LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

frittering them away into minute particles, but by combining as large a territory into a single State as could be effectually controlled by a single Government, I cordially agree in the abstract truth of the motto prefixed to the article in the newspaper of this morning that ' Union is Strength'; and I would extend that principle to the whole Colonial Empire of Great Britain. I hold and believe that the time is not remote when ​Great Britain will give up the idea of treating the dependencies of the Crown as children to he cast adrift by their parent as soon as they arrive at manhood, and substitute for it the far wiser and nobler policy of knitting herself and her Colonies into one mighty Confederacy, girdling the earth in its whole circumference, and confident against the world in arts and arms." This truly Imperial outburst was uttered, be it observed, wellnigh half a century before the Imperial Federation League was dreamt of. Although, as a colonist, I cannot see my way to adopt any of the schemes that have lately been propounded for the more complete fusion of Great Britain and her Colonies, I think this eloquent sentence which Robert Lowe uttered so many years ago, in the old Legislative Council of Sydney, forms a fit and noble motto for all of us, whether Englishmen or colonists, who are loyal to our beloved Sovereign, and faithful to the obligations and traditions of our common race and heritage. As such I have adopted it as the motto of this book.

      After giving utterance to this lofty Imperial aspiration, the gifted orator, taking up the special point of Dr. Lang's motion, went on to say:—

      ​"Neither can I agree that the separation [of Port Phillip] would be otherwise than injurious, in some extent, at least, to New South Wales. It implies the loss of a fertile and wealthy province already paying much more into the Treasury than it drew out of it; and I am also fearful that a separation might be attended with that animosity and ill-feeling which are so apt to prevail between neighbouring States, and that the result might be a war of tariffs and restrictive duties, which I hold in utter horror and aversion; but, still compelled by the force of Truth and Justice, I am bound to say that these considerations come too late."

On August 28th, exactly eight days after the delivery of this speech, Robert Lowe sent in his resignation as a nominee member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales. But he was already a man of mark, destined yet to play a leading part both as a journalist and a politician in the Colony, and soon to be acknowledged on the public platform as one of the most influential and powerful speakers on all the great questions then agitating the Australian public mind. Released from his anomalous position in the Council, Robert Lowe, like many an ambitious politician similarly placed, determined ​to influence his fellows and "educate his party" by means of the newspaper press. On November 30th, 1844, appeared in Sydney the first number of the Atlas, a weekly journal whose principles he formulated and whose policy he practically controlled. The literary ability of the new journal was undoubtedly high, for among the regular contributors there were, in addition to Lowe himself, a number of aspiring young men who subsequently attained to the highest positions in Australia—such as the Hon. William Forster, Sir Henry Parkes, Sir Archibald Michie, and the late Sir James Martin.^[2] All of these, as well as their leader, were at that terribly aggressive "missionary age" of twenty-five to five-and-thirty and were, of course, prepared not only to set Sir George Gipps and the local Executive to rights, but to readjust and rectify mundane affairs generally. The Atlas began its career as an open enemy, not only of the Governor of New South Wales, but also of the entire system of Colonial Government which emanated from Downing ​Street. In kindly handing over to me some bound volumes of this remarkable Colonial newspaper, which teems with personal attacks upon the old Sydney Governor, whose memory is honoured by a bust and memorial tablet in Canterbury Cathedral,^[3] Lord Sherbrooke, deprecating the bitterness of a long-past conflict, wrote:—

      "It was always a great regret to me that I had been obliged to oppose Sir George Gipps so strongly, as he had been personally most kind."

      To some rigid natures this softened confession of the veteran statesman may seem uncalled for, but it will appeal to those who, with increasing years, learn to doubt and mistrust themselves as well as others.

      It may be seriously questioned whether any Government in the world was ever more persistently and artistically bespattered with printer's ink than was that of Sir George Gipps, for at least two years after the first publication of the Atlas. The great ​bulk of the weighty leading articles and pungent paragraphs were from Robert Lowe's own pen. He it was who alone, amongst this brilliant band of young journalists, had what has been called a "rounded creed." Rightly or wrongly, as befits the leader of a party, he had made up his mind (and was ready to make up the mind of everybody else) on all the problems that perplex, divide, and distract humanity. It is needless to say that the much-harassed Governor was unceremoniously dragged to the bar of public opinion and pilloried, with cruel regularity, every Saturday morning. Many of the matters upon which these ardent reformers differed from the Colonial Executive of the day were only of local concern, and have long since been settled and forgotten.

      Strange to say, I find in a slender volume of verse, recently published in London, entitled Poems of a Life, by Lord Sherbrooke, several of the contributions that originally adorned the poets' corner of the Atlas in the years 1844–45; but often in a somewhat softened form. In one of the very earliest numbers poor Sir George Gipps was thus confronted by that dread "power" which, according to its chief invoker, was so speedily to overwhelm him:—

      ​"It is now pretty well agreed," wrote the editor, "that public opinion is the power which does and ought to rule mankind. The most splendid fabrics of human policy—the Papacy of Hildebrand, the Aristocracies of Venice and England, and the Empire of France, have crumbled into dust before its silent power."

      The "local application" of this asserted law of human development, so Sir George Gipps was curtly informed, was to "dissolve the Council and let the country select a new organ which will represent its opinions; and then obey it. If you dare not dissolve, and will not obey—Resign."

      This drastic remedy was further enforced by a set of characteristic verses entitled "The Tyrant's Lesson," in which the same writer, under the pseudonym of Machiavelli, imparted to the poor Colonial magnate some very sinister advice:—

      "Keep thy people in slavery; straiten their flocks,

       Be miser of desert and niggard of sand,

       Extort the full price of the Government rocks.

       And the gum-tree that shelters the fountainless land.

       Thus ignorant, drunken, impoverished and tame,

       With nought that is manly, enlightened, and free.

       With nought of the land whence they sprang but the name.

       Perchance they may fawn on a ruler like thee."

      ​After reading such gentle effusions as these, Sir George Gipps must have felt that the great "power of public opinion," so far as his late nominee member was its interpreter, was thoroughly antagonistic, not only to him personally, but to the entire system of government then in vogue in the Colony.

      But it was in dealing with the wider question of the relations existing between England and her Colonies that Robert Lowe's pen found its fullest scope. It should be borne in mind that he wrote before the era of "responsible government" in the Colonies. The outlying possessions of England were then governed, or rather misgoverned, by despatches from Downing Street, which, as Lowe pointed out, were not the work of the Secretary of State, or even of the chief permanent officials, but emanated from "the doubly-irresponsible, because utterly unknown and obscure. Clerk."

The account he gives of the manner in which our whole Colonial Empire was governed forty years ago can only be applicable now to the straggling remnant of Crown Colonies.^[4] For the evils under which New South Wales was then, according to the ​Atlas, deeply groaning, the remedies suggested were (1) Local self-government, and (2) Representation in the British Parliament. The former has long since been achieved, and has worked, like other mundane contrivances, with more or less success. In defence of the latter measure, the chief panacea of our present-day Imperial Federationists, Robert Lowe addressed an argument which had much more weight before the Colonies achieved autonomy.

Скачать книгу