Eureka - The Unfinished Revolution (47 page)

‘The corruption of every department connected with the government in Ballaarat is become so notorious and barefaced that public indignation is thoroughly aroused; and though the expression of public feeling be for a time in abeyance on account of the numerous armed mercenaries lately sent up from town, the fire of indignation is not extinguished; it still smoulders, only to burn forth again with unabated and unbeatable vigour.

‘The
Government deceive themselves most egregiously if they suppose that the present display of armed force is sufficient to overawe the miners into passive submission to any measure they please to bring forward, to any law they please to enact, or to protect its corrupt officials from the just indignation of an oppressed people.’

1 November 1854, Ballarat, the diggers gather at Bakery Hill in force

And so it has come to this.

On this afternoon a meeting to protest against the actions of the Ballarat authorities is attended by no fewer than 5000 diggers at Bakery Hill, where a few boards placed upon some tree stumps form a podium, allowing the meeting to begin at 2 pm.

As Commissioner Rede and his staff watch nervously from the Government Camp, tension rises at the vision of such a large mass of men gathered in the one spot at the one time, talking about their unhappiness with the authorities. In response, Commissioner Rede gives orders that all his soldiers are to keep their weaponry close, while the sentry guard is doubled.

‘Every precaution is taken,’ one correspondent would note, ‘as if the authorities were in a real enemy’s country.’

The atmosphere, to begin with, is festive. In attendance is a German band – composed of diggers who have brought their musical instruments all the way from that nation – who play several popular airs. Around the speakers’ platform are placed the gaily coloured English, Scottish and Irish national flags, as well as those of France and the United States.

There are many speakers, but the most powerful of them are, as ever, the organisers of this meeting: John Basson Humffray, Thomas Kennedy, George Black and Henry Holyoake. All of them had been heavily involved with the Chartist movement in England – Henry’s brother is no less than the great George Jacob Holyoake, England’s most famed Chartist and atheist – and all meet regularly at the Star Hotel on Main Road in Ballarat East, with people such as Sam Irwin, the regular contributor to the
Geelong Advertiser
,
John Manning of
The Ballarat Times
,
and, of course, Timothy Hayes, to discuss the issues of the day.

The first pressing issue is the need to have all the charges dropped against Fletcher, McIntyre and Westerby. Having journeyed to Geelong – where superior judicial authorities reside – in an effort to do exactly that, Henry Holyoake and a 27-year-old Canadian digger by the name of Charles Ross report back that there is no sign that their release from gaol is imminent, though everyone at Bakery Hill appreciates Holyoake and Ross’s efforts.

An even larger issue is the continued attempts by officials from the Government Camp to make even more arrests for the burning down of the hotel, despite officials having intimated eight days earlier to the digger delegation that such arrests would cease.

A strong resolution is passed condemning this outrage, and then the assembly begins to grapple with the issue of what they can do to stop these offenses.

Now, as moral-force Chartists, those on the podium believe that the best method of change is by exactly that – the moral force of their arguments – calmly and consistently expressing the legitimate will of the people. Ideally, that view could also have been expressed via the ballot box. Yet, sadly, as diggers they have not been invited to contribute to the electoral process and are in fact barred from it as they do not satisfy the electors’ (let alone Members’) property qualifications. And they are not alone.

The only people allowed to vote in the colony of Victoria for the 20 non-appointed members of the Legislative Council are those in possession of a freehold estate of the value of £100, those who have been resident in a dwelling house with a value of £10 per annum for at least six months, those holders of a lease with an annual value of £10 with three years to run, and those holding a depasturing license. This means that only 4000 men out of a total Victorian population of some quarter million can vote at this time.

And so the likes of Humffray and Holyoake warm to the theme that they must unite in their political actions, not only with each other but also with the diggers at other goldfields, who are all facing the same issues. After debate and discussion lasting no less than three hours, they reach a resolution: ‘That the diggers of Ballarat do enter into a communication with the men of the other goldfields, with a view to the immediate formation of a general league, having for its object the attainment of the moral and social rights of the diggers.’

For those here at these diggings, the idea of this ‘reform league’ is to have a body that can express their united views and allow their voice to be heard by a Government that has allowed them no voice in its Legislative Council, apart from that coming from sympathisers like John Pascoe Fawkner. (Fawkner had, after all, recently published a pamphlet entitled, ‘Squatting Orders . . . Orders in Council . . . Locking Up the Lands of the Colony in the Hands of a Small Minority, Giving Them, Without Any Real Reason, the Right to Buy the Whole or Any Part of the Sixty Million Acres of This Fine Colony, at Their Own Price.’)

Meanwhile at the meeting, one of the speakers, as recorded by Thomas Pierson, said, ‘If all the people would only just assert their rights that they [would be] able to maintain a Republican Government!’

As is ever his way, Thomas Kennedy goes further: ‘The press has called us demagogues, who must be put down,’ he thunders. ‘But I for one will die a free man, though I drink the poison as Socrates of yore. We have come 15,000 miles, and left the enlightenment of the age and of the press, not to suffer insult, but to obtain greater liberty. We want
men
to rule over us [not such as we have]. Most of all, we have to think of our children, who will grow up in this great colony, and all of us must never forget
their
own dearest interests.’

And yet, he asks, is
this
the way to proceed? Constantly signing petitions and passing resolutions, all for no result?

‘Moral persuasion,’ Thomas Kennedy says, with everyone leaning forward as before, to catch every word, ‘is all humbug. Nothing convinces like a lick in the lug!’

Hurrah
!
Exactly!

Though not yet sure which lug, particularly, should be licked, a growing body of diggers are becoming ever more conscious that, together, they are strong. As the
Geelong Advertiser
astutely reports, ‘It is evident that the agitation is about to assume a new shape . . .’

2 November 1854, on the Ballarat Diggings, a breakthrough

The news breaks on this very day: Sir Charles Hotham has buckled! No longer able to ignore the growing outcry coming from Ballarat – the editorials, the two petitions – asking for the release of the diggers arrested for burning the Eureka Hotel and complaining of the treatment of the priest’s servant – he has at last done something.

‘Notice is hereby given,’ the announcement runs, ‘that a board has been appointed by His Excellency to investigate all circumstances in connexion with the murder of Scobie and the burning down of the Eureka Hotel . . .’

As he explains in a despatch to London, Sir Charles – on the strong advice of Attorney-General William Stawell – has decided that after all the outcry it behoves him ‘to investigate the charges which poured in from all quarters, of general corruption on the part of the authorities of the Ballarat gold field’. And that Board of Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the burning of the Eureka Hotel is due to get underway this very day at the mercifully still standing Bath’s Hotel. It will be led by Sturt, who used to be Melbourne’s Superintendent of Police but has now returned to his old job as Melbourne’s Police Magistrate. He will be assisted by Ballarat Police Magistrate Charles Prendergast Hackett and the Chief Health Officer of the colony, William McCrea, who had previously served as a naval officer under the command of Sir Charles Hotham.

Now,
now
the diggers feel they are starting to get somewhere.

One of the witnesses to the inquiry at Bath’s Hotel proves to be Peter Lalor, who gives his evidence on 4 November with some difficulty, his voice straining to keep calm under the anger he so evidently feels.

Speaking to the lack of justice delivered at the Coroner’s inquest into the death of Scobie, which has directly led to the burning of the hotel, his testimony is devastating. ‘While the jury were retired to consult on the verdict,’ he begins, ‘I saw the Coroner speaking to Bentley in a distant part of the room. Bentley had left the room before the jury returned. When they gave their verdict, he was sent for and the verdict read to him. The Coroner then said, “Gentlemen of the jury, you could find no other verdict. “ Mr Bentley asked whether the jury did not exonerate himself and the character of his house from all suspicion. The Coroner replied, without appealing to the jury, that with the two witnesses in his favour, there could be no suspicion against him.’

This is only one of the many allegations of endemic corruption that the Board of Inquiry will hear or receive. One significant letter that is tendered claims the entire Government Camp at Ballarat is ‘a kind of legal store where justice [is] bought and sold, bribery being the governing element of success, and perjury the base instrument of baser minds to victimize honest and honorable men, thus defeating the ends of justice’.

And the principal problem remains unchanged.

‘Honest men,’ the letter further asserts, ‘are hunted by the police like kangaroos, and if they do not possess a license (too often from want of means of paying for one, as poverty is the lot of many a digger) are paraded through the diggings by the commissioners and police up to the camp, and if unable to pay, are rudely locked up with any thief or thieves who happen to be in the camp cells at the time – in short, treated in every way as like a felon.’

It is signed ‘On Behalf of the Ballarat Reform League’ by John Basson Humffray, George Black, Friedrich Vern, Charles Ross and the noted journalist for
The Ballarat Times
and
Geelong Advertiser
,
Samuel Irwin. Another who is
very
strong in his personal criticism of both Commisioner Rede and Assistant-Commisioner Johnstone is the editor of
The Ballarat Times
,
Henry Seekamp, something that Commisioner Rede takes a very dim view of when he finds out about it. Seekamp is not just a problem, he is an ever more troubling one – and therefore a problem that must be resolved.

4 o’clock on the afternoon of 3 November 1854, Port Phillip Bay, Sir Charles Hotham’s ship comes in

The cavalry has arrived! Well, perhaps not the cavalry, but certainly Sir Charles Hotham feels some sense of relief that on this day the good ship
Empress Eugenie
drops anchor in Hobson’s Bay and shortly thereafter begins unloading eight officers, ten sergeants and 167 rank and file Redcoats from the second division of the first battalion of Her Majesty’s 12th Regiment to join the 321 Redcoats from the first division who arrived a fortnight earlier. Sir Charles’s military complement is now complete, with as many troops on the ground as he could have reasonably hoped for.

‘The troops are very healthy,’ the
Empire
reports, ‘and the vessel presents an appearance of cleanliness and order unequalled by any troop ship that has entered Hobson’s Bay, and reflects the greatest credit on the commanding officer, and Dr Rogers, medical officer in charge.’ This credit is doubled when the band of the 12th division occupies the orchestra at the Melbourne Exhibition over three nights and provides an entertaining program that included the ‘Polka Waterloo’ and ‘Polka Downshire’.

7 November 1854, Government Camp, Ballarat, Commissioner Rede ponders an alternative way

Well, the truth of it is obvious, is it not? The licensing system does not work, and it was never going to work.

None other than Gold Commissioner Robert Rede feels so strongly on this point that, in response to Sir Charles’s private circular, he has been examining other ways of raising revenue. On this day, he commits his thoughts, black on white, in an elegantly penned letter, reporting that, alas, the alternative methods – including imposing a tax on the number of men employed on each claim or the number of people in each tent – won’t work either.

‘After giving the subject the most attentive consideration,’ he writes, ‘and talking it over with others who are capable of giving an opinion on such matters I must state that . . . the levying of a tax upon the inmates of a Tent could not be put into effect without a severe system of espionage which would be excessively obnoxious.’

He regrets the current system, noting that he could get by with a quarter of the force he now has, ‘had it not to act as a Tax gatherer. The miners have no personal ill feeling towards the Police but they detest the system, that is they detest the enforcings’.

In place of the odious license fee, might Commissioner Rede make several suggestions to His Excellency? He decides to do so and details his considered views that the best way to proceed is to have an export duty on gold, sufficiently low that it will not encourage smuggling; a stamp duty on the sale of lands, houses, horses and cattle; a duty on imports with the exception of staples; licenses for the sale of wine and spirits to be doubled; and a tax imposed on the largest of the goldfields’ ‘refreshment tents’, to all intents public houses.