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GOVERNMENT OF SIR GEORGE GIPPS.

113

Evil breeds evil. In proportion as the governor was insolent and despotic, the opposition became unreasonable, factious, virulent.

The temper of a statesman dealing with colonial affairs, is even of more importance than his talents.

The obstinacy of George III. and the insolence of Wedderburne cost us the Americas, a load of debt, an ocean of blood and guilt.

If ever-which heaven forbid-Australia should rise up and violently sever her connection with the British crown, the origin of so dire a calamity may be distinctly traced to the manner in which, with the high approval of Earl Grey, Sir George Gipps insulted and coerced the colonists forcing, with threats and blows, his legislative shoes on their unwilling feet-shoes of the best Downing-street manufacture, of very handsome shape and capital workmanship, everything in fact but a good fit. One pair crushed the toes, the other pinched the instep, the third cut the heel; but of what consequence are the cuts, the corns, the blisters of a colonist, so long as the Downing-street manufacturer and his foreman are satisfied with their own work?

"I think I hear a little bird that sings,

The people will be wiser by and by."

Yet Sir George Gipps was not without noble as well as brilliant qualities. His hands were clean; in a different sphere, matched and subdued by the even competition of English public life, he might have done himself honour and the state service; but his was a temperament ill-suited for the exercise of powers so absolute as those of a colonial governor-powers which he had acquired without any tedious probation. At one stride he passed from a subordinate military rank to the government of a great province of wealthy and discontented men, having in his hands authority which could make or mar a whole class or a whole district.

Had Sir George Gipps been a man of less mark, or a governor of less power, his faults and foibles should have been buried in his grave; but as he sowed Cadmian seeds of which we may yet have to reap the harvest in armed men, the errors of the man form a part, a most important part, of the history of Australia.

Sir George Gipps was sworn in on the 2d February, 1838.

In 1838 New South Wales, which was supposed, when he was summoned to assume the government, to be in the highest state of prosperity, was already beginning to feel symptoms of the reaction consequent on hasty legislation and over-speculation.

The increasing free population was, not without ample reason, dis

H

satisfied with the form of government, and with the manner in which the Colonial Office in England exercised what, in a sort of mockery, are called the rights of the crown.

It is a curious circumstance that under either Whig or Tory government every obnoxious regulation, every discreditable piece of patronage which the colonial minister claims to exercise, is put forward under cover of the sacred rights of the crown.

An ungracious refusal to bestow on some deserving object, at the request of the Colonial Legislature, a few acres of the nation's worthless land,—an insistance in appointing to some office, at an extravagant salary, some English protégé,—are both defended on the plea of "asserting the rights of the crown."

The secret Executive Council, which under Sir Richard Bourke had been converted into a Legislative Council, composed of the salaried officers of the local government, with the addition of an equal number of colonists nominated by the governor, had already nurtured enough of the spirit of independence to occasionally dissent from the views of the home government or the governor.

But Governor Bourke took a colonial view of colonial subjects, and, although he was compelled to enforce some jobbing of colonial money, he maintained amicable relations with his council.

Sir George Gipps adopted a different course. Nothing could exceed the contempt with which he treated colonial opinions, or the implicit obedience with which he carried out the views of the Colonial Secretary of State.

From a host of disputes on every possible question, we select four which are still matters of contention between the colonies and the mother country :—

First, as to the manner in which the price of crown lands was raised, lowered, fixed, unfixed, and raised again.

Secondly, as to the employment of the revenues derived from the sale and lease of crown lands.

Thirdly, as to the extent to which the colonists were taxed for paying expenses consequent on the transportation system, by the cost of gaols, police, &c.

Fourthly, on the manner in which the home government exercised the patronage of the crown-by passing over colonial claims, by appointing unfit persons to exercise responsible offices, and by fixing unreasonable salaries on easy appoint

ments.

These four grievances were discussed on one or more distinct cases.

REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.

115

On all the governor took up the position of high "prerogative" in the most offensive manner, and found his conduct approved and applauded by the home government,

The Revenue.

The revenue dispute in a new shape, but on the same substantial ground, exists to this day,-a new form of the old grievance of "taxation without representation.”

It commenced in 1832, when Lord Goderich, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, directed Sir Richard Bourke to submit annually to the Legislative Council an estimate of the expenditure proposed to be charged on the colonial revenues. This estimate, if passed by the council, was to be embodied in an ordinance, and forwarded to the home government for his Majesty's approval. If rejected, the majority were to be requested to furnish their estimate, and the two were to be forwarded for "his Majesty's approval." With this illusory control, the non-official but nominee members and the colonists were obliged to be content. It was not of much use to object to an estimate that had to travel round the world; and, although they sometimes protested against any particularly scandalous job, their protests were received, and—laid up with other dusty papers.

At that period the administrative powers of the governor had been so far clipped, without addition to the legislative powers of the colonies, that he could scarcely erect a pair of stocks without first reporting to Downing-street, with plan and estimate. No wonder that almost all the non-official party in the colony were republicans.

men.

In 1835 the expence of maintaining the police establishment and gaols was made a colonial charge. Every non-official and two official members of the council protested against this heavy burden, on the ground that these expenses were largely increased by the presence of all the transported felonry of Great Britain, either as prisoners or freedTo this it was answered, that the colony had had the benefit of their work. However, as a per contra, the surplus of the fund derived from the sale or lease of crown land was allowed to be taken to assist the colonial revenues, after defraying the expenses of emigration. The terms of this arrangement or contract, as the colonists assert, are to be found in despatches with enclosures from Mr. Spring Rice, and from Lord Glenelg, dated respectively 15th November, 1834, and 10th July, 1835.

It is not now worth while to quote or discuss them. The truth seems to be, that, while the returns from the land revenue were trifling.

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