- I find it most illuminating to read through older works by distinguished individuals on topics of interest. In this instance, I happened across a mention that Sir Charles du Cane (Governor of Tasmania between 1869 and 1874) had an given a lecture on Tasmania in 1877, after his return to England. This lecture had been transcribed and published and, after some searching, an online copy was located on Trove.
- His style is marvellously disarming, even as a written transcript. I can only imagine that the presentation itself was scattered throughout with numerous moments of wit and humour. I will quote somewhat liberally.
- He commences with a general description of the island, and a run down of the history of Tasmania through to the 1850’s. I’ve picked up a scattering of Tasmanian history over the last 20 years, but there were numerous details new to me, and closeness to the events that modern retellings lack. Furthermore, they are free of the revisionism and re-framing that is pervasive of late:
But scarcity of provisions was not the only difficulty with which the youthful settlement had to contend. The records of the time contain frequent notices of hostile collisions between the settlers and the Aborigines, who at that time were estimated, I believe, at between 4,000 and 5,000 in number. In anything like an open encounter the Aborigines were pretty sure to get the worst of it, and, indeed, in 1815 they were killed in such numbers that Governor Davy issued a proclamation remonstrating against the unnecessary slaughter, but frightful tales are still current of their retaliation upon outlying settlers and their wives and families. As, however, time went on, the convicts who escaped and took to the bush seemed to have inspired far greater dread than the blacks, and no doubt many very horrible stories of murder and outrage are very rightly fathered upon them. But to narrate the story of the deportation to Minder’s Island in Bass’s Straits, and gradual extinction of the blacks, or to give a selection from the chronicles of the bushrangers would either of them require a volume to. itself. Suffice it to say, with respect to the blacks, that when I arrived in Tasmania, but one male and one female survived of the entire aboriginal race, that the gentleman died soon after I came to the Colony, and the lady soon after I left it, so that the race is now actually extinct. The man, who was a sailor, known as William Lanne or King Billie, I never saw ; but the woman, whose native title was Queen Trucaninni, but who was better known by the more poetical name of Lalla Rookh, was a very quaint looking little old lady of over seventy years of age, under four feet in height, and of much the same measure in breadth. She was well cared for by the Colonial Government, and every now and then paid us a visit of ceremony at Government House, where she would laugh and chuckle like a child over a piece of cake and a glass of wine, and occasionally favour us with a few words in English. On one occasion she eyed me intently for some moments, and then burst into a laugh like that of a Christy Minstrel, and said ” This fellow he too much jacket,” meaning thereby that I had become stouter than comported with her notions of viceregal dignity. At my farewell Levee she sat in great state, and, dressed in very gaudy coloured raiment, felt and looked no doubt every inch a Queen, in her own estimation.
- He does not shy away from some of the harsher aspects of life in Tasmania, nor the atrocities suffered in order to achieve that which had been achieved. But throughout, he leavens this with considered reflections on what the future might hold, none of which seem fantastical having now seen how history has transpired since.
The imperial convicts that once had numbered thousands, had dwindled away to ninety; when I left Tasmania, there were but thirty-five, and Port Arthur itself had been handed over to the Colonial Government. Though they may maintain it for a while on a very limited scale as a prison and pauper establishment of their own, yet the days of the once notorious Convict Settlement are drawing to a close; the Peninsula, I am sure, will be shortly abandoned, and the Settlement of Port Arthur will in all probability crumble into ruin. If it were but in England, I could fancy an enterprising Hotel Company at once pouncing upon the Settlement and converting the huge Penitentiary into a vast Hotel, with all modern appliances and comforts. I could fancy railway trains and daily steamers bringing crowds of excursionists. I could fancy the shores of the Harbour covered with lodging-houses and bathing machines, and the Harbour itself dotted with yachts and pleasure boats, bent on exploring the lovely scenery of the coast, or enjoying the excellent sea-fishing. For, indeed, apart from its melancholy associations, Port Arthur is really a beautiful spot, and it would be difficult to find throughout the world bits of grander coast scenery than are to be met with on Tasman’s Peninsula, and especially in the neighbourhood of Eagle Hawk Neck. Even the Prison establishment itself has the outward appearance, as Mr. Trollope has well described it, of a large clean, well-built village, with various factories, breweries, and the like. The Church, with its tall and tapering spire, was by far the most thorough English looking country church I came upon in the Colonies, while close by it nestles a charming little cottage, built for the use of the Governor, with a verandah running round it covered with roses and other creepers—just such a cottage as some fond and romantic Edwin and Angelina would select for their life-long bower of bliss. It was difficult indeed to believe as one looked from the cottage verandah upon the lovely Harbour, and cast one’s eyes upon the surrounding scenery, that so charming a spot had been for so many years the abode of so much crime, and so much suffering. It was difficult to believe that even at that moment there were confined at a few yards distance from where I was, a last residum of the most desperate and untamable ruffians to be met with in criminal annals, a record of whose life, whether in prison or out of it, would make the blood run cold. Truly it was one of those scenes, ” Where every prospect pleases, And only man is vile.” But yet a few years more, and the vileness of man will cease to pollute it, and then prison building, spired Church, and verandah’d cottage, will crumble into dust, to be visited only at rare intervals by some occasional excursionist. Yet as decades roll by, and the population of our vast Colonial Empire draws onward to that 80,000,000 prophesied for it in the year 1955, by Mr. Forster, my fancy of what would have been Port Arthur’s English future may yet be realised, and a flourishing Harbour of commerce, or a fashionable watering-place rise where once stood that which Tasmanian’s now reproachfully stigmatise as the plague-spot of their country.
- What Port Arthur looks like today? (More images online at portarthur.org.au)
- Interesting note made: The maintenance bill for the infrastructure system in Tasmania circa 1850 was £350,000! For reference, the British budget was £55M at the same point. But shortly after:
…in 1854 transportation to Van Diemen’s Land became a thing of the past, and shortly afterwards Van Diemen’s Land itself became Tasmania. But this was not the only great change which befell the Colony. With the cessation of transportation ceased the absolute necessity for its being governed directly from home, and there was no apparent reason why the wish of the Colonists for a responsible Government of their own should not be granted. So in 1856 Tasmania ceased to be a Crown Colony, and blossomed by degrees into a full-blown Constitution of her own with a Legislative Council of fifteen members, answering to our House of Lords, and a Legislative Assembly of thirty members, answering to our House of Commons. She also tasted the first delights of freehold and household suffrage, of electoral districts, and the Ballot. But in return for these boons she made one not altogether unimportant sacrifice, for, of course, with the cessation of transportation there was a cessation also of £350,000 annual imperial expenditure. Then, of course, there was an end to road-making, and other useful public works, save at the expense of the Colony, or in other words with an expenditure raised by local taxation. So it fell out that within a very short time after Van Diemen’s land became Tasmania, a reaction of feeling began to take place, and many of the hottest anti-transportationists began to think that they had been some-what in a hurry. They began to doubt whether after all they had not killed the goose that laid the annual golden egg, and from that time till the day I arrived in the Colony, and through the first half of the time I lived there it was almost looked upon as a bad compliment to their Colony by many Tasmanians, if you did not condole with them on its hopeless depression ; and inevitably approaching ruin. During the latter half of my residence the force of circumstances got too strong, and the signs of returning prosperity too evident for this complaint to be general ; but even so the tone of many reminded me of the compliment paid by a friend to a well-known gentleman of very cadaverous aspect on his improved appearance, ” I never saw you looking better, nor any man looking worse.” Now, whether the Tasmanians were right as a matter of policy in going in as they did for the cessation of transportation, and a full-blown Constitution all at once is no doubt a question open to a considerable amount of argument on both sides. Apart from the sentimental aspect of the question, in which my sympathies would go with the Colonists, there is no doubt that the sudden withdrawal of the Imperial expenditure, followed as it soon after was by the cessation of the Victoria gold fever, and a consequent heavy fall of the high prices which had prevailed throughout the Australian Colonies, did produce a very considerable depression. But since then nigh twenty years had passed away, and I must offer my humble opinion in the first instance, that if Tasmania is ever ruined, it will mainly be the fault of her own Government, and of her own people, and not of the cessation of transportation and Imperial expenditure. Secondly, I must maintain that not only is she not near to ruin yet, but that far younger men than I am will never live to see the day when ruin will befall her.
- I have bolded a section here that I would like to comment on, prior to bringing a temporary halt to this screed: Tasmania at the moment is again in the position of receiving a very great expenditure, vested into her at this time by the Australian government. Just as before, this investiture comes with both benefits and costs. Just as before, it would take far more than the loss of that inflow to ruin the state. I wonder at times, whether the choice to reject the current arrangement might not be to Tasmania’s great benefit twenty years hence.
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