Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/85

 advanced by private donations in the erection of a temple worthy of religion; when in the choice of their teachers they shall have discovered a judgment equal to that which has presided at the selection of the Roman Catholic clergymen; when they shall have practised what they propose, 'To instruct the people to fear God and honour the King;' when, by endeavouring to 'keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace' in a a colony requiring it more than all others, they shall have shown through their lives the influence of the holy religion they profess, then assuredly will the colonial executive step forward to extend its countenance and support to those who are following the Presbyterian creed."

The governor, it is said, acted under the advice of his secretary, a gentleman of the old Tory school. The Scotch gentlemen applied to the home government, when the governor received a severe reprimand, and the Presbyterians the aid they required.

Sir Thomas Brisbane's financial measures were equally unfortunate, yet there is no reason to question the purity of his motives.

It had been usual under previous governors to purchase the surplus grain from farmers at the current price of the day. The colonial government was almost the only purchaser, and to government the corn-growers looked for a certain share of their profits. Among the smaller settlers, the only cash they received in the course of the year was from the commissariat. This was the latter phase of a system which began with rationing the whole community, and gave liberty to prisoners who undertook to support themselves, which, in its second stage, willingly provided a free and emancipated settler with land and prisoner labour, and purchased the produce of land so tilled, to feed the prisoners whom the settlers could not employ.

Sir Thomas Brisbane, who arrived with Commissioner Bigge's report hanging over him, adopted the ordinary contract system, and invited tenders for the quantity required at the lowest price. The small farmers, unused to calculate the effects of open competition, rushed forward to the stores with such eagerness, that wheat fell from 10s. and 7s. 6d. a bushel to 3s. 9d. Abstractedly Sir Thomas Brisbane was right, practically he was wrong; so serious a change required care and time.

About the same time the governor established a colonial currency which raised the pound sterling twenty-five per cent., and proceeded to pay government debts in colonial money to parties who had contracted debts in sterling currency;—a revival of the system of depreciating the circulating medium obsolete in England, but still practised by continental monarchs.