The Dignity of Chartism

Stephen Roberts (ed.)

The Dignity of Chartism: Essays by Dorothy Thompson

(Verso), 2015

xxx, 206pp, £14.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-78188-849-6

The historian Dorothy Thompson, who died aged 87 in 2011, was best known for her writing on the social and cultural aspects of the nineteenth-century Chartist movement. The documents she edited in The Early Chartists (1971) brought to life the intense and dangerous interior world of working-class meetings, conventions and newspapers, while The Chartists (1984) revealed greatly neglected areas such as middle-class involvement, women’s role, the part played by Irish radicals and schemes for land settlements. Her collection Outsiders: Class, Gender and Nation (1993) demonstrated a mix of exacting scholarship and conceptual clarity.

The volume is divided into five parts. 'Interpreting Chartism' includes six essays that consider various aspects of the historiography of the movement. ‘Chartism as an Historical Subject’, a succinct discussion, originally published in 1970 a decade before ‘the linguistic turn’, examines the nature and importance of Chartism and, linked with her essay on historiography published in Outsiders: Class, Gender and Nation makes an excellent introduction to the subject. This is followed by a characteristically combative review of ‘The Languages of Class’ through a critical analysis of Gareth Stedman Jones’ work. The remaining four essays in this section extend what is, I think, the most innovative section of The Chartists—‘Who were the Chartists?’ ‘Who were ‘The People’ in 1842?’, first published in 1996, examines the use of language as a major historical ‘source’ against the backdrop of the climatic events of 1842. ‘Women Chartists’ is an excellent summary of her findings on what was, until she resurrected them, a neglected dimension of radicalism. The other two essays are reviews of Gregory Claeys’ six volume collection of Chartist tracts and David Vincent’s book on working-class autobiographies.

The second section, in many respects the heart of the book, consists of two essays originally written in the 1950s. There is a short essay on ‘Chartism in the Industrial Areas’, still a valuable synopsis. It is, however, the study of Halifax as a Chartist Centre, from which the book gained its title, which is the jewel of the collection. Originally written with her husband Edward Thompson as part of Asa Briggs’ Chartist Studies and unpublished until now, it is a detailed study of how Chartism developed in one community. At over 30,000 words in the original that is available on the Internet, the essay, which was never completely finished, has been sympathetically edited to make it a more manageable length. Although it reflects the historiography as it stood in the 1950s, it remains a model for how the local study of Chartism should be written and its publication is important.

The third section examines the leaders of the people. There is a short essay on O’Connor, for Thompson the most important of Chartist leaders originally written in 1952 when he remained under a Gammage-Lovett-Hovell dominated cloud and two decades before his resurrection to his rightful position at the heart of the movement as an innovative, combative, if erratic, radical leader. This is followed by a chapter that combines two reviews on George Julian Harney ‘a radical to the end of his days’, something evident in David Goodway’s recently published collection of Harney’s journalism. Miles Taylor’s book on Ernest Jones is subjected to a review originally published in 2003 while books on Joseph Sturge and John Fielden, two middle-class supporters of the movement, were subjected to not uncritical review in 1987.

The three essays in the next section ‘Repercussions’ consider Chartism from the perspective of 1848 and beyond. ‘The Chartists in 1848’ published in 2005, and one of the final things Dorothy Thompson wrote on the movement, places greater emphasis on the role played by Irish radicals as a stimulus to continued Chartist activity after Kennington Common. There is a valuable review of John Saville’s 1848: The British State and the Chartist Movement that has much to say about her view of the significance of 1848 and her criticism of Saville’s notion of the ‘radical triangle’ of Paris, Dublin and London. ‘The Post-Chartist Decades’ combines reviews originally published in 1994 and 1995 of Margot Finn’s After Chartism and Miles Taylor’s The Decline of British Radicalism and considers the question of what happened to Chartists after Chartism ceased to be a mass political movement—‘Poor people’s movements do not have the resources to sustain a permanent organization: they gain their effect in particular short-term ways…’

The collection ends with a section appropriately entitled ‘Looking Back’, an essay in which Dorothy Thompson reflected in 2003 on how Marxist ideas shaped her thinking both as a political activist and as an historian. This essay exemplifies much about how Dorothy Thompson approached the writing of history and particularly the humanity and elegance of her writing. It is a fitting way to end this invaluable collection. There is also a valuable and succinct bibliography and an excellent index.

The Dignity of Chartism collects together Dorothy Thompson’s essays and reviews, previously published in many different places, into a single volume making her writing on Chartism easily available. Stephen Roberts, one of Dorothy’s doctoral students, has done a great service for historians of nineteenth century radicalism in bringing this material together which he does with considerable aplomb in his introductory essay, a combination of personal reminiscences and historiographical analysis, and in the sureness of his editing. This is volume that all historians of Chartism should read and provides further evidence, if any was needed, that Dorothy Thompson was the most important historian of Chartism in the past half century.

Is it all crazy?

Over the last twenty years, the political systems of the western world have become increasingly divided-not between right and left, but between crazy and non-crazy. What’s more, the crazies seem to be gaining the upper hand. Rational thought cannot prevail in the current social and media environment, where elections are won by appealing to voters’ hearts rather than their minds. The rapid-fire pace of modern politics, the hypnotic repetition of daily news items and even the multitude of visual sources of information all make it difficult for the voice of reason to be heard. In his Enlightenment 2.0: Restoring sanity to our politics, our economy, and our lives to be published in the UK in July though already available on Kindle but published in Canada last year,  Canadian philosopher Joseph Heath argues for ‘slow politics’.  It is, he suggests, impossible to restore sanity merely by being sane and trying to speak in a reasonable tone of voice. The only way to restore sanity is by engaging in collective action against the social conditions that have crowded it out.

While it is doubtful whether the campaign in the past week has restored sanity to the election, what has been evident is how far news reporting has slipped.  Other issues, such as the refuge situation in the Mediterranean—though the implication of what Ed said about Libya was unfortunate especially as he voted for British intervention--and the Gallipoli centenary, have rightly taken prominence.  On the front page of today’s BBC News website, the election is mentioned in two stories and in none of the Watch/Listen videos, though of course there is the specific election section.  Is this simply because the election campaign has really yet to leap into life…possible given that there are 10 days before the election? In fact, much of the news coverage is still concentrating on the aftermath of the election and the constitutional implications of another hung parliament.  With Labour and the Conservatives still locked together—though there is a suggestion that the Conservative are edging ahead—this is perhaps not surprising but what is also the case is the growing recognition amongst the electorate that neither Labour or the Conservatives are coming clean about the financial implications of them becoming the next government.  This lack of transparency, though hardly new in elections, is becoming increasingly annoying for voters.  For instance, we know that both parties will make further cuts in public spending but we do not know where the cuts will fall and there is little likelihood that we will before 7 May.  This is a ‘crazy’ situation and is based on the premise that voters just have to trust politicians making it impossible for choice to be based on any rational principles at all…you know we’re going to make cuts and you just have to believe that the cuts we make will be the right ones!

The electoral arithmetic is becoming increasingly complex.  If the current projections are right, the Conservatives will be the largest party on 8 May.  The Newsnight index last night gave them 286 with Labour on 267.  With Lib-Dem support this would give a Lib-Dem-Conservative coalition 310 seats while a Labour-SNP ‘arrangement’ would have 315 seats, both short of the majority they need to govern.  This leaves 25 others, including the Greens, UKIP, Plaid Cymru and the Northern Ireland parties effectively holding the balance of power..a very messy outcome to the election.  The critical issue therefore is how far tactical voting will come into play.  For instance, the polls are certainly looking bad for Labour in Scotland as the SNP builds on the momentum it achieved in the referendum campaign--even though it lost. The result in some parts of Scotland is 'vote for your sitting MP irrespective of which party you support as a way of keeping the SNP out'. This could work if, say Labour supporters can hold their noses and vote say Lib-Dem. It all depends on whether the share desire to hold back the nationalist onslaught is stronger than often long-held party loyalties.  If the same approach were used in England, it could buttress support for Lib-Dem and Conservative sitting MPs…the argument is that to keep Ed out of Number 10 and prevent the SNP calling the tune vote for your incumbent.  In effect, a Lib-Dem-Conservative electoral pact.  Whether this would be popular with the electorate or would be simply seen as electoral opportunism is unclear but it could finally break the electoral deadlock in England.  Now if people vote this way then it will be a rational decision…an assertion that the ‘crazies’ cannot always have things their own way.

Uninspiring so far but there’s three weeks to go!

We’re about half way through the general election campaign.  The manifestos—plush aspirational documents--are published, though few I suspect will read them, party election broadcasts appear each evening, most of the television debates are over and there’s wall-to-wall coverage on the news programmes with every nuance of what is being said debated and re-debated by the pundits.  It’s almost as if the election campaign is panning out in a parallel universe—yes, it’s that uninspiring.  In fact, despite being billed as the most important election ‘for a generation’, I think it’s the most uninspiring campaign that I’ve watched since 1975.  Even the momentously boring 1992 election, notable only for John Major literally taking to a soap box and Neil Kinnock embarrassingly celebrating too early in Sheffield, was more interesting.  Now it could be that I’m being slightly premature and that the public will become really engaged with the campaign as 7 May approaches but, at present, there’s little indication that this will be the case.

There are various reasons for this.  There is a widespread belief—though whether it is true is questionable—that it doesn’t actually matter which party/parties form the government as there’s really little difference between the Conservatives and Labour, it will be politics as usual.  We will still have austerity policies.  People also don’t think that politicians are telling the truth or rather being economical with it particularly over taxation.  They remember being told that the Conservatives had no intention of increasing VAT in 2010 and then, once they were in power they did precisely that.  Their justification was that, as they hadn’t seen the books, they didn’t know how bad things were.  For the Lib-Dems, the albatross of tuition fees has hung around their necks since 2012 and will almost certainly contribute to their standing or rather lack of it in the polls after 7 May.  Apart from UKIP, all the parties have been quiet about immigration and membership of the EU, but these are issues on which the public, particularly in areas where immigration is high, have very strong views. 

Yesterday I received my postal vote containing, not only local and national ballot papers, but a local referendum about increasing the amount of money collected through Council Tax to fund policing.  Though I’m opposed to this—for me it’s the responsibility of those in power to operate, as I do, within their budgets—but at least it’s an honest and transparent approach to taxation.  What this election ought to be about, and it’s the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens that have got it right, is whether as a country we are prepared to pay for things like the NHS and ‘living’ pensions through higher taxation.  You cannot have an effective ‘welfare state’ without being prepared to pay for it.  The problem is that people don’t trust government, of whatever political persuasion, to spend our money effectively.  There’s also the danger, and the police referendum exemplifies this, that if the money runs out you just ask the people for more.  Therein lies the problem and the primary reason why the campaign has yet to take off.

Why personal progressive taxation has failed

If only to emphasise the triumph of Mammon over Christianity, today the emphasis in the election campaign is on taxation.  The problem with personal taxation is that its progressive nature—those who earn more pay at a higher rate—almost inevitably means that people will try to avoid paying some of their taxes by one means or another.  In addition, there is no agreement what the higher level of taxation should be: 45per cent as it is now, 50 per cent as it would be under Labour or 60 per cent if the Greens win (so chance of that then!).  In practice, no agreement at all about what would be an equitable higher rate of taxation. This means that it’s a political question: how far should we screw the rich?

The current taxation regime with its inevitable loopholes and legal—if not moral--means of tax avoidance is the creation of evolution and general election results.  Personal taxation  is in need of a radical overhaul because , in essence, its progressive character has now failed.  So we have to go back to basics and establish the principles on which a taxation system should be based:

1. It is generally agreed that those who earn more should pay more taxation---the rich should pay more than the poor.

2. It is generally agreed that the tax liability of the poorest in society should be reduced, that is if they pay tax at all, through an increase in personal allowance…one of the major achievements of the Lib-Dems while in coalition. 

That’s it.  Now how do you best achieve this?  This does not require any particularly radical thinking simply that everyone should pay the same taxation on their income with no loopholes, exceptions, being able to claim against taxation or whatever.  So if you earn £20,000 a year you pay 20 per cent of your income after personal allowance; if you earn £200,000 a year you also pay 20 per cent of your income after personal allowance.  If you seek to hide your income, then that’s a criminal offence with a mandatory jail sentence and mandatory fine of ten times your annual salary.  All bonuses from whatever source, whether in cash or shares, are taxed in the same way: so £2,000 shares worth £5.00 each would give a tax liability of £2,000.  My only exception to this system would be for those earning over £200,000 who would pay an additional wealth tax of 2 per cent. 

The result would be a taxation system that is easy to understand, remove the need for people to avoid paying tax particularly if a draconian system of punishment was introduced for those who try and ensure that those who earn more, pay more.

Protest in 1851: how to mishandle a crisis

La Trobe faced opposition from the outset. A public meeting chaired by the Mayor in Melbourne on 30 August argued that the industry was being strangled at birth and people driven from Victoria, that the approach used in NSW where miners did not purchase licenses until their working became ‘remunerative’, that it was ‘highly inexpedient to impose any tax or monthly license’ and supported the resolutions passed by miners at Buninyong. [1] On 25 August, the first protest meeting was held at Buninyong chaired by Herbert Swindells of Geelong calling for fair play for the diggers and resolving to resist the tax by all lawful means. The Geelong Advertiser’s reporter Alfred Clarke attended the meeting under the stars and wrote that ‘there has not been a more gross attempt at injustice since the days of Wat Tyler’.

It is a solemn protest of labour against oppression, an outburst of light, reason and right against the infliction of an effete objectionable Royal claim...It is taxation without representation…tonight for the first time since Australia rose from the bosom of the ocean, were men strong in their sense of right, lifting up a protest against an impending wrong, and protesting against the Government. Let the Government beware. [2]

When Captain Dana and the Native Police arrived, most diggers retreated to the hills [3] James Oddie, who owned a foundry in Geelong and several other businessmen from the community organised the digging on the basis of mutual consent establishing an orderly structure for mining at what became known as Golden Point. Dana returned to the Buninyong diggings on 20 September accompanied by Gold Commissioner Doveton but in collecting £400 in revenue lost the Government a great deal of goodwill. [4] Doveton took authority from the local diggers’ organisation and imposed the order of the Victorian government on the mining community. He announced that they must pay a license fee of 15 shillings for the remainder of September and 30 shillings a month thereafter. He also tampered with the frontage system the miners had established reducing their claims from 10 feet by 60 feet in depth to eight feet square (that would soon be worked out) and held that individuals could only hold two claims.

The result was an angry meeting on 21 September where the diggers decided that five shillings a month was an appropriate and fair license fee. Resolutions were also passed condemning the new frontage system. Oddie and Swinsdells were elected to represent the miners’ grievances to the Commissioner but he dismissed the deputation saying that he was there to enforce the law not make it. Doveton also gave arbitrary and undoubtedly unlawful instructions that Oddie and Swinsdells should not be issued with licenses as he saw them as troublemakers. Colonial order was imposed on the community with the establishment of a court of Petty Sessions and a Police Camp under Captain Dana in late September. La Trobe would have done well to listen to the local community but he did not and the seeds of resentment against the colonial administration of the goldfields had been sown. His optimism that a ‘slight show of opposition...gave way at once to a general desire...to secure licenses…’ was not reflected in the collection of license fees in Ballarat where less than half of the 6,000 diggers paid in October.[5] As other goldfields opened up, most diggers experienced sizable hardship because of the license system and fumed at its injustice. By the end of September 1851 there was already a general resistance movement.

Mining at Ballarat faltered by mid-October and many left the diggings and it seemed that La Trobe’s policy had paid off. Nonetheless, the discovery of gold near Mount Alexander, in the area that became Castlemaine and then in Bendigo, led to a second rush at the end of October dwarfing that at Ballarat. [6] Melbourne and Geelong were almost entirely deserted by men for a second time. Pending official direction from London, La Trobe, with his Executive Council, attempted to manage the goldfields and gold revenue without the Legislative Council that voted to withhold much ordinary revenue. [7] As a result, the finance needed for general expenses such as public servants’ wages and infrastructure were not paid making it difficult to administer established parts of the colony let alone the expanding gold communities. Although this issue was soon resolved, friction between the government and the Council continued to hamper management of the goldfields.

By the end of November, the population of the Forest Creek area had reached 15,000 and with two weeks 30,000. The scale of second rush led to a catastrophic breakdown of government by December and there were ‘signs of panic’ in La Trobe’s actions. [8] The Governor and his advisors in the Legislative Council were under pressure to halt the flow of labour to the goldfields.

The RUSH to the goldfields is now so great that serious fears begin to be entertained regarding the wheat crops, and it becomes a matter for the prompt attention of the Government as to what is to be done to save the country… Whether to raise the gold licence today to 10 pounds a month for the next three months, or to prohibit digging for that time appears only feasible. The RUSH to these mines is FEARFUL, and no wonder. [9]

Gold Commissioners and their staff were slowly being recruited and initially did little more than settle disputes and collect the license fees. There were few police to enforce payment and between November 1851 and January 1852 less than half of the diggers paid. Faced with an obstructive Legislative Council and massive migration, he called for military aid. As well as seeking military reinforcements, on 1 December 1851, La Trobe doubled the license fee to £3 per month, a blunder of major proportions. [10] The new license was to apply to diggers but also to shopkeepers and others providing services on the goldfields. Though it is unclear who originated the policy, La Trobe went along with it appearing blinkered to the legitimate concerns of diggers.

The reaction was uproar: few could pay and most refused to do so. The diggers responded with extraordinary unity and organisational skill establishing the basic pattern for constitutional protest over the following three years. At Loddon, a Tax Prevention Committee was formed and anyone paying the fee was given twelve hours to leave the diggings while at Ballarat opinion favoured offering only thirty shillings for the next month. On 8 December 1851, the Argus correspondent on the Mount Alexander diggings reported that a notice addressed to ‘fellow diggers’ had appeared at Forest Creek. [11] The notice, invoked the familiar language of radical dissent criticising the tyrannical laws of the colonial legislature dominated by the conservative pastoral squattocracy. It continued provocatively, informing the Forest Creek mining community that: ‘intelligence has just arrived of the resolution of the government to double the license fee. Will you tamely submit to the imposition or assert your rights like men?’ The appeal was to masculinity, independence and British identity:

Ye are Britons! Would you submit to oppression and injustice’ and represented the first challenge to the colonial licensing system on the goldfields. The provocative tone continued throughout the notice and concluded with a resolution to ‘meet – agitate – be unanimous – and if there is justice in the land, they will, they must abolish the imposition.

The intent of the document was clear and the calling of a ‘monster meeting’ spread rapidly throughout the diggings.[12] After the distribution of that notice, each of the diggings held small local meetings to plan the next step. A delegation of diggers approached Commissioner Powlett, asking him to sponsor a mass meeting so that diggers could express their views directly to him. He refused, saying he had urgent business in Melbourne.

The reaction was immediate and up to 14,000 men met at Golden Point on 15 December 1851. [13] Many spoke but the recurrent theme was for unity in face of a tyrannical administration. Laurence Potts, describing the people assembled before him, commented:

I see before me some 10,000 to 12,000 men, which any country in the world might be proud to own as her own sons...This very cream of Victoria, and the sinews of her strength. Now, my friends, let it be seen this day whether you intend to be slaves or Britons, whether you will basely bow down your necks to the yoke, or whether, like true men, you will support your rights.

Potts begged his audience not to pay the license fee and was rewarded with a universal response of ‘never’ from all parts of Golden Point. Although there was some vague talk of forcing the government to change its position, Potts and other leaders quashed any suggestion that force should be used except in self-defence and proclaimed their support for the monarchy.

That this meeting while deprecating the use of physical force, and pledging itself not to resort to it except in cases of self-defence; at the same time pledges itself to relieve or release any or all diggers that on account of non-payment of £3 licenses may be fined or confined by Government orders or Government agents, should Government temerity proceed to such illegal lengths.

There was no contact between the diggers’ leaders and the popular leaders on the Legislative Council though they were in touch with radicals in Geelong and had strong support from the Argus. The scale of the meeting, coupled with the resolve of its participants, startled the colonial government into a hasty retreat and the license fee remained unaltered at thirty shillings a month. This decision was declared in an order dated 13 December, two days before the ‘monster meeting’. However, it was not reported by the Argus until 16 December and then said to be ‘under discussion’, while the Government Gazette did not confirm the decision until 24 December. Whether the rescission order was deliberately pre-dated, so that the Governor did not appear to buckling under digger pressure, is open to conjecture. Whether this calmed the situation is difficult to estimate but a meeting of diggers in late December 1851 at Flagstaff Hill gave the impression that it had little impact on digger opinion:

…the withdrawal of the £3 Proclamation without substituting any general or fixed code of regulations [was] a mere ruse…that the Governor had sent to Van Diemen’s Land for prisoners to convert into constables, and to Sydney to beg for more troops, which arrived and confirmed the weakness and faithlessness of the Government, and also their alliance with the Squatting interest to drive you to their service… [14]

Why did La Trobe and his government make such a crass blunder? It appeared urgent to restore social stability by reducing the numbers on the fields. At the time, it was generally accepted that this was done to safeguard the harvest; in fact this was successfully gathered in January 1852. For La Trobe, increasing the license fee went some way to resolving this problem caused by the failure of the Legislative Council to vote additional expenditure. He believed that a majority of diggers could afford to pay without great hardship though, in reality, the level of success was low. While the policy may have had some justification, Serle is right to conclude that ‘foolishness lay rather in the belief that it could be carried out’.[15] La Trobe had neither the police nor the soldiers to force compliance on the diggers.

Until the Legislative Council first met on 11 November, the government had managed the goldfields by regulation. Once it did meet, the government maintained its right to continue managing the fields and using gold revenue as part of the Crown Lands until it received instructions from the Colonial Office. Although permission to use gold revenue for general expenditure was known in March 1852, instructions to transfer its control to the Council did not reach Victoria until early September. This impasse, though constitutionally justifiable had important political consequences. During the license crisis in December 1851 the government acted consistently in not consulting the Legislative Council but despite this the Council proved sufficiently independent of government to debate the issue. Matters deteriorated further when, on 11 December 1851 Stawell introduced a Vagrant Act Amendment Bill that covered the whole system of goldfields administration. [16] Though no legislation was necessary, the government sought the backing of the Council to give the measure some legitimacy with public opinion. The result was confusion with government spokesmen admitting that the license system was unjust and unsatisfactory and with calls for its replacement by an export tax or some other tax on earnings. Matters then took on the character of farce. The Government was demanding agreement to a bill whose principles the Council rejected and that public opinion condemned. The original bill had classified all those without licenses as ‘vagrants’ and the Council opposed this provocative phrasing on the ground that at the time many normally law-abiding individuals refused to pay for licenses as a matter of principle.

The Bill enacted that every person who, without license or authority, shall search, dig or mine…should be deemed an idle and disorderly person… [17]

Nonetheless, the Legislative Council eventually passed the bill in a revised form. [18] By the end of 1851, the government was discredited for introducing a license system and the Legislative Council in supporting the amended Vagrant Bill had lost its standing with the diggers. Both the Government and the Council seemed incapable of seeing beyond short-term solutions to the problem of licensing that even La Trobe recognised was unsatisfactory.

---

[1] ‘The Digging Licenses’, Argus, 1 September 1851, p. 2.

[2] Argus, 26 August 1851, p. 2, Geelong Advertiser, 2 September 1851.

[3] Norman, Marilynn I., ‘Henry Edward Pulteney Dana (1820-1852)’, ADB, Vol. 1, p. 278.

[4] Serle, p. 20. ‘Ballarat Diggings, Buninyong, Thursday Morning’. Geelong Advertiser, 26 September 1851, p. 2.

[5] La Trobe to Earl Grey, 30 October 1851 cit, Serle, p. 21.

[6] Forster, Harley W., The Central Goldfields: Historical Backgrounds-Bendigo, Castlemaine and neighbourhood, revised edition, (Cyprus Books), 1973, provides the context. Cusack, Frank, (ed.), F. McKenzie-Clarke Early Days on Bendigo, (Queensberry Hill Press) 1979, reprints collected reminiscences of McKenzie-Clarke reprinted from the Bendigo Advertiser under the title ‘The First Discovery of Gold at Bendigo’ in the 1880s that includes an appendix on the discovery of gold in the area.

[7] ‘The Estimates’, Argus, 19 November 1851, p. 4, listed estimates submitted the previous day to the Legislative Council. Argus, 5 December 1851, pp. 4-5, saw rejection of spending on Mounted Police from general revenue; ‘Legislative Council’, Argus, 12 December 1851, pp. 2-3, saw further rejections in favour of the use of Territorial Revenues.

[8] Serle, p. 24.

[9] Melbourne Morning Herald, 25 November 1851, p. 4.

[10] ‘Additional Gold Regulations’, Argus, 5 December 1851, p. 3.

[11] Mount Alexander (taking in the goldfields of Castlemaine and Bendigo) was one of the world’s richest shallow alluvial goldfields yielding around four million ounces of gold, most of which was found in the first two years of the rush and within five metres of the surface. Reeves, Keir, and Wong Hoy, Kevin, ‘Beyond a European protest: reappraising Chinese agency on the Victorian goldfields’, in ibid, Mayne, Alan, (ed.), Eureka: Reappraising an Australian Legend, pp. 158-165, ascribes great significance to the Mount Alexander ‘monster meeting’. For a description of the meeting on 8 December, see ‘Mount Alexander: To the Editor of the Argus’, Argus, 13 December 1851, p. 2.

[12] The use of the title ‘monster meeting’ given to the Castlemaine assembly would have been a particularly loaded one, the same term was used to describe the largest political protest to take place in Britain, the Chartist monster meeting on Kennington Common, London, on 10 April 1848.

[13] ‘Meeting of the Diggers at Mount Alexander’, Argus, 18 December 1851, p. 2, Morning Herald, 20 December 1851, p. 3, are the main sources for this meeting.

[14] ‘Gold Diggers’ Meeting’, Argus, 30 December 1851, p. 2.

[15] Serle, p. 27.

[16] ‘Legislative Council’, Argus, 12 December 1851, p. 2. The Vagrant Act (13 Victoria 46) had been disallowed by the Colonial Office at the beginning of 1851, ‘Disallowance of Vagrant Act’, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 January 1851, Argus, 14 January 1851. In both NSW and Victoria later in the year, the original legislation was amended to satisfy London’s requirements and to address the question of gold miners but with very different responses.

[17] ‘Legislative Council’, Argus, 20 December 1851, p. 2. The Bill passed its second reading by 17 to 7.

[18] ‘Legislative Council’, Geelong Advertiser, 22 December 1851, p. 2.

The long, long goodbye: Cameron or Miliband?

It’s 29 days until the General Election but it does seem as if the campaign has been going on in earnest since the beginning of the year.  And what a lack-lustre campaign it has been so far.  The essence of the arguments from the three major UK parties seems to be: ‘don’t elect Labour, let us finish the economic job we’ve already started’, ‘we’ll basically continue with the Conservative austerity measures but do it a little more slowly and with more humanity’ and ‘if you elect us and we have another coalition government, we can prevent the excesses of the other parties’.  With the Conservatives focussing on the economy, Labour on the NHS and the Lib-Dems, well focusing on surviving I suspect, there is really little new in what has been promised so far…that is if you believe politicians’ promises in the first place.  Labour bangs on about creeping privatisation in the NHS forgetting that there was more privatisation before 2010 than after.  The Conservatives keep talking about how poor Miliband would be as Prime Minister and they are perhaps right though, as Tony Blair pointed out yesterday in a passionate and well-argued defence of the EU, he did have the courage to resist calls from within his own party to commit himself to a referendum on Europe.  The Lib-Dems’ message seems to be, please don’t punish us for being in the coalition.  Given this negative campaigning, it’s hardly surprising that the polls have moved little since the campaign began with both Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck around 33 per cent.

Yes, it’s breakfast at Tiffany’s!

This election is being spun as the most important election for a generation—aren’t all elections—but the indications seem to be that there will be a hung parliament.  Neither Conservative nor Labour have yet made the electoral breakthrough suggesting that they will form a majority government.  But what is significant is that Labour look like being massacred in Scotland by the SNP and their position in Wales, though perhaps less precarious, is coming under sustained fire from Plaid Cymru.  If the polls are right, then it is unlikely that Labour could form a majority government or, in fact, end up being the largest party in the new parliament.  It simply looks tired in Scotland where its natural right to rule had been increasingly questioned since the mid-2000s while in Wales it has failed to deliver effective government in the National Assembly particularly in the NHS and education.  The first past the post system makes it difficult for the Greens and UKIP to make electoral headway but any MPS at all could make them influential in a hung parliament.  It is, however, UKIP that is making heavy weather of the election largely because it needs the oxygen of publicity to get its message across and  during an election that is diluted.  The only way it can grab the headlines—and it has failed to do so—is to make outlandish claims that may well appeal to their core voters but are liable to put everyone else off.

So two weeks in to the campaign proper, the Conservatives and Labour are constantly recycling their rather worn mantra, the Lib-Dems are praying for forgiveness for supporting an increase in tuition fees while the smaller parties are desperately seeking votes to give them a say in a hung parliament.  So little new there then.

Licensing Gold

Regulations for gold licenses were issued on 18 August.[1] The problem was that La Trobe lacked sufficient manpower to make them effective. [2] From 1 September 1851, all diggers had to pay 30 shillings a month (the equivalent of a week’s wages) for a license whether they were successful or not or risk prosecution. He hoped that this would provide sufficient territorial revenue to maintain services such as road-building and law and order, and limit those thinking of leaving their regular employment to try their luck on the diggings. Gold Commissioners were appointed, a process not completed until December, to police the license system and to defuse any disputes on the goldfields. Nicholas Fenwick, Commissioner of Crown Lands and a magistrate was appointed on 18 August to apply the regulations and issue licenses in the settled district around Melbourne. [3] Some diggers were able to pay the fee but many more were not and it created widespread resentment. La Trobe was described by the Geelong Advertiser as ‘our Victorian Czar’ imposing an unrealistic tax before any goldfield had shown a profit. [4] La Trobe thought he was acting in an appropriate and fair-minded manner by imposing the rule of law equally on all diggers. His was a desperate approach to the problem of maintaining government in Victoria and resulted in growing opposition.

Why did the gold license prove so unpopular in Victoria? The government needed additional revenue to police and administer the goldfields and many diggers accepted that some taxation was necessary to provide services and protection. A license to mine would in principle have had some deterrent effect on the disruption to the colonial labour market by providing a small barrier to entry into the industry and paid before any income could be earned in the industry. As it was paid monthly, it also provided inducement to leave mining where incomes were modest. Whatever the intention behind the license fee, it was considered unjust. It was a direct tax without legislative sanction. In the mid-nineteenth century, direct taxation was still uncommon and resistance to direct taxes like the poll tax had entered folk memory. The level of the fee was also a major source of resistance since only a minority of diggers were, as yet, paying their way. Was this an attempt to keep the poor from seeking their fortunes, many angrily retorted? Finally, some goldfield officials were tactless and arbitrary setting a precedent for events in 1854. In its haste to control the gold rushes, the Government had neither justified its actions (it was not to do so for two years) nor considered more acceptable alternatives.

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[1] This is evident in La Trobe to Earl Grey, 10 October 1851, ‘Further Papers relative to the Recent Discovery of Gold in Australia’, Parliamentary Papers, Vol. lxiv, 1852-3, pp. 42-43. See ‘Licenses to Dig and Search for Gold’, Argus, 21 August 1851, p. 2.

[2] Goss, Alan, Charles Joseph La Trobe, (Melbourne University Press), 1956, pp. 103-126; Reilly, Dianne, ‘“Duties of No Ordinary Difficulty”: Charles Joseph La Trobe and the Goldfields Administration’, Victorian Historical Journal, Vol. 72, (1 & 2), (2001), pp. 173-186, 181-201, and ibid, Drury, Dianne Reilly, La Trobe, pp. 216-231, are useful studies of La Trobe’s problems.

[3] Argus, 21 August 1851, p. 2.

[4] Geelong Advertiser, 26 August 1851.

Is the ‘Westminster system’ discredited? My thousandth post!

Looking back over the posts I’ve written over the last few years it seems appropriate, that having spent a great deal of time writing about the nature of and reasons for radical change in Britain, Canada and Australia and about how women and men struggled to get their voice heard by the political establishment, my thousandth post should be on the challenge facing contemporary British politics.  Nicola Sturgeon, perhaps the most thoughtful of the party leaders—and I mean this as a compliment-- today promised that her party would reform the discredited ‘Westminster system’ to meet the demands of ‘ordinary people’ across the UK. Though her agenda remains Scottish independence, she has articulated something that is blindingly obvious to anyone beyond the ‘Westminster village’—the current Westminster system is in need of radical reform.  Since devolution was introduced in Scotland and Wales in 1998, the major political parties have failed to address this issue.  Yes, they’ve tinkered round the edges but this has been largely cosmetic rather than ‘real change’.

There have been moves on House of Lords reform but they appear to have stuttered to a halt.  Attempts at electoral reform and changing constituency boundaries foundered with the proportional representation referendum and party politics in Parliament.  Belatedly, the Conservatives have come to the conclusion that things like the NHS and local government cannot be managed from Westminster.  But, and it was exemplified on the debate on the use of the secret ballot in relation to the Speaker, many politicians do not recognise that what they do appears petty, corrupt and out-of-touch with the lives of ordinary people.  Insulated in their ‘bubble’, they only emerge when they need your vote and even then tardily if it’s a ‘safe’ seat.  Is the system ‘discredited’ in the eyes of many voters?  Well, if voter turnout is a good indicator, and I think it is, the falling number of people who bother to vote in any elections—local, national or European—makes clear just what people think of politicians.  Now, politicians have never been the most popular of individuals but in the last decade there has been a shift from indifference to what politicians do to one of visceral dislike.  They give the impression of a disregard for the electorate, in the public imagination borne out by the expenses scandal, and complete unawareness of the needs and plight of their fellow citizens.  We increasingly have a career cadre of politicians in all of the major parties whose experience of work is limited to being research assistants or running their own business, who have been educated in high-flying public or state schools and universities and whose motivation appears less concerned with helping the public than with helping themselves. 

Although there is a crying need to reform our public institutions—and I’m not just talking about the political ones—we should be clear that institutions are not in themselves the cause of the discredited system, it’s the people who inhabit and run them and it’s this as much as anything that explains why reform has not taken place.  Those within any political system have a marked unwillingness to reform it: it might affect them.  Take the House of Lords as an example.  Getting rid of the ‘hereditaries’ or at least most of them, was not a real problem as their position was and is indefensible in a democratic system but turning it into an elected House now that’s another matter.  Labour may call for this but, it appears, with little enthusiasm to push the matter through—it had thirteen years to do so and failed.  Having the ‘gift’ of being able to appoint life peers is, whatever your party, an important tool for managing Parliament.  Am I surprised that calls for a federal UK, something discussed at length in the aftermath of the Scottish referendum, have declined from an overwhelming shout to a quiet whimper in the past months?  Not really even though it is an obvious solution to the growing crisis in the constitutional legitimacy of government.  Whether it’s further devolution, Britain’s place in the European Union, austerity politics or the NHS, the fires of discordance are being stoked by politicians who want to scare us into voting for them because, as far as they’re concerned, everything will be fine if you elect their party into power.  The point, and Nicola Sturgeon recognises this, is that it won’t and before long the public, not easily roused from its constitutional apathy, will assert its democratic voice.

And the official campaign hasn’t started yet.

The most recent BBC Poll of Polls puts both Conservative and Labour on 34 per cent with UKIP on 14 per cent, the Liberal Democrats on 8 per cent and the Greens on 5 per cent.  The narrowness or non-existence of a Labour lead before the campaign proper gets under way is confirmed across all of the major polls with a lead not exceeding 3 per cent.  Generally it is expected that, where a government is unpopular the opposition has a good lead as it goes into the campaign and that, as the incumbent party often improves its position during the campaign, it is often a case of the opposition trying to hang on to its lead up to Election Day.  In the more volatile, less two party oriented nature of British politics today, there seems to be less interest in the election itself than on the possible variations of what all the pundits believe will be a hung parliament and on the ‘honest’ but politically inept admission by the Prime Minister that he will only serve for one more term should he be elected spawning a feeding frenzy in the ‘Westminster village’ about his successor.  This is going to be an intensely negative campaign by the coalition parties and Labour.  The basic premise appears to be…we’ve had the pain of five years of austerity and, for the Conservatives, its a plea to ‘let us finish the job’ while from Labour ‘there are more cuts to come but we’d do it more slowly’.  So little innovative political thinking here.

If the assumption of a hung parliament is correct, and it’s far from clear whether this will be the case, the question is what form government will take beyond May.  Did the coalition represent the natural 'next step' in party dealignment and the evolution of multi-party politics? Was coalition in practice a historic innovation in itself, or did the essential principles of Britain's uncodified constitution remain untroubled?  The horse-trading has already begun.  Let’s assume that Labour is the biggest party but without an overall majority—likely given its parlous position in Scotland if the polls are right—it’s already ruled out a coalition with the SNP but a week is a long time in politics and the realities of its position after May may change things.  The problem with the SNP is that its agenda is clear—independence—and Mr Salmond has already said that he could bring down the government if Labour joined in, with David Cameron ‘locked out’. The Conservatives accused him of ‘trying to sabotage the democratic will of the British people’ though in reality this means the ‘English people’.  It is part of their continuing attempt to portray Mr Miliband as a weak leader whose strings are being pulled by Mr Salmond but it could well precipitate further moves towards Scottish independence.  The question is whether English voters—a demographic majority of the UK--would be prepared to accept Scottish voters and SNP MPs gaining benefits for Scotland at the expense of England, a case of the historical boot being on the other foot. 

The problem for the Conservatives if they form the largest party is equally fraught.  Perhaps the easiest option would be a continuation of the coalition with the Liberal Democrats.  Although it is likely that there will be fewer Lib Dem MPs—they will take the brunt of voter dissatisfaction with the coalition—the existing coalition has probably worked better than many people initially thought and the need for their support may well have blunted some of the more ideological policies of the Conservatives—well at least that’s the Lib Dem narrative.  It is also likely that the Conservative would have the support of UKIP, the only way it will get the referendum it craves, and also support from the more conservative Northern Ireland parties.  Although in the past, Irish MPs have determined whether a minority government could govern effectively, today the question is not whether this is possible—there’s no constitutional obstacle—but whether it would be acceptable to the electorate.  The issue is that without a federal constitutional structure that could legitimate this type of coalition, it appears simply as a pragmatic and somewhat crude way of achieving power.  But then this is a consequence of a multi-party state where small parties can punch above their numerical weight.

Victoria copes with gold, 1851

Until 1846, La Trobe’s government of Port Phillip proved effective and was the result of his close working relationship with Sir George Gipps and the clear instructions he received. Fitzroy’s approach was different as he expected his subordinates to act on their own initiative and did not maintain the same level of contact with La Trobe. Fitzroy was supported by his experienced Colonial Secretary, Deas Thomson who knew La Trobe well recognising that he preferred ‘to avoid taking responsibility’ with ‘his constant reference to the Head of the Government on points which he ought to settle at his discretion’, a major weakness in his management style. [1] This reticence would undoubtedly have posed a problem for effective governance in Victoria once it was separated from NSW but it was magnified by the discovery of gold.[2] Without clear instructions La Trobe floundered.

Initially, the discovery of gold created economic problems in Victoria. John Sherer reported:

No wonder that the small shop keeper was shutting up and abandoning his counter; no wonder that seamen were running away from their ships, printers from their type, doctors from their drugs. In fact everything has assumed a revolutionary character. [3]

Charles La Trobe

Wages doubled between 1851 and 1853 but even with these inflated rates it was difficult to find and keep workers while surface gold was plentiful. Squatters had considerable difficulty keeping their sheep stations going with both the shortage and cost of labour. Farmers were badly affected haemorrhaging workers though the harvest in January 1852 was saved and increased demand saw higher prices paid for the grain produced. However, continued labour shortages made profitable wheat-farming difficult for the next two years resulting in the bulk import of cheap flour. The few dairy farmers and vegetable-growers did well but between 1851 and 1853 the land under cultivation fell by 40 per cent. In the long run, however, during the 1850s the pastoral industry was extremely prosperous as wool prices rose and the diggers provided a huge new market for meat.

As people flocked to the diggings, Melbourne was deserted and La Trobe commented in October that of Melbourne’s 25,000 population ‘not one man is left’; 80 per cent of the police force had resigned and his civil servants deserted their posts.

Within the last three weeks the towns of Melbourne and Geelong and their large suburbs have been in appearance almost emptied of many classes of their male inhabitants…leaving their employers and their wives and families to take care of themselves…[4]

Collins Street, Melbourne, 1851

Crime and poverty were rampant though La Trobe believed this was embroidered by the press. [5] In January 1852, of 35 ships in Melbourne, only three had full crews; 417 of their total crews of 816 men had deserted. [6] The city was described by an unsympathetic Sydney Morning Herald in very critical terms:

I must say that a worse regulated, worse governed, worse drained, worse lighted, worse watered town of note is not on the face of the globe…in a word, nowhere in the southern hemisphere does chaos reign so triumphant as in Melbourne. [7]

Experiences did, however, vary and other writers depicted the fledgling city in a more positive light. [8]

The discovery of gold exposed La Trobe’s limitations. In the twelve years he had been in the colony, its population had increased from 11,738 in 1841 to 77,345 in 1851 but by 1854 it reached 236,776. This derailed his plans for the development of the colony and created unstable conditions for his remaining months in Australia. He mistrusted social disorder and democracy and found the social instability created by the discovery of gold perplexing. Yet, he recognised in early July 1851, that his government of the goldfields must meet needs as they arose. [9] With increasing population and growing demands on the barely developed infrastructure, government expenditure dramatically increased and La Trobe readily adopted the licensing system already in place on the NSW goldfields to bring in revenue.[10]

Melbourne City, 1851

The choice of candidates on 15 July for the Executive Council proved disastrous in conditions that would have tested even the most effective colonial administration. [11] Captain William Lonsdale was reluctantly appointed Colonial Secretary, a post he held until 1853 and for which he recognised he was entirely unfitted. [12] Alastair McKenzie, the Colonial Treasurer and James Cassell, the Collector of Customs proved equally ineffective. The final place went to William Stawell, Attorney-General from 1851 to 1857 and the most able individual on the Council on whom La Trobe especially relied. [13] The Argus was effusive in its support for Stawell while suggesting: ‘Would that every other office of the new Government were as adequately filled!’ [14] Though he considered himself a liberal in politics, he was seen by many as impulsive and intolerant of opposition. La Trobe only nominated Lonsdale and Stawell to the Legislative Council; Cassell and McKenzie were ignored. This meant that the remaining three Government representatives were obliged to defend policies that they played no part in formulating. Serle concluded that: ‘indecisive leadership, inexperience and the narrow social sympathies which all displayed were quickly to discredit them.’ [15] La Trobe desperately needed money to fund additional policing, but found his hands tied by a legislature dominated by squatters who loathed the miners since the stampede of workers to the gold fields threatened their livelihoods.

Elections for the Legislative Council took place in September though it did not meet until early November 1851.[16] Government nominees and the squatters’ representatives elected under a restricted franchise were supposed to control the Council. However, elected members were generally unsympathetic to La Trobe, the Executive Council and official nominees but lacked the organisation, discipline or clearly expressed policies necessary for effective opposition. Melbourne [17] elected the most radical members; Geelong [18] and the country towns were represented by moderate members with democratic leanings, while the country electorates were mostly conservative. There was a group of businessmen from Melbourne, North and South Bourke [19] and Geelong nominally led by William Westgarth, leader of the Melbourne business community and John O’Shanassy, a shambling Irishman and leader of Victoria’s Catholics. [20] ‘Democrat’ in temper, they were liberal in viewpoint promoting values associated with Chartism especially adult suffrage, directly elected representatives and above all, land reform. The squatters formed another grouping whose views were ‘anti-democratic’ and who sought a return to the hierarchical order of pre-gold rush society. Conservative in attitude, they saw the Legislative Council as a means of protecting land policy and leaned politically towards the government.

Although party organisation was almost non-existent, pressure group politics was already evident in 1851. The Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne acted as the focus for business interests and in Geelong, local farmers influenced local politics. Popular reform organisations also emerged in Geelong: a People’s Association in July 1851 of some three hundred artisans, shopkeepers and others formed to promote ‘the moral, social and political advancement of the people’ and met several times before collapsing when the gold rushes began. [21] It was ‘determined to maintain the rights of the people as British subjects’ and Serle argues that there was ‘obvious chartist inspiration’ since two of its aims were land reform and equal rights. [22] The Association was characterised by its opponents as ‘republicans, chartists, socialists’, and although it appropriated Chartist rhetoric, the context for ‘Chartist inspiration’ in Victoria was very different from in Britain and its direct influence should not be exaggerated. In September, a Reform Association was formed in Melbourne to work for responsible self-government, the ballot, an extended franchise, fair electoral districts, abolition of state aid for religion and a national education system but it too collapsed under the influence of gold. [23] These two organisations consisted largely of immigrants of working-class or lower middle-class origin who were outside the colonial establishment and were determined that the social inequalities of Britain should not be replicated in Australia. Supported by the Argus, they represented the beginnings of democratic opposition to the government in and outside the Council.

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[1] Minute of Deas Thomson on La Trobe to Colonial Secretary, 7 June 1848: NSW Archives Office, 4/2823, 48/466, cit, ibid, Drury, Dianne Reilly, La Trobe, p. 217.

[2] La Trobe was installed as Lieutenant-Governor on 15 July 1851, Argus, 16 July 1851, p. 2.

[3] Ibid, Sherer, John, The Gold-finder of Australia: how he went, how he fared, how he made his fortune, p. 9.

[4] La Trobe to Earl Grey, 10 October 1851, ‘Further Papers relative to the Recent Discovery of Gold in Australia’, Parliamentary Papers, Vol. lxiv, 1852-3, pp. 45-47.

[5] La Trobe to Earl Grey, 2 March 1852, ‘Further Papers relative to the Recent Discovery of Gold in Australia’, Parliamentary Papers, Vol. lxiv, 1852-3, pp. 170-171, printed in Clark2, pp. 30-34.

[6] The question of desertion by sailors in Australia was debated in May 1852, Hansard, House of Commons, Debates, 14 May 1852, Vol. 121, cc.630-633.

[7] Sydney Morning Herald, 4 November 1852, p. 8.

[8] For example, Davison, Graeme, ‘Gold-Rush Melbourne’, in ibid, McCalman, Iain, Cook, Alexander, and Reeves, Andrew, (eds.), Gold, pp. 52-66.

[9] La Trobe to Earl Grey, 8 July 1851, ‘Further Papers relative to the Recent Discovery of Gold in Australia’, Parliamentary Papers, Vol. lxiv, 1852-3, 1607, pp. 219-221.

[10] Birrell, Ralph W., Staking a Claim: Gold and the Development of Victorian Mining Law, (Melbourne University Press), 1998, considers the problems faced in establishing equitable and workable mining legislation.

[11] ‘The Appointments’, Argus, 15 July 1851, p. 1, and ‘The Appointments’, Geelong Advertiser, 18 July 1851, p. 2; see also ‘Official Appointments’, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 1851, p. 2..

[12] Penny, B. R., ‘William Lonsdale (1799-1864)’, ADB, Vol. 2, pp. 124-12.

[13] Francis, Charles, ‘Sir William Foster Stawell (1815-1889)’, ADB, Vol. 6, pp. 174-177.

[14] Argus, 14 July 1851, p. 2.

[15] Serle, p. 13.

[16] La Trobe issued a proclamation in the Government Gazette including the date for the first session of the Legislative Council on 17 October, Argus, 23 October 1851.

[17] ‘City Elections’, Argus, 11 September 1851, pp. 2-3, ‘The City Election, Declaration of the Poll’, Argus, 15 September 1851, p. 2.

[18] ‘Geelong’, Argus, 8 September 1851, p. 4.

[19] ‘The Elections, South Bourke, Evelyn and Mornington’, Argus, 10 September 1851, p. 2.

[20] Serle, Geoffrey, ‘William Westgarth (1815-1889)’, ADB, Vol. 6, pp. 379-383, Ingham, S. M., ‘Sir John O’Shanassy (1818-1883)’, ADB, Vol. 5, pp. 378-382.

[21] ‘The People’s Association’, Argus, 30 August 1851, p. 4, detailed the second meeting of the Association.

[22] Serle, p. 17.

[23] ‘Melbourne Reform Association’, Argus, 20 September 1851, p. 2.