Chapter 25

Wilmot landed at a distance from Hobart Town, and delayed his entrance on office to afford time for a removal of Franklin's household. When he was sworn in the town illuminated, and the usual excitement of novelty wore the appearance of public welcome.

The open and affable address of the governor attracted the people. He rapidly traversed the island. The agricultural knowledge he possessed, his promptitude in forming and expressing opinions, contrasted with the habits and manners of his predecessor. Those who were experienced in official life foresaw the dangers of a temper so free and of movements so informal. The opponents of the late governor recommended the neglect of all the distinctions which had limited intercourse, and some persons, never before seen at government-house, were admitted to the closet, and boasted their intimacy and influence.

Scarcely had Wilmot entered office, when an exercise of mercy brought him into collision with one of the judges. Kavanagh, a notorious bushranger, was condemned to death. He had fired on a settler, whose house he attempted to pillage. In giving sentence the judge remarked that he had seldom tried a culprit stained with so great an aggregate of crime. Ten minutes before the time appointed for his execution the governor granted a reprieve. Judge Montagu was indignant, and those who had suffered by the depredations of the robber shared in his opinion. The press, in commenting on the commutation, predicted that the culprit would not long escape the scaffold. He was implicated in the murders of Norfolk Island, and suffered death (1846). Judge Montagu, shortly after the reprieve, tried four men for a similar crime, and instead of pronouncing sentence, directed death to be recorded. He stated that the sparing of Kavanagh could only be justified by the almost total abolition of capital punishment. At a meeting of the Midland Agricultural Association Wilmot noticed these reflections, and declared that he would never inflict death in consideration of offences not on the records of the court, and that in this case robbery only had been proved. He thus early complained of anonymous attacks, and admitted that in offering these explanations he was out-stepping the line of his situation. Topics of a far more agreeable nature were suggested by the special business of the day. He dwelt with great fluency on the advantages of agriculture, and dilated on the importance of independent tenants and an industrious peasantry. "You," he observed, "are to consider yourselves as the column of a lofty pillar; but, depend upon it, a tenantry form the pedestal,--a virtuous, moral, and industrious peasantry the foundation on which that pillar rests. I see around me some of your largest proprietors, who this day are lords of wastes and princes of deserts; but who, if the system of tenantry be carried out as fully as it deserves, will become patriarchs; and the future Russells, Cavendishes, and Percys of the colony may be proud to date their ancestry from any one of you."[232] This strain of compliment was returned by Mr. Kemp, the oldest of the settlers,--so many years before distinguished in the deposition of Governor Bligh. He congratulated the meeting on the appointment of his excellency, whose presence he compared to "the vivifying rays of the sun after a long cheerless winter, encouraging the ploughman to resume his labors with fresh spirit."

The prevalence of bushranging, though far less than at an earlier period, induced the midlanders to project a yeomanry corps. They were to provide weapons, meet for exercise, and always stand prepared to answer a summons. They proceeded to the choice of a treasurer and secretary--Messrs. Keach and Leake, Jun. They were, however, informed that the levying of armed men is the prerogative of the Queen. On reference to the governor, he declined to sanction their incorporation, while he praised their martial spirit. Bushrangers rarely move in numbers, and a military is not the kind of power best adapted to suppress them.

On meeting his council for the first time (October 21, 1843), Wilmot expressed his admiration of the colony, its soil, its climate, and immense resources. He promised to consider the pecuniary difficulties of the settlers, with a view to their alleviation. Referring to the appointment of a comptroller-general, the chief officer of the convict department, he declared his cordial concurrence with the new discipline as a reformatory system; and, noticing the recent arrival of a bishop, he avowed his preference for the episcopal church, and, in still stronger terms, his attachment to religious liberty and equality.

The salary of the governor was augmented to £4,000 per annum: the former uncertain but expensive allowances were withdrawn. Franklin had enjoyed £2,000 per annum, as salary, and the government houses of Hobart Town, New Norfolk, and Launceston; a farm at New Town, and a large garden in the domain. The salary of the new governor was given in full discharge of all demands. The beautiful gardens he determined to throw open to the public.

Having accepted the office of president, Wilmot convened the Tasmanian Society, formed by Franklin, and presented a series of alterations in its organisation. He proposed that it should consist of a president, four vice-presidents, and a council of twelve, to be nominated by the governor; and that at first it should be limited to fifty fellows. The project was distasteful to the original members of the Tasmanian Society, who objected to the summary increase of their body. Wilmot proceeded to incorporate those who concurred with his views as "The Horticultural and Botanical Society of Van Diemen's Land." They were then intrusted with the government garden, and the appropriation of a grant of £400 per annum, required for its cultivation. The discarded society complained of the haste of the proposed revolution. They thought past services demanded a consideration of their wishes. They had received in trust an endowment from Lady Franklin of some prospective value; they corresponded with men of the first scientific circles; and they had published a journal which widely extended the physical knowledge and European fame of this hemisphere. None who are experienced in the causes of political discontent will consider such trifles without serious effect on the tempers of parties and the peace of rulers.

Wilmot received the government in a condition most unfavorable to his tranquillity. The arrival of many thousand prisoners had for a time quickened trade, and some months elapsed before they became competitors for the bread of the free mechanics. The universally low price of labor, the demand for dwellings, and the closing of a local bank, which liberated small capitals, occasioned a competition for town allotments, and set all classes to building. But this stimulus was soon exhausted, and workmen of every grade began to suffer distress. They found hundreds of passholders working at a price to them, indeed, ample, but on which a family would starve. The regulations introduced by Lord John Russell discouraged employment of prisoners in the towns, where they could easily indulge every evil inclination, and where they abated the value and respectability of labor; but such was the pressure of numbers on the colonial government that its officers were glad to abandon all reformatory theories to get rid of the crowds which idled their time and burdened the British treasury. The free operative classes appealed to the governor for redress. Wilmot replied by appeals to their humanity: he said that many prisoners of the crown, influenced by bad example, ignorance, and want, had lost their liberty; that it would be unkind and unjust to obstruct their progress to competence and reformation. These excuses for a policy which tended to depress honest workmen only convinced them that it was time to retire from the country. A more powerful class might have shown that the proper office of mercy is to shorten the duration of a sentence, and not to inflict punishment on unoffending families of freemen.

A party of colonists, who chose Mr. Gilbert Robertson as their secretary, formed an association to promote the amelioration of financial embarrassment. They nominated a "central committee," to prepare information for the guidance of the government, and to watch over legislation. In explaining their plans to Wilmot they professed to feel confidence in his liberality, judgment, and zeal. To this he replied in glowing terms. He told them that during a short residence he had traversed the colony and acquired a knowledge of its value; that he had projected many schemes for the improvement of agriculture and the relief of the treasury. He gave strong assurances both of his expectation of better days and his efforts to hasten them; but then he complained that the association, by its structure and schemes, depressed his anticipations; that they proposed to supersede imperial instructions, and to supplant his constitutional advisers. The objections he offered, and the tone in which they were urged, induced a practical dissolution of the society--scarcely compatible with regular government.

For the last time in these colonies application was made by the settlers for a law to restrict the amount of usury. It had been a favorite object for many years. They asserted that the exactions of capitalists involved the colony in a hopeless struggle. England had, however, abrogated usury laws, and left the value of money to be determined by the ordinary relations of supply and demand. To this principle the governor resolved to adhere (1844).

What the law could not effect was produced by a less exceptionable process. The merchants and professional men addressed the banks, and urged an abatement of interest, then 10 per cent. for short-dated bills, and 12-1/2 for renewals. They appealed rather to liberality than to abstract right. This was followed by a reduction in the Van Diemen's Land Bank,--an example which the other establishments did not readily adopt. Eight per cent. soon, however, became the highest amount usually exacted in regular transactions.

The difficulties of the agriculturists from the low price of grain, induced them to look for artificial relief. With too much facility Wilmot gave hopes which he could not realise. The imposition of a heavy duty on New South Wales tobacco, amounting to prohibition, and that just as it was reaching considerable perfection, led to the imposition of a duty on our grain. It was the wish of the Tasmanian settlers to restore free trade between the colonies, and to impose discriminating duties on the produce of foreign countries; but the harsh and ridiculous system of colonial government, which discriminated between Australian and Canadian grain, compelled one British colony to treat another, its next neighbor, as an alien, and that while England demanded free admittance for English manufactures. The peremptory instructions of Stanley were conveyed to the local governors in terms of intimidation.[233] They were forbidden to allow any kindred colony the least advantage over foreigners, or to pass any bill for that purpose, and were told that any evasion of this restriction would occasion the high displeasure of the crown. The reason alleged for this interference was that colonies could not be expected to understand the treaties and trading system of the parent state; as if any treaty should have hindered a commerce actually not more distinct than the trade between London and Liverpool. Wilmot warmly espoused the claim of the Australian colonies to share in the privilege of Canada, in favor of which the duties had been relaxed on colonial grain. Mr. Hutt brought their petitions before the attention of parliament; but he could not plead a political necessity, and the ministers were able to resist without the risk of a rebellion. They asserted that the distance made the concession of no practical value, while it would tend to augment the alarm of the English farmers! Thus, while they humored the empty fears of their own constituents, they afforded another example of the futility of colonial petitions which, however just, it is convenient to disregard.

To assist agriculture, the council passed an act interdicting the use of sugar, under certain conditions, by public brewers. The trade strongly objected to the restriction, as impolitic, vexatious, and impracticable. Their objections were admitted by the secretary of state, who quietly observed that he had been advised that sugar could not be considered deleterious. This is the last attempt at protective legislation.

To benefit the rural interest the governor proposed a grand scheme of irrigation. An eminent engineer, Major Cotton, was employed to report on the subject, and suggested the detention of the waters of the vast lakes which overflow from the heights of the western mountains. A rate to be imposed on the various estates was to discharge the cost. Thus in those seasons of drought which sometimes occur the lowlands would be made increasingly fertile. The immediate object--the employment of probation labor at the colonial cost--detracted something from the charms of the project. Nor did it seem just that the settlers should risk the ultimate cost of an undertaking they could not limit. Sir E. Wilmot earnestly recommended the scheme to the home government, but Lord Stanley hesitated until the evils of the probation system enforced a change, and lessened the labor at the disposal of the crown. Had the men been employed on a work so popular they would have been withdrawn from the colonial eye, and the interest of their new labors might have extinguished the prevailing discontent. But while the governor waited for instructions the men were idle, or employed in useless attempts at cultivation on barren land, of which the produce rarely defrayed the cost of the implements destroyed.

The charge for police and gaols had always been borne by the legislative council with impatience. The estimates were accompanied by an annual protest against entailing on the colony any pecuniary consequence of British crime. But when the convict labor was withdrawn from the roads, and new taxes demanded, the time arrived for the most decided resistance, and the event proved that the councillors who refused their consent acted with prudence. The minister himself was compelled to own at last, that the exaction of twenty shillings per head for police, was unexampled in civilised governments.

In 1836 Mr. Spring Rice (now Lord Monteagle) took advantage of a considerable local land fund to throw on the council the police establishment of the colony, occasioned by transportation. The sum then required (£14,000) was comparatively unimportant, and it was urged that the labor of convicts employed on public works at the cost of Great Britain, except £4,000 for superintendence, was a sufficient compensation. But the charge for constabulary and prisons gradually increased to £36,000. The land fund, after deducting £97,000, expended for emigration, for the support of aborigines, and the working of the land office, yielded in ten years a surplus of £207,000, carried to the general revenue; but during this time the charge for police and gaols exceeded £311,000. The increase of judicial expenses, and especially of witnesses, was proportionately great; and this last item in one year (1846), although most lighter crimes were disposed of in a summary way, rose to £6,000. The execution of public works by the crown had been the sole vindication of these charges. From this arrangement Lord Stanley departed, and in peremptory terms prohibited a spade to be moved but on payment from the colonial treasury. Thus at a season of commercial stagnation the benefit of convict labor was withdrawn, while the charges for police and gaols rose to one-third of the entire revenue of the colony, and in two years and a-half a debt accumulated to £100,000.

Notwithstanding the obvious injustice of this burden, the treatment of the New South Wales legislature gave slight hope of redress. Lord Stanley directed Sir George Gipps to obviate the threatened resistance of that council by hastening pardons to the prisoners, by withdrawing them from the service of the settlers, and by sending those not otherwise disposable to Van Diemen's Land. He was forbidden to relieve extreme financial difficulties by drafts on England, or draw from the military chest, although at the period an immense body of convicts remained long after transportation had ceased. This disregard of a more powerful colony led the people of Van Diemen's Land to infer that from a minister so unscrupulous no justice could be expected while evasion was possible.

Wilmot was deeply embarrassed, but he determined to adhere to the instructions of the secretary of state, whose distance prevented his perceiving the hopelessness of his project until that discovery was unavailing. The positive nature of these injunctions left no room for discretion. The governor was commanded not to adopt any detailed regulations at variance with the scheme prescribed by the crown, or to depart from its provisions without express authority.[234]

Sir Eardley Wilmot resolved that the utmost extent of taxation should be tried rather than infringe the orders of Stanley. A bill to raise the duties on sugar, teas, and foreign goods from 5 to 15 per cent. encountered an earnest but unavailing opposition. This bill was still more obnoxious from a clause, afterwards abandoned, to levy the duty on the current value of goods at the market of consumption, instead of export--a mode which taxed all the expenses of shipment. Mr. Gregson proposed the rejection of an impost required only by the extraordinary pressure of convictism. Several of the non-official members voted with the governor for the last time.

A committee of the council had been appointed to ascertain how the expenditure could be reduced and the revenue augmented. They enumerated various forms in which further taxation might be practicable. These were proposed by the governor. Auctioneers, pawnbrokers, publicans, butchers, eating-house keepers, stage-coach and steam-boat proprietors, cabmen, and watermen, were to be subject to new or increased license fees.

This project aroused the people to an unusual degree. On the day of public meeting[235] a procession of cabs and waggons, decorated with flags bearing the inscription, "No taxation without representation," presented a novelty in colonial agitation. Mr. Kemp, the veteran politician, presided. The opposition prevailed, and the governor resolved to withdraw the obnoxious measure. It would be difficult to discern a line beyond which taxation might not pass, if every trade and profession can be subject to arbitrary imposts levied by a legislature at the mere dictation of the crown.

Referring to this meeting as a triumph which history would report to the latest posterity, the _Courier_ added--"Rulers will henceforth recoil from the virtuous indignation of the people, as the reptile recoiled from the touch of Ithuriel's spear." It was supposed by Wilmot that this not very lucid prediction conveyed a gross and personal insult, and that it attributed to him the artifices and loathsome habits of the fiend. The private secretary was instructed to withdraw the subscription of the governor, and to explain the cause of his displeasure. Such petulance took the colony by surprise. A less experienced politician might have been expected to disregard a heavier censure; and this conflict with a local editor was noticed by the London press as a curious instance of official sensibility.

The sheriff refused to call a meeting to consider the condition of the colony, because one of the objects was to notice the appropriation of the public revenue. This he had been advised was an interference with the royal prerogative! The friendly tone of his refusal restrained the wrath it was calculated to excite. It is quite impossible to suppose any branch of politics more clearly within the sphere of popular remonstrance than the expenditure of the public money (August, 1845).

Mr. Bicheno, the colonial secretary, who, like the governor, might have been popular in quiet times, was little qualified for a stormy debate. He announced the most arbitrary notions in the blandest tones, and asserted that the doctrine of concurrent representation and taxation was a wild revolutionary idea, exploded by American independence. The revenues he called the Queen's, and thought it monstrous that any should dispute her right to her own. Though he compared the parent country to the hen and the colonies to chickens, he could see nothing to disturb the analogy in a demand for fresh contributions. He asserted that all constitutional history showed that it was the prerogative of the crown to tax the people, and instanced the Cape--a conquered province--as an example. He affirmed that customs were not taxes, as the public were not compelled to use the articles on which they were levied. The prosperity of communities he asserted rose with the increase of taxation; that the placards posted over the town were a complete delusion. Taxation and representation--a cry first introduced by Lord Chatham, was, he said, never adopted by the liberal whigs (August, 1845). Such un-English notions were no assistance to the cause of the executive, and were distasteful to all who pretended to value constitutional government.

The _ad valorem_ duties, raised to 15 per cent., for some time produced less than they realised at five. The licensing scheme being rejected, nothing remained but to reduce the expenditure or increase the debt. To relieve the revenue and employ the convicts the executive proposed a road act, and another for lighting and paving Hobart Town. The great objection to these measures was their design to evade the question at issue between the home government and the colony;--with many more odious still as recognising a right in a crown appointed legislature either directly or indirectly to tax the people. Mr. Gregson stated early in the session that he would not levy a shilling additional until the burdens of police were equitably adjusted. Supported by Captain Swanston, formerly a staunch adherent of Sir G. Arthur, he successfully moved the rejection of these bills. Their discussion drew forth many expressions of personal feeling. The governor declared he would not stay in office one hour did he not believe that Lord Stanley meant fairly by the colony, or could he not conscientiously act upon his lordship's instructions; and he begged that all the opprobrium cast on Lord Stanley might be considered equally applied to himself. He remarked that the opposition had exhibited a spirit "more radical and even Jacobinical" than he ever had witnessed in parliamentary factions. These reproaches were repelled by Mr. Gregson, who contended that in resisting unjust exactions for convict purposes he was promoting the real interests of the colonial government. The governor retorted that with such support as the honorable member afforded he would readily dispense.