Reconnection with Britain

What happens when Australian history is reconnected with British developments in democracy? Some interesting revision to the received historical wisdom, developed since around 1915, becomes inevitable. Moreover, the role of Benthamites becomes central to the Australian story.

For example, lets have a look at a couple of propositions made at the website Documenting a Democracy. Click on the map of Victoria, and then on Victoria Constitution Act 1855 (UK) – The Spirit of Eureka, or just click here.

There you will find the statement:

Strictly speaking, the advent of self-government was not brought about by Eureka, but had already been set in train. However, the principles of democracy and liberty overwhelmingly demonstrated at Eureka Stockade quickly entered into the Victorian system of representative government.

 This is not a huge misconception, but bear with me for a few quotes and I hope you will see something of a pattern emerge…

So what is wrong with this quote? Well, what is the ‘Strictly speaking’ there for? That phrase is used where something is only true in absolute fact, but not in experienced reality. Here, one can only imagine that it is intended to create the impression that the fact is different from the experienced reality.

In fact not only was self-government set in train in Britain, but self-government for the colonies had been on the agenda there since the 1830s. For some, including Wakefield and the utilitarians, eventual self-government was an intrinsic part of policy implemented by Britain from 1831 onwards. In 1831 Ripon’s Rules were put in place. These were the first implementation of Wakefield’s policy for land sales, a policy that had embedded within it the idea that colonies should become independent.

British expectations and influence on democratic reform in the colonies did not stop there. Eureka was strongly influenced by the Chartist movement. You can see this claim here. Given that it’s not a matter of ’strictly speaking’, but of absolute fact and experienced reality, that the democratic reforms emerged both from British administrative action and a British political movement that had seized Britain for years and was brought here by British immigrants, lets quickly look at the names of some key players in the field.

Ripon’s Rules were implemented as a result of agitation, mainly by utilitarians. (See here and here.) Among many others, Jeremy Bentham and J. S. Mill played a role, along with Wakefield. Wakefield’s writings repeatedly referred to the eventual independence of the colonies.

Independent government was at the heart of the Durham Report. This report was framed for Canada, but its reforms were seen to have application for Australia. Though not specifically utilitarian himself, Durham was seen as a potential parliamentary leader for the utilitarians. He went to Canada with the utilitarians Wakefield and Charles Buller as his advisors, and so fully does the Report implement policy consistent with utilitarian ideas, it was long thought that in fact Buller and/or Wakefield had drafted it. In fact the Encyclopedia Britannica still makes that claim (here).

John George Lambton, 1st earl of Durham also called Baron Durham (1828–33) British reformist Whig statesman sometimes known as “Radical Jack,” governor general and lord high commissioner of Canada, and nominal author of the Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839), which for many years served as a guide to British imperial policy. The “Durham Report” was largely written by his chief secretary in Canada, Charles Buller (1806 – 1848).

Ok, so far we have established that speaking in any terms, Eureka was not the birthplace of Australian democracy. Though, as noted in the article, it was an important point of demonstration in favour of representation – or, perhaps better put, an important point of expression of the desire for an extension of the vote to miners so they could participate in the representative institutions.

Next:

Now, at the same site go to here, again in the section on Victoria, showing the Electoral Act of 1856. Here it is stated:

The Electoral Act 1856 passed through Parliament (with a one vote majority) on 13 March 1856, and received the Governor’s Assent on 19 March. Victoria thus became the first Australian colony, and the first legislature anywhere in the world, to adopt the practice of the secret ballot, as opposed to open voting. The arguments for the practice – designed to protect electors from pressure and recrimination – had been discussed in Britain, but secret voting was not adopted there until later.

However elsewhere, at a different website, we find that the Charter of 1838 had included as one of its six points:

“The suffrage, to be exempt from the corruption of the wealthy and the violence of the powerful, must be secret.”

Now it is necessary to ask to what activities does the phrase ‘had been discussed’ refer in the Documenting a Democracy website. This ‘discussion’ includes parliamentary discussion (for example, here).

It includes rather large petitions, and violent riots (both here). The Plug Plot case is but one of many vast public rallies, not all of which ended in violence.

It also resulted in some rather violent deaths, at the Westgate Hotel in Newport.

In fact Britain was (arguably) brought nearly to the point of full-scale rebellion or revolution by the democratic ideals expressed in the Charter. One of these ideals was the secret ballot. Those who came out to Australia were in many instances filled with these democratic ideals. These people soon shaped Australian democracy to represent those ideals. In this manner Australia was indeed very advanced in its democratic reforms. But the impetus came not from some unique Australian character, but from the expression of a British reform movement which had supporters at all levels of society.

The Charter itself was written by two utilitarians (Place and Roebuck), and Lovett. Lovett had recanted the core of his Owenite ideals in response to the political education he underwent as a member of the London Working Men’s Association, established as an initiative of utilitarians. Lovett’s biography is clear on this shift in ideals, and its cause. In his biography,¹ at pages 44 and 48 Lovett is clear that he abandoned Owen’s idea of community of property, and he is also clear that he considered Owen anti-democratic.

As an aside from the main argument here, note that a common representation of Lovett reads along the lines of that at www.chartists.net.

William Lovett, a cabinet maker, originally from Cornwall, who had become active in trade unionism and Owenite socialism before turning to the campaign to repeal taxes on newspapers;

forgetting to mention he recanted much of the Owenite program.

In any case what the phrase ‘had been discussed’ refers to is petition, riot, and death. When I first read the phrase I imagined a few people sitting around a table in polite discussion over, perhaps, a cup of tea, speculating on the possibility of the secret ballot, while the real action was occurring in Australia. Not so. Real action was everywhere. But certainly, democracy made its advance most easily, and with far less drama, in the new colonies. Systems that were in place that privileged particular social groups were quickly removed through parliamentary battles, including redesigning elements of parliament itself. Land reform and wealth distribution that have not been resolved in 500 years of South American history, were pretty much worked through in 20 years in Australia.

So who was doing the agitating for democracy in Australia? And on what principles? We have seen here that there was not, and never was intended to be, a permanent working class in Australia. Australia was to be a fluid society that was to reward hard work. There could not be a ‘class war’ because there was no fixed class system. Everyone could aspire to wealth, either for themselves, or, through education and work, for their children.

However the story seems often to be told from the point of view of Dunstan’s ‘permanent working class’, including the likes of those at Eureka. This oppressed ‘class’ rose up, demanded representative institutions, and gradually achieved reforms against the oppressive social order constructed by, what is presumably to be understood as, a permanent elite. Moreover the agitation was done by true-blue Aussies, with nary a nasty pom in sight.

Having set the scene, the next thing is to provide some further quotes. However, for now, that is where I will leave it.

1. Lovett, William. The life and struggles of William Lovett, New York, Garland Pub, 1984 originally published by Trubner, 1876 [↩]