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Book Review
| Terry Irving, The Southern Tree of Liberty: The Democratic Movement in New South Wales before 1856, The Federation Press, Leichhardt, 2006. pp. x + 290. $59.95 cloth.
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| Charles Harpur's poem 'The Tree of Liberty (A Song for the Future)' was first published in Sydney in 1849 in The People's Advocate. Edward James Hawksley its editor and joint proprietor, along with W.A. Duncan, Charles St Julian, Harpur and quite a few others are among the participants in the democratic movement in New South Wales during the 1830s, 1840s and early 1850s described in very close detail in this book. Hawksley, who plays a considerable part here as a political thinker and writer may yet be thought as worthy as Duncan, St Julian and Harpur, of more extensive biographical treatment than a brief entry in H.J. Gibbney and Ann G. Smith's Biographical Register (1987). |
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For this book, Terry Irving and his research assistant Andrew Chapman have combed contemporary newspapers and magazines, manuscripts and other publications for information about every public meeting, political organisation and the men behind them during these years and some of the more useful aspects of the book may be the many tabulated lists of meetings, organisations, and participants, as well as the map of Sydney showing the main sites of democratic activity. There are illustrations of King Street with an intriguing account of the radical editorial offices located there with meeting places close by, but I gave up trying to follow the action on the map. This was because the key was so difficult to use. Combing through five different lists of sites, each arranged alphabetically by name, for numbers corresponding to those on the map was too frustrating not least because of the small print and shiny paper which made the book as a whole something of a trial for tired eyes. |
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These years were the years during which the first elections were held in New South Wales (for members of the Sydney Municipal Council), the campaign against transportation was waged, and the constitution eventually adopted in 1856 was drawn up. The population of Sydney was relatively small (very small when only the adult male population was considered relevant as potentially politically active) and while the administration was in the hands of the Governor appointed by the Colonial Office and a small group of local advisors. There was an immense amount of 'democratic' activity ranging from the formation of associations to press for various measures, the publication of huge quantities of argument and discussion, to violent attacks on hated buildings, and street riots which claimed several lives. In fact the sheer number of meetings, protests and riots that have been tabulated comes as something of a surprise and the argument that the suffrage would help to bring about a more orderly society makes a great deal of sense. |
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Other points emerge from the detail also as interesting. This account makes clear how important the free immigrants had become by the 1830s. A great many of them (like the well-known example of Henry Parkes) had already had experience in agitations in England leading to the reform of the House of Commons in 1832, or in the anti-corn law or the Charter movement. Their numbers were making it increasingly difficult to deny the basic rights of free Englishmen to the men of New South Wales or to sustain the distinction between convict and emancipist. Hitherto there has been considerable emphasis on how these differences were played out in the legal system. Here it becomes clear that the role of convicts in the economy, keeping wages down and making working conditions extremely difficult for everyone else, was probably of real concern for the man in the street. He might never have cause to tangle with the courts, but he had daily to contend with employers who could apply for convict labour if he complained about his rate of pay or conditions of work. Similarly, it was the every day condition of the streets, the water supply, the level of petty theft, random violence, and security of private property that caused dissatisfaction with government. Major issues like land policy and immigration were far from the minds of modest Sydney householders who saw the establishment of a municipal government as much more likely to address their immediate interests than influence in Macquarie Street or Whitehall. |
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Throughout the book, Irving is mindful of large questions such as the meaning of terms like class and democracy at that time, and the ways is which popular movements and demonstrations were understood, or the extent to which some or any of them could be seen as precursors of later political parties. It was practically impossible to create lasting alliances between working men, thoughtful professionals, shopkeepers and merchants, though for electoral purposes it became necessary at least in the short term. Fortunately election campaigns were often of short duration. In these days of continuous campaigning we might envy the single week in 1854 between Parkes' nomination for the seat of Sydney and his election. |
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Towards the end Irving reflects thoughtfully on the kinds of changes that have occurred in our political and industrial relations system since 1856, pointing that though this book was produced to celebrate 150 years of responsible government, one of the greatest achievements of the working class in the century after 1856, the eight hour day, has since been lost. Contemplating the idealism, persistence and determination of the leaders in the early struggles despite their short-lived organisations, newspapers, and alliances, is a useful reminder that though some things may seem immutable now, nothing much survives its generation, especially in politics. |
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| University of New South Wales |
BEVERLEY KINGSTON | |
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