BOOKS.
AN AUSTRALIAN STATESMAN.*
THERE is no portion of the wide field of politics which English public men are bound to study more deeply interesting and
instructive, or more systematically neglected, than that of our principal Colonies. The reasons for this neglect are mainly three ; the honest conviction that the Colonies are perfectly well able to manage their own business, and will brook no kind of dictation or interference from England ; the difficulty of getting trust- worthy information on colonial questions in a handy and readable form ; and lastly, the belief that the colonial legislatures are occu- pied with petty squabbles, rather than with Imperial questions, and are more like the St. Pancras Vestry than the House of Commons. So the ordinary English politician turns away from colonial questions with a " cui bono ?" thinking that he may employ the time he can give to political study more usefully and practically in other direetions.
While admitting that these views have a good deal to be said
for them, of a more or less plausible kind, we take leave to say that their prevalence is a misfortune, and has a dwarfing effect on English politics. We therefore gladly welcome anything which will help to dispel this ignorance and apathy, and do not know of any book more likely to do this than the selection of speeches and addresses in this volume. Commencing in 1849, they cover the last years of the old state of things, when the Australian were still Crown colonies, and the whole of what we may fairly call the national life of New South Wales,—from 1853, that is, when the citizens were suddenly called on to frame a Constitu- tion for themselves, to the present time. During the whole period Mr. Parkes has taken an active, and for the greater portion of it a leading, part in the Government of the colony ; and as he is an outspoken politician, who has never waited on the fence, and the selection of his speeches has been judiciously made, we get here in moderate compass, and thoroughly readable form, a commentary on the political history of the colony, touching every question of large interest which has been mooted in the country, and in- cidentally an autobiographical sketch of the public life of a remarkable man.
The book opens with the ill-advised attempt of Lord Grey to resume the transportation of English felons to the Australian Colonies. This happened in the autumn of 1848, and raised a storm of indignant protest, and resolute opposition. Mr. Parkes was already known in Sydney, where from the position of a journey- man printer, he had risen, we believe, to the editorship of a leading journal. He took an active part in the opposition to the trans- portation scheme, and was the author of " the protest " adopted as the charter of that movement, which ended in the complete triumph of the colonies in 1852, when the obnoxious Order in Council sanctioning transportation was finally repealed. The courage and sagacity which have distinguished Mr. Parkes in later years shine out in these earliest efforts. This was a rare oppor- tunity for the demagogue, and there were not wanting fierce denouncers of the mother-country, or exhortations to copy the example of the United States. Mr. Parkes from the first told his fellow-colonists the plain truth: " He did not see what good could come of allusions to America. We were not in a state to be benefited by separation from the mother-country, even if we had cause to desire separation. As a community we possessed little of the stern and sturdy spirit of the old American colonists. If oppressive duties were levied on our imports, he did not think our merchants would resist by entering into a non-importation compact. If our Crown lawyers were called on to enforce ob- noxious laws, he feared none would be found like young George Otis to resign office, and join the cause of the people. It would be wise and well to cherish a feeling of true loyalty to Great Britain." (p. 7.) In the next year, 1853, the Colonial policy of England was changed, and New South Wales was invited to frame a constitu- tion. This was done by a Committee of the old Legislative Council, who produced a Bill in July of that year, which in its main features became law, and settled the Constitution of the colony as it now stands, but contained provisions for the crea- tion of a colonial nobility, with hereditary privileges, who were to form the Upper House, for pensioning the officers of the old Government, and for a distribution of seats so palpably in favour of " squatter sovereignty " that it set the colony in a blaze. The
Speeches Olt Various Occasions connected with the Public Affairs of New South Wake, 1848 to 1874. By Henry Parkes. Melbourne: George Robertson; London: Longmans and co. opposition was led by Mr. Lowe (then a practising barrister in Sydney) and others, including Mr. Parkes, whose description of elections in the squatter districts—" where three or four pastoral princes held a meeting in a comfortable log cabin, and decided on their delegate ; and then riding over to the place of nomination, chose him, in the presence of a handful of their own shepherds and two or three gum-trees " (p. 22)—and protests against per- petuating the land monopoly, drew upon him much obloquy as a demagogue, arch-anarchist, and revolutionist. But the battle was won, and the obnoxious clauses disappeared from the Con- stitution Act ; while Mr. Parkes's indignant repudiation of dis- loyalty to England, or desire to set up a Republic in Australia (p. 35), will bear comparison with some of the finest passages in the speeches of English orators. In acknowledgment of these services Mr. Parkes was elected Member for Sydney in 1854, and has sat continuously in the New South Wales Parliament ever since, with the exception of a break in 1861-2, when he visited England as Emigration Commissioner. During this long Parliamentary career, a number of questions of vital importance to the growing nation have been before the Legis- lative Assembly, including the elective franchise, the tenure of land, the hours of labour, the development of the colony by expenditure on public works and immigration, the methods of raising revenue, and the federation of the colonies. The part which Mr. Parkes has taken in each of these may be gathered from these speeches, and reflects the highest credit on his consistency and resolute patriotism. He has always taken the popular side. "I have told you," he says to the working-men of Sydney (p. 74), "that at one time I was a journeyman tradesman. .1 say now that I never felt happier, better, or prouder ; and if a change were to come on my life, so that it became my duty to go and work for daily wages again, I should do it as cheerfully and proudly as I ever performed any action throughout my life." And in this spirit he has advocated free-trade, throwing open the public lands to free selectors, a liberal expenditure on railroads and lines of packets, and economy in all other departments ; and has opposed all trickiness and jobbery in public life, and all fostering of class interests and privilege, with an unflinching fidelity and -sagacity, which have secured him, with the consent of all classes in the colony, the high position he now holds. But it is by his work as Colonial Minister in passing the Public Schools Act of 1866 that his place has been secured in the history of New South Wales.
The problem was at feast as difficult as that which faced Mr. Forster, four years later, at home. Up to that time education in the colony had been under two Boards,—that of National Education, appointed by the Legislative Assembly; and the De- nominational School Board, appointed by the Governor and Council. Between these Boards there was active antagonism, with the natural result that the children were everywhere neglected. By the Public Schools Act, one council of education was established, having the control of all funds voted for primary education, and with power to establish and maintain public schools, to grant aid to denominational schools, to appoint and remove teachers and frame 'regulations, to provide for the wants of outlying districts by itinerant, half-time, and cheap boarding- schoola,--in short, with full powers to place a good education within reach of all the children of the country. The religions difficulty was met by making general religious teaching a part of the secular instruction, but excluding clergy of all denominations from the governing bodies, while giving them facilities for teach- ing in the schools at certain fixed hours. The passing of such an Act, though forming an era in the life of the colony, might have proved unfruitfulenough, but its author was able during his tenure of office to infuse his own spirit and zeal into the community. The new Council worked with a will, the central and outlying communities responded, and the public-school system carried all before it, under the able guidance of its author. It must have been a proud moment when Mr. Parkes was able to declare pub- licly (p. 319) that at the end of three years 71 new full-time public schools, 164 provisional, and 82 half-time schools had been already established, and that the number of children under regular instruction had risen from 28,434 to 46,458. (p. 379.) In the same period the number of denominational schools had fallen from 317 to 241, which decrease was largely owing to the con- version of denominational into public schools, with the consent of the clergy and governing bodies ; and the Council had 1,100 trained and certified teachers in its employment, most of whom had passed through its own central training school. On the same occasion, Mr. Parkes was able to quote from a letter of Mr. Forster to himself (enclosing copy of the Act of 1870), 4, 1 only
hope I shall have the same good-fortune with the measure I have in conducting through the House of Commons that you have had with the Public Schools Act, which you succeeded in passing when Colonial Secretary of New South Wales."
Both the old and the new country have reason to be proud of such men as this, who are founding new Englands on the other side of the world, to be the worthy homes of free men and women. We should be the last to depreciate the services in this work of those who, like Mr. Lowe, Mr. Childers, Mr. Herbert, and others, carry out high English culture, and throw themselves for a time into colonial life. But the most valuable staple is not to be found in this class. The most priceless gift we can send them is, men of the stamp of Mr. Parkea, sprung from the ranks, whose hopes and whose future are centred in the land of their adoption, to which they can devote their full powers of heart and brain, without any reserva- tion or after-thought, while retaining a full and inspiring memory of the traditions of the land of their birth,—who, while looking forward with prophetic hope to a future for their country such as has not yet been realised on this globe, and seeing clearly where the example of the Old World must be shunned rather than fol- lowed, can yet say with him :—" I, at all events, have right good reason to be proud of my fatherland, and there is no pulse of my life which beats with truer warmth than that which responds to the title of a loyal Englishman." (p. 35.) We have only been able to touch the surface of this book, which we can heartily re- commend to all who care to know what our race is doing in the world, and who feel pride in its past and hope for its future history.
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