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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 83

Victorian Liberalism

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Victorian Liberalism.

Not long ago we attended a celebration at the Melbourne Trades Hall, in the evening. There was a large conclave of respectable working men, mostly small employers, we fancy. They were termed the Council, and sat in the prettiest hall which Melbourne possesses, a chamber which recalls the luxury of a theatre dress circle. It is æsthetically and richly decorated in light green, with upholstery to match, on elegant round-backed white iron seats, disposed in semicircular tiers. Indeed, the place is quite aristocratic—most lovingly garnished.

The occasion was the unveiling of a bust of Mr. Higinbotham, and it might well lead to a review of Victorian, and, indeed, Australian Liberalism. Mr. Wentworth was the father of Liberalism on this continent. He could never undo, in his later years, the work of his prime. From Wentworth we trace down to the Eureka Stockade, the "Corner" in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, and the triumph of Liberalism in Victoria.

Wentworth, as a member of the New South Wales Legislature, was an ardent Federalist. He strenuously resisted the separation of Australia Felix, or Victoria. Sir Hercules Robinson, speaking once at Albury, said there was a process of disintegration and reintegration in most countries. Examples are afforded by Germany, Italy, and South America, where Chili leads the way to a Federation which will embrace all the Republics and Brazil.

When Wentworth had outdone the memory of Sir Francis Burdett as a Radical turned Conservative, the career of Liberalism began in Victoria. The insurrection which culminated at the Eureka Stockade, Ballarat, led to the Australian National Flag of the Southern Cross being unfurled for the first time. Now everyone talks glibly about Australian independence. A fiercely disloyal song at the Melbourne Opera page 2 House raises a furore. The leading Sandhurst paper writes of the "Yoke of England."

At the commencement of our present Parliamentary system in Victoria, the Comer Party sprung up in the Legislative Assembly. It originated from the Convention, an irregular Melbourne Parliament, which discussed the Land Question, the very centre and core of all our political troubles. Wilson Gray, Heales, Don, Ebenezer Syme, and Owens were men of the Corner. In the face of obloquy they persevered against overwhelming odds, and now their principles rule the country. After Wentworth's time, as a practical Democrat, we cannot find any record worth preserving of Liberal progress in other Australian provinces, save Victoria. This province fought the battle for the whole continent. No wonder that it is in the van of protest against foreign aggression in the Pacific. The Parliaments of New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania have been mere borough-mongering concerns, their only troubles those of the Municipal Corporation.

There is a mistaken feeling amid politicians that they can wipe out all recollection of their former differences. Todd, the Parliamentary Historian, embalms a narration of the Victorian Darling Grant dispute in his book on "Colonial Governments." If battles be fought, military historians will never give them up.

Mr. Higinbotham, like Mr. Boucaut, has made up his mind to waste the latter part of his lifetime in judicial ermine, doing so-called work which far inferior men can do equally well, if not better, arbitrating in the squabbles of the wealthy. Nevertheless, you can no more obliterate Higinbotham's record than Wentworth's.

The Victorian Assembly was really distinguished when it afforded an arena for such gladiators, at the same time, as O'Shanassy, Wood, Haines, Fellows, Higinbotham, Evans, Michie, Gray, Aspinall, Brooke, Nicholson, Ireland, Duffy, Don, Owens, Syme, Heales, and so on. There was something tangible to fight about, the everlasting struggle of want and have, very plainly in issue, and all gravitated round the lands. Wilson Gray was the Henry George of the era.

Looking at the present state of things, we find one grievous sore remaining. It has often been written about in these pages, and the salt shall be rubbed into the wound until it is healed. We refer to the closed roads. Liberals in England, where we have many readers, will be astounded to hear that something like 9000 miles of chain-wide public roads, that is to say fine broad ones, are this very day fenced in by the Victorian squatters, and used as part of their, property!

This is truly the most outrageous grievance in our current politics. Rich men are allowed to fence roads in, and occasionally page 3 oblige the travelling public with a swing-gate. There is an enormously bulky report of the Closed Roads Commission, which glaringly exposes this piece of tyranny. No poor man would dare to attempt such a thing.