Submitted in requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts by G.E. Sherington THE SELECTION OF THE CAPITAL SITE IN FEDERAL POLITICS 1901-1909 University of New South Wales June, 19 69 This is to certify that this work has not been submitted in any form to any other higher degree institution. 4, t ■ & TABLE OF CONTENTS Page SUMMARY i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABBREVIATIONS AND NOTES iii LIST OF MAPS, TABLES AND PHOTOS v INTRODUCTION vii CHAPTER ONE - THE CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK Introduction 1 The Question of Sovereignty 3 The Location of the Site 4 The Temporary Seat of Government 5 Conclusion 10 CHAPTER TWO - THE FIRST PARLIAMENT Introduction 11 Oliver’s Report 13 The 1901 Election 17 Early Hopes for a Settlement 22 Parliamentarians on Tour 29 The Royal Commission 37 Cries from the Provinces 47 The Ballot 53 Conclusion 70 Appendix I 75 Appendix II 82 Appendix III 89 Page CHAPTER THREE - THE SECOND PARLIAMENT Introduction 91 The 1903 Election 92 The Selection of Dalgety 100 The Role of an Individual 122 Carruthers Raises Objections 125 The Failure of a Compromise 139 New Sites 149 Conclusion 156 Appendix I 159 Appendix II 160 CHAPTER FOUR - THE THIRD PARLIAMENT Introduction 161 The 1906 Election 164 Consideration of Canberra 169 The 1907 New South Wales Election 174 Moves Towards a Settlement 177 The Final Ballot - The Selection of Yass-Canberra 190 The 1908 Seat of Government Bill 216 Epilogue - The Choice of Canberra 221 Conclusion 231 Appendix I 233 Appendix II 244 CONCLUSION 245 BIBLIOGRAPHY 250 SUMMARY The question of where to locate the Australian capital was essentially a political problem which plagued not only the founders of the Commonwealth but also their inheritors in the federal Parlia­ ment. The intention of this thesis is to explain why the federal legislators took nine years to select the capital site and, as such, to examine the political significance of this topic in these formative years of the new Federation. The federal Parliament made three attempts to select the site. In 1903 a decision was frustrated by the House and Senate choosing different areas; this result was due mainly to the tactics of Victorian representatives and two members in the federal Government itself. In 1904 Dalgety in Southern New South Wales was chosen but this selection was blocked by the attitude of the New South Wales Government. The final determination on the general Canberra area in 1908 was a compromise mainly effected between federal parliamentary representatives from both New South Wales and Victoria. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Numerous individuals have aided and guided me in research for this topic but I would like to extend my special appreciation to - Mr. Austin Chapman who kindly loaned to me his grandfather's voluminous collection of newspaper cuttings; Mrs. Peters, a grand-daughter of Patrick McMahon Glynn, for granting me permission to consult the Glynn Diaries in the Australian National Library; and Mr. F.C. Green of Hobart who corresponded with me on this subject. I would also like to thank my supervisor Professor F.K. Crowley who inspired much of the early genesis of my thought on this problem. Finally, I extend appreciation to Mrs. Judith Francis for her many hours of arduous labour. iii ABBREVIATIONS AND NOTES A.N.L. Australian National Library A.N.U. Australian National University A.N.U.P. Australian National University Press C. A.O. Commonwealth Archives Office C.P.D. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates C.P.P. Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers D.T. Daily Telegraph (Sydney) f. n. Footnote J. R. A. H. S. Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society M.H.R. Member of the House of Representatives M.L. Mitchell Library M. L. A. Member of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales M.L.C. Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales M.U.P. Melbourne University Press n. d. n. No Document number n. f. n. No File number N.S. W. New South Wales N.S. W. A.O. New South Wales Archives Office N.S. W.P.D. New South Wales Parliamentary Debates N.S.W.P.P. New South Wales Parliamentary Papers N.S.W. V.P. Votes and Proceedings of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly P.M. Prime Minister Q Queensland S. A. South Australia S. A. P. D. South Australian Parliamentary Debates iv S.M.H Sydney Morning Herald Tas Tasmania Vic Victoria V. A. P. D. Victorian Parliamentary Debates W. A, Western Australia Special Note: The notation (L) after a newspaper footnote indicates an editorial reference - thus S, M. H. 9 May 1901 (1L) refers to the first editorial. Grammatical Note: While all proper nouns have been designated by a capital letter, this practice has not been adopted for certain adjectives like 'federal1 and its counterpart the adjectival noun 'state' as in the 'federal and state Governments'. V LIST OF MAPS, DIAGRAMS AND PHOTOS Page Chapter Two The Sites Recommended by Oliver 16 The seating of the first federal Parliament at its opening on 9 May 1901 21 The Senate Grand Tour of February 1902 31 Lyne leads the Senate team over the style and into the early morning Albury dust (Photo) 36 Senators in the Snowy at Dalgety (Photo) 37 The Sites Examined by the Royal Commission (Excluding Dalgety) 46 The Ballot in the House in October 1903 60 The Dalgety site recommended by the Royal Commission, and the surrounding parishes 81 Analysis of the House of Representatives and Senate Ballots in October 1903 82 - 89 Chapter Three The seating of the House at the Opening of the second Parliament 101 Districts in the House of Representatives' Ballot in August 1904 116 House of Representatives' Ballot in August 1904 119 The Dalgety federal territory as proposed in the 1905 Bill 147 vi Page Chapter Four The seating of the House at the Opening of the third Parliament 170 The Sites in the House of Representatives' Ballot in October 1908 203 The House of Representatives' Ballot in October 1908 206 The Yass -Canberra Site 208 Analysis of the House of Representatives' and Senate Ballots in October 1908 233 - 243 vii INTRODUCTION On 8 April 1891, the National Australasian Convention rejected by a vote of 26 to 4 the motion of Premier Dibbs of New South Wales that Sydney should be the seat of government of the proposed Com­ monwealth, and reaffirmed the decision of the drafting committee that the capital site should be chosen by the federal Parliament. ^ On 1 January 1911, the New South Wales Government formally handed over to the Commonwealth the present Australian Capital Territory. The scope of this thesis is a discussion of the history of the issue of the capital site during the intervening period and particularly in relation to the sphere of Australian federal politics during the first decade of the new nation. The problem to be analysed is not so much why Canberra was finally selected as the site for the Australian capital, but why this subject engaged the attention of the federal Parliament for such a (1) National Australasian Convention Debates Pages 899-900. This was Dibbs' famous'bombshell'which had failed to explode. The vote was rather interesting. Dibbs was supported only by Sir George Grey and Sir Harry Atkinson of New Zealand, and Alexander Forrest of Western Australia. Grey seconded the motion to repay a "debt of gratitude" for New South Wales' assistance during the native war. Ibid Page 900. Atkinson got on the wrong side of the table "by mistake" and was unable to go back after the tellers had begun to take the division. S.M.H, 8 April 1891. viii considerable extent of time. One must avoid any tendency to assume that Canberra was an inevitable choice. The Canberra site was not seriously considered until 1906, after federal members had already made two unsuccessful attempts to select the site. It should be noted at this stage that a discussion of the selection of the capital site constituted a major proportion of F.A. Watson’s A Brief History of Canberra which was published in 1927. However, Watson's work was based mainly on the official published debates and parlia­ mentary papers, and by his own admission in the preface, he omitted most of the "intimate details" of the "battle of the sites" and the "battle of the plans" because he thought it would be "unwise at present to publish such details". Watson's style is generally narrative in outlook, and he gives only a superficial account of the (2) federal Parliament's deliberations and debates. (2) F.A. Watson A Brief History of Canberra Canberra (Federal Capital Press of Australia) 1927 Pages 71-143. See Appendix I of Chapter 2 below for a discussion of Watson's prefaced statement. More recent texts have added little knowledge. See also L.F. Fitzhardinge "in Search of a Capital City" in H. L. White (ed) Canberra: A Nation's Capital Sydney (Angus and Robertson) 19 54 Pages 3-13 and L. Wigmore The Long View Melbourne (F.W. Cheshire) 1963 Pages 30-45. ix D. Wright has recently examined another aspect of this subject. The final constitutional provision on the capital, the phraseology of which will be discussed in chapter one, provided that the federal Parliament should select the site in New South Wales but outside a radius of one hundred miles from Sydney. As a result, this constitutional clause necessitated negotiations between the Com­ monwealth and New South Wales Governments over the cession of the proposed federal territory. Indeed, the attitude of Carruthers who was Premier of New South Wales from 1904 to 1907, was a major contributing factor in the delay in deciding upon the site.