Charles Griffith

“ It is indeed absurd, that a man of education, the owner of perhaps 15,000 or 20,000 sheep, and who is an extensive employer of labour, should not be entitled to vote at the election of a member, far less to sit in the Legislative Council, while, if his bullock-driver leave his service, and sets up as a water-carrier at Melbourne, occupying a house worth £20 a year, he becomes his superior in constitutional privileges. ”

“ The same act of parliament which established the Legislative Council, established also through New South Wales rural corporations, called district councils, which have power to tax property within their districts for the purpose of making roads, building bridges, paying one-half of the expenses of the police force and other local objects. The Legislative Council, and in its default the governor, is to declare what property is to be liable to taxation. These councils are elective, and the qualification for members and electors is at present the same as that of those to the Legislative Council. ”

“ Even in England, amongst the number of men of independent property, who can leave home without inconvenience or loss, and with all the facilities for travelling which they possess, how few men would be willing to go into parliament if its sessions were held at Gibraltar, the voyage to which would be more easily performed than that from Melbourne to Sydney? The consequence of this has been, that out of six candidates at the only election for the district, four were residents at Sydney, none of whom I believe had ever been at Port Phillip until immediately preceding the election ”

“ As in Port Phillip the proportion of land yielding a profitable return is very small, no tax of any amount can be raised without bearing very hard on the landed interest. The consequence is, that the district councils will not vote any salaries to the officers whom they have been obliged to elect, and there being likewise no funds to employ persons to make any assessment, or even to hire a room for the council to meet in, nobody will advance money or make himself liable for these expenses, and the thing was, when I left Melbourne, in February, 1844, at a dead stand. ”

“ We will suppose that A and B are two sheep owners, not very scrupulous in their mode of raising money. A mortgages the wool of the ensuing clip to an indifferent person, whom we will call X, who advances a large per centage on its value, and registers his mortgage. A shears rather early, and sells the remainder of his interest in the wool to B, who has an understanding with him. B takes it in his own dray, and offers it for sale to a merchant in Sydney, who makes searches against any incumbrances by B, but who has nothing to lead him to suspect that the wool was not grown by him. ”

“ When you have bought a horse, and are congratulating yourself on having steered clear of splints and spavins, ringbones curbs, and corns, and all the ills that horseflesh seems peculiarly the heir to, you may discover, that when you thought you were buying a horse, you were only purchasing an equity of redemption, which your lawyer will inform you is a horse of another colour. ”

“ The thing is as much or more a matter of notoriety than a transfer of landed property; and this it is which, in my mind, allows a broad hue to be drawn between the possession of personal chattels in England and property in stock in Australia, accompanied by the possession of a depasturing license, and the payment of an annual assessment for each head.
The only other shadow of an argument against giving the elective franchise to squatters is, that they are virtually represented under the present system. ”

“ The government first, in their character of monopolists of land, force the most wealthy and respectable colonists to put up with a servile tenure, and then, in their character of lawgivers, recognize their political rights no more than if they were really serfs. ”

“ In modern times, the same object of limiting the elective franchise to those whose position in life gives a certain degree of assurance that they would properly exercise this important privilege, has been carried out in the British isles by enlarging the qualification, but still resting it, for the most part, on the basis of landed property, or the occupation of a house of a certain value, which there forms a very fair test. ”

“ The objection to making personal chattels the basis of qualification, owing to their perishable nature, and the facility of the transfer of property in them, does not apply to stock in a country where the main wealth of the inhabitants consists in flocks and herds and in the profits derived from their produce; for there such property possesses a more permanent character than that attributed to personal chattels by the policy of the English law. So long as a man retains his license from the crown, he must retain his stock, in order to occupy his run ”

“ It is indeed of the greatest importance that there should be some mode in which the opinions of the most respectable and most experienced of the colonists should be made known, and that there should be some source from which persons in power in England may derive information above all suspicion ”

“ Seriously speaking, however, the corporations have shown an anxiety to be active in the discharge of their duties; but the general want of money, which is felt more in Melbourne than in the rural parts of the district, has naturally made them slow to impose heavy rates ”

“ This, however, is a consideration which cannot be supposed to have influenced the framers of our new constitution, as it was one which was urged against the English reform bill, but was not considered of much weight, and justly so; for if men have rights, they are entitled to have them assured to them, and not to have them left to accident.
But, as far as the Port Phillip district is at present concerned, it makes but little difference what may be the qualification of members of the legislative council, or of the electors who return them ”

“ Under these circumstances there can be, as I said before, no reasonable apprehension of the colony of Port Phillip not being able to support the expenses of its government in case of its separation from Sydney; for, allowing £10,000 a year as the increased expenditure consequent upon such a step, there would still remain a sum of about £33,000 per annum applicable to the purposes of public works, and to meet contingencies. ”

“ Their inadequacy may be inferred from the following facts:—There are in all seventy men, who are divided into four distinct bodies, totally independent of each other, and wearing different uniforms. Of these, the mounted police, who are commanded by a sergeant, are chiefly used in carrying despatches. The border police, consisting of twenty-four men, are divided into two bodies, of which one is in attendance on each of the two principal crown land commissioners, and are principally engaged in carrying out the squatting acts. ”

“ That there is nothing in the position or circumstances of stockholders, which can warrant this exclusion, their body being chiefly composed of men of education, and numbering amongst them several members of the learned profession, and many retired officers of the army and navy, persons in influence and consideration second to none in the district. ”

“ It is 80 far lucky, that the difficulty of identifying the wool on the sheep's back with the wool sold to the merchant will go far to prevent persons advancing money on this security, and so to neutralise its bad effect. ”

“ In fact, government is to become the mortgagee of all the land in the country, in reality, its purchaser, and the unincumbered members of the community are to pay the purchase money. ↑ But more serious injury will be done if this bill has the effect of clogging the transfer of wool with such difficulties, as to shake the confidence of merchants in purchasing. ”