Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/113

 The Husbandmen ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 87 wages, by closing public offices, and by an energetic use of the pruning knife all round, Governor Grey considerably reduced expenditure, but not enough to balance the finances. He attacked small branches as well as large, and left little but the trunk to the public gaze, and it was these small retrenchments that seemed to give rise to the most virulent abuse. He did his utmost to stay the drift, and yet there was scarcely any step taken by him for the improvement of affairs that did not meet with the opposition of colonists. In addition to retrenching, he imposed new taxation — horror heaped on horror's head. Money was absolutely required ; he passed a Customs Act, an Act for the Levying of Harbor Dues, the Port Act, and an Act for Regulating Distillation in the Province. A meeting in the Queen's Theatre on July 5, declared that the new taxes and duties were "unequal, exorbitant, and injudicious, and would deeply injure the merchant, tuid place imported goods beyond the reach of the inhabitants." The state of the Province demanded that money must be obtained, and hence Governor Grey persisted in his imposts. The minds of some colonists reverted to the character of the old Saxons, and at one time forcible resistance was seriously proposed. The suggestion was also made and discussed that the Governor should be seized, placed on a sailing vessel, and sent out of the country. The Ad(laide City Council, by resolution, claimed " the birthright of every British subject, but more particularly applicable to the colonists of South Australia, viz., the power of raising and expending taxes by their representatives in the Legislative Council . . . ." A memorial to Her Majesty was drawn up b- the Council, praying for a disallowance of the rates and taxes. A slight reduction was afterwards made in the port charges. In August, the Governor received instructions from England to ship to .Sydney the laboring immigrants engaged on Government works. He di-sobeyed the Secretary of State for the Colonies, explaining in a despatch to Lord Stanley that by such a procedure the Province " would have been irretrievably ruined." " I should, in the first instance, have had to send away 2,427 souls, that is one-sixth part of the whole population ; the fact of my having done so would ha-e made paupers of a great many more, who must ha'e been removed in the same manner, and there would have been no laborers remaining in the Province to produce food for those who were left." The decision of the Imperial Parliament to honor Governor Gawler's bills gave his successor rather premature confidence. Besides the bills due in England, there were several, repre.senting large sums, due in South Australia, and imagining that he would be upheld by the Imperial Government, and recognising that he would afford important relief. Governor Grey met them by drawing new bills upon Her Majesty's Treasury. These were precisely similar to Governor Gawler's bills honored by the British Government, but late in 1842 Lord Stanley returned them chargeable with interest. Governor Grey had drawn some of them in 1841, and some in 1842. His credit was now destroyed; the banks would not negotiate any more of his drafts, and he was compelled to fall back upon the commissariat chest for / 1,800 to meet urgent current expenses. In .satisfying outstanding claims, Governor Grey had gone beyond his instructions, but Lord Stanley,