Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/170

 A great battle was fought upon the "District Councils." The idea of district councils made Sir George Gipps Governor of New South Wales. He had had influence enough to have the scheme embodied in the Act of Parliament (5 and 6 Vict. cap. 79, sect. 47), which gave the colony representative institutions. The theory was plausible: it might have suited Canada, it may suit England. It met the high approval of Lords Stanley and John Russell. To this day Earl Grey believes it failed through the spiteful obstinacy of the colonists. Sir George Gipps, during the few years of his administration, postponed measures for establishing schools, for repairing and constructing roads, and other practical works of the utmost importance to the colony, at first in order that "his district councils" might reap a harvest of glory, and afterwards to spite the scoundrels for rejecting so admirable an institution. And so it was admirable on paper, but perfectly impracticable in a pastoral colony. Had any other than himself originated it, the governor would have seen its fallacy in a month, and dissected it in a masterly despatch.

According to Sir George's plan the inhabitants of each district were empowered to elect, and if they neglected to elect, the governor had power to appoint a council, which should decide on the sum required for a year for the district. Half such sum was to be contributed from the colonial treasury, and the other half to be levied on the property in the district. If no local treasurer was elected, the colonial treasurer could issue his warrant, and sell up as much of the property of the district as would raise the requisite sum. But the scheme would not work.

In the first place, there was no population sufficiently dense to work such a system, there were very few electors, and no councillors; in the second place, there was no ready money to pay the taxes.

In a pastoral colony like Australia wages are high, consumption is large, and by taxes on consumption, levied at the ports, a considerable revenue may be raised, but by direct taxation very little. The colonists have, or rather had—for it is impossible to say what changes a gold currency may effect—sheep and cattle, which they exchanged, in meat, wool, and tallow, for what they needed in tea, sugar, tobacco, and clothing, but very little money.

When Sir George Gipps attempted to introduce his district councils he found the colonists unprepared to travel for miles to elect a councillor, or pay five or ten pounds per annum for roads over which they never travelled, and bridges a hundred miles from their farms, and indignant at suddenly finding their property at the mercy of the colonial treasurer, the irresponsible officer of the governor. The colonists determined to