Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/468

 1885 he was selected to serve with Mr. Deshon, late Under-Secretary for Lands, on the Land Board constituted under the Crown Lands Act of 1884. He is a J.P. for Queensland.

Syme, David, the proprietor of the Melbourne Age, is the youngest son of George Syme, a Scotch State school teacher, and was born at North Berwick in 1827. He was intended for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, but, having imbibed Liberal views whilst studying at a German university, abandoned the idea of pursuing an ecclesiastical career. Joining the press as a reporter, he did minor journalistic work until 1850, when, his health breaking down,he emigrated to California, whence, after an experience of some eighteen months on the gold fields, he proceeded to Victoria. He had been there about a year when his brother, Ebenezer Syme, and himself purchased the Age newspaper, which had been founded in 1854. The prospects of the paper at this time were not encouraging; in fact, it was believed to be moribund, and was not even the accredited representative of Liberal opinions, for though the Argus, alarmed by the Ballarat riots of Dec. 1854, was by this time veering round to Conservatism, it still enjoyed a reputation for Liberalism, which it had earned in the early days of the colony, when it was in fierce opposition to every Government. On the death of his brother in 1859 the sole management of the paper devolved on Mr. David Syme, in whose hands it has remained till the present time (1892). Under Mr. Syme's management the Age has been the pioneer of Liberalism in Australia, for, curiously enough, that paper has been more the organiser than the organ of Liberalism, and has therefore led rather than followed public opinion in this direction. It advocated the financial supremacy of the Lower House of Parliament, the opening of the public lands for agricultural settlement, the encouragement of native industries by means of discriminating import duties, free, secular, and compulsory education, and the hundred other measures which have now become embodied in the statutes, not only of Victoria, but of Australia. Whether owing to the promptitude with which it pronounces on the questions of the day, the judgment which it displays in its views, or the vigour of its advocacy, or all combined, one thing is certain: that there is no newspaper in Australia at the present moment that possesses such influence as the Age. Although Melbourne has only about a twelfth part of the population of London, the circulation of the Age is equal to that of leading London dailies. Mr. Syme is a singularly effective writer of English prose, and on a varied range of subjects. Outside the columns of his own paper he has from time to time contributed articles to the leading English reviews on social and economic subjects. Mr. Syme's first independent work of any magnitude was the "Outlines of an Industrial Science," published in 1870. Roughly described, this book is a vindication of Protection; more closely examined, it will be seen to be rather in the direction of State Socialism; and it takes this wider scope because it rejects the adequacy of a single motive for accumulation, and deals with society from the statesman's point of view quite as much as from the economist's. Mr. Syme shows that the English principle of competition is habitually inadequate to produce the effects aimed at, and is injurious to society. The system of selling the public land by auction in Australia has led to the monopoly of a large part of the State domains by a wealthy class at prices unremunerative to the State. Free Trade allowed the native industries of Victoria to be swamped by importations of cheap though inferior goods, with the result that the British manufacturer ultimately became master of the market and could sell at his own price. Then again the effect on the workman has to be considered. A fall in wages being the natural result of a fall in profits, the competition that reduces profits is bound to reduce wages. As, however, society "gives its sanction to appropriation, and thereby renders industry possible," it is entitled to show "a constant solicitude for the object appropriated." In other words, there is an art of industry which follows nature, and is known as industrial legislation. Is it good for the whole community to make roads? Then the State should make them or sanction and promote their being made. "Is it good for the whole community that the population should be fully employed and adequately 452