The "bearded men" are fortunate they happened to shroud the history of Federation in a cloak of triumphalism. It has managed to hide their ineptitude for a century now. Their lost opportunities include a Bill of Rights, a High Court and a wet noodle of an informal Constitution amongst others. There was another battle lost, though this in the Commonwealth halls of Melbourne. It was an epic battle; New South Wales vs Victoria, George Reid vs Alfred Deakin - it was the battle between Free-trade and Protectionism.
The Schism Between The Colonies Before Geoffrey Edelston poached the South Melbourne footy club to Sydney, and well before a Melbourne Rugby League team won the Grand Final, there was a deep divide between the colonies of New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria. Rail gauges were of different sizes, the colonies leveraged tariffs on each other, public holidays were on different days and there were even quarantine restrictions between them.
During the American Civil War, New South Wales had supported the north, while Victoria had supported the south. The inter-state rivalry between New South Wales and Victoria has a long history. It could even get petty. Phillip Knightly writes;
In 1878, New South Wales announced that it was considering changing its name to Australia. It claimed the right to do so because not only was it the first Australian colony .... but more native Australians had been born there than in all the other colonies put together. Victorians could scarcely contain their anger. If New South Wales did this, said on MP, then would the Victorian Premier rename his state Australasia? 'No,' said the Premier 'because then New South Wales might well call itself The Southern Hemisphere'.When the first referendum for Federation was held, New South Wales did not achieve sufficient majority. One of the reasons was because the colony was free-market and all the others were protectionist. The NSW Premier, George Reid, was for Federation, but not really. he got nick-named "Yes-No" for his speech where he proclaimed there was not an advantage for New South Wales in Federation, but that he would be voting yes anyway. George Reid Reid was born in Scotland in 1845. He was age seven when his family emigrated to Melbourne as part of the gold rush. Reid worked his way through the public service in NSW, becoming a barrister and finally heading the Attorney-General's department in 1878. In 1880 he resigned from the public service and won election in Eastern Sydney for the NSW Assembly. Reid was a tubby figure, an easy caricature for the Bulletin in the 1880s. Alfred Deakin wrote of Reid;
Even caricature has been unable to travesty his extraordinary appearance, his immense unwielding jelly-like stomach always threatening to break his waist-band, his little legs apparently bowed under it weight to the verge of their endurance, his thick neck rising behind his ears rounding to his many-folded chin. His protuberant blue eyes were expressionless until roused or half-hidden in cunning, and a blond complexion and infantile breadth of baldness gave him an air of juvenality.Deakin wrote that during the Federal Conventions. Deakin was good friends with Edmund Barton. After the failure of the first referendum in NSW, partly because of Reid's lack of enthusiasm for it, Barton ran against Reid in the NSW Assembly electorate for Eastern Sydney. Reid won, but the margin was small enough that Reid got some amendments to the Federal proposals which led to NSW having a large enough majority in the next referendum for Federation to go through. Anti-Labor These three political figures would find their early Commonwealth political careers entwined, along with a new and influential political entity, the Labor Party. The Shearers Strike in rural Queensland would change the dynamic of Australian politics. When the Shearers were starved out of their camps, penniless and broken at the hands of the Queensland government, constables and militia; they decided to band together as a political group. It was the beginning of what we now know as the Australian Labor Party. The fledgling Commonwealth Parliament hadn't devolved yet into the two party duopoly of Liberal and Labor. The anti-Labor factions included the Protectionists and the Free Traders. The protectionists were represented by Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin, while the Free Traders were typified by George Reid. Initially this led to unstable minority governments, reliant on the constant demands of Labor for slim majorities. As an example of the volatility;
- William Lyne (Premier NSW) 1901 appointed and unable to form a government
- Edmund Barton (Protectionists) 1901 - 1903 minority
- Alfred Deakin (Protectionists) 1903 - 1904 minority
- Chris Watson (Labor) 1904 - 1904 minority
- George Reid (Free Trade) 1904 - 1905 coalition
- Alfred Deakin (Protectionists) 1905 - 1908 minority
- Andrew Fisher (Labor) 1908 - 1909 minority
- Alfred Deakin (Fusion) 1909 - 1910 coalition
- Andrew Fisher (Labor) 1910 - 1913 majority
- Joseph Cook (Liberal) 1913 - 1914 majority
[Reid] likened free trade NSW joining the other five colonies, all Protectionist to varying degrees, to a teetotaller setting up house with five drunkards and leaving the question of beverages to be decided later by majority vote.In the first elections of March 1901, candidates announced themselves as either Protectionist or Free Trade. The first Parliament ended up composed of thirty-one Protectionists, twenty-eight Free-traders and sixteen Labor members. Reid did not get his majority and would not join a coalition with Barton and Deakin. The Protectionists established a minority government with Labor giving their support in return for concessions. Minority Governments and Coalitions The gap in members between the Protectionists and Free Traders continued to get smaller, in 1903 there were twenty-six Protectionists, twenty-five Free-traders and twenty-three Labor members. In April 1904, Labor was able to vote against Deakin, de-stabilising his minority government and leading to the establishment of the Chris Watson Labor government. Up until this point the Protectionists and Free-traders had been opposition parties. But the Watson government had shown that there was a re-alignment in the Australian political system to Labor and anti-Labor. The Deakin protectionists stepped aside and formed a coalition with the Free Traders. George Reid became Prime Minister. Reid survived the six month recess, but when Parliament returned: Deakin and Watson combined to remove Reid. The Free Trade Party was unable to enact any free-market legislation. From that point on the Protectionists became the dominant anti-Labor party. Deakin entrenching the Protectionists through a minority government with Labor support. Deakin joked that his most important phrase was, "Yes, Mr Watson". Reid and Deakin did not get along, and there was no unified anti-Labor party until Reid retired from federal politics. Joseph Cook took over as head of the Free Traders and the Deakin Protectionists and Cook Free-traders combined into the Fusion Party - with Deakin leading it. This would later be the foundation for the first Liberal Party. Protectionism The inability of George Reid and the Free Trade Party to gain a majority government meant that Australia would pursue protectionist policies - policies which lasted until the 1980s. In 1901 the only federal revenues were from tariffs, the federal government getting their finger in the income tax pie did not come until 1942 and the John Curtin government. The political thirst for protectionism was to continue through Hughes, to Lyons, to Curtin, to Menzies to Fraser. The first government to return to the economic liberal policies of the New South Wales colony was the Hawke government. Did this protectionism hurt? In World War I, the United States and Canada industrialised, sufficiently to challenge Europe as the centre of the worlds economy. Australia's protected commodity markets meant that the industrialisation of World War I passed us by. In the 1930s we were left with government subsidised factories in an attempt to industrialise. World War II found us with our pants down as home production could not match our needs. Conclusion I have often remarked that the failure of Australian Federation is the failure of NSW. There was the chance there to create something as innovative and potentially as wondrous as the US Constitution was in 1787. NSW was the most powerful colony in Australia, politically and economically. It was the hotbed of Republicanism and free-markets in Australia. But NSW was not able to influence the conventions toward a republic. Nor was it able to gain a majority in early parliament to make free-traders the dominant anti-Labor party. Sadly it was the Deakin style of monarchical federation, protectionist economics and minority politics that won. cam
Comments
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And also huzzah for the US having \"everything\". Three books are now rubbering their way across the great paved expanse of the American mid-west to my door;-
And Be One People: Alfred Deakin\'s Federal Story [Hardcover] by Deakin, Alfred
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Brilliant Dan Deniehy: a forgotten genius by Pearl, Cyril
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Hayden : an autobiography by Hayden, Bill
Got the Hayden book as Botsman seems to be pretty impressed with Hayden\'s view of the GG. Will read and make up my own mind on it. I really must do some Deniehy, Vosper, L. Lawson guest posts. cam