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Chapter VIII.
Unhappy Position of The Colony—Change Effected by Captain Grey.

In May, 1841, Captain Grey arrived at Adelaide. On this, his second journey to the Antipodes, his mind often reverted to that voyage in the Beagle, four years earlier, when, under the auspices of the Geographical Society and the Government, he, having chosen his career, had entered upon it. His rapid promotion, the varied circumstances through which he had passed, the knowledge of men and things which he had obtained, the approval of his superiors, the trust and affection of his fellow toilers, had all tended to strengthen his determination as to the course of his future life. He was resolved to enter upon the duties of his Government, and his new official position, with the fixed purpose of increasing the happiness of all who came within the sphere of his administration, page 52and of laying the foundations for future prosperity in these new lands.

His arrival in the colony was the signal for some little manifestation of welcome. The circumstances of South Australia, however, were so confused and desperate, that they precluded the possibility of any great excitement in the public mind on any other subject. To understand the position of the colony, it will be necessary to give a short sketch of its foundation and history.

The statement made by Captain King, in 1822, that the south coast of Australia was barren and unfit for settlement, seems to have prevented any serious exploration of its capabilities until 1829, when Sturt proceeded from Sydney to explore the Murrumbidgee. This entailed a journey of nearly one thousand miles along an unknown stream, running through a country inhabited by hostile tribes. Reaching the coast successfully, Sturt and his party, threatened with starvation, had to return—a much more difficult operation than going down with the current. The voyage up the Murray took nearly three months, amid such exertions and privations, that, when the adventurers again reached Sydney, one of the party had lost his reason, and the intrepid leader was in darkness—Sturt had lost his eyesight. The report they brought back was very different to the verdict of Captain King. "My eye never fell on a region of more promising aspect, or of more favourable position," were the words of Sturt.

Attention being drawn to this part of the colony, a plan of settlement, embodying the views of Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, was formed in London, and an Act passed in the English Parliament, by which the district was proclaimed a British Province, to which no convicts were to be sent, the upset price of the land being fixed at 12s. per acre. The province was to be self-supporting, by the sale of its lands, and a company was formed, which made large purchases, appointing commissioners to manage the affairs of the new settlement.

The first emigrants arrived in the colony on the 9th of November, 1836. Captain Hindmarsh, one of the commissioners, was appointed the first Governor. His recommendations for the position seem to have been chiefly his distinguished services as a naval officer, but he was not well qualified for a Governor of a new colony. Disputes page 53with the official authorities under him were constant, and he was soon recalled, Colonel Gawler being appointed in his place.

Finding the revenue very low, and the resources of the country almost untouched, the new Governor should have encouraged agriculture and settlement on the soil, but, instead, he launched the colony on an extravagant public works policy, forming expensive roads, and erecting large and handsome buildings in the town of Adelaide. For a time labour was well paid, and apparent prosperity reigned, but it was artificial, and soon came to an end. In 1840, Colonel Gawler was recalled, in consequence of having drawn bills upon the Lords of the Treasury, in excess of the authority received from the commissioners.

Under his administration, while the revenue was, at the outside, not more than £30,000, the expenses of keeping up the different departments of Government alone amounted to £94,000, and at the same time the land sales fell off. Lord Stanley, commenting on Gawler's administration, stated that the building of Government House and the formation of an unnecessary road had each cost more than a year's revenue; that land in the unformed town of Adelaide fetched prices which would hardly be given for the same amount of land in Liverpool; and that not two hundred acres of soil in the colony were under tillage. In the face of these facts, he continued, it was evident that "a profligate waste of money had taken place in a manner utterly inconsistent with the success of the colony."

Captain Grey's local knowledge of South Australia, and his administrative capacity, pointed him out as the best person to undertake the difficult task of restoring the credit of the new colony, greatly damaged by the refusal of the British Government to honour the bills drawn by the late Governor. Grey's position in the colony differed from that of his predecessors in the fact that he was directly responsible to the Imperial powers, and owed no authority to the Commissioners.

Grey was thus, in his first Governorship, brought directly into contact with the Wakefield system of colonization. Here he fought his first battles against the land monopolists, and commenced the struggle which has continued throughout his life. His administration in New Zealand was continuously marked by determined page 54opposition to the theories of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the practices of his supporters.

The two men regarded the question of emigration from opposite points of the compass. Grey looked upon the colonies as the rightful heritage of succeeding generations and the future home of millions of the British poor. Wakefield regarded them as mines of wealth, to be exploited by the powerful governing classes for their own benefit. Grey's chief aim in life was to extend the blessings of these new lands as widely as possible, and to lay the foundations of the young communities in justice, wisdom, and constitutional freedom. Wakefield's object was to reproduce in the nascent states the class distinctions, the inequalities, and the social barriers which fetter popular liberty in older countries.

It is impossible to understand the varying phases of colonisation and of the internal conflicts which took place in the young states of Australasia without some general knowledge of the plans of Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, which have left their mark for good or ill upon the modern history of British settlement. Mr. Wakefield, in a series of letters, propounded a system founded, like modern political economy, upon human selfishness and the domination of capital over labour.

In "The Three Colonies of Australia," by Samuel Sidney, the author observes: —" Mr. Wakefield contended that colonial land should be sold at a 'sufficient price,' at a uniform rate, so high as to prevent labourers from buying it. That it should be sold in large blocks, and the purchase money expended in bringing to the colonies healthy and capable young men and women of the labouring class, who, being debarred from becoming land-owners themselves, should continue to work for wages, and thus guarantee a perpetual abundance of cheap labour for the benefit of the capitalist." This theory of colonization did not appeal to the best sentiments of human nature.

"But Mr. Wakefield had to assist him in propagating his tenets, not only the charm of 'style,' but of personal fascination, with a more than Protean adaptiveness which rendered him a friend and bosom adviser of Republicans and Radicals, Whig and Conservative peers, Low Church and High Church bishops. Five Secretaries of State for the Colonies—Lords Glenelg and Stanley, Monteagle, page 55Aberdeen, and Grey—have been more or less his pupils; the influence of his writings, even quotations from them, are to be found in their despatches; while so late as 1850 he led, or rather sent captive, to Canterbury, New Zealand, a crowd of educated victims.

"Energetic, tenacious, indefatigable, unscrupulous, with a wonderful talent for literary agitation, for simultaneously feeding a hundred journalists with the same idea and the same illustrations in varying language, for filling eloquent but indolent orators with telling speeches—at one time he had rallied round him nearly every rising man of political aspirations, and secured the support of nearly every economical writer of any celebrity. He had shaken a Ministry, founded and distributed the patronage of at least two colonies, and left the seeds, after nearly exciting open rebellion, in a third."

Under the regulations which the powerful company that founded the colony had made, any person could deposit £4,000 and take up all the best parts of a block of twenty-eight thousand acres. This Captain Grey opposed and repealed. Then a block of twenty thousand acres could be purchased for cash by any one or more persons.

A very valuable deposit of copper ore was discovered. A number of speculators, seeing an opportunity for making a fortune, applied to purchase a twenty thousand acre block, including the new copper fields. The Governor was averse to granting such a huge monopoly, but the law was imperative. When, however, the purchasers came to pay for their grant, it was found that the bank could not spare so much specie as =£20,000. They therefore brought bills drawn upon London houses endorsed by the bank.

Captain Grey realised the position. He refused to take the bills. Legal advice was taken, and he was told that they were as good as cash, and he was bound to receive and execute the grant. He deliberately refused to do so. Then the people of Adelaide, including tradesmen, artisans, clerks, workmen, and others, recognising the importance of the opportunity presented, clubbed their savings together and were able to produce ten thousand pounds in cash. The wealthier syndicate also procured ten thousand pounds in cash. They joined together, and the land was taken up.

This land comprised the Burra Burra copper mines. The owner-page 56ship was thus distributed amongst a very large number of deserving people, who, with their families, enjoyed considerable benefits from these rich mines for many years. This effort to spread as widely as possible the advantages arising from the ownership of lands or mines—or indeed any of the forces of nature—was typical of Grey's life-long desire.

Another abuse which Captain Grey encountered in New Zealand, but first met in South Australia, was that of Church endowments. The price of all colonial lands, under the actual or legislative control of supporters of the Wakefield theory, was increased in order to pay a fixed sum to the Church of England. Whatever denomination the purchaser might belong to, he was forced in this way to contribute to the Established Anglican Church. This matter will be more fully discussed in the history of Captain Grey's government of New Zealand. It is sufficient here to mention that he successfully opposed the system in South Australia.

Grey found matters in the colony almost as bad as they could be. Troubles with the natives had arisen, and the first executive act of the newly-appointed Governor was to despatch an expedition to quell the outbreaks of the blacks upon the Murray.

Far more difficult to deal with were the monetary depression in the colony, the loss of credit, and the problem of restoring prosperity. Enterprise was dead, and all the sources of revenue seemed barren. The land sales had fallen off greatly. The claims left unsettled by his predecessor were clamorously pressed upon him. £3,000 due from the last quarter demanded immediate payment, and the estimated expenses of the next quarter would be £32,000, while the Treasury only contained £700. He was forced to sell the Crown lands, but it was not easy to find purchasers.

Captain Grey set about the task of retrenchment immediately. The costly Government works which had been begun were finished only as far as was necessary to prevent them falling into dilapidation; the labourers were encouraged to turn to agricultural pursuits, or else were treated as pauper emigrants. The Government expenditure in 1841 was £100,000; in 1842 it was reduced to £34,000.

The Governor borrowed money from another colony, and renewed some of the bills drawn by Colonel Gawler on the British Treasury. page 57These drafts were at first dishonoured by the Home authorities, and there was some doubt as to whether Captain Grey could be held individually responsible for them. A private despatch from Lord Stanley, dated June 21st, 1843, states that the reasons which led to their being dishonoured in the first instance by the Lords Commissioners "did not in any degree impugn the motives which had induced you to issue them. … It would, indeed, be an ill return for the essential and most effective services which you have rendered in reducing the expenditure and re-establishing the finances of South Australia, if you should be left to discharge, from your own private fortune, a debt originally contracted, not by yourself, but by your predecessor, for the public service of that colony."

During the days of artificial prosperity the settlers had found life very pleasant, enlivened with continuous feasting and merrymaking. The time was filled with a round of garden-parties, balls, dinners, morning rides, and drives. The records of that period present the picture of an idle, happy people, revelling in the pure air and bright sunshine of what seemed to be "the land where it is always afternoon," and lightheartedly believing that they were making fortunes for themselves and others, while in reality the apparent prosperity was a mere bubble resting on wild and foolish speculation. No one attempted the production of fresh wealth, all being satisfied to import necessaries, as well as luxuries, at enormous expense from New South Wales and other places.

The reduction in wages, and the return to the real price of things from the fictitious values which had attached to them, woke the colonists from their pleasant dreams. Many became absolutely destitute, bankruptcies were alarmingly numerous, and very few indeed they were who did not suffer by the collapse. The measures taken to retrieve the past, and to open a future of sound prosperity, were by many blamed for the natural results of former improvidence. Governor Grey had not only to meet the difficulties of the situation, but also to resist "the clamorous demands made by tumultuous bodies of men, using seditious language and marching in organized array to Government House, threatening the representative of their sovereign, whom there was no military to protect. But these and other unjustifiable proceedings did not prevent the Governor contributing £400 in one year to charitable purposes out of his page 58limited income of £1,000."^* At an early period of his government nearly two thousand men, women, and children were dependent upon him for support as absolute paupers. The young officer must have found it a difficult matter to supply the needs of such great numbers of destitute persons. And yet one historian says that of him "real poverty and distressed merit never in vain sought relief."

The measures he took were approved and endorsed by the Home Government, and in a despatch to Lord Stanley, dated the 26th of April, 1842, the Lords of the Treasury stated that the Governor had acquitted himself "in an able and satisfactory manner of the important trust which had been reposed in him."

When Governor Grey received a slight rebuke for drawing upon the Government for the bills which they had once dishonoured, he pointed out that Parliament had voted £155,000 to liquidate those bills.

By the beginning of 1843 prosperity upon a safe basis commenced for the colony. Everyone was at work upon his own land. The revenue was increasing. A splendid harvest, the abolition of the port dues (imposed by Captain Grey at the beginning of his administration to provide ready money), and the settlement of some heavy liabilities by grants of land, made the improvement more noticeable. The high price (£1 per acre) fixed by the British Government on all land in the colony prevented much being sold; but the discovery that copper was abundant gave a fresh impetus to land sales, and the crisis in the life of the colony was passed.

The introduction of legislative institutions in South Australia dates from Captain Grey's government. One of his earliest acts was to nominate the first Legislative Council. Of the members appointed at the time, one, Sir John Morphett, still sits in that Assembly. The Governor also issued an order that the proceedings of this Chamber—then the only one—should be thrown open to the public and the press.

A series of letters written by Mr. George Fife Angas to Captain Grey, during the term of the latter's government, throw valuable light upon the condition of South Australia at this time, the causes of that condition, and the sincere and patriotic efforts made by some who loved the colony well.

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It is impossible to give, from Sir George Grey's life, any adequate idea of the communications between himself and individuals or associations, having reference to the work of colonisation in its widest scope. But the correspondence with Mr. Angas may be regarded as typical of the magnetic influence exercised by Sir George Grey throughout his life, in attracting to himself the confidence and esteem of those who devoted time, intellect, and wealth to the amelioration of the condition of their fellow-men, and the building up of Greater Britain.

The friendship of these two men commenced when the young explorer was in England, in 1840. Anxious to learn the views of a man so interested and experienced in questions of colonisation on the Government project of founding a colony on the north coast of Australia, Grey sought and obtained an interview with Mr. Angas. The latter strenuously opposed the plan, foreseeing many difficulties and disasters. Years afterwards he raised his voice in the Legislative Council of South Australia against the proposed settlement being made, except as a purely tropical colony with aid from Calcutta and London.

Mr. G. F. Angas was one of the most sincere and untiring friends a young colony ever had. A director of the company, under whose auspices South Australia was founded, he lost no opportunity of doing it a service, sparing neither time, money, nor personal effort in its cause. At the same time, he strongly disapproved of the extravagance which characterized the new community. No words can be more decided than those he used on this subject in writing to Captain Grey, in 1843.

"You know my views as to the absolute necessity of settlers in a new colony adopting the most rigid economy in all their establishments and expenditure. A neglect of this has been the curse of South Australia, and the ruin of its best interests, and nothing has made it greater enemies at home and abroad."

These letters are remarkably interesting. They contain an account of the formation of the South Australian Society and its first prospectus. They form a record of what was done by this one man during the term of Captain Grey's governorship and residence at Adelaide. He was, indeed, helped and cheered by the co-operation and sympathy of the Governor, who furnished him with statistics page 60and other information concerning the colony; but, in the details of his work, he was practically single-handed.

He wrote pamphlets, publishing and circulating them at his own expense; he obtained interviews with Cabinet Ministers and other leaders of public opinion; he delivered lectures in every town through which he passed in travelling about Great Britain; he appointed agents, who were, he wrote, "Men of influence and devoted to South Australia," to perform the same duties; he kept up an active correspondence for over three years with the owners of six or seven hundred American ships engaged in the South Sea whale fisheries with the object of inducing them to put into South Australia for their supplies. He was also in constant communication with European States, with commercial houses in China, Mauritius and Bombay, and with the various missionary societies; approaching the latter with a plan for establishing colleges in Adelaide, at which young men might receive a suitable training; for future work amongst the heathen of the Pacific Islands.

In every direction from which prosperity might flow to the colony, Mr. Angas thus laboriously made a channel for its passage, turning up the sods of ignorance and apathy. He met with discouragements which would have caused one, who had the real interests of the young community and of humanity less at heart, to give up the weary struggle in despair. But, foiled at one point, Mr. Angas only turned with fresh energy to another.

Thus he wrote: "When I found our government resolved upon doing nothing for us, I commenced an active correspondence with the Continent, and I do confidently expect that we shall get out one hundred Germans this spring to Adelaide. Often enough my spirits sink under my incessant labour, on the one hand from the shameful, cruel, and ungrateful treatment I have met with from many persons in the colony, who have thereby amply repaid me for having been their best and most generous friend; and on the other hand from the utter apathy which universally exists in this country towards the colony. Still I will never abandon the work as long as God enables me to continue it. I began it with the best of intentions, and I shall not leave it in this extremity."

In February, 1844, he wrote that if his resources had not been crippled by the dishonesty of agents in South Australia, he would page 61have been able to send out from one to two thousand Germans as settlers. "But," he added, "beaten down as I am with all my troubles, I will not rest until you have emigration renewed from this country."

Mr. Angas was successful in his introduction of German colonists, and at his own expense settled large tracts of agricultural country. Many of these communities still retain their Teutonic character. This experiment worked so well that years afterwards Sir George Grey, when Governor of Cape Colony, carried it out on a larger scale, under somewhat different conditions, and with still more marked success.

Captain Grey was able to give valuable assistance to Mr. George French Angas, the talented son of his correspondent. Hardly past boyhood, the young artist author determined to prepare a great work which should make the colony, for which his father had so long and so unselfishly toiled, better known to the British public. With this object he visited South Australia and travelled throughout its length and breadth, collecting information, writing and taking sketches. Before Grey left for New Zealand, Mr. Fife Angas, disappointed in the action of the South Australian Company, crippled in resources by his own efforts in the cause of the colony and by the dishonesty of his agents, retired from the directorate and sent some of the younger members of his family to try their fortunes in a humble way in the new lands. They also experienced great kindness at the hands of the Governor. Eventually Mr. Angas himself left England, and cast in his lot completely with the young community.

It is a mournful criticism upon the justice of human judgment to find that after the lapse of a quarter of a century, when Mr. Angas was upwards of eighty years of age, his claims to the gratitude of South Australia and the South Australians were treated with contempt, his long years of faithful service depreciated, and his lavish expenditure of money and zeal turned into derision.

In 1869, Sir George Grey, himself smarting under unmerited coldness and neglect, received from his old fellow-worker in South Australia, a pathetic letter claiming his sympathy, and asking Sir George Grey to bear testimony to the unselfishness of his efforts for the well-being of the colony, for which, in years long gone by, they page 62had worked so zealously together. The answer given must have done much to soothe the wounded feelings of Mr. Angas, and to vindicate his undoubted services to the colony.

The instability of human affairs was thus strikingly exemplified. Mr. Angas had served the people with a loyal and unswerving faith, and the people had forsaken him. Sir George Grey had served the Government of Great Britain with unexampled vigour and success, and as a reward was dismissed contemptuously. Yet history will record the deeds and achievements of both when the names of their detractors are forgotten.

During the whole of his official career, Grey, like other men of original character and decided views, experienced that opposition which so frequently rises against departures from the ordinary courses of life, and discoveries in science or exploration. The first striking illustration of this principle which he met with arose from the reports made by him concerning the suitability for colonisation of the country which he had traversed in his explorations.

The records which, amid hunger, thirst, and weariness, had been kept of his memorable journey from Shark Bay to Perth, revealed the existence of land well suited for colonisation. The Western Australian Company, who were then sending a special settlement to the colony, obtained permission of the Colonial Government for the employment of the Beagle, under the command of Captain Stokes, to verify or refute the statements made by Grey as to the suitability of the district before finally selecting it as the site of their projected settlement.

On the 12th of December, 1841, three years after Grey's explorations, the Beagle left Gage Roads for the purpose of fulfilling this duty. It might have been supposed that, with all the advantages at his command, Captain Stokes would have been able to give a more complete description of the country, and form a truer estimate of its suitability for colonisation than his harassed and worn predecessor had been able to do.

Captain Stokes drew up a report upon the district, which stated that the fertile country described by Grey, had no existence; that two rivers mentioned by him, were, in fact, only one; that the points and sites upon his charts were wrongly placed; and that, generally speaking, the whole of his report was incorrect and misleading.

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The whole official record of Stokes' survey is eminently unfavourable to Grey, and entirely discredits his accuracy and capacity. A few quotations from Captain Stokes' report, and a short summary of its effect will show the extreme bitterness of the attack which it made upon Grey's reputation.

On the 15th of December, 1841, Captain Stokes and Mr. Clifton, the Chief Commissioner of the Western Australian Company, landed to explore the country round Champion Bay. They absolutely condemned it as unfit for settlement, and as being utterly deficient in the three most essential requisites for human occupation, namely, timber for building, water for consumption and use, and food for stock.

"It was not until it became apparent to my own eyes that I could believe anyone could be so reckless as to induce a large number of individuals, including women and children, by false or at least exaggerated representations, to sever the ties of friendship and of kindred, and become voluntary exiles to a far country in search of a new and more prosperous home; whilst in lieu of the promised streams and fertile plains, nothing in reality awaited them but sterility—the certain loss of property, and the imminent risk of their lives."^*

Upon the receipt of this official intelligence the Western Australian Company refused to found a settlement in what was, according to Captain Stokes' report, a sterile desert, "absolutely a mass of bare ironstone."

Western Australia has ever since had reason to regret the so-called survey made by Captain Stokes. Seven years afterwards Mr. Gregory, the Assistant Surveyor-General of the Colony, conducted an official expedition through this very country, for the purpose of ascertaining its capabilities. His decision, as well as that of subsequent explorers and settlers (for that country is now well settled), is clear and distinct, and substantiates every statement made by Grey. The district is now only second in population, wealth, and importance to that in which Perth, the capital of the colony, is situated.

In September and October, 1849, a series of articles was published in the Western Australian Enquirer, which discussed the whole subject both as regards the different accounts given by Grey and Stokes, and the intrinsic value to the colony of the locality referred to. The following extract will show what the public opinion was when the facts were fully known:

"We do not expect to exonerate Mr. Grey from the charges so ruthlessly laid against him. We do not presume to attempt it. We merely wish to draw a comparison between his statements and those of his successors, being confident that he will not suffer by the ordeal. Captain Grey does not require any advocate to vindicate his conduct; an answer to the misrepresentations that have been heaped upon him has already appeared in the published report of Assistant-Surveyor Gregory. He has been tried in the furnace of popular opinion, and has come forth unscathed. He endured every toil and danger that could fall to the lot of any traveller. He bore in silence the taunts and sneers of his opponents, for he knew that sooner or later the truth would appear And it has appeared, and future explorations will make it more apparent; and then will he receive the reward, the long-delayed tribute, so justly due for his past services. He will be happy in the congratulations of his friends, the conviction of his enemies, and, better far, the approving voice of his own heart, which prompts him to feel as an honest man that, though the judgment of contemporaries has been long withheld, yet it was not the less acceptable and not the less deserved."^*

At the close of the last article on October 10th, 1849, the editor, after apologising for the length of his review, but justifying his prolixity by the importance of the subject itself, and the just claim which Captain Grey had upon the colonists, thus writes: —

In this case, as in others in after life, Grey did not attempt to defend himself from attacks made upon him or accusations made against him. In this particular instance he knew that nature itself must prove that he was right. Yet often his silence has been mistaken as an admission of error, while, in truth, it was but the unconcern of a mind conscious of its own rectitude, and indifferent as to the passing appreciation of the moment.

For such a silence he gave a valid reason. He ever maintained that it was the duty of a servant of the Crown to go on in the performance of the public service without devoting time and energy to the refutation of attacks made upon him. He held, that such attacks would always be made when public duties were faithfully performed, and that they would meet with adequate and proper judgment when time had afforded the evidence upon which public opinion could be justly expressed. And he considered that the energies of those to whom had been committed great responsibilities were too valuable to be wasted in useless apologies, or lengthened arguments, and should be applied exclusively to useful and beneficial purposes.

It was upon this principle that he acted through life. The only exceptions which he would allow arose when he was directly called on to vindicate his conduct, or when the exigencies of the public service demanded an explanation.

Time has long since settled the dispute between himself and Captain Stokes, as it has settled many others which are not alluded to so fully. The words formerly quoted as having been recently written by Commodore Coghlan,^* which so completely confirm the statements made by Mr. Gregory, are the latest testimony to the absolute correctness of the statements made by Captain Grey.