends in the House were too strong to allow a vote of the House summarily dismissing him to pass, they were compelled to bring in and pass a special Act granting him the full amount of the pension asked for, as the only means of getting rid of him from the bench. Shortly afterwards, his alleged bad health notwithstanding, he got himself elected and took his seat in the House. The pension, of course, he still continues to enjoy.
Where population is thick and the choice of companions large, as at an English University, quarrels are rare, for men can easily avoid uncongenial society. Where population is sparse, as up the country in a colony, jealousies and animosities are more likely toarise and to become inveterate. And thus the same kind of petty personal and party spirit which is to be found in the Parliament, often pervades to a still worse and more noxious extent the Municipal Councils which have the local management of the country districts. Roads, excellently engineered and solidly made in old days by convict labour, are allowed to get out of repair because there is a dispute in the Municipal Council whether or not a new road shall be made, which would be shorter for some and longer for others. Corrupt officials are retained because their patrons or relations are in a majority in the Council. In one instance which came under my notice, an upright and conscientious magistrate was so moved to indignation by the unpunished misconduct and peculations of the police superintendent of the district, that he could not refrain from denouncing him in a hustings speech. The offender retorted by publicly giving the magistrate the lie, there and then, and at the next petty sessions summoned the magistrate for slander, the magistrate at the same time taking out a cross summons against him for insulting his superior. There could not be a doubt of the man’s guilt, though hitherto all attempts to punish him had failed, yet it was so notoriously certain to be made a party question, that when the magistrates assembled they confessed that they were not impartial enough to hear the case, and agreed to refer it to some magistrate of another district. Even then the two parties amongst the magistrates could not agree to whomto refer it, and at last were reduced to the expedient of selecting three magistrates’ names by lot.
The Press of course suffers from the paucity of readers and from the absence of a sufficiency of topics to discuss. Every day one if not two leaders appear, often necessarily about nothing at all, while the rest of the sheet has to be filled up anyhow, with cases of vagrants fined at the police-court for being drunk, and so on. Hobart Town in general supports only one daily paper, though now and then another makes a start, which suffices for all the south of the island. There are no other gods in Olympus, and so this local Jupiter reigns with undisputed sway, his power being as independent of his merit as that of the Emperor of China. So entirely uncontrolled and uncriticised is it that even a Premier in forming an Administration may have to take account of it as of a formidable power in the state, which cannot be defied with impunity, and may even consider that it is entitled to be consulted on such matters, and be ready to resent anything having the appearance of neglect. In such a state of things there is of course always a possibility and a danger of the Jupiter for the time being falling into the hands of some ambitious, unscrupulous, and perhaps illiterate speculator, and being used by him as an instrument of personal advancement, as could easily be done in a hundred different ways, and so becoming a serious annoyance as a source of jobbery and petty tyranny. There is indeed a rival Olympus at Launceston in the north of the island. But thereare generally two or three deities there to share the power between them, and moreover the northern and southern population have in many respects different interests, and do not, I believe, read each other’s papers very much.