MAGDA PORTAL

Part 1

The Debate on Electoral Reform, 1858

The rapid growth of radical liberalism from the middle 1850s was partly the result of social and economic changes brought by the gold rush. The increased money supply

encouraged a boom in wages and rents which effectively extended the franchise at the elections of 1856, and radical changes in the social structure gave further assistance to the

democrats. Between 1851 and 1861, the number of men engaged in pastoral pursuits declined from 15,619 to 14,607, but the numbers engaged in other occupations increased dramatically. The number of men engaged in agriculture and horticulture more than tripled from 12,828 to 39,394; the number of mechanics, artificers and men engaged in trade and commerce almost doubled from 18,280 to 34,266; and those engaged in mining, who did

not form a separate category in 1851, numbered 21,382 ten years 2

later. These changes meant a more radical electorate, for the pastoral interest, whose potentially radical elements were

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either disfranchised or subject to 'influence', was now far less important.

The flow of immigrants meant that native born

conservatives had less chance than ever of capturing a section of the popular vote by appealing to 'Australian' sentiment, as Wentworth had done, but rapid social change had more important effects. In particular, it meant that those who had no

substantial stake in the existing order were more inclined to

^See estimates of wages and rents given by T.A. Coghlan, Labour and Industry in Australia, Melbourne, 1969 (1st ed.

1918), pp.687-706, 791-4. 2

Figures taken from Census of New South Wales, 1851 and 1861. See Chapter III, above.

dismiss as irrelevant conservative political theories based upon the relatively static class structure of British society. It also meant that the old colonial elites clung the more

strongly to political theories based upon a hierarchic social order in an attempt to bolster their position.

Anxiety fostered by the rapidity of social and political change was clearly evident in conservative contributions to the debate over electoral reform. Their insecurity led them to view politics in terms of a class war. On one level, the

conflict of the classes was portrayed as one between men of different status within the middle classes - as one between the old middle class elite and 'new men' on the way up. This interpretation, which described accurately the conflict at the parliamentary level, was perhaps put best by Roger Therry:

When responsible government came, there came with it the necessity of a mingling of classes. The sudden upraising of persons of subordinate rank to a level with the best society of the place created a collision that was at first a little violent and ungenial [sic] to both parties. Some thought it was not pleasant to hear a person

greet you in the Assembly as 'my honourable friend' who, a short time before, took off his hat and in

'whispering humbleness' besought you as a

magistrate 'to put in a good word on licensing day for the renewal of his licence'....^

Conservative complaints about the low character of most members of the Assembly after 1859 were frequent and reflected

the bitterness of men identified with the old order that

political power had passed to the representatives of a new one. But, while the conservatives thought it deplorable that

politics should be dominated by new men of inferior station, they recognized that most of the liberals in parliament were also, to some extent, identified with the interests of

property? they saw that, in an economic sense, the two groups belonged to the same class. Isaacs, for instance, warned the liberals that if manhood suffrage were introduced, they, too, should 'tremble for their property, as it would be place in

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the balance'. The conservatives were even prepared to grant

. Therry, Reminiscences of Thirty Years' Residence in New South Wales and Victoria, London, 1863, pp.67-8.

that ‘respectable artisans and labourers' belonged properly to the body politic'*' although as voters rather than as

parliamentary representatives. Such men were regarded as quite distinct from the middle classes, but they were thought to

possess sufficient property to allow them some degree of responsibility under a constitution where men of wealth and status were protected by the electoral distribution and the Legislative Council from the influence of 'mere numbers'.

It was not so much the conflict between propertied men of different status which led the conservatives to oppose the electoral bill of 1858, however, but their belief in that deeper class war between those who had property and those who did not. This struggle had little existence in reality, for men with no property took little effective part in politics, but in the minds of the conservatives it was a dreadful

reality. As the conservatives pointed out, 'respectable'

working men in regular employment were often entitled to vote 2

even without manhood suffrage, and they painted a dismal picture of those who would be enfranchised by the abolition of

the property qualification. Their vision of the men whom such a measure would admit to the body politic derived in part from their perspective as lawyers, judges and magistrates - men whose acquaintance with the lower orders was wholly one-sided. Thus, Judge Therry alleged that an experienced police officer had told him that 'from his own quarter alone' the electoral bill would admit to the franchise 'no less than 500 persons

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who were under the surveillance of the police'. In a later argument against the bill, he described this class of people in greater detail:

When they considered that in large towns, where a great number of persons lived from day to day without knowing where they could provide food for

the morrow - When they knew, also, that people abounded in cities of this description - when

^Isaacs, S .M.H., 7 October 1858; A 1 23Beckett, S.M.H., 11 September 1858.

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A'Beckett, S,M.H., 11 September 1858. Compare Loveday's figures on the percentage of adult males entitled to vote.

(Loveday, 'The Legislative Council...', p.483, cited above.) 3

S.M.H., 7 October 1858. Therry later repeated the argument. (S.M.H.. 10 October 1858.)

they remembered the filth and feculance that always floated on the surface of society in large towns, they would see that there was no necessity, nor was it fit or wise, or even

rational, to extend the representation to these persons merely because they have arrived at the age of twenty-one years.1

Similarly, Robert Isaacs, who had no quarrel about permitting 'respectable artisans and labourers' to vote, said that the electoral bill would swamp 'the real people' by enfranchising

'men who, except at election times, would be hidden in the public houses and stores, and would only'come forward like horrid creatures brought into existence by the sunshine of

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party'. He thought manhood suffrage would give votes to men who,'having drowned all conscience in gin or other such thing, would be brought to the poll to shout at the top of their

3 voices "Cowper forever", or whoever might be the candidate'.

It was not that he thought that liberal members of parliament were themselves bent upon destroying the rights of property, but that they were politically naive and were unable to see the likely effects of admitting the propertyless to the

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franchise. Of the consequences of such a measure, the

conservatives professed to have no doubt: Cowper would become the captive of political opportunists who would trade upon the ignorant and the unintelligent, men who could not understand the teaching of the economists that no intervention in the distribution of wealth was possible without injury to men of all classes. Thomson thought that manhood suffrage 'would lead to this - that all property would be taxed to an enormous

amount, whilst the burdens which were now borne by the general 5

consumer would be taken off'. Similarly, Edward Wise foresaw 'class legislation and taxation on wealth and the product of i n d u s t r y ' a n d James Norton feared that 'political schemers'

1S.M.H., 13 October 1858. 2s.m.h., 7 October 1858. 3s.m.h., 13 November 1858. 4

S.M.H. , 7 October 1858, quoted above. 5s.m.h., 9 September 1858.

would beguile the ignorant with promises of ‘employment for the unemployed, and all the other etceteras of their political stock-in-trade 1 . Consequently, a property qualification was regarded as both a guarantee that the voter had a vested

interest in defending the rights of property and a practical demonstration that he had the intelligence not to be deluded

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