[Editor: This article, about the parliamentary elections in the colony of Victoria, was published in The Star (Ballarat, Vic.), 25 August 1859.]
The Ministerial candidates again.
“Bailey is a scoundrel — a clever scoundrel!” in effect exclaimed the Government candidate, Gillies, on Tuesday night, before his friends at the Council Chambers. “Bailey is a clever scoundrel;” — don’t, for goodness’ sake, and for the sake of the Government and their pensions, send him to Parliament; but send us — us, Duncan Gillies and William Frazer — there, and we will serve you as “honest men of less ability!” Messrs Gillies and Frazer are very cross now that they begin to feel they have made a mistake in siding with the partisans of the Ministry, and so they can no longer refrain from indulging in a little ill-tempered vituperation of the candidate who surpasses them in political information, and in ability to expound his views to intelligent men. Were it not that it would be fatal to their reputation, they would gladly now recant and speak out, as “honest men of less ability” might do, if untrammelled by party, against the Ministry that has corrupted our magisterial roll, jobbed in the public moneys and contracts, ruined the Brown’s miners, left our fellow countrymen and women to perish on board the wrecked Admella, and perpetrated a score of other iniquities.
Messrs Frazer and Gillies are both for and against the Ministry; for to please public opinion they condemn the Ministers, and to please their Government supporters they refuse to turn out of office the vile pack who have so long been battening upon the public revenue, and trading with their powers! Messrs Frazer and Gillies are both for and against a popular Land Bill; for they advocate Convention doctrines to please the miners, while they oppose deferred payments, by supporting a Ministry whose Land Bill does not include that cardinal point in the creed of the Convention! Messrs Frazer and Gillies are both for and against equal taxation of all classes; for they espouse free trade in one breath, and in another support the gold export duty, which presses so unfairly and so irksomely upon the miner! That “clever scoundrel Bailey” exposed the fallacy of these all things to all men candidates, who would, forsooth, make the miner alone pay the expenses of prospecting for gold, the discovery of which is a national benefit, and ought to be supported from the general revenue, and not out of the hard-working miners’ gold, as the Government candidates, Frazer and Gillies, say they will do. And then, as a sop to the miner, and as another exemplification of the political competency of these Ministerial and very “honest men of less ability,” they say to the miner, “Hold on, mate, we mean to keep on the export duty, and make you pay for prospecting for the good of the city merchants; but while we take eighteenpence out of your pockets for that, we will put sixpence back in the other, in the shape of “no charge for survey or registration.” Delightfully astute and pliant are these governmental candidates! Admirable political economists! Most faithful and reliable representatives of the miner! That is, they will be all this if the miners can possibly be cajoled into supporting this precious “people’s government” of ours, through voting on Friday for the “honest men of less ability” whom John O’Shanassy’s Ballarat partisans have selected as the likeliest men to lead their fellow-miners to the poll in favor of the Ministers and their February pensions.
Then we have the excessively candid and truthful Mr Frazer doing a bit of claptrap about that Mr Bailey’s plan of deferred payments. Really it is impossible not to be amazed at the complete mastery this friend of the Government has obtained over the recondite mysteries of political economy. Mr Frazer swells out into positively alarming proportions as he thus dilates on this matter:—
His opponents had advocated deferred payments on the principle of charging two shillings an acre for the unpaid portion, which would amount to ten per cent. — a charge higher than that for which the money could be got from the banks, by depositing the title deeds. So that they were no deferred payments at all, but simply a percentage paid to the Government for the use of the money.
We wonder what Mr Frazer’s farmer would do for money to work his land with if his deeds were at the bankers. Will this “honest man of less ability” hazard the doctrine that, to say nothing of the fiscal advantages of Mr Bailey’s plan, the farmer who pays the 2s per acre rent and has his deeds for his purchased land clear, on which to borrow money for his use, is not in a better position than the man who has no deeds to offer to the money lender? Let any common-sense miner or artizan or merchant answer the question for himself, and answer it at to-morrow’s poll, too, by returning the man who is best able to deal with the vital questions that have to be discussed and determined in the forthcoming Parliament.
Mr Gillies, the other member of this ministerial copartnership is a gentleman of very stately mien, so long as he keeps his temper. His colleague, it is true, is in a chronic condition of fume and fury, and his ebullitions are therefore less remarkable. But on Tuesday night last poor Mr Gillies, feeling the awkward position he had got himself into in the matter of the support of the denounced Ministry, and knowing that the majority of public opinion was frowning upon their adherence to the enemies of the people, lost all control over himself, and began to call his abler opponent names. Mr Gillies only followed the old lawyer maxim of blackguarding the other side when there was a bad case on his own. We sympathise with the man who is thus driven to such ignoble resources as a forlorn attempt to get out of the governmental hobble he has got into. The whole of his address at the Council Chambers on Tuesday night was a furious effort to extricate himself from the particularly inconvenient fix he had got into by reason of his adhesion to the Ministry, and the blunders in politics comprised in that fatal mistake.
Oblivious or ignorant of fact, or else doing what “honest men of less ability” ought not to do, Mr Gillies says, “it is curious that this district is the only one in which the question of support to the Ministry had been made the turning point of the elections.” It would certainly be very “curious” indeed were it true and it is to be regretted for the sake of Mr Gillies’ reputation that it does not happen to be true as he says. Why, the fact is that at nearly all the electoral and nomination meetings the one question co-equal in interest with all others, and often eclipsing all others, has been that of confidence or no confidence in the present Ministry. Even in the prime minister’s own pocket borough of Kilmore he is not only brought to book for his sins, but is opposed, and his opponent, though actually absent from the hustings, beats him at the show of hands and compels him to ask for a poll! Yet Mr Gillies has the unblushing effrontery to stand up in the centre of Ballarat West and say the question has not been the turning point of the elections anywhere else but here. Let him read the reports of electoral meetings in and about Melbourne and the provinces, and say if the enthusiasm displayed by the masses of the people against the Government does not belie his hasty and passionate asseveration in the Council Chambers.
He may endeavor to throw dust in the eyes of the electors by calling his opponents foul names, and by attempting sophistically to get out of the difficulty his ministerial predilection have placed him in; he may imagine that because he has mixed with the miners as a miner, and can use a band of claim-mates and acquaintances as friends of the Ministry in power, he can lead the miners — as a faithful “bell-wether” should do — just where John O’Shanassy’s Ballarat agents wish them to be led; but he will have mistaken the will of the great body of the miners of this district if he thinks the iniquities of the Government will be forgotten, or his flimsy excuses for the support of that Government will pass current among the free and intelligent inhabitants of this gold field. Rather will they believe the words of an anti-ministerial candidate in another place, and which words have in effect been already used by Mr Gillies’ much becalled opponent Bailey:—
“I have nether sheep-runs, nor railway brokerages, nor pension-prospects to blind me to or divert me from the interests of the public at large; and, therefore, should I err in time to come, you may possibly with justice call me an ignorant or a mistaken man, but not a self-seeking or corrupt one. I do not, however, think that I shall be rewarded by you as either ignorant or mistaken when I express my determination (should you choose me) to vote for the extrusion from office of a Ministry who seem lost, not only to all honorable principles, but, judging from later developments, to all sense of shame.”
Source:
The Star (Ballarat, Vic.), 25 August 1859, p. 2
Editor’s notes:
Admella = an Australian passenger steamship which was shipwrecked off the South Australian coast in 1859 (89 people died, including 14 children); the ship was built in Scotland in 1857 for use in Australia (the ship was named by using the initial letters of the three ports on its regular route: Adelaide, Melbourne, and Launceston)
See: “SS Admella”, Wikipedia
artizan = an archaic spelling of “artisan” (a manual worker who is skilled in a trade or an applied art; a skilled workman; a craftsman or craftsperson, e.g. armourer, blacksmith, carpenter, clockmaker, cobbler, cooper, doll-maker, furniture-maker, glassblower, locksmith, potter, sculptor, stonemason, tailor, tanner, weaver, wheelwright)
belie = (archaic) to tell lies about, to describe or represent falsely
claim-mates = mates (friends) with whom one has worked on a mining claim
Duncan Gillies = (1834-1903), a miner, and Victorian politician; Premier of Victoria (1886-1890); he was born in Overnewton (near Glasgow, Scotland) in 1834, came to Australia in 1852, and died in Melbourne in 1903
See: 1) Margot Beever “Gillies, Duncan (1834–1903)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Duncan Gillies”, Wikipedia
exemplification = a good example (of something); something which clearly demonstrates, illustrates, or shows by example; a case in point
forsooth = (archaic) in truth, indeed (“forsooth” is sometimes used ironically, to imply the opposite of what is being said)
free trade = in economics, a belief in not having tariff barriers, or any other protective measures, so as to enable the free flow of goods into a country, state, or colony (however, some “Free Trade” governments may use a limited amount of tariff barriers or other protective measures)
hustings = a temporary platform upon which candidates were nominated for Parliament, and from which candidates would give a campaign speech to voters; in modern times, to be “on the hustings” refers to candidates campaigning for election to political office (especially for a seat in parliament); derived from the Old English term (of Old Norse origin) “husting”, meaning “house thing” (a “thing” being an assembly or parliament)
See: “Husting”, Wikipedia
Messrs = an abbreviation of “messieurs” (French), being the plural of “monsieur”; used in English as the plural of “Mister” (which is abbreviated as “Mr.”); the title is used in English prior to the names of two or more men (often used regarding a company, e.g. “the firm of Messrs. Bagot, Shakes, & Lewis”, “the firm of Messrs. Hogue, Davidson, & Co.”)
mien = the air, bearing, demeanor, or manner of a person, especially as showing an attitude or personality
Ministry = (in the context of various British Commonwealth countries, including Australia) the Ministers of the Crown (including the Prime Minister); government ministers who are responsible for overseeing government departments, formulating government policy, and making decisions on issues affecting the country
per cent. = an abbreviation of “per centum” (Latin, meaning “by a hundred”), i.e. an amount, number, or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100; also rendered as “per cent” (without a full stop), “percent”, “pct”, “pc”, “p/c”, or “%” (per cent sign)
prime minister = the head of government in a parliamentary democracy; (in the context of the British Empire or the British Commonwealth) the head of a national government in a parliamentary democracy under the British monarchy — being the head, leading, or “prime” minister of a group of ministers of the Crown (whilst the parliamentary heads of government of the Australian colonies were usually known as Premiers, they were sometimes called Prime Ministers)
s = a reference to a shilling, or shillings; the “s” was an abbreviation of “solidi”, e.g. as used in “L.S.D.” or “£sd” (pounds, shillings, and pence), which refers to coins used by the Romans, as per the Latin words “librae” (or “libra”), “solidi” (singular “solidus”), and “denarii” (singular “denarius”)
score = twenty (sometimes used in conjunction with a cardinal number, e.g. “threescore”, “fourscore”) (may also refer to an undefined large number)
sheep-run = a property on which sheep are grazed
untrammelled = (also spelt “untrammeled”) not confined, entangled, hampered, impeded, limited, restrained, restricted, or shackled by any rules, conventions, or controlling influences; able to act freely without restrictions or rules
William Frazer = (1831-1870), a baker, miner, and Victorian politician; he was born in Edinburgh (Scotland) in 1831, came to Australia in 1852, and died in Brunswick (Melbourne, Vic.) in 1870
See: 1) “Mr William Frazer, M.L.A. [14 December 1870]”, The Institute of Australian Culture
2) “William Frazer”, Parliament of Victoria
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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