XIII.
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
Thereexists in England a school of politicians, or economists, which considers it desirable that the Australasian colonies should at once, or before long, be cast loose from the Mother-country. There are doubtless some amongst the colonists who are of the same opinion; but I believe that they are very few in number, and that it will be England’s fault, more than that of her colonies, if—in our day at least—the Empire is broken up.
Of course it is easy to point to mistakes made by the Home Government in the old days when it had all the power and responsibility in its own hands. And since self-government has been accorded to the colonies, faults of a different kind have been committed on both sides. Latterly, and while Administrations in England have been displacing each other so rapidly, and throwing out feelers for all the support they could get, there has been an increasing disposition to yield indolently to every passing cry of the hour with too little regard to ultimate results, and sometimes to the discouragement of the most loyal, temperate, and far-seeing among the colonists. On the other hand, the colonistshave now and then shown themselves eager to claim the privileges without bearing the responsibilities of Englishmen.
Chief amongst vexed questions, in old times, was that of transportation. For many years there was frequent vacillation in the policy of the Home Government. Each new Head of the Colonial Office had his own plan to carry out, and the consequence was either to flood the colonies with convicts, or else to stop the supply too abruptly. One unfortunately expressed despatch was misunderstood, and gave rise, not unnaturally, to a charge of breach of faith with the inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land.[16]The excessive and unreasonable number of convicts which had been poured in upon them gave the Tasmanians just cause for protesting as they did (not unanimously indeed, but by a large majority) against the continuance of transportation in any form to their own shores. But, on the other hand, it gave the Victorians no excuse for so unreasonable a demand, as that it should cease thenceforward to all Australia, lest a stray convict should escape now and then to their own colony. Western Australia, for instance, has an impassable desert between it and any other colony, and communication by sea is very infrequent; and its free inhabitants, like the free inhabitants of most of the other colonies in their early stages of development, have been askingfor convicts as a boon. And there is still an enormous amount of coast-line and territory unsettled, where it is very probable that convicts may, at some future time, be an advantage. It is unreasonable that colonies should claim to draw from the able-bodied and politically untainted population of the Mother-country just as they choose; that they should have the power to bribe them out, or discourage their coming, just as it happens to suit their ideas of what will benefit themselves; and yet that they should exclaim against taking at least their share of the criminally-disposed, or even pauper, part, which their vast extent of country renders comparatively innocuous, and for the amelioration of whose condition it affords such advantages. It is as unreasonable and selfish and ‘colonial’ (to use the word in the bad sense which it sometimes bears in Australia), as if Torquay or Madeira were to refuse to admit consumptive patients among their visitors, or Belgravia object to afford a site to St. George’s Hospital.
If the wishes or demands of the colonists were in old times treated with too little consideration, the reaction has been excessive. When the colonies were given up under their new Constitutions, almost without reserve, each to its own local government, the arrangement under which it was effected was a most one-sided one. In its origin Australia, taken as a whole, is essentially a Crown settlement. But for Captain Cook, a king’s officer sailing in a king’s ship, and but for transportation, which followed soon after, it mightnot have held an Englishman till half a century later; or it might have been a French possession, as the Middle Island of New Zealand was within six hours of being. Phillip, Hunter, Collins, Flinders, Bass, the early heroes and discoverers of Australia, were king’s officers, military or naval. Millions from the Imperial treasury were spent in wharves, lighthouses, roads, bridges, public buildings. With this money, and by convict labour, was the country made habitable and valuable. Even Victoria, though no convicts ever were sent direct to Port Phillip, was colonised from New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, and it was by convict shepherds that it was first made productive and opened up—of which the discovery of gold was the consequence. All the public works, and the whole of the territory of each colony, occupied or unoccupied, surveyed or unsurveyed, were surrendered as a free gift. I say as a gift; for that a quarter or half a million of inhabitants should assert an exclusive claim to millions of acres never utilised and hardly explored, would be about as unreasonable as was John Batman’s claim to possess all the shores of Port Phillip because he was the first to pitch his tent there. What the value of the Crown lands thus given up may amount to in fifty or a hundred years it is impossible to give the wildest guess, but at any rate it will be measured by hundreds of millions. And for all this the only obligation given in return was the annual charge of the Civil List—a mere payment to the Governor and his staff. And even this has sometimes been grudged.The payment to the Governor of Victoria was reduced, and an attempt has lately been made to reduce that to the Governor of Tasmania, with as much reason as if half the price of a horse were to be claimed back by the buyer years after it had been bought.
Nor was any pledge asked or given that Australian markets should be kept open to English manufactures. The result already has been that one colony after another has been establishing and increasing protective duties, which as respects some articles are almost prohibitory to English goods. The only stipulation made was that duties charged to England should be charged equally to all the world, so as to let in English manufactures on the same terms with foreign and those from other colonies. Even this it is now sought to have relaxed, so as to establish intercolonial free-trade, in which the Mother-country is not to be admitted to share.
But there is no use in dwelling too long on past mistakes. As to the future, I must confess myself unable to understand how any Englishman could fail to feel it as a deep disgrace, if, unsolicited and for the sake of any real or imaginary commercial advantage, or from sheer laziness and unwillingness to bear an honourable responsibility, we were to renounce our inheritance in our colonies. Great as the loss would be to us, to them it would assuredly be far greater in every respect. Without the protection of a strong naval Power they would be simply at the mercy of the first powerful fleet and army which France, Russia, orthe United States might send to take possession of them. The smallness of the population, the extent of coast, and the wide distances between the few large towns, would make defence, however resolute, against any considerable force altogether unavailing. The gold-mines of Ballarat and Bendigo and the copper-mines of Burra-burra are as rich and tempting to an invader as anything in Siberia or Persia, or in Algeria or Mexico.
No doubt it is possible that a Federation or union of some kind might be devised, not under the British Crown, but having an alliance offensive and defensive with it. But it is difficult to conceive of any such which would last. If Australia were to enter into distinct diplomatic relations with other Powers, European or other, it would soon become impossible for us to take up their quarrels, or for them to take up ours. As their union would not be very close, their policy would not be likely to be a very steady or consistent one.
For the climate of different parts of the continent differs widely, the productions are increasingly different; hence, and from many other causes, men’s habits, ideas, and tastes tend to divergence rather than to convergence. Already there are occasional manifestations of antagonism between some of the different colonies, which, though slight and comparatively harmless under a common but separate allegiance, might become more serious between members of a Federation. It was a good joke, and not an ill-timed one under the circumstances,for Melbourne, before Victoria was a separate colony, to elect Lord Grey as its representative to the House of Assembly at Sydney, by way of a hint that it really was time for them to be a colony by themselves. But it is a little too much, now that it has been all settled to their satisfaction years ago, and Melbourne has long since shot ahead of Sydney in population and importance, to keep ‘Separation-day’ as a general holiday and day of rejoicing, as if New South Wales were the one thing on earth from which they were thankful for deliverance. Such manifestations do not bode well for future union.
If anyone wishes to form a conception of the narrowing and deteriorating influences which must exist, even under the present or the most favourable circumstances, in a colony, for instance, of the size of Tasmania, let him imagine the inhabitants of any English provincial town amounting to nearly a hundred thousand, spread over a country as big as Ireland, and encircled by a wall through which there can only be communication perhaps twice a week with two or three neighbouring provincial towns, and only once a month with the rest of the world, from which, too, all communications must wait seven weeks till they are delivered. Would Nottingham or Bristol, or even Birmingham or Manchester, be likely to contribute much to the enlightenment of mankind under such circumstances? People in England do not realise what drops in the ocean of territory the Australian populations are. The wonder rather is howmuchintellectual energy thereis, and how favourably the population of many of the colonies would compare with that of many manufacturing towns at home. But of those who now go to Australia from England, an overwhelming proportion are from the labouring or comparatively unlearned classes. The proportion of clergymen, barristers, and university men who go out now is very insignificant compared with what it once was, and anything which caused it to diminish still more would be a misfortune. Local interests and local connections make it difficult for an emigrant from England any longer to compete in the race with the colonial-born in any profession with much chance of success. It was my good fortune to be present at a gathering at Melbourne of all old Oxford and Cambridge men who could be collected. There were about thirty present. They included the Governor, the Bishop, two or three leading politicians of the Opposition—the rest chiefly professors, clergymen, barristers, squatters, or doctors. Considering its small number it was a remarkably influential group. But I was struck with the regretful but unhesitating opinion expressed, that the number was likely to diminish rather than to increase, especially in the ranks of the clergy. In all the professions this is to be regretted, and amongst the clergy more particularly, because it is upon them as a class that any narrowness or incompleteness of education tells with most fatal effect. There are indeed both at Melbourne and at Sydney, Universities, which as far as I could judge are excellently managed and liberally supported, andunquestionably contain professors of the very first rank of ability. But it is impossible for any colonial university, in the midst of a small society in which almost all interests are swamped in the overwhelming one of commerce, to carry education to a very high point. A few people who are particularly anxious for a good education for their sons, send them home for five or six years; but most are content with a colonial university for them, and often remove them when they are still almost boys.
There are many causes to account for the diminishing supply of well-educated clergymen from home. A clergyman’s position in a colony is very different from what it is in England. For liberty and subsistence he is more at the mercy of others. To a certain extent (to what extent I do not know) there are fixed stipends attached to parochial cures, but in the absence of a regularly established and endowed Church, the clergy are likely to be much more than in England dependent for subsistence upon their popularity. Many high-minded clergymen are naturally reluctant to put themselves in a position where their very bread may depend upon their catering successfully for the tastes of their parishioners, and where they would be constantly under the temptation to devote their energies merely or chiefly to exciting or amusing their hearers once a week. The fixed annual grants originally given out of the State-funds to the clergy are being gradually withdrawn, either ceasing with the lives of the present holders, or having been commuted for a lump sum paid to a trust-fund.In one township in New South Wales it was satisfactory to find that the inhabitants had insured the life of the present incumbent, with whom ‘State-aid’ (as it is called) was to cease, and were paying the annual premiums, so as at his death to have a sum to invest in trust for his successors—to endow a living, in fact.
Happily for its peace, representatives of the extreme religious parties of the Church are rare in Australia. An underpaid and overworked clergy has not either time or money to spare for imitating Roman Catholic vestments or Exeter Hall invective. The Scotch often join in helping to build an English church, and are regular attendants upon its services. Hence, fortunately, it has seldom if ever been necessary to ascertain what the exact legal status of a clergyman of the Church of England in the various colonies is—how, for instance, and for what, and by whom he is removeable—and I never could get any very clear account of it. I believe it is at the present time somewhat undefined and uncertain. Ecclesiastical synods are held from time to time, and (especially at Sydney) seem to do a good deal of business, and to be possessed of considerable responsibility and power. But in general the bishop of each diocese appoints the clergy to their cures, and has, I believe, the absolute power of removing or suspending them. The bishops are naturally unwilling to exercise this last power except for flagrant moral offences, and for causes in which they and the parishioners interested concur. But it is a power so obviously liable to abuse that the right of appeal from it seems indispensable.
All these difficulties and evils are likely to be increased by separation from the Mother-Church at home. In Victoria the clergy almost without a dissentient voice subscribed to the earnest protest which was sent to England against any scheme of Church separation. Religious and ecclesiastical isolation is worse than secular in the same degree that religious and ecclesiastical life has a greater tendency than secular to narrowness and intensity. I cannot but think that the separation of the different colonial churches from the English Church would be a wilful removal of a precious safeguard against religious ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance, and that the substitution of the final authority of local synods or bishops or parish-vestries for that of the wide but definite limits of the Articles, interpreted by that bulwark of the liberty of the English clergy, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, would be, not to give liberty, but to bind on the clergy heavy fetters and grievous to be borne.
I cannot conceive it possible, as some do, that political and ecclesiastical separation could fail to promote isolation of ideas, to diminish the flow of intercourse and sympathy, and to breed jealousies and heartburnings between the new country and the old. The Mails might go as often, ships and steamers be as numerous, and commerce carried on as before. But if commercial intercourse unites countries in the bonds of peace and mutual interests, it also, when pushed too eagerly and too exclusively, may rouse the spirit of covetousness,selfishness, jealousy, and division. Those who have leaned upon commerce as a sufficient means of bringing peace and good-will upon earth have, sooner or later, found that they have been leaning on a broken reed. A glance at Australia will show how little ‘well-established and enlightened commercial principles’ are carried out by those who fancy they can gain a temporary pecuniary advantage by repudiating them.
That the attachment to the Old Country and to the Crown is strong, is abundantly evident everywhere. It is stronger of course with the English-born than the native-born, and hence it is particularly observable in Victoria. It is seldom that even the most contemptible demagogues venture to trifle with it. Amongst other small items of English news, the Mail once brought word that a leading Oxford Professor was going to leave England and settle in America. Such a thing would scarcely be noticed in an English newspaper, but it was thought worthy of being announced amongst the items of intelligence telegraphed from Adelaide in advance of the mail-steamer, and was alluded to by the leading Melbourne paper with a shout of satisfaction. Yet the paper had no complaint to make of him except one. He had made himself conspicuous amongst those who have declared themselves in favour of turning the colonies adrift.
It is in the nature of things almost inevitable that the second generation of a colony should be inferior to the first. The struggles and hardships which pioneer settlers have to encounter constitute a discipline andconfer an experience such as scarcely any other life can afford, and are a great contrast to the routine life and physical comforts to which the next generation succeeds. These old colonists, too, have had an old-world training in addition to the experience of the new. They know well how much they owe to having been born and bred amongst the historic monuments and associations of the old country of their forefathers, and that it is not mere foolish sentiment that binds them to it. None feel so keenly how real and not sentimental is the loss which their children suffer by being removed from and in part deprived of them. None regret so bitterly the relaxing and severing of bond after bond, or (if it were in danger) would cling so closely to the last but strongest bond of all—allegiance to the English Throne.