EL PROBLEMA DEL CAPITAL

The fact that the 'urban aristocracy' depended largely upon the nominee system for its parliamentary representation was certainly not lost upon men like Thomson, Plunkett and Manning, who had framed the electoral laws and who had heard

frequent complaints that the nominees had disproportionate

^Cf. Irving, op.cit., pp. 383-91. 2

See Appendix 11. See Appendix 11. 3

influence in the existing Council because most of them lived in Sydney and could attend more easily than the elected

conservatives, most of w h o m lived in the country.^

Consequently, w h e n M a n ning and Thomson objected that Martin's elective upper house wou l d discriminate against merchants, bankers and profess i o n a l men and wou l d give 'one class of the com m u n i t y a superiority over the others', they were not speaking of some abstract injustice but were expressing a genuine fear that an elective chamber w o u l d leave their own class vir t u a l l y unrepresented.

Some of the nominees, respectable members of the 'upper class', evinced a distaste for electoral contests w h i c h does m u c h to explain their inability to match the liberals and the

'Australians' in the rough and tumble of urban politics. Many conservatives resented the accompaniments of electoral

p olitics - the treating of voters, the occasional v i olence - and their poor opinion of the electors led them to assume that the candidate who solicited votes by the basest means had the best chance of success. Thomas Barker, a w e a l t h y manufacturer,

feared that an elective chamber might be dominated by the most unscrupulous spenders, who w o u l d then enrich themselves at the

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colony's expense; and Plunkett, the Attorney-General, asserted that

If the Upper House be elected by the large f a r m e r s ... there must consequently be district elections. Whe r e there were those elections there w o u l d be a canvass for votes, and where there was such a canvass, there would, as in all other popular elections, be corruption. The man wh o spent the m ost m o n e y and made the most

promises w o u l d be the m ost likely to succeed, w i t h o u t reference to his qualifications (Cheers) ; and it was the m ost crafty and u n principled knave who w o u l d promise most l a r g e l y .... But some of the best men were those who wou l d not be induced to go through a contested election and run the risk of being d i s g raced by some contemptible candidate, wh o w o u l d canvass better achieving v i c tory over him. (Hear, h.ear.)3

'''See, for example, Windeyer, S .M .H . , 13 June 1846; Lowe, S ,M.H. , 4 May 1848.

2

Silvester, op.cit., p p . 186-7. ^ I b i d ., p . 108.

In particular, Plunkett thought that a nominated upper house would attract the cream of retired members of the lower house and gentlemen like Sir William Burton, Puisne Judge at Madras and a former judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court, who

intended to return to the colony and would not wish to campaign on the hustings.'- He might also have mentioned Deas Thomson, the Colonial Secretary, who had never contested an election and whose desire to stand aloof from 'party politics' after responsible government led him to avoid electoral contests and

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retire to the upper house. Even conservatives active in electoral politics considered that the best election was an

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uncontested one, and conservatives in general had no desire to make election the sole means of political advancement. Had

they done so, they would have excluded from political life some of the 'finest gentlemen' in the colony.

The final major argument which conservatives used against Martin's proposal for an elective chamber was that it made no provision for the resolution of conflicts between the two branches of the legislature. The dilemma of those who

favoured an elective upper house was explained by H.M. Marsh: If we make it [the Upper House] elective by the

class of people who elect the Lower House, there will be no distinction between it and a democracy

....If we make it elective by another and a higher class, we shall make it an oligarchy.^

The solution which was provided by both the plan for an aristocratic chamber and by that for a non-aristocratic

nominated house was to give the Governor power to appoint

^Ibid. 2

Cf. Cowper to Parkes, 27 August 1856, P.C., vol.6, A876.

Thomson turned down the chance of becoming the first President of the new Legislative Council in 1856 because he thought the office 'a political one'. (Denison to Labouchere, 24 August 1856, P.R.O./C.O., 201/494.) Thomson, however, later became involved in a type of 'party politics' in the Council. (See below, passim, but esp. Ch.II.)

3

Cf. J.M. Antill to James Macarthur, 9 January 1857, Macarthur Papers, vol.28, A2924, pp.5-7.

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sufficient new members to break any deadlock between the houses. Martin and a few conservatives outside the Council, like Sir Alfred Stephen and Robert Johnson, made this the core of their objection to both proposals/ but most conservatives agreed with Marsh's view that the 'expansive principle' was an advantage. Swamping was explicitly and favourably referred to

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by Wentworth, Manning, Macarthur and Douglass, while many other conservatives referred implicitly and with equanimity to what everyone knew: that a nominated house with unlimited

membership could be coerced. Wentworth explicitly mentioned the possibility of swamping at least five times and he

elaborated at length on its advantages:

...it is in this expansive character of this upper house that the real safety-valve is to be found (cheers.) Sir, it is this expansive

character of the House of Lords which has saved England from more than one revolution. It is to

this expansive character that I look forward as a port of refuge for the constitution at all times. Sir, any one can perceive, if the time should arrive - and most assuredly it will arrive - that there is an obstructive body in the Upper House impeding the legislation of the Lower House unnecessarily - impeding it, not for purposes of revision or consideration, but for purposes of faction, or even from an erroneous conviction or opinion of their own - I say, if a dead lock of this kind should ever arise, there is a remedy. The constitutional minister of the day has only to advise a further creation to the extent necessary to get rid of the obstruction, and then the ^ obstruction, as a matter of course, will cease.

The widely held opinion that Wentworth and the other

conservatives did not foresee the possibility of a swamping is clearly incorrect. This view has been based less upon

examination of the evidence than upon inferences from the presumed nature of conservative intentions in New South Wales

in the 1850s. Such a procedure was natural enough in view of the fact that most historians have made only passing comments

■^Martin, ibid., pp.98-9; Stephen, op.cit., pp.llff, 15; Johnson, S .M.H., 6 September 1853.

2

Wentworth, S,M.H., 9 December 1853, and in Silvester, op.cit., pp.35, 215-6, 221, 224; Manning, ibid., p.l80ff; Macarthur,

ibid., p.143; Douglass, ibid., p.158. ^Ibid., pp.215-6.

on the choice of a nominated upper house in New South Wales. However, their erroneous conclusion that the conservatives did not appreciate the potential weakness of a nominated chamber throws into doubt the validity of the premise about

conservative intentions on which it was based. It will

therefore be necessary to indicate some alternative conclusions on the nature of conservatism in New South Wales in the early 1850s.

To begin with, the facile identification of conservatism with the defence of squatter interests must be abandoned. Wentworth was the only conservative leader in the Council who

derived his principal income from squatting and whole-heartedly endorsed the squatters' cause. Moreover, the squatters in

general had little influence on the framing of the constitution, and the nominated upper house was certainly not intended to be a stronghold of the 1 Shepherd K i n g s 1 . The leading conservatives saw the upper house as a chamber which would represent an

'aristocracy' drawn from both urban and rural interests, and they preferred the principle of nomination to that of election partly because they did not want rural interests to predominate.

In that respect, the nominated chamber was intended to be the successor to the nominated element in the old Council, which had ensured that urban conservatives were amply represented.

It should also be noted that the only economic reason which the urban conservatives had for wanting strong political

representation in the upper house instead of abandoning it to rural conservatives was a desire to ensure that the squatters did not legislate too blatantly in their own interests. A more important reason was that, for urban conservatives, political power had its own rewards - prestige, patronage, the

gratification of narcissistic idealism and the satisfaction of personally influencing the course of events.

It must also be stressed that although what passed for 'constitutional principle' was often simply a convenient rationalization for expediency or self-interest, political

theory was sometimes important in guiding politician's actions. It was not that they followed political theory to the detriment of their interests, but rather that their conception of their

interests was moulded by political theory. It is impossible to dismiss the praise lavished upon the 'expansive character' of

the no m i n a t e d upper house as just another argument in favour of a chamber desired for other reasons. It wou l d have been a simple matter to fix the me m b e r s h i p of the upper house at a specific number, m a k i n g it impervious to swamping. Such a

chamber w o u l d have been just as effective in representing urban conser v a t i v e s and those who shrank from soliciting votes, and it h a d a pr e c e d e n t in the fixed number of nominees in the

e x i s t i n g L e g i s l a t i v e Council. We must conclude, then, that the