THE GLADSTONE COLONY á THE GLADSTONE COLONY Etn Unwritten Cbapter of austra[tan 1btstorp BY JAMES FRANCIS HOGAN, M.P. AUTHOR OF "THE IRISH IN AUSTRALIA ," " THE AUSTRALIAN IN LONDON, " "ROBERT LO \VN, VISCOUNT SHLKUROOKE ," E"IC. LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1898 [Ali rights reserved.] PREFATORY NOTE By MR GLADSTONE HAWARDEN, April 2 0, 1897. DEAR MR HOGAN, My recollections of Gladstone were most copious, and are now nearly half-a-century old. The period, December 1845, when I became Colonial Secretary, was one when the British Government had begun to feel nonplussed by the question of Transportation. Under the pressure of this difficulty, Lord Stanley, or the Colonial Office of his day, framed a plan for the establish- ment, as an experiment, of a pure penal colony without free settlers (at least at the outset). When I came in, the plan might have been arrested, in the event of disapproval, but the Government were, I think, committed, and I had only to put the last hand to the scheme. So it went on towards execution. In July 1846 the Government was changed, and Lord Grey succeeded me. He said he would make none but necessary changes in pending measures. He, however, annihilated this scheme, For that I' do not know that he vi PREFATORY NOTE is to be severely blamed, But he went on and dealt with the question in such a way as to produce a mess-I think more than one-far worse than any that he found. The result was the total and rather violent and summary extinction of the entire system. Here I lost sight of the fate of " Gladstone." It has my good wishes, but I have nothing else to give. Yours very faithful, W. E. GLADSTONE. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PREFATORY NOTE BY MR GLADSTONE V INTRODUCTION . 1 1. THE GENESIS OF THE GLADSTONE COLONY . 5 II. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE NEW COLONY . 22 III. MR GLADSTONE ENUNCIATES HIS LAND POLICY 29 IV. THE FOUNDING OF THE COLONY 37 V. THE VETO OF EARL GREY 51 VI. THE VINDICATION OF COLONEL BARNEY 66 VII. THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF GLADSTONE 71 VIII. THE EXPERIENCES OF A PIONEER SQUATTER 85 IX. THE GREAT GOLD RUSH 93 X. A MARVELLOUS WILD-GOOSE CHASE . 105 XI. THE HOST OF DISAPPOINTED DIGGERS 116 XII. THE CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR MAURICE O'CONNELL 135 XITI. A GRIEVOUS ERROR OF MR GLADSTONE'S 150 XIV. MAJOR DE WINTON : OLDEST LIVING GLADSTONIAN. 175 XV. THE GLADSTONE OF TO-DAY 188 XVI. MR GLADSTONE'S TRUE-PRINCIPLES OF COLONISATION 205 XVII. MR GLADSTONE AND THE COLONIES . 223 XVIII. A COUPLE OF COLONIAL LECTURES 255 INDEX 271 This is a blank page INTRODUCTION LORD RosESERY, in that spirit of persiflage combined with shrewd common-sense which is the special characteristic of his speeches, told Mr Gladstone on one occasion that, when the time came to write his life in full, the work would have to be undertaken by, and distributed amongst, a limited liability company. As the proverb reminds us, there is many a true word said in a joke, and this is certainly a case in point, for it is obvious that no single-handed biographer, within the limits of an ordinary book, could possibly do adequate justice to the marvellous and many-sided career of Mr Glad- stone. Statesman, orator, Colonial Administrator, theologian, essayist, controversialist, philanthropist, Homeric student- an interesting and instructive volume might be written on Mr Gladstone in each of these capacities. I have ventured to constitute myself the Colonial member of Lord Rosebery's Gladstonian biographical syndicate. It will probably be a surprise to many of the present generation to learn how close and intimate were the relations that subsisted for many years between Mr Gladstone and our Colonial Empire. The surprise will be shared by most of those who have already written what profess to be biographies of Mr Gladstone, and who have either entirely ignored, or dismissed in a few lines, his career as a Colonial Administrator and as the searching critic of the Colonial policy of his opponents when they were in power. Mr Gladstone has for so long been chiefly con- cerned with problems of domestic statesmanship that it is necessary to recall, for the information of not a few, the fact that from 1832 until 1852-for the first two decades of his unparalleled career in the House of Commons-Mr Glad- stone's political talents and activities were mainly devoted to Colonial affairs. As far back as January 1835 we find him Under-Secretary for the Colonies, but it was not until ten A 1 2 INTRODUCTION years later, when he became Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Ministry of Sir Robert Peel, that he had the opportunity of giving full effect to his ideas on Colonial policy and Imperial administration. The circumstance that his father was a Liverpool merchant, having large commercial interests and intercourse with the Colonies, was probably not without its influence in directing the early political energies, tastes, and studies of the young and promising statesman into this particular groove. In thisbook, then, I have endeavouredto presenta complete and comprehensive survey of Mr Gladstone's political connection with the Colonies. For the first time a full and detailed account is given of Mr Gladstone's most interesting experiment as Colonial Secretary, namely, his attempted establishment, just fifty years ago, of a new colony to be called North Australia. That colony did not succeed in securing a permanent place on the map, but its intended metropolis-the site on which Mr Gladstone's pioneer settlers encamped-was successfully established and continues to bear Mr Gladstone 's name to this day. This beautifully-situated town, with its capacious harbour-next to that of Sydney the finest on the coast of Australia-has had a singularly interesting and chequered history, and the time is opportune for writing and publishing it. In a few months Gladstone will be the terminus of the Australian transcontinental railway system. It will occupy a position on the Australian side of the Pacific analogous to that of Vancouver and San Francisco on the American side, and it does not need much of the gift of prophecy to perceive that it is destined in the not distant future to develop an importance and prosperity such as, under similar circum- stances, the terminal ports of the American transcontinental railway systems have securely attained. In addition to a full and authentic narrative of the incidents and circumstances connected with Mr Gladstone's effort to found the new colony of North Australia, and an historical sketch of the consequential rise, progress, and vicissitudes of the town of Gladstone, I have devoted some space to Mr Gladstone's ideas on the problem of the treatment and reformation of the prisoners transported from the British INTRODUCTION 3 Isles to the penal Colonies-- a subject in which, as Colonial Secretary, he took the deepest interest, and which was the main impulse and inspiring motive of the new colony that he endeavoured to establish. As an appropriate supplement, and with a view to showing the gradual development of Mr Gladstone's views and ideas in relation to the Greater Britain beyond the seas, his principal and permanently- interesting pronouncements on Colonial and Imperial policy are given in chronological order and regular sequence. The book, I trust, will thus be found to present a complete and comprehensive, luminous and accurate account of the Colonial side of the career of the greatest English states- man of the century. It will also, I venture to hope, be deemed not unworthy of perusal as a striking and suggestive object lesson in the art of colonisation-a concrete example of pioneering work within a limited compass. There are many books dealing with colonisation in general, and cover- ing large areas of colonising activity ; here, in the Gladstone Colony, we have a study of a single colonising experiment, within the confines of a comparatively small district, con- ducted for half a century under diverse conditions and with varying fortunes until now, when we see the metropolis, of which Mr Gladstone laid the foundation-stone just fifty years ago, springing at last into power and prominence, asserting itself as a leading Australian centre, and giving every promise of becoming one of the most prosperous and progressive of the ports of the Pacific. [In his recently published " History of the Catholic Church in Australasia ," Cardinal Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, identifies Port Curtis-the harbour of Gladstone - as the spot on which the famous Spanish navigator , De Quiros, landed in 1606. "The trend of the land from east to west, the row of islands in front of the harbour, the large Curtis Island at the distance of a few miles , all correspond to the 'Harbour of the Holy Cross' in which De Quiros cast anchor." The Cardinal is convinced that it was on the shores of Port Curtis the first celebration of Mass on the Australian continent took place . It also appears from the same valuable work that Archbishop Polding, the first Catholic Primate of Australia , suggested Gladstone as the seat of a new bishopric in 1858]. This is a blank page CHAPTER I THE GENESIS OF THE GLADSTONE COLONY TAKEup the map of Australia and run your finger along the Tropic of Capricorn until you come to the point where the tropic intersects the eastern coast of the Australian conti- nent. Directly underneath you will see the town of Gladstone at the head of Port Curtis. That town has a strange and eventful history which it is the purpose of these pages to unfold and narrate.