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Edmund Barton GEOFFREY BOLTON

ALLEN & UNWIN

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This project was generously supported by the National Council for the Centenary of Federation

Copyright © Geoffrey Bolton 2000 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 9 Atchison Street St Leonards NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 E-mail: [email protected] Web: http://www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Bolton, G.C. (Geoffrey Curgenven). Edmund Barton. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 186508 409 3. 1. Barton, Edmund, Sir, 1849–1920. 2. Prime ministers—Australia—Bibliography. I. Title. 994.041092 Set in 10.5/14.5 pt Trump Mediaeval by DOCUPRO, Canberra Printed and bound by Griffin Press, South Australia 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction: Encountering Edmund Barton 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Mr Micawber’s son Young Australia ‘Mr Speaker’ ‘My bristles are up’ Slow progress Federation becalmed Federation reviving Leader of the Convention Barton versus Reid Federation triumphant Prime Minister: Foundations Life at the top The road to resignation Mr Justice Barton Death of an elder statesman Reputation

iv vii 1 17 38 61 83 104 127 143 166 193 223 251 279 301 326 338

Notes Bibliography Index

348 370 376 iii

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Acknowledgements Acknowledgements

In compiling a list of acknowledgements of the support and help received during the writing of this bibliography, I am constantly worried that I shall omit someone obviously deserving recognition. If there is any such omission I apologise profoundly and hope that there will be a second edition in which amends may be made. This project has been generously supported by an ARC Large Grant and by a grant from the Centenary of Federation Committee towards the distribution of Barton’s biography to secondary and tertiary institutions. In addition, the National Library of Australia awarded me a Harold White Fellowship in 1998 which proved invaluable in providing time for writing together with access to many important primary sources. I am most grateful to those responsible for making these awards and also to the referees whose testimonials were instrumental in the process. The University of Queensland, Edith Cowan University and Murdoch University have each, in turn, provided accommodation and support during the gestation of this book and I hope that the finished product will repay that support. Kevin Blackburn, Dirk Moses, Helen McCulloch and Marion Brooke all gave good service as research assistants. I received valuable assistance from Patricia Pyne in Canberra, who undertook the extensive preliminary trawl of the National Library, and my friend iv

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Acknowledgements v

and collaborator of many years, Terry Owen. Chester Andruskewicz made a distinctive contribution in the later stages of research. Birgit Gabriels is excellent at wordprocessing. I’ve gathered information and advice from many sources. Sir Edmund and Lady Barton’s four grandchildren, Bettina RankinReid (Mount Keira), Ann McIntosh (Bellevue Hill), David Barton (Bayview) and Edmund Barton (Essex, England) have been generous and helpful commentators. In the early stages of my research I benefited from conversations with Father John Parsons, who has also researched Barton and defended him against accusations of idleness. Penny Pemberton shared her knowledge of the Australian Agricultural Company. Tom and Maureen Campbell have been wonderfully hospitable and Tom, as biographer of Sir George Dibbs, has exchanged much good conversation and information with me. In following Barton’s track in rural New South Wales, I was helped by my old friends Eric and Shirley Andrews in Newcastle and by David Rowe. At the Berrima District Hospital and Family History Society my path was smoothed by Ron and Betty Mumford, Linda Emery and Leah Day. Theo Barker at Bathurst and the Lithgow Historical Society helped with aspects of Barton not covered in the Sydney press. Clive Beauchamp has also helped. During recent years I have discussed Barton with many friends and colleagues and have inflicted sections of the manuscript on several. Brian de Garis, Derek Drinkwater, John Hurst, Stuart Macintyre, Allan Martin, Jenny Mills, Graeme Powell, Margaret Steven, Katharine West and the late Jules Zanetti have all contributed improvements and insights. These mutual support systems are beyond the calculations of economic rationalism, and I value them. In the process of publication it has also been a pleasure to work with (and to try the patience of) John Iremonger at Allen & Unwin and his colleagues Emma Cotter and Karen Penning. Once again, my wife Carol and our family have been a sure source of loving support. It seems appropriate to dedicate this book to Jed McArthur-Bolton, Bleys McArthur-Bolton and Ariel AtkinBolton, Australians of the twenty-first century. Geoffrey Bolton Claremont, 2000

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A NOTE ON ILLUSTRATIONS The photographs in this book, as well as the cartoons from the Bulletin and Melbourne Punch, are all reproduced by courtesy of the National Library of Australia.

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Introduction: Encountering Edmund Barton EDMUND BARTON Introduction

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first seriously entered my life on the evening of 13 September 1952 at the Port Hotel in Derby, Western Australia. An inexperienced post-graduate student, not quite 21 years old, I had for the past three months been researching the history of the Kimberley pastoral industry and thought that a spare Saturday night might usefully be spent yarning at the bar with some old-timer about his experiences. I soon found my old-timer. He was a station cook, 73 years of age, battered and leathery with years of outback living; Russel Ward would have been proud of him. We talked while I sipped my beer and he drained his crème de menthe from five-ounce glasses and, presently, he said: ‘Do you know what was the greatest moment of my life?’ No, I said, I didn’t, but I’d like to hear. I thought he might relate some epic of droving or some anecdote of Gallipoli or the Somme. But he told me that when he was eighteen years old he was a kitchen-hand at Petty’s Hotel in Sydney, and that night after night Edmund Barton would bring some of the delegates from the federal convention to dinner after a session. ‘I seen them all,’ he told me, ‘Reid, Deakin, Forrest—I seen them all. But the prince of them all was Edmund Barton.’ This encounter impressed me. As a well-trained graduate of the University of Western Australia I knew about Barton, of course. The previous year, 1951, had been the half-centenary of Federation. There DMUND BARTON

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had been a parade through the main street of Perth, one item in which was a float on which various well-known local actors in frock coats sat around a table imitating the Founding Fathers, their speeches rising in passion as they worked through the refreshments with which somebody had thoughtfully provided them. Postage stamps had been issued with the portraits of Barton and Sir Henry Parkes. And I had bought and enjoyed John Reynolds’ recently published biography of Edmund Barton and knew that the federal movement promoted him in its propaganda as ‘Australia’s noblest son’. Barton was, however, essentially an urban, middle-class politician, and it came as a surprise to find an old bushie in the Kimberleys, a character who was neither urban nor middle class, praising Barton so emphatically more than half a century after Federation. I made up my mind that one day I would find out about Barton. This curiosity, it seemed, was shared by few other Australians. No later biography has appeared to supplement Reynolds’ pioneering study, although a good deal more manuscript material has been lodged in the National and Mitchell Libraries, and Martha Rutledge contributed an excellent 5000-word entry on Barton to Volume 7 of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Far from dominating the official mythology of his nation as Washington does in the United States or Nehru in India, Barton is less remembered than, for instance, Sir John A. Macdonald in Canada or Louis Botha in South Africa. A schoolteacher friend of mine tells me that 20 years ago he asked a class of fifteen-year-olds whether they could name the first American president and the first Australian prime minister. Nearly everybody named Washington, nobody knew about Barton. In 1994 he repeated the experiment with a similar class and found a noteworthy change. Hardly anybody knew about either man. This neglect invites two possible explanations. One is that Barton was not really important. He might be seen as a compromise figurehead behind whom more purposeful talents such as Deakin and Forrest manoeuvred to promote their favoured policies. Such an interpretation would draw support from the nickname ‘Tosspot Toby’, reflecting Barton’s indulgence in food and drink. It might also be argued that he was Commonwealth prime minister for only two

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years and eight months, during part of which time he was overseas, and that his decision to retire to the less conspicuous responsibilities of the High Court rules him out of consideration as a serious statesman. (On the other hand he remains, with the exception of Robert Menzies and perhaps Andrew Fisher, the only one of Australia’s 25 prime ministers to quit office at the moment of his own choosing.) Inescapably Barton’s biographer has to reckon with the possibility that he was an amiable and fortunate second-rater who reached the history books by accident. A second explanation lies in the eddies of fashion in historical writing. During the 1970s the Federal Constitution came under attack as a relic of the horse-and-buggy era, a botched compromise lacking the appeals to noble sentiment which prefaced the constitutions of the United States and the former Soviet Union. After a quarter of a century of largely futile attempts at constitutional reform, most critics today are prepared to concede some respect for the generation of politicians who at least managed to put together a workable constitution and secure its acceptance by a majority of voters in every part of Australia; but it has taken the approaching centenary of the Australian Commonwealth to bring the process of Federation more sharply into focus. Understandably, however, much research is concentrating on the grassroots of the federal movement. We really know astonishingly little about the motives of the people who voted for or against Federation. We know a good deal about the process by which the constitution was created, largely thanks to the work of J. A. La Nauze and L. F. Crisp, and we know something of what the politicians said when they went on the campaign trail or corresponded with one another. But the uncharted country crying out for discovery by historians includes the growth of national sentiment among ordinary Australian men and women. Many of today’s practising historians are moved by a moral imperative to give voices to the obscure and the disadvantaged who have previously been overlooked in the reconstruction of Australia’s past. Writers of ‘history from below’ tend to mistrust political history as a genre dealing with the transactions of powerful elites, and political biography as liable to uphold the myth of ‘the great man in history’. Barton at first appearance conforms to a conventional

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stereotype. A middle-class male from the professional classes, of English parentage and English sympathies, conformist, overweight, and comfortable in the Establishment, he seems a prime representative of a dominant class and gender which have come under searching challenge in recent decades. Nor is his image enhanced by the circumstance that most of his surviving portraits show the public face of a statesman posed for the eye of posterity. He lacked the memorable idiosyncrasies of a George Reid or a Billy Hughes. Can such a figure be made interesting or relevant to the Australians of our generation? It’s worth a try. The features which many of us now deplore in the political culture of Barton’s era—the faith in nationalism as an energising force for a community, the belief in European racial superiority, the exclusive masculinity of the governing classes—were not unique to Australia but were entrenched in most of the civilised world. To ignore or berate the public figures of a hundred years ago because they were insensitive to issues which we now consider important is to invite similar derision from the scholars and readers of a hundred years hence. Barton and his contemporaries should be assessed in the context of the possibilities open to them in their time. It mattered that Australians in the 1890s should decide whether they wished to remain a scatter of British colonies to the south of Asia or whether they should embark on the unprecedented experiment of creating a single nation in a continent. It mattered, if Australia federated, that a federal constitution should be devised of sufficient flexibility to allow for change and growth during the next century and beyond. In the political processes required to achieve these objectives it was important for the Australian people to find representatives who would devote time and energy to those aims, negotiate the necessary agreements and compromises, and speak to the public in words that carried conviction. Barton was one of the politicians who accepted this responsibility. Eventually he was thought by his colleagues to have shown such devotion to the cause that he deserved to be the leader under whom the rest would serve. Such examples of practical cooperation are not common in politics. How did Barton become the necessary man? In exploring this question we shall see how an easygoing Sydney

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politician became possessed by the one great enthusiasm of his life; how, although only one of many who contributed to the federal cause, he came to be seen as its actual and symbolic leader; and how, having passed the peak of his form, he had the timely wisdom to step aside from political leadership. I do not intend to present Barton as a hero, believing with Brecht that happy is the land that has no need for heroes. But I see in him an example of a peculiar capacity—John Monash and John Curtin are other Australian examples which come to mind—for flawed and fallible individuals to lift their performance in moments of crisis and so to make a lasting contribution to public welfare. (This peculiar capacity is not limited to Australia; I think of Truman and many others.) Australians are often, and deservedly, cynical about their politicians. It is worth remembering the occasions when their elected representatives have behaved constructively.

The materials for Barton’s biography presented problems. Plenty could be found about his public activities during the Federation era and the period of his prime ministership. The Barton papers in the National Library of Australia could be supplemented by correspondence with Parkes, Deakin and many other leading political figures. Australia in the Federation years also boasted a diverse and lively press. Cities and large country towns supported several newspapers in which the speeches, activities and personal foibles of politicians were reported in detail. Barton’s private life was harder to approach. Unlike Alfred Deakin he kept no confessional diaries voicing spiritual yearnings, and very little family correspondence has survived. Barton and his family deliberately guarded their privacy. Barton himself was well aware that he had taken part in significant events in Australian history. At some point after leaving politics and going to the High Court he and his wife systematically went through their past correspondence, carefully preserving letters which they thought of permanent interest, but destroying almost all personal and family material. This happened probably around 1909 when they moved from ‘Miandatta’, their North Sydney residence of twelve years, to a sma ller house. The rema ining correspondence was further

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winnowed by Barton’s executor and son-in-law, David Maughan, before the Barton papers were deposited in the National Library in 1929. Even then certain material referring to the family’s personal affairs remained under restricted access until a few years ago. Oral history cannot do much to help. Very few people who remembered him were alive in the 1990s, and these only from the perspective of small children. Fortunately John Reynolds recorded some interviews when he was researching for his biography of 1948. Barton’s grandchildren have offered me every cooperation—but large gaps remain in the record. I have not found out how it was that Barton lost his money in the 1893 financial crisis. I have very little first-hand evidence about the swings of temperament which were covered by his normally calm, good-humoured and formal exterior. Least of all have I found out nearly enough about the point of view of Jeanie Barton, from all the evidence the one woman in his life. She was evidently an intelligent woman, who played the piano, wrote with a good hand, and with little preparation held her own in upper-class society in London, but she has left remarkably little trace of her own thoughts and feelings. For example, I could find nothing about her relations with her sister and brother after her marriage and departure from Newcastle. It was only within months of completing this biography that I was shown by Dr David Barton a cache of letters from his grandfather to his father. From these it appeared that the sister remained on close visiting terms with the Bartons throughout their marriage. She may well have been a source of support for Jeanie during the many times that she was left alone with the children because of her husband’s public commitments. But this is no more than informed conjecture. There is much else in the lives of Jeanie and Edmund Barton which remains unknown, because they were good at minding their own business. I have done what I could with the materials at my disposal, but while I believe I have given a more complete portrayal of Barton than any previous attempt, I would be the first to admit that important questions are left unanswered. Nevertheless after several years in close proximity with Edmund Barton he retains my respect—an outcome not always experienced by biographers—so

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that my account of him aims at balancing justice and affection. A propaganda campaign marking the centenary of Federation took up my schoolteacher friend’s point that many Australians know nothing of their first prime minister. My hope is that this book will do a little towards demonstrating that Edmund Barton was and is worth knowing.

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Mr Micawber’s Son EDMUND BARTON Mr Micawber’s Son

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were probably painted in 1827, in the last years of Georgian England. Her profile suggests a spirited and pretty eighteen-year-old, his a man in his early thirties, both facing the future cheerfully and confidently. They were about to marry and go to New South Wales, that raw convict colony established less than 40 years earlier on the other side of the world, but already in some eyes a land of promise. It would never have occurred to Mary Louisa Whydah or to William Barton that by the end of the century a son of theirs would become the first prime minister of a united Australia. They had no intention of settling permanently. William Barton was the youngest son of a London perfumier, a member of a merchant family with interests in the East Indies. Born in 1795, he had not prospered greatly despite the careful mentoring of an elder brother, until in May 1827 the opportunity came of appointment as accountant to the Australian Agricultural Company. Formed three years earlier as a result of lobbying by the Macarthur family, the Company was one of the first attempts to mobilise British investment by capitalising on the promise of an expanding wool industry to acquire large tracts of Australian land. With £1 million behind it the Company was willing to pay the handsome salary of £500 a year for a smart young executive to go to New South Wales as accountant and secretary. William Barton’s family supported his application. He had a seven-year contract, but he would be best HE MINIATURES

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served, wrote his elder brother, by a stay of at least fourteen years in a land flowing with milk and honey. In this hopeful frame of mind William and Mary Louisa were married in June 1827 and embarked upon the Frederick for the five-month voyage to Australia. First impressions of Sydney were propitious. They were immediately received into the first rank of society; Governor Darling invited them to a ball and supper for the King’s birthday; and their first child was born, named William, like his father. But in December 1828 the Company closed its Sydney office and moved its establishment to Port Stephens, 150 kilometres northward. In this remote and underdeveloped peninsula, swampy and ill-drained, 600 officials, workmen and convicts laboured to build a pastoral empire on land unsuited for sheep. ‘It was, in effect a new colony settled by Englishmen with no colonial experience.’ After the first manager’s dismissal, discipline slackened and quarrels flared. In this remote and alien environment, so different from his familiar London, William Barton went somewhat to pieces, covering his anxiety by displays of inappropriately grandiose behaviour. The Bartons came to a barely completed brick and adobe cottage which William endeavoured to landscape like an English gentleman’s residence, with an ornamental wall and a flourishing vegetable garden. He remained professionally competent, beavering away at various practices which he thought were costing the Company money, but his temper became erratic and unpredictable, especially after the arrival in December 1829 of a new local manager for the Company, Sir Edward Parry. Only five years older than Barton, Parry owed his appointment largely to his reputation as a successful Arctic explorer. Barton seems to have expected that he would be content as a figurehead while his diligent accountant managed the Company’s affairs. Parry quickly made it plain that he was in charge, but the Parrys and the Bartons remained on civil terms for about a year. One summer afternoon Lady Parry, out driving in her dog-cart with her maid beside her, passed young Mrs Barton’s cottage, and seeing her with her two small children, invited her to come for the drive with her, leaving the maid to walk the two kilometres home. That evening William Barton penned a furious letter to the Parrys protesting against the insult to his wife

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in asking her to sit where the maid had been sitting. Soon after followed a letter from Mary Louisa, asking the Parrys not to trouble themselves over her husband’s ‘ridiculous note’, but it was of no use. Relations soured irrevocably between Parry and Barton. A series of squabbles over petty issues culminated in March 1831 when a convict sent by Parry to Barton’s house complained that Barton drove him away by throwing gravel-stones at him. Parry had Barton suspended from his duties, prosecuted for assault, and evicted from his house before ordering him and his family to return to England. Acquitted of the stone-throwing shortly before his departure, Barton arrived in England in December eager to report his side of the story to the Company, only to find that the directors had already decided to terminate his contract, following advice from Parry. Settling his family in lodgings in Bloomsbury, Barton waged a paper war against the Company for two years, but to no avail. Early in 1834, by now with four children, the Bartons departed once more for Sydney. Barton sued Parry for malicious prosecution, and was awarded the contemptuous damages of one farthing. With little capital, William was now driven by determination to triumph over his critics by proving himself a successful businessman. In August 1834 he established a public bazaar in a former hotel in Macquarie Place. It was a kind of ancestor of the modern shopping centre, where goods could be warehoused and retailers might rent trading outlets under the same roof. Barton himself was advertising Londonbuilt one-horse carriages and hoped to attract others in the same line of business as well as sellers of furniture and musical instruments. By April 1835 the Sydney Bazaar had added books, stationery, toys, millinery, haberdashery and baby linen to its stock, but a few weeks later it closed. Undeterred, Barton in June was advertising a brand of repeater rifle useful for inland settlers ‘in the present crisis’ (presumably Aboriginal resistance) as well as continuing to deal in vehicles. In the midst of these ventures he hit on his longest-lived vocation. At the end of July he began advertising himself as an agent for the transfer of shares in banks and other companies. By publishing Australia’s first list of stocks and shares

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he secured his niche in financial history as the nation’s pioneer stockbroker. At first this could be only a sideline because there were as yet few public companies with negotiable shares. Early in 1836 Barton was busy with the formation of the Australian Fire and Life Assurance Company. He was interim secretary but somehow failed to become a member of the permanent directorate. Could it be that his peers judged him a lightweight, ineffectually scrabbling on the margins, or did he lose friends through the protective selfimportance which had coloured his relations with Sir Edward Parry? At any rate the man was unsinkable. Later in 1836 he was offering himself as a house and land agent, but his stockbroking activities continued, and in 1838 he published The Particulars of Joint Stock Institutions in New South Wales. Unhappily all this activity failed to translate itself into steady income, and during 1838–39 Mary Louisa Barton, although by now the mother of six children with a seventh on the way, was obliged to run a school for day and boarding students. During the next few years New South Wales enjoyed a pastoral boom. Borrowing from former Australian Agricultural Company colleagues, William Barton began investing in land: 104 acres and a cottage at Five Dock in outer Sydney, 640 acres in the St George basin, 736 acres near Bathurst, 1120 acres at Sugarloaf, four town lots at Muswellbrook. Early in 1842, with unabated optimism he set up as an auctioneer in Pitt Street, dealing mainly in property but with a share auction every Wednesday—just in time for a calamitous slump. In April 1843 he went bankrupt, one among many, and the trustees took hold of his possessions, even the two cows, four pigs and poultry on the Five Dock estate. Once again Mary Louisa went schoolteaching. Within twelve months William was able to settle with his creditors and resume his stockbroking, but to judge from the infrequency of his newspaper advertisements during the next five years he was learning caution in promoting bright new ideas. The family continued to increase and by 1846 numbered seven daughters and three sons. Perhaps because of pressure of numbers the Bartons left the central part of Sydney where they had lived

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since returning from England, and took a house in Hereford Street, Glebe, a developing suburb about five kilometres to the south-west. Here Mary Louisa became pregnant for the eleventh time, and here on 18 January 1849 she gave birth to her fourth son. Six months later he was christened Edmund, a name not previously used in the family. Perhaps he was named after the explorer Edmund Kennedy, recently killed by Aborigines on his Cape York Peninsula expedition. The child Edmund arrived at an improving moment in the family’s fortunes. In 1849 William Barton re-emerged as a real estate agent and dealer in shares and by 1851 the family was back in central Sydney, with William’s office at the Sydney Harbour end of George Street and the family in Cumberland Street—for the Rocks was still a respectable neighbourhood. That was the year when the discovery of gold in the gullies north of Bathurst launched New South Wales and Victoria on an unprecedented boom. Sydney’s population increased from under 45 000 in 1851 to 56 000 in 1861 and, although Melbourne dramatically outstripped the older city, Sydney did well enough to change from a straggling port at the fag-end of the convict era to a prosperously thriving mercantile centre. As Sydney’s only specialist sharebroker William Barton could hardly avoid benefiting from these changes. Whereas his earlier business had been mainly in banking, gas lighting and steam navigation shares, the 1850s saw growth in gold and coal mining companies. Of course the expanding economy attracted competition and before long Barton was no longer leader in the field, but even so he had never done better. Mary Louisa may still have felt the need for added financial security, for instead of taking the opportunity to devote herself exclusively to her large family she continued running a ladies’ college in Macquarie Street. Perhaps she was one of those uncommon nineteenth-century married women who, having established a professional career, was able to continue enjoying it. By 1853 William was at last able to inform his brother in England that he was living comfortably and saving, but had given up his intention of returning to England and meant to remain in New South Wales. He had taken more than twenty years to acclimatise, but his children, especially the younger of them, would grow up thinking of themselves as Australian.

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So it was that, in comparison with his older sisters and brothers, Edmund Barton was to enjoy a childhood of moderate financial security. Probably also emotional security, as the baby in a large family with a majority of girls; for although soon after Edmund’s third birthday a brother was born, Sydney Fitzgerald Barton, he survived only nine months. His loss may have strengthened Edmund’s position—‘Toby’, as the family called him from an early age—as the cherished youngest child. From such beginnings Toby would soon have developed the charm on which so many people commented in later life, as well as the quickness to perceive and understand the point of view of others; a quickness which sometimes shaded into his least attractive characteristic, too great a readiness to appear to agree with those viewpoints. Possibly also it was a youngest child’s experience which led to the adult Edmund Barton’s over-fondness for his food and drink, as well as a somewhat happy-go-lucky attitude towards money. One story survives from his childhood. The very tall Bishop Barker, making polite conversation with small Toby Barton, asked him what his father called him. ‘Damned young scamp,’ replied Toby, ‘’cause I put my finger in the inkpot and was writing over his writing to make it big.’ With a family which was long remembered as ‘one of the most literary in Sydney’ and his mother an experienced teacher and woman of character, it would also have helped that he showed signs of being a very intelligent little boy who took readily to schooling. After two years at the nearby Upper Fort Street primary school, attached to the garrison church at St Philip’s, he was sent to Sydney Grammar School, probably at its re-opening in 1857 and certainly by the time he was ten in 1859. By that time each of his five eldest sisters had married and left home. Remarkably, none lived in Sydney; one had gone to London, three to Brisbane, and the other married first a physician and then a journalist who lived several years in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) before settling in Melbourne. Of those who remained at home, Alice, four years his senior, was his favourite, whom he would remember as ‘the flower of the flock’. She was destined in 1865 to make what seemed the best match of all, when she married an Oxfordshire squire, Edward Hamersley, and went to live in an English manor-

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house; but the dampness of the Thames Valley would promote a tubercular condition, and she would be dead by 30. Ellen, a year younger, was even less fortunate. She died aged fourteen in July 1860 of injuries sustained in a fire eighteen weeks earlier. It has been impossible to discover the circumstances of the fire, but the trauma for the family must have been considerable. Of the sons, the eldest, William, was at 30 a dim figure, unmarried, junior partner in his father’s firms, and dabbler in goldmining investments. The third son, Henry, made hardly more impression. There was nothing dim or unimpressive about the second son, George Burdett Barton. A clever youth, he entered the University of Sydney in 1853 at sixteen, intending to follow a legal career after taking his degree. Shortly before he was due to graduate, George quarrelled with the professor of classics, John Woolley, pursued the dispute provocatively in the newspapers, and was expelled from the university. This was to be the pattern of his life. Gifted, handsome, energetic, apparently fit for early success, he so often timed his rebellious gestures for the moment when they would wreak the maximum of harm on his worldly prospects. He was a role model for Edmund to avoid, but at this point of their lives George’s cantankerousness may have benefited his younger brother. Somehow the family found the means to send George to London to qualify in law at the Middle Temple. By 1859 his progress disappointed old William Barton, who was moved to write to his son attributing his lack of success to idleness. This provoked a tremendous rejoinder, 40 handwritten pages in length. It was his deafness, George argued, coupled with a prolonged bout of depression, which explained his slow progress. He turned the attack on his father, accusing him of neglect: I acknowledge that from my earliest years you have treated me with understanding kindness . . . Punishment, unfeeling or unreasoning, I have never received from you . . . but . . . You have neglected to give me that training and cultivation at home in the absence of which the best of youngsters run great risks . . . I cannot recall to mind that you have ever spent five minutes in conversation with me of any kind, certainly not in

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conversation of that kind which every Father should unremittingly hold with his Son.

Old William Barton, said George, had never taught him to look after his health or to take exercise or to cultivate a moral sense: But I have another and more practical reason for moralising in this vein. In your last letter you mention Edmund’s success at the Grammar School and add ‘You, too, began well. I trust that he will not flag as he proceeds.’ Now, observe this. If by good fortune his health continues unimpaired he will not flag as he proceeds, he will go on as he has begun . . . But, if he is allowed, as I was allowed to become the victim of disease, you will have a second time to mourn the disappointment of your hope . . . Let my fate, then, be a lesson to you for your profit. Mark out on his Chart the rocks on which I have split and I shall not have suffered in vain. Let him learn early what I have learned late. Do not allow him, the Benjamin of your heart, to remain in ignorance of those things on which his welfare, for Time and for Eternity entirely depend. Cultivate his Body—Cultivate his Mind—Cultivate his Soul.

In his mid-sixties William Barton was neither of an age nor of a temperament to pay much heed to the insights of an angry 23-year-old son; but someone in the family must have thought the letter worth keeping. George qualified and returned to Sydney in 1860, but instead of practising law, drifted into journalism. In 1864 he was one of the founders of Sydney Punch, a weekly intended to repeat the success of its London namesake. Next year he married, and a secure future seemed open to him in the form of a government appointment worth £500 a year. With his habitual poor timing George chose that moment to publish in Punch a satire on the government entitled ‘Jupiter and Ganymede’. The premier was not amused, and the government appointment was cancelled. After another two years in Sydney, George went off to New Zealand in 1868 for further turbulent experiences in law and journalism. Meanwhile the younger William Barton faded out of life in 1863—after convulsions lasting four days, according to the death certificate— and Edmund became more and more the hope of the family.

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Whether or not because of George Barton’s advice, Edmund did well at Sydney Grammar School. Despite a dilapidated fabric and tight finances the school met high academic standards, with particular strengths in Latin and Greek, taught by the headmaster, an Oxford graduate. Here a lifelong love of classics was kindled in Edmund Barton. Henceforward he carried in his head the resonances of a great culture far removed from colonial Sydney or from the Regency England of his father’s reminiscences. Sydney Grammar also gave him a great liking for cricket, an enthusiasm shared by his best friend, Dick O’Connor. Two years younger than Barton, Richard Edward O’Connor was descended from a family notable in the 1798 Irish rising, but his own father was a highly respectable parliamentary clerk. Although Barton and O’Connor did not overlap at Sydney Grammar, they apparently met in those years, and friendship followed. For the rest of their lives O’Connor would be the only friend who continued to call Barton ‘Ted’. Having been captain of the school in 1863 and 1864, a position which went automatically to the dux, or academically most gifted boy, Edmund Barton in 1865 matriculated into the University of Sydney with such excellent results that the Senate awarded him a special prize. At university he specialised in classics, with minors in mathematics, physics, French and English literature. The latter was taught for a while by his brother George, whose influence may well have stimulated nationalist ideas in the young Edmund. For in 1866 George Burdett Barton published Literature in New South Wales, surely one of the first blasts of the trumpet on behalf of Australian creativity. ‘Unless a radical change takes place in the temper of the people, the prospects of an independent literature are extremely dim . . .’ George went on: We shall thus be left to rely helplessly upon the productions of another land, as we do at present, we shall produce nothing of our own beyond slavish imitations . . . This is not a prospect which any lover of his country can regard with pleasure . . . Patriotism has not yet developed itself amongst us; and the history of the world has shown that where there has been no patriotism, there has never been a literature.

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These were the accents of the young Australia which Edmund would represent in his political career. It was Edmund’s good fortune that in his second year a new professor of classics arrived, Charles Badham, with an international reputation and a great talent for tutoring. Disappointed in his Oxford career because of an unorthodox theology and a sometimes untimely wit, Badham at 54 was a great catch for Sydney. He had edited several of the works of Plato, who with his mentor Socrates and his pupil Aristotle was seen as setting the basic questions of Western political philosophy. Badham was particularly renowned as a textual critic skilled at identifying the original words and intentions of ancient writers. The fastidious use of language required in such exercises resembled the analytical approach used by judges and senior counsel in interpreting the wording of laws. Badham must have been a profound influence for a student such as Barton whose later career would be so much bound up with the framing and interpretation of legal and political concepts. Although he championed the humanities against public men such as Governor Robinson, who thought all higher education should have a strictly practical bent, Badham was no cloistered academic. He gladly talked to working men’s institutes and other public groups, and would if necessary have served as a school inspector in the interests of communicating between the university and the community at large. According to one of his students: ‘His speeches at the Commemoration were looked forward to by the undergraduates, were listened to with attention, and were punctuated with applause.’ Barton responded to his teaching, winning the Lithgow scholarship in his second year and the Cooper in his third. In 1868 he graduated with first-class honours in Classics and was awarded a special University prize for the substantial sum of £20; over $2000 by the standards of 2000. Two years later, in May 1870, he took his Master of Arts degree, which in those easygoing times was largely a formality, if an expensive one. While an undergraduate, Barton took up rowing, and in 1870, a trim 21-year-old weighing just over 60 kilograms, he was a member of the Sydney four beaten by the University of Melbourne. Next year in the Sydney regatta he was one of the Osprey crew who won an

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event from Circular Quay to Lavender Bay, around Fort Denison and back. Cricket remained his main enthusiasm, though he was remembered as no more than a fair batsman and an appalling fieldsman. Probably his best work for the University club was done administratively. He served on the grounds committee in 1869 and the general committee for several years from 1868, including two spells as acting chairman and two as honorary secretary. When the team visited Melbourne over the Christmas of 1870 to lose narrowly to the rival university, Barton came in at number seven, making four in the first innings and five in the second. The following year when Melbourne returned the visit, the home side won by nine wickets, Barton’s contribution being a modest four singles. These games were major social events, with a German band to play in the intervals, and champagne toasts at the end of the match. The visiting team received free rail passes from the host government, and both sides were invited to theatres and choral societies. Prophetically the Argus editorial praised such events for their value in bringing the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales closer together. During 1869 and 1870 Edmund Barton intermittently kept a diary. In its pages he comes across as a pleasant, sociable young man, on good terms with his parents and enjoying many friendships. He notes reading Macaulay and Blackstone, but writes more of cricket and fishing. One of his fishing mates was a thickset young Treasury clerk four years older than himself, George Reid, with whom he went to the races, cruised on Sydney Harbour and exchanged comic Valentines. In March 1869 Reid took him to the School of Arts debating society, where Barton ‘tried to speak and made a fool of himself’; but he persevered, hardly imagining how much oratory lay ahead for Reid and himself. Many years later Reid recalled: ‘I never met a more deficient beginner as a speaker than he was. I often used to encourage him, as a very young man, to get on his feet and speak . . . but he did not take to it kindly.’ His dissipations were mild, although on a spring night following a rowing celebration he wrote: ‘Drank much beer, which together with more drunk coming home from Fred Fitzhardinge made too much. Accordingly played some pranks’, with the inevitable sequel:

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‘Very bilious and seedy. Didn’t go to Regatta.’ He had a not uncritical eye for a pretty girl. After dancing with a Miss Austen known as ‘the Belle of Balmain’, he commented: ‘A fair girl with good features, but indifferent light blue eyes and little brain, as far as I could tell.’ On occasion he could be a combative young male. At the May Ball at Government House (where, oddly by today’s standards, his father accompanied him), as there were 800 present Edmund ‘was wise enough not to dance much in such a mob’ but stood up resolutely to a ‘snob’ who accused him of pushing past his girlfriend. ‘Snob’ was Barton’s severest term of criticism in those years. Then at Easter 1870 the University cricket team visited Newcastle, where the University made 69 and 97. In the second innings Barton was the second highest scorer, making fifteen runs. Newcastle was all out for 38 in the first innings but recovered to win by three wickets. During this weekend Edmund’s friend Dick Teece introduced him to two middle-aged ladies, a Mrs Coulter, accompanied by her daughter, and Miss Home, with her niece. Both girls were pretty. ‘Janet Coulter is a jolly little cuss and sings like a bird,’ Barton remarked, but it was her friend for whom he fell: ‘And Jeanie Ross is beautiful and she sings and is a dear.’ He lost no time, because the day concluded with ‘Tea at Miss Home’s. Jolly. And walk after. Jollier.’ The next day there was a wine party given by the mayor and mayoress. The competitive young Barton suspected that their son had an eye on Jeanie, but she took no notice, and it was Edmund who walked the young ladies home. For the rest of the week he saw her every day, and when it was time to return to Sydney he spent a sleepless night with what he called ‘the blue devils’. He sent her a copy of that classic mid-Victorian statement on gender relations, Tennyson’s ‘Princess’, and correspondence followed. It was arranged that Jeanie would come to Sydney late in May. He was only 21, and she not quite nineteen, but they were ready to commit themselves. On 26 May he wrote: Walked with Jeanie and had a serious talk with her speaking fully about my circumstances and prospects. Her admirable character displayed itself more completely to me. The knowledge

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of my poor and wretched situation and of my small estimate of my chances, seemed to make her more tender than before . . . How I love that Girl!

When he took her to the Opera he saw ‘no one fit to hold a candle to her’. All was well too with his parents: ‘Jeanie seemed quite in love with the old people.’ Her own parents were dead. Jane Mason Ross (always known as ‘Jeanie’) was the London-born daughter of a Scottish engineer, David Ross, and his wife Euphemia. With their three children they emigrated to Newcastle, where David Ross was credited with building some of the port’s earliest coal-handling equipment. Having lost money in mining investments he turned publican, becoming licensee of the Albion Inn in Blane Street (now Hunter Street West), ‘quite a famous hostelry’, according to a local historian, ‘catering for visitors from Sydney and the country districts . . . It was an old-fashioned cottage type of building . . . standing well back from the roadway, with a wide verandah in front’. Many years later some old Newcastle hands thought they saw a prophecy of Federation in the gilt inn sign, which depicted a man trying to break a bundle of sticks across his knee with the motto ‘Union is Strength’. Widowed early, Ross brought out his wife’s sister, Ellen Home, to look after his young family. Tradition remembers her as ‘a very terrifying disciplinarian and stern unbending Presbyterian’. The same family source also asserts that she made her brother-in-law give up the hotel, but if so it can only have been shortly before his death in 1868. His obituary describes him as ‘contractor’. Gossips took care to inform Edmund that Jeanie’s father had been a publican, but he was unmoved. This was the girl he meant to marry. In any case the family’s respectability survived challenge. David Ross had served two terms as alderman, and his Presbyterian funeral was attended by 300 mourners. Jeanie herself played the organ at St Andrews Church. The only, the critical, impediment to marriage was that Edmund had first to make a career. Having no aptitude for commerce or primary industry, he found the law the most likely option for a young man with a good manner and vocabulary. In 1868, after taking his first degree, he entered the

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chambers of Burton Bradley, a solicitor who had previously supervised his brother George, and who was to remain a friend for many years. Two years later, encouraged by Bradley’s good opinion and requiring training in both branches of the legal profession, he read with G. C. Davies, a successful but unremarkable barrister. In 1872 he was duly called to the New South Wales Bar. His first case thrust him into strong courtroom drama. He was retained as junior counsel defending a murder charge against a 20-year-old from ‘a most respectable family in England’, known as Lester or Froude. As accomplice to an older man, Nicholls, Lester waylaid at least two unsuspecting travellers whom Nicholls killed, and helped to dump the bodies in the Parramatta River. Crowds attended the trial of this sensational case. When the pair were found guilty they collapsed in the dock, Lester in floods of tears, so that four policemen had to hold them up while they were sentenced to hanging. Probably this case confirmed Barton’s aversion to the death penalty except in extreme circumstances. Criminal law was never his favourite branch of the profession, but in the years of his debut he needed any case that was going. Law was an overcrowded profession, and Edmund had neither influential friends nor relatives to smooth the path for him. His brother George’s career offering a rather bleak example of the pitfalls awaiting a young journalist, he must persevere with the law and become the maker of his own fortune. Nor could he count on the family support which sustained him during childhood and youth. Shortly before his sister Alice married and departed for England his parents moved to suburban Woollahra. Theirs was a suddenly depleted household, with only the two bachelor sons Henry and Edmund remaining. Mary Louisa re-established the ladies’ school in Woollahra, while old William Barton still practised as a stockbroker. He tended to plume himself as the founder of the profession in Sydney, but he was past 70 and left the running of the business to a partner. So much was he left behind by his younger colleagues that when the Sydney Stock Exchange was formally established in 1871 no one thought to invite him as a founder-member, although he joined some time later. Except for increasing trouble with his eyes, he seemed physically indestructible. It was otherwise with Mary Louisa, although she was fourteen years

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younger. Around 1870 she began to show signs of cardiac trouble. Having lived long enough to see her youngest son qualify as a barrister, she died on 4 May 1872, at the age of 63. This was the end of the household of which she had been the mainstay. Within a year the house at Woollahra was sold, the widower had gone to a married daughter in Brisbane, and his two sons moved into separate lodgings. Mary Louisa Barton’s had been the strength that held the family together. Even at 60 her energy was unabated. With her eleven children grown up she had taken on a widowed daughter’s little girl when her mother and stepfather went to Colombo, and when George’s wife in Dunedin succumbed to postnatal depression, she was off to New Zealand, taking the eight-year-old granddaughter with her, to put things to rights. A son-in-law remembered her as the most intelligent woman he ever met. With her teacher’s competence she undoubtedly provided much of the direction and the encouragement for Edmund’s impressive academic achievement. She must also have seemed a centre of emotional security, and it is significant that Edmund’s first and only serious courtship was with a young woman who in several important respects resembled her. Many years later, when he had become a national figure and prime minister, an old acquaintance wrote: ‘To this day he is awkward in the presence of ladies and blushes like a school girl. He has no small talk, no boyishness.’ Nobody ever accused him of philandering. As a father figure William was less satisfactory, even though he may have shared and encouraged many of the family’s cultural interests. Unlike George, Edmund apparently neither defied nor confronted him. At least once when William was very old Edmund defended him in extravagant language against George. Yet beneath this deference to the patriarch Edmund must have realised that the dignified facade was essentially a front to cover uncertainties and inadequacies. The same concern not to expose a father’s nakedness would be seen in his later relationship with senior figures such as Parkes. Probably it came to serve as a metaphor for the Australian relationship with Britain: the younger country should never show open rebellion or defiance, but should go on managing its own affairs on the unspoken assumption that the senior’s authority was an

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inheritance to be respected but no longer an effective instrument of control. More than most parents, William Barton was already a man of yesterday. Whereas the parents of most of Edmund’s contemporaries would have seen themselves as early Victorians, evangelical, progressive, fascinated with technological improvement, William Barton was born in the eighteenth century and his character was formed in Regency London. In reminiscent old age he could touch an even more distant past, and would tell how his first employer, old Mr Barwise, wore to his dying day the powdered and pigtailed hair, the buckles and the silk stockings of the reign of George II. Something of that rationally benevolent, mildly sceptical, classically eloquent Georgian ambience filtered through to Edmund Barton. Alfred Deakin, whose mystical spiritualism was so remote from such a temperament, once compared Barton to Charles James Fox. This was apt enough. Both were corpulent, warm-hearted, sociable humans, fine orators, able but erratic in the conduct of business. Deakin may also have been recognising Barton’s strong grounding in Greek and Roman classics, and this may have suggested another comparison. The classical tradition was not merely the possession of Britain alone. The generation of late eighteenth-century Virginians and New Englanders who made the American Revolution and created the United States were deeply influenced by classical education. They brought to the task of nation-building an acute consciousness of Greek and Roman precedent. That same Greek and Roman precedent would become one of the subliminal influences in the shaping of an Australian nation. It was a result of Edmund Barton’s upbringing that, encouraged by his parents and taught by Badham, he would carry the resonances of this tradition inside himself while remaining always and unmistakably Australian.

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2

Young Australia Young Australia

F

OR FIVE years before his marriage in 1877, Edmund Barton’s life was divided between a succession of Sydney boarding houses and lengthy periods on circuit in the country. Jeanie and he must have exchanged dozens of letters but only a few survive. In October 1872 he was exercising all his considerable charm on Miss Home in Newcastle, asking for an extension of time for one of Jeanie’s visits to Sydney: ‘We are having the Equinoctial gales now: I’m sure the sea won’t be fit to travel in for some good many days.’ The aunt consented with some pleasant remarks on Edmund’s good heart and ability. It was as well, for with the breaking up of the family household Edmund relied on Jeanie for emotional warmth. ‘It is sweet to me to have someone’s sympathy when I stupidly despond at Fortune’s scurvy tricks’, he wrote in February 1873:

. . . and I know you are just as fond of my sympathy as I of you, and we both know that every pecuniary trouble is a hindrance to the accomplishment of our united happiness, while every little windfall is a help to its achievement.

Unhappily, few briefs came the way of the young barrister, and a month later he was despairing: . . . my prospects are worse than ever . . . you do not know the depth of my poverty, and the slenderness of my chances. You 17

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deserve someone ten thousand times better than to waste your young years waiting for me to reach a goal which seems more distant every day.

But resilience kept breaking in: ‘. . . the University cricket club is keeping me busy’, he wrote, but added ‘I have so little in legal work that I am not neglecting my duty’. Cricket was indeed his main relaxation. After graduation he continued to play for the University club. His scores during 1872 were still modest—seven run out in one game, and eleven in a total of 119 in another—but he was confronting opponents such as Bannerman, Murdoch and the Gregory brothers. Sometimes he kept wicket. His finest hour came in 1873 when the University faced the nineteen-year-old Fred Spofforth, not yet deemed ‘the demon bowler’. Spofforth took nine wickets, seven by knocking down the stumps; Barton was the only batsman he did not dismiss. He was also a hardworking official. For three years (1872–74) he was club delegate to the New South Wales Cricket Association, and for five (1872–76) a member of the grounds committee, taking a leading part in negotiations which resulted in December 1873 in a university grant for improving the pitch. At the 1873 general meeting he was one of those who spoke against a proposal to admit graduates of other universities to the club. The debate can be seen as an early example of Barton’s preference for trusting local experience over the imported product, and the proposal was heavily defeated. Like many a young person since, Barton found valuable experience in public speaking, negotiations and committee work through sporting club activities, as well as establishing a network of friends and acquaintances who as graduates were entering the professional world. The 1870s were the first decade in which a majority of white adult Australians were native-born, and on the local scene the alumni of Sydney University were mature and numerous enough to make some impact on the public life of New South Wales. But this impact lay in the future, and meanwhile Edmund Barton had a living to earn. Jeanie Ross would wait seven years for her wedding. Edmund could not afford it earlier. Gradually his career advanced. By early 1875 he had chambers at 103 Elizabeth Street and was living in

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Cumberland Street in the Rocks, not far from his old family home. Much of his time was spent on circuit in country districts. Travel in the mid-1870s was still primitive. It was only in 1876 that the railway over the Blue Mountains was extended as far as Bathurst, and this meant a lot of travelling by coach, jolting over rough roads, with accommodation at half-civilised country pubs. Such northern towns as Grafton and Lismore were visited by sea. These journeys brought Barton into contact with judges on circuit, some like the elderly Sir Alfred Stephen, vigorous and stimulating in conversation, others merely loquacious. So Barton gained his introduction to the rural New South Wales which he would have to canvass intensely more than twenty years later in the campaign for Federation. He was still surviving on tight margins, obliged from time to time to borrow a few pounds from his father and his brother Henry, an accountant no better off than himself. Edmund thought of seeking a steady salary in callings as various as parliamentary draftsman and crown prosecutor on the western district circuit, and actually secured a few months as acting crown prosecutor at Bathurst late in 1875. Following this experience he was asked back as counsel in the Bathurst quarter sessions in 1876 and 1877, and won some success as a defence lawyer. In March 1877 he secured the acquittal of an Aboriginal named Murray accused of horse stealing, an offence carrying a gaol penalty of up to ten years. In September he successfully defended a local storekeeper against a charge of wrongful dismissal. Fortified in his professional self-confidence he became less eager to seek the security of government employment, because such a post would be incompatible with his growing ambition to enter politics. When opportunity unexpectedly beckoned, it came, as previously his courtship and engagement had come, as a result of his cricketing activities. It arose out of one of the quaintest experiments in Australian politics. In Britain the graduates of the ancient universities of Oxford and Cambridge each enjoyed the right of sending two members to the House of Commons, and when new universities such as London came into being in the nineteenth century a seat was created for them. The New South Wales parliament legislated for a similar Legislative Assembly constituency for graduates of the

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University of Sydney when their number reached 100 and, in 1876, the time arrived. Some graduates put forward William Windeyer. He was a very able lawyer, the first graduate to take a master’s degree, who had already served several years in parliament and shown an active and thoughtful interest in educational matters. He was however over 40, and a number of younger men did not agree with him, considering that Windeyer looked on the seat as his prerogative. The cricket club stalwarts were among the core of this faction (though, surprisingly, Barton’s staunch friend O’Connor was a Windeyer supporter). His cricketing friends invited Barton, then on circuit inland, to stand. Considering that at that time members of parliament received no salary it was a hazardous move, but Barton’s income had recently been improving a little, and he accepted. Three weeks of spirited campaigning followed. Both candidates were able and liberal-minded. Both, but Barton especially, wanted to improve the system of scholarships and secondary education so that university education might be accessible to the less well off. The choice largely turned on personalities, and here Barton was on the defensive. ‘Of Mr BARTON we know nothing’, complained the Sydney Morning Herald. In his policy speech, held in the unlikely environment of the Pitt Street Temperance Hall, Barton put up an able and witty defence. True he was young, but time would remedy that, and many eminent politicians, including Windeyer himself, had entered politics in their mid-twenties. Then he turned to another criticism which would dog him throughout his public career: Again he was told that he was not fitted to represent the University because there was about him a want of energy. He did not know what that assertion amounted to, and he was not aware whether the persons making this statement had studied his career from boyhood to the present time; but if they had they would yet have occasion to repent of their statement.

In a middle age punctuated by a sufficiency of good dinners, Barton’s alleged ‘want of energy’ could be glibly explained; but it was interesting to find the accusation made of him when he was only 27. Like many very clever young people, Barton took pains not to appear over-studious, cultivating the leisured manner; but like

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very clever young people also he found that he could master large quantities of material in a short space of time, and this ability probably encouraged him to procrastinate. He tended to swing between periods of lassitude and periods of intense concentration. He usually managed to meet his commitments, sometimes brilliantly, but it was a worrying trait in the eyes of more systematic souls. The election took place in the Great Hall of the University on 8 Septemb er 1876. Following English custom, the Cha ncellor, Sir Edward Deas Thomson, who acted as returning officer, called for nominations. Windeyer and Barton were both proposed, and supporting speeches made. Thomson called for a show of hands and declared Windeyer the victor. As always happened on such occasions, the losing candidate called for a poll, (as any graduate was eligible to vote), which lasted six hours. At the end of the day Windeyer was the winner, but only by a margin of 49 votes to 43. The candidates exchanged well-turned compliments, and then it was back to the law for Barton. Windeyer was returned unopposed at the general election late in 1877. Barton was absorbed in preparations for his wedding, at last confident in his ability to support a wife and family. The marriage was celebrated on 28 December 1877 at the manse of the bride’s family Presbyterian church, St Andrew’s, Newcastle. It was unfortunately the hottest day of the season: ‘A dry scorching wind was blowing almost continuously, bringing up disagreeable clouds of sand and dust from all directions.’ It was unlikely that the bridal couple minded. It was Jeanie’s last day as a Presbyterian. Staunch adherent of the Kirk though she was, her aunt told her that she must adhere to her husband’s religion (not that Edmund, in his easygoing Anglican conformism, would have forced the issue). She left more than her church behind her; in later life Jeanie Barton prided herself that no trace of Scots dialect could be discerned in her accent. The next few years saw major family change. Early in 1878 Edmund and Jeanie set up house in Stanmore, then an outer suburb of Sydney. They did not have long to themselves. In that August Henry Barton died, a 36-year-old bachelor. About the same time the family agreed that old William should return from Brisbane and live

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with Edmund and Jeanie in a larger house in Pitt Street, Redfern. Nearly 86 years of age, blind and suffering from renal disease, he died on 6 May 1881. He lived long enough to welcome the birth of two grandsons, Edmund Alfred in April 1879 and Wilfrid in October 1880 (the Bartons favoured Anglo-Saxon names for their sons) and also to know of Edmund’s eventual success in becoming a member of parliament. Once again Barton’s cricketing activities had something to do with the outcome. He was still on the University club committee in 1878 when, expansively for a newly married man of small means, he presented a trophy for the player with the best batting average. In 1879, when the rich amateur Lord Harris brought an England XI to tour the Australian colonies, Barton was nominated by New South Wales as umpire in Sydney. The England side brought as the other umpire an inexperienced young Victorian bowler, George Coulthard. On the first day, Friday 7 February, the England XI made 267 in the first innings and, having got New South Wales out for 177, enforced the follow-on. By 4.00 pm on the Saturday afternoon about 10 000 spectators were present, including several bookmakers dismayed at the prospect of an English win, and a considerable number of what the press described as ‘roughs and larrikins’ (but also the fifteen-year-old ‘Banjo’ Paterson). The hopes of New South Wales rested on Will Murdoch, who had carried his bat for 82 in the first innings. With the second innings score at one wicket for eighteen, Murdoch was given run out by umpire Coulthard. As Murdoch returned to the pavilion he was greeted by a mighty roar of ‘Not out! Go back!’ The Australian captain, Dave Gregory, demanded that Coulthard should be taken off. At this point an English fieldsman was heard to say: ‘What can you expect from the sons of convicts?’ At this the mob erupted on the ground. A few punches were swung, but as Lord Harris himself wrote: ‘Beyond kicking me slyly once or twice the mob behaved very well, their one cry being ‘‘Change the umpire!’’ ’ It took the police half an hour to escort the England side safely off the ground, and as Gregory still refused to play, Harris appealed to Barton and asked if he could claim the match according to the laws of cricket. Barton replied: ‘I shall give M

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it to you in two minutes if the batsmen do not return.’ He persuaded Gregory to change his mind, but the crowd kept taking possession of the ground and rendered play impossible for the rest of the day. It rained incessantly for the rest of the weekend, so that on Monday the New South Wales team was all out for 49 on a murderously sticky wicket. Lengthy controversy resulted, from which Barton was one of the few to emerge with credit. His mediating style brought him into the public eye, and this soon had its political reward. In August, Windeyer was appointed to the Supreme Court bench and resigned as the University’s parliamentary representative. Several candidates were thought likely to come forward but, in the end, Barton was opposed only by Dr Arthur Renwick, an energetic physician with a strong interest in public health. The election was conducted in a spirit of amiable competition. The two candidates shared the same views, declaring themselves in favour of free trade, reformed land laws, free, secular and compulsory education, and the extension of the railway system into central Sydney. Both wanted the government to increase the University’s endowment. The contest lay largely between advocates of a medical school and those with other priorities. Barton’s youth and lack of means were still seen by some as an impediment. Professor Badham, a Renwick supporter, hinted gently at the problem: Mr Barton was a young man, much and worthily esteemed, but he had not yet won his spurs. The world was before him, and there was a degree of risk he would be buffeted about and his judgment warped when his private interests were involved in some important public matter.

Prophetic words, as Barton would learn in later years as attorneygeneral; but for the present he rejected them vigorously: It has been said that he is not independent, and that he desired to enter the Assembly to obtain a position from the Crown. This was not the case . . . The Crown had already offered him a position, which he had declined in order that he might be free to seek to represent the University.

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A show of hands at the election meeting decided in Barton’s favour. This was confirmed at a poll by a margin of 73 votes to 45. On 31 October 1879 Edmund Barton Esquire, Master of Arts, took the oath of allegiance as member of the Legislative Assembly for the University of Sydney. He showed a cool nonchalance in that he put in his appearance four days after the beginning of the parliamentary session at which the Legislative Assembly was notified, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, of the return of Mr Edwin Barton. The Herald evidently still knew nothing of him. Barton entered a legislature which had been in existence for 23 years. Although drawing on the centuries-old traditions of Westminster, the New South Wales parliament, housed in a former hospital financed by the colonial thirst for rum, had early developed a character of its own. Where politics in Britain had evolved into a classic two-party system, Liberals versus Conservatives, a similar clarity was hard to establish in the more mobile society of postgoldrush New South Wales. The quality of a member of parliament was judged by his ability to win for his district or suburb a generous outlay of government money on railways, telegraphs, post offices, schools and other public works. Some found they could exercise pressure best as Independents and made a virtue of their lack of commitment. Others attached themselves to the shifting factions formed around dominant personalities, their loyalties determined by various blends of regional, commercial, religious and personal sympathies. By the time Barton entered parliament, two great survivors, Sir Henry Parkes and Sir John Robertson, were acknowledged as the master politicians. Both were over 60. Parkes, an English workingclass migrant, was a cunning tactician and a resilient leader, with a strain of grandiosity which fed dreams of statesmanship but also, unhappily, aspirations as country gentleman and poet; as one English observer wrote: ‘His debts, his poetry are powerless to sink him.’ Robertson cultivated a more earthy Australian persona, his picturesque profanity enhanced by a cleft palate and a strong head for liquor. In reality he was no philistine, but unlike Parkes he did not wear his culture on his sleeve. Having sparred in the Legislative Assembly for 20 years, the two white-bearded veterans formed a

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coalition in December 1878, with Parkes as premier and Robertson leader in the upper house. Supported by a handsome majority, they brought four years of stability to New South Wales politics. The Parkes–Robertson coalition required no major change of political faith for either party. Apart from a few remnants of the pastoral and landowning conservatives surviving in the Legislative Council, an upper house whose members were nominated for life, most prominent politicians described themselves as ‘liberal’. Like the Liberals in Britain they put their faith in free trade, that doctrine of low tariffs which suited primary producers and the importers of Sydney, and looked askance at experiments in Victoria aimed at developing manufacturing behind the screen of protective duties. Colonial liberalism in its New South Wales form consisted largely of supporting reforms which would allow a society of migrants and their children the means of self-betterment. Children were entitled to literacy and primary education, and their parents should have the opportunity of acquiring yeoman independence through cheap land. Unfortunately, both generous aims left plenty of scope for disagreement. Sectarianism bedevilled the education question in every Australian colony, but nowhere more than in New South Wales. Many, though not all, Catholics feared that a State school system founded on religious impartiality would in fact produce godless children rejecting the influence of their faith and clergy. As elsewhere in Australia, many church schools were established in competition with the government schools. To avoid duplication and inefficiency, the New South Wales government in 1866 set up a Council of Education to administer and fund all schools, government or denominational. Rules were designed to check oversupply and ensure minimum standards. Parkes was the architect of this compromise. The Catholic bishops were never happy with it, and their mistrust of Parkes deepened when he took a strident anti-Irish line after the attempted assassination of Queen Victoria’s son, the Duke of Edinburgh, in March 1868. Although Parkes tried to cultivate Catholic allies during the 1870s, the rift never healed. Pressure mounted as rapid population growth stimulated demand for more schools. A vocal lobby demanded that New South Wales should follow

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Victoria’s example and cease funding denominational schools. In rebuttal a new and vigorous Catholic archbishop, Roger Bede Vaughan, went on the attack against the State schools. By 1879 it was clear that Parkes, with a strong majority behind him, would have to resolve the dilemma. He declared for free, secular and compulsory education, following the Victorian precedent and leaving the church schools to battle for their own resources. The land laws were as central to Robertson’s being as education was to Parkes. Robertson was famed as the author of the 1861 Act which enabled intending farmers to select lands at £1 an acre on pastoral leases or other unimproved Crown land before official survey took place. This early example of dual title was anathema to the pastoralists, who in some districts used every trick in the book to thwart the ‘free selectors’. They bought the freehold of safe watering points, thus locking up the surrounding country. They purchased blocks in the names of their infant children or other dummy nominees, or else found themselves blackmailed by ‘free selectors’ who took up choice areas on pastoral land to hold the squatter to ransom. Even in districts where bona fide farmers established themselves, it often ended with one successful operator buying out his neighbours and sometimes turning grazier. Robertson’s Land Act was not the unmitigated failure that its critics made out, but it was no advertisement for the yeoman ideal. Change was difficult nonetheless, because successive governments found the windfall gains from land sales too useful in buoying up New South Wales revenue and thus avoiding any need to increase tariffs or impose direct taxation. Increasingly the critics fretted that it was unwise to sell off the national estate to meet current expenses, but Robertson remained convinced that his system was near-perfect. All he required of the coalition was minor amendments, extending the period of occupancy before selectors might sell their land and easing their conditions as compensation. In his first parliamentary session in 1879–80 Barton as member for the University of Sydney thought it appropriate to act as an Independent. He supported the coalition over Parkes’ 1880 legislation to end State aid for church schools and to establish free, compulsory and secular education, believing with many Australians

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of his generation that this would bring opportunity to all children. In his maiden speech he rebutted Archbishop Vaughan’s alarmist comments on the State school system: I must say that I do strongly resent the statement that the system under which I have grown up is calculated to produce infidelity, immorality, or lawlessness . . . but if the prelate descends to make statements like this, and supplements them by saying that he is ready to shed his blood in defence of the views he propounds and goes on almost to express the wish to be disembowelled, it is right that I, who have been educated under the system so sweepingly condemned, should say a word or two in its defence . . .

Those educated in the State schools and the secular University of Sydney, said Barton, were ‘upright and God-fearing citizens’. For Barton the government did not go far enough, and he later supported an opposition resolution to reduce school fees, and protested against inequalities in the career path of teachers. On the other hand, his first speech took the form of criticising the land laws as discriminating against genuine free selectors in favour of graziers, and in 1880 he opposed a government proposal for a tax on wool because of its effect on export markets. Instead, in the manner of many novice politicians he preferred to cut government spending. Altogether he made a judicious start to his parliamentary career, speaking not too often and with careful preparation, although probably few of his colleagues appreciated his habit of garnishing his speeches with Greek and Latin quotations. Among the overdue issues tackled by the Parkes–Robertson coalition was electoral redistribution. To match recent increases in population the government proposed almost to double the size of the Legislative Assembly. At the same time, however, the University seat would be abolished as an anomalous piece of privilege. Barton of course argued against this potential check to his political career, but in vain. Fortunately the expansion of parliament meant that many seats were looking for members. Rural constituencies lacking prominent citizens with time or money to spend on politics sometimes found it convenient to look for a bright young city lawyer

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who might represent their interests. One such was Wellington, a farming community between Bathurst and Dubbo, but their member John Shepherd never came near them, and after unfavourable publicity in a notorious divorce case, dropped temporarily out of politics. The local solicitor, Will Chauncy, was Barton’s close friend, and probably through his influence Barton replaced Shepherd. In November 1880 he was returned without opposition on the nomination of two local aldermen. ‘The proceedings’, we are told, ‘were very orderly’. The Parkes–Robertson coalition was returned with what appeared a secure majority. It seemed as if the opposition would be as weak and divided as it had been in the previous parliament. Its leading figure, Michael Fitzpatrick, a retired public servant, was experienced and persistent, but carried the handicap of being a Catholic who disagreed with his clergy on the education question. (When he died in September 1881 he was denied Catholic burial rites.) More significantly for the future, the 1880 elections brought into the Legislative Assembly a number of new men who gave general support to the coalition but were not committed for the long term. The most striking debut of all was made by George Reid, at 35 already portly and heavy-moustached, who in the four-member constituency of East Sydney topped the poll ahead of Dr Arthur Renwick and Sir Henry Parkes. Reid’s successful campaign showed rare tactical skill, as well as a readiness to challenge Parkes for forgetting his humble origins. Two others who in time would follow Reid in attaining the premiership were William Lyne, a tall, lean Tasmanian, once an overlander and later a successful breeder of Lincoln sheep, commencing a long career as a member for the Riverina free-selector community; and John See, a Clarence River yeoman thriving in Sydney as produce merchant and shipping owner, and thus credited with financial shrewdness. The younger generation was beginning to move into position. During 1881 and 1882 Barton, even in the eyes of an admirer, did not ‘take a brilliant part in Parliamentary proceedings’. He spoke a dozen times on a miscellany of subjects. Still a spokesman for the University, he secured the abolition of compulsory examinations for Master of Arts candidates. He favoured the opening of museums and

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the Art Gallery on Sundays, the provision of public recreation areas for sporting activities, and the reform of the liquor laws (on which he spoke with authority, urging that wine-shops should not be closed down, even though ‘in some of them an inferior article was sold’). He took a generally humane view on legal issues, supporting the commutation of the death sentence on a schoolmaster who raped an eleven-year-old girl, insisting on the need for proper legal representation of criminals, and criticising the ‘disregard of the rights of women’ in the English laws which held that a woman could not divorce her husband for adultery though a man might divorce his wife. And the Australian nationalist in him gave strong support to the preservation of Captain Cook’s landing place in Botany Bay as ‘an act of patriotism’. But he took no part in the great debate of 1881 on Chinese immigration or in the increasing barrage of criticism of the land laws during that year, which caused Reid to break conclusively with the coalition and go into opposition. Barton’s family responsibilities absorbed some of his energies. With the birth in April 1882 of a daughter, Jean Alice (known as ‘Muffie’), there were now three small children in the household. In addition old William Barton died intestate, and his affairs proved unexpectedly difficult to disentangle. Edmund’s legal practice continued to expand, with retainers coming from nearly a dozen country solicitors. Among his clients he numbered the colliery estates of the deceased Mr Justice Hargrave, whose son Lawrence was already deeply engrossed in experimenting with models for a heavier-thanair flying machine. Barton was a keenly interested spectator of some of Lawrence Hargrave’s experimental trials. In his quixotic persistence in pursuing a goal which many thought unattainable, Hargrave may have provided a role-model for the Barton who would take up the quest for Federation a few years later. He was no longer so absorbed in the University cricket club, but in 1882 he was elected a member of the Senate, the University’s governing body, and with one short interval retained that position till his death. The sociable relaxation previously found in cricket was provided by membership of the newly established Athenaeum Club. Modelled on the London club of the same name, the Athenaeum sought its membership among men of affairs, academics and creative

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artists of broad intellectual interests. Its foundation members in 1881 included J. R. Fairfax, the proprietor of the Sydney Morning Herald, and Dr Andrew Garran, its editor, Lucien Brient, news editor of the Daily Telegraph, and J. F. Archibald of the Bulletin among the journalists, the merchant William (‘Good Iron Mac’) McMillan, and William Bede Dalley from politics. Barton was elected in the following year. A few years later followed his friend O’Connor. The Athenaeum was to be a pleasurable environment for Barton for many years, eventually too pleasurable, although it was not yet possible to say of Barton, as Alfred Deakin later wrote: ‘At no time and in no sense intemperate, his genial, affectionate nature made him so companionable that he spent many hours in his club chair which could have been more profitably spent in his chambers or his study.’ Parliament resumed in August 1882 after an unusually long recess caused by Parkes’ absence on an overseas tour hobnobbing with the great in Britain and North America. The opposition chose the respected merchant Alexander Stuart as their leader, but it was Reid who was their cutting edge. Parkes and Robertson, he claimed, ‘had not the same keen sympathy with the masses of the people they once had’. Confronted with Reid’s denunciation of the land laws, Robertson responded by bringing in a bill to consolidate the existing legislation, though without addressing any of the mounting criticisms against it. Stuart moved into attack, arguing that the land laws bred dishonesty, set class against class, and handed over large areas of land to great financial corporations. Reid followed, demanding a comprehensive inquiry into the working of the land laws. Barton supported him, using his personal observations while travelling the country on circuit to argue that ‘something must be done to place the Land Laws on a more equitable, smooth working basis’, otherwise ‘even more evils would result in the future’. As it happened he was not in the Assembly when Robertson forced a snap division on the issue, but it did not matter. The coalition was beaten by 43 votes to 33. Parliament was dissolved on 17 November 1882 and Parkes appealed to the electorate. In the four-member constituency of East Sydney, Reid was ready for him, having drawn up a ticket of four candidates pledged to reform of the land laws. Barton was second on the

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ticket, together with John McElhone, an obstreperous populist independent who represented the Catholic vote, and George Griffiths, a stock and station agent with no parliamentary experience and a man of few words. In those days elections took nearly a fortnight, with polling in different electorates on different days. East Sydney, the first to go to the polls, was commonly regarded as the premier constituency of New South Wales, and required campaigning on a far more massive scale than Barton had needed among the gentlemanly voters of the University or the docile citizens of Wellington. There was a strong element of theatre in election contests, especially in large urban constituencies. Parliamentary candidates could expect to confront audiences of hundreds or even thousands, almost entirely male. Without any form of media technology it was expected they would speak at length, for an hour or even longer, discussing the issues of the day with enough point to hold their audiences by sheer force of oratory. Eloquence was not enough, however, for speeches would often be interrupted by hecklers, and a politician’s popularity depended to some extent on his skill at repartee in handling interruptions. A hostile gathering might boo or groan so noisily as to bring a speech to a premature end, while a speaker who won over his hearers might be greeted with tumultuous cheers lasting several minutes. The political arena of the 1880s was no environment for the faint-hearted. At the nomination meeting on Tuesday 28 November an immense crowd, estimated as not far short of 14 000, attended the hustings in Hyde Park. ‘There was a considerable amount of excitement,’ reported the Herald, ‘but good humour prevailed on the whole.’ Renwick and Parkes spoke first to a mixed reception; then, after Griffiths made a short speech it was Barton’s turn. He struck a new note: Mr BARTON, who was received with loud cheers, said that if anything could increase the encouragement he had received in his candidature it would be the splendid reception that has been accorded him on this occasion. (Cheers). He felt that it needed no apology for an Australian to come forward and propound what he believed to be intelligent views.

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32 EDMUND BARTON Edmund Barton at the time of his first election for East Sydney, 1882. (The Bulletin, 2/12/1882)

An Australian speaking to Australians, Barton took his audience through the land laws, the liquor laws and the need for civil service reform. He urged the provision of technical education and a new art gallery, and in conclusion reverted to the Australian theme: ‘He appealed to the electors . . . because at this juncture they wanted countrymen of their own who believed in the future of the country (Cheers).’ Reid followed with some rousing knockabout comedy, and

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McElhone continued in the same vein. Thus fortified, the candidates embarked on two days of intensive campaigning across East Sydney, considerably to the detriment of Barton’s voice. The poll was declared on Thursday evening, the 30th. The Herald’s description was vivid: Shortly before 6 o’clock, by which time many thousands of people had assembled in front of the hustings, a very heavy shower of rain fell, but in spite of this the crowd seemed to increase rather than diminish. So great was the assemblage that its movements were in appearance like the waves of the sea, and so enormous was the pressure on one occasion when the crowd surged towards the hustings that the timber barrier, which had been put up to keep the people back, was snapped like matchwood, and the police behind almost overturned. Now and then a fight occurred, but . . . the combatants were obliged to pummel each other in a space so small that when one or other of them fell he was in considerable danger of being smothered.

The returning officer thrust his way forward and announced the result. Once again Reid topped the poll with 3044 votes, followed by Barton 2948, Griffiths 2367, McElhone 2307. Parkes, Renwick, and their supporter Alderman Green were defeated. Mr REID proposed, and Mr BARTON seconded, a vote of thanks to the Returning-officer and, this having been accorded by the crowd, three cheers were given for the Queen, and the proceedings terminated.

Young Australia, in the persons of Reid and Barton, had challenged the older generation in the first constituency of New South Wales, and won a striking victory. A wily and tenacious campaigner like Parkes did not give up easily. According to his own account, ten electorates invited him to stand as solace for East Sydney’s rejection. Within four days he was returned unopposed for Tenterfield. Several of his cabinet were defeated, albeit narrowly, and at Mudgee Sir John Robertson, although successful, had to take second place to an unknown, a

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gangling 25-year-old journalist named Adolphus George Taylor. Parkes blamed the sectarian issue for his setback. The Catholics, already antagonised by free, secular and compulsory education, were further alienated by his reforms to the liquor laws. These, by introducing ‘local option’ and thus pleasing the temperance lobby, went against the interests of the many publicans who were IrishAustralians. At the New Year, when all the results were in, Parkes wrote to the governor, Lord Augustus Loftus, on the day before the Legislative Assembly was due to meet, offering his ministry’s resignation. He told Loftus that although the public had returned a majority opposed to Robertson’s land legislation, there was an equal or greater majority against Stuart’s land policy: In Parliament the feeling of Members is so largely in our favour that I incline to the option that if we were to wait for an adverse motion, the Opposition would fail to carry such a motion. But . . . we desire to be relieved from office as speedily as may be consistent with a due regard for the public exigencies.

Parkes’ words suggest strongly that he expected that Stuart, many of whose supporters were new and untried, would not be able to put together a viable ministry. In the ensuing confusion parliament might yet turn to the old maestro to take charge. Reid saw that in order to consolidate Stuart’s following it would be necessary to force a vote in parliament on the first pretext. This meant challenging the re-election of the Speaker. In recent decades the British House of Commons had come to regard the Speaker as a figure above party who, once chosen, remained in office unchallenged until death or resignation. This convention did not catch on in the Australian colonies because Australian legislatures were much smaller than the House of Commons, so that governments were obliged more often to rely on the Speaker’s casting vote. In an age without payment of members, the speakership was a coveted, well-rewarded and dignified office. It was nevertheless unusual for a respected Speaker to be opposed, once in office, and the current Speaker, Sir George Wigram Allen, had been more than seven years in the chair. Although dignified and discreet, Allen was not a strong

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Speaker, and was considered a partisan of the Parkes–Robertson coalition. At a meeting of opposition members two hours before the opening of parliament, Reid persuaded his colleagues that Allen must be opposed. After rapid consultation Edmund Barton was put forward. He was an adroit choice. Unlike Reid, he had not gained a reputation for hard-fighting partisanship. His contributions to debate were always thoughtful, their scholarly polish roughed up a little by healthy relish for sport, sociability and a clear sense of Australian identity. It may have cost Barton a pang to oppose a senior such as Allen, old enough to be his father, a rich lawyer and landowner (he owned a good deal of Barton’s birthplace, the suburb of Glebe), mildly philanthropic, a patron of the University cricket club and the Speaker who had sworn Barton in as a new member little more than three years ago. But he showed no hesitation in accepting, and at the opening of parliament on 3 January 1883 a motion to reinstate Allen as Speaker was beaten by 51 votes to 47. Barton was then selected unanimously. At not quite 34 years old he was the youngest presiding officer ever chosen by an Australian legislature. Barton was lucky. Reid’s choice of him as running-mate in East Sydney gave him unprecedented public exposure, just as Reid nudged him towards his bid for speakership. The luck came Barton’s way only after a decade of apprenticeship during which the diffident novice lawyer, unsure of his future, had gained substantially in experience and confidence. His ability and education had been reinforced by ten years of mixing with all sorts and conditions of Australians in Sydney and in the bush, and his inner balance fortified by a happy marriage following a supportive upbringing. He could confront crowds of thousands on the cricket ground or the hustings with the same genial self-possession as he showed in the sociable talk of the Athenaeum Club. It was now time for him to step forward on the public stage as, in his own terms, an unapologetic Australian. The Sydney Bulletin, then in the vigour of its nationalistic youth, read the omens boldly: Sir George Allen represents the school of politicians which studied to rule Australia by imported and adopted methods. But

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the day has dawned when Australia shall be governed by Australians, and the preference shown by a majority of the present Assembly for Mr Edmund Barton is the first gun which marks the commencement of the war between the new system and the old. Mr Barton represents the Young Australian party— the party of progress, of downright plain-speaking, of vigour preferred to fuss, of talent before wealth, of energy before conventional immobility.

And the editorial ended prophetically: ‘. . . the triumph of Young Australia in its own house cannot be long postponed.’ There were good reasons why the triumph of young Australia had been long delayed. Australia for much of the nineteenth century can be best understood as an archipelago of city-states—Sydney, Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide—each with its own hinterland, and each founded at different periods by a different crosssection of British and Irish stock. The jealousies which divided the colonies were as potent as their ties in common. During the 1850s Victoria and Queensland were severed from New South Wales, and in 1863 South Australia took over the Northern Territory. Although the boundaries separating the Australian colonies were lines drawn on blank maps by clerks in the Colonial Office in London, they assumed reality as New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania competed to catch up with fortunate, golden Victoria, and Western Australia languished in backward convictism. By the 1870s Victoria, anxious to protect fledgling industries nourished by gold, was imposing tariffs, and the other colonies except New South Wales gradually followed. Parochialism flourished. A broader vision never quite died, however. Even before the Australasian colonies gained self-government, the advantages of cooperative federation were urged by Earl Grey, a British politician whose misfortune it was to state sensible truths so disagreeably that they went unregarded. In later years, as the colonies began to raise loans on the London money market, the British saw a federated Australia as a safeguard against the risk that an individual colony might default—as happened long afterwards in 1932 when the radical premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, during the depths of the Great Depression, suspended interest payments to British

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bondholders, and the Australian Commonwealth intervened. But the views of Britain counted for very little in making Australians federation-minded. Within Australia Henry Parkes at intervals urged that some formal mechanism for mutual consultation was necessary for the Australian colonies to confront common problems. As early as 1867, perhaps stimulated by the confederation of Canada in that year, he persuaded the New South Wales parliament to accept a bill for a federal council. ‘I do not startle your imagination,’ he said then, ‘by asking you to look for the footsteps of six young giants in the morning dew.’ But the young giants were not yet ready. Federation, it was said, remained a word ‘as soothing as the sound of church bells in the distance, and equally unprovocative of action’. In 1880–81 an intercolonial conference on the question of Chinese immigration once again enabled Parkes to secure endorsement of the idea of a federal council, though without the timetable or funding for its introduction. Though the politicians moved slowly, an Australian national consciousness was coming into being, as the Bulletin’s comment on Barton’s victory showed. His election as Speaker brought him to the fore in the very year that events in Australia’s vicinity were to kindle the federal idea.

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B

ARTON WAS now maturing into the public face of his next 20 years in politics. Clean-shaven except for legal sideburns (he experimented briefly with a moustache, never a beard), he was beginning to put on weight, his oarsman’s muscles no longer exercised in a sedentary life. His first two years as Speaker covered a period of political stability. Parkes soon went away on another lengthy overseas journey and in his absence the opposition languished. This gave a breathing-space to Stuart’s largely inexperienced ministry. Its ablest member, the attorney-general, William Bede Dalley, was in poor health and sat in the Upper House. The treasurer, George Dibbs, although nearly 50, retained the salty vigour of a man whose career was spent in seafaring and stevedoring. Gaining publicity as a redoubtable opponent of Parkes over the employment of Chinese labour in coastal shipping, he was the hero of a libel case which had earned him a short term in gaol; but he was as well the survivor of more than one bankruptcy, and inherited a seriously deteriorating trend in public finance. Reid made an able start as minister for public instruction, but early in 1884 he was forced to go to a by-election and, for the only time in his career, suffered a narrow defeat which kept him out of politics for eighteen months. The contentious ministry of lands went to an ex-premier, James Farnell, who addressed the free-selection question by appointing two retired pastoralists as a commission of

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inquiry. They unearthed, as expected, a sorry tale of perjury and inefficiency resulting from the Robertson land acts. On the basis of their report the Stuart government prepared legislation guaranteeing pastoralists security of leasehold over part of their land while leaving the remainder open for closer settlement. Despite stonewalling by Robertson and his allies the new Land Act was proclaimed in 1884. Unfortunately, by putting an end to land auctions while the new legislation went through, the Stuart ministry deprived itself of a major source of revenue, and this was soon to cause problems. Barton presided over these debates successfully. Even the Daily Telegraph, a supporter of the Parkes–Robertson coalition, admired the energy with which he quickly imposed order on proceedings. This good first impression continued throughout the year, with journals as diverse as the Bulletin and the Sydney Morning Herald praising the watchful vigour, firmness and tact with which he maintained order. The New South Wales Legislative Assembly, partly because of the lack of firm party discipline, was a notoriously rowdy and unruly body whose members were known sometimes to resort to fisticuffs. Members such as McElhone or the land speculator Robert Wisdom (himself a disappointed aspirant to the speakership) indulged themselves uninhibitedly unless brought to heel by a resolute and well informed presiding officer. Barton, with his experience of turbulent cricket crowds, quickly gained a mastery over the House. Imperturbable, well read in precedent, and patient, he was soon perceived on all sides as impartial and fair. More than any of the old stagers, it was a new member who caused him most trouble. Adolphus George Taylor of Mudgee was a raw and challenging example of Young Australia, his style very different from Barton’s. Eight years younger than Barton, the lanky Taylor was a formidably self-educated country youth frustrated by poverty from pursuing a legal career. After an insubordinate employment history as pupil-teacher and artilleryman he found his niche as a country editor before making a striking debut in the Legislative Assembly. At a public meeting in March 1883 he claimed that he had seen 35 members of the House drunk while it was in session. His outraged colleagues howled for a retraction, and Barton had his work cut out ensuring that proper procedures were followed

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before Taylor made his apology. Unabashed, Taylor himself appeared in the House several times the worse for liquor, careless in his invective but seldom too drunk to argue subtle and time-consuming points of order. He was a nuisance, but an able and well-informed nuisance, and Barton occasionally found himself upholding Taylor’s objections. Barton quickly went about reinforcing the Speaker’s authority. He consciously followed the model of the House of Commons, where the arrival of a large phalanx of Irish nationalists in 1880 had raised the parliamentary temperature and led to the strengthening of the Speaker’s powers. Barton persuaded the New South Wales legislature informally to adopt the House of Commons practices which empowered the Speaker to draw attention to irrelevant and repetitious debate and to move for the suspension of incorrigible offenders. He placed great stress on the impartiality of the Chair, refusing while Speaker to lobby ministers for favours for his constituency (which, as East Sydney was a four-member seat, was no cause for grievance), and introducing the practice of making an explanatory statement to the House if he had to deliver a casting vote. On the whole members accepted the changes, though with some misgivings about how they might be used by a Speaker more partisan than Barton. He looked after the interests of his staff. Within two months of taking office he lodged a complaint because the estimates of government expenditure for the forthcoming year had not been submitted to him, and succeeded in getting some salary increases for staff on the supplementary estimates. In 1884, with the passing of a new Civil Service Act, he made sure that the Speaker had the same status as a cabinet minister over staffing matters. Consistency then required that the Speaker should have the same salary as a minister, increasing from £1200 to £1500. In committee Barton himself moved that the figure should remain at £1200, but the majority of his colleagues considered that the duties of his post were too onerous to require such a quixotic gesture, and they supported the rise by 35 votes to 22. One of the strongest supporters of the rise was A. G. Taylor, who said the amount should be £2000. This did not prevent him from becoming disruptive later the same evening, so that Barton suspended him from the House for a week.

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‘Mr Speaker’ 41 Personal Service. Mudgee Taylor gets the ugliest bailiff he can produce to serve his writ on the Speaker. (A reference to Taylor v. Barton.) The bailiff is, of course, A.G. Taylor himself. (The Bulletin, 28/6/1884)

Arguing that the Speaker lacked power to impose such a penalty, Taylor twice attempted to take his seat during the ensuing week, and each time was removed by the sergeant-at-arms at Barton’s command. Taylor then took legal proceedings against the sergeant-at-arms for assault and against Barton for exceeding his authority. In December 1884 the Supreme Court of New South Wales found that the Speaker indeed lacked power to suspend members for more than a single sitting. With government backing Barton launched an appeal to the Privy Council, evidently confident that the authorities in London would have a sounder judgment of the powers needed to maintain parliamentary decorum. Barton possessed a public manner and style which enabled him easily to take over from the sage and senior Wigram Allen as a spokesman for Parliament on ceremonial occasions. In this role he had a good deal to do with a distinguished visitor, the Earl of Rosebery, who with his wife Hannah (née Rothschild) visited Australia between November 1883 and January 1884. Two years older than Barton, Rosebery had been at the right hand of the veteran British prime minister William Gladstone when he came out of

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retirement in the dramatic ‘Midlothian campaign’ which swept his Liberals back to office in 1880. Regarded as the rising star of his party, Rosebery was much more interested in the British colonies than most of the Liberals, and undertook his visit as part of a world tour for first-hand experience of the major members of the Empire. Although sometimes seen as aloof and patrician at home, Rosebery in Australia was geniality itself, an interested and intelligent observer of all he saw. He enjoyed the Athenaeum Club so much that he bought premises in Castlereagh Street and leased them to the Club on ‘very reasonable terms’ so that the facilities could be upgraded. Apart from a memorable fishing party on Sydney Harbour hosted by Dibbs, and a ‘very merry’ private lunch hosted by the mayor of Sydney, Barton was with Rosebery on a number of formal occasions, culminating in a major parliamentary dinner on 10 December 1883. Rosebery’s Sydney visit coincided with a major constitutional event. Representatives of the six Australian colonies, New Zealand and Fiji were meeting to discuss closer cooperation, perhaps even the long-delayed concept of a federal council. This followed Queensland’s single-handed attempt earlier in 1883 to annex the eastern half of New Guinea, a no man’s land where Australian commercial interests were growing. The gesture was meant as a pre-emptive strike to fend off annexation by Germany or France, but in London the Gladstone government, preoccupied with the European balance of power, refused to support the brash colonials. Nor was Downing Street sympathetic with Australian disquiet because France was using New Caledonia as a convict colony, thus at once stirring recollections of Australia’s own clouded past and nourishing an uneasiness about France which persisted into a nuclear future. Such recalcitrance stimulated Queensland and Victoria into urging the need for a unified Australasian voice which might spur the laggardly British into greater activity in the South Pacific; and thus the delegates came to meet for ten days at the beginning of December 1883. Reynolds conjectures, not unreasonably, that ‘Barton’s practical interest in Australian Federation took a definite form at this period’. As he was not a government minister Barton could not be a delegate—the New South Wales representatives were Stuart as premier,

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and his senior cabinet ministers Dibbs and Dalley—but he attended proceedings as Stuart’s guest before proceeding at 4.30 pm to his duties in the Legislative Assembly. He would have observed the leading part played by the new premier of Queensland, Samuel Walker Griffith, who had gone through the University of Sydney a few years ahead of him. Griffith, already a renowned legal draftsman, steered resolutions through the Convention asking the British government (subject to the approval of the colonial parliaments) to authorise the creation of an Australasian Federal Council with two delegates from each participating government. The council would meet every two years to discuss cooperation over legal and criminal matters, to frame common policies over fisheries beyond territorial waters, and above all to agree on policies over relations with the Pacific islands. All the delegates agreed to what seemed a strikingly constructive advance in mutual cooperation. When, on 10 December 1883, Barton took the chair at the crowded parliamentary dinner in honour of Rosebery and the remaining delegates to the Convention, his remarks in proposing Rosebery’s health did not dwell on federation. He commented on the aptness of Rosebery’s presence ‘when the representatives of civilised Australasia were here met in conference . . . upon matters of national and world-wide moment’, and forecast that the outcome must have its impact on the development of the British Empire. The bulk of his speech looked at two issues much in debate in Britain at that time, education and local government, and explored the ways in which Australian experience might be instructive for Britain and vice versa. It was left to Rosebery to declare: ‘. . . if you have any sort of federation, we have some sort of united voice to answer . . . the broad voice of united Australia which is entitled to respect not merely in Great Britain but in the civilised world. (Cheers)’. He also proclaimed, amid more cheers, that ‘the destiny of Australia was to be the trustee of the Pacific’. It was the visiting British aristocrat, and not the native Australian who thus defined the vision of Australian federation. In future years Rosebery did not forget Barton, if only because in opening his speech he was able to begin with the phrase ‘Mr Speaker’; an ambition previously denied him because, having inherited his title while still under age, he had never

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been able to sit in the House of Commons. Perhaps it was Rosebery’s speech rather than the Convention which set Barton thinking federally. At this stage of his career Barton was still speaking and behaving like a man who gave priority to the British connection. He expressed no public dismay when the Federal Council scheme immediately ran into difficulties following an indiscreet speech by the Victorian premier, James Service, who at the banquet marking his return to Melbourne bragged of how Victoria and Queensland had dragged a torpid New South Wales into the federal agreement. More substantially, the politicians of free-trade New South Wales began to fear the loss of control over their economy if they linked federally with the protectionist Victorians, who had already suggested that the Federal Council might be funded from land revenue—a source of income more precious in free-trade New South Wales than anywhere else in Australia. Parkes, too, on returning from overseas, turned against the Federal Council as inadequate for its purpose, a mere impediment to a stronger federation. When in October 1884 the Federal Council Bill came before the Legislative Assembly it was rejected by a one-vote margin. This meant that when the Federal Council came into being in 1885 it lacked New South Wales as well as South Australia and New Zealand—though Fiji joined. Barton as Speaker was not required to vote, but he later declared himself ‘an uncompromising opponent of the Federal Council Bill which the other colonies were endeavouring to ram down the throat of New South Wales’. The federation he would favour would be one that would involve a grea t scheme—milita ry and fisca l—which would strengthen the link with the mother country. And he was prepared to work to such an end; but would never consent to the establishment of a tag and rag federation.

In his suspicions of Victorian fiscal policy he was but one of a large number of New South Wales politicians, among them Parkes, Stuart and Dibbs, not to say old parochials like Sir John Robertson with his constant gibing at the ‘cabbagepatch’ Victoria. It was in

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his emphasis on Australian federation as strengthening the British Empire that the Barton of the mid-1880s distinguished himself. Early in February 1885 news reached Sydney of the death of the archetypal British hero, General Charles Gordon, slain at the taking of Khartoum by the forces of the Sudanese nationalist leader, the Mahdi Muhammed Ahmad. The Gladstone government in Britain was severely criticised for failing to send a relief force to Khartoum in time, and its first reaction after narrowly surviving a vote of censure was to seek reinforcements for the Sudan. Australian opinion was much moved at Gordon’s fate, and on 12 February 1885 the New South Wales cabinet voted to offer two battalions for service with the British forces in the Sudan. Like most public figures, Barton warmly supported this initiative and, on the evening of 20 February, he appeared on the platform of a monster public meeting convened by the mayor of Sydney to set up a patriotic fund. He was one of a bevy of prominent citizens, not cabinet ministers, whose presence denoted community backing for the government; among them the Chief Justice, Sir James Martin, the president of the Legislative Council, Sir John Hay, a prominent Catholic layman, Sir Patrick Jennings, and Barton’s predecessor, Sir George Wigram Allen. Almost the only absentee was Sir Henry Parkes, who in three strong letters to the Sydney Morning Herald denounced the proposal as unconstitutional and immoral. Before an audience estimated at 12 000 Barton proposed the establishment of a patriotic fund for the assistance of the wives and families of the soldiers embarking on the campaign. Challenging any of the small number of dissenters in the audience to hiss at this resolution, he pulled out all the patriotic stops: When the time of trouble comes and we do not stand shoulder to shoulder with our fellow subjects of Great Britain can we expect them to do so for us? Is the good old country always to be succouring us and not to expect succour from us?

It was an eloquent and full-blooded piece of oratory, quoting Henry V and ending with the thought that no man would be so mean as to disregard the orphan and the widow. It was very far

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from the irreverent view of the Bulletin that the Sudan issue had nothing to do with Australia, although in fact Barton said little to justify the campaign: ‘Probably there is not a man in this assembly who has any fascination for the foreign or colonial policy of England.’ The Anglo-Australian tie overrode all else. There can be no question that Barton held these views passionately and sincerely. He seems never to have reflected on the irony that Parkes, the English-born seeker after acceptance by English celebrities, opposed the Sudan intervention while he, a self-defined nationalist who at that time had never been outside Australia, held so devotedly to a vision of British loyalty. Parkes did himself no harm by his opposition to the campaign. Apart from patrolling and maintaining Sudan’s only railway, the New South Wales contingent saw very little action during its three months in the Sudan. When at the end of July the troops returned to a civic welcome Barton was again in demand as an orator, and the Bulletin ridiculed him gently for proposing the toast of the armed forces ‘whose victories have been countless and whose defeats have been as glorious as the victories of others’. The demand for patriotic rhetoric of this kind was waning as New South Wales came to realise that the government which had ventured so boldly into martial activity was proving far less decisive in managing the public finances. Revenue from land sales had been falling heavily since the scrapping of the Robertson system, and no compensatory sources had been tapped. By the second half of 1885 the deficit was nearly £1 million. The Stuart government uneasily approached a general election which must be held in the second half of 1885. Stuart himself had been laid low by a stroke in October 1884, and although he resumed office seven months later his leadership was enfeebled and the opposition, reinforced by Parkes, emboldened. By September it was clear that Stuart must resign. Lachlan Brient, the energetic young news editor of the Daily Telegraph, wrote privately to Barton, sounding him out about his political intentions. Barton candidly admitted that it was not his intention to be permanently shelved in the Speaker’s chair, though he might re-nominate in the new parliament. Without pushing his own claims to lead a party, he was

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sure ‘that it would be dangerous to confide again in certain political hacks who have all but monopolised power in the past’; among them, presumably, Parkes and Robertson. When Stuart resigned in October, his most senior colleague, George Dibbs, was invited to form a ministry and asked Barton to join as attorney-general. After a Sunday morning interview Dibbs formed the impression that Barton ‘preferred the easy dignity & certain emoluments of the Speakership to the worry & uncertainty of office’. That evening Dibbs showed his proposed cabinet list to Brient, who predicted failure and urged Dibbs to serve under a new leader ‘who had not inherited the sins of a defunct Govt., but somebody who could ‘‘peacock’’ both sides of the House & come into office with clean hands & a clear course of action open to him’. This pointed at Barton. Although Dibbs said he was strongly inclined to fall in with Brient’s idea, he could not easily drop ‘the greatest ambition of his life’, and next day formed a ministry without Barton. It was the first, but not the last, time that Barton was seen as a potential premier capable of drawing support from several groups. Barton was well out of the Dibbs ministry. At the elections later in October Dibbs was handicapped by his record as treasurer. He was defeated by Parkes in his suburban constituency of St Leonard’s, and had to seek refuge in Murrumbidgee. In the East Sydney electorate Barton stood as an Independent, stating that although he hoped to be reappointed as Speaker without opposition he might become a backbencher once more, and the voters were entitled to know his views. These boiled down to honest administration of the as yet imperfect land laws, a strong push for water conservation, support for immigration and resolute opposition to following Victoria down the road of tariff protection. This last pledge would return to haunt him before long. His style was becoming less rarefied; he was developing a skill at repartee with hecklers and was an invited speaker when the trade unions held their eight-hour day banquet. He must have campaigned convincingly, as he was returned at the top of the poll with 3903 votes, finishing more than 500 ahead of the next successful candidate, George Reid. It was a heartening victory. Forty-eight new members were returned whose allegiance could

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not be predicted and in mid-November Sir John Robertson convened a meeting of sympathisers in the congenial surroundings of a picnic at Clontarf. Barton was invited, although an Independent, and Robertson and Parkes drank his health and pledged their support for him as Speaker. He was proposed by Reid, and duly returned unopposed, but it soon became evident that his duties would be more onerous than previously. When Robertson moved a vote of no confidence in the Dibbs ministry it emerged that the two sides in the Legislative Assembly were almost evenly balanced. This was a sure recipe for parliamentary turbulence. With the deficit now over £1 million, Dibbs resigned four days before Christmas. It looked as if the path was open for a revival of the Parkes–Robertson coalition, only this time with Robertson as premier. But when Robertson formed his ministry Parkes made excuses to stand aside. A few weeks later, when the new government proposed a property tax as a means of curbing the deficit (now estimated at £1.7 million), Parkes led his half-dozen followers into the ‘No’ lobby, thus bringing down the ministry. For some days negotiations followed for a coalition between Robertson and the Dibbs party, under Dibbs’ respected senior colleague Sir Patrick Jennings. They failed to reach agreement, but when, at the end of February 1886, Jennings formed a ministry with Dibbs once more treasurer, Robertson and his faction supported them over essentials, leaving Parkes leading the opposition. Although few realised it at the time, these manoeuvres were a preliminary to the crystallisation of New South Wales politics into a regular two-party system. Under the stimulus of the economic downturn many voters were starting to think more kindly of tariff protection, especially manufacturers and their employees. Twenty members of parliament, mostly newcomers, were prepared to urge protection. The crisis was their opportunity. Jennings persuaded parliament to accept in principle increased stamp duties, land and income taxes, but more controversially proposed a 5 per cent duty on imports for a three-year period. This gave Parkes his opportunity to trumpet protest at the threat to the colony’s immemorial freetrade principles. The winter of 1886 was to witness some of the rowdiest scenes ever known in the Legislative Assembly. Unfortunately, early in 1886 Barton’s authority had met a check

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from an unexpected source. When the New South Wales Supreme Court declared at the end of 1884 that Barton had exceeded his authority in suspending A. G. Taylor for a week, the decision to appeal against the decision to the Privy Council must have been taken with the expectation that even such a well-read bush lawyer as Taylor would be put in his place by Britain’s highest tribunal. Taylor was not deterred. He decided to argue his case himself against the English senior counsel retained by the New South Wales government. Funding the journey from the sale of his stamp collection, he took his wife and mother with him, travelled steerage and found lodgings during a dreary winter in a poor quarter of London’s East End. Few of the Australian community in London gave him much encouragement or assistance, but the Privy Council complimented him on his presentation of his case and in February 1886 found in his favour. The standing orders on which Barton, and before him Wigram Allen, had relied were ultra vires. Taylor handled his triumph with rare composure. He refused to pursue his advantage and sue for damages before a jury because any such award would come out of public money, and he declined to be interviewed by an influential London journal because he did not ‘wish to offend English readers by airing his thorough-paced Republicanism’. Readers of the Bulletin enjoyed the story of the young colonial who, singlehanded, successfully challenged the Establishment. For Barton it must have been mortifying that his endeavours to uphold the orderly parliamentary traditions of Westminster in New South Wales had been overthrown by none other than Britain’s highest court of appeal. The episode showed the colonial parliament did not possess the same powers as the House of Commons. A national Australian parliament must be stronger. Staunch admirer of British institutions though he was, Barton now had good grounds for doubting the wisdom of British authority. He had a torrid time of it during the next parliamentary sittings. In June when Jennings introduced the new tariff Parkes and his followers stonewalled until tempers were thoroughly frayed. The old offenders such as McElhone and Wisdom were reinforced by several vociferous newcomers, notably the lawyer John Shepherd, who had preceded Barton as MLA for Wellington and regarded him with

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professional jealousy. Repeatedly warned by the Speaker for using terms such as ‘corruption’ and ‘gaol birds’, Shepherd taunted Barton with giving the House ‘lectures on procedure’ during a debate which lasted so long into the night that members had to be discouraged from placing bedding on their benches. Worse followed a fortnight later. When the Tariff Bill reached the committee stage Dibbs, as leader of the House, decided on Thursday 8 July to force through the legislation at a single continuous sitting. The opposition responded by filibustering. They contended that standing orders required the daily adjournment of the House so that the Speaker might initiate a new session at the customary hour of 4.30 pm. When this did not happen on the second day of debate they claimed that the sitting was illegal, misbehaving so continuously that the chairman of committees cleared the galleries of spectators: One member sat on the table and shouted: ‘There is no House’ and ‘We are a rabble!’ Another crowed like a cock and a third threw himself on his back and cried ‘Damn the chair!’ And when Jennings walked to the table to speak, Parkes rushed up to him, shook his fist in his face, and exploded: ‘You d—-d bugger—you Fenian—who are you?’

By 9.00 pm Trickett, the chairman of committees, though a former cabinet minister and seasoned parliamentarian, could take no more, and Barton had to come in twice to restore order. After 56 hours of debate, Parkes and his followers, knowing themselves outnumbered, walked out at midnight on Saturday in protest against conducting business on a Sunday, and by 1.00 am the clauses were passed and the remaining members could go home. Trickett was not fit for work for some days afterwards and resigned because his health would not bear any further strain. After this episode Barton’s authority was never quite the same. He was probably correct in rejecting the opposition’s argument that it was necessary for the Speaker formally to open the Assembly each day, but as a result Parkes and his followers attacked him as a partisan of the Jennings ministry, moving an unsuccessful motion of censure on him on 14 July. It failed, but in future weeks objections to his rulings became more frequent. On a party vote the Legislative

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Assembly upheld Barton’s decision to permit a continuous sitting, but this did not prevent the opposition from attempting to rescind this decision in September. In the same month, having previously complained about Barton’s discipline (‘How are we to characterise things in this chamber unless we have the free use of adjectives?’), Parkes moved for the reduction of the Speaker’s salary to its old level of £1200, but there was no quorum present and hence no vote on the issue. The next day he tried again, but the motion was rejected by 23 votes to 10. Despite these pinpricks Barton continued to deal even-handedly between the ministry and the opposition, but it came as no surprise when he was absent through illness for several days in October, mostly eye trouble which his medical advisers attributed to want of rest. The speakership was losing its savour. In earlier years the office provided him with useful financial security, for although he continued to practise as a barrister he calculated that the £1500 earned as Speaker made up almost two-thirds of his income. He felt sufficiently committed to the Speaker’s chair to shift his family in 1884 to 213 Macquarie Street, within easy walking distance of Parliament House, although the move was probably prompted also by the arrival in that year of a fourth child, Arnold Hubert. By 1886, however, the situation at the Sydney Bar was changing through the promotion of several senior members to the judicial bench. As early as March 1886 one journal speculated that Barton might wish to return to full-time legal practice, and the Bulletin published a little doggerel advising him against giving up a safe income as Speaker. In the debates over his salary in September a sympathiser claimed that Barton could make £3000 a year at the Bar. Late in 1886 he made a calculation that his earnings at the Bar averaged just under £850 during the past four years, showing steady improvement to peak at £1114 in 1885, though he could practise only when parliament was not sitting. Stronger encouragement came early in October in a letter from his old mentor Burton Bradley, under whom he had served his articles as a solicitor. Bradley stressed the opportunities awaiting Barton as a barrister: ‘. . . although you prefer killing yourself in political life it is the company, their habits and principles,

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to which you are exposed, that impede your progress at the Bar and I am sure that your father would agree with me.’ His father might just possibly have given him a more substantial reason for no longer needing his income as Speaker. During his brief flush of prosperity in the 1850s William Barton had resumed his old habit of investing in suburban land. He acquired 145 acres (58.7 hectares) in the Georges River district south of Sydney, a smaller outer suburban lot north of the Harbour, and property in the Newcastle district. By the time he moved to his daughter in Brisbane in 1874 he was in debt to the Bank of New South Wales to the tune of £723 without realistic hope, at nearly 80, of earning further income. In that year when the Bank pressed him for payment he wrote a pathetic muddled letter tendering his lands as his only remaining asset. At one point in his letter he seemed to be offering his lands as security for the debt, but at another he could be seen as asking the Bank to accept them in quittance of his liabilities. The Bank took the latter assumption, valuing the lands at £400 towards satisfaction of the debt. There the matter rested until William died intestate in 1881. Edmund does not appear to have been aware of these transactions until some time subsequently. With Sydney’s rapid suburban growth in the 1870s and 1880s William Barton’s investments at last increased dramatically in value. The Bank thought the time ripe for subdivision and sale, but when Edmund and his siblings became aware of this development they brought a lawsuit against the Bank, arguing that the land had merely been lodged as security and could be redeemed on the payment of the original debt of £723 with accumulated interest. In May 1885 the case came before the Chief Judge in Equity, Sir William Manning. He found in favour of the Barton family. It looked as if at last something might have turned up out of William’s Micawberish schemes. The Bank of New South Wales was unhappy with the verdict and appealed to the Supreme Court, but at the end of 1886 it would have been reasonable for Edmund to hope that the higher tribunal would confirm Manning’s judgment, with promising effect on his financial future. Besides, his tenure as Speaker was not secure. Despite Parkes’ praise of him in 1885 as a highly satisfactory appointment, his

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behaviour as opposition leader during 1886 was far from friendly, and there was an increasing chance that Parkes might soon be premier once more. Jennings, a gentle and easygoing soul, was weary and distressed with the parliamentary turmoil, although his government still commanded a fair majority. In January 1887, having quarrelled with Dibbs over an administrative question, he resigned office. The governor, Lord Carrington, heard from many sides that Barton should be the next premier. Years later Barton himself asserted that he could have come into office at that time with a majority of 30 behind him; presumably on the lines of Lachlan Brient’s coalition. But Sir Patrick sorrowfully told Carrington that Parkes was the only man. He agreed to form a government provided that, after obtaining supply from parliament, he could call another general election. With this uncertainty looming Barton delayed no longer. On 20 January he informed the Legislative Assembly of his intention to resign as from the end of the month. Parkes, with victory in his grasp, could afford to be magnanimous. He praised Barton as a worthy example of native-born talent, and offered him nomination to the Legislative Council and a place in the new cabinet as vice-president of the executive council. Barton, who considered it inappropriate for an ex-Speaker to remain in the Legislative Assembly, accepted the seat in the Upper House, but refused to join the Parkes ministry because he did not agree sufficiently with its policies. But Barton’s duties were not quite finished, as the irrepressible A. G. Taylor stood up to argue that the sitting was illegal. Barton explained that by asking a question Taylor was acknowledging the legitimacy of the session and asked him if he wished to dissent from his ruling; and Taylor replied that he would not think of dissenting. However on the following day Taylor insisted on pressing a point disagreeing with one of Barton’s rulings. The motion was lost by 7 votes to 54. On this note Barton ended his term as Speaker. As Reid recalled years later: ‘his firm methods . . . were greatly missed. His successor, who was equally anxious to do his duty, lacked his judicial temperament and his tact.’ From his point of vantage in the Legislative Council Barton must have smiled wryly when a few weeks later A. G. Taylor was nominated

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as Deputy-Speaker and chairman of committees. He was almost successful. ‘The bear-garden of Macquarie Street’, as the New South Wales parliament was dubbed, provided a good example of the tendency for Australians to undervalue their parliaments because of the rowdy and undignified behaviour of politicians. It was probably no coincidence that while legislators brawled and scuffled many Sydney citizens during the 1880s took alarm at the larrikin ‘pushes’ in the poorer quarters of Sydney, whose misdirected energies gave offence to the respectable. Parkes’ return to power in January 1887 took place against the background of the notorious Mount Rennie case, when four teenagers were inefficiently hanged and others sentenced to long prison terms for a pack rape. Fear of an entirely different form of working-class turbulence underlay some of the reactions to the republican minority who came to the fore in Sydney during 1887. Until that time many by no means radical Australians took it for granted that their country would evolve into a republic. At the beginning of 1886 three of the five premiers—Dibbs in New South Wales, Service in Victoria, and Adye Douglas in Tasmania—were all republicans, as well as several judges. Most saw the republic as a long-term prospect, to be achieved without the trauma of a war of independence. The republicanism of 1887 seemed much more radical, even socialist in its thrust, and Parkes and Barton were brought together in reaction against it. When the mayor of Sydney convened a meeting to celebrate the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign it was taken over by republicans who carried what was called ‘a disloyal amendment’. A second meeting was called for the evening of 10 June, with a carefully selected invitation list including many of the colony’s notables. Republican sympathisers managed to swamp this meeting too, which broke up in a major brawl. The platform party (among them Barton) withdrew to the mayor’s vestibule, there to draw up a loyal manifesto: We, the undersigned, moved by feelings of indignation at the riotous conduct of a disloyal minority, insignificant in numbers, do hereby agree to unite and band together for the maintenance

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of order and the vindication of the loyal attachment of the people to the Laws, Institutions, and Throne of the British Empire.

The excitement soon subsided, and a third meeting, more efficiently stage-managed, secured the necessary expression of loyalty; but the episode is interesting in showing that Barton, a former Speaker, was seen as a sufficiently outstanding figure in the community to put his name beside the premier, Parkes, the leader of the government in the Legislative Council, and the present and former chief justices. But he did little to capitalise on his standing. Once free of his obligations to attend parliament daily as Speaker, Barton took his legislative duties lightly. In three sessions covering two years after his appointment to the Legislative Council, he attended no more than 29 of the 130 sitting days and voted in only 17 of more than 100 divisions. He made only one speech in 1887, supporting the introduction of payment of members. Yet he was still sought after. In May 1887, when Parkes needed to replace his attorney-general, he offered the post to Barton, who once more refused because of disagreement over policy. Parkes also offered to put Barton’s name forward for a knighthood, but Barton refused, sensibly for a man who had neither the seniority nor the wealth for the status. An attorney-general was found in the 29-year-old Bernhard Ringrose Wise, a barrister of only four years’ standing and a member of parliament only four months, but a young Australian of a brilliance challenging Barton’s. Son of a reforming judge who died young, Wise had a first-class English education at Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford, presiding over both the Athletic Club and that noted debating society, the Oxford Union. Many of his colleagues did not know what to make of this phenomenon who voiced radical views in a poshPommy accent; some mistrusted him. He and Barton regarded each other with the polite edginess of potential competitors. In July 1887, when Dibbs announced his conversion to protection and began work on the formation of a party, Barton stood aside. In 1888, although reinforced by the appointment of his close friend Richard O’Connor to the Legislative Council, he remained an inactive member, speaking only three times. One speech dealt with a

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constitutional point. The others commented on the Parkes government’s legislation to restrict Chinese immigration. Understanding working-class fears of cheap labour, Barton supported the bill but argued that, once admitted, Chinese should be subject to no further discrimination through taxation or any other respect. This throws an interesting light on the politician who would be remembered later for introducing the White Australia policy. During 1888 also Barton was much preoccupied with the ongoing saga of his father’s estate. The Bank of New South Wales appealed against Sir William Manning’s finding in favour of the Barton family, because the precedent on which Manning relied had been subsequently overturned on appeal to the Privy Council in London. In June 1888 the Supreme Court of New South Wales ruled that the Privy Council’s decision overruled Manning’s judgment and, consequently, William Barton must be deemed to have made over his land to the Bank in 1874 in return for a reduction of £400 in his debt. Although his elder brother George was now back in Sydney, newly widowed and making little progress in an attempt to re-establish a legal practice (though Parkes was shortly to appoint him editor of that valuable collection of documents The Historical Records of New South Wales), it was to Edmund that the family turned in this crisis. This involved him in correspondence with his five surviving sisters as well as George, until, some grudgingly, others readily, they contributed to funding an appeal to the Privy Council. It was a lost cause. When the case came before the Privy Council in July 1890 their Lordships threw out the Bartons’ case without even hearing their evidence. The earlier precedent decided it all. As in A. G. Taylor’s case the highest court in the British Empire was rebuffing a cherished enterprise of Barton’s. It was scarcely wonderful that, with all his loyal sentiments towards Britain, Barton in future felt little reverence for the wisdom of the judicial committee of the Privy Council. Other family matters also claimed attention. Before resigning as Speaker Barton had moved his family to the Southern Highlands, renting a large house called ‘Fairholme’ close to the railway station at Burradoo. The move was prompted by doctor’s orders, as the eight-year-old eldest son had an asthmatic condition which country air might help. Jeanie and the children remained there a year, with

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Edmund commuting at weekends. The children thrived with space to run around, but their education suffered, so late in 1887 the Bartons took a house at Mittagong called ‘The Hill’. This was part of the Oaklands Estate, a property owned by Henry Southey who ran a school to which the two elder boys were sent. For the rest of his life the younger Edmund Barton retained agreeable memories of the eccentric headmaster who cut classes to take the boys panning for gold. But, he recalled, ‘Neither of my parents cared to prolong an arrangement by which my father was so much separated from his family and deprived of the comforts of a home’, and there was a fifth child, Oswald, born in January 1888. They returned to Sydney, and after a short period in Elizabeth Bay Road, Edmund, without consulting his wife, rented a house on the North Shore in what is now Balgowlah, west of Manly. The house, ‘Calahla’, was in Woodland Street, which for more than a kilometre ran downhill to an arm of the harbour. In 1888 there were only three other homes and a dairy farm in the street. It was an idyllic environment for the children, but less so for their mother, who was not only a considerable distance from shops and transport, but who would also have found it difficult to retain servants so far from central Sydney. There was, of course, no bridge across the harbour, so that for her visits to central Sydney Jeanie Barton was dependent on the hourly ferry service from Manly, more than two kilometres from ‘Calahla’. There was no scheduled service after 5.00 pm. If residents wanted to travel later, they had to make up a sufficient number of passengers. The men, we are told, formed a ‘hot potato club’ for refreshment on winter nights ‘with sausages, hot pies, and the like . . . Of course a good stock of beer and spirits was always at hand.’ ‘My mother felt the isolation very much,’ remembered her son, ‘and although we kept a horse and trap it was never known by what boat he was arriving. There was no telephone in those days and the result was he frequently spent the night in town.’ These commuting problems played up to Edmund Barton’s growing fondness for the Athenaeum Club. From these years grew his reputation as an inveterate clubman, one of the most devoted

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members of the Athenaeum. It was, remembered his younger colleague, A. B. Piddington: a real club, most clubs nowadays being restaurants with residential accommodation. The Athenaeum was a place where a young man could hear first-class minds discussing all things under the sun. Robert Louis Stevenson graced its reading room and Mark Twain its dining.

Barton, O’Connor, Lyne, and Wise were among the politicians who enjoyed the Athenaeum, and Barton was long remembered for a moment of financial crisis in the Club’s affairs when he urged that members should all do their best to help the Club ‘drink itself out of debt’. This is another of A. B. Piddington’s stories, and although Piddington wrote as a whole-hearted admirer, his recollections bear some responsibility for the lingering tradition that Barton drank too much. One of his stories relates that when Speaker Barton broke his ankle, while laid up for a fortnight he invited W. J. Taylor, a Coonamble lawyer, to stay with him. Taylor found the regime too much for him, because it began with rum-and-milk before breakfast and proceeded by way of sherry at 11.00 am and beer or stout at lunch, to a late afternoon whisky before a well-wined dinner at 8.00 pm. After liqueurs around 10.00 pm ‘the real and serious business of the day began—a steady irrigation of the alimentary canal with spirits and soda. By one or two in the morning it was considered time for all frugal souls to be in bed’ but next morning the day’s round was beginning with rum-and-milk, and Barton, ‘rosy and genial’, was confiding: ‘The fact is, Taylor, that when I was laid-up my doctors insisted on the strictest moderation in the use of alcohol, and I don’t mind admitting that it seems to suit my constitution wonderfully!’ It is an apt story for ‘Tosspot Toby’, told in an era when men admired those with a good head for liquor, but can we rely on it? Presumably Jeanie and the children were at Burradoo when this alcoholic marathon took place; but she was a wife who fussed devotedly over her husband’s illnesses, and was unlikely to have left him alone with a broken ankle. Edmund seems to have been

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one of those not uncommon Australian men who, having been a good son to his mother, a faithful husband and father and professionally successful, relaxed and expanded in male company. Even if Piddington’s account is exaggerated, the story reflects a durable myth which was beginning to gather about Barton’s reputation. Undeniably after periods of stressful hard work such as the later stages of his speakership, Barton was given to equally thorough relaxation. More than the food and the drink it was the yarning sociability of the Athenaeum which he found seductive. Between his club and the hours he spent as a good family man, public life took a third place among his priorities when there was not a grand cause to inspire his enthusiasm. At one point in 1889 his attendance even at the University of Sydney Senate became so irregular that he was automatically disqualified from membership. Yet such was his popularity and reputation that the Chancellor, Sir William Manning, immediately wrote asking him to accept reappointment. A convincing explanation for Barton’s swings of mood is offered by a medically qualified and experienced grandson, Dr David Barton: I have come to the conclusion that he suffered a bipolar disorder, the modern term of manic depressive psychosis. This would explain the wide fluctuation in his behaviour and many of the illnesses he suffered. The disorder is familial and it would explain the behaviour of William Barton, also George Burdett Barton, in the extravagances of behaviour they showed . . . Edmund’s flight from one extravagant house to another at times when he could ill afford it, is typical . . . So is his capacity to work at ferocious pace with little rest in spasms and appear lazy and indolent at other times. His reputation for eating and drinking too much . . . suggests that this was a feature of depression . . . He was never described as an alcoholic—food was the factor and overeating is a compensatory mechanism . . .

Barton’s often formal public manner and disciplined politeness might be seen as controls adopted, consciously or otherwise, over a variable temperament. Barton did not have the name of being an introspective man,

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and yet as he approached the age of 40 he must have pondered his future. With great intellectual gifts and a generosity of spirit which made for popularity, he was maturing into a figure of statesmanlike appearance. A fine head of hair was turning a distinguished irongrey. The sidewhiskers which he had sported at the time of his election as Speaker had gone, and in an age of hirsute males he stayed cleanshaven. This gave some prominence to a mouth, inherited from his father, which Alfred Deakin once unfortunately described as ‘fish-like’, although observers did not find it so: At first glimpse one might have thought that for all its massiveness it was not a strong face. It was certainly a bewildering one which looked, on close inspection, as if the upper structure of a powerful skull had been cemented on the strong jawpiece of a slightly smaller skull. There was determination there and sometimes there was passion and anger in the strange, black wide-apart eyes. It was also the face of a controlled man.

Those eyes were his best feature and gave mobility to slightly heavy features. He suggested a presence of remarkable potential, and yet at 40 he had no very impressive record of public achievement. Had he died in 1888 he might not have made the pages of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. He was not lazy, but without a challenge to stir his interests he seemed to lapse into procrastination and good-fellowship, even at times into lethargy. Then he found his challenge in the movement for Australian federation.

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‘My Bristles are Up’ ‘My Bristles are Up’

I

F IN December 1888 Lord Rosebery (instead of accepting nomination to the somewhat unlikely post of first chairman of the London County Council) had revisited Sydney on the fifth anniversary of his speech encouraging Australian federation, he might have felt disappointment. The Federal Council had struggled into being, but it lacked the membership of New South Wales and New Zealand, Fiji dropped out, and South Australia came in only on a temporary basis at the third meeting in 1889. Its early meetings achieved little beyond streamlining various legal processes and agreeing on the regulation of pearling and fisheries. It had no executive powers and no budget with which to attack such an important question for the Australian colonies as cooperation for defence. Following the German annexation of north-eastern New Guinea in 1884 and a Russian invasion scare in 1885, not to mention persistent unease about the populous nations of East Asia, defenceminded Australians looked for a security greater than that provided by six small amateur colonial forces, even though backed by the power of the Royal Navy. The British government undertook to send out an expert to make recommendations about Australia’s defence needs, which would almost certainly require formal cooperation between the colonial governments. If the Federal Council was inadequate for the responsibility it must either be strengthened (as

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Victorians tended to argue) or a more effective replacement must be devised. Without New South Wales this seemed difficult. Though constitutional progress between 1883 and 1888 was slow, Australians were advancing rapidly to a sense of shared cultural identity. They were becoming a people ahead of becoming a nation. It was not just that in those years young writers such as Paterson and Lawson were finding an audience among readers of the Bulletin and young artists were using a run of unusually clement Melbourne summers to discover those fresh ways of portraying Australian light and colour which we now style ‘the Heidelberg school’. In sport Australian cricketers had recovered from the unpleasantness of Lord Harris’ visit to become the recognised opponent against which England’s best must measure themselves. When Trickett won the world’s sculling championship, when Melba sang at Covent Garden, they were identified not as the possession of any particular colony but as Australian. The Australian Natives’ Association, founded in Victoria in 1871 as a debating and friendly society for Australian-born young men, after a quiet beginning expanded vigorously in the 1880s. Within Australia lines of communication were strengthening. The telegraph spanned the continent in the 1870s. In the early 1880s an enthusiasm for transcontinental railways on the North American scale resulted mostly in paper plans, but by 1883 Melbourne and Sydney were linked and the Victorian premier was using the opening ceremony to preach the virtues of federation. By 1888 it was possible to go by rail, though circuitously and with several breaks of gauge, from Port Augusta to Rockhampton. Shearers and miners on horseback or bicycle built up nation-wide trade unions, and employers in retaliation organised across colonial boundaries. Melbourne capitalists invested in every corner of the continent. Growing businesses such as Broken Hill Proprietary and Burns Philp (both originating in 1883) stretched their activities across several borders. In the remote Kimberleys overlanding cattlemen and miners were completing the last chapter in the invasion of Aboriginal Australia. For the first time Australian society and the Australian economy were maturing to a point where it might be possible for an orator to speak of a nation for a continent. In January 1888, during the celebrations for the centenary of

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British settlement, Parkes attempted to reclaim national sentiment by proposing that the colony of New South Wales should be renamed ‘Australia’. This was too much for the other colonies to swallow—a better name, said one wit, would be ‘Convictoria’—but at least it showed that national identity was a live issue for debate. The centenary year 1888 passed nevertheless without significant progress. During this year politics in New South Wales continued to polarise into a recognisable two-party system. Those who supported the Parkes government continued to uphold free trade as their creed. Their opponents, mainly rural spokesmen wanting to protect local produce against inter-colonial competition, and representatives of working-class seats concerned to preserve jobs, were gradually cohering into a protectionist party. After two years as premier of New South Wales Parkes, at nearly 74 years of age, was showing a high-handedness which may have masked a flagging of his prodigious stamina. Some of his restive followers eventually rebelled in January 1889 over a contentious patronage issue, and on a snap division the government was beaten by four votes. This need not have been a resigning matter, but as Parkes candidly admitted, the ministry ‘courted defeat’. Dibbs as leader of the opposition prepared to form a ministry. On 17 January 1889 he asked Barton to serve as attorney-general, and this time Barton accepted. It was the day before his fortieth birthday. Meanwhile, however, William McMillan, a prominent businessman who had come into parliament in 1887 as a Parkes supporter, moved a virtual motion of no confidence in the Dibbs government, which was carried by a three-vote margin. Dibbs could not carry on, and with Barton asked the governor to dissolve parliament and call an election, remaining in office in a caretaker capacity. A hard-fought election lay ahead. Barton, as a nominated member of the Upper House, was exempt from the contest, but he took a vigorous part in campaigning for protectionist candidates in Sydney and the suburbs. According to press reports, prolonged and enthusiastic cheering greeted him wherever he went. His speeches laid at least as much stress on the shortcomings of the Parkes government as on the merits of protection, and this was perhaps

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wise because he was open to the charge of having undergone a wonderfully rapid change of heart on the tariff question. The Herald remembered that little more than three years previously Barton stood at the 1885 elections as a convinced free-trader, and Reid sharpened his wit on the converts to protection: . . . we must look upon them with all the pity that attends a premature birth. (Cheers and laughter.) His hon. friend Mr Barton must have kept his secret well, for unless he had changed during the last week his best friends believed him to be a free-trader. He was one of the premature births. (Cheers.)

Although a frequent critic of Parkes, Reid was staying faithful to free-trade principles, and his taunts gained an added sting because of his old alliance with Barton. As Barton himself acknowledged: ‘Mr Reid, whose friendship seemed to have given his sarcasm a double row of teeth—(laughter)—and himself used to be called the twins of East Sydney.’ In his streetwise and tough-minded way Reid had nourished Barton’s career on more than one occasion. Personal friendship remained, but for the next decade and a half they would usually be on opposing sides in politics. It was Reid, and not Barton, who had the better of the argument in the inner-city electorates. Working-class voters were not persuaded that manufacturers profiting from tariff protection would pass on benefits such as increased wages or an eight-hour working day, and the free-traders were generally victorious. It was a different story in the provincial cities and the rural districts, and by midFebruary it was evident that the free-traders would win by a greatly reduced margin, 71 members against 66. In his short spell as attorney-general Barton had little time to prove ministerial capacity, but he added to his stock of experience. With Dibbs absent on the campaign trail it fell to him, supported by William Lyne and a colleague, to make arrangements for the payment of public servants during the period of the elections after the Legislative Assembly failed to grant supply for their salaries. He was also one of two commissioners representing the governor at the official opening of the new session of the Legislative Council, and gave a lucid and

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well-argued defence of Dibbs for holding on to office. But on 7 March 1889 Dibbs had to resign and Parkes was premier for the fifth time. Barton’s service as attorney-general gave him the final qualification required for taking silk, and in March 1889 he became a Queen’s Counsel. He could command higher fees, and his practice was thriving. He specialised mainly in commercial cases, finding his way deftly around the intricacies of contract law, and on at least one occasion was asked to act as umpire arbitrating an industrial dispute. Without dipping into capital he was earning enough to maintain his wife and five children at a standard of living which ran to a French tutor for Muffie (though as the tutor was a doctor’s widow who later became William McMillan’s second wife, this may have been another example of the Bartons’ open-handedness to friends in need). In these years he was operating from a secure enough financial basis to please himself whether and to what extent he took part in politics. The 1889 general election sealed the process by which political parties were becoming institutionalised in New South Wales. Parkes ruled with the diminished authority of a leader chosen by the Free Trade Party, not, as in the past, the master architect of a coalition of factions. He found it hard to consult with his new and much less docile team of ministers, of whom the most substantial was the treasurer, William McMillan. Reid declined to serve under Parkes, remaining a formidable and troublesome backbencher. In August, when the Free Trade and Liberal Association held its first formal party conference, Parkes stayed aloof, and it was Reid who emerged as its leading figure. As a counter-demonstration the Protectionists called a four-day conference of their own on 1 October. Barton presided over more than 200 delegates. After opening the conference with an hour-long speech he missed the afternoon session, and was 20 minutes late in the evening; but he then made another speech lasting more than an hour and was loudly cheered at its conclusion. He made such an excellent impression that at one point he had to react nimbly to head off a move that he, and not Dibbs, should lead the party. This was an idea which continued to surface from time to time, with the squatter-politician William Abbott especially persistent; but Barton never gave it any encouragement.

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Admittedly his keynote speech was stronger on form than content. He claimed that the Protectionists were the true heirs of liberalism and allies of the working class but, as the Sydney Morning Herald pointed out, said little about the tariff: ‘The subjects selected for discussion are Electoral Reform, Local Government, Payment of Members, Light Railways, Differential Railway Rates, Liberal Mining Laws, and the establishment of a Department of Agriculture.’ Several of these items were also on the Free-Trade agenda. With a newly-formed coalition of farmers, manufacturers, workingclass representatives and Catholic voters, it was safest for a Protectionist speaker to stick to generalities. And it would have suited Barton to play down the differences between the two major parties at a moment when federation at last seemed to be emerging into the realm of practical politics. The initiative came, as so much of the early impetus for the federal movement came, from Andrew Inglis Clark, attorney-general of Tasmania. A terrier-like Scottish Australian a few months older than Barton, Clark as a young man was attracted to the American model of republicanism; not such a handicap in Tasmanian politics as it would be in the conservative twentieth century. By the late 1880s, having attended the third meeting of the Federal Council, he was alive with ideas for improving the federal machinery. Early in the winter of 1889 he met Barton and found in him a fellow enthusiast. They talked about the desirability of New South Wales joining the Federal Council. They agreed that there were many legal problems—Clark instanced joint stock company law, bequests covering property in more than one colony, and patent law—which could be handled much better at federal level. It is noteworthy that the two lawyers discussed such practical matters rather than nationalism or defence. Clark urged Barton to use his influence to bring New South Wales into the federation. Recognising Barton’s lack of enthusiasm for the Federal Council as then constituted, he wrote him a follow-up letter assuring him: ‘No one is wedded to the present Constitution and the scope of its authority. I am confident both are open to review and that the other colonies would be glad to make modifications to clear the path for N.S.W.’ And he undertook to make a case to Sir Henry Parkes.

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Parkes was already stirring into action. A few days before Clark wrote his letter, the premier was conversing with the governor, Lord Carrington, when the issue of federation came up. Parkes boasted: ‘I could confederate these colonies within twelve months.’ ‘Then why don’t you do it?’ asked Carrington. Forthwith Parkes wrote an invitation for talks to the Victorian premier, Duncan Gillies. His government would invite parliament to nominate four delegates to discuss federation, Parkes and McMillan from the ministry and Dibbs and Barton from the opposition. Gillies responded coolly, finally replying in August that if New South Wales was serious about promoting colonial unity it should first join the Federal Council. The Victorians calculated that, with South Australia joining the Federal Council, New South Wales could be ‘compelled to crave admission’ or be left as odd man out. Parkes stalled for time, knowing that in July Major-General Bevan Edwards had arrived from Britain to carry out the long-awaited analysis of Australia’s defence needs. When in October Edwards recommended that the armed forces of the Australian colonies should be brought under a common authority, Parkes, although never previously a zealot about defence, seized his opportunity. He travelled up to Queensland, the colony most aware of its Pacific frontier, and easily persuaded the leading politicians in Brisbane that the defence factor called for a renewed federal effort. Parkes now had his psychological moment. According to a myth cherished in the vicinity of Tenterfield, the federation movement began there on the evening of 24 October 1889. Returning by rail from Brisbane, Parkes made a stop-over to visit his old constituents and used the occasion to make a keynote speech at the Tenterfield School of Arts. Evoking the Bevan Edwards report, Parkes raised ‘the great question . . . whether the time has not come now for the creation on this Australian continent of an Australian Government as distinct from the local Governments now in existence’ with an executive responsible to ‘a parliament of two Houses, a house of commons and a senate, which would legislate on all great subjects’. He urged a convention of delegates appointed by the parliament of each colony, and concluded by quoting the Queensland poet Brunton Stephens:

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Not yet her day. How long ‘not yet’? There comes the flush of violet . . .

‘Reports of this speech,’ claimed Reynolds, ‘. . . stimulated the first real public interest in the question of Federation.’ According to Sir Robert Garran, ‘even in cold print next morning it rang like a trumpet call’. Cooler moderns have pointed out that the Tenterfield speech was not excessively publicised, the Sydney newspapers concentrating on the speed of Sir Henry’s express train. But Parkes himself wrote to Lord Carrington: ‘I think I have made history in the last six days.’ Barton at least was impressed. As soon as he read reports of the Tenterfield speech he wrote to Parkes pledging full support for the federal cause. Within a few days Parkes invited Barton for an hour’s talk, and Barton accepted, agreeing that ‘a Federation to be effective must be armed with the most complete powers of a General Executive and Parliament in matters of National (I use the word by way of distinction from Provincial) concernment’. He told Parkes that he did not think any important member of the opposition would raise obstacles. Barton’s support was crucial for Parkes, since without it federation could be seen as a fetish of the Free Trade Party, leaving the Protectionists scope to harvest support as the party which looked after industries and jobs in New South Wales. Dibbs, the leader of the Protectionists, although a republican, was sceptical about federation. Barton, as a leading Protectionist urging the removal of tariff barriers within Australia, ensured that the federation movement would be from the start bipartisan. For him this was a more congenial role than parrying the increasingly pointed taunts of George Reid about his desertion from the ranks of the free-traders. He first advocated federation as practical politics at a meeting called on 2 November, to set up a branch of the Protectionist Party at Lithgow. Having made his prepared speech, Barton added a postscript arguing that no question was as important as the federation of Australia. This was an issue which must be placed above party: ‘Free Trade inside her own federation and Protection against the world.’ This dress rehearsal in the provinces gained much less

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publicity than Parkes did a few nights later when, at a meeting at his suburban constituency of St Leonards, the old premier sketched a plan for an Australian constitution with two houses of parliament, a court of appeal and an Australian Privy Council. But it was still necessary to claim the federation movement as bipartisan, and on the night of 8 November the Australian Natives’ Association called a well-attended meeting in the Sydney Town Hall. The first speaker, Joseph Hector Carruthers, was a promising young backbencher from the Free Trade Party. He moved that ‘in the opinion of this meeting it is desirable that the Australian colonies should federate as soon as possible’. Barton seconded with an oration which won considerable praise. Taking up a point which Parkes had left unclear, he urged that by leaving the tariff question to be decided by federal parliament, Protectionists and free-traders alike could support the movement. No one supposed that the great ideal could be consummated except after a deal of conflict, and he believed that the ultimate issue should be the result of leisurely debate. Because the Federal Council was ineffective it ran the risk of becoming a laughing-stock like the weak Confederation which had preceded the creation of the United States of America in 1789. A proper Australian federation would nourish Australian aspirations far better; ‘a man did not take mutton broth when he could get turtle soup’, said the epicure Barton. He then spelt out his attitude to two major issues which were sometimes linked to proposals for a federated Australia. One was republicanism, which should be set aside for the time being as a divisive side-issue: ‘This country as a federated Australia would have perfect legislative independence.’ In the unforeseeable future circumstances might lead Australia to separate from Britain ‘though it was to be hoped that their friendly relations would be maintained to the end of time’, but at present, federation would ‘give longer life and greater strength to the present relationship with the mother country’. Nor was he taken by the conservatives’ dream of an Imperial Federation with Britain at the centre of a parliament with representatives from all the members of the Empire. Although the scheme had once attracted him, he put it aside as impractical:

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. . . there should be absolute equality of the peoples to be federated all over the world; they were of such various races and degrees of experience for self-government, and of such various degrees of aptitude for self-government that it would be scarcely possible to weld them together with equality of electoral rights or rights of citizenship.

In late nineteenth-century Australia there were few to gainsay such arguments. The audience received them enthusiastically, and it only remained for Sir Henry Parkes to drive home the point that the appearance of Carruthers and Barton on the same platform proved that Federation was a cause above party pettiness. The motion was carried without dissent. Difficulties soon emerged. Some of Barton’s colleagues found it hard to reconcile the promise implicit in federation of an Australiawide common market with the Protectionist aim of imposing tariffs to shield New South Wales industries and jobs against competition from elsewhere, including the rest of Australia. Parkes too came under fire from several members of his cabinet. They were already unhappy with his inveterate tendency to play his cards close to the chest, and were annoyed that Barton, an opposition frontbencher, had been consulted about federation ahead of them. In consequence, when it was finally agreed that two New South Wales representatives should travel to Melbourne in February 1890 to confer with the next meeting of the Federal Council, there was no realistic hope that Parkes would pick Barton as his companion. Instead the choice fell on the treasurer, William McMillan, who favoured federation but could be relied on to keep a careful eye on his wayward leader. Parkes had his triumph nevertheless. At the Melbourne meeting delegates from the other colonies agreed unanimously to his resolution in favour of ‘early union . . . under one legislative and executive Government’. At a banquet given by the Victorian premier Parkes responded to the toast of ‘A United Australasia’ with a memorable speech: ‘The crimson thread of kinship runs through us all . . .’ he declared. ‘We know that we represent a race . . . for the purposes of settling new colonies, which never had its equal on the face of the earth.’ Young Alfred Deakin, observing the performance, could

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not withhold his admiration, but added, ‘He had always in his mind’s eye his own portrait as that of a great man, and constantly adjusted himself to it.’ On this occasion Parkes indeed touched greatness. All the colonies were now committed to a National Australasian Convention, even New Zealand and Western Australia. The doubters in New South Wales could not repudiate this initiative, even though some grumbled that Parkes and McMillan had no mandate to commit themselves to negotiating federation. The Convention was scheduled for Sydney in March 1891, with each colony sending seven delegates (although in the event New Zealand sent only three). In New South Wales four members were to be chosen from the Legislative Assembly and three from the Legislative Council. On 7 May 1890 William Suttor, squatter, author and representative of the Parkes government in the Legislative Council, proposed a motion to this effect, naming himself, Barton and the ex-premier Sir Patrick Jennings as nominees from the Upper House. Old Sir William Manning and other cautious members responded that no decision should be taken until they knew what happened in the Legislative Assembly, and this was readily agreed. The resulting delay was longer than expected, partly because of the competing claims of other business such as major strikes in the shearing sheds and on the waterfront, but also because of inept tactics by the Parkes government. If the Assembly nominated two members each from the government and the opposition Dibbs, as leader of the opposition, could not be overlooked; but he was a sceptic about federation, and one of Parkes’ colleagues was suggested in his stead. The Legislative Assembly rebelled against this interference with its prerogatives, and eventually Parkes, McMillan, Dibbs and the Speaker, Joseph Abbott, were chosen to go to the Convention. It was late September before debate resumed in the Legislative Council, and this gave time for doubters to rally. Some concentrated on the government’s lack of mandate for federation. Louis Heydon considered that New South Wales would be ‘committing a most idiotic blunder’ in entering into partnership with the rest of Australia, adding: ‘Sir Henry Parkes has no right to act as if he carried this colony in his waistcoat pocket.’ The debate was adjourned to

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8 October to enable Barton to reply, and when he did it was one of his major speeches. He traversed once more the arguments in favour of a common market as the best means of developing national resources and enabling northern Australia to be worked without the need for cheap alien labour. He argued again the case for federation as in itself desirable, without leading either to imperial federation or republicanism. The State governments would not be reduced to insignificance, since they would still control such major areas as education, health, irrigation and public works. And, contradicting Heydon’s fears, he assured his colleagues that New South Wales could fully take part in the shaping of a federal constitution without being bound to the consequences. They would have the opportunity of scrutinising every clause before they decided if New South Wales wished to join. Unspoken was a commitment that if Barton had a hand in bringing about federation, it would be by a thorough and far-reaching process of consultation rather than Parkesian high-handedness. The Legislative Council was persuaded, but new problems immediately arose over the choice of delegates. Several members argued that they should make the selection by ballot from among all their number instead of accepting the Parkes government’s nominees. James Hawkins, a political veteran with a radical past, said that Barton and Jennings took their parliamentary duties too lightly, neither having attended the Legislative Council more than five or six times during the current session, and should be replaced by more diligent members. Barton retorted that he had in fact attended 23 times, and argued that federation was an important enough issue to require an open vote. By a majority of one, however, members preferred Dr Andrew Garran’s view that by holding a ballot they would affirm the status of federation as a parliamentary movement. Having made its point the Legislative Council then endorsed the three original nominees, Suttor receiving 31 votes, Barton 27 and Jennings 21. There followed a good deal of desultory debate about the New South Wales government’s power to amend the constitution once drafted. A 16 to 13 majority supported Barton and Garran, against the Parkes government’s ministers, in devising a formula of words which would enable amendments to be suggested without

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implying acceptance or rejection of the whole constitution. In this way New South Wales committed itself to participate in the federal experiment. During the summer of 1890–91 Barton prepared himself for the Convention by three months of incessant study, probably at the expense of his legal practice. (It may have helped that the Athenaeum Club was closed for repairs after a fire in October.) Barton was not the only politician in training for the Convention, as Griffith in Brisbane, Inglis Clark in Hobart, and Charles Cameron Kingston in Adelaide were each trying their hands at designing a federal Constitution. By 12 February Inglis Clark was far enough advanced to send copies of his draft to Parkes and Barton. Kingston’s version, leaving more power to the States, was in their hands before the end of the month. Parkes, who confessed ‘I have some dread of literary Constitutions’ did not find time to study these drafts. Consequently Barton, although he circulated no drafts, came to the Convention as by far the best briefed of the New South Wales delegates, and the only one able to match Griffith, Clark and Kingston in familiarity with the outlines of a potential Australian Constitution. These outlines drew on the earlier models of the United States and Canada and foreshadowed the essentials of Australia’s twentiethcentury Constitution. There should be a governor-general representing the monarch as head of state, a Senate representing the States, a House of Representatives elected on a population basis, and a federal Supreme Court of at least ten judges as the highest court of appeal and constitutional interpretation. The Canadian Constitution was seen as leaving too little authority to the provinces and by contrast the Australians preferred to nominate specific powers to the federal government with the States controlling the residue. This left the federal government’s areas of responsibility open for debate. Defence, tariffs and trade were the irreducible minimum, but there would be some bread-and-butter issues such as posts and telegraphs, and Kingston’s list added industrial relations. In the upshot it was Parkes who, as premier of the host colony, took it for granted that he should present the initial resolutions for discussion by the Convention. At the end of February, he circulated them in draft to Barton and the

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other delegates, whom he then called together for a meeting at his private house. Their draft was to set the debate rolling. The New South Wales working party gave most thought to the relations between the two houses of parliament. As in the existing colonial parliaments, governments should survive or fall according to their ability to command a majority in the popularly elected lower house. To ensure that the other States did not feel swamped by Victoria and New South Wales the Senate should consist of an equal number of members from each province. Where Inglis Clark proposed that Australia, following the practice at that time in the United States, should have senators chosen by the State parliaments, the New South Wales group insisted that the Senate should be elected directly by the voters. The democratic effect of this change was weakened by proposing that senators should be elected for a term of no less than 21 years, one-third retiring every seventh year; a recipe for slow turnover of membership and an inbuilt tendency towards conservatism, but preferable to the Canadian Senate whose members were nominated for life. It was clear that this issue would require much more thinking through. The New South Wales working party also suggested adding to the federal government’s powers the right to pass legislation facilitating the development of waste lands in the tropics and elsewhere. When Parkes took these recommendations to his fellow premiers (augmented for the occasion by Inglis Clark and Kingston) in a private meeting at the start of the Convention, they cut out this contentious idea. They also removed any reference to a specific term of office for senators and dropped the quota of ten judges for the Supreme Court, but otherwise accepted the resolutions as a basis for debate. On the wet and windy morning of Monday 2 March 1891, about three dozen delegates converged on Sydney’s Parliament House for the Convention. Perhaps reflecting the weather they were a sombre assembly, ‘recognising probably’, speculated the Herald, ‘the fact that they were engaged in making history’. They did not make much history that morning as they met only for an hour to sign the roll and elect Parkes as president and Griffith as vice-president. A banquet that evening in the Sydney Town Hall with ladies present (including Jeanie Barton) did a good deal to lighten the atmosphere.

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By the second day strangeness had worn off and the delegates were reported as feeling at home with one another. They fenced a little around such questions as the president’s casting vote, with Barton arguing from his experience as Speaker that the president should exercise a casting vote in such a way as to keep questions open for further consideration; but eventually it was decided that if a vote resulted in a tie it should be taken as negative. On Wednesday morning (4 March) Parkes brought forward the resolutions drafted by the New South Wales party and amended by the premiers, and serious debate began. Griffith, as vice-president, came first. He would be in effect the pilot of the Convention, and in terms of leadership experience, legal capacity and intellectual dominance he stood unchallenged. At 46 he was at the turning-point of his career. The ‘lean, impatient idealist’ who courted the working class and outraged the sugar planters by putting an end to the traffic in indentured Kanakas, who had seemed to a shrewd observer ‘full of fun and very frank’, was giving way to an icy and unabashed pragmatist. He had recently entered into a coalition with his arch-rival the capitalist Sir Thomas McIlwraith, would shortly restore the Melanesian labour trade, and in the very weeks of the Convention left his colleagues in Queensland confronting a major shearers’ strike with armed police and military. The shearers flew the Eureka flag and talked of a republic, but Griffith was intent on fostering another kind of Australian nationalism where conflict would be resolved under the rule of law. At Sydney in 1891 he and his fellow delegates faced the challenge of creating a Constitution based on the rule of law but responsive to the generous emotions of popular nationalism. As much because of his temperament as his ideas, Barton would help to effect that reconciliation. Since eight or nine members had yet to turn up, including the entire Western Australian delegation, the early sessions of the Convention lasted only for about two hours each day, with one prominent member giving an overview of the issues he thought important. Taking the initiative, Griffith pointed out with impressive lucidity that the central federal question was the relationship of the Senate as States’ house with a House of Representatives

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chosen on the democratic criterion of ‘one-vote-one-value’. If the Senate’s powers were weaker than those of the Lower House, the smaller States would feel over-ridden by Victoria and New South Wales; but if the two houses were co-equal this could be seen as negating the majority will. As a good Queenslander Griffith favoured a strong Senate, but above all he insisted on the need for clarity on this point. Next day Alfred Deakin rose to refute him. At 34 the youngest member of the Convention by several years, Deakin was already old in political experience. He had served in the Victorian parliament for more than eleven years, seven of them as a highly innovative and successful cabinet minister. His credentials as nationalist and democrat were good. In London in 1887 at a ministerial conference he had stood up for Australia’s interests boldly against the august British prime minister Lord Salisbury, where Griffith and other Antipodeans had behaved more compliantly. Now as a good democrat he argued that in cases of conflict between the two houses of parliament the Senate should yield to the House of Representatives. As Victoria had the biggest population of any Australasian colony Deakin had less to lose by taking such a line than a Tasmanian or South Australian. Although he put his case with charm and eloquence he did not carry all his hearers with him. It was Barton who moved the adjournment of the debate so that on the next morning (6 March) he might reply on behalf of States’ rights. At the beginning, according to a reporter, Barton ‘was calm and dignified, speaking with extreme slowness, as if he wished to give the delegates ample time to weigh over and comprehend his utterances’. He began with the uncontroversial theme of an Australian common market, suggesting that if necessary the diverse tariffs of the various colonies could be amalgamated gradually over time; a typical example of his ‘softly, softly’ approach and one which would eventually help to bring Western Australia into the federation. It was only when he came to the question of States’ rights that his speech warmed up. No scheme of federation could work, Barton argued, without the goodwill of the contracting parties. This meant conserving the rights of the several States. Hence the Senate should

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have full power, even a veto on money and taxation bills, and should be popularly elected. Illustrating his theme, he raised a question avoided by previous speakers, the site of the federal capital. This issue necessarily had financial implications, but unless the Senate had power of veto in detail it would be practically helpless to influence the outcome. He nevertheless stressed that a government enjoying a majority in the House of Representatives should be able to carry on in office without the Senate’s favour. Finally he strongly urged that the Australian Supreme Court should have full power to enforce its decrees throughout Australia, and—it would be a favourite theme with him—should become the final court of appeal, without further recourse to the Privy Council in London. He admitted that the British had refused this power to Canada but, as the Herald reporter put it: ‘Mr Barton is brave, and urges that the power is one which we should ask, even if we never expect to get it.’ Barton’s speech made a marked impression on the Convention. The South Australian ex-premier, Sir John Downer, who followed him, complimented him highly and endorsed his views; it was the beginning of a lasting friendship. During the ensuing week all but nine of the delegates spoke, most endorsing Barton’s concept of States’ rights, although the Victorians remained largely opposed to equal powers for the Senate and cheered when in his summing up Parkes came down on their side. When the Convention went into committee to consider the detailed wording of the resolutions this was the issue that had most potential for breaking up the meeting. Before the moment came to grapple with it Barton, who was playing a prominent part in the organisation of business, raised a different matter. He persuaded the Convention to adopt a new resolution providing that no new State could be formed by subdividing or uniting any part of the existing colonies without the consent of both the federal parliament and the appropriate State legislature. In thus safeguarding the existing boundaries of the colonies he may have been earning the goodwill of Griffith, who as vice-president was precluded from pushing special interests, but who as premier of Queensland was facing lively separation movements from the north and centre. On 16 March, their tempers by no means soothed by a weekend voyage on the Hawkesbury, the delegates met to debate a proposal

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by Sir John Downer giving the Senate a veto on money bills. Earnest debate followed. Parkes implored Downer not to press the issue. Munro, the Victorian premier, threatened to walk out if the Senate veto were approved. Late in the afternoon Barton moved the adjournment of the debate, thus allowing tempers to cool overnight and also positioning himself as first speaker in the morning. It was a critical moment. In championing the Senate, Barton said he ‘did not intend to make a fighting speech, carrying the olive branch rather than the sword’. However they framed their constitution, he said, they would have to rely on the discretion and good sense of those who had to work it. Having rebuked the undignified spirit of those like Munro who refused to work for compromise, he asked the Convention to find a middle way between too much and too little power for the Senate while preserving the principle of no taxation without representation. ‘Taken right through’, wrote the Herald, ‘Mr Barton’s speech was most temperate and conciliatory in its tone, and had a marked effect in quieting the atmosphere of the Convention.’ Old Sir George Grey from New Zealand, Griffith and William McMillan all supported the appeal for compromise and it was agreed to leave the question undecided while the delegates formed themselves into sub-committees. Only one delegate, Queensland’s Macrossan, with the prophetic foresight of a dying man, predicted that senators would vote according to party allegiance rather than State loyalty so that ‘the idea of the larger states being overwhelmed by the voting of the smaller states might very well be abandoned . . .’ This crisis negotiated, the time was now ripe for detailed analysis. Barton moved on 18 March for the formation of three committees: a constitutional committee, with two members from each delegation, and two subordinate committees on finance and judiciary which would report to it. Griffith was chosen chairman of the constitutional committee, with Parkes, Barton, Deakin, Inglis Clark and Downer all among its members. This was clearly the most important of the three working groups and it was here that the compromise was hammered out that the Senate might affirm or reject money bills, but could not amend them (although it might make suggestions for change to the House of Representatives). Barton’s part in resolving this issue,

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or his part in the rather more heated discussion over calling the new nation ‘the Commonwealth of Australia’ cannot be traced since the committee worked in camera. (He certainly favoured the term ‘Commonwealth’ as ‘the noblest word ever invented to designate a free state’.) Deakin, writing to a friend on 25 March, complained: ‘Barton is an able but lazy man who has attended our Committee irregularly and with frequent absences.’ This is consistent with complaints made about Barton at other times. He was always one to skip the duller stretches of committee work, reserving his effort for major occasions. But Deakin also named Barton, with Griffith and Inglis Clark, as useful forces for compromise. It may be that Barton’s enthusiasm for defending the Senate cooled somewhat when he failed to persuade the committee that the Upper House should be popularly elected; instead they went back to the United States model of a Senate with members nominated by each State parliament. Yet it was no reflection on Barton’s performance that he was not chosen by the constitutional committee as one of the three-man drafting party charged with putting together the finished version of the Constitution. Griffith as chairman was essential; Inglis Clark and Kingston had prepared the first drafts circulated in February. They aimed at having a printed draft in readiness by 26 March, the Thursday before Easter. This would be distributed confidentially to their colleagues on the committee and during the long weekend the drafting party would make the final push towards a complete document. They would secure privacy by working aboard the Lucinda, the Queensland government steamer on which Griffith had travelled from Brisbane. Then Inglis Clark succumbed to influenza and, at the last moment on the Thursday morning, Barton was invited to replace him on the Lucinda. It was a lucky break for Barton, though at the time it must have played havoc with his family’s Easter arrangements. By Good Friday morning, nevertheless, he was with the others travelling from Port Jackson to the Hawkesbury estuary, where despite rough weather they found anchorage ‘in a most lovely place called Refuge Bay’. In addition to the drafting party Griffith also invited Sir John Downer, Victoria’s Sir Henry Wrixon and his own legal colleague from Queensland, A. J. Thynne. As La Nauze comments, ‘The party represented all

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the colonies except Western Australia and New Zealand whose delegates did not include a practising lawyer.’ There was also one favoured unofficial guest, young B. R. Wise (who was seasick). Throughout Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday morning the drafting party laboured intensively in the gentlemen’s smoking-room in the upper fore-cabin; thirteen hours non-stop on the Saturday. It was naughty, but understandable, for the frustrated Inglis Clark to describe the cruise as a ‘picnic’, though no doubt Griffith and Barton allowed themselves an occasional whisky to solace the labours of composition; Kingston, who was not a drinking man, found no scope for his besetting weakness in the all-male environment of the Lucinda. Griffith chose his words significantly in describing Barton’s role: Mr Barton . . . devoted himself to that work as strenuously and industriously as any man with whom I have ever had the pleasure of working, and I venture to say that I have done a good deal of hard work in my time.

One hopes that Alfred Deakin was impressed by testimony from such a source. The Lucinda returned to Sydney Harbour on Sunday, picked up the convalescent Inglis Clark, and the drafting was finished in time for the printer that evening. To Clark’s disappointment the High Court was not entrenched in the Constitution, as in the United States, but was left for establishment by the Commonwealth parliament. Nor (and here Barton must have shared his disappointment) would appeals to the Privy Council be abolished. Griffith, like the majority of the Australian legal profession at that time, had too great a respect for British judicial tradition to consent to such a radical step. In the upshot the High Court would be the final court of appeal except in matters affecting the public interests of the Commonwealth or the States, which might go to the Privy Council. On Easter Monday the drafting group submitted their work to the full constitutional committee, who approved it without major changes. It was this draft Constitution, more lucidly and tautly phrased than earlier versions, which Griffith would steer through the full Convention during its final week.

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The Lucinda draft survived virtually intact. The compromise about the Senate’s powers was accepted by a 2 to 1 margin, the limitation of appeals to the Privy Council more narrowly. A brisk debate developed over the qualifications of voters for the House of Representatives, as Griffith resisted a motion for the introduction of one-man-one-vote as interfering with the powers of States such as Queensland which still had plural voting. Barton defused the situation by pointing out that the Convention need not impose a formula. At the outset federal elections could take place under existing State laws, but there would be nothing to prevent the Commonwealth legislating uniform qualifications for all Australian voters, as in fact would happen when Barton was prime minister. He failed to persuade the Convention to resolve to this effect, because some delegates such as the Queenslanders were touchy about yielding this power and others feared that the Commonwealth might legislate to reduce voting rights. One or two minor snags arose; Dibbs, for instance, made a mischievous attempt to insist that the federal capital should be Sydney. By 9 April the Convention was ready to adopt a constitution which in every essential respect was the Australian Commonwealth Constitution of 1900. This document would go to the parliaments of the various colonies so that they might submit it for the approval of the people. It was easy for Griffith to move this proposal and for the Convention to accept it, harder to see how it would be carried into effect. Without having experienced the weeks of concentrated thought that went into the framing of the Constitution, politicians and voters in the Australasian colonies could not be expected to share the federal vision. Few knew the continent in all its diversity; so keen an advocate of federation as Barton himself had never been out of New South Wales apart from rare visits to Melbourne and Brisbane. Local interests conflicted. New Zealand was separated from the other colonies by the Tasman Sea, and gave its Maoris a stronger place in politics than the lowly status accorded Australia’s Aborigines. Western Australia was marginalised by an even longer sea voyage, and having just attained self-government at the end of 1890 would be reluctant to surrender this belated privilege. Queensland was beset by separation movements based on Townsville and

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Rockhampton whose outcome would affect the shape of any federation. Like New South Wales, Queensland was also in the throes of industrial strife which would soon bring Labor into politics, and for many working-class representatives the struggle for better pay and conditions took priority over a distant ideal of federation, which might only help the bosses to combine more efficiently. Rivalry between New South Wales and Victoria itched as Sydney began to overtake Melbourne as Australia’s largest city. It would require a patient process of argument and education to overcome all these impediments to the making of an Australian Commonwealth. Nevertheless the Convention was a success. Its members had confronted most of the major problems of federation and had produced an agreed Constitution. They had not voted en bloc as delegations but set the model of how an Australian legislature might work. Undeniably Sir Samuel Griffith was the leading architect of this success. Barton’s reputation too was greatly enhanced by his constructive role in facilitating business, by his energetic participation in the drafting committee, and above all by the two well-timed speeches in which he swayed the mood of the Convention and set his colleagues thinking on many of the solutions which eventually made federation practicable. As with many of the other delegates, the experience of close and lengthy contact with some of his ablest contemporaries from all parts of Australia and New Zealand broadened his views and sharpened his ideas. His enthusiasm fuelled by the Convention, Barton sought a more active role in public life. ‘My bristles are all up over Federation’, he wrote to Piddington shortly after the Convention. Soon his opportunity would arise but nearly a decade would elapse before the goal was reached.

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the Convention dispersed the opponents of federation were mobilising. On 15 April 1891 old Sir John Robertson chaired a meeting of the electors of East Sydney. Dibbs was on the platform and Reid the lead speaker. He said that the New South Wales delegates had allowed the other colonies to drive too hard a bargain. The compromise over the Senate’s powers was no compromise at all, but a surrender to the junior colonies, and the governor-general’s role was too loosely defined. He also claimed that the other States could gang up to take territory from New South Wales. Barton thought Reid showed ‘extreme ignorance of his subject’, and on 24 April at the Aquarium Hall, Manly, refuted his arguments in what seems to have been one of his best speeches. Taking his audience step by step through the draft Constitution he showed that the governor-general’s powers were in fact carefully defined and that the break-up of existing States without their consent was not possible. As for the Senate, it was impossible to predict how the balance of population between States would be in the future and, in any case, the sole right of initiating taxation remained with the House of Representatives. There would inevitably be disagreements between the two Houses but, remarked Barton in a phrase still relevant a hundred years later, ‘deadlocks and collisions were the price which nations paid for Liberty’. VEN BEFORE

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Barton’s speech brought him congratulations from across Australia. Deakin called it ‘masterly’. Griffith thought Reid’s statements wild and wrote to him about them, producing a rather tart exchange of correspondence. Winthrop Hackett, editor of The West Australian, liked Barton’s speech but still felt that he would have his work cut out to convince New South Wales. As for the West, Forrest was almost alone in favour of federation, ‘the public feeling against amounting to frenzy’. Reid returned to the attack during May. The Victorians, he claimed, would use intercolonial free trade to poach traffic from the New South Wales railways. They and the Queenslanders might even have designs on New South Wales territory. Some of this was scaremongering, aimed at boosting Reid’s reputation as guardian of New South Wales interests and future premier, against his federalist competitors, Parkes, McMillan and Barton. He was especially concerned that Parkes would hijack the Free Trade Party in the interests of federation and divert it from its historic role of keeping tariffs and costs low. This concern was realistic. During these weeks Parkes was sounding out Barton, and possibly others, about the formation of a ginger group promoting federation, to be known as ‘the Australian Unionists’. Its members would be drawn from both freetraders and protectionists, prepared to agree that ‘the fiscal battle . . . should be fought out on the wider and higher stage of a new political life’. So constituted, ‘the Australian Unionists’ had the potential to become a new political party, and before the end of May Parkes was openly urging this to Barton. The days had passed when a faction leader like Parkes could abandon old allies to broker a new combination. Although a Herald editorial claimed a few weeks earlier that the fiscal question was fading out of public life, Parkes’ colleagues in the Free Trade Party could not be expected to see things in the same light, especially with the advent of a Labor Electoral League challenging both the old parties. Events left the old premier behind. When parliament resumed on 19 May Parkes intended making a federation bill the first item of regular business. Reid with his talent for the pre-emptive strike moved an amendment to the address-in-reply, affirming support for federation on just principles but condemning the shortcomings of the draft Constitution. Reid’s motion was defeated, but Parkes

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was taken aback, and in what Barton later termed ‘an error of judgement’ decided to postpone the federation bill. Sensing weakness, Dibbs at once launched a motion of no confidence. Reid and a few free-traders supported it, and it was lost only on the Speaker’s casting vote. Parliament was dissolved and an election scheduled for June 1891. Federation, which Parkes hoped would crown his career, in fact hastened his ultimate fall from power. Barton resigned from the Upper House in order to contest his old seat of East Sydney in the Legislative Assembly. He was labelled a protectionist, but the choice facing the voters was somewhat complex. Parkes persisted in setting up a ‘Free Trade and Federation Organizing Committee’ to fight the elections and as its four candidates for East Sydney the committee endorsed a ticket of two free-trade federationists (William McMillan and Sir Henry’s son Varney Parkes) and two protectionists (Barton and the mayor of Sydney, W. P. Manning). This had the effect of squeezing out Reid, one of the Free Trade sitting members, and guaranteed that the election would be robustly fought, even by the standards of the time. Barton campaigned on the slogan of ‘Federation first, protection afterwards’, opposed to both Dibbs and Reid. He asked his audience ‘whether they would leave to their children a grand, free nation, or the obloquy of having made it part of a large island’. Andrew Garran, editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, thought that Barton gave the federal movement ‘valuable intellectual and moral aid. He has shown how when face to face with a great occasion an earnest politician can lay party claims and limitations aside’. Stung by Reid’s criticisms, Barton insisted that the Convention bill was still open to change, and dismissed Dibbs with the quip: ‘When Mr Dibbs says he has ‘‘no policy to disclose’’ one is led to doubt whether the policy is absent or the courage to disclose it. Mr Dibbs is a daily conundrum. What can we do but give him up?’ Barton’s campaign attracted audiences of between 500 and over 1000. On nomination day, however, when those present were invited to choose members by a show of hands, the verdict was for Reid, McMillan, Varney Parkes and a Labor candidate named Grantham. Barton called for a poll, as was customary, and this produced a different result. McMillan, although severely heckled during his campaign, topped

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the poll. Barton came next, followed by Varney Parkes, and Reid was lucky to secure fourth place. It seemed a heartening endorsement of the federation idea. Party alliances following the election were far from clear. ‘You will require all your presence of mind during the coming chaos,’ a friend wrote to Barton. Labor did unexpectedly well, returning 35 members who held the balance of power between 47 free-traders and 51 protectionists. But the Labor men were split almost evenly between free-traders and protectionists and the party had not yet developed its tradition of strict caucus solidarity. Having successfully wooed Labor support with a package including federation, an arbitration system and electoral reform based on one-man-one-vote, Parkes decided to stay in office, but his tenure was precarious. His competent but conservative treasurer, McMillan, chafed at the Labor alliance and within two months would resign from cabinet. Reid led an openly mutinous squad of free-traders. Barton’s stance seemed ambiguous. He had served in the 1889 Dibbs ministry and was termed a protectionist but the Herald, analysing the new parliament, classed him as a Parkes supporter. When Dibbs, apparently disregarding Barton’s advice, at once moved a motion of no confidence, Barton made a lengthy speech agonising about the choice between his respected colleague Dibbs and Parkes, whom he believed more likely to get the federation legislation through. In the upshot he voted with Parkes. In an era of loose party discipline he could play this waiting game without injuring his prospects with either major party. Parkes thought it worthwhile early in August 1891, following McMillan’s resignation, to try to entice Barton into his cabinet, and once more Barton refused, though he promised warm support to the early introduction of a federation bill. Because of the differences of opinion within cabinet Parkes was slow to bring down the promised legislation, and in September the opposition seized the initiative by moving that protective duties should be imposed on imports that competed with local manufactures. Barton moved an amendment to the effect that, because federation would bring a uniform tariff to Australia, the financial needs of New South Wales should govern the methods of raising revenue ‘rather than the rigid doctrines of

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any system of political economy’. This amendment was carried with the support of the Labor members, and the Parkes ministry survived another few weeks. The final blow fell in October 1891. Among the measures designed to please Labor was a bill regulating employment in coal mines. One of its clauses called for ventilation for each miner at the rate of 100 cubic feet of pure air. Labor successfully moved for an increase to 150 cubic feet. But only one-third of the members of the Legislative Assembly were present when this amendment passed (among them Barton, who opposed it). On 15 October McMillan moved for the re-committal of the relevant clause and another prescribing a maximum eight-hour working day. Parkes supported him, but the Labor members were outraged and a confused and acrimonious debate ensued. In his prime Parkes would have manoeuvred his way out of the crisis, but he was old and tired and, at some point in the debate, he drafted a letter of resignation from the premiership and from the Legislative Assembly. There followed one of the legendary scenes of Australian political history. Parkes called Barton into the ministers’ room and showed him his letter of resignation. As Parkes later told the story, Barton talked him out of quitting. ‘He said: ‘‘Oh don’t do that: what is to become of Federation?’’ I answered, ‘‘You are young and strong, you must take up Federation.’’ ’ Twenty years later B. R. Wise elaborated on the story: M

And he added, in reply to Mr Barton’s question, ‘Why this should be asked of him’, that ‘He himself was unable to carry it through because his health was so precarious that, whatever might be the result of that night’s proceedings, it was absolutely necessary for him to retire from Office and probably from public life. He was living in dread of a paralytic stroke. It was his intention to retire at once; and the conduct of the federal movement must devolve upon Mr Barton.’

The latter accepted the mantle of leadership thus informally cast upon his shoulders. Wise wrote his account after consultation with Barton, and later historians have followed him in identifying this as the moment

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when Barton’s destiny as leader of the federal movement was sealed. To a generation brought up on the Old Testament—probably to Parkes himself—the scene suggested the aged Moses, within sight of the Promised Land which he was destined not to enter, handing over the leadership of Israel to the vigorous young Joshua. But Barton’s credentials as leader of the federation movement did not depend on Parkes’ blessing. In the eyes of the press and the public he was already known as the keenest of federationists, one who asserted ‘the super-eminent importance of the object of federation over any other issue’. It may simply be that William Barton’s son knew how to behave discreetly in the presence of old gentlemen behaving grandiosely. Or, judging by events later that evening, it may be that Parkes and Barton’s conversation was more down-to-earth. Aged and fatigued though he was, Parkes may have hoped that Barton would throw himself into the creation of a federal party in the legislature in which there would be room for an elder statesman like himself, nominated for life to the Legislative Council. His conduct during the remainder of the debate suggests that Parkes had some such possibility in mind. At one point, having slapped down a cheeky young Labor member with much of his old sharpness, Parkes could not resist hinting: If I were out of this House to-morrow I should be just the same Henry Parkes as I am now; but my voice in this country would be just as great—probably greater . . . Possibly my influence for good would be much greater if relieved from office and a seat in this House.

It was a convincing valedictory, received with applause. Shortly after midnight Barton moved the adjournment of the debate. This was a favourite manoeuvre of his when time was needed for the cooling of tempers and the negotiation of compromises, but on this occasion it may have been prearranged with Parkes, since the premier at once said that he would treat the defeat of Barton’s motion as one of no confidence. As Barton was not even a member of the government party there was no need for Parkes to take this line unless he was deliberately forcing the issue—perhaps in the hope that Barton

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would be asked to form the next ministry? The amendment was rejected by 41 votes to 49 amid considerable excitement, and the last Parkes ministry was at an end. The newspapers saw Barton as a potential premier. The Herald reported rumours that the governor, Lord Jersey, would send for him. Lachlan Brient in the Daily Telegraph resurrected a favourite theme, urging a coalition between the two non-Labor parties under ‘one of the active party men, but one occupying rather a neutral position— say Mr Barton’. When the governor sent for Dibbs, as leader of the opposition, Parkes at once lost all enthusiasm for a move to the Legislative Council. Unlike Moses, he was beginning to have undignified second thoughts. He remained in the Legislative Assembly, and his last years would be spent scrabbling for the power which he had abdicated, lashing out against the younger generation, against Reid who usurped the Free Trade Party and against Barton who supplanted him in the federation movement. It did not suit Dibbs to form a cabinet with Barton on the loose as an Independent and although some thought that Barton’s recent friendliness to Parkes might have disqualified him, Dibbs invited Barton to serve as attorney-general. After four days Barton refused. Astutely, Dibbs then offered the position to Sir Julian Salomons, an outspoken antagonist of federation. Salomons would accept only an honorary cabinet post as vice-president of the executive council, and this left it open to Dibbs to renew his overture to Barton. Alert to the risk that the new government might be dominated by enemies of federation, this time Barton accepted. He made it a condition that he would be allowed to promote the cause of federation. He also secured an agreement that the new government would not propose protective duties exceeding an average of 10 per cent, hoping that this would prevent the creation of local vested interests likely to oppose federation. And countering the anti-federal element in Dibbs’ team, his close friend and ally Richard O’Connor entered the ministry as minister for justice and solicitor-general. Remembering how recently Barton had dismissed Dibbs as a conundrum, the press and the political world were startled. The Telegraph, crediting Barton with influence over the Labor members, thought he would be ‘a tower of strength’ to the Dibbs government,

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but added: ‘Has Mr Dibbs abandoned the idea of internal protection, or has Mr Barton bidden farewell to federation?’ The Herald feared that he had made ‘a calamitous mistake’. More than 20 years later, reflecting on his decision, Barton commented: ‘I have often doubted the wisdom of the course I took in accepting office, but on the outlook of the time I think there was in it less visible danger to the Federation movement than in any other which was possible.’ The economy slid into depression. The export price of wool, the main staple of New South Wales, had dropped steadily since 1886. The British money market was jittery about overseas investment since Barings, a major financier in South America, had collapsed in 1890, and Australian securities were tainted by wild over-speculation in the Melbourne land boom. The parlous condition of government finances made it inevitable that tariffs would have to be increased to raise revenue: ‘I had to acknowledge then, that finance must take precedence over Federation, for it demanded immediate settlement.’ Barton was also weighing up his long-term strategy: There was a majority in the House against the Federal Bill of 1891 (probably against any sort of Federation) and to have rushed that measure forward would have ensured its defeat. The only resort was to work steadily towards parliamentary suggestions of amendments, a second convention to consider them, and finally a popular vote . . . There were, of course, some who strewed tacks in my path, and I certainly had to pick my way.

Of his new cabinet colleagues, Dibbs kept his bargain honourably. O’Connor, John See, the treasurer, and Henry Copeland, minister for lands (‘a very rough diamond indeed’), supported Barton. Suttor, the minister for education, was undecided, William Lyne, minister for public works, was unenthusiastic, and Thomas Slattery, minister for mines, distinctly obstructive. In these circumstances Barton had a very clear view of the process necessary to keep the federation movement alive, although neither he nor any of his colleagues seems to have appreciated how long it would take. Many believed that Barton would not be able to promote federation while a member of a government intending to increase tariffs on the produce of the other Australian colonies. It was customary

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for newly appointed cabinet ministers to go to a by-election, as having accepted an office of profit under the Crown. Usually, although not invariably, this was a formality. All the Dibbs ministry except Barton were returned unopposed. But East Sydney was a traditional stronghold of free trade, and leading members of the Free Trade Party such as Bernhard Wise and George Reid thought that Barton might be vulnerable because of his shifting record on the tariff issue and his independent stance in the last parliamentary session. A candidate was found in William Grantham, the Labor man who had polled respectably at the general election in June. For the fourth time Barton took to the campaign trail in East Sydney. He began on 30 October with a packed meeting at the Masonic Hall. At the end John Norton, editor and proprietor of Truth, emphatic and erratic democrat, and a remarkably skilful gutter journalist, moved ‘that this meeting neither approves of nor condones Mr Barton’s inclusion in the Ministry’. He was met with groans and hooting, with cries of ‘Chuck him out!’, and Norton’s motion lapsed for want of a seconder. It was not the last time that Norton would snap disconcertingly at Barton’s heels. The election campaign lasted a week. Grantham plugged away doggedly at Barton’s readiness to hold back on federation in the interests of tariff protection, and the Herald seemed to share these misgivings. But Barton’s meetings were large and enthusiastic and, although the turnout was not as great as it had been in June, he was returned by a margin of 2778 votes to 1112. Barton was perhaps fortunate that Reid, his ablest critic, was away for the last few days of the by-election campaign, having gone to Wangaratta to get married. On 17 November Reid was chosen leader of the Free Trade Party, the only nominee for the post after Wise stood down. He assured his party that he was not opposed to federation, but only in the form embodied in Parkes’ proposal. This statement left room for compromise in future, but it mollified neither Barton nor Parkes. Reid at once tried to unseat the Dibbs government with a motion of no confidence framed in terms designed to attract Labor support. In the result the Labor group split in half between its protectionist and free-trade wings. The Dibbs government survived by an eightvote margin, enough to give promise of running a full term.

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Barton found his position demanding. After twelve years in parliament he could pass as a veteran politician, but for practically all that time he had operated on the sidelines as a rising backbencher, as Speaker, as a member of the Legislative Council. Yet his reputation was impressive enough for some to speak of him as a potential premier. A man of his temperament and classical background probably remembered how it had been said of the Emperor Galba, ‘omni consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset’ (‘everyone thought he would be a good ruler until he got the job’). It was challenging to be a senior minister in a partisan government, up against a leader of the opposition like Reid, who knew his strengths and weaknesses thoroughly, and was much more experienced and agile in the cut and thrust of debate. Barton was a good formal speaker when prepared, presenting his arguments with an impressive and forceful logic tempered by humour. He was less good at impromptu repartee and when under-prepared lapsed into verbosity. In the current parliamentary session he could leave Dibbs and See to take the lead in steering the tariff increases through parliament but he would have the main responsibility for a major electoral reform bill essential for keeping Labor support. This bill would confirm ‘one-man-one-vote’, break up the Legislative Assembly into single-member constituencies, and put an end to the practice of spreading general elections over three weeks, so that a candidate beaten in one electorate could seek refuge in another. Much of the preparatory work would have to be done by Barton himself, since he had inherited a permanent head of the attorney-general’s department of notoriously slack habits, ‘Bobby Mainwaring, with only one talent—that of putting letters into the wrong envelopes’. Barton summed up the easygoing office routine in a piece of doggerel: From 10 to 1 From 2 to 3 That from 3 to 4

There’s nothing done; We begin to see There’ll be nothing more!

But he was too soft-hearted to address the difficulties of ousting Mainwaring in favour of a more active replacement, and relied instead on his own efforts and O’Connor’s. However, by April 1893

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he was able to claim reforms in the department which would save the taxpayer £10 000 a year. Barton’s promotion to the ministry called for a more convenient address than ‘Calahla’. Late in 1891 the family moved to Manly when Edmund, feeling sorry for a friend’s widow who had a house to rent, once again committed himself without consulting Jeanie. For so tactful a man Edmund was surprisingly obtuse in some matters. Although less isolated, the house was near the top of a steep hill and was too small for the family, whose number was increasing to six (Leila Stephanie, the youngest child and second daughter, was born in August 1892). Jeanie continued to speak her mind on the subject, inspiring her husband to draw up a mock advertisement in which he sketched:

MRS BARTON’S MODEL ADVERTISEMENT Wanted, an elegantly furnished Residence, built of stone and marble, Cottage style preferred: square-built but of the Queen Anne order, with a touch of Elizabethan and a dash of Swiss. Must contain not less than 20 rooms, but must at the same time have extensive panoramic views from all windows and be in an elevated breezy position. A perfectly flat and level situation with an ample fall for drainage will be indispensable. Must be well in the country, but not more than 10 minutes’ walk of the General Post Office and handy to all trams, omnibuses, trains and ferries. No place with less than half a mile of water frontage will be looked at, but the enervating sea breeze must be entirely absent. Facilities for lawn tennis, riding, shooting, boating and fishing must be combined. A steam launch, a yacht, a carriage and pair and assortment of tricycles must be part of the furniture. There must be a tower but no stairs, and the dangerous appliance called a lift will not be entertained, while the roof must be flat and easily accessible. Flower and kitchen garden and orchard required, grounds not to be less than

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20 acres, such as one man can easily keep in order and at the same time have plenty of leisure for grooming, driving, managing the yacht and launch and catching bait. Rent not to exceed £75 per annum, taxes paid.

Jeanie must have found the teasing affectionate, as years later when they were burning old letters she insisted on preserving the ‘advertisement’ as a keepsake. It provides one of the rare glimpses into the Bartons’ home life in those years. The political scene was admittedly preoccupying. As many an incoming government has claimed before and since, the Dibbs ministry discovered that the financial situation was worse than its predecessors had admitted. The quickest, indeed the only way of improving the revenue without the radically controversial measure of income tax, was an increase in tariffs on a wide variety of imports. This was consistent with protectionism, but hit at imports from the other Australian colonies, and exposed Barton to criticisms from free-trader sources as an insincere federationist. When the financial statement was introduced in December 1891 Reid, from the first an aggressive leader of the opposition, brought down a motion of censure attacking the raising of the tariff issue before the one-man-one-vote principle was secured. Reid hoped to bring the Labor members back into line behind his Free Trade Party, but they were almost evenly split over the tariff issue, and the motion failed. After several weeks of debate, including two marathon sittings of 36 hours each, the government pushed through its tariff with a comfortable majority. Business confidence continued to falter during the early months of 1892 and in February rumour-mongering provoked a run on the Savings Bank of New South Wales, stemmed only by Dibbs’ repeated insistence that the bank was solvent. Against this darkening economy it was hard to argue that federation legislation should take priority. Instead, Barton exercised his talent for mediation in another direction. Following the maritime strike of 1890 a royal commission

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chaired by Dr Andrew Garran was set up to report on industrial relations. Barton appeared before it while a backbencher in May 1891, speaking with the experience of one who had been appointed not long since as referee for a dispute in the Newcastle coal-mining industry. On this occasion he succeeded in brokering an agreement which both parties found acceptable, if not entirely satisfactory. This confirmed his belief that parties in industrial disputes should refer the issue to a conciliation tribunal comprising representatives of both sides. If the dispute remained unsettled it should then go to arbitration under the chairmanship of a judge who should be a specialist in industrial relations. Without waiting for the royal commission’s report to be tabled, Parkes while premier brought in legislation embodying the ideas which Barton and others had put forward. After Parkes left office the Dibbs government inherited this legislation, and it fell to Barton to pilot it through the Legislative Assembly. It received bipartisan support though Reid moved that arbitration should only be resorted to if both parties appeared, whereas the Labor members favoured compulsion. As passed, the legislation took Barton’s position that arbitration should be voluntary. Its adequacy would soon be tested. Seeking further to please the Labor Party, Parkes had also introduced a bill abolishing plural voting, so as to establish the principle of ‘one-man-one-vote’, and providing for a redistribution of parliamentary seats. Barton announced that the government had decided to postpone the redistribution, in the hope of winning approval for the major reform of one-man-one-vote and the cleansing of the electoral rolls to remove the names of dead or absent voters who might be impersonated. He successfully fought the measure through the Legislative Assembly, but although O’Connor argued stalwartly in the Upper House it was narrowly rejected there. Admittedly, electoral reform and the Conciliation bill were both designed to secure Labor support, but Barton himself had both measures much at heart. He was working at full stretch, especially in the last weeks of March when Dibbs was absent through ill health, and it was with perceptible relief that Barton welcomed the end of the session. In April 1892 Dibbs decided on a sea voyage to England, partly for health reasons but also to shepherd New South Wales interests

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on the London money market. Barton was pitched into the acting premiership for over four months. At first he appeared to thrive on it. The Catholic Freeman’s Journal commented that ‘the awful austerities of Lent do not appear to have materially affected the acting Premier’s fair, round form’. Half a century later John Reynolds picked up an old tune from the Sydney music halls: Ta ra ra ra boom de ay Georgie Dibbs has gone away Toby Barton’s here to stay Ta ra ra ra boom de ay!

In fact Dibbs was to return in September, embellished by a knighthood which sat oddly on his republican shoulders. Barton had cabled Dibbs: ‘Don’t accept knighthood if avoidable. Refusal would lift party, ruin opposition, and justify your mission.’ Dibbs insisted on using his own discretion—Queen Victoria, he later explained, had personally offered it, and he could never refuse a lady—and Barton was left to face public meetings and refute claims that Dibbs had gone to England for the title. Dibbs also upset his colleagues by proposing to negotiate directly with the French about Pacific policy on the basis that if they ceased convict transportation to New Caledonia they could be given a free hand in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). Like many Australian nationalists Barton was a staunch upholder of the Anglo-Australian presence in the South Pacific, and he sent Dibbs a stiff cablegram of protest. ‘My colleagues,’ grumbled Dibbs to the governor, Lord Jersey, ‘carp by wire at my movements here in a very unsatisfactory manner. Barton promised to write a few lines by each mail, but I have not seen a line.’ But he sent a smooth reply and the affair fizzled out. His wayward leader was the least of Barton’s troubles. Too much of his time was spent interviewing seekers after government patronage whom with greater experience and tough-mindedness he might have fended off. To the Articled Clerks’ Association he complained: ‘Projects of law reform are put aside every session as long as there is a bridge to be got or a little local bill to be put through.’ More fatefully for the future, his Conciliation and Arbitration Act was to

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be found wanting at its first major test in a stagnant economy. In June 1892, noting the triumph of the Queensland pastoralists over the shearers’ union, the mine-owners of Broken Hill repudiated a three-year-old agreement with the unions recognising the closed shop and payment of hourly wages. In the face of falling silver and lead prices they hoped to increase productivity by introducing employment by contract. Predictably the Trades and Labour Council called a strike. Management played with a high hand, refusing to enter negotiations under the terms of Barton’s legislation and demanding that the government should send in the military to keep order. This called for careful judgement. More than most outback mining centres, Broken Hill was hard to control. The quickest line of approach from Sydney was by sea to Adelaide and thence by rail, and if law and order were seriously challenged it would take several days to rush in reinforcements. Barton withstood the request. ‘Any emergency will be dealt with promptly,’ he told the mine-owners, ‘but undue causes of irritation must be avoided. From what we learn there is every expectation that the miners will exercise proper self-control.’ Fifty police were despatched, but the government refused to send more or to authorise the use of special constables. The strike dragged on through July and August, with neither side resorting to conciliation. On 25 August the mines were re-opened using non-union labour. Brawls and punch-ups flared between unionists and contract workers, and the strike leaders hardened their rhetoric. Even if half the reports of violence reaching the Sydney newspapers were exaggerated, enough remained to show that unionists were intimidating ‘scabs’. It was, in Brian Dickey’s words, ‘a desperate business . . . keeping law and order in a frontier community that probably possessed few if any of the factors of social solidity to be found even in Sydney’. Having convened parliament at the end of August Barton found himself under pressure from conservatives to uphold the magistrate at Broken Hill and from Labor members to remove him. The unionists were also unrealistically demanding the removal of O’Connor, minister for justice, and this probably helped convince Barton of their recalcitrance. On 7 September Barton announced that another 100 police would be sent to Broken Hill, and next day he instructed the crown prosecutor, W. H. Coffey, to

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proceed to Broken Hill in the expectation that some of the strike leaders would be arrested for conspiracy. Coffey arrived to a deteriorating situation. On 9 September a train carrying non-union labourers was shot at and stoned as it passed through Broken Hill goods station, and the police carried fixed bayonets as they escorted the newcomers through the streets. Six days later seven of the strike leaders were charged with conspiracy. The news stimulated great protests, including a demonstration in Sydney by six or seven thousand workers organised by the Sydney Trades and Labour Council. By now a refreshed Dibbs was back from overseas and Reid launched a motion of no confidence, which he had been deferring until the premier’s return. Reid’s attack was complicated by two other motions of censure against the Dibbs ministry. One criticised the premier for travelling overseas at public expense without parliamentary approval. This was unlikely to succeed, as there were vindicating precedents. The other condemned the government’s conduct during the strike, and although the Labor members could be expected to vote for this, Reid and his followers could not afford to seem too supportive of an increasingly unpopular strike. Barton continued to assert the government’s neutrality. His instructions to Coffey were moderation itself: strive to be absolutely even-handed, do not hurry or embarrass the accused, adhere strictly to the common law, accept moderate bail, do not try to resurrect ancient or disused laws (as Griffith had done during the Queensland shearers’ strike). He had brought conspiracy charges against delinquent company directors—one of whom, Francis Abigail, a former cabinet minister under Parkes, was gaoled for five years— and in equity must prosecute trade unionists who appeared to overstep the law. Dibbs was in fighting form, and all three censure motions were voted down, although Reid’s failed by only four votes. But Barton was not out of trouble yet. Late in September Coffey reported that the accused unionists would surely be acquitted if they were tried at Broken Hill, because a jury must consist of shopkeepers and tradespeople, who would be open to pressure and boycotting. Barton directed that the trial be held at Deniliquin, the next town on the court circuit. Coming on top of his original decision to prosecute, this intervention permanently

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damaged him in the eyes of the labour movement. His democratic sympathies, they said, had been suborned by the conservative environment of his cronies in the Athenaeum Club. These criticisms intensified after a jury of eleven farmers and a woolscourer christened the new Deniliquin courthouse by acquitting two of the accused unionists of conspiracy and finding five guilty. They were sentenced to terms of imprisonment up to two years. In a gesture reflecting Dibbs’ mordant sense of humour they were all released after seven months in honour of a royal wedding. In Labor folklore it was Barton who was excoriated as ‘the only man in the Dibbs cabinet at that time who insisted and persisted in putting that strike down by force’. ‘When we appealed for help and sympathy,’ claimed one miner, ‘. . . his answer was a large body of armed police with bayonets, a thirst for our hearts’ blood, and balls to smash our bones.’ Such memories lost none of their vividness for being not quite accurate. Yet it is hard to see Barton as a catspaw of the employers. He consistently urged conciliation and withstood their appeals for tough measures. Even in November, as the men returned to work, he was still trying to bring about a conference between employers and workers, and the mine-owners, ungenerous even in victory, were refusing and demanding that the police should stay. It may be that the dispute at Broken Hill had passed the point of crisis by the time that Barton, having awaited Dibbs’ return, ordered the conspiracy prosecutions. After holding his hand so long, he might have sat through the remainder of the strike without further antagonising Labor. This would have required the kind of foresight that can be achieved only by hindsight. He was sorely troubled by the dilemma and at the Athenaeum Club was uncharacteristically unapproachable and silent while the strike lasted. It was never easy for Barton to accept that there were some situations in which a middle way could not be found. Nor did the political pressure let up. Since taking office, Barton told the House, ‘I have not been in my bed on an average three hours a day.’ Immediately the votes of censure were over Barton returned to the issue of electoral reform. On 6 October 1892 he introduced a bill providing for single-member electorates, with all adult males having the vote. The shaping of the new parliamentary

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constituencies of course engaged the intense and personal interest of most members, and it was six weeks before the legislation was transmitted to the Upper House. This time O’Connor had better luck with the Legislative Council, although it took six months to negotiate the final form of the bill. If Barton could not claim credit as author of the one-man-one-vote principle enshrined in this reform, he certainly showed the skill, patience and draftsmanship required to steer it to the statute book after previous attempts had failed. Dibbs had agreed that immediately electoral reform was cleared through the Legislative Assembly, Barton was at liberty to introduce his federation proposals and on 23 November 1892 his chance came. It was now more than eighteen months after the Convention, and the other colonies, faced with the most severe economic downturn in over 40 years, were all content to hold their hands until New South Wales showed itself ready to proceed with federation. Then and later, Barton was criticised for not bringing the measure forward earlier. Given a strong and obstructive opposition, there was much force in Barton’s plea that he could not have moved earlier when such pressing questions as the financial situation and the Broken Hill strike required attention. Others indeed criticised him for insisting on pushing his ‘fad’ of federation in priority to such domestic legislation as local government reform and updating the laws governing mining on private property—though as Sir Henry Parkes was to point out, there never would be a moment without other legislation plausibly claiming priority. Barton could be by no means certain that parliament would back him, but some of the omens were in his favour. Dibbs was adhering honourably to his promise to allow Barton full scope to promote federation. Reid had swung round from scepticism to a position of qualified and not uncritical support for federation. Others were shifting in the same direction. Perhaps the eighteen months of delay had their silver lining. Barton spoke for a little more than two hours in introducing his proposals. He moved that the Legislative Assembly should reaffirm its support of federation, and approve the main principles of the 1891 draft Constitution. Parliament should then consider what amendments were needed, and after each participating colony had

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done likewise there would be a second Convention, after which the finalised Constitution should be submitted to the voters of Australia. Admitting that this would take longer than he at first expected, Barton emphasised the need for New South Wales to give a lead. Federation’s advantages would include a united voice in negotiating with the British government, stronger credit in attracting overseas investment, control over immigration policy (Barton made no secret of his preference for a White Australia) and perhaps— a hope not realised within the next century—a common railways policy. State rights would be protected by the Senate, though as one who favoured a direct vote for senators by public election he made slightly heavy weather of the draft Constitution’s provision that they would be chosen by the State parliaments. His views on the republican issue were clear: ‘. . . this question of monarchy and republicanism will have to be fought out here after federation . . . if you are going to be a republican, federate first.’ If the Australasian colonies became republics without first combining, this would create a Latin American-style polity with the petty republics competing and warring with each other. He himself was comfortable with the British connection, while as an Australian nationalist he acknowledged that total independence might become appropriate in time; but the first priority was to ensure the coherence of the new nation, whether monarchy or republic. Federation was never intended to stifle the republican debate forever. The debate extended over several weeks, taking longer than Barton had hoped. Most members wanted to express opinions. The first to follow Barton was one of his ablest opponents, the lawyer Jack Want. He proposed an amendment which, while favouring federation in broad principle, would have delayed an outcome in favour of further prolonged discussion. A backbencher, Thomas Rose, denounced Barton’s speech as ‘saturated with toryism’, interrupting more useful legislation. Then the federationists rallied. Garvan spoke of the need for common defence against threats from Asia. Reid, while believing the Senate too powerful and the constitution too difficult to amend, confirmed his support; he too thought that a republic might follow, but well in the future. McMillan made a thoughtful contribution on the economic benefits of federation. As

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sittings grew later and tempers became ragged, a Labor member, George Black, provoked a row by alleging that federation was a mere ‘stalking horse’ to distract attention from the Dibbs government’s conservative legislation. In mid-December the debate had to be stood aside for the government’s financial statement. This provoked another censure motion from Reid and another long and verbose debate in which Barton revealed an unexpected toughness in attack. The ministry survived by 68 votes to 61. The vote was followed almost immediately by another row about allegations that the government had promised to release the Broken Hill strike leaders from prison in return for Labor votes. Again it fell to Barton to calm things down. The Christmas adjournment followed, and it was not until 11 January 1893 that the House rejected Want’s amendment and approved Barton’s original motion by 48 votes to 29. This was not quite the end, because Andrew Kelly, a Labor protectionist, immediately moved that the franchise for the federal parliament should be one-man-one-vote. Barton had spoken up for this principle during the 1891 Convention, and had just been the author of the bill applying it in New South Wales. He now argued that making one-man-one-vote a precondition of federation might be taken as a coercive gesture by colonies such as Queensland and Western Australia which were still operating on a more limited franchise. It would be better for each of the colonies to proceed on its own franchise, leaving the question of federal voting rights to be determined by the Commonwealth parliament. This pragmatic approach was endorsed by a 33 to 26 margin in the Legislative Assembly, but a few weeks later it provoked a tremendous open letter to Barton in the Bulletin from the journalist William Astley, writing under his pen name of ‘Price Warung’. He accused Barton of backsliding on his one-man-one-vote principles, and warned him against the influence of ‘your club friends whose parasitical intimacy with you is more fateful to your best self than any darts from your foes’ quivers’: Parkes long ago sold himself to Imperialism—Griffith has of late sold himself to Caste and Privilege and Monopoly: and today they are already enrolled among the Iscariots of history. Before

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it is too late take warning . . . The public of Australia demand a Free Federation; and your one chance of enduring fame is to become the mouthpiece of that demand.

It is never possible to determine how far politicians are influenced by the media, even by one long, eloquent, and personally directed missive such as ‘Price Warung’s’ open letter. Barton had a regard for Astley, and it is unlikely that he read that Bulletin without wincing. It is at least a coincidence that in those same weeks Barton was moving away from the belief that the constitution could be shaped by the politicians in the colonial parliaments alone. The public of Australia outside the parliaments must become more closely involved. Barton’s energies would now be directed to bringing the issues of federation before that public.

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Federation Becalmed Federation Becalmed

B

not waited for Price Warung’s prompting before beginning to take the cause of federation to the people. Picking up a hint which Parkes had thrown out months previously but never acted upon, Barton set about building up organisations in every possible country and suburban centre, federation leagues which would act as pressure groups and serve as channels of education and propaganda. Even while the debate was still unfinished in the Legislative Assembly he went in December 1892 to the Murray Valley, accompanied by William Lyne as local member. This region, closer to Melbourne than Sydney but impeded from the Melbourne market by tariffs, was fertile soil for the federal cause. Lyne was a masterly grassroots politician, knowing almost every voter personally and touring his electorate regularly with liquid refreshments in his buggy. ‘I flattered myself that I was top-notch at attending to my constituents,’ wrote one fellow parliamentarian, ‘but when I saw Lyne on the job I realised I was a chicken at the game.’ With such support Barton secured large and enthusiastic crowds when he urged the arguments for federation in two major speeches at Corowa on 10 December and Albury the next evening. Next month the first Australasian Federation Leagues were formed at these centres. In February Barton enlisted the help of J. M. Chanter, member for the neighbouring electorate of Riverina. Chanter readily agreed to make contacts in such centres as Moama, Tocumwal and ARTON HAD

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Federation Becalmed 105 The Stolen Clothes. Dibbs and Barton purloin opposition leader Reid’s clothes (or policies) while he is swimming. (The Bulletin, 28/1/1893)

Deniliquin, and had successes in each. In Tocumwal, for instance, a branch was set up before the end of March and its secretary was appealing for a lecturer to campaign along the Murray border towns. By June there were also branches at Mulwala, Wahgunyah and Berrigan, and across the Victorian border at Echuca, Rutherglen and Cobram. In several of these centres the Australian Natives’ Association was already established as a solid foundation for federation

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sentiment. In coordinating the leagues the essential figure was Edward Dowling, who in his early forties had retired as director of technical education on the grounds of ill-health, but only a few years later had time and energy to act as one of the secretaries for the movement. Unobtrusive but meticulously efficient, Dowling was the perfect foil for Barton. Without him the federal movement in New South Wales would probably have fallen apart. The early months of 1893 were not a promising season for political experiment. The financial situation, ominous for many months, was deteriorating, and unemployment was widespread and rising. The Dibbs ministry responded by proposing to raise revenue through an income tax, thus offending both the affluent who disliked taxation and the free-traders who preferred a land tax. Sir Henry Parkes, as if he were still leader of the opposition, moved a resolution of want of confidence in the government’s retrenchment programme. After another marathon debate lasting 30 hours the Dibbs ministry scraped home by 60 votes to 57. It had survived seven motions of censure or no confidence in less than six months in a parliament whose temper was not improved by sitting in summer. Egged on by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph, the government’s opponents then called a citizens’ meeting which sent a deputation to the governor, Lord Jersey, urging him to call an election, but Jersey refused. In this embattled atmosphere the government forced through the income tax proposal and bills to regulate mining on private lands and coal mining, both of which then bogged down in the Legislative Council. The pressure was beginning to tell on Barton. More than once he complained of ‘an insolent and mendacious press’ and of the opposition’s ‘slander, lies and defamation’. Then late in March Dibbs was declared bankrupt, and was obliged to vacate his seat for a week while he sought reelection, so Barton was once again, briefly, acting colonial secretary. Stormy political weather was troubled further by a series of spectacular bank collapses. At the end of March the Federal Bank failed through over-involvement in dubious Melbourne land speculations. Its downfall started a domino effect which soon shook the Melbourne and Sydney business worlds. One bank after another closed its doors during April: the Commercial, the English, Scottish

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& Australian, with a large Sydney clientele, the Australian Joint Stock Bank, whose business was almost all in New South Wales, the London Chartered and, on 1 May, the National. Dibbs acted with admirable decision. He saw clearly the necessity of throwing the government’s authority behind the remaining banks. With Barton as his legal authority and Timothy Coghlan, the government statistician, as economic adviser, he introduced emergency legislation allowing the government to declare banknotes legal tender, a status previously monopolised by the State’s gold sovereigns and smaller currency. Redemption of banknotes was made a first charge on the banks. Parkes grumbled that ‘this government should retire before flooding the country with paper currency’, but the legislation was passed on 3 May. Of the five surviving banks only one, the City Bank (with which Barton held accounts) was immediately prepared to cooperate. It was rewarded with a substantial government deposit. Some of the others had clashed with Dibbs in the past and for a few days they stood warily aloof. Piquantly, Dibbs’ brother was general manager of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney, the most stubborn of the four banks which held out. This bank came under such pressure during the next few days that its directors lost their nerve and talked of suspending business. This, Dibbs and Barton considered, would be an affront to the well-being of New South Wales, and they drew up a strong statement appealing to the bank to come under the legal tender legislation. On Monday morning, 15 May, Coghlan delivered the message by hand, but the CBC had already suspended. That night, Coghlan records, there was ‘almost panic in banking circles throughout Australia’. The following day the three remaining Sydney banks submitted. It remained only to pass an Act authorising the government to issue Treasury notes against the current accounts in the suspended banks. These were legal tender redeemable in gold in five years. By these resolutely interventionist measures the Dibbs government saved the credit of New South Wales. Before the crash, Australian banks held capital and reserves totalling £23.2 million. Sixty per cent of this amount was tied up in the suspended banks. Of the £9.2 million held by the survivors across Australia, the New South Wales banks kept open by Dibbs and Barton’s legislation

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represented £7.65 million. If they had gone under, the collapse would have been almost Australia-wide. Dibbs was deservedly given the major credit for this achievement, but it helped that he was supported by Barton and See as well as securing the cooperation of Reid and McMillan from the opposition. Indirectly the banking crisis fostered the federation movement. By revealing how a financial debacle in Melbourne could shock the finances of New South Wales or Queensland, by exposing the interdependence of Australia’s banking systems, the crisis impressed business leaders with the idea that federation would strengthen Australia’s financial system and its credit on overseas money markets. This idea had been gaining currency even before the crisis. In January 1893 the director of the Sydney Joint Stock Bank argued that: the federation of the Australian colonies would meet, and finally settle, the difference of opinion that now exists between us and the English capitalist. Securities resting on the asset of United Australia could no longer be flouted by a pack of London brokers, or depreciated at the caprice of half-informed and not disinterested London papers, but, on the contrary, would take their place among the best securities that could be offered in any part of the world.

The Pastoralists’ Review thought: ‘What federation tends to promote is that confidence which is so conspicuously absent in Australia now.’ This was an encouraging groundswell of support, but carried the risk that the labour movement would mistrust federation because the men of capital endorsed it. Even in the thick of the banking crisis Barton was not neglecting the Federation League, on whose behalf he was up all the night of 16–17 May working on a draft code of rules. ‘I am nearly off my head with work,’ he wrote. The crisis over, it should have been time for him to lead the Legislative Assembly through detailed consideration of the draft federal Constitution, but this did not happen. On 30 May he announced in parliament that he could not attend the remainder of the session because his physician, treating symptoms of illness which had appeared a few weeks previously, advised immediate rest from his parliamentary duties. He expressed bitter

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Federation Becalmed 109 Mr Barton Overtaxed. The media were cynical when ill-health prevented Barton from proceeding with the Federation Bill shortly before the Corowa Conference. (The Bulletin, 10/6/1893)

disappointment because he had hoped that if parliament decided on its desired amendments to the Constitution during the current session, it might be possible to hold the second Federal Convention in the early months of 1894. Considering the problems of getting all six colonies to the negotiating table, Barton was over-optimistic if he really expected to push the cause of federation so fast. More likely he had been buoyed up by positive responses to the Federal League. But this illness, coming at a moment so inconvenient to the federal cause, provoked ill-natured comment. The Daily Telegraph cynically speculated that the Dibbs ministry, fearful of splitting over federation, had shirked the issue ‘until every excuse was exhausted . . . when a convenient illness attacked Mr Barton, and in place of the Commonwealth Bill he offered Parliament a doctor’s certificate’. This aroused his physician, Dr Harman Tarrant, to rebuttal. He wrote that at a chance meeting he remarked that Barton was looking very ill, and after inquiring about his symptoms recommended

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immediate rest. Barton said this was impossible, as he had charge of important measures to complete during the parliamentary session. Tarrant was so concerned about the ‘serious risk’ that he wrote to Dibbs and, more tellingly, asked Jeanie Barton ‘to see that my instructions were carried out’. That decided it. Undoubtedly Barton had been working extremely hard during the financial crisis, and it was unfair of the Australasian to comment: ‘Mr Barton has been overworking himself, or more likely over-worrying, as he has never been a hard worker.’ Family tradition mentions bronchial pneumonia, but this seems a confusion with another illness eighteen months later. Dibbs had a more down-toearth explanation: Unfortunately for my Attorney-General he dearly loves his knife and fork, and the liquids which a good dinner supplies, with the result neglect of business and utter physical collapse. He got so bad at last that once in the Athenaeum Club it took a team of bullocks to move him, and when he did show up, he would go to sleep while talking to you. The doctors recommend a fasting diet but the physic is distasteful to a man of his habits . . . But I fear he will never give up his liking of overfeeding, and that means certain death in a short time.

The likelihood is that this was one of two periods in Barton’s life—the other coming in the summer of 1901–2 when he was Commonwealth prime minister—when his response to the stress of personal and public pressures took the form of eating and drinking too much. From the time of the Broken Hill strike one crisis had followed another, with the government embattled by frequent motions of no confidence, the unemployment problem growing, the banking crisis of April and May and personal financial embarrassments. In the middle of all this he was launching the Federal League. Despite his love of good food and wine Barton was no sot, but when troubles were heavy he sought the consolations of the table too unwisely and from these occasions the legend of ‘Tosspot Toby’ has grown. It is less often remembered that on both occasions he pulled back from excess and recovered his even keel. His mood was undoubtedly darkened because around this time

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his personal finances were becoming acutely troubled. So far the cause cannot be traced. The only financial record surviving from this period records a deposit of over £4000 made with the City Bank in 1886. After minor withdrawals and deposits for six years the account came abruptly to an end in August 1892, suggesting a sudden need for liquidity. Whether he had speculated unwisely in land companies or whether unfortunate mining investments let him down cannot be determined. Making a will as an older man he stipulated that none of the capital providing his widow with an annuity should be invested in mining shares, and this suggests memory of an unhappy experience. On the other hand his bank account notes transactions, probably interest payments, made to the real estate company Hardie & Gorman. Around the same time Lord Rosebery, dealing through intermediaries including Barton’s federalist colleague William Manning, met with losses—which he could better afford—in real estate investments around Chatswood on the North Shore. Barton’s name was not among Rosebery’s fellow investors, but he may have been involved in a similar fiasco. Be that as it may, from 1893 until he became prime minister of the Australian Commonwealth in 1901 his public career was pursued against a personal background of incessant financial stringency. Around this time Edmund sprang it on his family, again unexpectedly, that they were moving to ‘Kalingo’ in Avoca Street, Randwick, also rented from a friend, at the substantial rate of £400 a year. The house lay in his constituency, but it was a long way from Jeanie’s friends. Of necessity they were to remain there for two years. Despite his absence from parliament during June, Barton was still attending to the business of the attorney-general’s office, and he was deeply involved in setting up the Sydney branch of the Australasian Federation League, which was seen as the centrepiece of the whole movement. His efforts to launch the branch on a bipartisan basis ran into difficulties with both Parkes and Wise. Sir Henry never liked it when younger men took action on an issue which he considered his own. Barton moved quickly to mollify him: ‘It is not true that I am proposing to ‘‘stump the country’’ or to ‘‘open a campaign’’,’ he wrote on 6 June. ‘Those that have said so know that I am not in a condition to do either of these things.

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But if I were fit for such action I should not take it.’ Instead he invited Parkes to a preliminary meeting of sympathisers to plan a full-scale launch of a central federal league based in Sydney. Parkes sent a politely non-committal reply, and when they met a day or two later sounded interested, but questioned the timing of Barton’s initiative. After brooding about this conversation for a week Parkes wrote a much more hostile letter. Barton, he thought, had compromised himself by entering a protectionist government which in 20 months had done nothing to advance federation, whereas in a similar period he, Parkes, had swept the movement from the Tenterfield speech to the Sydney Convention. Where Parkes had operated ‘from the high ground of Prime Minister of the oldest colony’, negotiating on equal terms with other governments, Barton was a mere attorney-general with indifferent or hostile cabinet colleagues. The public would see the league ‘as an attempt to cover the neglect of past opportunities’, and Parkes would not enter a movement ‘which has not the full sanction of my better judgment’. It was not surprising that when the preliminary meeting took place on 22 June in the vestibule of the Sydney Town Hall, the Sydney Morning Herald sensed ‘an atmosphere of misgiving and distrust’ and commented on the small attendance of free-traders. Reid stayed away, saying that the draft Constitution needed more revision by parliament before submission to the public. Only McMillan was present, for although not overhopeful of progress under the Dibbs ministry he was seized with the need to make the League ‘a citizens’ movement with an executive from which members of Parliament are to be excluded’, and his attendance counted for much. The mayor of Sydney, William Manning,1 agreed to convene and preside over a meeting to form a federal league, and the date was fixed for 3 July. Parkes was unappeased. To his disciple Bernhard Wise he wrote: Mr Barton’s move is as he says ‘a desire to save the government at the forthcoming elections by appealing to the federal sentiment of freetraders’ . . . I am beginning to regard Mr Barton in a new character—as the ‘artful dodger’ of our politics. In every new phase of his changeable existence he puts on a grotesque solemnity and lays down the law to himself which he obeys so

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long as it suits his ends. As for example when he appeals to us to deal with each other like gentlemen until it suits him to cover some unfortunate opponent with the blackguardism of his attack.

But, he added, ‘so far from the new dodge being allowed to create further divisions, it ought to be made the turning point for closer union’. The same day Wise wrote to Barton a letter intended for publication, inviting him to declare his bona fides by undertaking to oppose any further increase in tariffs and to promote reciprocal trade agreements with the other Australian colonies. Barton was not to be enticed into breaching cabinet solidarity and expressed regret that Wise could not lay party politics aside: ‘I decline, then, to scuffle with you on the steps of the temple.’ This controversy may have deflected his attention from the handbills which were circulating in the working-class suburbs of inner Sydney urging ‘Australian democracy’ to ‘roll up’ at the Town Hall and ‘vote them down’. The meeting turned out to be a rough night. The handbills resulted from the initiative of William Guy Higgs, a young printer and stalwart of the Social Democratic League dismayed at the free trade versus protectionist faction fighting in the labour movement. He saw a chance of rejuvenating the cause of labour by hitching republicanism to the federation movement, thus mobilising the working class behind Australian nationalism. A crowd estimated at between two and three thousand turned up at the Town Hall. Higgs foreshadowed his resolution but yielded to Barton, who moved for the establishment of an Australasian Federation League open to all adult citizens and owing no party allegiances or class distinctions. He tackled the republican issue squarely: A federation properly constituted—on broad and democratic lines—would be enabled to work out its own destiny. The question as to whether this nation was to occupy its present position in relation to the English Crown (‘No, no’) or whether it should be an independent nation (‘Yes’) could not be settled by half a dozen separate colonies, but it would be settled one way or another by united Australia.

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To this Higgs replied: ‘It would be possible to build up a mighty republic whose liberal institutions and munificent laws might be an example for the whole world to follow.’ McMillan, who as a leading employer attracted more heckling than Barton, seconded the resolution and a visiting Victorian politician spoke third. Then Higgs moved his counter-resolutions. The federated Australia should be a democratic republic with no Senate or Upper House. Its programme should include one-man-one-vote, use of the referendum, the nationalisation of all land, and the total exclusion of all Asians and other aliens incompatible with the Australian way of life. As reported, Higgs concentrated most on attacking the Senate. It was ridiculous, he argued, that the sparse population of Western Australia should enjoy equal representation with New South Wales. Here he touched on a basic dilemma of the federal compromise which troubled many in New South Wales and Victoria, not all radicals. He took the meeting with him, and when Mayor Manning demanded a show of hands the journalists thought that Higgs’ motion was supported by something like two to one. Unblushingly Manning declared Higgs’ motion narrowly defeated, and Barton’s original resolutions carried. Amid rising tumult from the body of the hall the platform party hastily passed its remaining resolutions and, having established the Australasian Federal League under these dubious auspices, abandoned the meeting to the radicals. A longhaired young hero of the Charters Towers strikes, Fred Vosper, later to become a notable stirrer as a Western Australian goldfields editor, took the chair, and the meeting proceeded to pass motions of censure on the mayor until the police arrived. With the hindsight of more than a century it could be argued that Higgs and his supporters spoke with the voice of the future. If in the circumstances of the 1890s the republicans had taken over the League it must have set back the federation movement for years, as it was unthinkable that the six Australian colonies would all consent to join a socialist or radical republic. Remote and loyalist Western Australia would have shied away; so would Queensland with its non-European labour, and probably also Victoria and Tasmania, where the labour movement was as yet underdeveloped. Nor was it likely that radical republicanism would have triumphed more easily

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in an unfederated New South Wales. It took another seventeen years and a good deal of modification in Labor policy before the voters of New South Wales were prepared to elect even a mildly reformist Labor government. Higgs was so little expecting to wage a successful fight that within a few weeks he left Sydney to accept the editorship of the Brisbane Worker. He and his supporters had secured a propaganda coup, and had reminded the middle-class promoters of the Federal League that there was an irreverent and proletarian Australia whose needs and aspirations must be heard as well; the unfriendly might see them as a group of irresponsible spoilers, trying to derail the federation movement without significantly advancing their own cause. Certainly Barton spoke no more of the possibility of a republican debate once federation was secured. When at the moment of triumph Quick and Garran recounted the history of the federal movement they belittled the republicans as ‘a few ardent but irresponsible advocates of Australian federation’ and asserted that ‘not a solitary public writer or speaker seriously discussed the possibility, much less the probability, of separation’. But on that night in July 1893 republicanism might have capsized federation. Possibly the radical challenge pushed protectionists and freetraders into closer cooperation on the Federal League. When its committee was formed on 17 July its executive included no politicians. Mayor Manning was president, and Dowling and A. B. Cannaway joint secretaries. The general council included McMillan, Bruce Smith and Carruthers from the free-trade side as well as Barton, O’Connor, E. W. O’Sullivan and Sir Patrick Jennings from the protectionists. Parkes and Wise stayed aloof to continue sniping at the League; so did Reid, but his was more the attitude of a critical friend. This was Barton’s last intervention for the present. A day later, on 18 July, he and his wife departed on a round trip by steamer to Vancouver. Dibbs had arranged that Barton should recuperate on a fact-finding mission investigating the case for a mail service to Vancouver as competition for the existing San Francisco route. So it was that Barton was absent from the Corowa conference which clinched popular participation in the federation process. Edward Wilson, an energetic citizen who was the mainstay of the pioneer Corowa Federal League, picked up an initiative by

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neighbouring Berrigan to organise a conference of the border district Federation Leagues at Corowa, to which visitors from Melbourne and Sydney were invited. This was the genesis of the Corowa Conference, which met on 31 July and 1 August 1893. Dowling attended, with several members of parliament, among them Lyne and O’Sullivan. Unfortunately the Sydney business community’s representation was far weaker than Melbourne’s. From this time onward allegations that federation was a Melbourne plot to capture some of the New South Wales market were to dog the federation movement. Pursuing a line to which it had stuck for several years, a representative of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce successfully moved a resolution advocating the formation of an intercolonial customs union as a necessary precondition of federation. Stimulated by an increasingly restive gathering, who by the second day of the conference were complaining of too much talk and not enough action, Dr John Quick of Bendigo came up with a critically important recommendation. The second Federal Convention should comprise ten delegates from each colony elected by the voters instead of being nominated by their parliaments. This would provide a democratic legitimacy which politicians alone could not command. Quick’s suggestion was enthusiastically adopted, and it gave Corowa a lasting significance. Federation’s credentials were established as a grassroots movement linking democratic aspiration with the earthier commercial advantages of Australia-wide free trade. The Bartons returned from their voyage on 8 September. Unhappily Jeanie was seasick nearly all the time. Edmund on the other hand felt greatly recovered. He had made many interesting political and legal contacts during five days in British Columbia and immediately bombarded Dowling with questions about progress during his absence. Had the League taken an office in King Street and were they connected to the telephone? Federation should be revived early in the parliamentary session, and not at its fag end. ‘The passing of the Bill through Committee would have a most satisfactory and reviving effect on the stock of all the Colonies,’ he asserted, adding, ‘although I am not quite all right yet, I am prepared to fight for the cause with plenty of vigour, and with high hopes for early success.’

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They were now concentrating on establishing branches of the League in the Sydney suburbs. Parliament resumed on 28 September, and it was expected that Barton would bring on the debate about the draft federal Constitution on 11 October. On that day, however, Parkes moved the adjournment arising out of the government’s decision to repeal the remaining sections of the 1880 Electoral Act so that new rolls could be prepared in accordance with the recent redistribution of seats. Barton was put up to answer him. ‘When the Ministry gets into a difficulty it is Mr Barton who has to drag them out,’ remarked the Daily Telegraph. As this measure had passed without dissent only a few days previously Barton was justified in attacking Parkes’ motion as ‘frivolous and vexatious’. He was unusually tart in reminding the old man that he was no longer leading the opposition or entitled to special respect as the fount of all wisdom because of his seniority. Parkes retorted that Barton had done nothing to advance the cause of federation during the previous two years, in contrast to his own record, and Barton replied that these words were an ‘infamous misrepresentation’. As this backchat consumed almost the entire evening it was late on the following day before Barton moved for the draft federal Constitution to be considered in detail by the Legislative Assembly. He intended to make some minor amendments, one ensuring that railways remained under control of the States and another on the voting rights of naturalised aliens. A young Labor member, Arthur Rae, immediately moved that as federation would do nothing to meet the social and industrial problems urgently demanding solution, all further consideration should be postponed and a less rigid and more democratic plan substituted for the draft Constitution. In a thoughtful speech he argued that the working class were already one people in sentiment and that intercolonial cooperation could be secured without adding to the number of governments already in Australia. That was as far as the debate went, as the budget and extended banknote legislation had to be considered, and Barton was absent for most of November through illness. In the Legislative Council O’Connor was pushing the draft Constitution through clause by clause against relentless stonewalling by conservative opponents. The end of November approached with

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the federation business far from complete. Then Barton’s career ran into unexpected shipwreck. On 29 November W.P. (Paddy) Crick, a Protectionist backbencher with a fluent tongue and a keen and knowing eye for scandal, revealed that the railway commissioners were paying taxpayers’ money for the fees of a private solicitor instead of using salaried legal advice from the public service. This concerned a lawsuit with the trustees of the estate of a deceased railway contractor, David Proudfoot, who were pursuing some hefty compensation claims against the commissioners and had allegedly retained sixteen or seventeen counsel to fight the case. It emerged during the debate that two of these counsel were Barton and O’Connor, who as the ministry’s senior legal officers might be thought to have a conflict of interest. This point particularly exercised the opposition member for Tenterfield, C. A. Lee, but the matter had to stand over until Barton’s return to parliament on 1 December. Barton defended himself by stating that he had accepted the brief reluctantly and was about to abandon it altogether because it involved an amount of stamp duty which might be seen as creating a conflict of interest. O’Connor had already withdrawn in June. He might have added—it became public knowledge a few weeks later—that the retainers were trivial, 25 guineas for Barton and fifteen for O’Connor. If Barton had left it there all might have blown over, but unhappily he was overtaken with something of his father’s touchiness on issues of personal honour. He insisted on demonstrating that as the railway commissioners had been set up a few years previously as an independent statutory corporation, in order to insulate them from political interference, they were no longer a government department. The department had its own solicitor, so there could be no conflict of interest if he as attorney-general with right of private practice appeared in a case against them. This was too fine-drawn a distinction for most members without legal backgrounds to swallow. Lee gave notice that he would pursue the matter further. Barton’s usual conciliatory style deserted him, and he loftily accused Lee of wasting parliament’s time. Perhaps he was driven by anxiety to get on with the federation debate, perhaps he was especially sensitive because of the parlous state of his personal finances, but

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he never explained himself. In consequence he lost the mood of the House. On 7 December, when Lee’s motion condemning the conflict of interest came before the Legislative Assembly, speaker after speaker supported him, making little of Barton’s attempts to show precedents for his conduct. Even the Protectionists who spoke against Lee largely confined their argument to the undesirability of bringing down the government on a side issue. Several of their backbenchers deserted, and Lee’s motion was carried by 69 votes to 48. It was the worst moment of Barton’s parliamentary career. The opposition was jubilant. A journalist encountered Bernhard Wise smiling broadly: ‘It is a piece of retributive justice . . . When Mr Barton joined the ministry he made them, and he has been the express cause of its downfall.’ Many, including Barton himself, believed that the Dibbs government must now resign. Dibbs did not think so. Instead he took the wind out of the opposition’s sails by proroguing parliament for five weeks, thus avoiding the chance of a further vote of no confidence and having to ask parliament for permission to go to an election using the old rolls. Of course this meant that the federation debate was left in limbo, together with the rest of the government’s legislative programme. Barton and O’Connor submitted their resignations and Dibbs accepted them, with many expressions of goodwill on both sides. Barton consoled himself that his colleagues in cabinet kept unshaken faith in his honour: ‘Not even a vote of the Assembly can stain that which no act of mine has sullied.’ It was this preoccupation with honour which impelled him to labour the point about his right to take the Proudfoot brief where a more canny politician would have dropped the issue as soon as possible. In the age of Tennyson’s Arthurian legend, the pre-Raphaelite painters and the sagas of William Morris, this ideal of honour held resonance which a later generation might be slow to grasp. It accords with the impression which Barton’s manners conveyed of an almost incongruous chiva lry. Garran could write of him as ‘the devoted knight-errant of Australian union’, neglecting all worldly considerations. Others were struck differently. ‘Aristocracy!’ yelled a heckler at the Town Hall meeting, to which Barton replied wryly that he was poorer than many men. When he left office on 15 December

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the Bulletin ironically congratulated him on escaping an imminent knighthood, though in fact Barton had ‘no longing for a title’. He ignored Parkes’ hints of preferment, advised Dibbs against acceptance, and himself refused a definite offer later in the federation campaign. No doubt this reflected a realisation that he could not afford to live in the style expected of a knight, but it suggests both that others saw him in that role and that he himself was comparatively indifferent. Honour, not honours, shaped his self-concept. Out of office he must have found himself perilously close to bankruptcy, though unlike his mercantile friends such as Dibbs he could not afford that expedient. Once bankrupted a barrister lost all credibility in the profession, and with it any significant earning power. A few days after resignation Barton addressed himself to the cheerless task of summing up his liabilities. They came to almost £9000—or, when he did the sums a second time, a little over. Half of this was owing to the City Bank and another £1828 to the Australian Joint Stock Bank. He owed his friend Lawrence Hargrave £1000, and £250 to friends who had stood guarantors in the family’s lawsuit with the Bank of New South Wales. His only remaining asset seems to have been an AMP insurance policy valued at not quite £1500. Not that the Bartons lived frugally. A household account surviving from July 1893 reveals expenditure of £1070 in one week and, although some of this represented the clearing up of outstanding payments before leaving on the cruise to Canada, it also included the wages of a housekeeper, a cook and a gardener. It was a mark of desperation when early in 1894 he was obliged to borrow £152 from Mont de Piete, a superior pawnbroking business. During the next few years the campaign for federation would be waged by a man shackled by debts amounting to almost $1 million in the values of the year 2000. Barton and O’Connor sought refuge in travel, O’Connor taking a long sea voyage and Barton spending three weeks’ holiday as Sir John Downer’s guest in Adelaide. On the way back he addressed a large meeting in Collingwood on 8 January, asserting that the main enemy of federation was not hostility but apathy—and returned to encounter a Bulletin caricature of himself dozing in his club

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Monument to Apathy. ‘Mr Barton says that the Australians are apathetic on the subject of Federation. Mr Barton himself is a monument of apathy.’ (The Bulletin, 20/1/1894)

chair as an epitome of apathy. The same Bulletin also reported the interjection of a drunken Scotsman: It was a hot night and Barton had worked himself up to a frenzy of bounding indignation. ‘Why should Federation be delayed?’ he asked wildly, ‘What are we waiting for?’ ‘We are waiting till some of our politicians are dead,’ said a funereal voice down below . . .

Federation was still astir in Sydney, and Barton on his return found Dr John Quick up from Bendigo to explain his draft bill to a special meeting of the Federal League executive. He gained publicity

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for it in the Herald and the Daily Telegraph and conducted a busy round of interviews. The Federal League took up his idea but as published in March placed a variation on the original plan. They called for a series of elected conventions in each colony, to be followed by a nation-wide convention whose members would be chosen by the different colonial parliaments. This probably reflected Barton’s view at the time that the final drafting of the Constitution required political expertise, but it was over-elaborate, and eventually Barton and the League would quietly abandon it. Barton meanwhile was exhorting the patient Dowling to push on with establishing Federation Leagues in country centres. He himself took advantage of a court appearance at Narrabri to talk the mayor into starting a branch, but now that he was no longer a cabinet minister his opportunities for country travel were limited. Anxiously he urged Dowling: There are now Leagues at Cobram and Bendigo, also at Beechworth, but I doubt whether Germanton, Cootamundra, Numurkah, and Kiama have yet formed Branches; and I know nothing has been done yet at Wagga, Narrandera, Balranald, Tumut, Tumbarumba, Gundagai, or Adelong. Every one of these places ought to have stirred themselves by now.

His mood remained buoyant—the Bulletin wrote of ‘Toby Barton’s recovered brightness’—and his faith in the League was still robust. When Parkes in a carping article in the Review of Reviews declared it ‘an ill-considered movement’ Barton predicted: ‘He will eat those words without salt as soon as he finds out what we are doing.’ Three months later he was still optimistic, informing Dowling that he had many callers supporting the movement, some of them influential, but many from the ranks of the artisan class. Yet as the months passed and the federation legislation made no progress in the New South Wales parliament, enthusiasm was eroding perceptibly. It was now taken for granted that without a lead from New South Wales the other colonies would not move. Passing through Sydney during the summer the leading Queensland politicians, Hugh Nelson and T. J. Byrnes, showed themselves sceptical; economic recovery preoccupied Victoria, Tasmania and South

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Australia. In a lame-duck parliament Dibbs was concentrating on wrapping up financial arrangements before proceeding to a general election. What he termed ‘the fiasco of the banking crisis’ had nevertheless turned his thoughts powerfully to the need for intercolonial unity. In a major speech at Tamworth on 21 May Dibbs urged that ‘on the lines of common sense and practical utility [he] would have one tariff, one excise, one defence system, one common law’ as well as a common railway system and unified public debt. He followed this up by writing to Sir James Patterson, the Victorian premier, on 12 June with a striking new initiative. New South Wales and Victoria should amalgamate without waiting for the rest of Australia, welcoming the other colonies when they were ready to come in. Dibbs made his move in the belief that the 1891 Constitution was a lost cause. ‘That Bill . . .,’ he told his Tamworth voters, ‘never will be brought to life. And the simple reason is that the idea has not caught on with the mass of the people.’ The proposed Commonwealth entailed an extra layer of government which would inevitably result in increased taxation. ‘Rather than this business of State Rights, is it not possible for the people of the whole of Australia to knock down all the barriers and become one people?’ In suggesting that New South Wales and Victoria might take the lead, Dibbs was mindful that Canadian confederation had begun with Quebec and Ontario. The Western Australias and Queenslands of Canada—British Columbia, Prince Edward Island—straggled in soon enough after the larger units joined together. It was a bold initiative, and modern Australians weary of State wranglings have lamented that more was not made of it. At the time few applauded the centralising thrust of the Dibbs proposal. Barton for one pointed out that the colonies which had separated from New South Wales, such as Victoria and Queensland, had too strong a sense of self-interest to reverse the process. In general his criticisms were softened by regard for his chief: ‘a wholesome friction of mind against mind could only lead to good’, he said. Reaction against the Dibbs proposal brought Parkes and Barton together once more as allies. They appeared side by side at a meeting to promote federation at Ryde on 12 June and, in July, the Herald praised Parkes for his ‘statesmanlike’ insistence that federation

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should take precedence over the free trade versus protection debate, since the fiscal issue could be decided for the whole of Australia by the new Commonwealth parliament. This, as the Herald admitted, was no less than Barton was advocating but as a protectionist it was up to him to defer to Parkes. The Herald was not yet persuaded by Barton’s endorsement of Quick’s plan for a second popularly elected Convention, which it regarded as ‘a purposeless waste of time’. Nevertheless in his campaign in the general election of July 1894 Barton’s main theme was federation. He stressed its economic benefits, its capacity to control alien immigration, and above all its appeal to patriotism. ‘If Australians were true to patriotism,’ he urged, ‘they would have federation in three years.’ But would they have Barton in parliament? Throughout June and early July he campaigned strenuously for the Randwick seat, but it was by no means going to be a walkover. Letters of support included one from the 92-year-old Sir Alfred Stephen: ‘I can hardly understand a Legislative Assembly when educated and trained men are so essential, without my friend Barton.’ From one unexpected source he picked up warm support. The radical Truth had attacked him when attorney-general and would vilify him unmercifully as prime minister, but in 1894, perhaps because at that time John Norton was not in control, Truth was friendly. Its political correspondent ‘Young Australian’ hailed him in an open letter as a potential premier, ‘without flattery—the ablest man in the public life of the colony . . . You are not indolent,’ wrote the journalist perceptively, ‘but you are not as politically combative as your admirers would like; and it is this . . . that lends colour to the supposition that you are lazy.’ Perhaps hoping to recover Barton’s credibility among the working class, Truth also made much of his painstaking but ultimately unsuccessful fight to secure a pension for a railway worker physically and financially disabled after a collision; a useful human interest story. The eastern suburbs of Sydney were usually free-trade territory. A number of candidates on that side showed interest, but the two major aspirants agreed to preselection by an umpire, who chose David Storey, a 38-year-old Ulster-born softgoods merchant with a good record as an employer, independent-minded and respected.

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With first-past-the-post voting he had more solid backing than Barton, who was competing with a second Protectionist named Kinnane as well as a Labor candidate. On some issues Storey could be seen as more progressive than Barton. He was less equivocal in his support of women’s suffrage and, where Barton wished to reform the Legislative Council by limiting the period of nomination to seven years, Storey wanted election by household franchise. Where Dibbs was preoccupied with his new constituency and at odds with Barton over federation, Storey was ably supported by Reid, who told the Randwick voters that ‘as far as Mr Barton was concerned, if he were left out in the cold there were any number of protectionist fossils in the country who would make way for him’. And Barton was left out in the cold. At the election on 17 July Storey topped the poll with 825 votes, well ahead of Barton with 486. Even if Kinnane had not taken another 300 votes from him it is unlikely that Barton would have won, as the Labor candidate also polled respectably. No Protectionist scored a victory that year in any of central Sydney’s twelve seats. At the declaration of the poll Barton could not contain his ‘lamentation and mourning at a verdict which prevented him from advocating to the full extent of his power the cause of Australian union’ and added: [He] had fought the battle of immortal truth, and when the historian came to write the scroll of the victories in Australia’s cause they would not find on it the name of any other candidate to-day, but there would be boldly inscribed upon it the name of Edmund Barton (Cheers and groans).

As the Bulletin commented, ‘This is true enough, but then perhaps Barton himself shouldn’t have said it,’ but added: ‘the brainy, lazy ex-Speaker will be much missed from a legislature which contains no man who is his intellectual equal . . .’ Although the Protectionists did much better in rural New South Wales than in the city, no ‘fossil’ volunteered to give up his seat to Barton. Dibbs, finding that the balance of power lay with a still-divided Labor party, did not at once resign, but before meeting parliament proposed to nominate ten new members to the Legislative Council,

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among them Barton. Barton politely refused and, as it fell out, Dibbs could not have delivered. The governor, Sir Robert Duff, refused to accept the nominations on the grounds that the voters’ verdict had gone against the Dibbs government; and on 2 August Dibbs resigned, giving way to a Free Trade ministry under an ebullient George Reid. Barton’s great disappointment on the night of the Randwick election had betrayed him into an uncharacteristic show of raw emotion and no doubt it would have been better if he had not revealed how intensely he felt the federation movement as his personal crusade. It seemed the darkest moment of Barton’s career as advocate for federation. His political fortunes and his private means were alike in need of rebuilding, while his morale, even his customary calm sense of the appropriate, had been shaken by the reverses of the last twelve months. It would have been impossible to foresee that in less than three years he would be reaching towards the zenith of his career.

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of his electoral defeat Barton’s spirits were recovering. Defeat, as he admitted later, enabled him to spend more time with his family and to rebuild his legal practice. Almost immediately he was undertaking work as a Crown prosecutor. In an odd echo of his professional debut his first case was a murder. The accused, who had killed his wife in a domestic quarrel, was without defending counsel, and the trial was delayed until a young lawyer was found. Barton, it was reported, recognised the prisoner’s predicament, ‘and while he snatched a verdict, had it recorded in such terms that the execution of the man will never take place’. Other work followed, not least a brief to represent another firm of contractors against the railway commissioners and, by November 1894, the Bulletin commented that ‘since his retirement from active politics Edmund Barton’s Bar practice has increased by leaps and bounds’. Retired from active politics or not, he remained hopeful ‘that he would be able to do as good work for federation outside Parliament as within it’. At the annual meeting of the Australasian Federation League on 27 July it was soothing to hear his defeat described as a national calamity and his own speech was one of measured optimism for the future. He acknowledged that in New South Wales, ‘which wilfully retarded its own progress by its suspicion of public men’, federation was handicapped by public perceptions of it as ‘a ITHIN DAYS

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movement of conservatives’. They must prove it democratic by holding a series of large public meetings, at least one a week. Reynolds in his biography paints a rosy picture of the outcome: Under the auspices of the Federation League Barton, after he resigned from the Dibbs Ministry, became a missionary for Federation. The frustrations and defeats of his last two years in Parliament left him with a burning, almost religious faith in its cause. During the next three years it is recorded that he addressed nearly 300 meetings in New South Wales alone. He visited other colonies, and he considered that the total number of addresses he gave was over one thousand. No meeting or group was too small for an audience.

The reality was otherwise. Out of parliament, with no official position, no outside source of funding and a legal practice to nurse, Barton was in no situation to take the road whipping up zeal for federation. Search through the rural press of 1895 and 1896 reveals very little activity of the kind described by Reynolds until the Bathurst People’s Conference late in 1896 and the approach of the second Federal Convention. When delegates were elected for the 1897 Convention, rural districts showed a lower turnout than Sydney and the larger towns. It was difficult to keep up impetus without the goal of a popular vote on federation and it would be the referenda of 1898 and 1899 which brought Barton travelling the country as spokesman for the cause. Tied to Sydney by his practice, he did all he could. He warmly supported a plan for a monthly, the Commonwealth, which would spread the arguments for federation and, when it appeared in September, badgered Dowling about publicity: ‘Everything should be done in fact to arouse curiosity about the newspaper.’ Copies should be sent by the dozen to prominent bankers and pastoralists: I am really extremely anxious to get as many meetings held as possible. They do inestimable good, and we cannot have too many. I have been hoping to be called on at least once a week. Unless we have them as often as that, people will think the movement is languishing. Alexandria would get up a meeting at once . . . Then Newtown would certainly respond, so would

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Redfern, Woollahra, etc. Adrian Knox MLA would stir Woollahra up at once, if asked. Tell him I suggested it.

The forcefulness of this urging may have masked a growing unease. Barton believed that without the pressure of public opinion to steel his resolve Reid, although professedly sympathetic to federation, was not likely to take up the running. Powerless and still smarting from the Proudfoot debacle, Barton could only look to the Federation League as a power base for promoting the cause. But although the committee meetings were regular and faithfully attended, the harvest was slow in ripening. Despite Barton’s willingness to help guarantee the League’s publication costs, the Commonwealth was proving a little too heavy to reach out to a mass audience, and sales were disappointing. Nor were the suburban meetings kindling enthusiasm. Even with Barton and McMillan as speakers, a Paddington meeting fell through from want of publicity, and a talk to the Darlington Democratic League ten days later was not much better attended. The campaign was run on a modest scale, with Barton travelling to such meetings by tram. If the Federation League’s efforts drew a slow response from the public they at least made some impact on senior politicians. While Barton was addressing the ‘limited audience’ at Darlington most of his colleagues on the League committee were forming a deputation to Reid, summoned by the premier at short notice. He informed them that, although at first openly sceptical about the Leagues, he had changed his mind as a result of observing them at work. He was persuaded that federation must result from a popularly supported movement, and was willing to take up the Corowa Conference’s formula of a second convention elected by the voters of each colony. Reid’s timing in all likelihood was designed to counter Parkes, who in the same week brought a resolution before the Legislative Assembly urging the government to take up negotiations for federation. Reid was able to reply blandly that he entirely supported Sir Henry’s initiative and, with the Federation League’s blessing, was already planning to confer with his fellow premiers when they met for the next Federal Council in January 1895. After several hours of debate the resolution was carried by 55 votes to 10.

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At the same time Parkes was making overtures to Barton. Still implying that he could move faster than Barton in promoting federation, the old schemer was mustering support for a new ‘Federal Progressive Party’. His imagination dreamed that such a party might win government, with perhaps Wise as premier, McMillan treasurer, and himself in a senior honorary post in cabinet. Barton he cast as returning to the Legislative Council as attorney-general. Doubtless he was beguiled by the example of Gladstone in Britain, who at the age of 83 had recently become prime minister once more to force Home Rule for Ireland through the House of Commons. Barton responded cautiously, and was then out of action for almost the whole of December and January with bronchitis which turned to pneumonia. For the rest of his life he would be susceptible to bronchial ailments, a tendency aggravated by frequent public oratory and a taste for cigars. Because of his illness he was restricted from comment when at Hobart in January 1895 Reid persuaded the other premiers to agree to a second Federal Convention, whose delegates would be directly elected by the voters and not as previously by the individual parliaments. This put into effect Dr John Quick’s resolution from the Corowa Conference of 1893 and ensured that the draft Constitution would be revised by a body with a democratic mandate; an idea too democratic for premiers Nelson of Queensland and Forrest of Western Australia, but one which should have matched the thinking of Barton and the Federation League. They however were still committed to their idea of a preliminary convention in each colony, and were guarded in their response. Parkes was bluntly hostile to a procedure which would take the wind out of the sails of his new federal party. In moments of political controversy Reid was later apt to assert that he had rescued federation from the gutter where Parkes and Barton had left it. This was not quite fair, but events were to justify his spleen. Barton’s difficulty in convincing himself that Reid was in earnest about federation arose partly from the makeup of Reid’s cabinet. Although Carruthers, the feisty minister for lands (in Deakin’s phrase ‘a little man with a great voice’) was a strong supporter, Reid’s attorney-general and leader in the Legislative Council was

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Jack Want, a hardened and very able anti-federationist. Yachtsman, sportsman, and outdoors all-rounder, in some eyes a ‘square-jawed ruffian’, Want was considered by a well-informed colleague the greatest barrister of his time (though the same authority added that ‘Edmund Barton might have become the greatest of all advocates if he had given to litigants the time, eloquence, and learning that he preferred to use for the good of the nation’). Barton feared that Want would sway Reid. At some level he may also have feared that Reid, for motives of political advantage, would succeed in bringing about federation and filch the credit for it. The subtleties of the relationship between Barton and Reid call for care in interpretation. From their youth as fishing mates and members of the same debating society, until they were both old men, Reid regarded Barton with something of the good-humoured, slightly patronising manner of the streetwise older lad for the intellectual but less practical ‘white-haired boy’. Where Reid in parliament lolled on the front bench, sucked sweets, cracked incessant jokes and made political capital of his eye-glass and paunch, Barton’s style was the urbane geniality of the clubman and, like Menzies after him, he wore suits which disguised his weight. Barton and Reid belonged to a tradition which accepted that men might be the most vigorous and outspoken of political rivals while remaining personal friends, but precisely because they were lifelong friends each could be stung by the other in the heat of debate—and the federation years brought them into intense political debate. There was no meanness in either, and at times each displayed a striking generosity, though at this point in time it was Reid as premier who had the greater opportunities for it. Because of two months’ illness during which no income entered the household, the early months of 1895 were difficult for Barton. Unexpected relief came in March. It became necessary to appoint an acting judge of the Supreme Court and Reid offered the post to Barton. Far from lunging at the opportunity Barton was ‘so perturbed by self-distrust’ at accepting patronage from a political opponent that he sought the advice of Chief Justice Darley, who bracingly told him to accept. So it was that in April Barton found himself on circuit in Deniliquin and Broken Hill, where memories of the great strike

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still simmered; but we do not know how he was welcomed. The media speculated that he would be elevated permanently to the Bench. ‘No more generally acceptable appointment could be made,’ wrote the Bulletin, praising his ‘eminently judicial mind’. But there was no vacancy available, so that Barton was free to concentrate on the federation movement. Returning by sea via Melbourne he invited Alfred Deakin to visit Sydney to speak to a public meeting. The plan came to nothing. The Federation League still thought that conventions should be held in each of the Australian colonies before the national convention met, and as Barton told Dowling: ‘If it were in support of the scheme of the Premiers’ conference, Parkes would not attend; if in support of our plan as against the Hobart one, Reid could scarcely come . . .’ He should have sided with Reid. Over the next four years it would emerge that both Barton and Reid were crucial in securing federation, especially in New South Wales. Barton combined the nationalist idealism of one who subordinated all else to federation with the diplomatic skills to maximise agreement in negotiation. He was sometimes criticised as willing to yield too much to achieve consensus. An anti-federalist once observed, with the candour of a boyhood friend: ‘A generous, confiding noble disposition is not always best for a negotiation. The man who is willing to give away all he has himself is prone to give away the rights of other people. What we want is a prudent, careful man, tenacious of the rights of those whom he represents, not too prone to compromise and give way.’ Reid’s diplomatic skills were of a more aggressive kind, useful in hard bargaining. He would sometimes obscure his long-term goals by resorting to bluff, and this led some to consider him insincere. Barton should have known better, but in 1895 he was chafing in political impotence and he was not the best judge of Reid’s intentions. On 9 May Reid brought his budget into the Legislative Assembly with a major policy statement setting his priorities: the abolition of the Dibbs tariffs, the introduction of land and income taxes and reform of the public service. These measures accomplished, he would move on federation. Barton decided that in effect this meant that Reid was shelving federation. He threw in his lot with Parkes, who with all his deviousness shared Barton’s strategy of seeking federa-

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tion first and addressing other major issues after the Commonwealth was established. His colleagues in the Federal League were unwilling to place themselves in opposition to Reid, and at an executive meeting on 28 June declined to support Barton’s motion calling for a public meeting ‘to assert the urgency of prompt and resolute dealing with the question of the Federation of the colonies’. The Parkes–Barton alliance was soon put to the test. When the Legislative Council rejected Reid’s proposals he at once decided to appeal to the country, adding reform of the Upper House to his programme. (Barton also favoured such reform to the extent of nominating members for seven-year terms, instead of for life; but he was in no mood to credit Reid for good intentions, and saw this as just another pretext for postponing federation.) The general election was scheduled for 23 July. Barton was invited to stand for several electorates, but refused for reasons unstated but no doubt financial. Parkes kept quiet about his intentions until twelve days before the election, announcing on 11 July that he would contest Reid’s own seat, the King division of inner Sydney. His main supporters were Barton and O’Connor, who campaigned for him every night of the election. It was a rough and rowdy contest even by the standards of the time. At one fairly typical meeting, ‘Mr Barton, who met with a perfect storm of groans, weak imitations of dogs barking, and hisses, flung himself at the throat of the crowd with considerable vigour’. Reid taunted Barton with accepting the acting judgeship from him, and Barton retorted that ‘if Mr Reid offered me that post for any other reason than that I was the fittest man, then he showed his own corruption’. Halfway through the campaign, on 17 July Lady Parkes died of cancer, and Parkes used his sorrowing widowerhood as a point in his favour. Overriding all local issues Reid and Parkes were vying for public confidence as steersmen of federation. On 23 July the voters decided: 608 for Reid, 468 for Parkes. It was not quite the veteran’s last hurrah, for in the nine months of life remaining to him Parkes would fight and lose two more byelections. Certainly it was Reid’s day of triumph. His majority was increased, and Dibbs was beaten at Tamworth by A. B. Piddington, to be replaced as Protectionist leader of the opposition by William

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Lyne. As Lyne’s federationist sympathies were fainter than Reid’s Barton was despondent, claiming that ‘the cause of Australian union had received a terrible defeat’. About this time the Commonwealth faded out of existence. It could not attract enough subscribers to meet costs, and at one point Barton himself, financially troubled though he was, offered to pay the outstanding accounts himself. He was then involved in plans to replace the Commonwealth with a new morning paper, but these were abortive. It was not all bad news, however. Before the end of the year, amid all his other preoccupations, Reid passed an Act enabling elections to be held for the ten New South Wales delegates to a Federal Convention. Several who spoke in the debate took it for granted that Barton would be one of them. David Storey said: ‘Notwithstanding that Mr Barton was an opponent of mine eighteen months ago I say that there could not be a better man to draft or assist in drafting a federal constitution.’ Barton could make no criticism stronger than saying that the Act could have been improved by input from the Federation League. In these months he was less regular about attending the League’s committee meetings; ‘there is always some imperative blocking me,’ he told Dowling. His practice was demanding, for he was obliged to take briefs which sent him on circuit in the country, just as when he was a junior 20 years previously. But he still found time to address suburban audiences about federation, and the Bulletin confidently forecast that he would be one of the delegates, along with Reid and ‘the inevitable Parkes’. Reid must have thought the same. There were few ‘forevers’ in the politics of the 1890s, and early in 1896 he got his cabinet to agree that Parkes should be nominated as president of the convention, despite all their earlier hostilities. He sent Carruthers to gain Barton’s agreement, and this was given although Barton may by then have been out of charity with Parkes. A story circulated that, hearing a report that the old man intended marrying for the third time, Barton was authorised in writing by Parkes to scotch the rumour, only to find out that he was indeed about to wed his 23-year-old housekeeper. But Reid’s idea came to nothing, as on 27 April Parkes died. That night found Barton and McMillan at a

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meeting of the Federation League in Strathfield, and their tributes were eloquent. Barton did not go to the funeral (though he attended that nine months earlier of the second Lady Parkes), but he sent a wreath of carnations. He was now indisputably the senior federationist in New South Wales, potentially the more effective for not looking over his shoulder at Parkes. Conjectures began to ripple that he would re-enter politics, perhaps leading the Protectionists at the next election: ‘Ranks at present divided will, it is assumed, close up at his magic call.’ Unless his lean purse prevented it. In July 1895 the Bartons moved out of the Randwick house. Two of their cooks had died there in quick succession and the family did not consider it a lucky house. Fifty years later their eldest son wrote that his mother’s health had broken down after their return from Canada, so that ‘to relieve her of the worries of housekeeping the house was given up, and the family moved to Petty’s Hotel’. As a long-term expedient this can have been neither convenient for a family whose youngest child was four nor particularly cheap, but they were spared the expenses of upkeep and were still at the hotel in October 1896. Possibly this was the point at which Jeanie rebelled. We can only conjecture. Unlike the Deakins, who were so prolific in writing about their private affairs, the Bartons guarded their home life well. Even the family traditions vary about Jeanie’s ability as a manager. One source remembered her as ‘more haphazard and spendthrift than he was’, but a more likely account portrays her as a careful planner who could work wonders with a small budget and an artful French dressmaker. The most that can be said with confidence is that times were seldom harder for the Bartons, but they contrived to keep up appearances. In the summer of 1895–96 the family was able to take its usual holiday in the Blue Mountains and stayed at least five weeks. The four elder children went on with their private school education. Edmund retained his club and his membership of the University Senate, and installed a telephone in his office in Wentworth Chambers. He was notoriously open-handed; as his son put it: ‘It is true that he was unable to refuse help to anyone in distress, and this trait contributed to his financial difficulties, for the claims that were

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made on him were many. He was very softhearted.’ From this period A. G. Stephens recorded a story of Henry Lawson hawking his latest volume of verse around the Athenaeum Club. Barton offered to subscribe £10, but after he and Lawson left George Robertson the publisher snorted that he would disregard the order. ‘Why, Barton’s as bad as Lawson in his way,’ he said. All Barton’s briefs were pledged to moneylenders as soon as he received them, and he had left unpaid a debt of three shillings and sixpence to Angus & Robertson for two years until the firm chased him with a solicitor. Stephens never let the truth stand in the way of a good yarn (he was credulous, for instance, about Parkes’ sexual prowess), but it was significant that Barton attracted such stories, and yet retained credibility in politics. Then fortune brightened. Before going out of office in 1893 O’Connor as solicitor-general had set up a large commission of judges and senior lawyers (including Barton) to clarify the tangle of New South Wales statute law into a code. Although the work was shared among eight committees, each with its own draftsman, little was achieved until in June 1896 the workaholic C. G. Heydon volunteered to perform the entire task himself. This meant shedding other liabilities, among them an appointment at the end of 1895 to serve as arbitrator in a case where a contractor, James McSharry, was suing the railway commissioners for £150 000 over work undertaken on the Gundagai to Cootamundra railway. The government asked Barton to take over from Heydon. The fee was £25 a day, and since the case was extremely complicated, involving transactions from up to ten years previously, it was expected to last for many months. Although tedious and demanding, the inquiry would assure Barton’s finances at the very time when the federal Convention was approaching. The idea must have come either from Reid or from his anti-federalist attorney-general Want, and it was to be followed by an even greater temptation. Early in November Barton was offered permanent appointment as a Supreme Court judge. Once again the Bulletin lauded his suitability, and one of the senior judges urged him to accept a post which at the end of fifteen years would bring him a pension of £1800 a year. Nevertheless—who knows after what discussions with his wife?—he refused. His resolution was fortified

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by the knowledge that he could provide a satisfactory home for his family. That summer they rented ‘Miandatta’ in Carabella Street, North Sydney, where they would stay settled for the next twelve years. His political judgment also reinforced the decision. Having seen how Griffith as chief justice of Queensland was muzzled from participating in the federation debate, Barton was not about to remove himself from political activity at the moment when the movement was at last picking up steam. William Astley, the journalist who had rebuked Barton so eloquently for seeming to backslide from the ideal of a democratic federation, was still ardent for the cause and, in the later months of 1896, was busying himself with organising a people’s convention at Bathurst which would feed the politicians’ meeting next year (the ‘statutory Convention’ as it was known) with convincing expressions of articulate public opinion. Barton, whose attendance in the eyes of the Bathurst papers ‘was alone sufficient to assure the success of the convention’, was at first hesitant. Although he applauded Astley’s initiative he was concerned it might be seen as privileging Bathurst’s claims to become the federal capital, as well as perhaps rigidly moulding the opinions of participants so as to inhibit the ‘give-and-take’ of the official convention. Nevertheless he promised if his commitment with the McSharry arbitration permitted— O’Connor and Bruce Smith, the two leading counsel in the case, were under the same constraint—and in the event was present for a day and a half of the six-day proceedings (16–21 November 1896). The organisers even arranged the programme so that the discussion on States’ rights could take place when he and O’Connor were present. Others were sceptical about the Bathurst Conference. The Bulletin called it ‘a toy convention’ and the Goulburn Town Council insisted on regarding it as ‘an advertising dodge’ until the last moment when it was apparent that Bathurst had a success on its hands. Over 200 attended from every colony, among them Reid, Lyne, Cardinal Moran, the Catholic archbishop of Sydney, and John Norton of Truth, whose motion that the governor-general should be elected was negatived on the voices. The main speeches came on Friday. Moran said that a federated Australia would command greater international respect, and Reid was on his best behaviour.

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He promised to visit Brisbane to persuade the Queenslanders to participate, but warned: ‘They must not be disappointed if a second attempt did not achieve federation.’ Barton concentrated on arguing the case for equal representation of the colonies in the Senate. This was one of the most contentious features of the 1891 Constitution, as many in Victoria and New South Wales took it ill that underpopulated colonies such as Tasmania and Western Australia should have a voice equal to theirs, and more would be heard of it during the next few months. Lyne supported federation but regretted that the Federal Council, still meeting every two years in Hobart, could not be used as a basis. For Barton the Federal Council was fatally flawed because it was not popularly elected, and he seconded a resolution that no scheme of federation should be adopted unless approved by Australia’s voters. Altogether the Bathurst Conference gave heartening support to the cause, succeeded as a consciousnessraising exercise and clarified many of the issues which the statutory convention would have to discuss four months later. The tide was turning towards federation, but success was by no means assured. Queensland and Western Australia were far from enthusiastic, each believing that ahead of them lay a period of economic and population growth which would enable them to catch up with the other colonies, after which at some time in the future they could negotiate from greater strength. Accordingly Queensland rebuffed Reid’s wooing. Instead of surrendering some of its powers under a federal Constitution the Queensland government preferred to revitalise the Federal Council, as its resolutions had no effect until approved by each of the colonial governments. If the delegates to the Federal Council were not nominated by parliament but elected by the voters of each colony, it could be seen as enjoying a popular mandate challenging the untried 1891 Constitution. At the January 1897 meeting of the Federal Council Queensland, supported by Western Australia, moved for this change, knowing that one of the Tasmanian delegates would side with them against the remaining Tasmanians and Victorians. Had this manoeuvre succeeded it would have made it much harder to sell federation as a necessary or attractive alternative, but one of the Western Australians, the editor-proprietor of The West Australian, Winthrop Hackett, failed

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to vote and the motion did not pass. On a variety of inadequate pretexts the Queenslanders stayed away from the Convention, but at the last moment Western Australia decided to participate. Early in February campaigning began in each of the other four colonies for the election of delegates to the Convention. In New South Wales sectional politics soon came to the surface. A ‘democratic alliance’ of Labor men nominated a ticket of ten candidates pledged to seek adult suffrage (including women), an elected cabinet and no Senate or States’ house. This alienated some who saw the voters’ task as choosing the best ten candidates regardless of party. Cardinal Moran nominated, thus competing for the working-class vote, and this brought forward a Protestant pressure-group zealous to thwart the schemes of Rome. Barton consistently condemned these appeals to sectarianism. His own nomination was backed by over 4000 signatures from many shades of class and politics. This large number symbolised his belief in a non-partisan approach, but it also demonstrated widespread support even though he was out of parliament. Only the cardinal, another non-Parliamentarian, came near him. The Federation League, gradually emerging from a torpid phase, sponsored no candidates, but urged all electors to vote as a patriotic duty. Barton opened his campaign in tandem with O’Connor at Newcastle, aptly arguing that under federation New South Wales with its coal and iron would become the manufacturing centre of Australia. In the following four weeks he addressed audiences in Goulburn, Bathurst, Tamworth and most of the Sydney suburbs. Throughout his campaign, according to the Herald, he was ‘heartily welcomed and cheered’. He deployed all the old arguments for a strong defence potential against alien invasion, the advantages of a united approach to overseas borrowing, and the economic boost that would come of an Australian common market, but one theme predominated above all others. The people—or at least the voting public—would keep control of the movement at every stage. Federation would not be rushed or foisted on them by the politicians. New South Wales went to the polls on 5 March. About 57 per cent of those eligible turned out, about the same as for the average general election. The heaviest polling was in Sydney and the major provincial

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cities. Outside the Riverina rural voters were less interested. Of the 148 600 votes cast 98 540, nearly two-thirds, included Barton in their choice. He topped the poll nearly 14 000 ahead of a somewhat chagrined George Reid, who was joined by two of his cabinet ministers, Carruthers and the solid but inarticulate J. M. Brunker. The voters also selected McMillan, O’Connor, Lyne, Wise, Sir Joseph Abbott (the Speaker), and J. T. Walker, a businessman not in politics who had made an impression with his lucid financial analysis of federation at the Bathurst Convention. Cardinal Moran, John Norton, and all the Labor ten were unsuccessful. If the working class was interested in federation—and this was debatable—they were leaving middle-class professionals to shape its outlines. Everywhere Barton’s triumph was acclaimed. It had been achieved without lavish expenditure: ‘I have never spent less,’ he said a few weeks later. The Sydney Morning Herald hailed him as ‘indisputably the strongest and ablest of the federationists’, while in the remote and dusty goldfields of Cue in Western Australia the Murchison Times wrote: ‘It is a distinct tribute to sterling worth and ability that ‘‘Toby’’ Barton should have received nearly 10 000 votes more than any other candidate.’ Like New South Wales, South Australia selected a strong team from across the political spectrum, as did Tasmania from more limited resources, though a notable absentee was Inglis Clark. For no very obvious reasons he had committed himself to a trip to the United States at the time of the Convention, and although on his return other delegates would have resigned in his favour he did not encourage them. The Victorian team was politically lopsided because the poll was strongly influenced by David Syme’s protectionist Age, so that some experienced candidates who were out of favour missed out. Sir George Turner, the safe, unimaginative, but financially knowledgeable premier, topped the poll, but only two of the other Victorians could be described as conservative, whereas the brilliant abilities of Deakin were reinforced by two even more advanced liberals. One was that uncompromising democrat, Henry Bournes Higgins. The other was the attorney-general, Isaac Isaacs, whose formidable intelligence had brought him to the fore despite impoverished origins, a certain amount of anti-Jewish prejudice, and a physical appearance much

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less impressive than he would achieve in distinguished old age. Both would bring to the Convention a dogged advocacy of principle which cut across Barton’s overriding desire to stitch up agreements likely to win approval by a majority of voters Australia-wide. To the vexation of Reid and others who would have preferred Sydney or Melbourne, Adelaide was the venue for the first session of the Convention. Barton arrived there with most of the delegates by special train on Sunday 21 March. Monday was largely taken up with a series of informal caucus meetings. These meetings helped to break down any tendency for delegates to vote solely with their colony of origin. Sixteen of the 40 delegates had worked together at the 1891 Convention, and this told against parochialism. Besides, although the Victorians all represented the Age team and the New South Wales delegates were ready to follow Reid and Barton in suspending party animosities, the South Australians were thought unlikely to vote en bloc because of their internal feuds. Kingston, the premier, was disliked as much for his abrasive manner as for his radicalism. Even Barton’s attitude to him varied over the years. He and Kingston had worked closely together on the Lucinda in 1891, and would do so again in London in 1900, but seemed less close in the mid-1890s. As president of the Convention Barton, like Reid, would have preferred the experienced Speaker of New South Wales, Sir Joseph Abbott. But Kingston as premier of the host colony could not be passed over and when the Convention formally opened at noon, Abbott gracefully proposed his name without opposition. In the afternoon the caucusing resumed. Some delegates who had been at the 1891 Convention thought that they should adopt the draft Constitution from that meeting without debate as the basis of further discussion, and Reid supported them in the interests of saving time. Barton preferred that the 1897 Convention should first resolve on a set of fundamental principles, in the light of which delegates could then decide how much of the 1891 formula they wanted to use. ‘This elected Convention must originate the Constitution,’ he stressed, ‘. . . not under the influence of the previous work but by its own efforts.’ Deakin and Downer and several others supported him, and Barton’s view prevailed. ‘For the sake of peace many supported him,’ noted J. T. Walker in his diary. Then came

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the question of nominating a leader of Convention business. Some believed that Reid coveted the honour, and as premier of the senior colony he had a case. But Josiah Symon put forward Barton’s name without, he said, consulting anyone else. Barton later claimed that when he reached Adelaide he had no idea that he would be asked to assume a responsible position, and maybe that was true, but others such as Sir Philip Fysh of Tasmania and probably Deakin had already been speaking of him, and the matter was clinched when Reid seconded Symon’s proposal. Agreement was unanimous. When the Convention met formally on Tuesday, Kingston called on Barton, who suggested that a set of resolutions on fundamentals be drafted by a committee of two members from each colony. Turner and Downer at once declared that Barton alone should frame the resolutions, and then Reid spoke. Barton, he proposed, should be leader of the Convention, not only as senior representative of the mother colony, ‘but the great point about it is this, that Mr Barton adds to that highly distinguished position every other qualification for the post. (Hear, hear).’ This graceful gesture had its political payoff. Reid could now concentrate single-mindedly on the interests of New South Wales. Barton, though ‘not in the best of health for the last few weeks’ (his bronchial condition was reacting to too many open-air speeches) accepted the responsibility. It was indeed the role for which the rest of his life had been preparing him.

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W

became leader of the Convention he was known personally to probably fewer than half the delegates. The New South Wales party all recognised him as a public figure of long standing, and most of its members knew him better; O’Connor was his closest personal friend, and Reid the sparring partner of many years. Sixteen of the delegates, among them Deakin, Downer, Forrest of Western Australia and Sir Philip Fysh of Tasmania were fellow veterans of the 1891 Convention. For others, however, Barton was no more than a name, and as leader of the Convention he would have to earn their trust. In old age Carruthers offered an explanation of how this was achieved: HEN BARTON

Barton was always a very cool speaker, and in argument very logical. Moreover his sincerity was never in question, and in the Federal Convention he commanded a whole-souled respect from every member of it. That was the secret of his influence.

No doubt it helped that Barton’s reputation was established as a single-minded partisan of Federation who had sacrificed income and professional advancement for the cause. The effect of his sincerity must have been considerable, as it had to contend with a defect in his oratory. He was a rapid public speaker, averaging 150 words a minute—not quite in the class of Deakin, with 170, but 143

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ahead of nearly all his colleagues—and his speeches were hard to follow and report because he used long sentences with many parentheses. Carruthers may be quoted again: But Barton tried to say in one sentence what would have been said more effectively in three or four, or more. To my mind he was extremely dexterous in escaping a confused tangle of words and ideas, but to his credit be it said that he always got through, picking up the loose threads here and there, and making one sentence do the work of many.

Barton seems to have been aware of this problem, and when he had to make a statement of particular importance was capable of a slow, measured delivery, though the pace quickened with the cut and thrust of debate. It is a fair guess that he was paying attention to his oratory on the afternoon of 23 March when he brought forward the resolutions affirming the federal compact. He moved: ‘That, in order to enlarge the powers of self-government of the people of Australia it is desirable to create a Federal Government which shall exercise authority throughout the Federated Colonies, subject to the following principal conditions . . .’ the colonies, when States, should retain all their existing powers except those surrendered to the Commonwealth; there should be no alteration of existing boundaries without the agreement of the federal government and the States involved; trade and intercourse between the States should be absolutely free; and the federal government should have exclusive powers over defence, customs and excise, and bounties. There should be two houses of parliament, a House of Representatives elected on a population basis with the sole power of originating taxation bills, and a States Assembly or Senate (Barton preferred the former term) with ‘definite responsibility to the people of the State which shall have chosen them’. The inspiriting phrase ‘to enlarge the powers of self-government’ refuted the often-heard fear that the colonies were being asked to surrender authority, and was the suggestion of Bernhard Wise (who could not resist drawing attention to it). In a well-turned speech Barton exhorted his colleagues to avoid prejudging issues in favour of a spirit of compromise, and then walked them through a number

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of the more controversial features. A Senate was needed because a one-house national parliament would not be federal, but must become a unitary state; but the Senators should be elected by each State’s voters as a whole. The 1891 formula entrusting their choice to State parliaments could too easily lead to log-rolling and corruption. The lower House must have the power of the purse because it gave the people’s representatives power to indicate distrust of the government. (Barton, like most of his contemporaries, did not foresee the tightness of twentieth-century party discipline.) He opposed an elected governor-general, as also leading to political intrigue. (‘Hear, Hear’ from Reid.) The High Court should not be merely a court of final appeal but also arbiter of the differences between States. The federal parliament should determine its own franchise (thus allowing it to legislate against property qualifications and grant the vote to women), but in order that the colonies should not feel coerced during negotiations for federation, the first parliament would be elected under the existing rules in each State. (Thus property qualifications might be retained in Tasmania and Western Australia, and women could vote in South Australia.) Barton concluded—perhaps remembering his experiences as Speaker—with an appeal to his colleagues to keep their speeches short. It took a week to discuss Barton’s resolutions. Most would have agreed with South Australia’s Dr John Cockburn who said that the time was not wasted, ‘for public opinion has been forming, condensing, and taking shape within this Chamber during the past week’, although when the Western Australians arrived on 26 March Sir John Forrest grumbled that they should have proceeded straight to the 1891 draft Constitution. Higgins complained that the resolutions were ‘weak, vague and inconclusive’, but their great virtue was that they stimulated a far-ranging discussion from which emerged the main issues likely to cause contention. The delegates also had time to size each other up and to begin forming estimates of their colleagues’ strengths and weaknesses, and so to assess the shifting possibilities for alliances and negotiations. On the whole debate reached a high standard; higher, thought veterans of 1891, than the previous Convention. The highlight came late in the debate with consecutive speeches by Reid and Deakin. Forgoing repartee and clowning, Reid was at

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his most statesmanlike, putting his weight behind Barton’s compromise formulas and concluding with the hope that they would fashion a fabric of national government which shall be strong enough to withstand the shocks of time, which shall be elastic enough to overtake the mightiest possibilities of this grand new world of ours, and which will be just enough to do no wrong to any man.

No less eloquent, Deakin made one false prophecy—he thought the Commonwealth would prove feebler than the States—and one true when, alone of the delegates, he remembered and endorsed Macrossan’s forecast that party loyalties would soon overcome State allegiances in the Senate. His peroration: ‘we are the trustees of posterity for the unborn millions’, aroused the Convention to open applause. Inevitably the debate passed lightly over some of the points which Barton had singled out, and one or two additional issues were canvassed. Carruthers, for instance, raised the question of New Guinea, and Higgins began his long campaign to secure a federal power of industrial arbitration and conciliation. Several agreed with Barton that the High Court should be entrenched in the Constitution, although Sir Edward Braddon, premier of Tasmania, considered it a totally unnecessary expense. The State courts and the Privy Council were good enough for him, and it would turn out that he was not alone in this view. A few speakers such as Symon and Walker stressed the advantages of consolidating Australia’s overseas debt. The practical men also paid attention to the railways question. Hardly anyone favoured a federal take-over, but all wanted an end to the unregulated scramble where competing railway systems offered preferential or differential rates to attract freight from neighbouring colonies, and there was support for the concept of a federal Inter-State Commission as mediator in these and other commercial matters. Overshadowing all else, the role of the Senate emerged as the crux. Broadly put, New South Wales and Victoria, with over two-

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thirds of the taxable wealth and population of Australia, would not surrender power to a States’ assembly where they were outnumbered. The other colonies with equal vigour refused to yield autonomy to a parliament with no check on a House of Representatives where they formed a minority. ‘The smaller States,’ said Barton a few weeks later, ‘were moved by fear, not by a desire for plunder,’ but not everyone in Sydney and Melbourne saw it the same way. With a century of hindsight it is arguable that they debated unreal issues. Deakin and Macrossan were right. Party would outweigh local loyalties in the Senate, though it might still be a different story within the caucuses of the major parties. To the delegates of 1897, however, the powers of the Senate became, in an over-used phrase, ‘the lion in the path’. If the powers of both Houses were equal how could Australia follow the Westminster model of responsible government where the government of the day was formed from those who could command a majority in the popularly elected lower House? If responsible government was not adopted, what alternative would be satisfactory? The United States system, centred on a president whose powers were formulated on those of King George III and whose party politics need not be the same as either House of Congress, would not answer in an Australia which was in no hurry to become a republic. Barton had given a clear lead. The Convention should adhere to the hard-won formula of the 1891 Constitution, permitting the Senate to reject money bills but neither to amend them nor to originate new measures involving taxation. Early in the debate this compromise was challenged. For some such as Higgins, Lyne and the only delegate of trade union background, Trenwith—even for Deakin, though he was prepared to suppress his view in the interests of consensus— this was intolerably undemocratic, as it gave a Tasmanian or a Western Australian voter many times the impact of one in New South Wales or Victoria. (In this argument there was a not entirely justified implication that the smaller colonies would always be more reactionary.) In vain some pointed out that the population ratio between the States would not remain constant over time. Symon pointed to the rapid growth of Western Australia through gold, and Reid said: ‘Development is altogether too immature to enable us definitely

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to pronounce where the ultimate greatness of the Australian people will rest.’ Others from the smaller colonies wanted the Senate’s powers to be absolutely co-equal with those of the House. Braddon and Downer put the case urbanely, Sir John Forrest bluntly. The principled conservative McMillan was the only New South Wales delegate to favour a strong Senate, since he was among those who thought that candidates elected by an entire State would win support only if they were characters of some seniority and established reputation. (He could not foresee how the vagaries of party preselection would foist a few real shockers on the Senate.) Increasingly it seemed that the Senate’s powers were the point on which federation might shipwreck. Barton summed up at some length, parrying some arguments, providing historical contexts for others, his leitmotif as ever: ‘The real way out of the difficulty is conciliation, conference, and common sense.’ His resolutions were passed en bloc unanimously. He then moved for the creation of three specialist committees which would absorb the energies of all the delegates: a constitutional committee comprising four from each colony, a financial committee with three each, and a judicial committee with two. The two latter groups would report to the constitutional committee, and the five premiers would be ex officio members of all. Barton chaired the constitutional committee, McMillan the financial and Symon the judicial. Almost immediately a point of contention arose, as the constitutional committee was to appoint a three-man drafting committee whose role in shaping the Constitution would be every bit as important as the Lucinda party of 1891. Barton would be convenor, but who would be his colleagues? Kingston, also a Lucinda veteran, had obvious claims, but he had already been acknowledged as Convention president and might need to spend time with the financial and judicial committees. Perhaps some of the other South Australians opposed him; Deakin thought so, although Symon always strongly denied it. The Victorians thought they had a claim, as they had so far missed out on all the senior posts in the Convention, and Isaac Isaacs was able and eager to serve. He received only one vote, with one for Deakin. The majority favoured O’Connor and Sir John Downer of South Australia.

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This meant that Barton was working with his two closest personal friends at the Convention (he was staying at Downer’s house in North Adelaide), and he must have welcomed the result. Deakin thought that he should have discouraged any cabals against Kingston and Isaacs, but that may have been asking too much. Barton might not agree on all points with Downer especially, or with O’Connor, but he would work much more smoothly with them than with the sometimes irascible Kingston or the sharp-witted insistence of Isaacs. Constrained by tight deadlines, the drafting committee could not afford to lose time through disharmony. But Kingston and Isaacs might have contributed qualities of imagination, and even a touch of radical daring, to the making of the Constitution, and Isaacs was a fine draftsman of legal technicalities. In compensation the drafting committee had as its secretary the 30-year-old Robert Garran. Fresh from the success of a book on federalism, The Coming Commonwealth, he had accepted Reid’s invitation to come to the Convention as his secretary. The duties of that post were light, and perhaps Reid and Barton had foreseen that there would be need of the services of a young barrister not in politics who was shaping up to a long career as one of Australia’s finest legal draftsmen. The constitutional committee sat for the whole of the following week, and in the evenings the drafting committee shaped its findings into the makings of a Constitution. Barton told Griffith: ‘. . . the members are terribly talkative, and want to thrash out the minor clauses as well as the vital ones, just as if they had been asked to do the mere drafting work of the Bill.’ It soon became apparent that the 1891 model would largely serve as a basis, but should be liberalised at a number of points. Some issues such as the abolition of property qualifications for voters and the franchise for women were shelved as interfering with the rights of States, although it was expected that the Commonwealth parliament, once established, would soon deal with both. Kingston tried unsuccessfully to include industrial arbitration and conciliation among the Commonwealth’s powers, but that was not to be the end of the story. Democracy was served by a resolution against plural voting and a decision to refer amendments to the Constitution to the voters. It was agreed that senators should be chosen by their

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States as a whole, not through individual constituencies, and that their minimum age should be 21, not 30 as previously. But despite the misgivings of Victorian and New South Wales representatives the committee also voted to abandon the 1891 compromise which prohibited the Senate from amending money bills. This it was certain would be the main point of contention when the draft Constitution came before the Convention as a whole. ‘We are further apart than in 1891 . . .’ Barton told Griffith, ‘yet I am hopeful.’ The committee met during the whole of the next week and by Friday 9 April reached the point where most of the delegates felt able to take part in a weekend trip to Broken Hill. The drafting committee, which was working up to midnight every night, had no time for such frivolities. Their task was further complicated because the Western Australians were scheduled to return home on Wednesday 14 April to fight a general election, and Forrest wanted to change the order of business so that Sections 52–54 (later Sections 51–53) dealing with the powers of the Senate could be considered ahead of any other part of the draft Constitution. Barton was one of six New South Wales and eight Victorian delegates who opposed the move, but Forrest had 26 supporters. This meant, as the Adelaide Register pointed out, that they would be tackling the most difficult question first. At 2.15 pm on Monday 12 April Barton, ‘pretty well exhausted’, introduced the draft Constitution. Forrest now moved formally that the Senate clauses be taken first and, after more debate, all but Higgins, Lyne and P. M. Glynn from South Australia wearily consented, their tempers not improved by Forrest’s cheerful trumpeting, ‘We have a majority, we have a large majority.’ Next morning the Convention passed Section 52 providing that ‘proposed laws having for their main object the appropriation of any part of the public revenue, or the imposition of any tax or impost shall originate in the House of Representatives’. This was the form of words preferred by Forrest and those who wanted a strong Senate. Barton and the bulk of the Victorian and New South Wales delegates feared that the formula might allow the Senate to expand its authority over bills which had only a minor financial implication, but in an initial trial of strength they were beaten by a 26 to 22 margin. An interlude followed in which J. T. Walker moved to restore the original name

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‘Senate’ for the ‘States’ Assembly’. This passed by 27 votes to 21. Barton was again in the minority, but the division had nothing to do with the split over Senate powers. Then came the critical vote. Section 53 provided, with some refinements, that ‘Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys shall not originate in the Senate’. Reid moved an amendment stating that the Senate also should not originate laws imposing taxation, thus restoring the 1891 compromise. For the rest of the day delegates argued from their entrenched positions. Turner put the nub of Reid’s case by saying that the larger States were conceding equal Senate numbers to the smaller, and they should reciprocate by limiting the Senate’s powers. Without the 1891 compromise federation was not possible. To this Braddon of Tasmania replied that the smaller colonies had already made large concessions, and Forrest said that the 1891 compromise was a defeat. On this the Western Australians were rock solid. Even the least conservative of them, Walter James, asserted that the rights of their colony were no less important than those of Victoria and New South Wales. Holder of South Australia feared they were reaching a splitting point. His colleague Glynn was ready to lose Western Australia and Tasmania rather than compromise. Carruthers called the colonial boundaries ‘mere accidents of geography’. Night was advancing when a vote was called for. Then Barton intervened: I am scarcely in a position to speak tonight, because I am suffering from a bronchial cold. I do not wish to delay the Committee, but I feel this is a question on which I have a right to be heard . . . I should like to be able to speak tomorrow, if progress can be reported tonight.

Of course the adjournment was granted, and the departure time of the Western Australians’ ship was postponed from noon the following day to 6 pm. Before members dispersed, one of the Tasmanians, John Henry, told the Convention that he found Reid’s amendment acceptable and would vote for it. This still left Forrest’s supporters in a majority, but what has been described as Barton’s ‘providential catarrh’ allowed time for

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overnight lobbying. While Barton nursed his cold, and perhaps rehearsed his speech for the morrow, others persuaded two more of the Tasmanians to change sides in the interests of national unity. This still left a tied vote, which meant that Reid’s amendment would fail. The spotlight now turned on McMillan, the only one of the New South Wales delegation likely to side with Forrest. It was no use lobbying that upright Ulsterman. He would make up his own mind in light of the arguments. It was as much to him as to any member of the Convention that Barton spoke when, perceptibly restored and on top of his form, he began to speak at 10 am on Wednesday: While we remember . . . that our duty is to our colony, it should also be remembered that the colony of every one of us has sent us here to perform a duty on its behalf, and that duty is to work out a practical scheme of Federation and a scheme which can be accepted by every one of the colonies.

At this precarious stage of the debate they must remember that they should not ‘put in the hands of one House the ability to utterly destroy the financial policy of the Government’. Then he confronted Forrest with a first-class piece of cross examination: Barton:

Forrest: Barton:

Forrest: Barton:

Forrest: Barton:

We have it from his statement that there is no way in which Western Australia can gain from Federation. That shows how magnanimous we are. My friend says there is no way in which they can gain from Federation, and that in most respects the work which is done in Western Australia is done as well by the local Parliament as it could be done by a federal government. Better. Then let us view the position. If that is his view does he think he will be in a difficulty to get his colony to come in on a scheme of Federation? Yes. Well then, let us view Western Australia as a more or less improbable federating colony, and I ask why should Sir John Forrest force on us a position which will make it much more difficult for the other colonies to federate?

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A few minutes later, while this exchange was still fresh, Barton sat down, after reminding his hearers that ‘you cannot make a federation under which the people live and prosper unless it has their goodwill’. He had been neither too long nor too elaborate. This was the speech on which the issue turned. Half-a-dozen more speakers followed briefly, including the two Tasmanians who had changed sides, and then McMillan got up. He said he found the position taken by Barton against Forrest ‘an immensely strong argument’. For this and other reasons he would vote for retaining the 1891 compromise. That decided it. After a couple more inconsequential speeches and a somewhat huffy complaint by Forrest that he had been misrepresented and that he too believed they were all one people, the vote was taken: 25 in favour of Reid’s amendment, 23 against. Barton believed that in that debate the future of Federation ‘trembled in the balance’. Perhaps they exaggerated the importance of this moment. Perhaps neither the Victorian nor the New South Wales delegates would have walked out if things had gone the other way. Perhaps it would have been possible to sell the federal constitution to the voters of those two large colonies even with the proviso that they could be outgunned in the Senate by the less populated members. Perhaps they should have foreseen, as the Senate discovered in 1975, that it could in Barton’s words ‘utterly destroy the financial policy of the Government’ simply by neither accepting nor rejecting financial legislation. But perceptions are often as important as realities. Especially in New South Wales, which as Lyne truly observed might lose more through Federation than any of the other colonies, it would have been hard to convince a majority of the voting public that their economic interests would be safeguarded and their democratic beliefs validated in a Senate one-third of whose members would be chosen by one-twelfth of the Australian population. Barton and McMillan and the other 46 delegates present in Adelaide on that April morning could be excused for thinking that they had just weathered a critical moment in the making of federated Australia. The rest of the day was anticlimax. After the drama of the vote over the 1891 compromise the Convention lapsed into a good deal of legalistic, if not pernickety, analysis of phraseology. As the Register

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reported: ‘Abstruse speeches on technical points bewildered not only the layman, but confused the legal members themselves.’ During the afternoon they broke off to farewell the Western Australians. Barton took care to praise Forrest as a fair fighter who bore no grudges and Forrest reciprocated, though he could not resist telling an Advertiser reporter that if the Queenslanders took part later in the year they might yet overturn the 1891 compromise. For Barton, however, the text of the compromise was not for tampering. In the days to come he was to resist calls for change from the likes of Higgins and Lyne by reminding them that they must keep faith with the absent Western Australians by adhering to their hard-won agreement; as not seldom with Barton, the ethical argument was also the convenient argument. But at the end of that momentous day Barton must have reflected that Federation, which had seemed so far away two years previously and scarcely closer six months ago, was now securely established on the political agenda across Australia. In the ten days after the departure of the Western Australians Barton drove his fellow delegates through the remaining business at a smart pace. They sat late on several evenings, once past midnight. In his eagerness to push forward Barton at times grew testy with the fine distinctions raised by subtler analysts such as Isaacs. ‘How are we to do our work if we debate matters of this kind?’, Barton demanded at one point, and was not mollified when Isaacs retorted: ‘It is a work which is to stand for all time and we ought to do it properly.’ As leader of the Convention, wrote the Adelaide Register, Barton was ‘distinguished by great ability, in admiration for which one may fairly overlook certain little defects in tact and temper. The sun has spots, but his brilliancy obscures them’. Part of Barton’s strength, as Carruthers wrote years later, lay in his close teamwork with O’Connor: Their collaboration in the drafting of the Constitution was a pleasure to contemplate, as it was so open and manifest . . . Both Barton and O’Connor did their best work in the Convention, not in their speeches but by their patient listening to others and by digesting what was of value in the utterances of others, and by finally reconciling the views of the Convention into one harmonious whole.

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Of the others with whom Barton and O’Connor worked, Downer and Deakin were probably closest. Downer, a genial conservative who shared Barton’s love of good food and wine, had provided him with a sanctuary at the time of the Proudfoot debacle and remained a staunch friend. It would be while visiting the Bartons in Sydney that the widowed Downer would meet the talented artist who became his second wife. A good South Australian mindful of the interests of the smaller members of the Commonwealth, Downer shared Barton’s pragmatism in placing the acceptance of workable compromise ahead of a nice insistence on first principles. Deakin thought of his own role at the Convention as that of a contact man, using his gift of affability to network with his fellow delegates in a constant exchange and reshaping of opinions. He often took long walks with O’Connor. Barton had less taste for exercise, but he and Deakin shared a passion for literature. Theirs were probably the most cultivated intellects in an assembly which included the penetrating acuity of Isaacs and the massive learning of Josiah Symon. Barton was long remembered as one who would read anything rather than nothing, though he was especially fond of Shakespeare, memorising lengthy passages from which he drew apt quotations for his speeches. As for Deakin, Symon, no mean lover of literature himself, complained that on official journeys he would have his head in a book rather than admire the passing scenery or make conversation. Liked by many, Deakin was close to few, and the friendship with Barton and O’Connor consolidated at Adelaide had its importance in the working out of Federation. The delegates at Adelaide gave most attention to the items they thought most critical, which were not necessarily the questions which would come to the fore during the twentieth century. In 1897 the Senate’s relationship with the House of Representatives and the reconciliation of the States’ economic interests seemed the salient problems. The Victorians tried to devise schemes for resolving deadlocks between the two houses of parliament, but without success. Higgins made a last-ditch attempt to overturn the equal representation of States in the Senate, but he was supported by only four others, including Lyne and Carruthers from New South Wales. Lyne’s vote was particularly significant, as he was leader of Barton’s own

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Protectionist party in New South Wales. The democrat in him was stronger than the federalist, and in debate he was growing belligerent. If Reid also came to feel that too much had been conceded to the smaller colonies it would be hard to sell the federal Constitution to the voters of New South Wales. For the present the delegates were showing a readiness to compromise. Trade and commerce between the States remained an issue for hard bargaining. Barton was among those who put their faith in the creation of a federal Inter-State Commission with judicial authority to resolve matters of conflict. If, as the majority preferred, the Commonwealth did not take over the railways, there must be an umpire to curb the practice of offering preferential freight rates to entice traffic from across the border of a neighbouring State—a particular grievance between Victoria and New South Wales, but one also likely to affect Queensland and South Australia. South Australia was also insistent on Commonwealth control of river systems, because the riverboat trade on the Murray depended on the maintenance of water levels. New South Wales and to a less extent Victoria wanted to draw irrigation from the Murray and its tributaries. Time was on their side, as in the twentieth century the riverboats would not withstand the competition of rail and road, but in 1897 the question was hotly contended. Most accepted that the Commonwealth should possess exclusive power over defence, migration and the postal services, including the infant technologies of wireless and telecommunications. The federal government might also take over the States’ debts and, a major factor in creating those debts, the States’ railways, but not at the outset of Federation. Higgins made his first try to include the settlement of industrial disputes among Commonwealth powers, but his motion was defeated by 22 votes to 12, Barton siding with the majority. He abstained over the debate about including an invocation to Almighty God in the preamble to the Constitution, and happily supported the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council, leaving an Australian High Court as the highest tribunal. That was as far as matters could go before it was time for the Convention to disperse on 24 April. The premiers were off to London for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, where they would participate

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in a conference with colleagues from elsewhere in the British Empire. In their absence each of the Australian parliaments would comment on the draft Constitution as it stood so that amendments and additions might be considered when the Convention resumed in Sydney in early September. The Adelaide session anchored the federal ideal in practical politics. The draft Constitution had received endorsement both from the 1891 Convention and its successor of 1897 whose members had been chosen by the public. Queensland might come in during the recess, and there would be a final draft to submit to voter approval in 1898. Barton’s national reputation was greatly enhanced by his handling of the Convention. A few weeks later the governor of New South Wales, Viscount Hampden, offered him a knighthood, doubtless with Reid’s backing. Once again Barton refused. It would not be helpful to the federal cause, he thought. And nobody knew better than he that the federal cause still faced a number of hurdles. Barton was soon confronted by one of the most difficult. In Reid’s absence Carruthers and Brunker could pilot the draft Constitution through the Legislative Assembly, but in the Upper House Want, the attorney-general, said that he ‘could not with any degree of honour or conscience’ take charge of a bill with which he strenuously disagreed. He suggested, and Reid agreed, that Barton should be nominated to the Legislative Council to steer the federal proposals through it. Barton accepted, although it was a daunting prospect without even the consolation of a salary. A majority of the Legislative Council, elderly conservatives nominated for life and facing no need to answer to public opinion, were enemies of change. Barton would have a job convincing them. Even the Legislative Assembly proved, as Carruthers forecast, ‘very longwinded’. There were not many outright opponents of Federation, though one backbencher complained that New South Wales would lose its rights of self-government and self-taxation, and a few others believed that the Federal Council sufficed. Others said the public lacked enthusiasm. ‘I recognise that we have no national spirit,’ remarked one member, ‘we are simply leaning on the old country.’ A few free-traders were worried about tariff policy and a few more about what they saw as the needless expense of a High

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Court. Some complained that lawyers and conservatives dominated the Convention: ‘a very happy family of tories’, in E. W. O’Sullivan’s words. The great ground of complaint, especially among Labor members, was the agreement that each colony should have the same number of members in the Senate. Several applauded Lyne’s stand. Billy Hughes forecast that senators would represent powerful interest groups rather than being elected on their merits, and A. B. Piddington prophesied: ‘I do not believe the union would outlast the first great collision that would occur between the two houses.’ Many potential federationists wanted representation by population, or the reduction of the Senate’s powers, or both. Not having met the delegates from the other colonies, they under-estimated the forces which made for compromise. Barton went on the counter-attack. On 28 May at the New Masonic Hall he assailed the critics provocatively. ‘To some minds it was a very easy thing to frame a federal constitution,’ he said. ‘The less capable the mind was to frame it, the easier they thought the work was.’ And he particularly annoyed the Labor men by asserting: ‘Those who were entitled to speak under the confidence of popular trust were the representatives of each colony at the Convention. Those who were dealing with the matter in the various parliaments had no such warrant.’ In the result the Legislative Assembly dealt not too harshly with the draft Constitution. By a two to one margin they voted to retain the Senate, affirmed the taxing power of the House of Representatives and reduced the Senate’s powers of intervention. ‘A strong Senate will insist on its amendments,’ said Piddington, quoting Griffith, ‘a weak Senate will abandon them.’ But if the democrats in the Legislative Assembly proved somewhat troublesome to the federal cause, they were as nothing compared to the sustained and ingenious hostility awaiting among the conservatives of the Legislative Council. On 14 July Barton introduced the measure into the Council, arguing a little desperately that it had already approved Federation in principle and should not throw out the draft Constitution because it was less than perfect. A week later the critics opened fire. Want said that Barton had not offered one good reason for Federation. Hoskins complained that a federal government would run up large

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debts on an army and navy; but if Federation was inevitable he favoured equal representation for the smaller States in the Senate precisely because they were less democratic. The formidably learned but cranky Sir Julian Salomons, who tended to treat Barton as a well-meaning but wrong-headed junior, made a speech lasting over seven hours (admittedly in two instalments). Among many other points he claimed that the British parliament could provide for an Australian customs union, and the British courts of appeal cost Australia nothing and would provide better judgments than a colonial bench. Louis Heydon asserted that the abolition of Privy Council appeals was backed by ‘all that is disloyal and hostile to Great Britain’, and when reminded that 100 000 voters had sent Barton to the Convention, demanded: ‘Is he free to ruin those people?’ His more measured brother Charles believed they should approach Federation much more slowly and insist that Sydney be the capital. Metropolitan arrogance went further: ‘Of what use are the small States to us?’ asked old Samuel Charles; while Jack Want remarked: ‘Tasmania is a nice country; I go there to enjoy myself; but at the best it is only an undersized sheep run.’ The critic who might command most respect from a modern reader was the chancellor of the University of Sydney, Normand MacLaurin, who argued against the proliferation of governments resulting from a federation. Like Dibbs he wanted a centralised union. Apart from Richard O’Connor, always reliable, level-headed and well-informed, Barton had no heavyweights on his side, although old Dr Andrew Garran was well disposed, the exuberant Dan O’Connor would always speak up with panache and his old antagonist from the University, Renwick (now Sir Arthur), in his sober, temperate way would provide support from time to time. The weight of opinion in the Council seemed about two to one against Barton. Exasperated, he vented his feelings at the annual meeting of the Federation League on 30 July: The utterances that he had been listening to from conservatives were wilder than he had ever heard from the wildest democrat that had ever addressed a crowd from a public-house balcony.

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He had never heard from the wildest democrat such trash as had been uttered in the last few days . . .

The councillors only hardened their hearts. They dropped the radical-sounding ‘Commonwealth’ in favour of ‘Dominion’, stripped the federal government of its treaty-making power and its potential to interest itself in railways, and recommended that members of parliament should not be paid. It was only by narrow margins that the Council rejected proposals to eradicate the High Court, and deprive the Senate of any power over money bills, and the federal parliament’s right to impose any taxes at all was approved by a margin of no more than five. By 24 August Barton had reached the end of his tether. After the rejection of Section 84 empowering the federal government in the field of customs, excise and bounties, Barton disclaimed responsibility for the mutilated Constitution: ‘You might as well say you would improve a horse by cutting off his legs.’ Leaving the remnant clauses to be piloted by Andrew Garran, he stalked out of the Legislative Council with O’Connor beside him. Cheerfully the Council piled on further amendments, ending by cutting out of the preamble the description of the federal compact as ‘indissoluble’. Not all the Council’s amendments might be thought of as reactionary. Labor and democrats could applaud the attempt to strip the Senate of its powers, and in recent years the treaty-making power has proved controversial. MacLaurin, who favoured Dibbs’ concept of one unified government, might be seen as more in tune with the future than a Barton concerned if possible to conciliate Tasmania and Western Australia. In time it would require Reid’s more roughshod approach to bring the Legislative Council into line. Barton was meanwhile bruised by this experience of successive defeats, and his mood was cautious when the second session of the Convention met in Sydney on 2 September. The proceedings began on an uneasy note with a proposal to enlarge the drafting committee by adding Symon and Isaacs. Comfortable in his working relationship with O’Connor and Downer, Barton probably felt no need for reinforcements, but together with Downer, O’Connor and Symon refrained from speaking or voting on

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the issue. Isaacs, perceiving that in a close vote his selection might be seen as lacking moral authority, voted against the proposal and it was lost by a majority of one. Perhaps Barton appreciated the quixotic gesture, as from that time his exchanges with Isaacs were more friendly. But the Victorians were furious, and Deakin led them in walking out of the proceedings for a spell. The three weeks during which the Convention sat in Sydney were less productive than the Adelaide session. No fewer than 286 amendments to the proposed constitution had been suggested by the five colonial parliaments, and although many of them could be lumped together, they provided opportunities for reviving old battles. Barton arranged that, instead of being introduced by the premier of the colony where they originated, the amendments would all be brought forward by the chairman of committees, Richard Chaffey Baker of South Australia, thus reducing the scope for parochial feuding. When Higgins tried once again to move that the States should be represented in the Senate on a population basis, when Forrest tried to enlarge the Senate’s powers over money bills, both were beaten by bigger margins than at Adelaide, and the delegates from each colony very seldom voted as a bunch. Much time and talk were spent on the resolution of deadlocks between the Senate and the House of Representatives but, in the end, like most of the hard decisions, the question was left over to the Melbourne session of the Convention. Barton was nevertheless pleased at what he termed ‘the development of the federal spirit since Adelaide’. His standing as leader of the Convention was still growing. Sir Edward Braddon described him to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as ‘the Colossus of the Convention, and he threw himself into the work with a heartiness and zeal and ability which had certainly never been exceeded’. Although, in La Nauze’s terms, he ‘kept the Convention to its task with the stern devotion of a schoolmaster preparing his pupils for an important examination’, he won the affection of his colleagues, who praised his unfailing courtesy and grasp of detail. In reply Barton said: It is a labour of love to me to do anything in my power to help forward the consummation of the union of Australia. I do not

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know what my temperament may be in other respects, but I think I always find that the harder the work is, in connection with this subject, the more ready I am to undertake it. There is a stimulus in a movement of this kind which is mostly absent from other public movements.

Behind the facade of goodwill a number of fresh developments threatened difficulties. The Queensland parliament was still dragging its feet, although its members requested the Convention not to conclude its deliberations until they could take part, and Barton thought this a hopeful sign. Shortly after the Sydney session ended George Silas Curtis, chief spokesman for the Central Queensland separation movement, called on Barton to suggest that the Constitution should be submitted separately to the voters of Southern, Central and North Queensland, so that the interests of each region might be safeguarded. Barton apparently thought favourably of the idea, but it came to nothing; fortunately, as there would have been a ‘No’ vote in at least one sector. Instead, in November the Queensland Legislative Assembly narrowly rejected a proposal to send delegates to the Melbourne session. It was just as well, as the Queenslanders might have been a disturbing element in the closefought final sessions. Another long-term problem loomed. At some point early in the Sydney session of the Convention Reid privately passed on to Barton three documents which had been entrusted to him in London by the Colonial Office. The mandarins of Whitehall and their formidable minister, Joseph Chamberlain, although strongly sympathetic to the concept of Australian federation, were dismayed at some of the decisions taken at Adelaide. In particular they wanted no restriction on appeals to the Privy Council, fearful for the security of British capital invested in Australia if colonial judges were the last court of appeal in commercial cases. Since the colonies were not sovereign states it was also wrong to claim treaty-making power for the Australian Commonwealth. Besides these major objections the Colonial Office wanted to suggest many minor changes to the proposed constitution, some substantial, others merely points of drafting where the superior wisdom of Whitehall should prevail over the

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work of colonials like Griffith and Barton. Without endorsing all these changes, Reid undertook to communicate the documents to Barton as chairman of the Convention’s drafting committee. Barton went through the material thoroughly. Once or twice his irritation exploded. To a suggestion that periods should be defined for the payment of members of parliament from consolidated revenue, he annotated: ‘This is a Constitution, and not a Dog Act.’ For the most part he gave the English suggestions careful attention, but resisted their tendency to go into points of finicking detail. ‘This is not a body of laws,’ he wrote, ‘but a Constitution.’ There lay ahead the task of negotiating this principle with the products of a British political system priding itself on having no written constitution. For the moment more immediate problems appeared. In October 1897 Reid brought before the Legislative Assembly the legislation necessary to authorise a referendum on the draft Constitution Bill. The anti-federalists objected that, since voting was not compulsory, a good turnout of ‘Yes’ voters in a small poll could bring in New South Wales against the larger number of hostile or indifferent citizens who had not voted. They therefore urged that a minimum quota should be imposed, without which a ‘yes’ vote should not be regarded as valid. After some desultory debate Reid almost casually said, ‘Well, I will take eighty thousand’, and this was agreed. It meant that the advocates of Federation had not merely to win the referendum, but to ensure a turnout of about one-third of all the electors on the rolls. Barton grumbled at the imposition of this hurdle, but he seems to have hoped that the target could be reached. In any case the closing weeks of the year were sufficiently occupied with taking up the long-deferred McSharry arbitration and with enjoying the Sydney summer with his family. The Bartons’ home life was easier and more stable. Jeanie was happy with ‘Miandatta’, the house at Kirribilli where they were to remain for twelve years. One of their first acquisitions was a piano. The eldest child, Edmund junior, was doing impressively well at The King’s School, Parramatta. In his final year he was captain of rugby and champion athlete, colour sergeant of the cadet corps, winner for the second time of the English essay prize and joint dux. At the end of 1897 he was awarded the Broughton scholarship to Oxford, and

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the family determined on sending him to New College. His brothers Wilfrid and Arnold were at Sydney Grammar. Wilfrid inherited his father’s talent for Latin and Greek but Arnold, as sometimes happens with a younger son in a family of achievers, took a different tack. According to his elder sister, ‘Arnold distinguished himself by loafing.’ He was sent to the recently-established Barker College in hope of improvement, but later returned to Sydney Grammar. The younger children, after the confined quarters of Petty’s Hotel, enjoyed a kind of Seven Little Australians existence in the open spaces of North Sydney, not without mischief; a family story tells of a grass fire ignited so that the children might see the fire engine rushing out with bells clanging, horses straining, and uniformed firemen at the ready. For Edmund himself ‘Miandatta’ became the headquarters from which he oversaw the federal movement. Reporters found the house accessible to the ferry terminal at Milson’s Point. Young men prepared to work hard for Federation travelled across the Harbour on those Sunday evenings when it was open house at the Bartons, and often found that when everyone else had retired for the night their host would keep them up into the small hours planning the next moves in the Federation strategy. One such, of the utmost importance in the eyes of a contemporary, was Robert Garran, son of the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, who was making a great reputation as workhorse for the Constitution’s drafting committee. Another, a few years older, was Atlee Hunt, an admirer of Barton since the 1891 election. A heavy smoker, the burly Hunt faced life with the confident pragmatism of a man thrust early into shouldering family responsibilities on slender resources. He gave Barton the same kind of methodical back-up that Dowling provided for the Federation League, and it showed. He was a great favourite with the Barton children, who wrote to him as ‘Mr Hunt, Family Confectioner’. A decade younger was David Maughan, an angular young man recently returned from Balliol College, Oxford, where he had taken first-class honours and acted as a tutor in law; he would later marry Barton’s elder daughter. Even more youthful, and still sufficiently influenced by his Presbyterian upbringing to be scandalised by Barton’s easygoing conviviality, Tom Bavin was beginning a political apprentice-

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ship which would lead to the premiership of New South Wales. Like the others he served ‘the Chief’ loyally and unstintingly. For Barton 1897 had been an excellent year. Contentment in private life was matched with the knowledge that the federal cause was at last taking wing, and that with it his public reputation had increased enormously during the previous twelve months. But his pre-eminence as leader of the federal cause inevitably brought him into competition with Reid. During 1898 their rivalry would complicate the federal movement, and Barton would have to test the esteem and affection gained as a consensual leader against the hard realities of adversary politics.

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9

Barton versus Reid Barton versus Reid

T

HE MELBOURNE session of the Convention promised to be the most difficult of all, as it gave delegates their last opportunity to amend the draft Constitution before it went to the voters. Some thought it would be impossible to find solutions for the problems held over from Adelaide and Sydney. Before leaving Sydney Barton and O’Connor made a number of statements forecasting that 1898 would be a troubled year internationally (as it was) and stressing defence as an argument for Federation. This was a factor often overlooked since the prominence it was first given in Parkes’ Tenterfield speech, and Barton was no doubt reviving it as an incentive for the Melbourne delegates to reach agreement. The session was planned to last longer than the Adelaide and Sydney meetings combined: eight weeks in all, from 20 January to 17 March. Unfortunately it coincided with a series of Melbourne heatwaves which tried the patience of men no longer young in an era of heavy three-piece suits and no form of air-conditioning. Debate was at times tedious and repetitious, and tempers frayed. Some, among them Reid, tended to lapse into adversarial style. Even Barton’s monumental courtesy slipped occasionally. In such circumstances compromises were patched on major points of difficulty, often at a late stage in proceedings and by narrow margins, more for the sake of reaching agreement than because delegates thought them the best possible result of their collective wisdom. A growing

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sense of haste told against correctness of expression, and placed enormous pressure on the drafting committee. Garran may be quoted: Never shall I forget those days and nights. In a sitting-room at the Grand Hotel [now the Windsor] Barton, O’Connor, Downer and I worked on while the City slept. At about midnight Downer would get up, say ‘Time to go for a walk’, and disappear in the direction of his bedroom. An hour or so later O’Connor would say bluntly that he was going to bed. Then Barton and I would carry on till at four or five in the morning I could persuade him to call it a day.

As leader of the Convention Barton’s paramount concern was to secure workable agreements rather than to promote the outcomes which he favoured either personally or as a New South Wales delegate. In his view it could be left to the future Commonwealth parliament and electorate to make the improvements found necessary in the light of experience. ‘Is this a constitution,’ he asked at the end of the session, ‘which will enable a free people to come together to work out their own destiny?’ Other delegates were not always able to share this long-term perspective. In particular, premiers such as Reid, Braddon and Forrest were acutely aware of the need to sell Federation to their critical voters, and naturally wanted the most advantageous terms they could wring out of the Melbourne negotiations. Some of the hardest-fought controversies took place over issues which soon lost salience in the twentieth century. The management of the Murray–Darling river system was one such. Concerned for their riverboat trade, the South Australians wanted control of the rivers to be governed by the Commonwealth’s overriding power over navigation, whereas the New South Wales delegates feared for their State’s interests in irrigation and conservation. As Barton argued: ‘The retention of the soil which borders these rivers is only a retention in name, if you do not give us the use of the water by which alone we can make that land available to our use.’ Picking up a suggestion by Turner, he secured an adjournment so that the interested parties could thrash out the problem in friendly

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conference, but it proved impossible to devise a formula which commanded majority support. Late in the Melbourne sitting Reid moved that no State should be denied use of the Murray–Darling waters for conservation and irrigation, and Barton supported him. By the narrowest of margins the South Australians succeeded in altering the term to ‘reasonable use’; a seemingly innocuous change, but one which opened up the prospect of endless lawsuits to determine what was meant by ‘reasonable’. The New South Wales delegates were unhappy with this outcome. They were not much better pleased when it was decided to leave the vexed question of competitive railway freight rates between New South Wales and Victoria to the arbitration of an Inter-State Commission to be set up under the authority of the Commonwealth parliament. This was not the only point where the smaller colonies seemed to gain ground. Some of their delegates made a push to provide that if the Senate refused to pass essential legislation it would be the House of Representatives alone which would have to go to the polls instead of, as originally stipulated, a double dissolution of both Houses. This provoked an outburst from Reid on 9 March in which he harangued the Tasmanians and Western Australians so provocatively that Barton was obliged to step in tactfully and move an early adjournment. Although, in Reid’s absence, the double dissolution formula was retained, it was with a proviso that if the two Houses failed to agree after the election there should be a joint sitting at which the legislation under debate would have to be passed by a three-fifths majority. This requirement favoured the smaller States against New South Wales and Victoria. As it happened, it was over 70 years before a joint sitting was called, and by that time party discipline had won out over State loyalties, but in 1898 the issue loomed large. The proposed financial arrangements between the Commonwealth and the States dismayed New South Wales delegates even more. It was necessary to devise a formula under which the Commonwealth, which was expected to draw most of its revenue from customs and excise, distributed any surplus to the States. This was likely to benefit the smaller and poorer States at the expense of New South Wales. In time the Commonwealth would be tempted either

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to adopt a policy of high tariff protection or else impose other forms of taxation, and in either case the New South Wales taxpayer would be hit harder than before Federation. Various ideas were debated inconclusively until in the small hours of 12 March the Tasmanian premier, Sir Edward Braddon, moved that three-quarters of the customs and excise revenue should be paid to the States in perpetuity. The hour was late and Braddon had the numbers. Within a few minutes the Convention accepted his proposal by 21 votes to 18. Realising that opponents of Federation would make much of an arrangement which seemed to commit New South Wales to subsidising the smaller States indefinitely, Barton moved next morning to limit its operation for five years. Despite Reid’s support he could not carry the Convention with him, and his amendment was negatived without a division. What was soon termed ‘the Braddon blot’ would prove a powerful hindrance to the federal cause in New South Wales. Barton also had to deal with members of the Convention for whom the Melbourne session was the last opportunity to ride their hobby-horses. Early in the session J. H. Howe, a South Australian, tried to add invalid and old-age pensions to the Commonwealth’s powers, and H. B. Higgins moved once more to include industrial conciliation and arbitration on the list. Barton opposed both because he feared that every extension of federal power widened the scope for controversy and might weigh against a ‘Yes’ vote. Howe’s proposal was narrowly defeated, but Higgins managed a 22 to 19 vote in favour of federal authority in industrial arbitration. Late in the Convention Howe returned to the charge, citing the need of migratory workers for a nationwide scheme. To Barton’s astonishment Howe won a 26 to 4 majority, Barton and O’Connor finding only two others in the last ditch. Many must have abstained or missed the debate through lack of interest. Pragmatically, and to Higgins’ amusement, Barton later cited both changes as evidence of the Convention’s readiness to progress in a democratic direction. In one respect Barton was shifting his ground to a somewhat radical and nationalist stance. Among the doubts raised secretly in the memorandum concerning the draft Constitution which Reid brought back from the Colonial Office, the strongest by far involved

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appeals from Australian courts to the Privy Council. The Adelaide session of the Convention resolved to abolish appeals from either the State supreme courts or the federal courts without the High Court’s consent, hoping to prevent rich litigants from doubling their chances in a lawsuit. Loyalists deplored this proposal as severing one of the last links with the British Empire. They were strongly supported by the British government and by Australian businessmen who feared that Australian judges could not be sufficiently trusted to protect the interests of British investors. Before and during the Melbourne session a well-orchestrated campaign of petitions from chambers of commerce and other investment companies protested against the restriction of Privy Council appeals. Late in the Melbourne session Sir Joseph Abbott moved to extend the scope of Privy Council appeals. His motion passed by 20 votes to 19. Barton, with personal experiences to feed his scepticism about the Privy Council, was in the minority, but curiously both Deakin and O’Connor sided with Abbott. Josiah Symon then moved that the Privy Council should not have authority over constitutional cases, and Barton strongly supported him: ‘if Australia is to be the maker of its Constitution it is fairly competent to be the interpreter of its own Constitution,’ he said, though he was prepared to move an amendment allowing Privy Council jurisdiction in cases affecting other parts of the British Empire. So amended, the motion passed by 21 votes to 17. As the Melbourne session of the Convention drew to a close Barton could satisfy himself that the draft Constitution Bill reflected a decent sense of Australian self-confidence, and that with the exception of the ‘Braddon blot’ the allocation of powers between the federal government and the States seemed sufficiently realistic to convince a majority of voters. It was disappointing that Queensland still stood out, and by no means certain that Forrest would or could bring in Western Australia, but on the Canadian precedent it would provide a viable start if the four south-eastern colonies agreed to federate. New South Wales was still the uncertain factor, however. During the Melb ourne session Reid ha d grown increa singly depressed about the ‘undemocratic’ features of the Constitution, partly from a conviction that the majority of Australians in New

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South Wales and Victoria were being subordinated to the minority in the outer colonies, and partly for fear of being outflanked by Lyne in bidding for Labor support. He was also unhappy about the decisions on irrigation, railways and the ‘Braddon blot’, all of which he saw as harmful to New South Wales. Before Reid returned to Sydney Barton asked him: ‘Are we to be at loggerheads over this measure or are you going to support it?’ Reid answered: ‘Well, there are a good many things in the bill that I object to, but I think I can tell you that I do not intend to oppose the bill, and that I shall do or say nothing that will be an obstacle to your efforts to get it accepted.’ Barton returned from Melbourne with his prestige greatly enhanced. He could now negotiate with the premiers of the other colonies as an equal, and was not backward in claiming the authority which came of topping the poll in the New South Wales vote for delegates and being chosen unanimously as the Convention’s leader, roles which could be seen as a rehearsal for leadership of the future Commonwealth parliament. They constituted a challenge to Reid’s pre-eminence as premier of the senior colony, and without waiting for Reid Barton plunged into the campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote immediately on his return. Despite some heckling his first meeting at the New Masonic Hall on 24 March swept the audience: ‘People rose to their feet and waved hats and handkerchiefs, and sticks and umbrellas, and the applause and the cheering were deafening.’ It was the first of 38 major speeches he would make during the next 70 days, not counting numerous impromptu whistle-stops, speeches from hotel balconies, and other public appearances. Reid since his return was keeping an uncharacteristic silence on the Federation issue. Barton suspected that he meant to desert the cause, but he and O’Connor were on the platform on the night of 28 March when Reid delivered a two-hour speech at the Town Hall to an audience calculated at 5000. At some length he identified all the weaknesses in the draft Constitution, once or twice provoking interjections from Barton, but at the end he affirmed that despite ‘serious blots’ in the bill he would record a vote in its favour. At this Barton leaped from his seat on the platform and shook Reid by the hand.

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Others were less impressed. Reid was lampooned as the ‘Yes–No’ wriggler, neither good Billite nor Anti-Billite. A few nights later the University of Sydney held its degree-giving ceremony, the Commemoration. The anti-federalist chancellor, Normand MacLaurin, looked on with a frosty eye as a rowdy chorus of undergraduates sang to the tune of ‘There is a Tavern in the Town’: Oh Georgie Reid sits on a rail, on a rail, His speech, it was a mournful wail, mournful wail, But Toby Barton kno-o-ows the ropes, And on him we will pin our hopes. We’re the boys for federating, You should hear our chaps debating . . .

Reid’s balancing act failed to please the federalists, without conciliating opponents such as Jack Want, who on 30 March declared: ‘I am going to oppose federation to the utmost of my ability. I intend to oppose it to the full strength of my powers, intellectually and physically.’ A few days later he resigned as attorney-general to free himself for the fight. Reid’s ‘Yes–No’ attitude left Barton indisputably the leader of the campaign for Federation. It was decided to ginger-up the Federal League by creating a Federal Association specifically designed to fight the ‘Yes’ campaign. Barton was unanimously elected president and campaign director. At the beginning of April he sent telegrams to 180 New South Wales mayors and shire presidents urging them to accept a position on the Association’s committee and to pledge support for the Bill. More than 100 accepted. Barton’s commitment to the McSharry arbitration did not permit him to campaign outside Sydney during April, but wherever he went he promoted the Federal Association, and by mid-May it had 70 branches. He ran a vigorous campaign. With repetition the delivery of his message was becoming simpler, and his oratory less complex. At Annandale on 7 April he struck form: There were many people who were in great trouble over this constitution. There was the moneybags man who had got property in Sydney, and who thought that under federation Sydney

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would go down and his property would depreciate. The real fact was that as Sydney was the supreme city of New South Wales, so it would be the supreme city of Australia under the federation . . . Experience had always shown that with the outpouring of the energy of a people consequent on all pulling together, instead of wasting their energy in seeking to gain the advantage one over the other, not only would commerce be widened, but industry would have a larger and better market, and the people would have more employment. The people would have a national outlook, not a ‘cribbed, cabined, and confined’ outlook. It would sweep their eyes away from a corner of the map where a boundary was marked by a blazed line of trees to where they would see a whole continent for a nation, and a nation for a continent. (Cheers).

An admiring young Garran noted down the phrase ‘a continent for a nation, and a nation for a continent’. Although not prominently reported in the press at the time, the phrase stuck and became the federalists’ slogan. It was noted that ladies were present at many of Barton’s meetings. Previously the boisterous masculine environment of public meetings at adversarial election campaigns had been urged as one of the reasons for women to stay out of politics. It may be that in an era when an increasing number of women were questioning the male monopoly of the vote, Federation was seen as an important symbol of national consensus and harmony, perhaps possessing appeal to women. At the very least it is arguable that, although Barton himself had hitherto opposed women’s suffrage, the Federation campaigns encouraged political consciousness among many middle-class women. When the Federal Association adopted the white ensign as its emblem one group of ladies was reported as making ‘a magnificent flag’, but not all women were Federationists. Rose Scott spoke effectively at several of the ‘No’ meetings, appearing on the hustings with Lyne at Newcastle, and at a Sydney meeting gently satirising the woman who voted ‘Yes’ because she liked Mr Barton. So did she, said Rose Scott, but that was no reason to vote for big government and heavier taxation. Popular speakers such as Barton, O’Connor and Wise decided at first to concentrate on centres within a day’s travel of Sydney, but

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federalists in the rural towns were soon clamouring for their share of attention. The ‘No’ side’s Anti-Convention Bill League was reported to be ‘inundated by so many requests for speakers . . . that the executive is being put upon its mettle to meet the demands put upon it’, and they had to be countered. Barton was most in demand; as one Northern Rivers federalist said: ‘If Mr Barton could come up the river the voters would poll to a man for union.’ A Quirindi public meeting had a clear hierarchy of priorities. If they could not get Barton they wanted another prominent man such as O’Connor, Carruthers or Wise. Failing any of them the Federal Association should send ‘one of their ordinary members’, and only as a last resort should they draw on the resources available locally. Even in Broken Hill, where the 1892 strike still left bitter memories, the mayor and council repeatedly invited Barton to visit, but it was too far and eventually speakers were found from South Australia. During May Barton made four sweeps of the New South Wales railway system. He went first to the birthplace of the Federation League, speaking at Albury, Corowa and Wagga. Between 14 and 20 May he spoke at Gundagai, Cootamundra, Narrandera, Hay, Nyngan, Dubbo, Bourke, Whitton, Wellington and Orange. The following week he was off to Newcastle, Maitland West, Hillgrove, Armidale, Tamworth and Narrabri, and on 30 May he went down to the enemy stronghold of Goulburn. Under the stimulus of campaigning his health stood up to this strenuous programme of civic receptions, large dinners, and marathon speeches. His relish showed itself in greater skill at repartee, though he never quite matched Reid’s readiness. Cootamundra provides an example:

Mr Barton:

Mr Barton:

‘What about the McSharry case?’ ‘Well I suppose I know more about that case than the man who interrupted; and I also know more about good manners.’ (cheers) ‘Way warnt a republic, and ter mek you president.’ ‘Thank you, but there’s a certain sort of individual I wouldn’t care to be president of.’ (roars) ‘Ere, Barton, we’re fools! Your not I s’pose?’

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Mr Barton:

‘I think you describe the situation accurately.’ (roars)

Barton saw his role as correcting the misleading propaganda of the ‘No’ campaigners. When at last I was able to make a country tour [he later wrote] I found that these falsehoods had made deep impressions which it was most difficult to efface; nevertheless I succeeded in 12 out of the 16 centres that I visited . . . But the Western districts and such parts as the nearer North and much of the South Coast were against us.

Reid by contrast made only three major speeches, each time growing more entrenched in his position that, although Federation was a good thing, the enthusiasts for the cause should not be allowed to tie New South Wales to a bad bargain. His attitude was understandable, and even justifiable, but Barton’s mistrust of him hardened. ‘Reid is no true federalist . . .’ he told Turner, ‘his support and his opposition are equally diluted by their effect on his official position as a Minister.’ Two months of hard campaigning immediately following the Convention had left Barton with an intense emotional investment in the success of his cause, and possibly with less tolerance for alcohol than usual. At times his judgment and even his behaviour on platform betrayed strong feeling. On the eve of the referendum his campaign ended where it had begun, at the New Masonic Hall. While reading a telegram of goodwill from the Canadian prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Barton was overcome by tears: ‘. . . was it a little thing they should that night kindly breathe the national aspirations from Canada knowing it was the sentiment of those who had decided and knew the value of nationality?’ But his audience of more than 2000 was sympathetic, and the Sydney Morning Herald hopefully forecast that only bad weather could prevent a ‘Yes’ vote. The weather was clement on 3 June, and the ‘Yes’ vote was duly recorded, but it was not enough to meet the quota of 80 000 stipulated by the New South Wales parliament. The final figures

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A Federation Poem. Barton is, of course, the engineer. (The Bulletin, 7/5/1898)

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were 71 595 ‘Yes’ and 66 228 ‘No’. Throughout counting the ‘Yes’ vote was ahead, but always by a margin too close for complacency. Barton, O’Connor, Wise and their friends watched the results from a room in a hotel opposite the Herald office, and at one point in the evening word spread that the ‘Yes’ tally had reached the target of 80 000. His cheering admirers picked Barton up and carried him around the room before calling on him to speak. Once again excitement coloured his judgment. Having counselled caution in case the report was false, he continued: ‘If it is a victory you must not forget that it is not a complete one, and that there are certain people who will have to be punished before you can become part of a nation.’ He never identified these ‘certain people’, and the remark could be read as ungenerous, especially when it emerged that the ‘Yes’ vote was not enough for victory and that waverers would need to be won over. Probably Barton was serving notice that at the forthcoming elections the voters of New South Wales should throw out those who were hostile or lukewarm about Federation, and return a pro-federal government with himself in a position of leadership. Reid was untroubled. He refused to give press interviews about the outcome of the referendum and spent the night at Her Majesty’s Theatre watching The Sign of the Cross. The referendum could be seen as vindicating Reid’s ‘Yes–No’ stance. The voters wanted Federation, but not at any price. As soon as the results were clear Reid invited the other premiers to confer on modifications which might make the Constitution Bill more palatable to the voters. His demands numbered seven. The Senate should be deprived of its power to amend money bills, and at a joint sitting of both houses after a double dissolution the vote should be decided by a simple majority, not a three-fifths margin. The ‘Braddon blot’ should be eliminated. State rights over inland rivers should be protected. The boundaries of existing States should be entrenched, and the federal capital should be in New South Wales. Appeals to the Privy Council should either be unlimited in scope or abolished altogether. Except for this last point these were all in accord with Barton’s own views. The question was how hard they could be demanded without endangering the federal compromise, and Reid was more inclined than Barton to tough matters out.

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Dr Barton’s Baby. A Melbourne view of the result of the 1898 Referendum. Cartoons of the time often showed Barton as a doctor or nurse in attendance on the infant Federation. (Melbourne Punch, 9/6/1898)

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Barton on the other hand could argue that South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria had all returned large majorities for the Bill as it stood, and it should not be too much to expect the same of New South Wales. His entire campaign had been conducted on the slogan: ‘The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill!’ Acting as if his leadership of the Convention gave him a status independent of Reid, he also communicated with the premiers, questioning Reid’s sincerity and urging them not to compromise. Braddon of Tasmania agreed. ‘Previously there was trust of Reid,’ he wrote, but he thought Reid’s conference scheme ‘a mere ruse’ to sideline Federation and hoodwink the voters at the New South Wales elections. Kingston, having consulted Downer, replied that any conference must weaken the Bill’s standing as the voters’ will. ‘Surely you do not propose to alter the Bill when we carried the vote,’ he telegraphed Barton. Turner was more pragmatic, believing that the voters who favoured Federation were not locked into opposing all alterations and that it would be a mistake not to enter into discussion with Reid. ‘You cannot escape your small majority,’ he reminded Barton. Barton meanwhile was having second thoughts. If Reid’s proposal for a conference merely defused the federal question until after New South Wales went to the polls, the election would be fought on the old free trade versus protectionist slogans and Reid would probably beat Lyne and control the destinies of Federation for the next three years. If a conference took place before the election and the other premiers rejected Reid’s amendments, he would go to the voters as defender of New South Wales rights against the impracticality of the other colonies, leaving the federalists as his main opposition. Success might come more readily for Barton and his team if they were prepared to negotiate on at least some of Reid’s demands. In a speech in the Legislative Council at the end of June Barton called for the elimination of the ‘Braddon blot’, the siting of the federal capital in New South Wales and for the bare majority rule in joint sittings of the two houses of the federal parliament. He then succumbed to a bout of bronchitis which kept him inactive for ten days, and during that time Reid announced the elections for 27 July. Barton’s plans were in readiness. A few weeks earlier he wrote, ‘It will be war to the knife between Reid and myself. He is very

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The Celebrated Yes–No Mixture. At the end of the nineteenth century there were several notorious cases involving baby farming atrocities, where foster parents took money for looking after infants, who very soon died from neglect. The most scandalous involved a married couple, portrayed here by Jack Want and George Reid as the sinister foster parents of Federation. (The Bulletin, 23/7/1898)

cunning; b ut I think I can last longer; at any rate, I will see it out. Pecuniarily, it will be disastrous to me, but that result must be faced for such a cause as ours.’ Although he protested that he approached re-entry into parliament with ‘naked horror’ he prepared for the fray with relish. His tactics required finesse, however. Lyne was still leader of the opposition, and had borne the burden for three years, but he opposed Federation under the Constitution Bill as insufficiently democratic. Barton could not appear to compete with him, but he wanted to oust Reid and Want in favour of a thoroughgoing federalist party of which he might expect to be leader. The Federal Association under Barton’s inspiration set up an election committee composed equally of freetraders and protectionists. This was intended to show that party divisions based on tariff policies were in abeyance, but it could also be seen as a lapse into the faction politics of an earlier decade. In the upshot the Federal Association endorsed nearly all the Protectionist candidates and lost some Free Trade support. Barton was expected to contest the far western constituency of Bourke, though some speculated that he might seek a seat closer to

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Empty is the Cradle. The good Dr Barton rescues the infant Federation from the wicked foster parents, who lie among the graves of their other ‘murdered’ policies. (The Bulletin, 30/7/1898)

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Sydney. He did indeed. Hardly a fortnight before the poll he announced that he would take on Reid himself in the King division of central Sydney. Part of the old East Sydney electorate, this seat covered most of Sydney’s central business district east of George Street, with adjacent working-class sectors in Surry Hills and Woolloomooloo. Reid was taken by surprise. Having vanquished Parkes in 1895 he probably thought himself secure and as late as 11 July was taunting his opponents with their failure to run a candidate against him. He intended devoting his energies to helping members of his party in marginal seats. Barton’s intervention pinned him down in what the delighted voters of King saw as a battle of the giants, offering even more potential for rowdiness and excitement than the 1895 contest. Despite a series of cold wet nights audiences turned out in their hundreds—on some nights the estimates were as high as four or five thousand—to hear the speakers. Barton hardly bothered to enter into domestic politics, arguing that the fiscal issue should be left in abeyance until Federation was achieved. Beyond insisting that the tariff was a dead issue, his stance on such matters as the proposed alienation of part of Hyde Park for a railway differed little from Reid’s. To judge by press reports of the campaign the contest focused on one issue: ‘Who is the rightful owner of the federal policy?’ Was Reid or Barton better qualified to negotiate terms with the other premiers to secure a more equitable deal if New South Wales federated? Barton denounced Reid as the unscrupulous ‘Yes–No’ wriggler, whose heart was not in the federal cause, and who would demand such impossible terms that the other premiers would be alienated and Federation fail. Reid presented himself as a businesslike negotiator who could parley with his fellow premiers as men who each wanted the best deal for his own colony, but would accept the outcome of hard bargaining. He claimed that Kingston and Braddon wanted Barton as premier of New South Wales because he would give up more to them in his over-eagerness for Federation. ‘This is a wily appeal to local prejudices,’ commented Glynn. Reid also criticised Barton for failing to promote Federation while in the Dibbs cabinet: ‘Mr Barton’s flag and drum lay dusty and neglected for two years under the Ministerial benches.’ Each picture had an element of caricature in it.

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Barton versus Reid 183 That Vote of Censure. The Bulletin sees Barton as dwarfing both Reid and Lyne in his status as a national figure. (The Bulletin, 2/7/1898)

The hardest-fought ground between the two was the contest for legitimacy as the leader who had transformed Federation from the Parkesian concept of it, as something to be negotiated between

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senior statesmen, into a popular cause identified with the Australian people. Reid asserted: The great federal movement up to the time I took control of it was kept on too high an arena for the ordinary people of this country. It was kept in the hands of the great statesmen of Australia, and what I did was to assemble the Premiers of Australia and ask them to take the movement out of the hands of the politicians and place the great national destiny in the hands of the people.

Barton made much of his mandate as the delegate who had topped the poll for the Convention and later been accepted as its leader. And he began to re-write the history of the federal movement in a way which has misled later historians. The lean years of 1895 and 1896, when Barton preached the gospel of the Federal League to small and apathetic audiences in the suburbs of Sydney, were gradually transformed into a national crusade. At the outset of the campaign he simply claimed: ‘I have lost no opportunity of speaking in favour of the union of these colonies.’ A week later, competing with Reid for legitimacy, he was asking his audiences: ‘Who went from town to town in every corner of New South Wales, and exhorted his hearers to understand the question, and read and studied the question to impart information to them?’ It was Barton, of course. Consciously or otherwise, he was transferring his achievements during the 1898 referendum campaign to his much less encouraging experiences two or three years earlier. Barton did not go unchallenged. Jack Want called him ‘a vain unstable person, puffed up by the interested flattery of the other colonies’. When a group of admirers presented Barton with a silver matchbox inscribed ‘To the First Australian’, Reid remarked that Barton was such a good Australian he made a bad New South Welshman. Towards polling day campaigning grew rougher. At each major meeting, Barton, Reid, and especially Want, were met with interjections, often reinforced by flour-bags and bad eggs. It was in this campaign that Barton wore an old coat so frequently assailed by rotten eggs that he called it his ‘ova-coat’ and Reid, struck on the chin by a bursting flour-bag, kissed his hand to the crowd and

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exclaimed: ‘See, even my opponents make me look whiter than ever!’ Barton encountered his wildest night in Billy Hughes’ waterfront constituency, the Lang division of Sydney. He could not get a hearing and abandoned the meeting. As he walked back along Market Street six eggs were thrown at him, and he was serenaded with ‘We’ll hang Toby Barton on a sour apple-tree’, sung to the tune of ‘John Brown’s Body’. As the campaign ended, Barton in dramatic vein told the King division voters that their verdict would decide ‘whether there would be Australian federation during the present generation or whether it would be postponed indefinitely’. On polling day Barton set up his headquarters at the Royal Hyde Park Hotel, bedecked with red and blue ribbons and posters. At the other end of the same block George Reid campaigned from the Royal Standard. Between the two surged a crowd estimated at 3000 and arguing vigorously. A Herald reporter listening to these impromptu debates was surprised to find ‘what a grip of the great national question had been obtained by all standards and conditions of men’. What emerged in this campaign was a clarity that the voters expected the Federation issue to stay alive after the referendum. It was not enough to win the poll for Barton. The result was Reid, 761; Barton, 651; and eight to an irrelevant independent also named Reid. With 45.8 per cent of votes counted Barton achieved more than half the swing from the 1895 figures required to unseat Reid, though surprisingly a slightly smaller proportion of electors turned out to vote. Reid’s triumph was almost Pyrrhic, as many of his followers, including three of his cabinet ministers, lost their seats. Telegrams of congratulation to Barton on a well-fought battle came from Deakin, Symon, Forrest and many others. ‘It will always remain a historic political duel, probably the most famous that Australia will see for decades,’ wrote Deakin. ‘The BARTON party has been returned,’ reported the Bulletin, ‘but without BARTON.’ This was not quite true. Barton’s party had gained ground to win 61 of the 125 seats in the Legislative Assembly. Six more seats had been lost through splitting the Protectionist vote between two candidates in an age of first-past-the-post voting. Barton was probably right in claiming that more votes were cast for his supporters than for Reid’s. But Reid’s team held 64 seats, three more than the

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The Man or the Tiger? Melbourne Punch comments on Reid’s victory over Barton in the East Sydney election of 1898. The figures refer to the numbers of votes gathered by each candidate. (Melbourne Punch, 28/7/1898)

opposition, and while Labor continued its support Reid was safe. ‘The people of New South Wales have decided that the great cause of Federation shall be entrusted to my hands,’ he said. In what Barton hoped would be a quiet day at home after the election, several reporters arrived to ask him whether he would enter a coalition with Reid. ‘Not with Jack Want,’ replied Barton cheerfully. A few days later when Reid and Barton were both guests of honour at a Commercial Travellers Association banquet they exchanged olive branches. Reid admitted that the breath of public opinion was ‘rarely pleasant and sometimes somewhat mixed’, and Barton said that if Reid was in earnest about working hard for Federation he would be only too happy to cooperate. Cooperation was still some months off. Most observers agreed that the new parliament far more than the old was committed to Federation in some shape or form. Nevertheless, when on 24 August Reid presented parliament with New South Wales’ terms for negotiation with the other colonies, Barton was still condemning his ‘all

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or nothing’ attitude as a pretext for failing to enter Federation. Counselled by Barton, Lyne moved on 8 September that Reid should simply be authorised to negotiate without preconditions. Reid treated this as a motion of no confidence, and after a week’s debate won by the slim margin of four votes. Without Barton, instead of seeming the true upholders of the federal cause, the opposition under Lyne still looked like the same old gang of provincial Protectionists and no match for Reid. ‘Lyne lacks the capacity for leadership,’ wrote the Bulletin, ‘he is short of tact and eloquence and charm: he has almost as few democratic instincts as Reid; and he has not Reid’s valuable capacity for political dishonesty.’ The problem was to find Barton a seat. Immediately after the general election Robert Pyers, an auctioneer who sat for Richmond, was expected to yield his seat to Barton. Pyers, however, was a Lyne supporter and not a keen Federationist, and he welshed on the deal, arguing that such a move would not bring his party closer to office. Indignant, Henry Copeland at once offered to give up his seat for the Phillip division of Sydney to Barton. He was too senior and too useful for the sacrifice to be accepted. After a few weeks of negotiation Francis Clarke, who had been returned unopposed for Hastings and Macleay, volunteered to step down for Barton. Lyne tried to talk him out of it: ‘Don’t you do it, Clarke, don’t you do it. You see me again before you do anything like that.’ Instead of following this advice Clarke discussed his intentions with his neighbour and fellow Catholic Richard O’Connor. It was agreed that if Barton won the by-election Clarke would continue looking after the local affairs of the Kempsey and Port Macquarie districts while Barton concentrated on the Federation campaign. ‘The district is a large and scattered one,’ commented a newspaperman, ‘but the people, taken as a whole, are not ardent politicians. They are nice homely folk, but it is difficult to put aside party strife.’ Given its narrow majority the Reid government could not resist putting up a strong candidate against Barton when the by-election was announced early in September 1898. He was Sydney Smith, a cabinet minister who had lost his seat of Bathurst at the general election. There was something of a grudge fight about his candidature, as Smith blamed Barton’s intervention for his defeat at

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Bathurst. Smith campaigned on his respectable record as Reid’s minister for agriculture who understood the viewpoint of the farmers better than the urban Barton, too wrapped up in the federal cause to attend properly to local needs. He was supported by the minister for works, Young, who sat for a neighbouring constituency and spread broad hints about the public works which might come if the voters of Hastings and Macleay made the right choice. Barton retorted: ‘He had no idea of bribing the electors with promises of roads or bridges, or even fancy bulls and cows.’ Even Reid himself made a lightning tour of the electorate, during which he was thrown from a buggy when the horses bolted, but made a trenchant speech the same evening. An Irish publican wanted to organise a fusillade of rotten eggs for Reid, but Clarke and Barton discouraged him. Barton told the voters: ‘If you have any eggs to spare at home boil them and eat them’, but Reid complained that he should not have mentioned the subject at all. Barton’s campaign pulled out all the stops in extolling his statesmanlike credentials. It was during this campaign that he was first dubbed ‘Australia’s Noblest Son’, according to Reynolds, who has a story of a fence daubed with six-foot letters: ‘AUSTRALIA’S NOBLEST SON AND GREATEST ORATOR WILL ADDRESS THE ELECTORS AT PORT MACQUARIE.’ (It must have been a big fence.) The phrase was in fact coined by the local Anglican rector (the Rev. R. H. D. Kelly), and taken up in mockery by the Daily Telegraph. Barton’s supporters, however, used the term in uncritical admiration and the name stuck. As the Age correspondent George Cockerill remembered: ‘No one could chide Edmund Barton for lack of self-possession, but when the title of ‘‘Australia’s noblest son’’ was uttered in his presence he was sorely embarrassed and resentful.’ He would mutter, ‘To hell with this noblest son business’, but it was no use. As in the King division, his propaganda told the tale, remembered with advantage, of earlier crusading for Federation: After Sir Henry Parkes in his declining years had lighted the torch it was taken up and carried through the country by Mr Barton. He was at the time neither a Minister nor a member of

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parliament. A private individual, one of the people, he took up the cause and made it popular. Touring the country he taught the electors the meaning and significance of nationhood . . .

‘A private individual, one of the people’: Barton was tapping into the common Australian mistrust of professional politicians and turning his enforced absence from politics after 1894 into a source of credit. To rub in the contrast with Reid the same article reminded its readers that the 1897 poll for delegates to the Convention was headed ‘not by the Premier, not the man who had made a trade of politics, but the man who had awakened the electors to a knowledge of the feelings latent in their own hearts’. Where Reid tried to appeal to the public through his skills as a politician, Barton identified himself with a public which did not possess those skills and tended to mistrust them. But of course it required astute political skills to associate himself thus with the sense of Australianness ‘latent in their own hearts’. Barton won the by-election by 961 votes to 653 for Smith. ‘I cannot remember a contest outside of this colony where the result was awaited with such interest,’ wrote Deakin from Melbourne, adding that it might not be a bad thing if Reid remained premier: ‘You can lead and drive him in office but in opposition he will be a thorn in your side.’ The next few weeks were spent in intricate political manoeuvres. Lyne yielded the leadership of the party to Barton, although Dibbs had earlier made one of his rare appearances from retirement to urge that Barton should serve his time among the rank and file. The opposition on the same day launched censure on Young for his alleged bribery of the voters of Hastings and Macleay, but were defeated on party lines after an acrimonious debate. As minister for railways Young declared that he would never have entered into the McSharry case if he had known that it would take so long and cost the taxpayer so much. Barton was sufficiently stung to declare that he would take no more fees for the case and devote immediate attention to winding it up. In October he lodged his findings with the Supreme Court. Where McSharry had claimed £150 000 Barton awarded him a little more than £13 000, a verdict which in the eyes of the Herald

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j ustified the ra ilwa y commissioners in resisting McSha rry’s demands. But costs amounted to over £50 000, and the New South Wales government spent nearly £30 000 of taxpayers’ money on the case. The inquiry took 323 working days, of which 88 were occupied with addresses by the respective counsels. Since they were Richard O’Connor and Bruce Smith, two of Barton’s closest friends, it could be suspected that they were spinning out the case so that Barton might continue drawing his fee as arbitrator. In all the commissioners’ fees came to over £8000, a small part to Heydon in the early months of the inquiry but most to Barton. By providing Barton with financial security during a critical period of the Federation debate McSharry made his contribution to Australian nationhood, though he may not have appreciated it. Among the hazards of life as leader of the opposition Barton might have included an invitation to lunch by a visiting English couple, Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Intellectual powerhouses of the British Fabian movement, the Webbs visited Sydney in October as part of a world tour in which the holiday element was overtaken by a comparative study of systems of local government. Handsome, sharp-witted and opinionated, Beatrice Webb mistook the Australian manner for a variety of English lower middle-class vulgarity, and her verdicts on the Australians she met read oddly. Deakin she criticised for his narrow forehead and lack of force. Barton, she acknowledged, ‘has the face of an actor or a preacher, he is a cultured man and appreciates an intellectual point’. But, she added, ‘He hardly looks capable of a hard day’s work, certainly not of years of persistent labour. And outside Federation he seems to have few political ideas.’ With puritan dogmatism she added: ‘He likens Reid in only one respect; he looks as if he chronically over-ate himself; but even here Reid has the advantage . . . When Reid is replete he nods off to sleep; when Barton has eaten more than he can digest I am convinced that he is irritable.’ No doubt Beatrice Webb was the kind of woman with whom Barton felt uncomfortable. Sidney Webb at least numbered him with Reid and Wise as foremost in intelligence and force. Barton’s first weeks as leader of the opposition confronted him with a dilemma. On the one hand he largely supported Reid about

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the need for some renegotiation of the draft Constitution, while differing in details. He allied himself with Reid in opposing radicalising amendments proposed by the Labor Party, and conservative alterations urged by the Legislative Council, both out of conviction and because he shared with Reid a realistic appreciation of how far it was safe to tamper with the Bill without antagonising the other colonies. On the other hand it was the opposition’s business to displace Reid if possible, and Barton’s to seek the premiership, and he could not afford to seem too friendly to Reid. An opportunity seemed to arrive in November when Reid was reluctantly obliged to impose or continue tariffs on rice, tea and sugar products, because drought and recession were reducing the revenue from land and income taxes. As member for a sugar-growing district, and as one who had consistently urged a fiscal truce until Federation, Barton should not have objected to these proposals, but the opportunity to condemn the Reid government for ‘tinkering with the tariff’ was too tempting. In an eloquent speech pitched at Labor support Barton moved censure on the government for imposing a duty on tea. It was the wrong issue. Labor, some of whose members still held bitter thoughts on the Broken Hill strike, was not yet ready to desert Reid, whereas several federalists disapproved of the attack on Reid’s financial proposals. Reid himself made a slashing reply, and the motion was lost by 63 votes to 40. ‘Had he [Barton] succeeded,’ wrote Glynn, ‘Federation would have suffered. His following is a motley one, and requires an artful technician, with personal force and coarse-grained sympathies, to keep its members together.’ So the parliamentary session ended with Reid still in office and in charge of negotiations with the other premiers. Reid’s biographer argues that his ‘great contribution . . . was made at the expense of his own political position’ because in steering a middle course between the thoroughgoing federalists and their opponents he lost support from both. But Barton could not be sure that he had gained ground during 1898, for although he had led the Convention to agreement there had been disappointments later. Having failed to muster a big enough ‘Yes’ vote at the referendum, he was unable to topple Reid at the general election; and although the Hastings and Macleay by-election resulted in success,

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he had not improved on Lyne’s performance as leader of the opposition. However unwillingly, he must still trust Reid’s performance at the premiers’ conference and side with him in overcoming the opponents of Federation in the Legislative Council and the country. Yet if his performance as a political tactician was no more than mediocre, he had progressed greatly in creating a national reputation. As the Bulletin put it: REID is a politician but not a statesman; BARTON is a statesman but not a politician . . . Before the country, when there is question of a great national cause unmangled by the small constituency vote, BARTON wins easily; before the small constituency, when there is question of nobbling politicians or wheedling civil servants . . . REID scores nearly every time.

It would require the qualities of both to carry Federation.

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Federation Triumphant Federation Triumphant

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EID WENT down to the premiers’ conference in Melbourne at the end of January, and found a mood of compromise. Queensland was at last participating, under a new premier, James Dickson, and New South Wales gained several important concessions. The ‘Braddon blot’ was restricted to a ten-year term, and the requirement for a three-fifths majority at a joint sitting of both houses of federal parliament was discarded. The federal capital would be in New South Wales, but at a site more than 100 miles (about 160 kilometres) from Sydney, and no State boundary could be altered without the consent of the electors. These changes were enough for Reid to assert that he had gained sufficient to justify supporting Federation wholeheartedly, and for Barton to claim that the Bill had not been ‘materially altered’. He told the Herald that he was not jealous of Reid’s success, and although he objected to some points of detail the Constitution as amended was a good working compromise. He had not been a mere bystander while Reid negotiated. It happened that during a holiday in Adelaide with the Downers before the conference he had spoken with Kingston and Forrest, and while passing through Melbourne on the way home he saw Turner, Braddon and Dickson. He preached compromise to them all. ‘I may venture to hope,’ he told an interviewer, ‘that I may have had some influence in bringing about the very amicable and patriotic tone in which the proposals . . . have been met.’

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The New South Wales parliament was the next hurdle. When the Legislative Assembly met in late February opponents of the Bill moved that it should pass only if supported by an absolute majority of voters—an impossibility in an era without compulsory voting— and that New South Wales should enter the Commonwealth only if Queensland came in as well. Reid and Barton joined forces to defeat these moves, although if the opposition had combined with the malcontents Reid might have been ousted from office and Barton invited to form a government. The Bulletin commented on ‘the spectacle—rare in Australia, not uncommon in England—of the Premier being kept in office by the Leader of the Opposition for the good of the country’. Barton was too intent on securing the success of Federation to turn aside at this point for the game of ministerial ‘ins and outs’, but it would be another matter once New South Wales declared itself. The Legislative Council offered stiffer resistance. Its members resurrected the proviso that New South Wales should federate only if Queensland did, and added two more: that the Bill should be approved by all the electors, and that the referendum should be delayed for three months. The lead was now taken by Dr Normand MacLaurin who, with his skill in financial exposition, seemed a more formidable opponent than that ‘blue-chinned ruffian’ Jack Want, especially when reinforced by a large petition against the Bill. The Legislative Assembly refused to accept the Council’s amendments, and deadlock resulted until the Easter break, when Reid advised the acting governor to prorogue parliament and appoint twelve new nominees to the Legislative Council, among them four Labor men and Francis Clarke, who had made his seat of Hastings and Macleay available for Barton. In Quick and Garran’s words, ‘the hint was sufficient’. The Legislative Council backed down entirely, except for securing a promise that the referendum would not be held for at least eight weeks. Throughout these negotiations Barton had to perform a balancing act. He had to support Reid over Federation, as well as backing him against Labor criticisms of his conciliation and arbitration legislation, whilst remaining a convincing leader of the opposition. Lyne, whom he had displaced, was still unreconciled to the Bill and would have attacked Reid more vigorously, with a better chance of

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winning over Labor support. As it was, Barton sniped at Reid from time to time over points of detail without seriously troubling the premier. The referendum was scheduled for 20 June. To streamline the ‘Yes’ campaign the Federation League, the Federal Association and a smaller Labor Federal Party formed a united executive on 26 April, with Barton as president. This organisation dealt with requests for speakers from all over New South Wales and stimulated invitations from local dignitaries. By the beginning of June the Herald stated that nearly 200 branches of the Federal Association had been formed. As in 1898, demand for Barton as a speaker was far greater than he could meet, though on this occasion he was sharing leadership of the campaign. As Kingston wrote to an English friend, ‘Reid and Barton are both working to this end all they know.’ All the leading federalists were on the platform when the ‘Yes’ campaign opened on 1 May at a monster meeting in the Town Hall, with an audience of 6000. A hostile element tried to shout down the speakers so that at times only the journalists in the front row could hear them, but the meeting ended with a good ‘Yes’ majority, encouraged by the news that South Australia had just endorsed Federation by a bigger margin than before. Queensland was still doubtful, and the parliament in Brisbane would pass legislation enabling a referendum to be held. Accordingly, before launching seriously on the New South Wales campaign trail, Barton accepted an invitation to tour Brisbane and the Darling Downs in tandem with Alfred Deakin. They had what Barton reported as a ‘triumphal progress’: ‘As to Brisbane it is hard to exaggerate the enthusiasm . . . Every point was grasped with lightning quickness and the speeches were sometimes topped by the applause.’ The Brisbane Courier wrote that Barton’s eloquence ‘fairly carried the audience away. The appeal to Young Australia was irresistible’. Even at the anti-federal stronghold of Toowoomba an audience of 1000 gave his two-hour speech a ‘tremendous ovation’. It was the same at Ipswich, although there the mayor told Barton that the audience came to hear him rather than to agree with his views. Fired by this success, Barton then swept through northern New South Wales on a ten-day campaign which ranked among the highlights

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of his career. The tone was set by his first meeting in the Tenterfield School of Arts where Parkes had sounded the federal trumpet nearly ten years previously. He was met by a band playing ‘Advance Australia Fair’—until then a fairly obscure tune, but the federal movement brought it to public attention—and spoke to an overflow audience. All the local clergy were present. In an age more given to churchgoing than our own the priest and the parson were influential figures in rural communities, and a favourable sermon on the Sunday before the referendum could sway useful votes. Barton then went through Glen Innes, Armidale, Hillgrove, Tamworth, the Hunter Valley and Newcastle. Leon Broinowski, a young journalist who accompanied his party, remembered the rigours of campaigning once they left the main railway lines: Barton kept the party going for practically twenty-four hours a day, having little rest except uncomfortable dozing on the floor of a buggy . . . After travelling all day and not stopping for meals except to boil a billy and fry some meat over an open fire, the party would arrive at a centre of population and go immediately to meetings already arranged and waiting . . . often daybreak found them on the road with Barton at the reins urging the horses forward.

This phase of the campaign ended at Newcastle, where Barton spoke from a balcony to an audience of 3000, only four of whom put up their hands as ‘No’ voters. After 25 May, with the exception of a visit to his constituency, Barton concentrated on Sydney and its suburbs. Here the strongest opposition to Federation was to be found, and some of the meetings were less enthusiastic. Despite wet weather most of his speeches were made from the balcony of a town hall or a prominent hotel. More than once the venues were crammed to capacity, and supporting speakers were called on to address the overflow audiences who had been left out. J. G. Drake was one such, and he relates how afterwards he would catch up with the main speaker Barton: . . . And there I was delighted to find the Chief, sitting in a big armchair industriously fanning himself, whilst his big black

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frock coat, which he always assumed for full-dress occasions, was hanging over another chair hard by—dripping with perspiration. Several persons were about, all assiduous in their attentions . . . Certainly the Chief looked pretty well done up when I first saw him; but his power of recovery from fatigue was always rapid. He soon rose refreshed, made light of his temporary knock-out—most courteously thanked his hosts for their kindness and apologised for the lateness of his visit—took his final leave, and drove away to his home on the North Shore . . .

Barton nowhere encountered the violent hostility of previous years, but the criticisms were more personal. To hecklers who accused him of expecting a place on the federal High Court as a reward for his labours, Barton invariably replied that he had been supporting Federation at a time when he could have had no such aspirations. More than in 1898 he was targeting special interest groups. One of his most important meetings took the form of reassuring a packed gathering of civil servants of the security of their jobs in a federated Australia. Significantly too, several reports of Barton’s meetings commented on the number of ladies present. In earlier years Barton’s attitude to women’s rights had been reactionary—in 1893 he was among the minority who voted against the right of women to become barristers—but by 1898 he admitted to being ‘a little weakened on the subject, especially when one considers how very strongly women are in favour of federation’. In 1898 a Women’s Federal League failed to survive the referendum, but an 1899 movement drew stronger support. The initiative was taken in mid-May by the women of Hay, in the pro-federal heartland of the Riverina. Within three weeks a Sydney League was formed. Jeanie Barton was one of the vice-presidents, along with the wives of Reid and Wise. Strongly democratic women such as Rose Scott and Belle Golding thought the new League to be ‘composed of society ladies with whom they had nothing in common’, but it had its impact, not least in nudging male politicians into a more decided support for voting rights for women. Edmund Barton found himself promising a women’s meeting at Paddington that under Section 41 of the Constitution the Commonwealth suffrage would necessarily

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include women, because women already had the vote in South Australia. On the evening of 20 June the leading supporters of Federation booked a room in the hotel opposite the offices of the Sydney Morning Herald—just as they had done twelve months ago, to await the results of the referendum. This time it was different. The ‘Yes’ cause triumphed by a margin of 107 420 votes to 82 741, more than enough to meet all doubts. In Sydney and its suburbs 70 000 voters were evenly divided, with the narrowest of margins for a ‘No’ vote, but in rural New South Wales, with over 60 per cent of the voters, there was more than a 60 per cent margin in favour of Federation. In contrast to polling night at the 1898 referendum, Barton’s reaction to victory was sober and weary: ‘I have expended both my energies and my fortune in the cause of union and . . . I reap my reward in this glorious victory.’ Congratulatory letters and telegrams flowed in. Barton was a national figure. Aspiring poets wrote sonnets in his honour, and in Adelaide a leading photographic studio gave pride of place in its shop window to a portrait of ‘Australia’s Noblest Son’. The Hay Federal League invited the Bartons to a celebratory dinner. Jeanie was presented with a bouquet, but she was still reluctant to speak in public, and it was left to Edmund to praise her work and make a speech—lighthearted but just a shade patronising—in which he declared that ‘there was no cause in which women held such unanimous views’ as Federation, ‘even with husbands’. In his congratulatory letter Deakin expressed anxiety that the impetus should not be lost: ‘All delays are dangerous until the Federal Parliament is elected and assumes control of continental destinies.’ Victoria and Tasmania were playing their part, and on 27 July each reaffirmed support for Federation by an even bigger margin than in 1898; in Tasmania fewer than 800 voted ‘No’. Queensland and Western Australia remained. Barton was in regular contact with the Western Australian premier, Forrest, grappling with the knowledge that most of his conservative supporters disliked Federation, and also with the ablest of his young federalist critics, Walter James. All three agreed that Queensland must declare itself first at its referendum on 2 September before there could be progress in the West.

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Even without these two colonies it now seemed that, with New South Wales in the fold, Federation was a certainty. There was even a belated stir of interest in some quarters in New Zealand. In 1867 the Canadians had launched their Confederation without waiting for the stragglers, and if necessary Australia could do the same. But who would be the first prime minister? In Canada the commission had gone to the politician most prominent in the cause of unity, Sir John Macdonald, and on that precedent Barton should head the first Australian government. In 1899 however there was a widespread but erroneous belief that Macdonald had been offered the honour as premier of Ontario, the senior Canadian province (in fact the premier was an amiable nonentity, though Macdonald had twice held the office previously). On that precedent the premier of New South Wales should form the first Commonwealth ministry. Reid thought so, and he wanted the job. That busy contact man, Lachlan Brient of the Daily Telegraph, sounded out Barton, suggesting that he might like the honorific role of president of the Senate. Word of Reid’s manoeuvre also came from Baker of South Australia, who himself had his eye on the Senate presidency. By now Barton had his own firm ideas on who should become Australia’s first prime minister. With the referendum won his alliance with Reid was over, and with a hardened heart Barton entered the parliamentary session vowing to topple Reid from the premiership. At the start the waters were muddied by that incorrigible loudmouth, John Norton. In a harangue lasting three and a half hours Norton alleged that Reid was in the pocket of the Bank of New Zealand. Without endorsing Norton, Barton was unable to refrain from stating that the conduct of some ministers was open to rumour. He would have been wiser to stay aloof, as Reid made a slashing defence in the course of which he blasted those who would do anything to block him from the federal prime ministership—after which Barton could only express full confidence in Reid’s integrity. His own motion, censuring the government for insisting on a ‘Yes’ majority of 80 000 at the referendum, was not pushed with conviction—it was old news and was beaten on party lines. The best hope of displacing Reid lay in the hands of the Labor Party. A faction led by Billy Hughes was ready to desert the Reid government, but while

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Barton remained leader of the opposition he would not win the support of those who remembered, or thought they remembered, the Broken Hill strike of 1892. Wise sounded out a Labor contact, and came back with the news that Barton must step down in favour of Lyne if Labor was to switch its allegiance. There was merit in the idea that Lyne ‘should replace Mr Barton as Leader of the Opposition, without contesting the claim of the latter to continue to be Federal leader’. It did not suit Barton to dwindle from leadership of a national movement to leadership of a colonial political party fighting about the tariff. Lyne was perceived as more of a democrat than Barton, and his bush-bred ‘plain man’ style suited many Labor supporters better than Barton’s polish. Though his sense of democracy had led him into the ‘No’ camp during the federal referenda, it also suggested that he cherished no ambitions to enter the federal parliament. If as premier of New South Wales Lyne were invited as a courtesy to form the first Commonwealth government he could be expected to refuse and to suggest instead his party colleague Barton. On this understanding Barton was happy to step down from the opposition leadership on 23 August. Alfred Deakin wrote encouragingly: There is much you must find repugnant in the strife for office. It makes your Federal position clearer and stronger and enables you to take a more independent attitude in the House, with time to spare for your professional engagements. From every point of view the step appears honourable and judicious.

As an immediate consequence of his resignation Barton was free to travel up to Brisbane to take part in the last stages of the Queensland referendum. The outcome hung in doubt, as although North and Central Queensland were thought likely to vote ‘Yes’, Brisbane and the southern districts were too fearful of competition from New South Wales. As in Western Australia, many felt that Queensland needed time to catch up in terms of population and industry so that it might enter Federation on more equal terms at some later date. This time Deakin was unable to come, though his henchman Carty Salmon and the working-class politician William

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Trenwith went in his stead, and Barton was the leading speaker. Opponents gibed that the federationists could not find first-class orators in Queensland and had to rely on outsiders for their arguments (‘instructing Queenslanders how to sell their birthright’). On 1 September, the night before the referendum, Barton addressed a huge crowd at the Brisbane Centennial Hall, denouncing parochialism: ‘If the people had such terrible opinions of the people of the other colonies and so little confidence in their own abilities he advised them to reject the bill and take the shame of it.’ This may have inflamed the Antis, because on leaving the hall to address an overflow meeting Barton was mobbed by a hostile crowd: When we reached the footpath the disorderly part of the crowd pursued us, and we were pushed and shoved. When I faced round and showed fight, demanding to be met face to face, they seemed to decline the offer, but as soon as I turned my back the attacks were renewed . . . I managed to get inside the hotel having returned a blow.

A few minutes later an unfortunate stranger who wandered on to the hotel balcony from which Barton was scheduled to speak was pelted with a fusillade of stones and rotten eggs. Brisbane had nothing to learn from Sydney about partisanship. While the ‘No’ voters had the numbers in Brisbane and the Darling Downs, the rest of Queensland polled strongly for Federation. Although the ‘Yes’ margin of 38 793 to 32 592 was the narrowest of any of the Australian colonies it was enough to commit Queensland. It was a satisfied Barton who returned to Sydney. During his absence Hughes and his coterie had mobilised the numbers in the Labor caucus, and on 7 September Reid was brought down by a censure motion in which all nineteen Labor members voted against him. Six days later he resigned and Lyne became premier. Barton was offered a seat in cabinet, but refused. He thought he would compromise his standing as a federal leader almost above party, an attitude which had limited his effectiveness as opposition leader. He was seen as lacking the killer instinct and, unlike Lyne, soon became bored with the day-to-day chores of cultivating backbenchers and keeping the party together.

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The next few months gave Barton experience of working in collaboration with a rejuvenated Labor Party. In those years the turnover of members in the Labor Party was often quite high. Those who blamed Barton for the imprisonment of the Broken Hill strike leaders—even the two foremost strike leaders, Sleath and Ferguson, both now in the Legislative Assembly—were in many cases drifting away from the party. They were giving place to younger men such as William Hughes and William Holman, neither of whom had been personally involved in the disputes of the early 1890s. Barton had given encouragement to Holman when he was one of the most eloquent young speakers at the School of Arts Debating Society. A curious respect continued, although Holman was among the most vocal of the republicans at the launch of the Federal League in July 1893 and he and Barton were to clash memorably late in 1899 over the merits of the South African war. While Barton could never be envisaged as a radical, it was reasonable to expect that if he were prime minister in a federal parliament he could manage a tolerable working relationship with Labor members. For the present, he needed to build up his practice and earn income. ‘Poor old Barton,’ wrote O’Connor to Deakin just after the second referendum, ‘He has entirely sacrificed his business for months past. I don’t know how he lives at all.’ Many recognised the financial sacrifices behind Barton’s campaigning for Federation. In June, immediately after the referendum, his old running-mate from East Sydney, George Griffiths, proposed a public subscription, presenting Barton with a piece of silver plate as a token of appreciation of his services to the federal movement. Others thought it might be of greater practical value if a sum of money was raised. O’Connor and a small group of Barton’s friends organised a whipround. As J. T. Walker, his businessman colleague on the Convention, put it: . . . the impression was that we should give it to Mrs Barton for herself and family, as it would never do to offer Barton money. We know, however, that he has been very extravagant, is considerably in debt, and our desire was to make his wife and family a little independent, out of regard for the great services Barton has rendered to the Federal cause. It was deemed better, owing to local political troubles at the time, that Barton should

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be kept out of it, and ostensibly know nothing about it . . . Some think it would be better if Federation should be actually accomplished before this is taken in hand, but if Barton at that time were either Premier or on the Federal Ministry, many persons would make that an excuse for not giving anything.

By the end of the year a committee, with Walker as co-treasurer, had raised over £1400, £400 of it from South Australia and £200 from Tasmania, with a substantial amount still to come from Victoria. Nobody in those times thought it surprising that a prominent politician should be hard up. Parkes had died nearly bankrupt and after five years in office Reid was battling to build up his legal practice. Barton might have done the same. He was shortly, however, to be diverted into the last great campaign for Federation. During the later months of 1899 the idea surfaced that Barton should be sent to London to monitor the progress of the Commonwealth of Australia Bill through the British parliament and keep an eye on Australian interests. This event was scheduled to take place between March and June 1900. Apparently Barton was sufficiently interested to sound out the possibility of appointment as New South Wales agent-general in London, a post currently held by his old adversary Sir Julian Salomons but due to fall vacant. Although he had never visited England he told Lyne he was ready as one ‘who has been right through the Federal mill’. For a while the proposal was stalled because Victoria wanted a say in nominating any delegation. On 22 December the British secretary of state for the colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, resolved the problem by inviting each of the Australian governments to name a delegate. Lyne nominated Barton, who would lead the party. Victoria chose Deakin, South Australia Kingston and Queensland Dickson; Kingston and Dickson had recently become ex-premiers, but with sympathetic replacements. Tasmania nominated Sir Philip Fysh, a veteran of both Conventions, now in London as agent-general. Barton did not anticipate any ‘ticklish or dangerous discussion . . . It would never do to have the Lords or Commons making a new compact for us’. But there remained a major stumbling-block in the issue of Privy Council appeals.

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As far back as September Barton received a tip-off from a very reliable source in R. G. Blackmore, clerk to the South Australian Legislative Council, who as clerk of the 1897–98 Convention worked closely with Barton. His informant was Chamberlain’s old ally Sir Charles Dilke, who advised that the British would object to the abolition of Privy Council appeals. By the beginning of 1900 Barton suspected the ‘Anti-Federals’ of ‘trying a bit of wire-pulling’ on this issue. It would emerge that there was a formidable, if slightly odd, coalition of interests which wanted no change. The bulk of the legal profession was hostile, partly from self-interest but also from a belief that British justice must be superior to the Australian article. They found powerful leadership in the chief justices, especially Griffith in Queensland and Sir Samuel Way in South Australia, who convinced themselves that their status as lieutenant-governors entitled them to communicate directly with the British authorities without consulting lesser mortals such as Barton and Deakin. Griffith willingly offered Chamberlain advice on playing his hand in negotiating with the Australian delegates. The Bill, he wrote, was far from perfect, and British improvements of it would be welcomed. Far from feeling abashed at this devious role he would boast of it in old age. Faith in British justice was also expressed by some elements of the Labor movement, who with a fine disregard for republican principle argued that the British tradition of judicial impartiality was more to be trusted than Australian judges allied with Australian capitalists. Many Australian businessmen with ties to British capital thought the same for diametrically opposite reasons, believing that British courts would safeguard the interests of investors more securely than Australian judges of lesser calibre and uncertain politics. These arguments found a warm welcome with the secretary of state for the colonies, Joseph Chamberlain. A strong-willed and able Birmingham businessman who had evolved from republicanism to a firm belief in the British Empire as a business enterprise, Chamberlain shared the vision of the Privy Council as a great court of appeal for the whole British Empire. His attitude towards Australian Federation was also coloured by a very lively concern for the welfare of overseas investors. This concern had done much to push Britain

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to war with the South African republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State in October 1899; a ‘war’ for which Australian troops were volunteering with the support of most prominent Australians, not least Barton. As in the Sudan war he was able to combine a strong sense of Australianness with devoted and unquestioning support of British war aims. Barton spent the last days of January in hasty preparations. Jeanie was to accompany him, and Lyne’s government provided two first-class fares and £1000 toward their expenses. Travelling to Melbourne by rail to join the mail steamer, Barton contrived to linger so long over conversation in the Moss Vale dining-room that the train left without him; an engine was sent back for him and he rode the footplate for the next section of the journey. This was the main excitement of an otherwise uneventful journey. Taking the Suez Canal route they arrived at London on 15 March, accompanied by Kingston and Dickson. Deakin was already there with the Tasmanian agent-general, Sir Philip Fysh. Although Barton was the only one of the five who had never been in England before and had no first-hand experience of negotiating with the British authorities, the others from the first treated him as leader of the delegation. Barton and Deakin were by now close friends, and the bluff and extrovert Kingston, despite earlier coolnesses, soon made a third. Fysh backed them loyally. Oldest of the group and without the same shared experience of the Conventions, Dickson was to some extent the outsider of the delegation, but he was a diplomatic soul and at this stage seemed cooperative. On 15 March they had their first meeting with Chamberlain and his senior legal officers. Well preserved at 64, clean-shaven and monocled, Chamberlain was one of the few members of the British cabinet from outside the aristocracy. He could talk to the Australians in their own language, and this was to be of value in the tough bargaining which followed. The Australians urged that the Bill embodying the draft Constitution should be accepted in its entirety. They had no authority to accept major changes to an agreement endorsed by the Australian voters at five referenda. While acknowledging this position and alert to the inconveniences of another round of referenda, the Colonial Office nevertheless wanted several changes in the text. In particular

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Toby’s Progress. Barton departs for London, leaving his resignation from the Hastings and Macleay seat to the last minute. (The Bulletin, 17/2/1900)

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there should be no restrictions on the right of appeal to the Privy Council (Clause 74). During the next week the Australians drew up a memorandum answering the British objections. Their task was complicated because pressure groups in Australia aware of Chamberlain’s stance were agitating for the retention of Privy Council appeals. The old opponents of the Bill, Dibbs, Want and MacLaurin, were reinforced by the banks and chambers of commerce. Lyne, too, was reviving the issue of the federal capital. If Parliament met in Melbourne, why should not the governor-general reside in Government House, Sydney? Barton managed to sidetrack this issue to the agent-general.

The Kangaroo, the Keeper and the Pill. An English comment on the controversy about Privy Council appeals. (Westminster Gazette, 1900)

On 5 April Chamberlain met again with the delegates, reinforced for the occasion by representatives from Western Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand sought to leave the door open to enter the federation at a later date if the terms were right. Western Australia wanted the right of collecting its own customs duties for five years

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after entering the Commonwealth, instead of the existing agreement to reduce the tariffs over that period on a sliding scale. Chamberlain agreed to refer this request to the other Australian colonies. He seemed unexpectedly ready to waive most of the minor points raised at the first meeting, but would give no ground on Clause 74. The government, he argued, had no desire to interfere with matters exclusively Australian, but as trustees of the Empire at large they must uphold the right of appeal to the Privy Council pending the creation of an improved tribunal for the whole British Empire with colonial representation. It was agreed that these arguments should be put to a premiers’ conference at Melbourne on 19 April. Barton seems to have led the Australian delegation ably. On the following day Kingston wrote to Richard Chaffey Baker, ‘Chamberlain holds him in high regard and respects him as well worthy the tilting of a lance.’ Cutting the Clause. Chamberlain insists on the right of appeal from the Australian High Court to the Privy Council. (Westminster Gazette, 1900)

This left Barton and his colleagues free to undertake a demanding round of luncheons, dinners and other public speaking engagements in which they promulgated the Australian viewpoint. Barton bore the brunt of this entertaining. As the Age journalist Herbert Campbell Jones explained it, this was not self-indulgence. Deakin disliked the

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atmosphere of aristocratic drawing rooms and Kingston, who enjoyed smokeroom yarning, ‘had a curious repugnance to feminine chatter’. This left Barton, tactful and alert to openings for compromise, to undertake much of the networking. Barton emphasised that selfdetermination involved no loss of loyalty to the British Empire, as demonstrated by Australian participation in the South African war. ‘The consciousness of kinship . . .’ he wrote, ‘the pride of their race and history—those are the links of Empire. When the Australian fights for the Empire, he is inspired by these sentiments; but no patriotism was ever inspired or sustained by the thought of the Privy Council.’ He also took care to exhort Lyne and his fellow premiers to stand firm against alterations to the Constitution. As it happened none of the premiers had been in power during the Conventions and the referenda, and their attitudes could not be forecast. They happily asked Western Australia to accept the Bill without further alteration, but were less staunch about Clause 74. Amendment of some kind, they cabled, was less objectionable than postponement of the federated Commonwealth; and the premiers of Queensland and Tasmania were willing to jettison Clause 74 altogether. This was enough for Dickson. When on 23 April the delegates met to send Chamberlain a memorandum urging the speedy passage of the Bill unamended, Dickson refused to sign, saying that further controversy would only cause delay. Kingston in particular was infuriated by this desertion, and during the next fortnight the British press was treated to an embarrassingly open split among the Australian delegates. By 5 May Barton was driven to ask for the withdrawal of Dickson’s credentials as spokesman for any colony other than his own Queensland. To Lyne he still claimed that ‘Public interest and sympathy with the objects of the Delegates is still increasing’, but it was a worrying time. His mood cannot have been improved by a letter from the great constitutionalist James Bryce, whose work on federations had been something of a gospel to the makers of the Constitution. In an astonishingly ignorant set of comments, probably fuelled by misinformation from Griffith, Bryce complained that the Bill ‘emanated from a small coterie of Prime Ministers’, that there was ‘No evidence to show that this Bill or draft Constitution had really been satisfactorily discussed and considered

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in the colonies themselves’, and that it was ‘a very scanty, fragmentary, and imperfect sketch of a Federal Constitution’. Nevertheless as a favour to the Australian colonies, he was content that the Bill should pass, provided the responsibility rested with them and not with the British parliament.

In that opulent London springtime Barton and his colleagues were networking busily with the British ruling class. Deakin estimated that they lobbied 3000 persons of influence. ‘They were to some extent the lions of the season,’ he wrote, ‘and they roared their best for the Bill.’ It was all necessary, as leading newspapers such as the Times and the Morning Post were unsympathetic. Even the Australian agents-general, apart from Fysh and Cockburn, were hostile. Sir Julian Salomons attacked Clause 74 at a City Liberal Club dinner ‘with an emotion which rendered him almost speechless’. Barton’s major performance on 1 May saw him as main after-dinner speaker at a Grand Federal Banquet attended by 600 guests, including Edward, Prince of Wales, and a large quantity of nobility. Barton, who expressed confidence in ‘an absolutely satisfactory settlement’, was held to have acquitted himself well. In general his oratory was well received, although more than one candid friend noted that his enthusiasm sometimes led him to go on too long. ‘He had no set speech,’ recorded Deakin, ‘but one fixed line of thought,’ and at one memorable private dinner treated the other guests to three-quarters of an hour of close legal reasoning upon Clause 74. Lady Warwick, an intimate of the Prince of Wales and a notable lion-hunter, asked the Bartons for a weekend at Warwick Castle, where they met two interesting young men, Winston Churchill and the Aga Khan. The University of Cambridge conferred an honorary doctorate of laws on Edmund, who made a good impression on the dons. One of them invited him back for a long weekend: ‘there is always a bed available in College . . . staying here you can smoke as much as you like!’ Somehow he forgot an appointment with Lord Rosebery, who had spoken up for Federation in 1883. A note came addressed to ‘My dear Mr Speaker’: ‘In case you are stricken with remorse . . . I wrote to reassure you that I had plenty to do

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and only regretted the pleasure of seeing you.’ Perhaps his most useful contact was the radical Sir Charles Dilke. Once an ally of Chamberlain and potential prime minister, Dilke’s political career was blasted by a scandalous divorce case, but he remained an oddly influential backbencher. Months earlier he had warned the Australians about the likelihood of trouble over Clause 74, and he was now introducing Barton and Deakin to some influential go-betweens. It was just in time. On 9 May the delegates had another ‘wholly unsatisfactory’ meeting with Chamberlain. According to Deakin, ‘his voice began to vibrate, his accent to harden, and his eyes to gleam’. Barton was so taken by surprise by Chamberlain’s tone that he felt his temper rising and cut his remarks short. Kingston was inarticulate with rage, and after Dickson had obsequiously endorsed Chamberlain it was left to Deakin to reiterate the Australian case. Barton was minded to return to Australia as soon as possible, and his colleagues felt likewise, but it was as well they stayed. On 14 May Chamberlain introduced the legislation into the House of Commons with Clause 74 omitted entirely. This drew comment from Dilke and others, but it seemed a forlorn hope that the House of Commons would restore the missing clause. That evening however, the delegates had dinner with Chamberlain and other senior public figures. Late over the port, after Deakin and Dickson had gone home, Chamberlain flagged a compromise to Barton and Kingston. Constitutional cases involving the Commonwealth and the States, or relations between two or more States, should be decided by the High Court unless the relevant governments agreed to let the case go to the Privy Council. It was a breakthrough. Barton cabled Lyne advising immediate and cordial acceptance. How far lobbying by Dilke or others brought about this shift cannot be determined, but Chamberlain was a shrewd tactician. It did not suit his book to remain at odds with the potential leaders of a federated Australia, and by conceding a degree of Australian autonomy in the constitutional field Britain retained what really concerned Chamberlain, the right of the Privy Council to intervene in commercial cases. It took a day or two to finalise details, but an interview with Chamberlain on 17 May left Barton, Deakin and Kingston so elated that when they found themselves alone ‘they seized each other’s hands and

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Stranded in the Strand. Barton’s appeal to Lyne for another £500 for expenses raised affectionate mockery at home. (The Bulletin, 30/6/1900)

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danced hand in hand in a ring around the centre of the room to express their jubilation’. It is a pleasing image, although Sir Josiah Symon wrote years later, ‘knowing the men, I think their joining hands in a fandango . . . though a good story, is apocryphal’. The next few days brought Barton congratulations from all sides, but difficulties remained. Dickson was fractious, and the Queensland government took alarm at the possibility that the new arrangement might take away the right of State supreme courts to appeal direct to the Privy Council. The fear was groundless, but it was fanned by Griffith, who disliked bringing the executive into judicial proceedings. Some of the other premiers, notably Holder of South Australia, criticised the compromise as neither adhering to the Bill nor leaving the status quo. Barton also had personal problems, as the delegation had been obliged to stay in London much longer than anticipated, and funds were running short. He cabled Lyne for another £500 but Lyne, fearing criticism from his Labor allies, required persuading that Barton needed to remain. This was not difficult, as Deakin, in poor health and suffering from carbuncles, was already on the way home, and Barton bore the brunt of negotiating the final compromise. By 16 June it was agreed that it should be the High Court itself, and not the governments, which decided whether a constitutional case should be referred to the Privy Council. Griffith plumed himself on having suggested this formula, but its origins lay in a Melbourne Argus editorial which had been taken up by Sir George Turner and communicated to Barton through O’Connor and Wise. Griffith was apparently asked to cable the new wording to Chamberlain as a suggestion from himself. In its final form this compromise was accepted by all the Australian governments, although Lyne waited until he had secured the approval of the New South Wales parliament. Then, and only then, he remitted £500 to Barton. Barton wrote to the South Australian premier Frederick Holder: What can never be known in Australia is the stupendous number and stiffness of the difficulties we had to overcome and the hard work and resolution involved in fighting them down in succession . . . You did well to back Kingston up for he was

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a plucky and farseeing colleague who appreciated in its full import the principle at stake of full self government and the equality of British citizenship the world over.

It had been a long fight over what to some eyes may have seemed a legalistic technicality; but Barton was surely justified in contending that Australian courts were competent to pass verdicts on the Australian Constitution authorised by the Australian voters. This point was maintained despite the cultural cringe displayed by the majority of the legal profession, the governors, the chief justices, the business community, and even—remembering the editorial comments in the Brisbane Worker—sections of the Labor movement. Others were supportive. The veteran Labor senator, ‘Jupp’ Gardiner, remembered twenty years later the pride which he felt as a young Australian in the efforts of Barton, Deakin and Kingston. In the eyes of Chamberlain and other senior British politicians Barton had won respect—perhaps, Deakin thought, excessive respect—as an appropriate spokesman for the coming Australian Commonwealth. There remained a fairly relaxed fortnight while the legislation passed through the Commons and went uncontroversially to the House of Lords. There was much hospitality to enjoy, and a succession of family visits with Barton’s son, down from Oxford for the long vacation, until the delegates embarked on the Ortona on 6 July for the homeward journey. Three days later Queen Victoria gave the Royal approval to the Australian Commonwealth Act. By the time the Ortona reached Fremantle, Western Australia had voted to join the Commonwealth. Federation was at last accomplished. A time-table for the new Commonwealth was coming into being. A governor-general was appointed, the 40-year-old Earl of Hopetoun, with six years experience behind him as governor of Victoria, and his arrival was timed so that the new nation might be inaugurated on 1 January. Queen Victoria would send her grandson, the Duke of York (later King George V), to open the federal parliament in May. Conjecture was already turning on the prime ministership. It was thought that Barton would wish to become either prime minister or chief justice of the Commonwealth, but he consistently discouraged speculation. Privately however, he could not refrain from nourishing

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F e d e r a t i o n Tr i u m p h a n t 2 1 5 Arrival of the New Baby. Barton returns from London. Another variation on the nurse–doctor theme. (The Bulletin, 14/7/1900)

the hope of forming the first federal government. The alternatives were Lyne, as premier of the senior colony of New South Wales, or Reid, as the other leading federalist. But Lyne was seen as too halfhearted, if not actively hostile to the federal movement, and Reid

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Return of the Federal Leader. On returning to Sydney from London, Barton plunged into a busy routine of congratulatory dinners which marked the start of electioneering for the new federal parliament. (The Bulletin, 18/8/1900)

was in opposition. To his credentials as persistent advocate of Federation, leader of the Convention and campaigner in the referenda, Barton now could add the successful leadership of the London delegation. Perhaps he cultivated the statesmanlike manner too carefully and, apart from his period as attorney-general under Dibbs, had had little experience of ministerial office but most federalists nevertheless took it almost for granted that Barton would form the first government. Deakin thought so; and Dibbs, who despite their differences of opinion bore no grudge, told Barton that Lyne’s quibbling over expenses was dictated by jealousy: ‘He is bidding high

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for a position the Gods never fitted him for.’ Some time late in October Barton received a letter from the Colonial Office’s Sir John Anderson, discussing the arrangements for Hopetoun’s arrival and the award of honours for the Commonwealth’s inauguration in a manner which strongly suggested that the British authorities believed he would be prime minister. Others thought the same. Laid up at home with a sprained ankle in early November, Barton described the ‘pleasure of yielding up most of the time which I fondly thought I had scored . . . to people who twelve months ago would rather have watched me in hell than talked to me in Kirribilli’. Around this time Barton sketched objectives for a federal government facing its first elections. This was his policy: a) Equal citizenship for all adults except those of alien race whose number shall be limited and reduced as far and as fast as is consonant with justice to them and their interests affected. b) The steady development of Australian resources, rural, mineral and industrial by means of duties, bounties and other encouragements. c)The well being of the community as a whole by means of progressive legislation coupled with an administration vigorous and pure in relation to the establishment of: 1) Adequate Defence Force 2) Invalid and Old Age Pensions 3) Courts of Conciliation 4) Efficient Post Office Service 5) Efficient Patent Office 6) Efficient State Service.

The politicians were starting to get into election mode. At considerable length Deakin reported moves towards a Liberal Protectionist organisation in Victoria, stressing the impatience of the young lions of the Australian Natives’ Association and the Federation League, and the importance of not allowing Labor to steal a march. In mid-November, at a large public meeting in the Sydney Town Hall, Reid was presented with an illuminated testimonial for his services to Federation. This belated tribute was clearly the first

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move in a campaign for Reid to establish himself as leader of a federal ‘free-trade, liberal and democratic’ party. In response Barton and his wife, accompanied by O’Connor and Wise, made a tour to the federalist strongholds of Bathurst and Corowa, where celebratory banquets made much of his role as champion of Federation. Barton, who thought that the first federal parliament might be tempted to meddle with the Constitution, argued that voters should be guided by ‘not so much the party leanings of the candidates as their soundness in federation’, provoking Reid’s mockery of ‘those who consider themselves the peculiar guardians of the Australian Constitution’. But even the Sydney Morning Herald, which was swinging back to sympathy with Reid’s free-trade views, expected that Barton would be asked to form the first federal ministry, and he was obliged to deny that he had been given any informal hints on the matter. In these weeks, with Deakin keenly collaborating, he was certainly musing on the makeup of a Barton cabinet. O’Connor he was determined to have. Forrest was the obvious name from Western Australia, and from South Australia the choice lay between the premier, Holder, and his predecessor Kingston. In a cabinet of seven there would be room for only one South Australian, but the other might become Speaker. As for Queensland, Griffith was the outstanding figure despite his intriguing over Privy Council appeals, and Deakin wrote to him twice. Although reluctant to abandon the security of the Bench for a return to politics, Griffith showed some interest in becoming attorney-general with a promise of a seat on the High Court. Barton refused ‘to begin with bargains about great offices’ and in any case preferred Deakin as attorney-general. As treasurer he sounded out William McMillan, but that independentminded free-trader would not come into a ministry whose character would be Protectionist, and the job seemed destined for an eminently safe pair of hands in Sir George Turner, who was once more premier of Victoria. This left the arrangements for Queensland and Tasmania inconclusive, but there would be no lack of possibilities, although some thought it important that the government should not be overloaded with lawyers. Lord Hopetoun arrived in Sydney on 15 December, barely recovering from a bad attack of malarial dysentery. For this reason, as

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well as an unwillingness to push himself forward, Barton did not seek a private interview with him. Instead, on the night before Hopetoun’s arrival, he was giving a lecture on ‘The expanse of the empire’, taking as his text Kipling’s lines: There dwells a wife at the Northern gate, And a wealthy wife is she, She breeds a breed of rovin’ men, And sends them o’er the sea . . .

Subsequent Australian prime ministers have sometimes shown a similar penchant for the British Empire; few have shown such a knowledge of recent poetry.

In choosing the first prime minister the Colonial Office left Hopetoun entirely free to follow his own discretion, though they seem to have expected that he would look to Barton. Hopetoun saw the chief justice and acting governor, Sir Frederick Darley, but as Kingston unsympathetically put it: ‘His illness too has no doubt kept him busy with his bowels, and left him no time to acquaint himself with Australian sentiments.’ The governor-general also took advantage of a chance meeting to sound out Reid, who recommended Sir William Lyne. Reid genuinely believed that the premier of the senior colony was entitled to the honour and he also thought that Barton was too friendly with the Victorians to look after New South Wales interests adequately; a perception shared by, among others, John Norton of Truth. Privately Reid also calculated that Lyne would not be able to form such a strong ministry as Barton, and might more easily be defeated by an experienced opposition leader such as himself. Even in reminiscent old age he would say no more of Barton than that he was ‘a perfectly suitable’ appointment. Hopetoun took Reid’s advice. The outgoing governor of New South Wales, the self-confident but feather-headed young Lord Beauchamp, had written that if Lyne were invited as a courtesy due to the premier of the senior colony he would refuse and put forward Barton’s name instead. Whether or not Hopetoun expected some such outcome, on

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19 December he commissioned Lyne to form the first federal ministry. Barton’s friends were thunderstruck. ‘Who could have believed that Hopetoun would make such a blunder,’ wrote Alfred Deakin, ‘It passes all comprehension and must be a great disappointment to you.’ Lyne’s first move was to meet Barton at the Athenaeum Club, but Barton refused to serve under one who had ‘opposed . . . the measure of which he is now asked to be the first Constitutional guardian’. During the next five days he kept a low profile, using O’Connor as intermediary, while Lyne took soundings and Deakin busied himself at a frantic pace trying to persuade leading federalists to refuse office. Kingston, Holder and Turner at first seemed willing to boycott Lyne, but by 21 December Deakin was convinced that Lyne would succeed: ‘He can have Turner and Isaacs for the asking—Holder also—Dickson probably and perhaps Forrest he has his team—he is a Protectionist and Victoria is nervous about its industries. I shall have to support his policy’, but from outside cabinet. Barton, he wrote, should consent to serve under Lyne. ‘You can command your own terms,’ wrote Deakin hopefully. ‘Australia will suffer if you refuse to crucify yourself.’ It was not necessary. On Friday 21 December Lyne looked unworried, ‘as though making a Federal cabinet were a much simpler and more enjoyable task than passing an Early Closing Bill’. Next day Turner and Holder arrived in Sydney, and spent several hours in conference with Lyne. Turner would not come in without Deakin; neither would join a Lyne ministry if Barton were left out. That evening Sir William ‘appeared to be disturbed in mind, and grimly smoked and cogitated’. Throughout Sunday discussions went on and Lyne committed himself to forming a cabinet by noon on Christmas Eve. Hopetoun assured him that he could take all the time he needed. Although Lyne could form a cabinet of some sort, it was evident, as J. T. Walker confided to his diary, that ‘Australia in general is disappointed at Barton having been passed over.’ As a last throw Lyne offered Griffith the attorney-generalship with a promise of appointment as federal Chief Justice. Griffith, in Lyne’s words, ‘Instead of saying straight out he would or would not join me . . . wanted to parley on the thing.’ This greatly annoyed Lyne and he threw up his commission. It was not until 10 pm that he

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The Bulletin’s comment when the governor-general, Lord Hopetoun, asked NSW premier Lyne to form the first federal government, instead of Barton, as most Australians—Barton included—expected.

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went to Government House and informed Hopetoun that he was unable to form a government and that Barton should be sent for. Earlier in the evening, scenting fresh developments, a number of journalists called at ‘Miandatta’, but they had all taken the ferry back to Sydney when the telephone message came through to Barton. He was quietly dictating letters to a shorthand writer. He went immediately to Government House and by 11 pm was at the Athenaeum Club, receiving the congratulations of a great stream of well-wishers. Family tradition adds another aspect to the story. Barton’s practice had been neglected during his absence in England and finances were once again tight in the household. With little money or credit, and little in the larder, it looked like a cheerless Christmas. ‘And that,’ said Barton’s 96-year-old daughter-in-law, ‘was when he got word that he would be prime minister.’

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O

N CHRISTMAS morning 1900 Barton’s elation at his nomination as prime minister must have been tempered by sobering assessment of the size and complexity of the tasks ahead of him. There were daunting challenges for a politician who, however eminent and respected as a public figure, had served little more than two years as a cabinet minister and only four months—during Dibbs’ absence in 1892—as leader of a government. He was prime minister of a country of seven and a half million square kilometres and a population of half that number. Most were concentrated in and around the four great cities of south-eastern Australia—Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane—with Perth on the other side of the continent coming to the fore because of goldrush prosperity and Hobart settling into the character of a summer resort with past glories. More Australians than now—about 40 per cent of the total—lived inland. After half a century of discovery after discovery the goldrush era was drawing to a close, while the pastoralists and shearers who formed the other element of the classic Australian legend were gradually giving ground to small-farming selectors, mostly wheatgrowers but including specialist groups such as the German vignerons of South Australia and the cane-farmers of Queensland. These transitions were taking place against a background of low commodity prices and a succession of

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drought years which in eastern Australia would culminate in the memorably disastrous years of 1901 and 1902. Because of the drought employers faced with dwindling profits rebuffed their workers’ demands for improved pay and conditions, giving great stimulus to the politicisation of trade unions. It was no coincidence that Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, with the strongest concentrations of mining and pastoral workers, were the colonies where the new Labor Party was doing best. Within the next decade Tasmania would follow. In South Australia and Victoria, the States most dominated by their metropolis, radicals and innovators were more easily accommodated by the more liberal of the existing political parties. At the end of 1900 it was still hard to predict whether Labor in federal politics would evolve into one of the major competing alternatives in a two-party system, or whether it would function along the lines of New South Wales Labor in the 1890s: a ginger group wresting concessions from the larger parties in return for support, and (in modern terms) content with ‘keeping the bastards honest’. Few foresaw that by 1910 federal Labor would form a government based on convincing majorities in both houses, or that by 1914 the Senate, so often criticised as mouthpiece of the supposedly reactionary small States, would hold 29 Labor members against only seven opponents. By prolonging the depression of the 1890s the drought also tended to unite farmers and manufacturers in seeking tariff protection as a shield against foreign competition. This would make it hard for George Reid to uphold the New South Wales creed of free trade in the forthcoming federal parliament. It would be nearly a hundred years before the evolving pressures of globalising world trade would challenge tariff protection’s place as a fundamental in the Australian Commonwealth’s economy. Having grown accustomed to enjoying some of the world’s highest wages as a result of labour shortages following the goldrushes, Australian workers were loath to be undercut by the competition of workforces less well paid than their own. This fuelled much of their rancour against Asians and other foreign workers believed willing to work for longer hours and lower pay. But it was not enough to keep the underpaid alien out of Australia. Tariff protection was demanded as insulation

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against the competition of cheap workforces overseas, and Australian employers grumbling about high wages could be pacified by a system which enabled them to pass on their higher costs to the consumers; in many cases essentially the Australian workers. Protectionism was to harden into an orthodoxy supported by governments of all shades until the walls came tumbling down in the 1980s and 1990s. If the new Australian Commonwealth moved towards protectionism, it was in keeping with the international tendency of the times. Most European countries and the United States had been building up their industries for decades behind the protection of discriminatory tariffs. Only Great Britain, still trusting to the waning advantages of having been the world’s first great industrial nation, adhered to doctrines of free trade. Access to the raw materials of the British Empire sustained the free-trade ideal and enabled politicians to boast of the British working class and its ‘cheap breakfast table’. Germany and the United States were nevertheless overtaking Britain industrially, and Joseph Chamberlain for one was soon to shock his colleagues by declaring that the time for free trade was gone, and that Britain and its Empire must shelter behind tariffs as well.

Commercial competition easily spilt over into diplomatic competition and games of power politics backed by threats of force. Often conflicts arose out of petty rivalries in remote colonial outposts. Britain and France wrangled noisily in 1898 over a village on the upper Nile, and when Britain went to war in South Africa in 1899, Germany in particular cheered the Afrikaaner resistance as likely to expose British weakness. Nearer to Australia, in 1898 the United States wrested the Philippines from Spain and, in the same year, several European powers and Japan were jockeying for advantage in a Chinese empire whose break-up was soon expected. Germany was active in the western Pacific, acquiring the Caroline Islands from Spain in 1898 and the next year partitioning Samoa with the United States and Britain. Japan, having defeated China in the war of

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1894–95, seemed all too proficient in adopting western technology and western military skills. Reluctantly or otherwise, most Australians acknowledged a need to shelter behind the Royal Navy and Britain’s international prestige, even though experience had shown that, in the south-west Pacific at least, Britain’s diplomatic priorities were not always the same as Australia’s. Many, Barton among them, considered that as a matter of self-respect Australians should be prepared to volunteer to fight in Britain’s wars even where these had nothing to do with Australia’s direct interests. To accept Britain’s protection without making a contribution was parasitic. Many other Australians, however, preferred the Swiss concept of a citizen army in which every able-bodied male was sufficiently trained in arms to resist an attack on Australia, but staying aloof from overseas entanglements. The framing of an acceptable defence policy would be an early responsibility of the new Commonwealth government. Respect for the British connection did not mean that a Barton government would always follow unthinkingly British initiatives in defence and foreign policy; Barton, Deakin and Kingston had amply demonstrated that during their London visit of 1900. It was an index of the importance of foreign policy, more particularly as it affected Australia’s interests in the Pacific region, that Barton decided to take the external affairs portfolio himself. (Following British precedent, the Australian Constitution at first made no specific provision for the office of prime minister.) He had little difficulty in mustering the rest of his cabinet. Deakin would be attorney-general and Turner, his reputation made by five years’ prudent stewardship of Victoria’s convalescent finances, was naturally treasurer. The other financial portfolio, trade and customs, went to Kingston. It was diplomatic to place this ministry in the hands of a representative of the smaller States, rather than New South Wales or Victoria, but Kingston’s bluff and forceful approach would cause controversy in future. Forrest became postmaster-general, which left the singularly unmilitary Dickson as minister for defence. He may originally have been intended for home affairs, but that ministry went to Sir William Lyne as a graceful compensation for his disappointment. As there was provision for only seven salaried members of the Executive

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Council O’Connor had to be an unpaid honorary minister, though if the elections went well he was expected to be leader of the Senate. Another honorary ministership went to the token Tasmanian, Neil Elliott Lewis, then premier, though it was not clear if he meant to move to federal politics. Inevitably some who missed out were bitterly disappointed. The South Australian premier, Holder, who had supported Barton staunchly during the ‘Hopetoun blunder’, was much hurt at being passed over in favour of Kingston. He was only with difficulty mollified with a promise of the speakership; a post for which he was better fitted, though in 1909 a particularly turbulent scene in the House was to send him collapsing to the floor with a murmur of ‘Dreadful, dreadful’ upon his dying lips. Griffith, who evidently wanted membership of the first federal cabinet more than he revealed, was also ruffled. He confided to his normally reticent diary that Barton was a ‘fathead’ and Dickson ‘a prating cockatoo’. Still, his demeanour was gracious when he attended the Commonwealth celebrations on 1 January 1901. These were carried out with commendable panache. The public entered into the spirit of the celebrations. At midnight Deakin, a guest in the Bartons’ house in North Sydney, was aroused by an uproar of ‘whistles, bells, gongs, accordions, rattles and clanging culinary utensils’. In the streets of the central city, decorated with banners, archways and floral arrangements, the traditional New Year’s Eve revelries were even rowdier than usual, and some feared for the problems of crowd control on the following day. But although at least half a million, and perhaps as many as three-quarters of a million spectators came to town for the festivities, the proceedings were a triumph of democratic good order, with only one mishap when a police inspector was killed by a runaway horse. At 10.30 in the morning a procession started off from the Domain on an eightkilometre route to Centennial Park. Every aspect of Australian society was represented, from the bush trade unions to the clergy and municipal dignitaries. At the end came Lord Hopetoun in his carriage, and he too drew his share of cheers. Arriving at Centennial Park shortly before noon, the governorgeneral took his place in a pavilion erected specially for the

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occasion, and was met there by his first federal ministry. They were uncomfortably clad for a humid Sydney summer midday. Lyne for some reason was in full evening dress, and Kingston and Forrest encased their formidable physiques in full diplomatic uniform. The scene survives for posterity in one of Australia’s first newsreels. ‘Deakin alone regards the camera’, it has been pointed out, ‘enigmatic in his moment of triumph.’ Barton is in full formal frock coat, his back to the camera as he advances to receive his commission from Hopetoun. Even taken from this angle in an ancient film there is a suggestion of the stately presence which, in the words of one observer, ‘used to stroll up like an all-conquering Indian nabob, or the irresistible father of melodrama. There was something majestically impressive about his style’. He looked the part of a prime minister. Unfortunately no sound recording of Barton’s voice has survived. Several commentators remarked on its quality, which despite his bronchial tendency remained resonant and full. J. G. Drake wrote of the ‘rich sonorous voice, with its nice inflexions’. Ambrose Pratt also used the term ‘sonorous’ and observed how: ‘His mobile upper lip slightly protrudes when he speaks, and assumes a thousand shapes, as though to lovingly caress each departing word.’ He seems consciously to have slowed the pace of his oratory in order to produce a measured and deliberate effect. The draft of his first policy speech carefully selects certain words and phrases for emphasis and when well prepared, his speeches could hold an audience for two hours or more. In more impromptu speeches his tendency for long and involved sentences still lingered, although seasoned observers suspected that his complex syntax was used on purpose to dodge awkward issues. ‘Ithuriel’, the veteran political correspondent of the Argus, commented perceptively: . . . anyone acquainted with Parliamentary procedures knows that question time is not answer time. When Sir Edmund wished to be explicit no one could be more so. When the time had not yet arrived to take an inquisitive member into the confidence of the Ministry no one could more skilfully envelop the reply in a more luminous fog.

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And he told the story of Barton dealing with a deputation which had to be pleased without being satisfied, and concluding with the comment: ‘Gentlemen, I hope I have made myself sufficiently ambiguous.’ This quality of ambiguity served him well as leader of a cabinet largely made up of forceful personalities, five of them ex-premiers, accustomed to exercise leadership in their home States. Except for Dickson all were vigorous men in the prime of life. Deakin was youngest at 45, and the others were in their early fifties. Barton’s strength as prime minister lay not in initiating new policies but in his skill at maximising consensus. His tact, patience and courtesy were essential ingredients in holding together for two and a half years a team ranging from the conservative Forrest to the radical Kingston. At first he waived his right to determine any administrative issue involving Commonwealth–State relations but, wrote one journalist: ‘It is a tribute to his personality that within three or four months his colleagues deferred to his judgement in almost all of these arguments with the State governments.’ He also ensured that cabinet met at a round table, thus avoiding issues of status. Stability was especially important for a government which started with no parliament and no public service, and was creating its infrastructure from scratch. When Robert Garran wrote with his own hand the text of the official gazette proclaiming the first federal ministry, he believed himself to be the Commonwealth government’s one and only public servant. In fact on the following day, when customs officials resumed work throughout Australia, they were no longer State public servants but Commonwealth employees and, on 1 March, defence and postal services would pass to federal control. The Commonwealth government’s premises were makeshift. Lyne, as minister for home affairs but still premier of New South Wales, provided for Barton by sending his under-secretary off on leave and commandeering his room. The prime minister’s business was conducted by Atlee Hunt on a table set up in an ante-room of Parliament House which was used as a thoroughfare. Privacy was impossible, documents went astray, and in later years Barton was wont to reminisce that when he travelled from Sydney to Melbourne he could carry the whole federal archives in his Gladstone bag. Perhaps

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he carried informality too far. Deakin had to speak to him seriously when he turned up late for the first cabinet meeting Membership of cabinet also required some fine tuning. Excitement and diabetes carried Dickson away on 10 January, so the more congenial Forrest was moved to defence, and another Queenslander was sought as postmaster-general. The premier, Robert Philp, resisted courtship and eventually the post went to J. G. Drake, previously considered a lightweight but in time to prove a competent appointee and a staunch admirer of Barton. Neil Lewis decided that he did not want to leave Tasmanian politics, and old Sir Philip Fysh replaced him as minister without portfolio. Of course all the cabinet ministers had to secure election to the first Commonwealth parliament, and in the upshot all were successful, O’Connor and Drake as senators, the others in the House of Representatives. A number of constituencies were available to Barton, notably Canobolas, the electorate based on the ‘Federation city’ of Bathurst. Barton declined, fortunately as it turned out, because when B. R. Wise contested the seat in his place he was beaten by a Labor man and had to remain in State politics. Instead Barton nominated for the Hunter constituency north of Newcastle, which included his recent State seat of Hastings and Macleay. Here on 17 January, the day before his fifty-second birthday, he delivered his keynote policy speech at West Maitland Town Hall, supported by Lyne, Deakin and Kingston. His preparations were careful, even elaborate, and the speech read well. According to one writer not always well disposed towards Barton: ‘He spoke with a combination of authority and moderation that made the speeches of opposing leaders seem thin.’ He set the agenda for the first federal parliament. A federal capital must be chosen under terms which did not allow land speculation. Two great tribunals should be set up, the High Court and an Inter-State Commission regulating competition between State railways and other economic enterprises. The new public service must run Commonwealth government departments responsibly so that the federal government would have no need to impose income tax or other direct taxes competing for revenue with the States. Instead the Commonwealth would raise its revenue through the tariff system, and since its responsibilities included old age pensions and the subsidising

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Prime Minister: Foundations 231 Not a Feather to Fly With. A humorous view of the contest between Barton and Reid for the Hunter Valley. (The Bulletin, 26/1/1901)

of a cheap uniform postal system, this inevitably meant a moderately protectionist tariff. This policy of ‘revenue without destruction’, said Barton, called for ‘a tariff maintaining employment and not ruining it, a business tariff which will yield the sums we need without discouraging production’. Now that Australia was a common market, its industries exposed to unrestricted competition all over Australia, producers should not face the shock of competition with the whole world at the same time. Deakin thought that Barton rather laboured the issue of tariff protection, but Reid as leader of the opposition would campaign on a free-trade slogan, and New South Wales was Reid’s heartland. Barton set several more constructive tasks for the federal parliament. Legislation should be introduced for the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes extending beyond the limits of any one State. ‘This is a reserve power,’ said Barton, ‘for the exercise of which it may be hoped that occasion will seldom arise.’ He was a poor prophet, and in his later years on the High Court he should have reflected wryly on the prominence of industrial arbitration in Australian law and politics. There would be uniform suffrage, and this meant votes for all adult women; Barton was still no enthusiast for the cause, but he was ‘resolved as a duty to accept the principle’. Western Australia would be rewarded for its strong pro-Federation vote by the construction of a transcontinental railway linking Perth and Kalgoorlie to the East and steps would be taken to encourage uniformity of railway gauges—a task which would take most of the century, if only Barton and his colleagues had known it. And the White Australia policy, legislating against

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further influx of Asian or Pacific Island labour, ‘we shall regard as a matter of course’, though with no oppression against those who were already in Australia. The Aborigines he did not mention at all, because the State governments retained responsibility for indigenous Australians. Most would soon legislate for the creation of reserves into which a ‘dying race’ might be quarantined. Barton concluded: This has been a business statement with the frankness and definiteness to be taken as an earnestness of spirit in which ministers wish to serve their country. The policy is Liberal in every line but the policy outlined cannot be achieved in a single session. Mistakes will be made in the discharge of our new and terrific task; as with any set of fallible men. I ask that you guard the Constitution against rash amendment, not because it is our work, but because it is yours, as we did in England.

The peroration sounds oddly in modern ears, as much for Barton’s ready admission of fallibility as for his automatic assumption that England was a model to admire; but his audience, which had interrupted his speech with frequent cheering, rose to its feet and applauded at length. Deakin, who without the slightest sense of conflict of interest had just accepted appointment as the anonymous special correspondent in Australia for the London Morning Post, wrote: There was not one bid for what is termed popularity in the whole of his deliverance, a circumstance so remarkable in a Ministerial manifesto in Australia that its absence enhanced considerably the impressions of strength and boldness which its perusal conveyed. More sentiment had been anticipated by those who recalled his appeals to patriotism during his campaigns on behalf of the Federal cause and less mastery of facts by those who had forgotten his handling of similar problems in the convention. No doubt his long-experienced colleagues lent him valuable assistance in every way, but nevertheless the total effect of the speech was unimpaired, and the whole of it bore the stamp of his own personality. The result has been a marked

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increase in his reputation and the public confidence reposed in him and his Government.

Deakin’s praise was no doubt intended to counter the ill-natured comments of those who thought Barton too indolent to write his own speeches, alleging him to be the mere mouthpiece of Deakin and others. Nobody spread this accusation with greater zest than John Norton, now sole proprietor of the Sydney Truth. In earlier years Norton’s attitude towards Barton had fluctuated. At the time of the election for the Federal Convention in 1897, Norton, himself an unsuccessful candidate, had rubbished ‘Bunkum Barton’. By October 1898 when Barton became leader of the opposition in New South Wales Truth hailed him as a statesman, and when returned to the Legislative Assembly at a by-election in July 1899 Norton was counted as a wayward supporter of Barton’s Protectionists. By the end of 1900 Norton had become venomously hostile to Barton. His motives were obscure, but behind his hard-eyed exterior Norton cherished Napoleonic dreams and he resented success in others. At the time of the ‘Hopetoun blunder’ he denounced Barton as the creature of a clique of ‘briefless lawyers, political parasites and putrid pressmen’ who would sell out New South Wales. Once Barton was prime minister, Norton excelled himself in vituperation. Week after week in colourful prose he denounced Barton as a spendthrift who left his tradesmen’s bills unpaid, who had manipulated the Proudfoot and McSharry cases for his own pocket, and who ate and drank too much: Though blessed with brains he is cursed with a big belly. His appetite has conquered his intellect. Of a high order of intellect, physically he is a sleepy sluggard; lazy and a laggard in public and private affairs; and . . . he has been permitted to persistently dip deeply into the public purse . . . This man who can drink like a fish, and eat like a hog, and owe money how he likes, to whom he likes, and as long as he likes . . . is ‘Australia’s Noblest Son!’

It got worse in the following months. Sundays when Truth appeared, must have been a torment to Barton. Even the Labor

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member Hugh Mahon, himself no mean hand at invective, thought Norton’s tirades beyond the pale. The voters of New South Wales were not moved to return Norton to the federal Senate, though he retained a seat in the State parliament until 1910. But his constant spiteful caricaturing of Barton contributed to the legend of ‘Tosspot Toby’ and provided a savage counterpoint to the image of gentlemanly honour usually associated with Barton. To others he was a hero. Parents christened children with ‘Barton’ as one of their names. Charles Barton Jones, born on 21 February 1901 to storekeepers at Bulong on the Western Australian goldfields, pursued a useful career in local government and lived to be 98. Advertisers also used Barton’s well-known features to promote their wares. During February and March Barton could not let Norton’s squibs distract him from the competition with Reid for control of the first federal parliament. Reid was still the more dexterous and aggressive campaigner of the two, but he was labouring under two handicaps. Almost by accident he had recently made an antagonist of Sydney’s Cardinal Moran and was seen as being in league with hardline Protestants. More seriously, it was no longer possible to campaign on a pure doctrine of free trade. Because the Commonwealth depended on tariffs for its revenue, Reid would have to accept a moderate level of protection and could only hope to keep levels as low as possible—which of course was not much different to Barton’s view. Besides, most free-traders outside New South Wales were conservatives, and this made it harder for Reid to keep the essential middle ground in politics. He could score points off Barton and his ministry, but he could not present a substantial alternative to the West Maitland programme. Instead of debating tariff policy with Reid, Barton travelled southeastern Australia proclaiming the merits of a White Australia, and this was sure to win over the support of Labor and other workingclass interests for whom in the past Barton might have seemed too conservative. Since Labor was still divided over the tariff issue its members would decide their support on other grounds, and in the upshot White Australia was crucial. Federated Australia went to the polls for the first time on 29 and 30 March 1901. The results were slow to finalise, as some

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Prime Minister: Foundations 235 Australia First. The policy for the Commonwealth. Barton as architect of tariff protectionism keeps out foreign competition—a policy no longer fashionable, a century later. (The Bulletin, 9/3/1901)

members did not eventually decide their party allegiance until after their election, but the result was a qualified triumph for the Barton ministry. They had 32 supporters, which with 17 Labor members gave them a safe majority in the House of Representatives over Reid’s 26 Free Trade Party. Party support was unevenly distributed across

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the nation, as Reid’s free-traders polled strongly in New South Wales and, except for Sir John Forrest, swept the field in Western Australia. Barton’s stronghold was in Victoria, and in Queensland four Protectionists and four Labor men were returned against one Oppositionist. The Senate presented greater difficulties, as here the Barton government had only eleven supporters against seventeen Reidites, led by Sir Josiah Symon, and eight Labor men. O’Connor, neglecting his legal practice in Sydney and without ministerial salary, would have his work cut out to shepherd government legislation through the Senate, his task only marginally simplified by the fact that, even for Labor, party discipline had not yet solidified entirely. Nevertheless, the Barton government had secured the public mandate. The election behind him, Barton could now concentrate on preparations for the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York and Cornwall (later King George V and Queen Mary) and the opening of parliament on 9 May. Offered the choice of parliamentary quarters while temporarily housed in Melbourne, the government had selected Victoria’s Parliament House in preference to the Exhibition Building, supposedly because it had the better library. The Victorian parliament obligingly moved out for what few imagined would be a spell as long as 26 years. In these weeks also Barton was engaged in making up his personal team. Atlee Hunt, who had been his private secretary since the beginning of the year, was appointed permanent head of the department of external affairs. In Hunt’s place Barton appointed as his private secretary young Tom Bavin, as a result of a chance encounter on Albury railway station. Finding that Bavin was having a thin time as a young lawyer in country practice Barton, no doubt remembering his own similar experiences when young, at once offered him the post. Bavin was to give devoted service, but once again Barton’s methods invite contrast with modern human resources practice. Robert Garran was settling in to a long and distinguished career as permanent head of the attorney-general’s department. As secretary of the department of home affairs, Lyne attempted to bring in one of his New South Wales cabinet colleagues, the ex-Labor man J. L. Fegan, but desisted in the face of unfavourable publicity. Barton indicated to Lyne that he would not oppose Fegan’s nomination but, at the same time, he did not encourage Lyne to proceed.

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Modern eyes might also be astonished by the amount of time and energy spent on the issues of precedence arising out of the Royal visit. These were evidently very important for prominent public figures at that time. Many of the great and the good complained that they had not been properly looked after during the procession on 1 January and Barton took considerable trouble to ensure that there would be no complaints at the opening of parliament. Forrest and Kingston were also drawn in. Did cabinet ministers rank higher than chief justices? Would a knight’s grandson take precedence over a member of State parliament? Should Cardinal Moran’s standing as a Prince of the Church enable him to outrank Anglican archbishops? (Atlee Hunt drew up for Barton a note on religious precedence, which the prime minister annotated: ‘DAMN precedence’.) More substantially, since Hopetoun as governor-general was the sovereign’s representative, was it in order for the Duke of York and Cornwall, although the King’s heir, to open parliament? (In the event, he did, but it was Hopetoun who took the oaths of allegiance of the members and delivered the formal statement of government business.) As a result of cooperating on these issues Hopetoun and Barton, despite their uneasy start, were soon on excellent terms. The opening of the first Commonwealth parliament on 9 May has been fixed in the eye of posterity for all time by the painting which Tom Roberts regarded as his masterpiece, but it cannot claim to be an exact record of the event. Roberts worked for many months after the event, taking individual portraits of the major participants. His appointments with Barton were fixed for after lunch, when his illustrious sitter was apt to fall asleep. Roberts would rouse him by some provocative comment about free trade, whereupon Barton would retort that the only free-trade countries were England and Turkey: ‘. . . do you think the rest are damn fools? Get on with your work.’ The event itself may have been somewhat more scrambled than Roberts’ painting suggests. Barton and Deakin had difficulty in thrusting themselves through the crowds and arrived to find the peppery little duke tapping his foot with impatience. And it was, to say the least, unfortunate that it was Griffith who was turned away from the Duchess of York’s stand at a review held at Flemington racecourse on the following day. On 11 May at an investiture of

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officers of the order of St Michael & St George, Edmund Barton wore his new Privy Councillor’s uniform and was ‘conspicuous in his gorgeous brilliancy’. Still, when the Royal couple departed at the beginning of June, Hopetoun commented with feeling: ‘The royal couple have been pleased with it all . . . I feel like a bottle of champagne with the fizz out of it.’ It was now time for Barton to address himself to the management of the first session of parliament, but there were still practicalities to be resolved. In an era before aviation the tyranny of distance bore hardest on those who, like the members of the new Commonwealth parliament, had to travel interstate frequently in pursuit of their duties. It helped Barton and O’Connor in their management of parliamentary business that a number of senators from the outlying States attended fewer than half the days on which parliament sat, but the problems were troublesome for those exercising a position of leadership requiring steady attendance. O’Connor as leader of the Senate and Reid as leader of the opposition drew annual salaries of only £400. To keep up their incomes they had to maintain their legal practices in Sydney, which called for a tedious amount of commuting to and from Melbourne. As for the cabinet ministers, it was all very well for Deakin and Turner who lived in Melbourne, or for the childless Forrest who could afford to put up at the Grand Hotel (now the Windsor) opposite Parliament House, but for Barton it was harder. The prime minister’s salary of £2500 a year substantially helped his distressed finances, but it was not enough to allow for Jeanie and their younger children to live with him while in Melbourne. Instead, a kind of bachelor flat was improvised for him within the parliamentary buildings. Drake remembered it as a little turretchamber approached by a winding staircase, but added that ‘it was comfortably furnished as a writing room, and it opened into an equally small sleeping apartment with a bath-room adjoining’. Here in the evenings he would catch up on the day’s business with Atlee Hunt, at times working until past midnight. Here also, according to young senator J. H. Keating, the government Whip, he would sit up late with his particular friends in cabinet: Deakin, O’Connor and, increasingly, Forrest. ‘Their discussions often lasted until the early

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Prime Minister: Foundations 239 The Australian Flag. A Sydney gibe at Melbourne’s weather? The original caption read: ‘A lady sent a design comprising a yellow-ribboned outline of the map of Australia on white silk. In the centre of the continent was a portrait of the late Henry Parkes; in the top corners were portraits of the Duke and Duchess of York; in the bottom corners portraits of Lord Hopetoun and Mr Barton. The side spaces held pictures of the shamrock, the leek, the rose and thistle, the whole forming a tasteful design, much more suitable for a fancy quilt than a Federation flag. Judging by the ‘‘severe colds’’ our statesmen bring back from Melbourne, there must be greater need for bedclothes there than flags. The Premier is welcome to the above hint.’ (The Bulletin, 17/8/1901)

hours of the morning,’ we are told, ‘and often before departing they cooked chops and made billy tea in the open fireplace in bush fashion.’ There was a pleasing simplicity about these informal arrangements, but they were no substitute for the support systems which Barton enjoyed in Sydney: the company of his family and his friends at the Athenaeum Club. The first session of the Commonwealth parliament would be a test of his personality no less than his political skills. The first few weeks of the parliamentary session were taken up with the formal address-in-reply and the routine business of establishing the machinery of government: the public service, the post office and defence departments, and the supply needed to finance them until 30 June. At first the opposition was not too formidable. Reid, after one slashing attack on the ministry, was unable to attend for several weeks. His henchmen, Millen in the Senate and Joseph Cook in the House, put up an amendment condemning the Barton government’s handling of the White Australia policy, but found little support. Much

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of the time the opposition was led by McMillan (now Sir William), a restrained and discriminating critic who had more in common with Barton than with Reid. Barton was stung more sharply by a Labor attack on Atlee Hunt’s appointment as under-secretary, retorting that while he did not limit appointments to his friends and supporters, he did not believe that ‘the proper means of constituting a public service is to fill it with your enemies’. The motion was defeated comfortably, but coming after Lyne’s unsuccessful attempt to provide for his colleague Fegan the episode warned all federal governments that they must not go in for patronage games with the public service. It also provided a foretaste of the problems which would confront the Barton ministry. Without a majority of its own in either house the government must win enough supporters from Labor or the Reidite opposition to push through its programme, and it would be necessary to cobble together a fresh team of supporters for almost every major piece of legislation. For all his sociability Barton did not greatly enjoy the courting of backbenchers needed to build up majorities, the main burden of which fell on O’Connor in the Senate and, not without relish, Deakin in the House. Taught by South Australians such as Symon and Downer, who spoke with the authority of prominent makers of the Constitution, the Senate asserted its muscle immediately on receiving the first supply bill. As the Queensland Labor senator Stewart put it, the Upper Houses in the States had been brakes on the wheels of progress, but the Senate would prove a stockwhip. O’Connor’s tact, patience and shrewdness had been honed by experience in an obstructive New South Wales Legislative Council, and no politician was less given to grandstanding. His capacity to coax legislation through a restive Senate made him an invaluable workhorse, but meant that he must neglect his legal practice in Sydney. In compensation his cabinet colleagues agreed each to make a contribution which would top up his parliamentary stipend to £1200, the level of a ministerial salary. Deakin was a persuasive contact man in the House of Representatives, the ‘Affable Alfred’ of political folklore. Assessment of his performance is complicated by his double life as anonymous correspondent for the conservative London daily, the Morning Post.

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Here he adopted the persona of a Sydney resident who sometimes expressed opinions which were not those of the parliamentarian Alfred Deakin. In this guise he voiced anxieties and occasional criticisms of colleagues which he should not have felt free to ventilate in his public role. At times it becomes hard for a modern reader to guess at the authentic Alfred Deakin. He might almost be termed our first post-modernist politician. The Morning Post’s Australian correspondent gave its readers a shifting estimate of Barton. At his appointment the correspondent glanced at his reputation for indolence but praised his record of achievement, ‘charming wife . . . winning personality, unimpeachable integrity, and great ability’. And elsewhere described him as ‘weighty in utterance, fiery when stirred, and occasionally humourous’ but at times ‘a somewhat difficult speaker for the ordinary elector to follow’. By mid-June the correspondent was fretting that the Commonwealth parliament was making ‘painfully slow’ progress and although in late July ‘it has found its stride—a steady trot covering a great deal of ground without undue delay’, August brought a return of gloom: ‘Short as has been the life of the Federal government it has already exasperated every one of its constituents’, and the public temper was ‘explosive’. The politician Deakin was alert, perhaps over-alert to the shifting moods and opinions of the House, whereas Barton in the Morning Post’s pages was described as ‘no strategist’. He ‘wears his heart on his sleeve too much, gives way under public compulsion with ill grace, and makes no secret of his mortification when obliged to retreat’ (in contrast to Reid, who was at his boldest when surrendering a point). The Adelaide editor Sir John Langdon Bonython saw in Barton ‘a fatal weakness . . . the facility with which he can explain matters about which he has little or no knowledge. Deakin says Barton has so much knowledge on a variety of subjects, that it is not surprising he supposes his knowledge universal.’ (On the other hand the young Tasmanian senator J. H. Keating, an admirer of Barton’s wide-ranging conversation, said that he never bluffed and would always admit ignorance.) The most surprising of all these criticisms was the comment that Barton disliked shifting his ground and retreating from an earlier position. In the winter and spring of 1901 he was more often accused

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Old Age Pensions and the Federal Parliament. Barton had not supported the Federal takeover of old age pensions and it was 1908 before the legislation was finally passed. (The Bulletin, 10/8/1901)

of too much flexibility in manoeuvre. The Morning Post correspondent himself wrote: ‘The ministry have certainly suffered in public opinion because of the concessions made to their motley collection of followers, strangers to one another and but lightly attached to their leaders.’ In the Convention of 1897–98 Barton had shown a readiness to give

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way on points of detail, sometimes substantial points, in order to secure workable outcomes, and he brought this approach to the management of the Commonwealth parliament. When the proposal for the Inter-State Commission to regulate trade between the States ran into commercial opposition the Barton government postponed its introduction and seemed ready to listen to Reid’s suggestion that voluntary agreements might suffice. Aware of Labor touchiness about the level of the governor-general’s salary and the cost of the Royal tour, Barton procrastinated about bringing the necessary legislation before the House. In both cases the delay was unwise. The Inter-State Commission did not come into being until 1913, then to be struck down in its infancy, and the issue of the governorgeneral’s expenses would soon lead to unpleasantness. Barton’s priorities were the establishment of the Commonwealth government’s infrastructure, the settlement of the White Australia policy, and then the labyrinthine process of fixing a federal tariff. By August Barton was ready to introduce the White Australia policy. A ban on non-European immigration and the repatriation of the Pacific Islanders working in the sugar industry were the essential price of Labor support, but in fact both policies were favoured by a large majority of politicians and the Australian general public. Unfortunately the opponents of White Australia were open to the suspicion of being conservative employers more interested in securing a cheap and docile workforce than in ethnic equality, so there was no risk of defeat on the broad principle. The devil was in the detail. Most of the Labor members and some of Barton’s own followers would have preferred the naked candour of legislating to keep out all Asians, Africans and Melanesians, but the British government, still with Chamberlain in charge of colonial policy, had an Indian empire to administer, as well as many other non-European subjects, and could not afford to condone blatant racism. Besides, negotiations were on foot for an alliance with Japan, whom Britain wanted to encourage as a check against Russian, and possibly even American, ambitions in East Asia and the North Pacific; and Japanese dignity was sensitive to Australian insult. A solution lay in the device adopted by the South African colony of Natal, where any prospective immigrant might be required to undertake a dictation test

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‘You Dirty Boy’. Barton is seen as cleaning up Queensland in pursuit of the White Australia policy. (The Bulletin, 19/10/1901)

of 50 words in any European language. Rejection would then be due not to the colour of the applicant’s skin, but to his or her lamentable ignorance of Swedish or Serbo-Croat. With Chamberlain’s concurrence a number of Australian colonies had adopted this device in the late 1890s and it seemed an apt model for the Australian Commonwealth.

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Barton himself was comfortable with the Natal test. His eyes opened by his London journey of 1900 to the complexities of British foreign policy, he saw no need to embarrass a British Empire on whom Australia’s security still depended or to antagonise the Japanese unnecessarily. To the extent that he related easily to individuals such as the Chinese merchant Quong Tart, who conformed to Australian middle-class values, he was not an extreme racist and he never deviated from the position that once admitted to Australia an immigrant was entitled to full rights of residence; but in the course of debate he was capable of asserting that the doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to Chinese. Like many of his background and generation, he took it for granted that the English-speaking peoples of the world represented the pinnacle of human achievement and would have been content to lump all foreigners together by providing that the 50-word dictation test should be in English. This formula, somewhat more logical and less offensive to Asian feelings, soon ran into difficulties. Surprisingly the British government preferred the formula of the original Natal test, prescribing ‘any European language, because it upheld the policy of equality between all white men’. Barton used this pressure with some skill. The Labor Party was thrusting for direct prohibition of all non-European immigration. Barton and his colleagues came under attack for truckling to Chamberlain instead of asserting Australian self-determination. Billy Hughes, at his most fiery, asserted that it would be preferable for Australia to declare independence than to submit to a British veto. Reid, seeing a chance of detaching Labor from Barton, came out in favour of the outright ban. Then the government counter-attacked. Deakin made an eloquent speech arguing that it was not their vices but their virtues of diligence and frugality which made the Asians problematical immigrants. Barton was in fighting mood: ‘When his heart is full . . .’ noted the Morning Post correspondent, ‘he speaks with a frankness that is as sincere as it is undiplomatic.’ By offering to broaden the test to include any European language he won over enough members of the free-trade opposition to win by a five-vote margin. It was the first time that the Labor Party had voted en bloc against the Barton government. Reid tried to capitalise on this split

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with a motion of no confidence in October 1901, but Labor had no wish to oust Barton, and the government won by 39 votes to 25. The House was less troublesome about ending the use of Pacific Islanders in the Queensland canefields. The scandalous years of the labour trade had long gone and the Melanesians who signed threeyear indentures promising them their keep and ten shillings a month were now working for small cane-farmers rather than the plantations of the 1880s. But not all of them returned home after finishing their contracts and not all of them restricted themselves to cutting cane. White working-class Australians objected to the competition of ‘black labour’. The Barton government’s proposals as brought down in October 1901 withstood Labor demands for an immediate ban on the traffic, but provided that no more Islanders should be introduced after March 1904 and that all should be repatriated three years later except for long-established residents. In compensation sugar growers would be protected by high tariffs on imported sugar products and by a rebate of excise on cane grown by white labour. Unfortunately during the months before these terms were announced the Queensland government worked itself up into a tantrum over the outlook for the industry. Lord Hopetoun, visiting a planter brother-in-law in North Queensland in August, told Barton of ‘consternation among the sugar growers . . . there is a rather nasty feeling abroad’. He placed his hopes in the invention of cane-cutting machinery, but he was decades too early. For the first of many times a Commonwealth initiative was provoking sharp reactions in Queensland. The premier, Robert Philp, had been a partisan of Barton during the general election, but he now bombarded the federal authorities with protests and lent an approving ear when the Brisbane Courier hinted at secession. In the House of Representatives the longwinded member for Oxley quoted numerous submissions from rural Queensland in favour of nonEuropean labour. He found few supporters for his plea to refer the question to a Royal Commission, and the legislation passed with ease. Philp now pinned his hopes on the Senate. The States’ house would surely take heed of Queensland feeling, and Senator Drake, the Queensland member of the ministry, was his former cabinet colleague. O’Connor’s tactics outflanked him. The Pacific Islanders legislation was brought on ahead of the much more contentious

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Alien Immigration Bill, and sailed through the Senate unamended except for spelling out the arrangements to ensure the humane repatriation of labourers to their islands of origin. The first plank of the White Australia policy was in place. The Alien Immigration Bill gave much more trouble. Symon, leading the opposition in the Senate, threw his support behind Labor’s plan for an outright ban on all Asians, Africans and Pacific Islanders. The Free Trade–Labor combination knocked out the 50-word dictation test, and the Labor leader, the blind Senator McGregor, moved for complete prohibition. Barton and his colleagues let it be known that they would resign, or at least withdraw the legislation entirely, rather than accept the change. It was a critical moment, since in a dispute between the Senate and the House of Representatives the Senate could pose as the true upholders of Australian national interests, and Barton’s majority in the House might vanish. O’Connor meanwhile won over three members of the free-trade opposition who were unwilling to go against the British government’s wish, and persuaded two others to abstain. McGregor’s amendment was lost by a majority of one. The government then supported a backbencher’s amendment restoring the dictation test but allowing the migrant to choose any European language rather than leaving it to the customs official. This was also lost by a majority of one. By this time Labor had lost faith in the opposition’s ability to deliver, and threw its support behind the Barton government’s original legislation. It was a very close-run thing, but if the dictation test was more hypocritical than an outright ban on non-Europeans, it at least left a greater flexibility for that distant day when Australians might wish to modify their immigration policy. The outcome also averted the prospect of a major clash with Britain. Hopetoun still wondered whether he should give the Royal Assent without referring the legislation to the Colonial Office, but Barton eventually persuaded him to do so, though only when he was already on the train en route to a Christmas visit to Western Australia. A few weeks later the governor-general actually received a request from the Colonial Office to withhold consent until the British government’s legal officers could be consulted, but it was too late. Probably the mandarins of Whitehall knew it would be too late, but they could at least tell the

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Japanese that they had tried to intervene. The request in fact was sent on 30 January 1902, the very day on which the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was signed. Australian interests in the western Pacific were never far from the attention of the Barton government, with particular emphasis on the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and New Guinea. Both France and Britain exercised authority in the New Hebrides, through a condominium established in 1888, and this caused problems for Australian trading companies with interests there, such as Burns, Philp & Co., as well as for Presbyterian missionaries competing for souls with the French Catholic clergy. Both groups put pressure on the Commonwealth government within the first weeks of its existence, and Barton in his election campaign spoke of Australia’s need for ‘a national policy on the Pacific Islands’. Throughout 1901 the Australian government chivvied the Colonial Office to take a more active stance in asserting British rights and protecting Australian interests against the competitive activities of the French New Hebrides Company, but with little result. Kept without information by the British government, Barton’s cabinet took the remarkable initiative of funding a journey to the New Hebrides by a French- speaking secret agent, whose report in November 1901 left the ministry better informed but still powerless to influence policy. The Colonial Office moved faster on New Guinea. Having taken on the unwanted responsibility in 1884, Britain was only too glad to hand over the territory and its costs to the Australian Commonwealth. Barton and his colleagues would have been willing to take over the Solomons as well, but these were not offered. Even New Guinea produced complications. Hitherto its administration had been delegated to the Queensland government with the governor as formal link with London. Griffith, still taking an exalted view of his authority as lieutenant-governor, claimed authority to communicate directly with the governor-general over the details of the transfer. During the later months of 1901 he bombarded Hopetoun with communications about New Guinea. He was, reported Hopetoun, ‘in a state bordering on madness over it’, wanted the governor-general to advise Chamberlain that the Barton government was unfit to perform

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Prime Minister: Foundations 249 Whitewashing Done Here. The original caption read: ‘In a few days British New Guinea will become a part of Australia. If Australians persist in their cry for a White Australia there’s a big job in front of Barton.’ (The Bulletin, 23/11/1901)

its duties, and fretted about the need for parliamentary sanction for the Commonwealth to take over what would now be known as Papua. Where Hopetoun and Barton understood that the Australian government was taking over from Britain as the colonial power in charge of Papua, Griffith believed that it was simply replacing the governor of Queensland as agent of the British government. This blinkered view of Australian autonomy was quietly over-ruled. The Commonwealth parliament passed the necessary legislation in November 1901 and the handover followed in March 1902. Griffith meanwhile continued to fuss about such details as the appointment of military officers on his staff and the choice of a new chief justice for Papua. He was under strain at the time because of the lingering death of his elder son, but his behaviour showed that he was still chafing against his exclusion from the process of Australian nation-building. He would not have been excluded if, like Barton, he had been willing to forgo the security of the judicial bench for the political fight for Federation. Perhaps it was as well for Griffith that he was not a member of the first federal government. Several of the cabinet found that the pressures were telling on their health. Even Lyne’s tough constitution was showing the strain. Forrest was more than once unwell, and early in November Deakin took to his bed for a week with severe influenza. The Catholic Press reported him as run-down through overwork, contrasting him with Barton:

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Not that Barton is not a hard worker too, but he knows when and how to rest. He will not do work that his under-secretaries are paid to do, and he will not worry over trifles. As a consequence Barton is always fresh, he wears a perennial smile, and the responsibility of high office appears to have renewed his youth and given him a new lease of life . . . There are few men who can lead leaders, yet with one exception perhaps, there never were colleagues more devoted to their chief.

Even the Morning Post correspondent was prepared to concede: ‘Without the brilliancy, the strategy, or the energy of the Leader of the Opposition, he is more loved by his friends and more relied on by his followers.’ Another journalist was less restrained: His natural tendency is not to bother, yet he stands forth to-day as a better fighter than he did six months ago . . . When he rises his carelessness falls from him like a cloak. He stands up intense and convincing in his style with a force about his sentences that grips the House, and forces attention. Perhaps it is as well that some fairy godmother infused the let-alone strain into his nature. Without it, Mr Barton would be an autocrat, and not half the success that he is.

During the next few months it would appear that Barton also was not immune to strain.

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12

Life at the Top Life at the Top

H

Jones, a journalist with the Age, noted the change in Barton. In his early months, wrote Campbell Jones, his mastery of the House of Representatives was obvious. Formal with pince-nez, a perfectly fitting black or grey waistcoat and, invariably, a ready-to-wear black derby tie, he took control of business: ERBERT CAMPBELL

Strumming his fingers on the table and watching every corner of the Chamber at once, the Prime Minister, with crinkled brow, rises quietly but quickly to his feet, and having made his obeisance to the Chair, looks good-humouredly around the House with the suggestion that he is seeking each member’s personal attention.

He still spoke rapidly and without notes, and this had its drawbacks: His exposition of a Bill was admirable—but he could not make allowance for ordinary brains being able to keep pace with his explanations on all occasions, and he grew impatient, and when he grew impatient he was apt to be satirical and brusque.

He was on good terms with the press and because he treated the journalists with trust his confidences were not betrayed. But as the months wore on, he grew less accessible: 251

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The cheery word with which he met everybody during the first weeks of office was replaced by a pondering, if not ponderous mien which suggested introspection. The big head moved quietly from side to side when he walked to the Cabinet room as a bison ruminates on the open plains. He looked aloof. His step lost some of its crispness. He was rushing through early middle-age at meteor speed.

It seemed to Campbell Jones that: ‘Easy familiarity was not a trait in his character. Though a genial man he made few friendships.’ Even with those who were close to him, such as Deakin, Forrest and Garran, it struck Jones that ‘the affection was almost wholly on their side. The intellect more than the heart gave birth to his emotions’. Barton reserved his closeness for his wife and family, and was known to write to them regularly. His absence from them very probably contributed to his depression. Another likely cause was the death of his elder brother. George Burdett Barton had not always been an easy sibling. More than once Edmund had been put to considerable trouble to sort out legal problems for members of George’s family. They found themselves on opposite sides over Federation, as George was among those who voted ‘No’ because they thought the proposed constitution insufficently democratic. In 1900 George at 64 made a new start, moving to edit a Goulburn newspaper, and marrying a second time. His widow and an infant child would be among Edmund Barton’s responsibilities. George had been one of Edmund’s most important early mentors and his death in September 1901 must have been a reminder of mortality. In this sombre frame of mind Barton was not at his best in coping with the demands of governing. After alien immigration the tariff was the foremost issue in parliamentary debate. In October 1901 Turner with his usual calm professionalism brought down a balanced budget. Two-thirds of the revenue of £9.35 million would be returned to the States, including £500 000 more of the customs and excise than their entitlement under the terms of the ‘Braddon blot’. Even the State premiers were satisfied. At the same time Kingston introduced the new tariff proposals. These he forecast would increase the annual customs and excise revenue from £7.7 million to £9 million, thus enabling the

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Commonwealth to meet its commitment to introducing old-age pensions and to pay bonuses on new industries, especially on machinery and locally smelted iron. Existing local industries would be protected by tariffs ranging from 10 to 25 per cent, with an average ad valorem rate of 18.7 per cent. More contentiously, there would also be duties on tea, tobacco, alcohol, newsprint and various foodstuffs. These would touch the pockets of consumers throughout Australia, and would excite resistance from the Free Trade and Labor parties. Reid’s authority on tariff matters would make him a formidable opponent. He could not hope to keep the Commonwealth in the same free-trade purity as New South Wales before Federation, but he could make himself the spokesman for all those importers and consumers for whom low prices mattered more than the establishment of local Australian industries. As usual when confronted by opposition Kingston grew belligerent: ‘like a lion-tamer in a poultry-yard’ in Reid’s words. This put critics of the tariff on their mettle. McMillan originally indicated that the opposition would cooperate in getting the legislation through the House by Christmas. Unable to impose either the guillotine or the gag, the government had no means of keeping members to this time-table. Kingston’s defiance ensured that every item would be scrutinised in minute and laborious detail as the House of Representatives sat through the summer months with only a four-week break over Christmas and the New Year. Because Reid had lost his no confidence motion, backbenchers knew that they could rebel against the Barton government on individual features of the tariff without precipitating a major political crisis. Item by item Kingston and Turner fought the tariff through, winning or losing divisions by a handful of votes. One session lasted 33 hours, with breaks only for mealtimes. Barton, who could contribute little to arguments over commercial details, soon became bored with the process and began to absent himself from the House. He would withdraw to a small office directly opposite the entrance to the chamber, emerging only when a vote was to take place on some item, or when summoned by Tom Bavin to deal with a minor crisis, or to move the adjournment in the late evening. Even the last chore created problems. Once he fell

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asleep in the House and Turner had to move the adjournment; on another occasion, according to Reynolds, having dined too well he moved the adjournment ahead of schedule. As the weeks wore on and the tariff was whittled down, a mood of frustration settled over cabinet ministers, and Barton’s style of leadership was inevitably called into question. Critics were also vocal about the Barton government’s handling of its involvement with the South African war. Barton never wavered in his support of Australian participation, believing that such intervention made for the protection of Australia ‘even if the blow be struck at a distance’. Sometimes, however, the British seemed lacking in appreciation. Barton was knocked back when he requested the Imperial authorities to award a special service clasp for Australian units who had distinguished themselves in action at Elands River. On the other hand, when the 5th Victorian Mounted Rifles were taken by surprise in a raid on Wilmansrust in June 1901, the British Brigadier-General Beatson was alleged to have berated the survivors as ‘a fat-arsed, pot-bellied lazy lot of wasters’, provoking a mutinous response. Authentic particulars came slowly, and it was only in October that Barton telegraphed London for information. This stirred the British army authorities to pardon the privates accused of mutiny, but the episode left a niggling dissatisfaction which later events were to inflate. Because of resistance by Afrikaaner guerillas the war was dragging into its third year. More mounted troops would be required from the British Empire, and in December 1901 the governments of Canada and New Zealand both offered to send reinforcements. A visiting British politician made a grandstanding speech urging Australia to follow suit, and the Victorian parliament passed a resolution in favour of further recruitment. This was provocative, as defence was no longer the responsibility of the States; earlier in 1901 when Queensland’s premier Robert Philp had spoken of offering more troops he was rebuked by Barton for attempting to usurp Commonwealth powers. Barton was no less pro-British than he had been at the time of the Sudan contingent, but he was coming under tight budgetary restraints. As more and more items were reduced or eliminated from the tariff list the government’s potential income

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L i f e a t t h e To p 2 5 5 The Prime Minister Christens the Baby. A departure from the doctor–nurse theme in which Barton is depicted as a priest, baptising the infant Commonwealth with the ‘blud’ of state contingents for the Boer War. (The Bulletin, 11/1/1902)

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fell, obliging Barton to follow a policy described as ‘dignified restraint born of parsimony’. Accordingly he thought it best not to proceed without a formal request from the British government. Several newspaper editorials, as well as the Morning Post’s correspondent, reproached the Barton government for its want of patriotic zeal, and it was not until shortly before Christmas 1901 that the necessary messages were exchanged with London. Barton also thought parliamentary endorsement necessary for the sending of more troops. Cabinet agreed, including the staunchly loyalist minister for defence, Forrest. When the House of Representatives resumed sitting in midJanuary Reid approached Barton with a proposal for a bipartisan resolution. They agreed on a pledge of support for the British conduct of the war against foreign criticisms, and readiness to render all requisite aid to the Mother Country for the purpose of ending the present war. The British government had asked for another 1000 mounted troops, and the resolution was supported by all but five members, some of them entirely anti-war and others, like Higgins, opposed to the South African war in particular. Having been accused of too sluggish a patriotism Barton now found himself caricatured by the young Norman Lindsay as a bloodthirsty careerist sending young Australians to their deaths in the hope of an English peerage as reward. Ironically, Lindsay went on to become one of the most jingoistic cartoonists of the two World Wars. Barton’s troubles were not over. At an Australian Natives’ Association lunch on 27 January, Hopetoun spoke up in defence of his ministers’ handling of the issue. Reid sniffed partisanship, and at once brought in a motion which, although careful not to criticise Hopetoun personally, hoped that his comments would not set a vice-regal precedent. Barton made a strong and dignified rejoinder, and Reid withdrew his motion. Hopetoun was grateful: ‘Had he pressed his motion and carried it (however kindly worded it might have been) it would have meant that I should have to go.’ ‘Ithuriel’ of the Argus commented sagely: It always requires a constitutional point to exhibit the Prime Minister at his best . . . we see again the leader of the Federal

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L i f e a t t h e To p 2 5 7 The New Cohentingent. The Bulletin blamed the Jewish financiers of the day for the Boer War and felt that the Victorian parliament’s endorsement of further recruitment of Australians to fight in the Boer War was provocative at a time when Barton was having to follow a policy of dignified restraint. Barton’s patriotism was undiminished—just his budget. (The Bulletin, 28/12/1901)

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Convention, the hard-working, deeply interested master of broad, strong, definite views, and clear speech—a real leader working in his appropriate capacity.

But in those months this was a Barton too seldom seen. He was lapsing into an emotional trough and his old lethargy returned. His few weeks over the New Year in Sydney were curtailed in order that he might go up to Maitland on 10 January to deliver a major speech to his electorate, reminding the public of his government’s achievements in its first year of office. From there he returned to Melbourne for the renewed parliamentary session. His depression closed down on him. He was still living in his bachelor flat in Parliament House, separated from his family and dependent on letters from them. On one occasion he was away from home for ten consecutive weeks, and another for six. It could not be expected that every evening could be solaced with fireside yarnings with the likes of Deakin and Forrest. Both had wives of their own to go home to, whereas Jeanie, her youngest child still under ten, could not afford to do otherwise than keep up their Sydney household at ‘Miandatta’. Sometimes the Deakins or the Turners would invite Barton to dinner. On occasion he would drop in unannounced on the Atlee Hunts, and the younger couple marvelled at the relish with which the gourmet prime minister would tuck into a simple steak, and at his spontaneous readiness to romp on the floor with the Hunt toddlers. Less fortunately, Alfred Deakin once asked his nine-year-old daughter Vera, who was about the same age as Barton’s younger daughter, to give the prime minister a kiss. When Barton lifted her up, perhaps disliking his aroma of cigars and whisky, she slapped his face. But they made friends later. At times however, his weakness for a sociable yarn became exasperating. Tom Bavin once had to drag him away from an absorbing pub conversation in order to attend an important meeting, and Atlee Hunt was driven in January 1902 to start a diary in which he tried to tease out the complexities of his admired but wayward ‘Chief’. An intelligent observer, he is worth citing in detail:

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I never in my life met anyone who put on less side. In many respects he deserves to be called great, but his weaknesses, chiefly his want of personal energy, his disregard of time, both his own and other people’s, his habit of taking so much to drink that he becomes slow of comprehension and expression . . .

But almost never incapable, Hunt emphasised. Only once, after a big Athenaeum Club dinner: When working with me he rarely takes anything but it is his delight in yarning with men (often quite unworthy of him) and sitting for hours over his cigars and whisky that leads him into a condition in which he loses his brilliancy of perception.

Thirty years later Hunt was still pondering: Barton would talk with anyone, but very often he would let others do the talking. His conversation was not specially light or airy, his subjects were solid and his sentences always rounded and complete . . . Barton’s love of talk and his unwillingness to hurt anyone’s feelings by abruptly terminating a conversation were the means of using up a lot of time.

In the summer of 1902 Hunt noted: Took Chief up to Braemar, he keeps well despite the numerous worries falling on his shoulders, he is never alone from the time I join him at 9.30 until he crawls up to his Eyrie towards midnight, from my point of view he is far too generous with his time.

Two days later he was worrying away at his theme: Although he has a wonderful memory and a remarkable insight he appears to be lacking in that part of the sense of proportion that takes notice of the value of time. He is very much the creature of the moment, put a paper before him and he becomes interested in it, reads it through and writes perhaps a big minute with his own hand regardless of the fact that many more important matters are awaiting his attention.

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February brought no improvement. Although they worked weekends, including evenings, Barton was easily sidetracked by a club dinner or a Sunday lunch, or was too sleepy to bring his mind to the accumulating papers in the in-tray. ‘I often wonder whether his conscience does not trouble him about the amount of work left undone,’ Hunt noted darkly. Punctuality was not Barton’s strongest point, and it was only after missing several appointments that he asked Tom Bavin: ‘Should I be troubling you too much if I asked you to keep a little appointment book for me, which you might write up and shew me when we meet each day?’ He was still writing most of his correspondence by hand, and Hopetoun had to urge him to resort to a shorthand typist for all but the most confidential communications. Although charming, Barton was far from businesslike and Bavin was probably right when, in later life, he reflected that ‘having done his greatest work Barton was no longer very interested in the result’. Under his placid exterior Barton was depressed by his situation. He once let slip to Bavin that he found his first year and a quarter in office ‘cheerless’. Yet he seems never to have thought of quitting. Financially he could not afford it and in cabinet he was still seen as essential for keeping the team together. But his neglect of parliamentary duties was beginning to become a matter for public comment. ‘Ithuriel’ in the Argus named him in mid-February as parliament’s worst absentee: ‘Modern degeneracy has not reached him. He has outstripped it.’ Even when he attended the House he could be diverted from duty. The backbencher Hume Cook told the story of the morning when the parliamentary official Sir George Jenkins accosted him with: ‘Tell Barton I’ve got the finest trout he ever saw in his life. Ask him what I am to do with it.’ Hume Cook found Barton conducting a bill through the House of Representatives: Without turning his head or appearing to take any notice of what I had whispered to him, he spoke out of the corner of his mouth in a slow soft fashion, ‘Thank Jenkins for me. Have him take the fish to the bar upstairs and tell him to leave it with the attendant until I can go up myself and see it’. In a few seconds he had arranged for another Minister to take his place.

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Having supervised the preparation of the trout Barton presided over lunch with Jenkins, Hume Cook and Sir John Forrest. ‘The way in which Barton carved and served the fish was an education. There were practically no scraps and no broken bones,’ Hume Cook recalled, ‘. . . He certainly was a master craftsman with the fish knife and fork.’ Perhaps he was never negligent in essentials. As Senator Keating remembered it, if the house was in tumult Bavin would fetch Barton who would calm the scene by quoting from his ‘almost infallible authority’ on parliamentary procedure. Another gauge of Barton’s activity may be found in the index to the first twelve volumes of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates covering the period from May 1901 to October 1902. During those months, for the last five of which Barton was absent overseas, his speeches filled five columns of the index; more than any other member except O’Connor, who bore the brunt of leading the Senate for the whole of that period. Deakin, as attorney-general and acting prime minister, covered four columns, McMillan three and a quarter, Reid no more than two. Frequent oratory is not necessarily a political virtue, but the record indicates at least that Barton was present in the House to make those speeches. The tariff continued to dominate the House of Representatives in the early months of 1902. In March Reid successfully moved to scrap the proposed duties on tea and kerosene. Neither could be justified as protecting Australian industries, but both were potentially major sources of revenue. Reid had an old score to settle; in 1898 as premier of New South Wales he had placed a duty on tea and been attacked for it by a Barton-led opposition. The final tariff list which emerged in April fell well short of Kingston’s original forecasts, and lessened the likelihood of early progress with the provision of old-age pensions or with further experiments in the protection of local industries. The reduction of the tariff hit hardest at some of the States. In 1902 much of Australia was in the grip of the worst drought since European settlement, thus cutting potential revenue from other sources, and the States wanted generous handouts under the terms of the ‘Braddon blot’. The left wing of the Free Trade party, including Reid, and Labor regarded customs tariffs as

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a burden on consumers. Many hoped that the shortfall would compel the States to resort to land and income taxes, thus hitting the rich. Starting at Kyabram in Victoria, a series of populist movements arose, demanding cuts in government spending. The States were their main target, but the cry soon reached the Commonwealth parliament despite Turner’s efficient stewardship of expenditure. Any proposal by the Barton government for fresh outlays would run the gauntlet of an undisciplined parliament with muscle freshly exercised over the tariff issue. Understandably the ministry preferred to concentrate on those aspects of its programme which involved little extra cost. The extension of voting rights to women was one such commitment. In April 1902 the government redeemed its promise, but with a chilling lack of enthusiasm. Lyne, who introduced the necessary bill into the House, although a convinced convert to the cause, was rambling and poorly briefed. Higgins criticised the assumption that the Commonwealth must grant women’s suffrage simply out of consistency with two of the smaller States. It was left to one or two backbenchers to raise the level of debate, and the bill passed easily. ‘Never was a momentous change made in a more light-hearted manner,’ wrote one journalist. Barton at no time put in an appearance. His conversion to the cause was no more than lukewarm, but an astute politician would have taken the credit for what was by international standards a remarkably progressive step. Barton himself afterwards was never unwilling to accept congratulations on this score. In London later that year he accepted a formal address of congratulations from the suffragettes of England, giving it later to Rose Scott. But at this period his grip on the leadership was faltering, and confidence in the Barton government was ebbing. In late March a seat was lost to the opposition at a Tasmanian by-election. Shortly afterwards Hopetoun wrote to Chamberlain: ‘I am not over happy or comfortable about things, and should not be surprised to see a change of government before very long. This would, I consider be a grave misfortune at the present time.’ A few weeks later the governor of South Australia, Lord Tennyson, was passing on to Chamberlain rumours that Barton might be dumped by his party.

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If this uneasiness were to translate itself into rebellion in the cabinet it might have been expected that Lyne would take the lead. He was still brooding over missing the prime ministership, but his grievance was less with Barton than with ‘the Victorian combination’. They disregarded him, he told Hopetoun, and treated him with contempt. When a crisis arose however, it was provoked by the member of the ‘Victorian combination’ whose mutiny Barton least expected. At a cabinet meeting in April Barton raised a proposal to increase the salary of members of parliament. It was becoming apparent that £400 a year was none too generous an allowance for members who, if they did not live in Melbourne, were obliged to keep up two residences. Deakin himself in his role as Morning Post correspondent had complained that only a Labor member could make ends meet on £400. Now he took a very different line, opposing the idea strenuously. Perhaps he was influenced by the Kyabram movement which was stampeding Victorian politicians into promises of financial retrenchment. He wrote out his resignation and sent it to Barton. More than any other cabinet minister except O’Connor he had been propping up Barton, and perhaps he thought that the shock of losing his right-hand man would arouse the prime minister from drift. Within hours Barton’s reply came: My dear old friend, Don’t break my heart quite. It is near that point now. How can I bear the thought of going on without you? Disappointment was hard enough, but I have long been near despair, and you have brought me face to face with it. Come and see me—if not tonight then tomorrow morning . . . Your departure now would—though you may not know it— wreck the Ministry. Ring me up, for I am very sore hearted.

The appeal succeeded, and before the newspapers could get wind of the rift Deakin withdrew his resignation. Deakin’s timing may have been influenced by the fact that the coronation of King Edward VII was scheduled for 26 June. As with Queen Victoria’s jubilees the ceremony provided an opportunity for a meeting of British Empire prime ministers. Barton would have to

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go, but this would entail his absence for several months while much important business remained to place before parliament. The choice of an acting prime minister was important. Of the ex-premiers in cabinet Turner was uninterested, Fysh too old, and Lyne insufficiently trusted to win acceptance from his colleagues. Forrest would be off to the coronation with Barton, as defence was the prime item on the agenda for the Imperial Conference. This left Deakin and Kingston. Kingston’s abrasive handling of the trade and customs portfolio had lost him some ground and Deakin was justified in imagining that his own diplomatic skills were essential to hold the government together. It was accepted that he would take charge while Barton was away. Meanwhile, perhaps realising how much he had been relying on Deakin and O’Connor to cover for him, Barton bestirred himself into greater activity. The South African war was in its closing stages, but it still threw up unexpected problems. Early in April the House debated the case of two Australian officers, Handcock and Morant, shot after courtmartial for alleged killing of Afrikaaner prisoners. Morant was ‘The Breaker’, whose verses had appeared in the Bulletin, and as Isaacs said in raising it, the matter was ‘agitating the minds of the people of this country to a most unprecedented degree’. As Morant and Handcock’s unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers, was not under direct Australian authority Barton could do little more than question the British army authorities, and Kitchener’s men gave little information. It was a rankling affair to disturb Anglo-Australian relations. The newspapers were nevertheless unsympathetic when the idealistic young professor of history at the University of Sydney, Arnold Wood, published an article in the English press stating that a large minority of Australians opposed the war as unjust. Pressure built up for Wood’s dismissal from the university. Wood’s survival probably owed something to intervention by that influential member of the Senate, Barton, who wrote to the chancellor, Sir Normand MacLaurin: I think you know there is no more loyal subject than myself. But while I positively detest Mr Wood’s opinions on the question, I do not think that the holding of them argues that he is

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disloyal. Has he not then the right of free speech for his side of the controversy?

Tolerance won the day and the end of the war on 31 May 1902 took the heat out of the controversy. Because of the South African war, defence would figure prominently at the Imperial Conference and, in the weeks before his departure, the issue occupied Barton’s thoughts. Despite the prevailing mood for economy Forrest managed to get his defence budget of nearly £1 million through the House of Representatives, though only by arguing that he was asking for no more than the previous combined expenditure of the six States, promising to reduce the figure next year, and leaving it to Turner to fight for the cuts with the commandant of land forces. This was Major-General Sir Edward Hutton, a competent but pompous officer recently arrived from England, who would squabble with politicians of all shades in the future. The main issue of controversy lay on the naval side. The Commonwealth had inherited a commitment to pay the British Admiralty £106 000 annually towards the upkeep of the Royal Navy squadron in the Pacific, and it was likely that an increase would be requested. Many Australians considered that in times of emergency the British fleet might be engaged far from Australian waters, and preferred the build-up of an exclusively Australian navy. Partly from Empire-mindedness, but mainly because of the cost factor, Barton and Forrest preferred the status quo. Barton would depart for London well-briefed on the need to limit Australia’s commitment to the Admiralty as far as possible while reassuring the British about the Commonwealth’s continued loyalty. At the same time he should remind a sympathetic Chamberlain that Australian loyalty might be stimulated by British preference for Australian exports, though this was incompatible with Britain’s free-trade principles. Although the large majority of members of the Australian parliament were willing enough to support defence cooperation with Britain and to make the expected gestures of loyalty for the King’s coronation, the urge to economise moved them more strongly. When the Barton government asked for a grant of £26 000 to enable a party of 250 Australian mounted troops to take part in the coronation procession, the

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A Perfect Love Feast. Following Barton’s farewell speech before his departure for London and the Coronation, in which he emphasised the good fellowship of the Cabinet, the Bulletin depicts him and Forrest ‘as near an embrace as circumstances will permit’. (The Bulletin, 17/5/1902)

amount was cut to £16 000, enough for 150 men. The rest, it was argued, could be d ra wn from Australian soldiers already on leave in Engla nd . It was a bad moment for Barton to bring forward the question of the governor-general’s allowances, but these matters had been hanging over since the Royal tour nearly a year previously. Barton asked for an annual allowance of £8 000, retrospective to 1 January 1901, over and above the vice-regal salary. This was meant to cover the expense of entertainment and ceremonial occasions, including the Royal visit. The House, while making complimentary noises about Hopetoun, refused to accept Barton’s arguments for funding vice-regal ceremony. The governor-general should simply be salaried as a superior administrative official. The allowances were rejected and it was left to the backbencher Higgins to persuade the House to agree to a one-off grant of £10 000 for the Royal tour expenditure. It was Barton’s last appearance in parliament before leaving for England and it would leave Deakin with some disagreeable fallout.

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Before his departure Barton was given a pointed indication of the embattled state of federal politics when Reid as leader of the opposition refused to attend a banquet in Barton’s honour at the Sydney Town Hall. In all their years of sparring this was the first time that partisan spirit carried them so far apart, but Reid was giving no quarter to a government in difficulties. At this banquet, and at another reception at the Melbourne Town Hall, Barton described the issues for discussion at the Imperial Conference, stressing defence. Deakin, in a moment of unaccustomed hyperbole, called it the most important mission ever undertaken by an Australian statesman. After that Barton’s parliamentary duties were complete. He was accompanied on the voyage by his wife and their 20-year-old daughter Muffie and, for the next month, his greatest anxiety would be Jeanie’s propensity to seasickness—for which, her husband decided bracingly, oysters were the only cure. The letters which followed him should have left Barton in no doubt about his colleagues’ tribulations. O’Connor, in steering the tariff resolutions through the Senate, hoped that its members would confine themselves to questions of general principle, accepting that most of the fine-tuning had already been done in the House. The opposition thought otherwise. As Downer, one of their number but an old friend of Barton’s, put it, they were ‘playing the fool’ and ‘using their power for power’s sake’. Although a nuisance he thought that the Senate would not further seriously damage the tariff. Deakin took the brunt of dealing with Hopetoun’s dismay at parliament’s rejection of his allowances. It was not just that he was £25 000 out of pocket, wrote the governor-general, but it was a bad principle that he should have to bargain with parliament for his expected allowances. If instead of procrastinating the government had moved immediately after the Royal visit the issue need never have arisen. He would resign immediately. Deakin described the public reaction as a ‘cyclone’. Bluntly he told Barton: ‘He blames us and especially you.’ His tartness was understandable since Reid, having supported the rejection of the increase, was now taunting the ministry for its mishandling of the question and winning widespread editorial support. Hopetoun’s

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attitude was much more chivalrous. He asked Chamberlain as a personal favour . . . not to make Mr Barton feel that he has been in any way responsible for my debacle or that I have any complaint against him—he is awfully cut up at the whole business—If he gets into his head that I have any cause to complain of his delay in bringing in his allowances, it will nearly break his heart.

His words were timely, as the London papers led by the Times were quick to put the boot into what they misleadingly termed the Barton government’s failure to keep its word. Hopetoun had his consolations. ‘I don’t think I quite knew till now how really friendly the people are towards me,’ he wrote, adding: The people are all right and the leading statesmen are all right, but Sodom and Gomorrah in the zenith of their infancy could not have produced such a set as some of the inferior kind of politicians out here.

Downer’s view of the episode was reassuring. Hopetoun, he wrote, could not have expected any prior commitments about allowances when he accepted the post and, since he had first invited Lyne to become prime minister, Barton was free of any obligations towards him. This comment invites the thought that at some subconscious level of which he was unaware Barton resented Hopetoun’s action in passing him over for Lyne, and his procrastination about the allowances reflected this resentment. Of course Barton would have had too little introspection and too strong a concept of gentlemanly behaviour ever to admit such resentment. Barton may not have known at the time of his departure although he would have found out soon after arriving in England—that Hopetoun had recommended him for high distinction: appointment as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George. The highest order of knighthood accessible to a colonial, the award had been given to only one other Australian, Parkes, and in his case it came in old age and after progression through various lesser titles. To leap in one bound from Mr Barton to Sir Edmund

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Summed Up. The young Norman Lindsay sees Barton as grasping for a peerage as a reward for sending Australian troops to the South African war—an unfair shot, especially considering the bellicosity of Lindsay’s cartoons in the two World Wars. (The Bulletin, 10/5/1902)

Barton GCMG was almost without precedent in the British Empire. The announcement would be made as part of the Coronation honours,

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and although Barton had previously refused such awards the compliment was irresistible. It was unfortunate that in the same Coronation honours a muddle occurred over O’Connor. He did not want a knighthood because of his precarious finances; ‘Sir Richard O’Connor’ would cut an odd figure in the bankruptcy court. His ambition was confined to membership of the Privy Council. At a late stage it turned out that a knighthood was intended for O’Connor after all. Deakin had to move fast to abort the unwelcome distinction. It was then too late to nominate O’Connor for the Privy Council, so that to the end of his life O’Connor’s loyal and substantial services went unrecognised. To add to the embarrassment, Barton and Forrest before leaving for overseas had forgotten to make arrangements for paying their contributions for the topping-up of O’Connor’s salary, despite reminders from Deakin. With all these annoyances it is remarkable that Barton managed to keep the warm personal friendship of colleagues of the calibre of Deakin and O’Connor. He had built up an immense reservoir of goodwill as leader of the Federation movement, and during his first twelve months as prime minister did a good deal to consolidate his leadership; but he was patently out of form during those early months of 1902. It remained to be seen whether under the stimulus of the visit to London he would recover his resilience, and with it his grasp of the issues of social policy and national interest confronting the new Australian Commonwealth. The Bartons enjoyed an untroubled voyage on the mail steamer Rome, cementing their friendship with the Forrests. Lady Forrest was a Hamersley, cousin to the Oxfordshire landowner who long ago married Edmund’s favourite sister Alice, who died young. They landed at Brindisi and proceeded through Italy as tourists. At Rome, through the recommendation of Cardinal Moran, Barton and Forrest had an interview with the Pope. Leo XIII at 92 years of age was a venerable figure, respected by many non-Catholics for his working-class sympathies. He and Barton conversed agreeably in Latin, and the Pope presented the Australian prime minister with a medallion. This civilised exchange created great offence among hardline Protestants when it became known in Australia. Led by the Reverend Dill Macky, protest groups worked themselves up into a

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L i f e a t t h e To p 2 7 1 Hark! Hark! The Dogs do Bark. Barton’s audience with Leo XIII caused a furore in Sydney. The Bulletin reported an exchange overheard at Sydney Town Hall. A voice: What about Toby Barton? (Laughter.) Mr Rutledge: He has got a medal. (Renewed laughter.) Some people call him, familiarly, ‘Toby’; I think we ought to call him ‘Toady’ Barton. (Cheers.) The Premier of our Commonwealth has no right to go toadying to the Pope. (Loud cheers.) When he returns he will get a warm time in many quarters. (Renewed cheers.) If he does not, it will be all shame to our noble institution that we should allow such a thing to take place. You know there are favours to come, and we will keep our eyes upon him. Let me tell you about Barton. I say this, that the Pope’s existence should be ignored by every Protestant who goes to Italy, and if Mr Barton were only true to his country, he would never have called upon him. (Cheers.) (The Bulletin, 19/7/1902)

state of excitement about Barton’s dealings with the sinister influences of the Vatican. The target of their wrath was meanwhile placidly exploring Venice by gondola, before travelling through France to arrive in time for the Coronation, scheduled for 26 June. Then the King was stricken with appendicitis. Although the operation was a success, the Coronation had to be postponed until 9 August. This meant that for six weeks longer than anticipated the Bartons would linger in London. Barton’s furlough from the burdens of office would extend to five months, as they would not be back in Australia until mid-October. This was no hardship. It was high summer in London and hospitality was lavish. After a lull at the beginning because of the cancelled Coronation the Bartons had more invitations than they

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could possibly accept. Their engagement book—kept more efficiently than before—filled with lunches, ‘at homes’, dinners, and weekends in the country. Oxford and Edinburgh universities conferred honorary degrees on Sir Edmund. When the Bartons went to Edinburgh he also received the freedom of the city, in company with Rudyard Kipling and the generals Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener. The next day they visited Lady Hopetoun for Sunday lunch. ‘Spy’, the noted caricaturist for Vanity Fair, sketched him for its weekly gallery of celebrities. The strenuous routine was eased by the perquisites of high office, such as well coordinated special trains. On one occasion, returning from Lord Salisbury’s garden party at Hatfield, they were able to plan a transition right across London, from King’s Cross to Waterloo, in 35 minutes, confident that all was arranged ahead of them. As well as Muffie, Edmund, their eldest son, was with them, having just graduated from Oxford, and at times it was necessary to divide the family party to keep up with all the commitments. They thrived on the routine. Edmund was energised and, despite the round of rich Edwardian dinners, managed to lose weight. Jeanie, at 50 a ‘fine figure of a woman’ in the turn of the century tradition, must have found the opulent social round a welcome contrast to earlier lean years. The daughter of a Newcastle publican and the son of an unsuccessful Sydney stockbroker found themselves moving easily in a closed society intolerant of the parvenu or the ill behaved. They found it enlivening. Behind all this junketing lay a good deal of serious political networking. Where two years previously Barton arrived as a supplicant attempting to lobby goodwill among the English governing classes, he came now as spokesman for a mature and autonomous English-speaking nation, younger than Britain but on that account likely to grow in vigour and ready to come to the council table without subservience. He was in demand as a speaker not only among the organisations specifically dedicated to Empire matters, but to London livery companies, clubs and business groups. His political sympathies seemed closer to the Liberal opposition than to members of the Conservative government, other than Chamberlain. It would not have pleased the Tories when he appeared at a dinner hosted by the leader of the Irish Nationalists, John Redmond; but

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L i f e a t t h e To p 2 7 3 Australia’s Noblest Son. Will Dyson in mordant vein. (The Bulletin, 7/6/1902)

like most Australians of his generation Barton could not see why Ireland should be denied the Home Rule which worked well for Canada, Austra lia a nd New Zea la nd . With the cool and patrician Conservative prime minister, Arthur Balfour, Barton had at least one moment of difficulty. The widow of Henry Kingsley, author of some of the earliest novels with Austra lia n settings such a s Geoffry Hamlyn, was living in straitened circumstances. Barton wrote urging her case for a pension. Balfour replied that she had already received support from the pub lic purse, and in strict confidence suggested consulting the Kingsley family before attempting to provide anything from Australian funds. Across the top of the letter Barton scribbled: ‘Dictator!’ Balfour was not closely involved in the main negotiations on Barton’s agenda. These concerned Australia’s contribution to the defence of the British Empire, and specifically the renewal of the Naval Agreement of 1887. Under that agreement the Australian colonies paid Britain a subsidy, in return for which a squadron of somewhat elderly and second-rate vessels was stationed in Australian waters with responsibility for the

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south-west Pacific. Under the pressure of rearmament by other powers, especially Germany, the Admiralty wanted to expand and upgrade the Royal Navy and to make it more mobile. As part of this programme the Australian squadron would be expanded to six cruisers and four sloops, but it would be available for service anywhere in the Pacific or Indian Oceans in time of need. This contradicted a growing body of Australian opinion which wanted the new Commonwealth to have its own navy. These critics did not accept that Australia could be adequately protected by a fleet which might be required to operate thousands of kilometres from home waters. Nor were they sympathetic to Admiralty requests that Australia should pay more for improved naval defence. Forrest, product of a Western Australia which had been a Crown colony until 1890 and which was always vividly conscious of isolation, would have been unquestioningly content to accept British protection and to pay for it, but he was unwell during much of the Imperial Conference, and it was left to Barton to argue Australia’s case. He was not in principle unsympathetic to the concept of a separate Australian navy, but he was all too well aware of the financial constraints on such a policy. While the ‘Braddon blot’ lasted there would be only limited scope for new policy initiatives by the Commonwealth, and the House of Representatives in its mauling of the tariff was reducing that scope considerably further— even though some of the keenest advocates of low tariffs were also eager for an Australian navy. Besides, it would be more realistic to think of creating and servicing an Australian navy once the nation had its own iron and steel industry, which could come about only under the shield of tariff protection. Barton’s brief in London therefore was to accept the Admiralty’s request for a subsidy, bargaining as well as he could for the lowest possible sum and exploring the possibility of training a locally controlled naval reserve—a prospect which several of his cabinet colleagues found far more attractive. It was probably helpful that although his stance was further from the Admiralty’s wishes than the king-and-empire patriotism of Forrest and the New Zealand prime minister, Seddon, he was seen as more candid and ready to accept a workable solution than the suave

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Canadian prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Canada’s proximity to the United States meant that it felt far safer from foreign aggression than Australia did and its large minority of French Canadians could not be expected to share the emotional loyalties of Australia and New Zealand, with their largely British ancestry. Barton’s arguments of economic duress were easily intelligible, although the Admiralty pointed out that countries of similar population to Australia, such as Argentina and the Netherlands, spent much more annually on their navies. On 12 July 1902 Laurier and Barton were guest speakers at a major dinner at London’s Guildhall. Both, wrote a witness, were ‘negative in the Imperial cause’, but where Laurier spoke ‘nothing but elegant platitudes . . . Barton faced the position honestly’: . . . to the effect that depending as Australia does almost entirely on its British trade he could not reduce his revenue derived from that trade—though he said it might be more possible for Canada to do so with her large amount of US trade . . . he also while admitting that the colonies pay far from their share to Imperial defence pointed out how impossible it was for Australia with the heavy internal calls upon her to spend more in that direction at present—but he hoped that some day she would be able to do so.

Underlying Barton’s pitch was a none too subtle hint that Britain should shift from its policy of free trade to preference for members of the British Empire. As favoured trading partners countries such as Australia and New Zealand would be more able and willing to contribute financially to a British Empire defence effort. He may have known that Joseph Chamberlain’s thinking was moving in the same direction, though he was not yet ready to declare himself. Two days later the colonial premiers met with the first lord of the Admiralty, Lord Selborne, and serious debate began. Barton emerged from the negotiations with a ten-year agreement. He conceded that the Australian squadron remained under Admiralty control and might be sent to India, China, or other destinations outside Australian waters if regional strategy required it. In return the Admiralty promised to provide vessels for training 700 men and 25 officers as a branch of the Royal Naval Reserve. The Australian

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Barton, John Bull and White Australia. Barton is seen as resisting British pressure to go soft on the White Australia policy. (The Bulletin, 13/9/1902)

subsidy was fixed at £200 000 annually. Back home journals such as the Bulletin criticised Barton for over-subservience to the British, without suggesting where an Australian government might find larger funds for a better solution.

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On 25 July it was the turn of St John Broderick, the army minister, to confront the colonial premiers. He wanted to persuade them to contribute to the formation of a trained reserve force under British leadership which would be available for service anywhere in the world in time of need. The Australian component would be a field force of 9000 men. Barton knew that this proposal would be unpopular in Australia and he put the point to Broderick and Chamberlain with polite clarity: I do not think, however, it is necessary to include in these proposals, if I may say so, a stipulation for service in an emerency outside the Dominion or Colony . . . In Australia the notion of insisting on service outside does not happen at the time to be popular. They will do much in time of wartime emergency, which in time of peace they decline to bind themselves beforehand to accomplish.

As one historian has observed: Barton endeavoured to make a sentimental virtue out of national necessity. He offered, as an alternative . . . a recommenda tion urging uniformity of tra ining and equipment throughout the empire and approving the setting up of arms and ammunition factories in each colony. And on this rather anticlimactic note the discussion ended.

Barton left England convinced that he would have a fight on his hands to steer the Naval Agreement through parliament, but committed to no more. He had played a difficult hand with some dexterity. As usual, when confronted by a problem for which no clear outcome was immediately discernible, he had gone for a solution which allowed for change in the light of future developments. With the Forrests the Bartons returned to Australia by way of Canada. The governor-general, Lord Minto, was impressed with his Australian guests, whom he considered broader and sounder in their views than many of his Canadian politicians. Barton and Forrest in turn wondered whether he would be interested in a vice-regal term in Australia, but Minto was not to be tempted. He was destined for India.

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Barton arrived back in Sydney on 16 October 1902, and on the following evening addressed a large meeting at the Sydney Town Hall to give an account of his overseas mission and to begin the process of selling the naval agreement to the Australian public. He recommended it as the product of ‘a reasonable Imperialism’, avoiding ‘reckless engagements’ in overseas quarrels, but combining unity of naval defence with a respect for Australian autonomy. He also highlighted his opposition to Broderick’s plan for an Imperial Reserve: ‘He did not care to organize and drill any portion of our people for the mere purpose of taking part in European wars according to the judgment of the [British] Government of the day.’ Despite these sound nationalist principles it was his noisiest meeting since the campaigns against Reid in 1898. Some interjectors disliked the naval agreement, but more were stirred up about his visit to the Pope. Bernhard Wise, now attorney-general of New South Wales, reported to Deakin: ‘Barton’s utterance was good, but other people are not yet educated to take large views or understand high politics.’ Wise’s underlying message was encouraging. Barton was back on form, ‘thinner and more abstemious’. Shortly afterward the gossipy lieutenant-governor of South Australia, Sir Samuel Way, reported with amusement a lunch at Government House where one of Barton’s sons proclaimed to the company: ‘Papa is now a teetotaller.’ This, as it proved, was a slight exaggeration, but indubitably the Barton who took up the reins from Deakin in October was a different figure from the troubled and procrastinating figure of six months previously. Some of this improvement was due to his holiday, some to the honours and recognition bestowed on him by those whose opinion counted in the capital of what was then the world’s greatest empire. It must have counted also that Jeanie and he had spent more time closely sharing experiences in each other’s company than had been possible for many years. She was now enjoying some of the compensations for all those years when the household had gone short and she was left alone with the children while Edmund was on the quest for Federation.

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to a political landscape not greatly different to that which he left in May. Deakin and O’Connor had nursed the jaded parliamentary session along to a final adjournment shortly before his arrival in Sydney. Parliament would not meet again until May 1903. The tariff, mutilated but still viable, was at last through both houses of parliament, leaving O’Connor ‘weary in spirit’. Kingston was taking his lion-taming style into the administration of customs, tyrannising his departmental officials and antagonising the importers. Barton had not been back in Sydney for two days before writing to Deakin: ‘People here were only indignant when I left. Now they are rampant and would rejoice to have the blood of any of us.’ The State governments too required careful handling. While Queenslanders were sulkily reconciling themselves to the loss of Pacific Island labour, the South Australians had shown an unexpected recalcitrance during Barton’s absence. A number of seamen from the Dutch merchantman Vondel jumped ship in Port Adelaide after a dispute with the skipper and the Dutch consul found the South Australian government unhelpful in pursuing the deserters. The Dutch authorities complained to the Colonial Office, who in turn referred the matter to the Commonwealth government. When consulted, the South Australian government asserted that they would supply information only to a direct request by the Colonial Office. Egged on by the acting governor, Sir Samuel Way, they argued ARTON RETURNED

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that the affair was no business of the Commonwealth’s. This amounted to a complete denial of the Commonwealth’s authority in foreign affairs with the implication that each State should conduct its own foreign policy. Deakin, as acting prime minister, appealed to the Colonial Office for a ruling. He received a reply which, while supportive, suggested that the final resolution of the point might have to await the creation of a high court. Even before his return to Australia Barton took action, writing privately to Sir John Anderson of the Colonial Office, with whom he had developed a close working relationship. Anderson’s reply reached him back home in November. Federation, wrote Anderson, as the British government understood it, ‘was to merge the six nations into one, not merely to supply the six nations with an additional legislative and administrative machinery’. Thus fortified, Barton wrote formally to the Colonial Office on 21 November stressing the need to affirm the Commonwealth’s powers in external affairs and enclosing a long memorandum composed by Deakin and Garran canvassing the arguments. This crossed a second letter from Anderson reporting that his minister, Chamberlain, had written to the South Australian government ruling that all communications must go through the Commonwealth. The South Australians continued to protest, and eventually in April 1903 Chamberlain spelt it out: ‘So far as other communities in the Empire or foreign nations are concerned, the people of Australia form one political community, for which the Government of the Commonwealth alone can speak . . .’ This was a much stronger ruling than Deakin had sought. Instead of simply ruling that the Commonwealth might intervene in external affairs, Chamberlain had asserted its sole and absolute authority. The outcome owed something to the contacts which Barton had built up with the Colonial Office and the confidence in which he was held by Chamberlain and the senior officials. He was less lucky with the governor-general, Lord Tennyson. As senior State governor, South Australia’s Tennyson had taken over on Hopetoun’s departure, but although confirmed in the post he did not intend to stay long. Less urbane and tactful than Hopetoun, the poet’s son had a more touchy sense of dignity about his position.

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Barton’s early dealings with him were cordial, however, Tennyson proving receptive to Barton’s suggestion that he spend more time in Sydney and otherwise heeding his advice. The rift came over the appointment of a secretary to the executive council, the formal body comprising governor-general and cabinet ministers which approved legislation. Captain Edward Wallington, the governor-general’s private secretary, was appointed to the post but was almost immediately poached by the Prince of Wales, who as Duke of York had been impressed by Wallington during the Royal visit. A public servant named Steward was then appointed secretary to the executive council, but Tennyson did not intend to make him his own private secretary. This meant that Steward would have access only to official communications between Australia and Britain and not to Tennyson’s confidential correspondence with the Colonial Office. In an exchange of cables Tennyson got Chamberlain’s agreement to this understanding. He should have advised Barton and Deakin before taking this action; when Barton found out he was incensed. On 24 January 1903 Barton wrote a long letter to Tennyson, in his most icily polite and dignified style, complaining of Tennyson’s failure to consult his ministers and putting three questions to him: A. Whether it can be reconciled with any sound view of constitutional government that the Governor-General, who is not answerable to Parliament or people, should attempt to instruct in the performance of his duties a public servant of the Commonwealth . . . B. Whether I can constitutionally submit to a public officer, responsible to me as the personal head of the Service . . . having to take directions as to his daily work from an officer of your personal staff, in no way responsible to me . . . C. Whether any instructions from the Secretary of State to the Governor-General over-ride the terms on which . . . Parliament . . . has constitutionally voted the salary of an officer in its Public Service.

Tennyson replied that it was all a misunderstanding. He certainly had no intention of offending, but he did need his own channel of private and confidential communication with the home government. Barton was unappeased, and wrote to Deakin:

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Here are not only a Governor-General trying to take the administration for which Ministers alone have the responsibility, but Downing Street instructing him to do it. My wig! what a ruction there would be if Parliament were in session and got hold of it all.

Deakin, pulled away from a seaside holiday, hurried to Melbourne and there saw Barton and Tennyson, whom he managed to pacify. There had been a misunderstanding which could be solved by adjusting the cyphers used for secret correspondence. It was all due to lack of personal contact between the governor-general in Melbourne and the prime minister in Sydney in an age when the telephone was not yet accepted as a reliable means of communication. But Tennyson crowed in reporting the outcome to Chamberlain: ‘I felt it my duty to speak firmly to Sir Edmund Barton as to the impropriety of sending me such a letter . . . and he expressed his regret.’ It may not have been quite like that, but their subsequent correspondence was friendly enough, Knowing that a general election must be held in late 1903 or early 1904 it was now of concern to Barton to be seen cultivating the voters. In February he went on the first of a series of ‘meetthe-people’ tours, beginning with Tasmania. Despite the overwhelming ‘Yes’ vote for Federation in that State, Tasmania’s press had been almost entirely opposed and the crusty editor of the Hobart Mercury, H. R. Nicholls, was still unimpressed by Barton. Leading articles in the Mercury described Barton as the ‘compliant servant of the Labor party . . . descending to the arts of a third-rate Old Bailey lawyer’. Soon after its establishment the new Commonwealth government ran into criticism when the postmaster-general’s department sought to restrict Tattersall’s lottery from using the mails to promote its sweepstakes. ‘Tatt’s’ was an important asset to the stagnant Tasmanian economy and its promoter George Adams a figure of influence. In Hobart Barton tried to rebut claims that the island State had lost revenue through federal tariff policies, and conferred with the Tasmanian cabinet on remedial measures, but the critics were unappeased. He was better received in the country districts. To the displeasure of H. R. Nicholls, the Labor stronghold of Queenstown on the west coast was especially welcoming. Barton was

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escorted to his hotel by a brass band and his after-dinner speech met with rousing enthusiasm. Elsewhere Sir Philip Fysh organised hospitality with an unstinting hand. It was not surprising that in future years Barton and his wife enjoyed the opportunity of revisiting Tasmania. If Barton was concerned about grassroots opinion in the States, he showed less concern about the State premiers. In 1901 he had convened a premiers’ conference in Melbourne to arrange terms of payment for properties such as post offices and lighthouses transferred from the States to the Commonwealth under Federation. He took advantage of the meeting to explain the government’s New Guinea policy to the premiers and they took the opportunity of consulting among themselves about various financial issues. When the premiers began to offer suggestions about cuts in Commonwealth spending, Barton reacted firmly. It was not their business to comment on federal affairs, any more than it was the Commonwealth government’s business to interfere with State matters. The States were fully represented in the Senate and the premiers’ conference was not expected to go beyond the business questions arising out of the federal compact. In 1902 the premiers met without the prime minister and he did not respond to suggestions that he should attend their meeting in March 1903. Writing in his guise of Morning Post correspondent, Alfred Deakin noted: ‘It would seem as if the Premiers had begun to realise their own weakness either singly or in conference before the Frankenstein of their creation.’ Barton was careful of State rights but, as the Vondel affair showed, he was not allowing the States to assert power at the expense of the Commonwealth. In those early months of 1903 it seemed that the financial tensions between Commonwealth and States might be easing due to economic recovery as the drought came to an end and primary production began to revive. But the dispute between the federal belly and the State limbs had a long history ahead of it. It was more worrying that the uproar caused by Barton’s visit to Pope Leo XIII was being kept alive by partisans on both sides of the religious divide. Reid, already somewhat alienated from the Catholic vote, was suspected (without much justice) of fishing for Protestant support in those troubled waters. Wise believed that if

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an election were held O’Connor would lose his Senate seat. The only Protectionist in an otherwise entirely Free Trade set of New South Wales senators, O’Connor’s Catholicism made him more than ever vulnerable. It was necessary that he should survive until the High Court was constituted. A seat on that bench was his one fixed ambition in life, and Barton had long since resolved that O’Connor should have it, whoever else missed out. In March 1902 Deakin had introduced the High Court legislation with one of his finest speeches, but no further progress had been made because of the lengthy tariff debates, giving time for opposition to mobilise among those who thought the High Court a needless extravagance in a cash-strapped Australia. Sir John See, a survivor from the great intake of the 1880 parliament and now premier of New South Wales, was perturbed about the sectarian upsurge. Early in 1903 his government decided against granting a public holiday on St Patrick’s Day, as had happened in some past years. The Catholic community was upset but Barton retrieved the situation by choosing to attend the St Patrick’s Day lunch in his capacity as federal prime minister. The Sydney Morning Herald considered his conduct ‘moderate’, but a more light-hearted comment came in the form of an account of the function which was quite possibly written by Barton himself. At the time an American humorous writer, Finlay Peter Dunne, enjoyed great popularity in a series of sketches in which his character, Mr Dooley, pontificated to his friend Mr Hennessy on the political and social scene of the day in a stage-Irish accent. The Australian parodist, having described the disputes leading up to the lunch, came to Barton’s part in it: Well, Hennessy, the luncheon is held, an’ no member of th’ Ministry is prisint, visibly: by which I mane that if anny was there, his voice was not heard. But, Jawn, I tell ye, there was a specther at the faste. An’ prisintly up gets the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, lookin’ very continted, an’ he says, says he, Ye invited me, says he, an’ I’m here, says he, talkin’ to ye like a father. I don’t approve of fwhat ye done about the State Ministhry, says he, but bein’ y’r guest I won’t say I disapprove. I draw this distinction, says he, that tho’ ye may not vote for

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The Road to Resignation 285 The Parting of the Ways. The Bulletin often depicted Barton as torn between Old World imperialism and Australia’s peace and prosperity. (The Bulletin, 9/5/1903)

them, that don’t privint ye from votin’ for me. Therefore, says he, I’m here reprisintin’, the commonwealth an’ meself. I ask ye not to believe me ole frind the Cyardinal. He didn’t mane what he said. He didn’t say it; bein’ too wise a man. Therefore don’t believe what he said, says he. But believe fwhat I’m tellin’ ye, an’ raymimber I’m th’ Prime Minister, which is to an impartial judge, not havin’ bin there. An’ I regard ye as frinds, says he, not bein’ importhers but mostly honest men. (Cheers) An’ touchin’ fir a moment on Fedtheral politics, don’t forgit ye invited me an’ I came . . . Fellow citizens an’ frinds, says he, your health. Don’t forgit me. ‘Erin go bragh’, an’ anythin’ else that’ll plase ye, says he, an’ sat down. Tis what Hogan wad call ‘Suaviter in modo,’ which is Italy-an for ‘I’m not tellin’ ye the half of what I think of ye,’ an’ very convincin’.

Barton needed his sense of humour, as the hullabaloo dragged on, culminating in mid-year with the presentation to the next session of the Commonwealth parliament of a protest petition with 30 000 signatories. Tennyson in his meddlesome way suggested to

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the British government that it should approach the Vatican to secure Cardinal Moran’s removal from Australia. He did not inform Barton, who probably never found out. But the unpleasantness fizzled out without any long-term political harm. The question of the Naval Agreement continued to preoccupy Barton during the run-up to the parliamentary session. Both Tennyson and Forrest thought that the draft Agreement could be improved. Tennyson cooked up a scheme that the Admiralty should supply Australia with six torpedo-boats—one for each State capital—and Barton allowed him to send it to London, though he was probably none too heartbroken when the Admiralty refused to renegotiate terms. Forrest wanted three torpedo-boats, in return for which the Admiralty should agree that when an Australian high commissioner was appointed he should sit on the Admiralty Board when matters relevant to the Australian squadron were under discussion. To Barton’s resentment the Admiralty was all too ready to view any new Australian proposal as an attempt to squeeze better terms as recompense for their meagre annual contribution of £200 000. There were no foreign torpedo-boats within 6000 kilometres of the Australian coast, and in Whitehall’s eyes criticism of Imperial strategy was probably ill-informed. Chamberlain wrote personally to Barton reminding him that rejection of the Agreement would be ‘disastrous’. To underline the value of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Australia was visited during May and June 1903 by a squadron of three Japanese warships, the Matsushima, Itsukushima and Hashidate. Veterans of Japan’s successful war against China in 1894–95, the ships were on a training cruise for naval officers under the command of Rear Admiral Kamimura. They called at Adelaide, Melbourne (where they anchored for a fortnight), Hobart and Sydney (for nine days). Barton was at pains to ensure that the Japanese received a supportive welcome. As he wrote to Tom Bavin in drafting invitations: ‘Take care in revision to make them all as sweet as saxin. You know that is 1000 times sweeter than sugar. I rely on you to load them up that way. I’m not up to it, especially with foreigners.’ On 21 May the prime minister and cabinet hosted a banquet at Parliament House in Melbourne in honour of the fleet commanders. In Sydney in June Barton gave the Japanese admiral the honour of

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reviewing the troops. The Japanese officers were especially pleased that they were permitted to wear their ceremonial swords on shore. Over 40 000 spectators watched the Japanese bluejackets parade in Centennial Park, and the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the visitors were ‘not strangers, but allies and friends’. In this and other ways Barton left the Japanese feeling that he had spared no effort to foster friendship between Australia and Japan and to respect Japan’s national prestige, although he was not one of the Australians who, at a farewell reception, when the fleet was illuminated with electricity, joined in the shout of ‘Tenno heika banzai!’ (Long live the Emperor!) His reward came more than a year and a half later, when he had ceased to serve as prime minister and Japan was in the midst of its (ultimately) victorious war against Russia. Together with Tennyson he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, first class. Three other prominent personalities were granted lesser awards. It was a curious distinction for the architect of the White Australia policy. As it was a foreign award, he never wore it in public. It would have been inappropriate in one who was now a justice of the High Court. But in May and June of 1903 it was not entirely certain that there would be a High Court. In late May parliament resumed sitting. Barton no longer occupied his solitary garret in Parliament House. Instead he stayed comfortably at the Grand Hotel, remembered as a genial figure strolling into breakfast (a dish of fruit) none too early with ‘the pleasant greeting and cheery smile for everyone (the comely waitress included)’. ‘Ithuriel’ of the Argus affected surprise at Barton’s renewed diligence in attending the House: ‘Yes, this is clearly . . . a new leaf on which Sir Edmund intends to write in his bold hand, Punctuality, Assiduity, Perseverance.’ His first challenge came with the resumption of debate on Deakin’s High Court bill, which faced opposition on a number of grounds. Some thought it a needless extravagance. Others, particularly those with a strong concern for States’ rights, did not want any reduction of the powers of the State supreme courts and argued that, buttressed by the Privy Council, they were sufficient for Australia’s needs. Glynn, a leading opponent, simply felt that there had already been too much attention given

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Overlegislation. Barton (recapitulating): ‘Look at the glorious constitution I have given you—one adult–one vote—a white Australia—a well-administered Customs act—a etc., etc.’ The well-governed: ‘Hang it! Can’t you see I can’t enjoy any of these things ‘till you get this off me!’ (The Bulletin, 23/5/1903)

to the infrastructure of government and that the public would not stand more. Barton and Isaacs gave Deakin powerful support in defending the bill, Barton citing the United States Supreme Court as a model of judicial oversight of the political process. Deakin, never one to under-estimate opposition, threatened to resign if the bill was rejected. It passed the second reading in the House of Representatives by a majority of nine, but at the price of inviting further attack at the committee stage. The powers of the High Court were restricted to the areas specified in the Constitution and to acting as a court of appeal. Judges’ pensions were eliminated and the number of justices was cut from five to three. Fortunately the Senate made fewer difficulties. By August the legislation was approved. O’Connor’s future was now secure and conjecture rippled about Barton’s intentions. Would he become the first chief justice? He was engaging in politics with renewed zest. His next responsibility was the ratification of the Naval Agreement and, on 7 July, he made a succinct and well-briefed introductory speech presenting the bill to the House of Representatives. He defended the Agreement as affording Australia better protection at little extra cost, quoting Admiralty figures to show that a separate Australian navy would cost £2.5 million to build and £1 million a year to maintain. The

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proposed unit of the Royal Naval Reserve would be a training ground for Australian seamen. Nor was it undesirable that the squadron was liable to service anywhere in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Australia was protected by its isolation, but could benefit from a strategy of forward defence. The counter-attack started immediately. Speaker after speaker urged the development of an Australian navy. But the argument about the cost factor was beginning to hit home. Both Reid and the Labor leader Watson conceded that because of financial pressures an Australian navy must be a thing of the future. Barton heard the critics out, then called their bluff. He too looked forward to the day when Australia could acquire warships for its own defence. As a start, would parliament approve a grant of money for torpedo-boats for local defence and would members support an addition to the bill allowing Australia to establish coastal and harbour defences under local control? Parliament was not ready to support either proposition and the government won the second reading comfortably. Getting the bill through committee stage unamended looked more difficult, especially when ‘a very decent member of the opposition, named Fuller’ put an amendment requiring that the squadron should not be moved beyond the Australian station without the consent of the Australian cabinet. In debate on Fuller’s amendment Charles McDonald, a pugnacious Labor republican, accused Barton of being a lackey of imperialism; Barton adroitly asked Fuller and his allies whether they wished to be identified with McDonald’s brand of radicalism, split the opposition and defeated the amendment by a two-to-one majority. The Naval Agreement passed both Houses by a comfortable margin, testimony to Barton’s skill as a political tactician. Barton was asserting a renewed mastery of the political scene, but after two and a half years there was yet no sign that federal politics was entering calmer water. It was still necessary to cobble together a fresh coalition of support for every major piece of legislation. It remained something of a miracle that the cabinet held together, and without O’Connor the difficulty would increase. Deakin remained an invaluable second-in-command, Turner was as unobtrusively reliable as ever, and Fysh, the unambitious elder

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statesman, brought a stabilising influence. Drake was gaining in confidence and might be ready to lead the Senate in O’Connor’s place. But both Lyne and Forrest, although by now on terms of easy loyalty with Barton, nursed hopes of leadership at some time in the future and clashed readily in cabinet. Both were capable of monumental brawls with Kingston, whose performance was becoming increasingly unpredictable. Still very popular with the working-class, he could be a constructive member of the team, winning useful support for the government during a tour of Queensland just before the parliamentary session. But his autocratic conduct of his department caused constant problems and his quarrels with Forrest and Lyne in cabinet were at times titanic. He had fallen victim to an increasingly painful illness of which he seldom spoke. He was now due to bring the bill for a court of conciliation and arbitration before the House of Representatives. Opposition was inevitable. Believers in freedom of contract, mostly employers, who disliked the growing strength of the trade unions, would be reinforced by opponents of the High Court, who saw an opportunity to fight another day. Supporters of the bill would differ about the range and extent of the industrial court’s powers. Conciliation and arbitration were issues which would bring down more than one Australian government over the years. Barton may well have wondered whether his ministry, after two and a half years without change, would survive the experiment of entrusting so contentious a measure to the most temperamental of his colleagues. The cohesion of the cabinet was fraying. One of its members told Bavin that only Barton’s influence could hold them together but, in the end, it was not enough. The Conciliation and Arbitration Bill was the point of shipwreck. Too interventionist to please employers and insufficiently wide-ranging to please trade unions, the bill got off to a bad start when Kingston released its details to the press before submitting it to parliament. Barton stood by his minister, but under the influence of declining health Kingston’s temper was becoming increasingly erratic. He and Forrest were stormily at loggerheads. Kingston wanted the bill to cover merchant seamen in the Australian coasting trade, including those on foreign ships. Forrest was adamant that no such move should be contem-

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plated until Western Australia was linked by transcontinental railway, as the impact on freight costs to the West would be otherwise politically disastrous. The majority of cabinet sided with Forrest. Barton considered it preferable in terms of international law that seamen’s wages be covered in a subsequent Navigation Bill, under whose terms they could be extended to foreign shipping. Even without the merchant seamen, however, he thought they already had a far-reaching measure for the settlement of industrial strife, provided it survived parliament. On 23 July Kingston offered his resignation. He was fearful of a maritime strike if the seamen were not satisfied during the current parliamentary session. Barton tried hard to argue him out of ‘a step highly injurious to the public interests’, but Kingston was not persuaded and, with an exchange of courtesies, the resignation went through. Barton patched up his ministry by shifting Lyne to trade and customs, Forrest to home affairs and Drake to defence, bringing in as minister without portfolio the veteran South Australian Senator Tom Playford.1 None of these changes compensated for the loss of Kingston, who was much better regarded by Labor than any of the other ministers. Out of office and without the constraints of cabinet solidarity he might prove a very loose cannon indeed, especially if Reid courted him in the hope of winning over the Labor members. Reid, hungry for office after so much time in opposition, was more than ready to go on the attack. Knowing that a general election must be held in late 1903 or early 1904 he had been on the warpath for several months, touring the country districts of New South Wales and targeting the few electorates where government supporters sat. He more than hinted that he himself was ready to take on Barton in his own constituency of the Hunter, a re-run of the epic 1898 clash which Reid had won, unless Barton saved his skin by appointing himself chief justice of the High Court. Barton reacted early in August by declaring that he would not take the chief justiceship. His old friend Forrest was dismayed, bombarding him with appeals to reconsider: ‘This is admitted of all: 1) That you are fitted 2) That you have earned it 3) That you are worthy of it.’ Barton stood firm, and the press conjectured that he was clearing the way for O’Connor. Speculation rippled about naming the other two judges. Isaacs was

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frequently mentioned, Symon was a possibility and, from the State judiciaries, Griffith, Inglis Clark and Mr Justice Hodges of Victoria were suggested. Deakin had given Inglis Clark grounds for hoping that he would be appointed, but now that the number of judges was reduced from five to three, it was not certain that there would be room for the Tasmanian. Jenkin Coles, the premier of South Australia, put in a strong plea for Barton’s old friend Downer. Most accepted that Barton had dealt himself out of consideration, and that he would stay to confront Reid’s challenge. A Bulletin writer commented that ‘BARTON is better, mentally and physically, than he has been for some years’, adding: His convivial tumbler now contains milk and hot water, and he never tires of enlarging to members on the merits of this beverage. Thinner than of old, haggard and pale, BARTON is yet fresher in mind and body . . . In verbal encounters with REID he shows a wit, a vigor, and a courage that he long lacked.

Reid was also in good form, but for three weeks he would not be leading the opposition. On 18 August he resigned his parliamentary seat in protest at the government’s rejection of the electoral commissioners’ proposals for new b oundaries for New South Wales constituencies. The first general election had been fought on the basis of previous State boundaries and the revised electorates needed to be in place before Australia next went to the polls. In most States this was a relatively uncontroversial process, but Lyne as responsible minister had decided that the New South Wales proposals did not take sufficient account of temporary population shifts during the 1902 drought. Reid, scenting an opportunity to cry foul, said he would fight a by-election in his East Sydney seat as a way of mobilising public condemnation of the government. It was all rather a stunt, as he was a popular member in a safe seat, and the government did not bother to run a candidate against him, although an independent opponent gave Reid a pretext for campaigning. ‘Mr Reid,’ commented Barton, ‘has apparently abandoned for three weeks his original role of clown, and by way of contrast is to appear as tragedian for that period.’

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The Road to Resignation 293 The Chief Justiceship. A common view of Barton’s dilemma just before his resignation. The outcome was somewhat different. (The Bulletin, 10/9/1903)

During Reid’s absence Barton continued to revolve the High Court issue in his mind. He convinced himself that Griffith should be chief justice. Despite his unhelpful behaviour over Privy Council appeals in 1900 and subsequently, he was still Australia’s greatest jurist and, ahead of Barton, the original framer of the federal Constitution. When he put the idea to Tennyson, the governor-general

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replied that even with Griffith as chief justice, Barton himself could still go to the High Court as one of the two puisne judges. By now Barton had an extra incentive for doing so. Following a fainting spell in his office he took medical advice, and was informed that he would improve his life expectancy by getting out of politics. Despite his current healthy regime the over-indulgence of the past and the pressures of leadership were catching up on him. If he went to the Bench his family’s financial security would be assured, whereas if he remained as prime minister until defeated he would at best have a backbencher’s salary and must once more return to working up his legal practice. Barton was prepared to face this possibility. He did not wish to desert his colleagues at a time of difficulty and he was buoyed up by his renewed sense of competition with Reid. The work before him in the sphere of government, Barton admitted, was ‘of magnetic attraction to me’ and he looked forward to giving Reid ‘the father of a beating’ at the Hunter. All this disposed him to stay and, despite Kingston’s departure, Barton was still seen as the leader best able to hold his team together. On the other hand, his mastery would not last indefinitely. Labor and the more radical liberals already saw him as veering too much towards conservatism. Many friends thought that after years of financial sacrifice and dedication to the cause of federation Barton deserved a safe haven. Others such as Lyne may have hoped that Barton’s departure might open up their own opportunities. Beset by these varying influences, Barton would take a fortnight to make up his mind, and during that time the political scene was changing fast. The Conciliation and Arbitration Bill was striking rough weather. As framed by the government its ambit covered industrial disputes in the private sector involving more than one State. This was already too much for the Victorian Employers Federation, who were denouncing Sir Malcolm McEachern, the eminently capitalist member for Melbourne and one of Barton’s supporters, for daring to support the legislation. It did not go far enough for Labor and, on 8 September, the party put up a motion to bring all Commonwealth and State public servants into the system. This was beaten by 27 votes to 21, but Labor then put up another amendment to cover

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The Road to Resignation 295 The Present Position of an Australian Prime Minister. State Premier Irvine is depicted as leading Barton by the nose during the negotiations over the Arbitration Bill that almost toppled Barton’s ministry. (The Bulletin, 17/09/1903)

workers in the State railway systems. A few months earlier a bitterly fought transport strike had been defeated by the Victorian premier William Irvine, whom the journalists nicknamed ‘Iceberg’. By bringing the railways into a Commonwealth arbitration system the unions hoped to checkmate tough State premiers in future. Barton and his colleagues did not want to fish in such troubled waters and

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knew that the States would strenuously resist such an extension of federal power. A few of their supporters were less concerned to placate the like of ‘Iceberg’ Irvine, and the government was beaten by 26 votes to 21. Barton at once adjourned the House and considered the options. His first instinct was for the ministry to resign, but although a fresh ministry led by Reid or another would find it even more difficult than Barton had to control parliament, it could go to the election with the prestige of a new government. The Barton ministry could drop the bill, having first given the rebels a chance to return to their allegiance, or they could go on with it in the hope of reversing the vote about railwaymen after the rest of the bill was passed; but Kingston was lying in wait to push the extension of coverage to seamen on overseas ships, and that would immediately stir up Forrest. Lyne was for taking this chance, but fell in with the rest of the cabinet and the bill was withdrawn. This retreat made the Labor Party very angry and drew fire from the press. The Bulletin accused Barton of truckling to the tories, while the conservative Argus thought the ministry was tottering to its fall. This was premature, as Labor and Kingston were not ready to throw themselves behind Reid. Nevertheless the debacle renewed speculation about the future of Barton’s leadership. Friends such as Forrest and Sir John Quick thought he should go, soon and to the High Court. Lyne on the other hand thought it wrong in principle that Barton should appoint himself to the High Court, though it would be another matter if it were a limited-term office such as becoming the first high commissioner to London. But the government was not ready to fill that post and Forrest and Reid were the names most often conjectured for it. Amid all this conflicting advice, Barton sought Deakin’s counsel. Deakin replied with what he termed ‘brutal frankness’, though it reads like an agonised appraisal of pros and cons. All Barton’s family and financial interests required Barton to take on the judgeship, he wrote, and if he stayed on as prime minister another such opportunity was unlikely to arise. But if he did not stay on the government would not survive polling day and the tariff which they had fought so hard to establish would be in jeopardy. If Lyne became

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prime minister, Deakin would quit cabinet, though he would continue to rally the Victorians behind the new government—but Lyne in Deakin’s opinion was so pessimistic about the prospect that he would not want the responsibility. Deakin himself told Inglis Clark: ‘I have no desire whatever for the position.’ Putting aside the resolution of these problems for a few days, Barton sent Griffith a confidential telegram inviting him to become chief justice. Griffith, who was just going on circuit to Roma, accepted on 21 September and the details were worked out in telegrams written in Latin to preserve confidentiality; once again a classical education had its uses. By 22 September Barton could advise Tennyson: ‘Griffith will be the C.J., that is for sure; O’Connor will be one of the Judges that is equally sure. The remaining question is, can I persuade myself to leave politics and take the second place?’ Politics had never seemed so seductive as at this moment when it was possible to leave. It mattered little that Reid was complaining that the judicial bench was no place for leaders who had failed. It was more that Barton was finding a relish for political challenge (which would have served him better eighteen months previously, before his trip to London). When the Senate rejected by one vote the government’s proposal for a joint conference of both Houses on the process for fixing a site for the new federal capital, Barton tried a second time and gained agreement to a scheme of exhaustive ballot. Within the last few days, however, another and to Barton’s eyes more splendid challenge appeared on the political horizon. With a dramatic flourish Joseph Chamberlain resigned from the British cabinet, proclaiming that the United Kingdom must abandon its traditional commitment to free trade and concentrate on building up a preferential trading bloc within the British Empire. This was a cause dear to Barton’s beliefs and temperament. He telegraphed Chamberlain: ‘Your great policy commands the support of Australia. We know that you will persevere.’ His enthusiasm drew criticism from McMillan, who pointed out that the question was still due for debate in parliament, but Barton was unrepentant. ‘Can I leave the field just when the trumpets are calling?’ he asked Tennyson. Tennyson thought he could: ‘You can do equally patriotic work as judge of the High Court,’ he wrote, ‘Now is the time of all others

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Do Not Feed the Animals. The Lion’s Keeper: ‘To be sure, we object to foreigners feeding the animal, but you may throw him any little thing you have about you.’ (The Bulletin, 13/6/1903) The Bulletin did not share Barton’s interest in a British empire trading bloc.

to leave your party when they are bound to be victorious at the poll.’ Clearly his view of the Protectionists’ chances was more hopeful than Deakin’s, justifiably as it turned out. And Chamberlain’s crusade failed to engage British imaginations. It would be nearly 30 years before the Great Depression forced Britain into a very modest experiment in Empire preference. Barton continued to agonise over his decision: ‘I am almost maddened with the harassment of it all— whatever I do, my conscience will always reproach me.’ It was perhaps significant that his normally impeccable grasp of parliamentary procedure was slipping. On 23 September Speaker Holder had to rebuke him twice, once for remaining seated while speaking and once for moving an amendment to his own motion. That day cabinet endorsed the three nominees to the High Court. On the following afternoon Deakin as the new prime minister announced the appointments, with the consequent resignations of Barton and O’Connor from parliament and cabinet. Inevitably some were disappointed. The appointment of two of the three judges from New South Wales caused comment in the States which had missed out, especially Victoria and South Australia.

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It may have been at this time that Inglis Clark wrote a poem complaining of the falseness of political friends. Griffith’s nomination displeased some. Kingston, who had not forgiven him for the meddling in 1900, described the selection as ‘a most fatal mistake’, and the young government whip in the Senate, J. H. Keating, was also highly critical. Barton and O’Connor were popular choices. With the predictable exception of John Norton in Truth, nobody objected to their appointments as a misuse of patronage. When parliament adjourned after Deakin made the announcements: Members sought out Sir Edmund and found him in his room, opposite the entrance to the Chamber. For nearly an hour he held a levee, which must have severely taxed his self-control, as visitors vied with one another in the warmth and sincerity of their congratulations. Letters and telegrams began to pour in in great numbers from all parts of the Commonwealth and every section of the community . . .

Reid was in Sydney and wired his congratulations. Barton in thanking him expressed the hope ‘there will be no eddies in the current of our lifelong friendship’ and Reid replied: ‘There is no reason that it should ever be broken now that it has drifted clear of the quicksands of party politics.’ The exchange was released to the press. Ever the political animal, Reid took the opportunity of reminding reporters how much weaker the ministry would be without Barton, O’Connor and Kingston. Although some saw Barton’s departure as weakening the government, more commentators thought that his abilities and temperament were better served by a judicial position. As a practitioner of the art of maximising consensus, Barton was the necessary prime minister in those early years of the Commonwealth parliament with a legislature where no single party commanded a majority and a cabinet which was largely made up of mature and experienced ex-premiers. Barton’s skills were needed to ensure stability for long enough to establish the public service infrastructure and the parliamentary conventions necessary for the smooth running of public affairs. While some criticised his pliability and readiness to withdraw his government from unwinnable situations, more recognised

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A Thriving Commonwealth. A return to the doctor–nurse theme shows Barton nursing a healthy infant Commonwealth. (The Bulletin, 25/5/1903)

the patience a nd d iplomacy which had knitted ministry and pa rlia ment into workable b od ies. McMilla n, himself shortly to retire and speaking for the last time as acting leader of the opposition, praised Barton’s ‘generous nature and extreme magnanimity’, and added:

Not altogether by his genius and ability and political experience did he bind together the men surrounding him. His personal magnetism and the personal affection which he commanded went far beyond the ordinary political ties.

Politics were quickly developing to a stage where personality was not enough. The stronger institutional bonds of party discipline and stricter cabinet solidarity would call for the refinement of Australian federal politics into a two-party system, as many observers already foresaw. Subtler and more diligent than Barton, though perhaps less trusted, Deakin was better fitted to steer through these kaleidoscopic changes; but it had been Barton’s ministry which provided the essential stability for the founding years.

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14

Mr Justice Barton Mr Justice Barton

T

HE THREE judges of the High Court were sworn in on 7 October 1903. Griffith was ‘beaming over his great new appointment’. Barton seemed unusually nervous, and spent much of the ceremony reading the Bible on which he was sworn in. Perhaps he was one of those who find the printed word irresistible in any circumstances, perhaps he was looking for appropriate texts: ‘What doth the Lord require of thee,’ asked the prophet Micah, ‘but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’ Perhaps also he was thinking of the inter-personal relationship which would develop between the three justices. ‘Shall I be able to make Griffith laugh?’ he asked Deakin. Griffith in fact proved to be at times sharply impatient with O’Connor’s more measured processes of thought and Barton, as their mutual friend, played a valuable, if necessarily unpublicised role in ensuring the smooth working of the Court. Until the High Court was enlarged in 1906 the three justices habitually lunched together. This made for a degree of consensus which meant that in its early years the High Court’s authority would not be undermined by frequent dissension on the Bench. The early months of the High Court’s existence were so undemanding that Sir Samuel Way forecast that the judges would traverse the Australian capitals like unemployed tramps crying: ‘We have no work to do.’ This proved a poor prophecy, but for Barton it was his most leisurely summer for some years, staying with his

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family on a friend’s grazing property and reading biography. He observed sympathetically that Deakin had ‘a positively awful game to play’ after the general election in December 1903. The Protectionists lost seats but Reid’s Free-Trade opposition gained no benefit. It was Labor whose members increased, so that the three parties now mustered equal numbers in the House of Representatives. Deakin soldiered on until in April 1904 Labor turned against him, once again over the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill. A minority Labor government under J. C. Watson survived four months. Prior to the election a Bulletin writer had forecast that federal politics would soon polarise into a Conservative party and a Democratic party including the left wing of the Protectionists as well as Labor. This seemed probable in August 1904 when with Deakin’s acquiescence Reid formed a coalition with the more conservative wing of the Protectionists, holding office by the narrowest of margins. Unexpectedly this arrangement almost led to the capsize of the High Court. Sir Josiah Symon became attorney-general in Reid’s ministry. He was a disappointed aspirant to the High Court, merciless in his feuds, and although on good enough terms with Barton and O’Connor he had had no time for Griffith since the dispute over Privy Council appeals in 1900. On the grounds of reducing costs he objected to the High Court’s visiting each of the State capitals at least once a year and moved that they sit only in Melbourne and Sydney. He also moved to restrict the travelling expenses of judges and their associates and even queried Griffith’s request for library shelving for his quarters in Sydney. At the end of December 1904 these tactics provoked a monumental row which was to last six months. Griffith took the brunt of the controversy, but Barton and O’Connor reluctantly supported him, partly to maintain the independence of the judiciary from political interference, but also because Symon kept up a harassing campaign of petty economies. At one point Jeanie Barton was spiriting up her husband to consider resignation rather than to submit to Symon’s unpleasantness. By the beginning of May the three judges were threatening not to hold court in Melbourne if their travelling expenses were withheld and, later in the same month, went on circuit to Brisbane against Symon’s expressed wishes. Reid

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as prime minister did his best to mediate, but it was an impossible task given the unrelenting temperaments of Symon and Griffith. After the chief justice made the dispute public on 23 May, it seemed certain that the quarrel would be dragged into the political arena when parliament met at the end of June 1905. Before this could happen Deakin withdrew Protectionist support from the Reid ministry and the government fell. Deakin resumed the prime ministership at the head of a minority government relying on Labor support over essentials. The new attorney-general, Isaac Isaacs, made no bones about granting the High Court judges all they had requested. The High Court would maintain its circuits until the completion of a permanent home in Canberra in 1980. The second Deakin government lasted three years because Deakin was prepared to accommodate Labor policies. In particular he devised the ‘New Protection’ under which the Commonwealth’s hard-won arbitration powers were used to oblige employers to pass on the benefits of tariff protection by meeting minimum standards of wages and conditions. It marked an extension of Commonwealth power beyond anything envisaged at the Convention of 1897–98; even so dedicated an advocate of the ‘new province of law and order’ as H. B. Higgins doubted if it lay within federal authority. It would fall to the High Court to resolve these issues. Partly on this account the Deakin government secured parliamentary approval for the enlargement of the High Court to five members. Deakin could now make good the want of a Victorian on the Bench and one seat was earmarked for the attorney-general, Isaac Isaacs. The fifth seat might have gone to a Tasmanian or a South Australian, but this was less easy than it would have been in 1903. Inglis Clark, the only eligible Tasmanian, was ill, within a year of death. Of the South Australians Symon had disqualified himself through his brawl with Griffith, and the chief justice, Sir Samuel Way, declined the invitation. Considering his earlier snide comments when the High Court was set up this was only graceful, but it also counted that he was nearly 70 and enjoyed his pre-eminence in Adelaide. He would have been a more conservative presence on the Bench than either Griffith or Barton, but in his place Deakin then chose the far from conservative figure

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of H. B. Higgins, with the expectation that he would take over the arbitration jurisdiction from O’Connor. By elevating the two Victorian radicals Isaacs and Higgins to the Bench, Deakin tilted the High Court towards new directions. Griffith, Barton and O’Connor had been intimately involved in the drafting of the Constitution. They were acutely aware, none more so than Barton of the trade-offs and compromises needed to secure an acceptable balance between the Commonwealth and the States and they saw it as paramount that the High Court should maintain that balance. It had been so difficult to establish the equipoise that they were reluctant lightly to disturb it. Isaacs and Higgins on the other hand, who had not been included in the drafting of the Constitution, lacked the same emotional involvement in preserving the spirit of the 1897–98 Convention. They were far more receptive to the view that parliament and the courts might act as agents of social change without overmuch deference to the preservation of the balance which had worked in the late 1890s. In introducing this new element to the High Court Deakin may also have sensed that in its first three years of work the High Court had been too unanimously monochrome in its decisions, and that it required the stimulus of dissent. For this impression Barton has to be held at least partly responsible. In assessing Barton’s performance as a High Court judge one immediately comes up against the notorious fact that he almost never dissented from Griffith—not once in the first eight years of the Court’s existence. When at last he did, it was over an appeal in a civil case where no constitutional or political questions were involved. The tradition has arisen of ‘Concurrent’ Barton, content inertly to follow Griffith’s lead and reluctant to apply an independent intellect to the constitutional issues arising in the early years of Federation. Even O’Connor, for all his closeness to Barton, occasionally differed from Griffith, ‘particularly on questions concerned with industrial arbitration’, writes the noted authority Geoffrey Sawer, who adds: ‘He has been under-rated, and Barton over-rated in Australian professional tradition.’ Of 44 High Court judgments recorded in the Commonwealth Law Reports during 1904 and 1905, Barton was content in nineteen simply to concur with

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Griffith. Another thirteen were joint judgments in whose composition he may have shared, but in only twelve cases did Barton deliver a separate judgment, and some of these were brief. Reynolds, defending Barton against the charge of indolence, cites ‘the stacks of legal books on the study table’ and draws on oral tradition from members of the legal profession to assert that: ‘As a judge Barton worked very hard. It is remembered that he carefully reviewed every authority quoted in the course of every case which he heard.’ Support for this view may be found in his judge’s notebooks, recently released to the Australian Archives. Barton’s notes on the cases before him are copious and well informed, although on one occasion he must have found the proceedings less than riveting, as he doodled a profile of one of the bewigged lawyers on the margin of his notebook. His questions to counsel and witnesses appear apt and pertinent and even when he asked no questions it did not imply lack of diligence. One of his longest separate judgments in these early years, in the case of Brown v. Lizars, followed a jurisdictional hearing in which he put no questions. His decision not to write separate judgments in cases where he agreed with Griffith could be seen as a mark of wisdom, in that subsequent interpretations could be confused by divergences even in the text of concurring judgments. But he was also consciously distancing himself from colleagues such as Isaacs, whose learning sometimes spilt over into verbosity. More than once Barton recorded in his notebook, ‘Mr Justice Barton concurred silenter.1 Mr Justice Isaacs concurred at great length.’ When Barton sat as sole judge he could show a mind of his own. Acting as a court of disputed returns for a South Australian Senate election (Blundell v. Vardon) he brought the commonsense of an experienced politician to the question of whether returning officers should reject ballot papers because of minor irregularities. Such initiatives were rare. In general he identified consistently with Griffith but this may have reflected a shift in Griffith. Once chief justice of the Commonwealth he became the staunch upholder of the High Court’s authority against all comers: the States, the parliament, even the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Barton

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could identify with this. But Griffith never forgot that he was a Queenslander, mistrusting the encroachment of Commonwealth power; and as a disillusioned conservative he lacked instinctive sympathy with the social engineering favoured by Deakinite liberalism and Labor. Barton was also a conservative, but as a politician he had been distinguished by a readiness to shift his ground so as to accommodate other points of view in a workable consensus. As a judge, removed from the influence of Deakin and Kingston, he was under less incentive to move out of his conservative positions. Neither Isaacs nor Higgins was of a temperament to win Barton over. Instead the High Court began to develop an adversarial temper, with Griffith and Barton digging themselves in as defenders of the true Constitution against the interloping agents of change and O’Connor, usually but not always, siding with his senior colleagues. In its early years the High Court was much involved with defining the boundaries between Commonwealth and State authority. Its first major decision, D’Emden v. Pedder, ruled that the Tasmanian government might not levy stamp duty on the salaries of Commonwealth employees, but the implications went much further since it enabled the Court to formulate what was termed the doctrine of ‘implied immunity of instrumentalities’. Intended to prevent the Commonwealth and the States from encroaching on each other’s spheres of authority, this ruling was based on nearly a century of precedent in the United States Supreme Court, which should have seemed an apt model for a federation. Between 1904 and 1906 the High Court decided several more cases on the basis of the implied immunity of instrumentalities, usually though not invariably in favour of the Commonwealth. The State Supreme Courts, less impressed with American practice, did not agree and, in 1906, the Victorian Supreme Court took advantage of a loophole in the Constitution to appeal directly to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. This case, Webb v. Outtrim, concerned the liability of Commonwealth officials to pay State income tax. In December 1906 the Judicial Committee ruled that the doctrine of immunity of instrumentalities did not apply to Australia. State and Commonwealth rights were sufficiently protected under the Aus-

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tralian Constitution and, if necessary, the Royal power could be used to disallow legislation which interfered between the governments of the federal system. This remarkable interpretation was largely the work of Lord Halsbury, an 83-year-old arch-conservative whose intervention did nothing to improve Barton’s opinion of the Judicial Committee. ‘Old man Halsbury’s judgment deserves no better description than that it is fatuous and beneath consideration,’ Barton wrote to Bavin, adding later, ‘But the old pig wants to hurt the new federation, and does not much care how he does it.’ Griffith was also unimpressed. In its subsequent decisions the High Court largely ignored Halsbury’s judgment and stuck to the precedent of D’Emden v. Pedder. The States were still at times unhappy. When the High Court ruled that State trading operations, not being an essential role of government, might be subject to customs duties, so that a quantity of wire netting belonging to the State of New South Wales was liable to duty, the State government organised a raid on the Sydney customs house to carry away its wire netting, and the Commonwealth had to organise a guard for the remainder. In 1907 the Deakin government legislated to defuse the situation by destroying the possibility of appeals from State courts direct to the Privy Council. At the same time, on conditions which protected the legal rights of the Commonwealth, the government took away the immunity of Commonwealth officials from paying State taxation. For the rest of his life Barton paid income tax to the State of New South Wales, though he always returned his form with a proviso that he had the right to contest taxation on any part of his judicial salary earned outside New South Wales. Though Griffith and Barton upheld the Commonwealth’s authority in revenue matters they were much less welcoming to the Deakin government’s attempts to expand federal power, especially in the field of conciliation and arbitration. Sawer has explained: The parliament chose to devote much of its time to problems on the margin of its authority, such as strikes and monopolies, instead of ranging through its list of central responsibilities such as the regulation of banking and insurance or the introduction

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of a uniform marriage and divorce code; hence it had to expect some lack of sympathy from judges who had helped form the Constitution for the latter rather than the former purposes.

Neither Griffith nor Barton challenged the entry of the Commonwealth into the field of arbitration, but both saw it as a last resort after the failure of collective bargaining or the State tribunals. Higgins and Isaacs on the other hand saw the arbitration legislation as a creative exercise in civilising capitalism by establishing an Australia-wide code of conduct for industrial relations. This may not have been among the intentions of the framers of the Constitution, but the diversification and development of Australian industry called for a constructive response. For Barton and Griffith it was still too soon after the making of the Constitution to justify major shifts in the balance between Commonwealth and States; the remainder of their time on the High Court would be spent in an increasingly desperate defence of this position. For the present they held the line. In 1906, to Higgins’ disappointment but scarcely to his surprise, the majority on the High Court ruled that the Commonwealth arbitration power had no jurisdiction over the employees of State governments, although a little later municipal employees were held to be within the federal ambit. In Barger’s case, decided in 1908, Griffith, Barton and O’Connor formed a majority in ruling the ‘New Protection’ invalid. The Commonwealth could not use its excise power to impose minimum standards of wages and conditions on employers. This did not prevent the formula which Higgins had established as a fair and reasonable minimum salary for the working man from becoming established in Australian usage as the basic wage, but it was the High Court’s most decisive intervention to date in thwarting social reforms passed by the Commonwealth parliament. Trade unionists saw conservative bias in a number of lesser decisions by the High Court. The use of trademarks indicating that goods were made by union labour was ruled invalid, and the serving of a log of claims on the part of a trade union was not deemed to create an industrial dispute justifying Commonwealth arbitration. Griffith and Barton could argue that they were keeping faith with the original federal compact and that

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the High Court should not allow the extension of Commonwealth power at the expense of the States, but this could be seen increasingly as imposing a brake on the dynamics of Australian social and economic policy. The Australian political pendulum appeared to be swinging to the left. Arbitration brought many recruits into the trade union movement, with a consequent strengthening of the federal Labor Party. By November 1908 Labor was no longer willing to keep Deakin’s Protectionists in office, but within six months Deakin had negotiated a coalition of nearly all the non-Labor elements. He alienated a few followers, such as Lyne, whose angry shouts of ‘Judas!’ were long remembered in parliamentary folklore, but managed in June 1909 to form a Fusion government. Barton hailed the move as a decisive break from the unstable politics of the Commonwealth’s past. ‘The whole continent is to be congratulated,’ he told Deakin, ‘on having at last a chance to govern itself on the principles of party cleavage.’ The Australian voters at large may not have been so appreciative, for at the general election in April 1910 they turned Deakin out in favour of a Labor government under Andrew Fisher with a solid majority in both houses of federal parliament. The advent of Labor, with Hughes as attorney-general, did little to disturb the High Court. Griffith, Barton and O’Connor continued to monitor the Commonwealth’s arbitration power strictly. They ruled that the federal Arbitration Court was not empowered to make awards inconsistent with State law, though they had no objection to Commonwealth awards setting a higher minimum wage than a State award, since by conforming to the Commonwealth rate the parties would also be obeying the State law. They also denied the Commonwealth Arbitration Court power to determine a ‘common rule’ for the whole of an industry. On the other hand they upheld compulsory arbitration as compatible with the intentions of the original framers of the Constitution. In August 1912 it was seen as a victory for conservatism when Griffith, Barton and O’Connor overturned a judgment by Isaacs convicting the Coal Vend—an alliance of coal and shipping companies in the Newcastle district of New South Wales—of forming an illegal monopoly. Under Deakin’s legislation of 1906 companies which combined to create a

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monopoly to the detriment of the public stood liable to prosecution. The Act had been amended in 1910 to remove the necessity of proving an intent to injure the public and if Hughes as attorneygeneral had brought an action under this formula it might have succeeded; but the Court found insufficient evidence that the Coal Vend had been motivated by a desire to act against the public interest and hence, under the 1906 legislation, the Coal Vend got off. Hughes was not anxious at this time to pick a fight with the Coal Vend and it probably suited him to see the High Court responsible for the outcome. Barton showed little sign of regretting his separation from active politics. More and more he was enjoying the life of a well-regarded elder statesman, and appeared to cultivate the appropriate manner. He had more time for his duties as a member of the University of Sydney Senate, and had his uses as a contact. In April 1905 he advised the chancellor, Sir Normand MacLaurin, of an old friend ‘who keeps talking about founding a scholarship or two, but has not yet done anything practical’. She was Ida Coutts, a widow whose two sons (who died young) had been Barton’s close friends. She agreed to provide £2 500 to endow two scholarships, one in English and one in science, and Barton urged MacLaurin to lose no time in making the benefaction public ‘because very old people are apt to alter their intentions suddenly, or to propose new conditions at the last moment’. Whenever his judicial duties permitted he was now a regular attender at Senate and at university ceremonies. The convivial evenings at the Athenaeum Club were growing rarer, though his love of a good dinner and good talk remained. The Bulletin author Randolph Bedford told a story placed in Barton’s early High Court years: Paris Nesbit gave a little dinner party in Melbourne, the guests being Barton, Desbrowe Annear, Ebenezer Ward and myself. The wine was very good; the world was ours, and time had been made for slaves. At 3 a.m. Edmund Barton, bidding me farewell in Spring Street, said: ‘Ah! Randolph. Men die and dynasties fall, but tonight there is only one tragedy. There is no more Chateau d’Yquem.’

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He was keeping varied company, as Desbrowe Annear was at that time Melbourne’s leading architect, Bedford was a bluff mining speculator, and Nesbit and Ward South Australian professional men whose sexual escapades had earned them a certain notoriety; but it sounds a feasible story. Increasingly however, his health was requiring care. He was no longer carrying as much weight as in his middle years, but his heart and blood-pressure gave cause for concern, and circulatory problems were producing a tendency to oedema in the legs. This sometimes caused him to walk with an unsteady gait, so that passers-by commented knowingly, but unjustly, about ‘Tosspot Toby’. Increasingly his intake of alcohol was restricted to rare family occasions and celebrations. Family life remained important to him, and if his High Court duties called him away frequently on circuit the pressures were no longer so demanding as in the years of the Federation campaigns and the first Commonwealth parliament. Friends commented on the stability of his marriage. J. T. Walker confided to his diary that no one could imagine what a help Jeanie was to her husband. With her youngest child now well in her teens, she was discovering other interests. She was a prominent founder-member of the Queens Club and served her term as president, discovering an enthusiasm for bridge. The eldest son, Edmund, was back in Sydney building up a legal practice. The next brother, Wilfrid, delighted the family by winning the first Rhodes scholarship from New South Wales. Having spent three years at Magdalen College, Oxford, he decided to stay in England. Family tradition has it that, with his father a High Court judge and his brother already at the Sydney Bar, it was thought that Wilfrid would have more chance of making an independent reputation in London. It was hard going, though, and for some years he had to supplement his resources by journalism. Arnold, the third son, went another way. Remembered by his younger sister as the best-looking and most intelligent of her brothers, he may have inherited more than his share of the Barton family’s depressive streak and capacity to squander opportunities. Aged nineteen, in 1903 he went to a clerkship with Burns, Philp and Company bearing a glowing testimonial from his headmaster. Two years later he had to leave. A clerk who spent beyond his means

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and was beset with creditors seemed too risky for positions of trust. He was placed at Hawkesbury Agricultural College, but cut classes and performed poorly. Having drifted into lodgings, in 1907 he married his landlady’s daughter, Jane Hungerford. Her parents were originally Newcastle people and they seem to have been more scandalised by the match than the Bartons. Next year a baby came and they named him Edmund Farley Barton. Only a few months later Arnold suddenly left Sydney and went to Canada, settling in British Columbia and abandoning his wife and child. He remained there for the rest of his life, supporting himself by manual labour in the timber industry and the canneries with occasional remittances from his parents—entirely without ambition. In a united and mutually supportive family Arnold’s was a sad and discordant story. He is never mentioned in Barton’s surviving correspondence with family members. When Sir Edmund made his will in 1915 he left to each of his children one of the souvenirs of his public career—the insignia of his knighthood and of various overseas awards—but to Arnold he specified a gift of £40. It is impossible to tell if there was any special significance in the amount. The youngest son, Oswald, went to the University of Sydney as a medical student and did well. The elder daughter, Jean Alice (Muffie), married in 1909 David Maughan, who had been one of Edmund Barton’s young aides during the Federation campaign and was now making a name at the Bar in an equity practice. He brought a welcome element of financial hard-headedness into the family and was to become his father-in-law’s executor. Shortly afterwards Edmund junior married Ursula Crace, from a pastoral family on the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. More grandchildren began to arrive. With the departure of the younger members of the family to independent households, the old family home at ‘Miandatta’ became too roomy for the older Bartons and their remaining daughter Stephanie and, in 1909, they moved to ‘Avenel’, a house in Darling Point. In the process of moving they appear to have sorted through Edmund’s papers, throwing out many from earlier years, but retaining material which threw light on his public career. These were kept in a special cabinet. From this it would appear that Edmund Barton had had a sense of his place in his country’s history. By the

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beginning of 1911, ten years after the achievement of Federation, his performance as a founding justice of the High Court might have seemed to savour a little of anticlimax. But it had been a pattern in his life that periods of quietude were followed by a blossoming of his activities. Despite failing health in his last years he was to enjoy something of an Indian summer. From around 1912 a return of energy and initiative could be discerned in Edmund Barton. His judgments ceased to seem an invariable echo of Griffith’s, showing greater independence and at times disagreement. It has been suggested that this change of attitude followed recovery from an attack of typhoid, but there is little direct evidence. It may have been more telling that in November 1912 O’Connor died. He had been in poor health for some years, but he carried out his duties until a few weeks before his death, and Barton must have been shaken from the loss of his lifelong friend. O’Connor’s death also heralded another shift in the membership of the High Court and, since the size of the Court had just been increased from five to seven, there would be three vacancies for Hughes, as attorney-general in the Fisher Labor government, to fill. Hughes’ first recommendation was the thoughtful and progressive-minded Sydney barrister A. B. Piddington, once an antiFederationist because he thought the Constitution insufficiently democratic, but a friend of Barton’s from the early years of the Athenaeum Club. He was travelling overseas when he received a cablegram inviting his views on Commonwealth versus State rights. He replied that he favoured the Commonwealth. He was then offered a place on the High Court and accepted provided that it was without prejudice to his complete independence on all constitutional questions. He returned to Sydney to meet a storm of criticism from legal colleagues who objected to his politics. In this extremity he consulted Barton and Sir William Cullen, the chief justice of New South Wales. Both advised him to stand firm, but Piddington’s sensitivity would not allow him to take his seat on the Bench, and he resigned. Barton approvingly commented that he ‘exacted for himself adherence to a standard of honour far higher than that which serves the needs of many good men’.

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Hughes then nominated three politically neutral figures, which in the context of the senior legal profession meant inclined to conservatism. The Victorian Frank Gavan Duffy became the Bench’s token Catholic. George Rich, a recently appointed judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court, filled the second place and the third went to the Crown solicitor, Charles Powers, who had a background in Queensland politics. The lawyers grumbled that he lacked sufficient experience at the Bar, but as he was no radical they were less fierce than they had been with Piddington. While none of these appointees promised the innovative zeal of Higgins or Isaacs they also lacked the openness to North American federal precedent which Griffith and Barton brought to constitutional interpretation. Since none of them had taken part in the debates which shaped the Constitution, they were uninfluenced by real or imagined recollections of the Conventions and, although cautious in tendency and steeped in the interpretative principles of English common law, they were more open to the social and political attitudes of the present moment. Accordingly it became more common for Griffith and Barton to find themselves in the minority on the Bench, defending to the last ditch what they perceived as the spirit of the original compact between the Commonwealth and the States. The conservatism which had been a valuable cement in stabilising the federal balance in earlier years was at risk of appearing outmoded, an attempt to freeze constitutional changes at the point applying at the end of the nineteenth century. It took a little time for these tendencies to be recognised. In 1913 Griffith went on leave overseas for nine months and Barton, to his evident relish, found himself acting chief justice. In one or two decisions he led the Court in directions which he and Griffith had previously resisted. Whereas in 1912 Griffith and Barton had held, with Isaacs dissenting, that the serving and rejection of a log of claims was not sufficient to create an industrial dispute open to Commonwealth arbitration, Barton now conceded the point. He argued that where a long pre-history of disputes about grievances could be shown, a log of claims could be accepted as summarising the grounds for going to arbitration, though each case must be judged on its merits. Higgins apologised sarcastically for having

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misunderstood the drift of Barton’s and Griffith’s earlier judgments. He had some justification. Not that Barton was drifting apart from Griffith. They corresponded frequently and Barton’s comments on his colleagues have aptly been described as sounding like a housemaster’s report on his prefects to the absent school principal. Powers and Duffy seemed sincere and helpful; Rich was more of a cypher; but Higgins and Isaacs were described in terms which throw a startling light on the antagonisms which had arisen from the Court’s ideological disagreements. Barton summed up Higgins’ performance in arbitration as ‘stirring up peace’, more notable for its quantity than its quality. Isaacs was described as the ‘jewling’, ‘his jaws slavering for the devouring of some decisions of ours’, comments which grate on modern ears. It was not yet realised that the casual, flippant anti-Semitism of upper middle-class Anglo-Australians could be at one end of a continuum, with Hitler’s Holocaust at the other, and it is likely that Barton was playing up to Griffith’s prejudices. As happened in his disputes with Reid in the 1890s, Barton tended to go to excess in his rhetoric about opponents during the heat of debate, without permanent estrangement. His relationship with Isaacs over the years tended to swing from periods of mutual irritation to occasions when Barton could write with evident sincerity ‘of the friendship which you have given me, and which I heartily reciprocate’. Within three years he and Isaacs were to be allied against Griffith in a case which Barton saw as crucially important and when Barton died Isaacs insisted on pronouncing a magnanimous personal tribute to him in the High Court. Deakin, who had brought Higgins and Isaacs onto the High Court, was no longer a political force. At the early age of 56, overtaken by failing memory, he resigned the leadership of the Liberal opposition in January 1913. Joseph Cook succeeded him, winning the leadership over Forrest at a party meeting by one vote—Deakin’s own. Although lacking Forrest’s quality of warmth and humanity, Cook had the doggedness and attention to detail which might win back power for his party at the elections later that year and he was more than twelve years younger. Forrest poured out his disappointment in a letter to Barton; Deakin, he wrote, was not a safe man to go tiger shooting with. At the end of May Cook indeed

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won the election for the Liberals, but it was by the narrowest of margins, 38 to 37 in the House of Representatives. Lyne, by then an Independent with Labor sympathies, might have held the balance of power, but for the first time in 33 years he was beaten, by a conservative squatter; within two months he was dead. Labor had an overwhelming majority in the Senate, but Cook nevertheless formed a government. Within a year the Senate and the House of Representatives were deadlocked and, for the first time in the Commonwealth’s history, Cook was moved to apply for a double dissolution of both houses of parliament. This constitutional crisis necessarily involved the governorgeneral. It had been difficult to find vice-regal appointments for Australia, because it was thought too far from Britain and, since the Hopetoun debacle, insufficiently well paid. Unlike Canada no member of the Royal family had been sent to Australia; the post tended to go to second-rank members of the House of Lords. The governor-general in June 1914 was a newcomer, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson. A seasoned member of the House of Commons with a cool sagacity in judgment, Munro Ferguson was a considerable improvement on his predecessors. The outgoing governor-general, Lord Denman, recommended Griffith and Barton to him as ‘the most reliable authorities, should you want advice’. It happened that they were the only two members of the High Court who were at that time Privy Councillors and hence, in theory, sources of confidential advice for the Crown. Denman added that ‘Barton particularly should be sound, as he has political as well as legal knowledge’, but it was to Griffith that Munro Ferguson turned at first for advice over the double dissolution. Confirmed in his discretionary powers, the governor-general granted Cook’s request and an election was fixed for September 1914. During the election campaign the European situation deteriorated and, at the beginning of August 1914, Britain entered into hostilities. Few realised that this would become World War I, lasting more than four years, but nearly all Australians took it for granted that Australia stood by Britain’s side. Griffith, ‘on my responsibility as a Privy Councillor’, urged that Munro Ferguson (without consulting the government) should approach the British government with

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an extraordinary suggestion. The British parliament should legislate that in the event of war the governor-general could cancel impending elections and recall the old parliament. It is hard to imagine that, even under the stress of wartime, Barton would have agreed to such an intrusion into Australian sovereignty and there is no evidence that he was consulted. None of the frontbenchers on either side in Australian politics was keen on the scheme, apart from Hughes, and although Munro Ferguson duly sent the idea on to the Colonial Office, it was rejected as impracticable. At the election Labor won a majority in both Houses. Fisher was returned as prime minister for the third time, with Hughes again attorney-general. Munro Ferguson continued to draw on Griffith for advice, but increasingly he also turned to Barton. He wrote that Griffith had probably the best intellect of anyone whom he met in Australia, but Barton was more a man of the world with a great fund of practical wisdom. By invitation Barton advised the governor-general about the possible award of knighthoods and other honours, putting in a favourable reference to Sydney’s academics (‘there are no men connected with the oldest and finest University in Australia whose services as fully merit recognition as Mungo MacCallum and Thomas Edgeworth David’). Later in October, again by request, he sent Munro Ferguson a confidential memorandum urging that the British government should take the self-governing dominions more fully into confidence about the conduct of the war. This was an issue about which Barton felt deeply. There was, he wrote, ‘a lack of knowledge of the tone and temper of the people’: Taking Australia as an instance, you have of course seen what the greatest man in England is prevented by distance from seeing—that these are touchy people. They are splendidly loyal and splendidly proud of the old country, despite the levity which in time of peace they use as a cloak for their deeper feelings. But if they think themselves slighted in the least degree, they are swayed by sudden gusts of feeling. Being easily piqued, they get like ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary’.

Without as yet insisting that Australia and the other Dominions should participate in the shaping of military and diplomatic policy,

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Barton urged that British ministers should be more forthcoming in explaining their rationale: . . . confidence reposed on men who are trained in the keeping of confidence will enable them to see the reason of steps, or halts, pronouncements, or silences, which unless they are so far trusted must appear to them ill judged or unnecessary or bewildering. It is here that sometimes sympathy is cooled and energy damped.

Munro Ferguson forwarded his ideas, but they do not seem to have been taken to heart. Six months later, without adequate consultation, Australian and New Zealand troops found themselves committed to the ill-conceived adventure of Gallipoli. Inexorably the economic necessities of wartime increased the scope of government intervention and fostered centralisation on the Commonwealth at the expense of the States. The first significant case of this nature brought about an open breach between Griffith and Barton. In October 1914 the New South Wales government legislated for the compulsory acquisition of that State’s wheat crop. Designed to prevent speculation, the Act could also be used to prevent the export of wheat to other States where the price might be higher. This affected a number of farmers in southern New South Wales who had been in the habit of marketing their wheat in Victoria and legal proceedings followed. The Inter-State Commission had been created to handle this sort of case, but its members split. Two of the three members held that governments could exercise the power of acquisition only for their own use, whereas Piddington as chairman contended that government acquisitions were always valid. The majority also considered that the New South Wales legislation was in breach of Section 92 of the Constitution, which provides that trade, commerce and intercourse between the States should be absolutely free. When the case was appealed to the High Court the judges found unanimously that the Act did not infringe Section 92, since it related to the acquisition of wheat and not to its movement across State boundaries. But with a subtlety verging on the pedantic Griffith also argued that Section 101 of the Constitution, providing for an Inter-State Commission, did not authorise

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it to exercise any quasi-judicial powers on the grounds that judges were appointed for life and Section 103 of the Constitution fixed the commissioners’ terms at seven years. Barton was dismayed. He argued that the High Court should follow the plain intention of the text of Section 101: There shall be an Inter-State Commission, with such powers of adjudication and administration as the Parliament deems necessary for the execution and maintenance, within the Commonwealth, of the provisions of this Constitution relating to trade and commerce, and of all laws made thereunder.

Parliament, argued Barton, had the discretion to decide the Commission’s powers, not the High Court. Remembering the disputes between the pre-1901 colonies over trade and tariff policies, Barton cherished the Inter-State Commission as ‘a new province for law and order’, falling not far short of Higgins’ reverence for industrial arbitration. But he could carry only Gavan Duffy with him. Isaacs, Powers and Rich sided with Griffith, holding that parliament could not bestow judicial powers on the Commission. Thus emasculated, the Commission ceased to be of any importance and was allowed to lapse in 1920 when the commissioners’ terms expired. It was a rebuff to Barton’s authority as an interpreter of the Constitution and his special authority as one of its draftsmen. In late March 1915, a few days after this decision, Barton took leave for nine months and took ship for England with Jeanie and their younger daughter Stephanie. It was a journey not without hazard in wartime and before leaving Barton made his will, directing that apart from a few personal bequests his estate should be invested to provide Jeanie with a secure income. (It came eventually to £6565, perhaps $500 000 by the values of 2000, enough for the purpose under David Maughan’s careful stewardship.) The journey was uneventful and they arrived in England in time to catch up with their son Wilfrid, whom they had not seen for eleven years and who was enlisting as an officer in the King’s Rifles. Oswald, the youngest son, was also off to the war, though in his case to serve as a medical officer.

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Barton was sworn into the Privy Council by King George V, fourteen years since his nomination and their last meeting at the opening of the Commonwealth parliament. ‘After the meeting,’ reported Barton, ‘the King commanded me to have a conversation with him, and showed in all ways his vivid interest in Australia . . .’ He was invited to sit on the Judicial Committee, but chose to take only a few cases, unlike Griffith who had thrown himself strenuously into appeals from every part of the British Empire, and even made time to sit in on a murder trial in Edinburgh. Late in his stay Barton had what he described as ‘three long and interesting discussions’ with senior legal figures about the possibility of appointing Dominion nominees on a yearly rotating basis as members of the Judicial Committee. He himself preferred Lord Haldane’s plan of an entirely new court of appeal for the whole British Empire, but for the present forwarded the more modest scheme to Munro Ferguson. It would be preferable, Barton wrote, to the present haphazard practice of capturing visiting judges from Australia and elsewhere while on holiday in England. Nothing came of the proposal, Griffith objecting that the overseas judges might not have parity of esteem or salary with British appointees. In time of war the matter lacked sufficient priority for serious attention. The Bartons also enjoyed a round of social engagements with the lesser aristocracy, many of them the result of introductions from Munro Ferguson. Jeanie’s only surviving letter from the trip gives an enjoyable account of London shopping. Edmund had business meetings and conversations with such prominent cabinet ministers as Bonar Law, Lord Kitchener and Walter Long. There was a memorial service for the Australians killed at Gallipoli in St Paul’s Cathedral; a ‘solemn but glorious occasion’, thought Barton. ‘It is a grave but not gloomy England,’ he reported to Munro Ferguson. The journey enabled Barton to spend some time with Reid. Now Sir George, Reid had gone to London in 1910 as the first Australian High Commissioner, overseeing the construction of Australia House and acquitting himself with a panache which should have abashed those who dismissed him as an elderly buffoon. His term was now coming to an end, but he was well regarded in London and was happy to use his influence when Barton requested it. This was on

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behalf of Wilfrid, who wanted to transfer from the British army into an Australian unit. It was against the rules but, wrote Reid, ‘Your son & a son with such a record—well I’m going to smash that rule if I can!’ He did not succeed, and Wilfrid went on to serve three more years with the King’s Rifles and to earn a Military Cross, but the episode showed that the two old sparring partners had reverted to the easy amity of their youth in Sydney nearly 50 years previously. The Bartons spent their last afternoon in London with the Reids before departing in December 1915. On the voyage home, in a letter to Reid Barton confided his hopes that the war would result in stronger cooperation in defence and foreign policy between Britain and the major dominions such as Australia and Canada: ‘Grip loosens when reach is too long.’ And he added encouragingly: ‘Your public life is by no means over unless you wish it.’ Even as he wrote Reid was embarking on his third political career, as a member of the House of Commons for the safe seat of St George’s, Hanover Square, describing himself as an ‘independent Imperialist’. Reid was replaced as high commissioner by Andrew Fisher, so that Barton returned to Australia to find Hughes prime minister. An unabashed centraliser in time of war—and beyond—Hughes personified a trend in Commonwealth–State relations which would bring more work to the High Court and erode the concepts of federal–State relations upheld by Griffith and Barton. Even the sympathetic Munro Ferguson conceded that the two senior judges had a ‘personal bent towards State rights and their views are less flexible than those of passing governments and changing electorates’. The governorgeneral’s admiration for Barton continued nevertheless. At the end of May they were both in Adelaide for the unveiling of a statue commemorating Kingston. It was a somewhat fraught occasion, as even eight years after Kingston’s death he was unforgiven by some of his enemies, and his widow was a cranky personality whose behaviour could not be predicted. Governor Galwey of South Australia refused to take part in the ceremony, so that when Munro Ferguson unveiled the statue, it was Barton who took charge of Lucy Kingston and read her message for her. Then with great grace and diplomacy he escorted her while she placed a wreath of violets at the base of the statue. If Australians had been eligible for vice-regal

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appointments at that time Barton would have filled the role superbly. The High Court meanwhile was moving in new directions. In June 1916 in the case of Facey v. Burnett a strong majority of the High Court—Griffith, Barton, Isaacs, Higgins and Powers—used a dispute about the price-fixing of bread to assert that the Commonwealth possessed very wide defence powers over-riding anything reserved to the States. Only Gavan Duffy, who was emerging as the most consistent defender of States’ rights, backed by Rich, argued that the defence power as enshrined in the Constitution did not extend to economic control. Reinforced by several other decisions, Facey v. Burnett greatly increased the power of the Commonwealth parliament and ministry to pursue centralising policies if they could be declared necessary for the war. It was of little avail that Griffith and Barton continued to resist the extension of the Arbitration Court’s authority, since the other judges were now prepared to support Higgins’ approach, and the senior justices were in a minority of two to five in such cases. The compact negotiated at the time of Federation was breaking down, and it would prove impossible to restore it. There remained for decision the issues of commerce between the States arising after the destruction of the Inter-State Commission. In June 1916 the High Court ruled against New South Wales legislation intended to control meat marketing and ensure supplies for the military. By preventing graziers from moving stock across State boundaries it infringed Section 92, and Griffith, Barton, Isaacs and Rich declared it invalid. In October a similar case came before the High Court, this time from Queensland. Griffith changed his mind, alleging that the New South Wales decision had been taken too hurriedly at the end of a busy session. If the Queensland legislation denied the graziers the right of moving their cattle and meat at all, they could not become the subject of inter-State commerce. It is tempting to speculate that the Queenslander in Griffith aroused his tenderness for States’ rights, and he won over his fellow Queenslander, Powers. Gavan Duffy, who alone had expressed doubts in the New South Wales case, was easily won to Griffith’s view and with him came Rich, who tended in those years to follow his example. This left Barton and Isaacs in alliance in the minority. Barton

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did not expect this outcome, having originally counted on Powers and Rich. His dismay was evident in his judgment. The majority verdict, he said, . . . tends to keep up the separation of its people upon State lines by imputing to the Constitution—a meaning which I venture to say was never dreamed of by its founders . . . To say that one regrets to differ from one’s learned brethren is a formula that often begins a judgement. I end mine by expressing heavy sorrow that their decision is as it is.

Isaacs was even more trenchant: ‘. . . inter-State trade can exist only as far as the conflicting interests and desires of the several States will allow it,’ he contended. Barton and Isaacs had disagreed about many things, but they shared a sounder sense than Griffith of the intentions underlying Federation. Perhaps they became better friends as a result of this case. In 1920 Isaacs was to lead the High Court in overturning the judgment in Duncan’s case and establishing that Section 92 prevented State governments (but not the Commonwealth) from interfering in any way with trade and commerce between the States. This would have mortified Griffith, and perhaps went further than Barton would have endorsed. But by then both Griffith and Barton were dead. Barton shared his disappointment with his wife: I seldom take to heart the fact that a majority of the Bench is against my views, but on this occasion my sorrow is very real, for the meaning of the decision is that each State will have almost uncontrolled powers of hampering and restricting Trade between the States and their citizens—a power the abolition of which was among the chief reasons for federation.

This setback, however, did not spoil Barton’s enjoyment of his autumnal status as an elder statesman enjoying Munro Ferguson’s confidence. In the turbulent political climate of 1916 and 1917 Munro Ferguson often sought the informal advice of Griffith and Barton. The Labor Party split over conscription in October 1916, and Hughes determined to put the issue to the voters at a referendum. It has been suggested that the idea of a referendum originated with Barton and Griffith, and this seems feasible. Both, Barton especially

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perhaps, were wholehearted supporters of the war effort, totally convinced of the rightness of Australia’s involvement at Britain’s side, and as such inclined to be scornful of those who failed to volunteer. Barton’s experiences during the Federation campaign had left him impressed with the referendum as a democratic device. He, more likely than the elitist Griffith, probably thought that if Australian voters were consulted they would give the outcome a special validity independent of the manoeuvres of the politicians. The referendum was duly conducted, but by a narrow but sufficient majority the verdict was ‘No’ to conscription. Hughes was in an exposed position as leader of a minority government of Labor conscriptionists surviving by grace of the Liberals. On 4 January 1917 he asked Munro Ferguson for a dissolution of parliament. The governor-general consulted Barton under his privy councillor’s oath. Barton said that Hughes would have to make a statement in writing on which Munro Ferguson could base his decision. Since an election was due in the second half of 1917 he did not consider a dissolution justified, but suggested that Munro Ferguson should consult Griffith without first informing him of Barton’s opinion. Griffith took the same view and Hughes withdrew his request. Instead he negotiated a merger between his National Labor group and the Liberals, forming a new Nationalist party with himself still prime minister. To entrench his government in office Hughes then sought parliamentary approval to postpone the elections until the end of the war, following British precedent. Lacking the numbers in the Senate, he tried to suborn a number of Tasmanian Labor senators, but these tactics antagonised his own backbenchers and eventually the scheme was dropped. The demand arose for a Royal Commission into these manoeuvres. Once again Munro Ferguson asked Barton’s advice. Barton advised that ‘no ministry could ask for a Royal Commission into its own purity’. The advice reflected his own sense of honour rather than political reality, but there was no Royal Commission. Instead Hughes went to the polls and secured a strong majority in both Houses, during the election campaign pledging that the government would not introduce conscription without a second referendum. The carnage continued in France and, in December, the referendum took place. Hughes promised to resign

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if it was defeated. Because of war weariness, Irish-Australian antagon ism and a degree of industrial radicalisation following a number of major strikes, the ‘No’ vote was greater than in the previous year. The loyalist Barton was mortified at the outcome. To his son he wrote: It is of course a terrible disgrace and Australia’s name is polluted. Sinn Feiners, IWW and Labor Party all combined are far from enough to furnish this large total . . . the reservoir of men is abundant, but unless it is shoved by force it won’t flow.

Nevertheless when consulted by Munro Ferguson he agreed that Hughes must ‘keep faith with the people’ by resigning—and not a ‘sham resignation’. This was not the advice Hughes hoped to hear, and Barton’s view was based on ethical and political grounds rather than legal considerations. Hughes in fact resigned on 8 January 1918, but Munro Ferguson could find nobody else able and willing to form a government. By now Barton was very close to Munro Ferguson. ‘He is an old dear,’ the governor-general confided to his diary in 1918, ‘There’s no one in Austr[alia] I like so much.’ Griffith—whom Munro Ferguson found ‘the most intellectual person here’, though also a little alarming—had been incapacitated by a stroke in March 1917, leaving Barton once more at the head of the High Court for several months. Griffith recovered, but remained in poor health. Without a pension he was unwilling to resign. When Forrest was given a peerage early in 1918 Munro Ferguson thought that Griffith should have one too, but although Hughes agreed nothing was done. Instead the Commonwealth government undertook to legislate to provide him with a retirement pension. Both Griffith and Barton continued to be consulted by Munro Ferguson, their status as privy councillors providing justification. This probably ensured that at a time of political turbulence the governor-general ensured that he was in receipt of authentically Australian advice, albeit conservative. His role as elder statesman brought Barton considerable pleasure. One ambition remained to him. More and more he came to hope that on Griffith’s resignation he might at last crown his career with a few years as chief justice.

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of peace in November 1918 brought more comfort. The Bartons were a fortunate family who had lost no sons during the war and they could look forward to enjoying their increasing tally of grandchildren. More and more Edmund and Jeanie grew in closeness. The Athenaeum Club was no longer a distraction, its membership ageing and diminished. Its spacious premises were no longer required and Rosebery sold them during the war; it was the only one of his land speculations in Australia which paid. A few years later the Club expired. In these years, Edmund found his recreation among family and friends. Some, like Jeanie’s sister Nellie and Edmund’s niece Nellie Salmon—the small child who years ago had gone to New Zealand with her grandmother, now a pillar of the Christian Science movement—were much with the Bartons. There was usually a stream of callers on the Sundays when Edmund was not away on circuit and the Bartons’ generosity to those less fortunate was still notable. When George Barton’s widow was considered for a pension under the Commonwealth Literary Fund it emerged that Edmund and Jeanie were one of the main sources of support for her and her child. Jeanie, still in her husband’s words ‘super-energetic’, enjoyed the bustle and the company. There were no longer children living at home, now that Oswald and Stephanie were both married, and increasingly she missed Edmund during his absences on High Court circuit. They fussed about each HE COMING

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other’s health. When they were together there were grandchildren to share and summer holidays in the Blue Mountains; from time to time Edmund and Jeanie would take the ferry to the North Shore and find a good spot by the waterside to light a fire, boil the billy and cook a picnic of sausages. In January 1919 Barton turned 70, conscious that his generation was passing. He wrote to his son: ‘. . . our friends of old days die off, & when we grow old we somehow lose the knack of making new ones. We think people don’t want us. It is hard to convince us that they do: very.’ Two major figures in the Federation movement had died in recent months. Forrest, still hungering for the prime ministership, held on as Hughes’s treasurer until an incurable cancer loosened his grip. Before leaving on a sea voyage to take up his membership of the House of Lords and seek medical advice, he wrote to a mutual friend, Sir John Langdon Bonython, saying of Barton: Barton was the most high-minded and honourable of all the Prime Ministers we have had, and that is not sufficient comparison as he was so far ahead of all the others—so true and faithful and reliable altogether. He and I were sworn friends. We thought alike and were not full of guile and deceit, or willing to win at any price.

As probably intended, Bonython passed the letter on to Barton; and a few weeks later in August 1918 the news came of Forrest’s death in great agony off the coast of West Africa. Sir George Reid followed in September. At 73, even the abolition of his seat in the House of Commons could not persuade him that it was time to give up politics and he had just gained pre-selection for another when he died. Sir Philip Fysh, at 84 the oldest of them, went early in 1919. Deakin was barely into his sixties, but his mind seemed permanently darkened. And at the High Court neither Griffith nor Barton was in good health. In December 1918 the Commonwealth parliament at last passed legislation entitling Griffith to a retirement pension at half-salary. There was a good deal of opposition from members who thought priority should be given to returned servicemen and the unemployed,

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and the government did not venture to ask for retirement pensions for the other members of the High Court. Griffith still held on and Barton was not yet ready to retire. Despite his health he was determined to build up as much capital as possible so that Jeanie might be comfortable in her widowhood, or as he put it punningly to his son, ‘. . . the old packhorse may give out at any time—& there is the dear old mère’. In addition Wilfrid’s marriage had broken up and in returning to civilian life he needed family financial support, while he was rebuilding his legal practice. Remittances still went from time to time to Arnold in Canada, and Oswald, back from the war with a wife and young child, needed help in purchasing and building up a medical practice at Wingham, north of Newcastle in Barton’s old constituency: ‘I remember knowing of it at least 45 years ago,’ Sir Edmund told his son, ‘. . . It used to be thought a very slow-moving place.’ But it suited Oswald Barton and over the ensuing weeks his father wrote to him frequently with sage and pertinent advice: It is bad policy to offer servants more than the prevailing rate, though it is good policy to give them the highest rate actually prevailing. Reason: to outbid others ruins the market, but to be a fair employer steadies and improves it. You will have strangers as patients, many of them women. Take care not to use too much slang. It does make one appear something out of the ordinary, I grant. But we may be out of the ordinary, & yet very common. Same as swear words . . . Besides, no one in a community is more keenly watched, & therefore more the object of criticism, than the doctor.

Or, in a less Chesterfieldian vein which would resonate for many modern readers: ‘If a builder promises to do the job in 3 months, it takes 9. If he promises faithfully & swears by all his Gods, it takes from 12 to 18.’ Griffith could not bring himself to write his letter of resignation until June 1919. Barton, although not surprised, was dismayed: Up to then, two at any rate of the three original judges of the Court remained—now there will be only one. The result is an undescribable loneliness and the sundering of the old compan-

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ionship will make me feel the chill of isolation . . . I have done my best to be a loyal colleague to a great Chief whose imprint on the juridical records of Australia is deep and will remain.

Who was to succeed Griffith? All his colleagues thought it must be Barton. Higgins and Powers supported his claims. Isaacs, Gavan Duffy and Rich agreed that it would be intolerable if an ‘outsider’ were appointed, and Rich wrote in this sense to Barton. Evidently his colleagues agreed with Munro Ferguson’s subsequent analysis: Sir Edmund Barton had the best claim to the office by reason of his position in the High Court and the part he played in the foundation of the Commonwealth, of which he was first Prime Minister . . . but [added the governor-general] though in full possession of his faculties, his health is precarious.

It was too true. On his half-yearly visit to his physician (the fashionable Dr Herbert Henry Bullmore, later to become grandfather of Kerry Packer), Barton was informed that his heart was in poor condition, possibly as a result of too much bushwalking in the Blue Mountains. During late June and July he was confined to home for several weeks. This meant that he was unable to attend the lord mayor of Sydney’s Victory banquet, at which he was invited to respond to the mayor’s speech. How far Barton regarded his speech for the Victory banquet as a conscious valedictory to the Australian people cannot be guessed, but he apparently took a good deal of trouble over it. He welcomed the coming of the League of Nations, seeing its covenant to submit matters of dispute to arbitration by international tribunal as a great step forward for the processes of law and mediation: ‘It will be seen how great is the obstacle it places in the way of wars of aggression and also how incalculable will be the danger of entering upon such wars.’ Then he turned to the situation within Australia: We hear much of external peace. What are we doing about internal peace? . . . How strange it is that although our citizens have given such boundless proof throughout the war of amity, even affection for each other, we have the one startling exception

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that the Good Angel is put to flight when the relations are those of employer and employee. A new spirit in this regard cannot be made by any artifice of the legislator . . . Arbitrary conduct on the one hand, callous disregard of agreement on the other, what are they but attempts at tyranny on the one hand and dishonour to the pledged word on the other? To both sides Australia may cry with justice ‘LEAVE OFF DENOUNCING EACH OTHER’; let each side look to its own faults. The present way is the way of strife. The new way is and must be the way of peace.

In a postwar Australia riddled with class conflict, industrial disharmony and sectarian rancour, Barton’s plea for mediation and consensus must have seemed as illusory as his hopes for the League of Nations. But mediation and consensus were all the values he knew. They had served to bring about the Australian Federation, and they might yet serve to hold together the more strenuous Australia of the twentieth century. If this had been Barton’s last word to his fellow Australians it might have seemed no more effectual than Griffith’s attempt a little later to address what he called ‘The Social Problem’, urging that community rules based on power be abandoned in favour of cooperation and fraternity. Both old men believed that their status as architects of Australian Federation gave them a special calling to provide a sense of direction in the confusion of postwar Australia. Both could be seen as the remnants of an age which had passed and, perhaps, the years spent in detailed legal analysis robbed their generalisations of freshness and point. But the sense of civic responsib ility moved strongly in them a nd, in Ba rton’s ca se, the opportunity arose to make a statement for which his authority was unique. Invited by Farmer Whyte, the enterprising editor of the Brisbane Daily Mail, to write on the current condition of federalism, Barton was aroused to defend his creation. In an article entitled ‘The Godfathers of Federation’ he defended the leaders of the movement from assertions that they under-estimated the costs of federation and dismissed the possibility of one government for Australia. ‘Nothing was further from their thoughts than unification,’ he wrote. The essential feature of their task was to set up a

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system allowing for change when it was needed. If the Constitution or its makers ‘had attempted to set bounds to the exercise of popular judgement in the future’, the voters would have made short work of them. It was for future generations to show the same skill in negotiating change as the founders brought to the making of the Constitution. It was fateful that Barton’s health prevented him going to Brisbane to attend Griffith’s farewell ceremony on 25 July. Munro Ferguson was there and while speaking privately with Griffith found him vexed and troubled about his successor: ‘. . . the one consideration in his mind was to secure at all costs the utmost measure of stability for the High Court. He could think and speak of nothing else.’ Living in Queensland where a Labor government had taken controversial measures to neutralise a hostile judiciary, Griffith was fearful that if Labor won office at the federal level it might pack the High Court with sympathisers. Barton’s poor health suggested the risk of an untimely death which might allow Labor to replace him with a sympathetic chief justice: Isaacs, perhaps, or Higgins, if not some completely impossible third party. Rather than go to the existing High Court, cabinet should select a suitably robust newcomer. Griffith suggested the 56-year-old Adrian Knox. Decisive, cynical, quick-tempered, an ardent patron of the turf, Knox was probably the leading member of the Sydney Bar and already a name spoken of for the High Court. Munro Ferguson agreed to communicate this advice to Hughes when the prime minister returned from overseas at the end of August. But confidentiality prevented him from informing Barton and Griffith chose not to say anything. It was not the first time that he had gone behind Barton’s back. As in the Commonwealth Bill negotiations of 1900 he probably thought himself justified by his seniority and superior intellect. Perhaps also Griffith did not realise—as Munro Ferguson certainly did not—how much Barton had come to want the position. Barton’s code of manners would not have allowed him to speak of his hopes. But it would have been inhuman if those hopes had not arisen in him, having stood back for Griffith in 1903, having deputised for him and carried so much of the burden in recent years; and Barton was never inhuman.

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By August he was fit enough to resume his public duties. He attended a meeting of the Sydney University Senate at which a very bright graduate named H. V. Evatt was appointed to lecture in Roman law. On 23 August, shortly before Hughes’ return, he left to preside over a Court sitting in Perth, expecting that the chief justice would be selected in his absence. In fact October arrived without any decision, although the governor-general had passed on Griffith’s advice to Hughes within a week of his return. Barton was back in Sydney when Alfred Deakin died. He wrote Deakin’s widow a feeling letter of condolence. He was still preoccupied with the concept of honour as a guiding principle in public life: I always looked on Alfred Deakin with a reverent admiration, until better knowledge of him turned admiration into love without effacing in the least my estimate of his greatness of heart and mind. At first his purity & nobility filled my mental vision, but later they shared the field with the tenderness which intimacy made so manifest. And thus his image was before me to the last & still is before me, like the effigy of some noble knight of the days of chivalry. One wonders whether the present times are, or the times to come will be, such as to give soil for the growth of chivalry among men. The condition we see is such as to extirpate that holy plant . . .

Perhaps stimulated into thinking of his own mortality, he took the opportunity when in Melbourne the next week to raise the matter of the chief justiceship at a private visit to Government House. Dismayed, Munro Ferguson immediately wrote to Hughes advising him of Barton’s feelings. It was too late. Cabinet had already decided on Adrian Knox, concluding that their best course was to select some distinguished member of the Legal Profession who, being in the prime of life, could be expected to hold the office for some years and give stability to the High Court.

Barton at 70 was not really too old for the job. Two of his colleagues later became chief justice at greater ages, Isaacs at 75

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and Gavan Duffy at 80. But the government could not take chances on Barton’s health and Knox was appointed because he had the better chance of living long enough to thwart a Labor government. It also helped that he was not committed, as Griffith and Barton were committed, to the original federal compact and so had fewer qualms about enlarging the Commonwealth’s powers (and the powers of the Hughes government) at the expense of the States. All the same, Hughes was probably sincere when he replied to Munro Ferguson: We all—every member of Cabinet—desired to give it to Sir Edmund as a reward for his long and distinguished service . . . I wish you could see Sir Edmund and explain how the matter stands, and tell him from me and all my colleagues that we regret very much we were not able to crown with this final honour the career of such a great and distinguished man.

‘The root of the trouble,’ Munro Ferguson wrote in his diary that night, ‘was the lack of any retiring allowances. Had there been that then Sir S. should have ret[ired] two or three years ago. Sir E. Barton sd. have had the post for that period and Knox could have been appointed before the Govt went to the country.’ Having sought Hughes’ assurance that a proposed Constitutional Convention would go ahead next year, no doubt as a compensatory means of enabling Barton to make a final contribution to the public service, Munro Ferguson broke the news to the old statesman on Thursday evening, 16 October. It was, the governor-general later wrote, ‘very painful to me and none the less because of the sweetness and courage with which he met the blow. I felt as if I were hurting my father . . .’ Barton took it ‘with the calm that always distinguishes him’. According to Munro Ferguson he ‘sent an arranged message to Lady Barton and did not lie awake more than an hour’. The next evening, at dinner with Munro Ferguson and Sir William Irvine, he could even make a joke about his disappointment: ‘Sir E. agreed that if a Labor Gov. came in to make the appointment, then if he were to die the fat would be in the fire—along with his own.’ The governor-general showed him Hughes’ apologetic letter, and softened the blow by not only taking him to the Caulfield Cup but

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also presenting him with what Barton described to his wife as two bottles of ‘exquisite champagne’, 21 years old, and another of 1863 vintage brandy. Munro Ferguson knew his man. Resolutely Barton met Knox on Monday 20 October at the Spencer Street station; Knox said he appreciated nothing in his life more. Barton administered the oath at his swearing in and went with him to a welcoming dinner tendered by the Melbourne Bar Association. By convention the toast of the honoured guest should have been given by the junior member of the Bar, who at that time happened to be Robert Menzies. Unfortunately several senior lawyers, including the chairman of the dinner, Hayden Starke, had taken against Menzies because of what they saw as a self-assurance inexcusable in one who had not seen war service. Instead, the speech welcoming Knox was entrusted to a very senior member, Sir Edward Mitchell. This proved disastrous. Mitchell was tediously longwinded. At length Starke scribbled a message to Menzies on his menu: ‘Menzies, propose Barton’s health.’ The young man rose ably to the occasion, capping his impromptu speech with a quotation from Swinburne: I come as one whose thoughts half linger, Half run before; The youngest to the oldest singer That England bore.

‘The speech,’ Menzies liked to remember, ‘. . . made me known to the judges; and restored me, permanently, I believe, to Starke’s good graces.’ Barton congratulated him with his habitual warmth towards promising young people; and so the first of Australia’s Liberal prime ministers made contact with the successor who most resembled him. But the disappointment dimmed his spirit. To his wife he admitted: ‘If they went outside the Bench, Knox was far and away the best man they could choose and he will make a fine Chief Justice, but I should be glad if some outlook in life had been left to me.’ ‘It can’t be pleasant to have one’s record ignored,’ he told his son, ‘but enough. I have had a good many knock down blows—and

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always got up again. So it is now, and no one outside gets a shred of evidence of what I have felt.’ On his return to Sydney early in November he looked in such wretched health that his wife promptly ordered him to bed and called for Dr Bullmore. Barton was suffering from oedema in his legs, for which Bullmore prescribed a digitalis mixture and three weeks in bed. A few days later, having written to Griffith about Knox’s appointment, Barton received what Munro Ferguson later described as ‘a hard, unsympathetic letter’ in reply. Griffith explained his reasons for passing over Barton with more than sufficient clarity. Anguished, Barton sent the letter on to Munro Ferguson: It shouts out—though he does not think it does—the advice he gave when consulted as to the appointment of his successor. It also shows that his dominant desire was to requite in deadly fashion the man who had injured him, and to make this certain he did not care if it killed the man who had helped him. However, that man means to live.

This probably meant that Griffith was more anxious to keep Isaacs out than to advance Barton, though in the absence of Griffith’s original letter it is impossible to be quite certain. Munro Ferguson did his best at consolation: . . . at so advanced an age personal affections in most men— though not with all—become faint. I do know that Sir Samuel entertains warmer feelings towards you than towards anyone else and that he must have shared the sentiments which were well expressed by Mr Hughes and in which all participate.

Gradually Barton appeared to mend. The family remembers Dr Bullmore as calling each morning to prescribe how many oysters his distinguished patient might safely consume at lunch. By 6 December the swelling in the patient’s legs was gone and Dr Bullmore was able to discontinue his visits, so that at Christmas the Bartons were able to take their regular holiday in the Blue Mountains. They stayed at the Hydro-Majestic Hotel, that improbable Edwardian spa

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at Medlow Bath. Usually they went bushwalking together, but Edmund’s health was not good enough. He could no longer attempt stairs and they would have to consider finding another home when they returned to Sydney. It was a wet summer, with ten days of rain culminating in a 120-millimetre downpour on 5 and 6 January. Confined to his hotel during this time, Barton caught up with his correspondence. A young woman doctor had written to him, inviting his support for a memorial to his old friend Lawrence Hargrave, the aviation pioneer. In his reply Barton regretted that his health prevented him from active participation in the appeal, but he warmly gave his support: I shall be very glad indeed if anything can be done to mark the public sense of the value of Lawrence Hargrave’s work. When every dullard grinned and guffawed at the notion of man flying. Genius long before him had suffered the scoffs of the half-blind, and today again, when aviation is proved, the wiseacres curl their lips at the prospect of commercial aviation as a harebrained project. Why, within three years we shall have aerial mail and passenger ships flying between Sydney and, say, Plymouth or London, with a great junction probably at Cairo or Delhi . . . Lawrence Hargrave is undoubtedly the man whose memory is to be honoured.

It was a characteristically zestful and forward-looking letter, but it was almost his last. He wrote optimistically about his health, informing one friend that although there had been a slight recurrence of swelling in his right leg his heart and lungs seemed a good deal better. On the morning on Wednesday 7 January he rose as usual to take his morning bath. When after nearly an hour he failed to return his wife became alarmed. The bathroom door was opened, and Sir Edmund was found in pyjamas and dressing-gown prone on the floor. The doctor was fetched from Katoomba, but it was all over. The death certificate stated that the cause of death was mitral valvular disease of indefinite duration leading to cerebral embolism. A State funeral followed, with a service in St Andrew’s Cathedral preceding burial in the South Head cemetery, and the tributes flowed in. The newspapers remembered him as ‘Australia’s noblest

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son’. They spoke of his able and patriotic leadership, his great qualities as a federalist, his magnetic personality. A Sydney Morning Herald editorial recalled how at the University of Sydney, ‘he alone among the orators could command a hearing at the rowdy reunions of undergraduates of whom he was so loved an alumnus . . . nothing could ruffle ‘‘good old Toby’’.’ The Commonwealth parliament passed motions of condolence, though the impish old member for Melbourne, Dr William Maloney, could not refrain from questioning why Barton had not been made chief justice. Probably Jeanie Barton most valued the private letter from Munro Ferguson: There can never have been a more loveable friend, a more delightful companion, nor a greater public servant. His humour & kindliness added . . . charm to his intellectual & other gifts—& I have greatly appreciated the advantage of having close relations with one who joined to the experience of age the freshness & elasticity of mind & generous sympathies usually associated with youth.

One reporter asked Griffith for a comment. A few days earlier Griffith had entered in his diary: ‘V[ery] tired and weak. Brain very weary.’ But he rallied to comment that he was greatly shocked, as he and Sir Edmund had been personal friends for many years, and then remarked, perhaps with that grim satisfaction of one old man who has outlived another slightly younger, that Barton had never been well since the October sittings of the High Court.

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later Griffith died. Within a few days of his funeral the High Court brought down its verdict in the Engineers Case, overthrowing the doctrine of Commonwealth–State relations which he and Barton had upheld. Isaacs led all his colleagues except Gavan Duffy in declaring that the implied immunity of instrumentalities was an outmoded concept whose inconveniences sapped its validity as a legal standard. This verdict encouraged the tendency fostered by the 1914–18 war for the Commonwealth’s powers to encroach on those of the States, a trend continuing in the postwar years. Under Hughes the Commonwealth established the Tariff Board, ancestor of the modern Productivity Commission, set up a new system of industrial tribunals and entered the fields of scientific research and oil refining. During the 1919 election Hughes had promised to set up a new Constitutional Convention to look at the changes in the federal structure suggested by time and experience, and Barton in his last months had cherished the hope that this would afford him an opportunity for public usefulness. It was not a propitious time. An attempt in 1920 to remodel the Inter-State Commission lapsed because economy-minded politicians of all shades baulked at the cost and when Hughes introduced his proposal for a convention, in December 1921, it fared no better. His scheme would have called for a convention consisting half of members nominated in equal EVEN MONTHS

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numbers by the State governments and half of directly elected delegates chosen on a population basis. States’ righters preferred the formula of 1891 and 1897 in which each State had equal numbers; members from New South Wales and Victoria disagreed. Not for the last time a later generation proved incapable of reaching agreement even on the procedures for discussing constitutional change. Hughes saw that the plan was friendless and withdrew it. In 1923 his leadership was overthrown and Stanley Bruce came to office at the head of a National–Country party coalition. One of the ablest and most under-rated of Australian prime ministers, Bruce brought a businessman’s logic to the problem of Commonwealth– State relations, striving above all for clarity in the division of responsibilities. During his six years as prime minister the federal parliament was at last brought to the nation’s capital, Canberra. The Commonwealth assumed sole responsibility for overseas borrowing and in 1927 a financial agreement was accepted, with provision for a federal loan council. In the same year a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate the working of the Constitution and to make recommendations. It reported in September 1929. A few days later Bruce’s ministry came to grief over arbitration. Having unsuccessfully sought at a 1926 referendum to secure increased powers over industrial relations for the Commonwealth, Bruce in 1929 introduced legislation to relinquish the field, with a few exceptions, to the States. Hughes, who had been brooding about his displacement on the backbenches, and who genuinely believed in federal control of industrial relations, seized the opportunity of crossing the floor with a few supporters and bringing about the government’s defeat. The Labor government which won the ensuing election was immediately overwhelmed by the Great Depression and all further hope of major constitutional change disappeared. During the 1930s Australians were distracted by economic and social problems more pressing than constitutional change. It was natural that the work of the founders of Federation should recede somewhat into the background. Occasionally a survivor of the period was tempted into newspaper reminiscences: Atlee Hunt in the Argus at the end of 1931, Ernest Scott and George Cockerill, who as political journalists had covered the making of Federation

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closely, a few years later. Each of them remembered Barton with warmth and testified to both his abilities and the unstinting dedication with which he pursued the federal ideal. All, while fully admitting his love of sociability and good living, wrote with admiration of the qualities of intellect and passion which Barton brought to a cause in which his energies were engaged. To a rising generation confronting the rise of fascism and communism in Europe, the increasing likelihood of a second World War and the miseries of the Depression, such accounts probably sounded like old history. Constitutional change seemed the plaything of the rural conservatives who wanted to create new States in the Riverina or New England, or pushed for the secession of Western Australia. It was not a climate to encourage calm appraisal of the process by which six Australian colonies were welded into a nation, or of the parts played by the leading architects of Federation. Barton’s family cherished his reputation, but they took no prominent part in Australian public life. Jeanie Barton survived until February 1938. She travelled once more to England to see her second son Wilfrid happily re-married and his career prospering. He was to become a King’s Counsel and, not without irony, a legal adviser to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Arnold, the third son, lived on in Canada with a variety of jobs, the last as a nightwatchman. The younger daughter, Stephanie Scot-Skirving, accompanied her husband to a Queensland pastoral run, for he was one of a number of returned men who sought to expunge memories of the Western Front in the therapeutic, if financially unrewarding, rhythms of bush life. The other children remained in New South Wales. They and Jeanie’s grandchildren, friends and a housekeeper-companion, provided a satisfying circle for the end of a life which had begun in the dusty Newcastle of the 1850s and included the opulent summer of Edward VII’s Coronation. The younger Edmund Barton, who inherited his father’s scholarly tastes, became a District Court judge. Oswald was for many years a respected medical practitioner at Scone in the Hunter Valley. Jean Alice and her husband David Maughan, the family’s man of affairs, looked after the archives and correspondence which Sir Edmund left behind him. These papers were lodged in the National Library of

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Australia in 1929. Unlike Deakin’s son-in-law, Herbert Brookes, the Barton family did not hasten to find a biographer for their parent, which may have helped to influence the verdicts of historians in the future. Alfred Deakin: a Biographical Sketch was published in 1923. Its author, Walter Murdoch, professor of English at the University of Western Australia, had been an Argus reporter before he became an academic and was something of a protégé of Deakin’s. His description of the federal movement can be taken as reflecting conversations with Deakin and, more especially, with Herbert Brookes. His account of Barton portrayed a man who, having exerted himself strenuously until the achievement of Federation, tended to slacken his efforts on becoming prime minister and to rely on Deakin’s support until the opportunity of the High Court arose. Undeniably Deakin had to cover for Barton to some extent during his depressive phase in the early months of 1902 and for the subsequent period of his absence at the Coronation, but in 1901 and again in 1903 Barton’s leadership was evident. It is improbable that strong-willed colleagues such as Lyne and Kingston would have responded tractably to Deakin’s management in the early years of the Commonwealth parliament. Murdoch’s picture had its influence, however, and two years later the first edition of the Australian Encyclopaedia placed inordinate emphasis on Barton’s alleged indolence. David Maughan and the younger Edmund Barton were swift to protest and more than twenty years later, when a second edition was mooted, they were at pains to seek correction. In 1937 the Tasmanian journalist and historian John Reynolds began work on a biography of Barton. He was encouraged by survivors of the Federation period such as Garran and Hughes. Sir Isaac Isaacs told him that ‘he didn’t appreciate biographies, but considered some record of Barton should be made as soon as practicable’. Reynolds was able to conduct some valuable interviews with these men and with others who had known Barton personally. Progress was delayed by World War II, but by 1946 the manuscript was in a condition to be submitted to Barton’s children for comment. The biography was published in 1948 with a preface by Robert Menzies.

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Within the limitations of the material available at that time Reynolds dealt fairly by his subject, taking pains to defend him against the charges of indolence and incapacity and re-telling the story of the campaign for Federation in each of the six colonies. He was not able to go as deeply as he wished into Barton’s career in New South Wales politics, and his treatment of the High Court years was somewhat cursory, but he understood Barton’s pivotal role at the 1897–98 Convention and in the subsequent referendum campaigns so that it would never be possible to write Barton off as a mere figurehead. But it has been Deakin’s perspective which has dominated the historiography of Federation. In part this reflects the pre-eminence of Melbourne as a school of Australian historical writing. Sydney historians, whether universitybased or not, tended when they addressed Australian history to concentrate on the convict era and the conquest of the pastoral inland, and largely ignored political history after self-government. Deakin’s version was to gain greater prominence with the publication in 1944 of The Federal Story, an account written immediately after the Federation campaign. This in turn helped to shape the thinking of Murdoch’s former student, John La Nauze, in his lifelong career of scholarship, as biographer of Deakin and Murdoch and author of The Making of the Australian Constitution. La Nauze and later historians have not been uncritical in their use of Deakin as a source, but Deakin’s subtle and penetrating intellect, his lively penportraits of individuals and his fascination with the operations of power combine to colour the views of all who have written on the Federation movement. He was close to Barton and, as we have seen, when he died Barton wrote of him with evident feeling and sincerity. Deakin himself never denigrated Barton while alive, and it was Deakin who warned historians that ‘One ought not to pick exposures or become exposer when the witnesses are dead.’ But it is just possible that his writings have contributed to posterity’s under-estimation of Barton. At the Convention of 1897–98 Deakin, in common with the other Victorian delegates, felt some sense of injustice that their own colony, perhaps the foremost in enthusiasm for Federation, took second place to New South Wales in dominating the conduct of

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business. That Barton was leader of the Convention might be seen as proper recognition of his experience and services; but it was less acceptable that Reid outshone Turner among the premiers, or that there was no Victorian either on the drafting committee or in the chair of the finance or judiciary committee. Deakin’s portraits of the New South Wales delegates on the whole do them less than justice. His bias against Reid and Lyne was particularly marked, although he and Barton at some stages of the Federation campaign probably fed each other’s concepts of Reid as untrustworthy and Lyne as hopelessly narrow and parochial. Even of Barton, Deakin summed up that ‘he could not be relied upon to rise regularly to his best level’. Understandably a methodical soul like Deakin was dismayed by Barton’s less businesslike approach to routine. But it was Deakin’s foible to present himself as a skilled behind-the-scenes operator and to imply at times that he was responsible for initiatives for which others got the credit. Melbourne historians have sometimes accepted this implication; R. M. Crawford, for instance, in his biography of Arnold Wood suggests that it took Deakin’s prompting before Barton intervened to defend the pro-Boer professor against the loss of his post. For Manning Clark, Barton was ‘a Pontius Pilate type of liberal. He did not like to face up to big questions’. (But Clark also called Barton ‘a man of wit and wideranging sympathies’ and wrote far less charitably of the Melburnian Deakin.) New South Wales histcrians, on the other hand, showed no sign of bias in Barton’s favour. W. G. McMinn, in his much-needed rehabilitation of George Reid, inevitably presented his subject as overshadowing Barton. Neville Meaney, writing of Australian defence and foreign policy in the early years of the Commonwealth, thought Barton’s statements on the subject shrouded in ‘flabby language’, though he conceded that this continued vagueness gave him great flexibility in manoeuvring, which was no doubt Barton’s intention. It would be superficial to explain Barton’s reputation in historical judgement as the product of Melbourne–Sydney rivalry. It is perhaps more to the point that modern Australians are less likely than those of a generation ago to admire the achievements of the first Commonwealth parliament which Barton led. Much of its attention was

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necessarily taken up with creating the essential infrastructure for administering the new federation: the public service, the High Court, the mechanisms of State–Commonwealth relations. Its three major legislative achievements were the White Australia policy, the Naval Agreement and tariff protection. A modern multicultural society cannot be expected to applaud White Australia; but for Barton and his contemporaries the American Civil War was still a lively memory and a warning of the problems which might be generated by using non-Europeans as a cheap labour force lacking equal citizen rights. It was preferable to quarantine the new Australian Commonwealth against racial disharmony (and in the process to ignore Aboriginal policy as a matter better left to the individual States). The Naval Agreement is remembered, if at all, as an early example of Australia’s prolonged reliance on ‘great and powerful allies’; it is difficult to envisage realistic alternatives, but the Agreement nurtures no nationalist mythmaking. In a world where, as Barton reminded Tom Roberts, all the world except the United Kingdom and Turkey was building up industries behind the walls of protective tariffs, an adolescent economy such as Australia’s could hardly prosper without taking similar measures. Policy-makers at the end of the twentieth century move to a different orthodoxy. We shall not know how the historians of 2100 will judge their wisdom. In modern Australian historiography the radical-nationalist tradition has been stronger than the conservative, and Barton was undeniably in many respects a conservative. The formality of his public manner, his loyalty to Crown and Empire, his approval of conscription in wartime, all savoured of a political style which was rapidly going out of fashion even before the retirement of Sir Robert Menzies in 1966. To a product of the postwar reconstruction generation such as L. F. Crisp, moved by recollection of how the Commonwealth government’s potential as an agent for social change could be hampered by resistance from the States, the Federal Constitution of 1900 seemed a botched opportunity. Crisp identified Barton as one of a coterie with ‘a narrowly conservative and provincialist federalism . . . which urged their constitutional confection on the Australian people on a ‘‘now-or-never, take-it-or-leave-it’’ note at the end of the 1890s’. If only the Convention delegates and the voting

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public had taken notice of men like Higgins and Piddington, who would vote ‘No’ to Federation rather than accept an undemocratic Senate favouring the smaller States! Perhaps after more than twenty years of largely abortive attempts at constitutional reform Australians at the end of the twentieth century can look more charitably and realistically at the achievement and ratification of Federation even within the options available at the end of the nineteenth century. It was not inevitable that the Australian colonies would federate on 1 January 1901, and it was not inevitable that they would otherwise have federated at some later date under an improved Constitution. Yet after a century’s experience of Federation few Australians would assert that it would have been preferable for the continent to remain divided. Barton’s importance in the achievement of Australian unity lies initially in the early commitment and passion which he brought to the cause, ensuring that the movement taken up by Parkes would be truly bipartisan, but still more at the point where he deviated from Parkes. Instead of remaining with the Parkesian concept of the federal compact as something to be negotiated between senior statesmen, Barton perceived that the Australian public must participate in its shaping. The Federation Leagues launched in the summer of 1892–93 led directly to the Corowa Conference and to the demand for a popularly elected Convention. When the second Convention met in 1897–98 Barton drew his special legitimacy as its leader from the fact that he secured more votes than any other delegate. Part of his contest with Reid arose from their competition to figure as the more convincing bearer of the popular mandate. Both Barton and Reid were essential to the success of the federal movement; Reid as the skilled negotiator with other premiers, Barton as the less obviously political spokesman for the ideal of ‘a nation for a continent’. If it was not quite true to say, as Henry Lawson asserted, that ‘New South Wales is Australia’, it was the essential component without which no viable federation could be constructed, as the experience of the ramshackle Federal Council had already shown. Inevitably, because of his role as premier defending his colony, Reid could not command the nationwide acceptability that Barton did.

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Barton could not have commanded support outside New South Wales by oratory alone. He was judged by his performance at the 1897–98 Convention. His contribution was made not so much by the originality or profundity of his constitutional thinking—though he showed more creativity than he has sometimes been credited with—as by his readiness to work unstintingly towards workable compromises. This, as with issues such as women’s suffrage and industrial arbitration, sometimes involved abandoning his original conservative position. Practitioners of politics as the art of the possible are seldom seen as heroic, but Barton’s continuing struggle to achieve agreement among the strong-willed and experienced members of the Convention was admired at the time, and still commands respect. There were some issues, however, on which he would not compromise, especially in his belief in the capacity of Australians to manage their own affairs without parental intervention by the British authorities. This confidence in the native experience underpinned his stand on Privy Council appeals in London in 1900, remained with him in his negotiations on migration and defence policy while prime minister, and underlay his views on Anglo-Australian relations even in his last years. He never questioned that Australia should stand with Britain and other Englishspeaking communities, but it should be a partnership of equals. Nor, despite his disappointment over the conscription referenda in the 1914–18 war, did he ever abandon his certainty that in any major political change it was essential to secure the agreement of a majority of citizens. This would have been his answer to later critics such as Crisp. The Constitution which emerged from the Federal Conventions may not have been perfection, but it was the best that would secure public approval. In this insistence on the priority of democratic verdicts Barton distinguished himself from conservatives (and radicals) of a more dogmatic stamp. Looking back in old age, Robert Garran summed it up: Barton won recognition as leader of the federal movement and hence first prime minister because: He was the acknowledged leader of Australian union and of that only . . . Without any of the arts of the demagogue but by

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intense conviction and ceaseless work, he became the accepted leader of the people of all the colonies of Australia, and led them to a great decision. He could do this only because, with the whole of his makeup, and being the man he was, he was the one man for the job.

Other nations found their first leaders in military or revolutionary heroes. It suits the Australian temper that the first prime minister should be one who simply concentrated on a purpose from which he drew no financial or professional benefit, used democratic processes to bring an ideal to reality and found himself recognised as the one man for the job.

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Notes Notes

Note: to avoid confusion, Edmund Barton is at all times referred to as ‘Barton’. The following abbreviations appear in the notes: ADB AJPH ANU CPD DL DT HS JRAHS ML NLA NSWPD PRO Page 1 2–3

Australian Dictionary of Biography Australian Journal of Politics and History Australian National University Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary Debates Dixson Library manuscripts Daily Telegraph (Sydney) Historical Studies (now Australian Historical Studies) Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society Mitchell Library manuscripts National Library of Australia New South Wales Parliamentary Debates Public Records Office (London)

Family background material from NLA 51/1043. For William Barton’s appointment see George Barton to William Barton, 15 September 1827 (NLA 51/1/2); D.L. Bairstow, ‘The Australian Agricultural Company at Port Stephens: an archaeological contribution to history’ (PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 1985). Barton’s squabbles with Parry are documented in W.E. Parry to W. Barton, 8 February 1830; W. Barton to W.E. Parry, 29 March 1831; W. Barton to Chambers, 30 April 1831 (NLA 378, vol. 1); W. Barton, Report of a Trial on an Indictment promoted by Captain Sir W. Edward Parry, RN (London, 1832) (PRO CO f.59+); and W. Barton, The Affairs of The Australian 348

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3–4

4 5

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8 9

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11

12 13

Agricultural Company ( Lond on, 1837) . I a m ind ebted to Dr Pennie Pemberton for guidance with these materials. For William Barton’s Sydney career see the Sydney Herald, 1, 8 and 15 September 1834, 6 April 1831, 7 May 1835; S. Salsbury and K. Sweeney, The Bull, the Bear and the Kangaroo: The History of the Sydney Stock Exchange (Sydney, 1988), pp. 19–22. Bankruptcy Register 1, Box 16, no. 690; ADB Archives. The Hereford Street address comes from F. Macdonnell, The Glebe (Sydney, 1972), but no authority is given. W. Barton’s career is covered in Salsbury and Sweeney, pp. 38–43. G. Barton to W. Barton, 9 January 1854 (NLA 51/1/17); E. Simpson-Booker to G.C. Bolton, 16 February 2000. The Bishop Barker story is taken from People, 3 January 1951, apparently a reliable source. Other childhood material is taken from J. Reynolds, Edmund Barton (Sydney, 1948), p. 6; Bulletin, 2 December 1882. G.B. Barton to W. Barton, 5 May 1875 (NLA 51/1/75–6); death certificate, Ellen Barton. G.B. Barton from J.M. Ward, ‘George Burdett Barton’ in ADB, vol. 3, pp. 113–15 and Bulletin, 21 September 1901 (a good article, but he is misnamed as George Bernard Barton). G. Barton to W. Barton, November 1859 (NLA 51/1/24). E. O’Connor to Barton, 9 February 1902 (NLA 51/1/192); A.B. Weigall, ‘The School’ in R. Watsford (ed.) Sydney Grammar School from its Earliest Days (Sydney, n.d.), quoted in Reynolds, p. 7; G.B. Barton, Literature in New South Wales (Sydney, 1866). For Charles Badham, see W. Radford, ‘Charles Badham’ in ADB, vol. 3, pp. 68–71; A.P. Backhouse, ‘The Freshman’s guide to the University: XI. Early days of the Union’, Union Recorder, 30 June 1960, reproducing an address given in 1897. Barton’s progress is taken from the University of Sydney Fees Register 1865–68 (University of Sydney Archives). Barton’s cricket career can be found in the Sydney University Cricket Club records (University of Sydney archives); Argus, 24 December 1870, also 26–28 December; SMH, 25 September 1871, 20, 22 and 27–30 December 1871; diary entries for 14 January and 24 March 1869, 21 and 22 October 1870 (NLA 51/1/949); and G.H. Reid, My Reminiscences (London, 1917), p. 226, confirmed by the anonymous writer (L.F. Heydon ?) in the Catholic Press, 9 November 1901. Courtship details are taken from Barton’s diary entries for 15–21 and 24 April, 1870; and the Newcastle Chronicle, 19 April 1870. See Barton’s diary entries for 26 and 30 May, 4 and 11 June 1870; Reynolds, p. 11 (Inexplicably, Reynolds dates Barton’s first meeting with Jeanie Ross in 1876.). Newcastle material is taken from the Newcastle Chronicle, 19 September 1868; Newcastle Morning Herald, 26 February 1938; W.J. Goold, ‘Inns and taverns of old Newcastle’ (typescript MS, Public Library, Newcastle);

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14

15

16

17

18

19

20 21 22–3

23 24

EDMUND BARTON

[Lady] Jean Maughan to John Reynolds, 14 February 1944 (NLA 292/2); and Cynthia Hunter, 7 October 1997. Licensing records give David Ross as licensee of the ‘Union Inn’ for each year from 1865 to 1868. George Ross (almost certainly his son) was licensee in 1871 and of a hotel in nearby Murrundi in 1874–74, so Miss Home’s influence had its limits. Barton’s legal debut is covered in the Town and Country Journal, 30 May 1872; and in Reynolds, p. 9. W. Barton’s later career is covered in S. Salsbury and K. Sweeney, Sydney Stockbrokers: Biographies of Members of the Sydney Stock Exchange (Sydney, 1992), pp. 36–8. Barton family material is taken from S. Bartley to W. Barton, 15 February 1858 (NLA 51/1/22); Barton’s diary from March and April 1869; the anonymous writer cited in the note for page 11; and Barton to W. Barton, 5 May 1875 (NLA 51/1/75–6). The description of Mr Barwise is taken from N. Bartley, Australian Pioneers and Reminiscences (Brisbane, 1896), p. 19. Bartley was William Barton’s son-in-law. George II died in 1760 and William went to work for Barwise in 1810. Deakin’s comparison is from the Morning Post, 20 June 1902. Barton to Ellen Home, 4 October 8172; Ellen Home to Barton, 14 October 1872 (NLA 51/1/67–8); Barton to Jeanie Ross, 23 February 1873 (NLA 51/1/73); Barton to Jeanie Ross, 30 March 1873 (NLA 51/1/74). SMH, 30 October and 4 November 1872; Sydney University Cricket Club Minutes, 26 March 1873 (University of Sydney archives); J. Pollard, The Formative Years of Australian Cricket 1823–1901 (Sydney, 1987), p. 180. Barton to W. Barton, 5 May 1875 (NLA 51/1/75–7); Bathurst Times, 4 December 1875, 14 June 1876, 10 and 14 March 1877 and 8 September 1877. I owe these references to the kindness of Mr Theo Barker of Bathurst. Backhouse, pp. 116–17; W.A. Purves to Barton, 6 July 1876 (NLA 51/1/77); SMH, 26 August 1876; also for the election campaign, 9, 16, 19 and 25 August, 1, 2 and 8 September 1876. Newcastle Herald, 29 December 1877; Jean Maughan to John Reynolds, 14 February 1944 (NLA 292/2). I have discussed the cricket riot more fully in ‘A cricket riot in Sydney, 1879’, a paper given at the Australian Sporting History Conference, Edith Cowan University, July 1997; also see SMH, 8, 10, 11 and 15 February 1879; Evening News, 8 February 1879; Lord Harris’s account in the Daily Telegraph (London), 1 April 1879; and Pollard, pp. 223–8. See SMH, 11, 14, 23 and 25 August 1879 for the election. Edwin Barton at SMH, 31 October 1879. For New South Wales politics in this period I follow J.B. Hirst, The Strange Birth of Colonial Democracy 1848–1884 (Sydney, 1988); P. Loveday and A.W. Martin, Factions and Parties: The First Thirty Years of

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25–6

26

27 28

29 30 31 33 34

35

38 39 40

Responsible Government in New South Wales 1856–1889 (Melbourne, 1966); A.W. Martin, Henry Parkes (Carlton, 1980); B. Dickey, Politics in New South Wales 1856–1900 (Melbourne, 1969); N.B. Nairn, ‘The political mastery of Sir Henry Parkes: New South Wales politics 1871–1891’, JRAHS, vol. 53 (1967), pp. 1–51. Information about Parkes’ debts and poetry comes from Sir Charles Dilke, Problems of Greater Britain (London, 1890), vol. 1, pp, 176. The education question may be pursued in A. Barcan, A Short History of Education in New South Wales (Sydney, 1965); G. Haines, Lay Catholics and the Education Question in New South Wales: The Shaping of a Decision (Sydney, 1976); M. Lyons, ‘Aspects of sectarianism in New South Wales circa 1865 to 1880’, PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1972. For the Land Acts, see S.H. Roberts, History of Australian Land Settlement 1788–1920 ( Lond on, 1924) ; G.L. B uxton, The Riverina 1861–1891: An Australian Regional Study (Melbourne, 1967). Speeches in NSWPD i, pp. 124–7, 455–61; ii, 2023–4, 2116–19; v, 211–3; vi, 2788–9. SMH, 23 November 1880; B. Dickey, ‘Michael Fitzpatrick’ in ADB, vol. 4, p. 185; C. Cunneen, ‘Sir William Lyne’ in ADB, vol. 10, pp. 179–82; W.G. McMinn, George Reid (Carlton, 1989), pp. 15–17; and Barton’s admirer, H.E. Cohen, SMH, 29 November 1882. NSWPD, iv, pp. 95, 689–90, 777; vi, p. 1590; vii, pp. 225, 611–3. The Hargrave material can be found at NLA 51/1. For the Athenaeum Club see JRAHS, vol. 22 (1936) and Alfred Deakin, The Federal Story, edited by J.A. La Nauze (Carlton, 1944), pp. 31–2. SMH, 29 November 1882. SMH, 1 December 1882. Parkes to Loftus, 2 January 1883 (Parkes MSS A 916, pp. 1–7), quoted in Dickey, pp. 148–9; G.C. Bolton, ‘The choice of the Speaker in Australian parliaments’ in C.A. Hughes, Readings in Australian Government (St Lucia, 1968). SMH, 4 January 1883; DT, 4 January 1883; Bulletin, 6 January 1883. The vote for Speaker was a test of parliamentary strength. Parkes and his team, despite having resigned, still occupied the Treasury benches. Knowing that the leader of the Opposition, Stuart, did not support Reid’s challenge to Allen, I believe that Parkes hoped the vote would show that the Opposition did not have the numbers to form a ministry. For Dibbs, see T.W. Campbell, George Richard Dibbs (Canberra, 1999). DT, 4 January 1883; Bulletin, 13 January and 5 May 1883; SMH, 31 December 1883; and NSWPD, viii, pp. 913–21. G.N. Hawker, The Parliament of New South Wales 1856–1965

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352

41 42

43 44 45

46

47 48 49 50

51

52 53

54

55

EDMUND BARTON

(Sydney, 1971), pp. 100–1, 119–20, 158 and 343; NSWPD, xii, pp. 2821–7, 2865–6, 2901, 2967 and 3076–87; xiii, pp. 3869–89; xiv, pp. 4701–8, 5074–5; Bulletin, 16 August 1884. SMH, 14 December 1884. Rosebery’s unpublished diary of the journey is held at his grandson’s seat, Dalmeny House, Midlothian, Scotland. Permission of the Countess of Rosebery is required for viewing. See also R.R. James, Rosebery (London, 1972). For the Federal Council see I.C. Harris, ‘The Federal Council of Australia’, MA thesis (University of Newcastle, 1969); and Reynolds, pp. 64–5. SMH, 11 December 1883; also 30 November to 10 December for discussions. DT, 12 October 1885. The classic account of the Sudan adventure is K.S. Inglis, The Rehearsal (Sydney, 1985); also B.R. Penny, ‘The age of empire: an Australian episode’, HS, 11, 41 (1967), pp. 32–42; SMH, 14, 19 and 20 February 1885. Barton’s speech is reported in the SMH, 21 February 1885. His rhetoric is analysed by S.P. Shortus, ‘Colonial nationalism: New South Wales identity in the mid-1880s’, JRAHS, 59 (1973), pp. 31–53; Bulletin, 8 August 1885. Brient’s overture is covered in DT, 12 October 1885; SMH, 8, 12 and 15 October 1885. DT, 17 November 1885; Campbell, pp. 56–61. Bulletin, 1 May 1886. NSWPD, xx, pp. 2863, 2892–906; A.W. Ma rtin, p. 357. Contemporary accounts in the DT and SMH are less vivid as reporters were excluded for several portions of the debate. See also Hawker, p. 158 NSWPD, xxi, 3262, 3280–4, 3312–45, 3425–77; xxii, 4759–64, 4777–82, 4856–85, 4966–7, 4976–97; xxiii, pp. 5292–5, 5465–516; SMH, 21 January 1887; Barton’s fees book 1883–86 (NLA 51/1/958); Bradley to Barton, 4 October 1886 (NLA, 51/1/109). See SMH, 19 September 1885 for William Barton’s legacy. In the small world that was then Sydney, it did no harm that Barton was a member of the University Senate and Manning Chancellor. Lord Carrington, Diary, 14 January 1887; Barton’s comment is reported in the SMH, 19 July 1898; Barton to Parkes, 30 January 1887 (NLA 51/1/1758); NSWPD, xxxiv, pp. 14–27, 68–72; Reid, My Reminiscences, p. 65. Taylor’s nomination is reported in the SMH, 9 March 1887. In April, however, he resigned from the Legislative Assembly on appointment as an examiner of patents, a post that commanded a salary of 500 pounds per annum. The anti-republican manifesto, 10 June 1887, can be found at ML MSS A 161; see also M. McKenna, The Captive Republic (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 136–40. SMH, 21 and 26 May 1887, 26 January 1889; Barton to Parkes, 25 May 1887 (ML MSS A872ff.351–4).

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Notes 353

56

57

58 59 60 61 62 64 65

66 67

68

Speeches at NSWPD, xxxiii, pp. 5100–3; xxxiv, pp. 5933–4, 5938–9; William Barton’s estate is detailed in SMH, 5 June 1888 and the Times (London), 16 July 1890. Family correspondence can be found at NLA 51/1/83, pp. 115–33, 137–45 and 153. Information from Mrs Bettina Rankin-Reid, 3 June 1997; Linda Emery, research officer, Berrima District Historical and Family History Society, 18 March 1998. The author visited ‘Fairholme’ and ‘The Hill’ on 29 May 1998 by courtesy of the Society. E.A. Barton to John Reynolds, 2 September 1946 (enclosure) (NLA 292/2); C. Jones (ed.), The Manly-Warringah Story (Dee Why, 1975), p. 79. A.B. Piddington, Worshipful Masters (Sydney, 1929), pp. 15, 17, 29–30. Manning to Barton, 4 July 1889 (NLA 51/1/135); Dr David Barton to G.C. Bolton, 30 May 1999. M.H. Ellis, ‘Edmund Barton: luck and destiny’, Bulletin, 26 May 1962. R.C. Thompson, Australian Imperialism in the Pacific: The Expansionist Era 1820–1920 (Carlton, 1980), pp. 51–86. K.T. Livingston, The Wired Nation Continent (Melbourne, 1997). SMH, 25, 26 and 30 January 1889. Barton complained of the press coverage; Barton to Curnow, 25 January 1889 (ML MSS 249/55–73). NSWPD, xxxvii, pp. 3037; Campbell, p. 128; McMinn, pp. 55–7; P. Gunnar, Good Iron Mac (Sydney, 1995), p. 101; Proceedings of the First National Protection Conference (Sydney, 1889), pp. 71–5; J. Merritt, That Voluminous Squatter: W.E. Abbott Wingan (Bungendore, 1999), pp. 53, 59 and 120. I nglis Cla rk to B a rton, 19 June 1889 ( NLA 51/1/147–8) ; M. Haward and J. Warden, An Australian Democrat: The Life, Work and Consequences of Andrew Inglis Clark (Hobart, 1995). Ma rtin, p. 383; Dea kin, pp. 15–16; Morehead to Parkes, 12 Novemb er 1889 ( Archives of New South Wa les, file 4–902/11). Text of the Tenterfield oration can be found in H. Parkes, The Federal Government of Australia (Sydney, 1980), pp. 2–6; comments by Reynolds, p. 7; R.R. Garran, Prosper the Commonwealth (Sydney, 1958), p. 91; A.G.L. Shaw, ‘Centennial reflections on Sir Henry Parkes’ Tenterfield speech’, Canberra Historical Journal, 25 (1990), pp. 2–10. Parkes to Barton, 29 October and 2 November 1889 (NLA 51/1/1762, 1764); Parkes to Carrington, 31 October 1889 (ML MSS CYA916, vol. 46, pp. 172–3); the Lithgow speech was reported in the Australian Star, 4 November 1889. The Lithgow Mercury, 9 Ja nuary 1920, recalled that ‘the Mercury ha d heralded the meeting with an article dealing with Federation, and the speaker, in the opening sentence of his address, referred very appreciatively to the sentiments expressed by the editor’ but, unfortunately, the files for 1889 have not survived.

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69 70–1 72 73 74 75

76 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

85 86

87

88 89

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SMH, 9 November 1889; DT, 9 November 1889. Parkes, p. 75; Martin, pp. 386, 390–1; Deakin, p. 25; Heydon, reported in NSWPD, xlvii, p. 3969. NSWPD, xlvii, pp. 4320–31 (Barton), 43331–58. J.A. La Nauze, The Making of the Australian Constitution (Carlton, 1972), pp. 24, 28 and 35; Barton to Parkes, 28 February 1891 (ML MSS A919, vol. 49, p. 256). J.A. La Nauze, pp. 35–6; SMH, 3 March 1891. Quotations from debates are taken from the Official Record of the National Australasian Convention Debates, Sydney, 2 March to 9 April 1891 (hereafter cited as Official Record 1891); Griffith is described by E.O.G. Shann in Economic History of Australia (Cambridge, 1930), p. 252; Carrington to Rosebery, 2 May 1886 (Rosebery MSS, National Library of Scotland); also, R.B. Joyce, Samuel Walker Griffith (St Lucia, 1984), pp. 185–202. SMH, 4 (Griffith), 5 (Deakin) and 7 (Barton) March 1891; Barton’s speech is reported in Official Record 1891, pp. 88–99. Official Record 1891, pp. 375–409, 418–63. Deakin to Pearson, 25 March 1891 (Pearson papers, La Trobe University Library, State Library of Victoria). La Nauze, pp. 61–8; Griffith’s compliment can be found in the Official Record 1891, p. 939. ‘one-man-one-vote’; Official Record 1891, pp. 619–36. Piddington, p. 63. SMH, 23 April 1891; Reid’s comments at 17 and 23 April 1891. Windeyer to Barton, 26 April 1891; Deakin to Barton, 28 April 1891; Griffith to Barton, 6 May 1891; Hackett to Barton, 7 May 1891 (NLA 51/1/156–61); Griffith to Reid, 6 and 19 May 1891, Reid to Griffith, 12 and 26 May 1891 (DL MSQ 188, pp. 45–60) Parkes to Barton, 25 April 1891 (NLA 51/1/155), 26 May 1891 (ML MSS 249, vol. 3). Dibbs as a conundrum can be found in the SMH, 10 June 1891; the election is covered on 11. 13. 15 and 17 June 1891. Alexander Oliver to Barton, 18 June 1891 (NLA 51/1/148); Barton to Parkes, 5 August 1891 (ML MSS 249, vol. 3); NSWPD, lii, pp. 105, 242052, 358, lii, pp. 1299–1311, 1341; SMH, 30 June 1891. Parkes’ version is found in Parkes to Carrington, 26 March1892 (NLA Carrington MSS); B.R. Wise, The Making of the Australian Commonwealth (London, 1913), p. 165; Barton to Wise, 17 April 1912 (ML Wise MSS CY1781/3/137–9). Barton ‘super-eminent’, SMH, 11 June 1891; NSWPD, liv, pp. 2658, 2677–84. The coalition is covered in the DT, 20 October 1891, also the DT and SMH, 17–24 October 1891. See Campbell, pp. 167–9 for the political manoeuvring. Parkes once again offered to recommend Barton for a knighthood, but he refused. Barton to Parkes, 27 October 1891 (ML MSS A919, vol. 49, p. 258).

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Notes 355

90

DT, 24 October, 1891; SMH, 31 October, 1891, Barton to Wise, 17 April 1912 (ML Wise MSS CY1781/3/137–9). 91 SMH, 31 October 1891 for Norton, 1–7 November 1891 for coverage of the campaign. See also NSWPD, lv, pp. 3390–599; Nairn, pp. 84–6; and McMinn, pp. 71–4. 92 Piddington, p. 218. 93 The ‘Advertisement’ is preserved at NLA 51/1/1051. 94 NSWPD, lv, pp. 3390–599, lvi, pp. 4433–77, 4539–659, 4817–51, 4892–923 and 5011–21. 95 SMH, 6 May 1891; NSWPD, lvii, pp. 6538 ff., 6542–53. 96 Freemans Journal, 9 April 1892 (I owe this reference to Mr Tom Campbell.); Reynolds, p. 34; ML MSS 249/3 (copies of cables arranged and dated by Barton); Barton to Dibbs, 1 July 1892; Dibbs to Barton, 4 July 1892; Dibbs to Jersey, 14 July 1892 (NLA 2896). 97 For the Broken Hill strike, see B. Dickey, ‘The Broken Hill strike, 1892’, Labour History, 11 (1966), pp. 40–53; G. Blainey, The Rise of Broken Hill (Melbourne, 1968), pp. 60–2; Attorney-General [Barton] to W. Knox, Secretary, Barrier Range Mineowners’ Association, 4 July 1892 (CSO In-letters, Archives of New South Wales). 98 B arton to Coffey, 16 September 1892; Coffey to B a rton, 28 September 1892; Barton to Coffey, 29 September and 4 October 1892 (Attorney-General’s special bundle on the Broken Hill strike, Archives of New South Wales, 5/4701); NSWPD, lix, pp. 392–869 (Barton’s speech can be found on pp. 495–522). 99 Barton demonised, Truth, 31 January 1897; Westralian Worker, 31 January 1902: ‘When we appealed to Barton for help and sympathy during the Broken Hill strike, his answer was a large body of armed police with bayonets, a thirst for our heart’s blood and balls to smash our bones’; the trial is covered in the SMH, 25 and 26 October 1892; the employers’ attitude is seen in correspondence from W. Knox to the Attorney-General, 11 November, 1892, quoted in Dickey, p. 51; B arton as unapproachable is covered in Reynolds, p. 40; Barton as ‘busy’ is covered in NSWPD, lix, p. 518. 100 The Franchise Bill is covered in NSWPD, lx, pp. 990–6, 1078–94 et passim to pp. 1842–56, 1900–7; the Federation Bill at lxi, pp. 2078–102. Pa rkes’ comments ca n b e found a t lxi, pp. 2503–11; Reid’s at pp. 2295–310. Reid gave the election of the free-trade president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, as one reason for his change of view. 101–2 NSWPD, lxi, pp. 2102–12, 2156–78, 2295–392, 2490–529; the censure debate is at lxi, pp. 2755–918 and 2921–33; Kelly’s motion is at lxi, pp. 3008–24. 102–3 Bulletin, 11 February 1893. 104 SMH, 12 December 1892; Lyne is described by J.H. Carruthers

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in ‘Autobiography’, chapter 29; also in W.M. Hughes, Policies and Potentates (Sydney, 1950), pp. 28–30; R.S. Parker, ‘Australian federalism: the influence of economic interests and political pressures’, HS, 4, 13 (1949), pp. 22–3. 105 H.A. Bartley to Dowling, 28 March 1893 (NLA 47/248). 106 NSWPD, lxii, pp. 3681–705; DT, 4 and 7 February, 1893; SMH, 28 February 1893; Narrabri Herald, 8 April 1893. 107 T.A. Coghlan tells the story as a participant-observer in Labour and Industry in Australia (London, 1918), vol, 4, pp. 1674–80. See also R.F. Holder, Bank of New South Wales: A History (Sydney, 1970), chapters 25–6; Parkes to Wise, 24 April 1893 (ML Wise MSS 1781/2/315–17). 108 A.W. Martin, ‘Economic influences in the ‘‘New Federation Movement’’’, HS, 6, 21 (1954), pp. 63–9, quoting Barton’s friend B. Lodge, ‘Federation and the English investors’, Journal of the Institute of Bankers of New South Wales, 16 January 1893 and Australasian Pastoralists’ Review, 15 May 1893; Barton to Dowling, 17 May 1893 (NLA 47/249). 109–10 Barton’s health is covered in NSWPD, lxvi, p. 7851; DT, 30 and 31 Ma y 1891; Australasian, 3 June 1891; E.A. B a rton to Reynolds, 2 September 1946 (NLA 292/2); Dibbs to Jersey, 12 August 1893 (NLA 2896). 111 Barton’s finances can be examined in City Bank account book 1886–92 (NLA 51/3/1844); Rosebery’s investments are recorded in the Mentmore MSS, Buckinghamshire Public Record Office, Aylesbury, England. 111–12 Barton to Parkes, 6 June 1893 (NLA 51/1/1773), 14 June 1893 (ML A884, vol. 14, ff.374–5); Parkes to Barton, 16 June 1893 (ML A884, vol. 14, ff.385–7); W.G. McMinn, ‘Sir Henry Parkes as a federalist’, HS, 12, 47 (1966), p. 413, draws attention to a draft of this letter elsewhere in the Parkes MSS (ML A916) ‘in which the handwriting seems to betray the emotion with which it was composed’; correspondence published in SMH, 27 June 1893. 112 SMH, 23 June 1893; McMillan to Barton, 21 June 1893; McMillan to Parkes, 23 June 1893; McMillan to Carruthers, 26 June 1893 (ML 2958); Parkes to Wise, 27 June 1893 (ML Wise MSS CY 1781/2/331–3). 113 Wise to Barton, 27 June 1893; Barton to Wise, 30 June 1893, printed in the DT, 3 July 1893; for an account of the meeting see the DT, 5 July 1893, SMH, 5 July 1893 and Garran, p. 102. 115 J. Quick and R.R. Garran, The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Comonwealth (Sydney, 1901), p. 295; SMH, 18 July 1893, DT, 18 July 1893. 116 Reports from DT and SMH, 1 and 2 August 1893; Garran, pp. 102–3; Barton’s return is covered in Barton to Dowling, 14 September 1893 (NLA 47/251). 117 NSWPD, lxvii, pp. 301–39, 401–23.

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118 119

120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129

130 131

132

133 134

NSWPD, lxviii, pp. 1227–60, 1450–73, 1644–71; fees as stated by the Proudfoot estate in the DT, 8 January 1894. NSWPD, lxviii, pp. 1478–511, 1572–5, 1613 and 1727–72; DT, 8 December 1893; Barton to Dibbs, 11 December 1893 (correspondence held by Sir Zelman Cowen, Melbourne). On honour and honours, see Garran, p. 95; DT, 4 July 1893; Bulletin, 13 January 1894. Information about Barton’s finances can be found at NLA 51/1/949–50. Bulletin, 20 January 1894. Barton to Dowling, 17 February 1894 (NLA 47/257), 19 March 1894 (NLA 47/259), 28 May 1894 (NLA 47/262); Bulletin, 3 February 1895. Dibbs’ proposal is covered by the DT, 22 May 1894; SMH, 22 May and 15 June 1894; Campbell, pp, 266–8; L.F. Crisp, Federation Fathers (Carlton, 1990), pp. 77–105. SMH, 3 July 1894; also editorials on 2 June and 6 July 1894; Truth, 8 and 15 July 1894. M. Rutledge, ‘Sir David Storey’ in ADB, vol. 12, pp. 105–6; SMH, 10 and 18 July 1894; Bulletin, 28 July 1894. Barton to Dibbs, 26 July 1894 (ML MSS 132/45); C.B. Mackerras, ‘Dibbs versus Duff: the sad story of a colonial governor’, JRAHS, 56, 4 (1970), pp. 296ff.; Campbell, pp. 270–1. Truth, 29 July 1894; Bulletin, 28 November, 1894. Barton to Dowling, 2 October 1894 (NLA 47/269); the Reynolds quote at op cit., pp. 97–8; SMH, 28 July 1894. See D.I. Wright, ‘The Australasian Federation League in the federal movement in New South Wales 1893–1899’, JRAHS, 57, 1 (1971), p. 61; Barton to Dowling, 20 May, 8 and 12 July and 2 October 1894 (NLA 47/260, 47/264, 47/265 and 47/269). For comment on the poor turnouts see NSWPD, vol. 74, pp. 2254 and 2383. For debate on Parkes’ motion, see vol. 74, pp. 2195–256. Parkes to Wise, 30 November 1894 (Wise MSS 433/5). Deakin on Carruthers can be found in S. Macintyre (ed.) (1995), ‘And Be One People’: Alfred Deakin’s Federal Story, Carlton, p. 66. Want and Barton’s reputations in W. Blackett (1927), May It Please Your Honour, Sydney, p. 9; ‘white-haired boy’ is Reid’s own term (see My Reminiscences, p. 172). For Barton acting as judge, see Barton to Reid, 22 March 1895 (NLA 7842/2); Barton to Symon, 1 April 1895 (NLA 1736/8/215). Bulletin, 6 April 1895; Barton to Dowling, 2 and 10 May 1895 (NLA MSS 47/272 and 47/273). For genesis of the League’s plan, see SMH, 6 June 1894. The boyhood friend was L.F. Heydon, whose comments can be seen at NSWPD, vol. 79, p. 2809. For the campaign, see SMH, 13–23 July 1895. For the ‘terrible defeat’ see SMH, 25 July 1895; Storey’s comment is in NSWPD, vol. 80, p. 2318; Barton’s workload is discussed in Barton to Dowling, 30 January 1896 (NLA 47/278) and

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Bulletin, 11 January 1896. For Parkes’ third wife, see Bulletin, 7 March 1896. 135 Barton also wrote a sympathetic note of condolence to Parkes’ daughter Annie (Annie Barton to Barton, 3 May 1896 (ML 249)). ‘Ranks . . . call’ is taken from the Bulletin, 20 June 1896. Family information comes from Mrs Bettina Rankin-Reid, the late Mrs Marjorie Barton and E.A. Barton to Reynolds, 2 September 1946 ( NLA 292/2) . For the B a rtons’ holid a y see SMH, 26 December 1895 and Barton to Dowling, 30 January 1896 (NLA 47/278). 136 A.G. Stephens, diary entry for 1 June 1896 (Fryer Library, University of Queensland); the McSharry case is covered in SMH, 19 December 1895. For the judgeship, see Darley to Barton, 6 November 1896 (NLA 51/1/237); M.H. Stephen to Barton, ‘Thursday’ [5 or 12 November 1896); Bulletin, 14 November 1896. 137 Barton to Astley, 4 October 1896 (ML 1163/7/197B); SMH, 20, 21 and 23 November 1896; National Advocate (Bathurst), 21 and 23 November 1896. 138 Federal Council of Australasia, Official Record of Debates, vol. 7, pp. 77–102, 116–49 (Hobart 1897). 139 R. Pringle, ‘The 1897 Convention elections in New South Wales: a milestone?’ JRAHS, 58, 3 (1972). 140 SMH, 7 March 1897; Murchison Times (Cue), 10 March 1897. 141 National Australasian Convention, Official Record of Debates (Adelaide 1897), pp. 12–15 (hereafter NAC 1897–98); J.T. Walter, diary entry for 21 March 1897 (ML 1849). 143–4 Carruthers, ‘Autobiography’; NAC 1897–98, pp. 17–18. 145–6 NAC 1897–98, p. 206 (Forrest), pp. 268–84 (Reid) and pp. 284–300 (Deakin). Reid’s quote is found on p. 284. 147 Barton’s quote is reported in SMH, 28 May 1897. 148 Deakin’s account of the manoeuvres is found in S. Macintyre (ed.) (1995), ‘And Be One People’, chapters 11–12. 149 Barton to Griffith, 4 April 1897 (ML MSQ 189). Griffith was encouraging the small colonies to demand a strong Senate—he told one South Australian: ‘Stick to the point of equal power of Senate. New South Wales and Victoria will have to give way. I am glad to see that Barton has charge of the Convention. It could not be in better hands.’ (Griffith to Baker, 4 April 1897 (PRG 38, Mortlock Library)). 150 NAC 1897–98, pp. 460–79; the naming of the Senate is covered in pp. 480–2. 151 Reid’s amendment is found at NAC 1897–98, p. 484; the debate is covered in pp. 484–549. The phrase ‘providential catarrh’ was coined by Sir John Quick and R.R. Garran (1901), Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, Sydney, p. 173. 152 NAC 1897–98, pp. 552 a nd 554 ( B a rton) , p. 558 ( crossexamination of Forrest). 153 NAC 1897–98, p. 571 (McMillan, pp. 574–5 (vote).

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154 Register, 15 April 1897; Carruthers, ‘Autobiography’. 155–6 See J.A. La Nauze (1972), The Making of the Australian Commonwealth, Carlton. 158 Want’s comments are at NSWPD, vol. 77, pp. 378–9; Barton introduces the motion at vol. 78, pp. 1885–925; Want’s further comments are at pp. 2100–16, Hoskins’ at pp. 2196–8. 159 Salomons at NSWPD, vol. 78, pp. 2321–426; other speeches covered are those of C.G. Heydon (p. 2638), L.F. Heydon (p. 2823), Samuel Charles (p. 2905), Normand Maclaurin (p. 2620), Andrew Garran (p. 2203), R. O’Connor (p. 2206), Arthur Renwick (p. 2710) and D. O’Connor (p. 2736). Barton’s speech is reproduced at DT, 31 July 1897, 160 Barton’s departure from Council is covered in NSWPD, vol. 80, p. 3466. 161–2 NAC 1897–98, Sydney session, p. 1024. The Queensland proposal is covered in correspondence from G.S. Curtis to R.C. Baker, 15 October 1897 (PRG 38, Mortlock Library). 163 For the debate see NSWPD, vol. 80, pp. 3767–95. 164 ‘Arnold distinguished himself by loafing’, see Jean Maughan to Reynolds, 14 February 1944 (NLA 292/2). 166 See the Australian Star, 4 and 11 January 1898 for examples of the d efence a rgument. For the mood of the Melb ourne conference see P.M. Glynn’s diary entry for 28 February: ‘The members of the Convention are beginning to look cursorily at the most important matters’ (PRG 78). 167 A. Garran, p. 108. 170 for Privy Council appeals see NAC 1897–98 (Melbourne session), pp. 2326–30. 171 Australian Star, 25 March 1898; for Reid’s speech see the Australian Star, 29 March 1898 and SMH, 29 March 1898. 172 SMH, 4 and 8 April 1898. J.T. Walker observed, three years later, when Barton, not Reid, became prime minister that ‘poor Reid must at last realise that his atrocious ‘‘Yes-No’’ attitude of 1898 towards Federation spoiled his record’ (Diary, 25 December 1900). 173 H. Irving (1996), A Women’s Constitution: Gender and History in the Australian Commonwealth, Sydney. Rose Scott’s speeches were covered in the SMH, 21 May 1898 and her speech notes can be found at ML 38/27. 174 For Northern Rivers enthusiasm, see SMH, 3 and 12 May 1898; for the Broken Hill meeting see ibid. and the Cootamundra Herald, 24 May 1898. 175 Barton to Chaffey Baker, 9 June 1898 (PRG 38, Mortlock Library); SMH, 3 June 1898. 177 SMH, 4 June 1898; an eye-witness account can be found in E.W. O’Sullivan, ‘From Colony to Commonwealth’, quoted in B. Mansfield (1965), Australian Democrat, Sydney, pp. 137–8. 179 Turner to Barton, 11 June 1898 (NLA 51/1/288); Braddon to

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Barton, 19 June 1898 (NLA 51/1/289); Kingston to Barton (telegrams), 20 and 22 June 1898 (NLA 51/1/290–1 and 295–7); ‘It will be war to the knife …’, Barton to Chaffey Baker, 9 June 1898 (PRG 38). 180 SMH, 8 July 1898. 182 P.M. Glynn, diary entry for 15 July 1898 (PRG 78, Mortlock Library); SMH, 13 July 1898. 184 See SMH, 13–26 July 1898 for details of the campaigning. 185 SMH, 21 and 23 July 1898; Truth, 31 July 1898 ( ‘HUGHES’ HOOLIGANS HOWLING AT BARTON’); for Deakin’s comments see Deakin to Barton, 27 July 1898 (NLA 51/1/212). 186–7 SMH, 28 July and 2 August 1898; Bulletin, 6 August 1898. 187 For the negotiations see Pyers to Barton, 30 July 1898 (NLA 51/1/320); Barton to Pyers (no date) (NLA 51/1/321); Copeland to Barton, 6 August 1898; and Francis Clarke, ‘Autobiography’ (NLA 7753). See SMH, 10 September 1898, for the newspaperman’s comments on the people of the Kempsey and Port Macquarie districts being ‘nice homely folk’. 188 Macleay Argus, 17 a nd 21 Septemb er 1898; Cla rke, ‘Autobiography’; Reynolds, p. 125; and G. Cockerill (1942), Scribblers and Statesmen, Melbourne. 189 Macleay Argus (supplement), 17 September 1898; Deakin to Barton, 25 September 1898 (NLA 51/1/329). 190 S. and B. Webb, The Webbs’ Australian Diary, edited by A.G. Austin (Melbourne, 1965), the original of which is held in the library of the London School of Economics. 191 W.G. McMinn (1989), George Reid, Carlton, p. 166; P.M. Glynn, diary entry for 27 November 1898. 192 Bulletin, 19 November 1898. 193 SMH, 27 January 1899. 194 Bulletin, 18 March 1899; Quick and Garran, p. 222. 195 For the 1899 campaign see SMH, 1 May to 19 June 1899; R. Pringle, ‘Public opinion in the federal referendum campaigns in New South Wales 1898–99’ JRAHS, 64, 4 (1979); Barton’s ‘triumphal progress’ is described in Barton to Atlee Hunt, 15 May 1899 (NLA 47/346); Brisbane Courier, 13 May 1899. 196 Tenterfield is covered in SMH, 17 and 18 May 1899; Broinowski is quoted by Reynolds, p. 129. See also J.G. Drake, ‘Recollections’ (Fryer Library, University of Queensland). 197 H. Irving, A Women’s Constitution; SMH, 19 June 1899, for coverage of the women’s meeting at Paddington. 198 SMH, 21 June 1899; Deakin to Barton, 21 June 1899 (NLA 51/1/345); for Western Australia see Forrest to Barton, 13 August 1899 (NLA 51/1/352); James to Barton, 15 August 1899 (NLA 51/1/368). 199 For the Senate presidency see Baker to Barton, 6 August 1899 (NLA 51/1/351). The attack on Reid can be found at NSWPD, vol. 99, pp. 33–107. See also McMinn, pp. 170–1.

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200

SMH, 24 August 1899; Deakin to Barton, 24 August 1899 (NLA 51/1/371); an undated diary entry from Lord Beauchamp (ML A3295). 201 The Brisbane Courier covered the fracas, 2 September 1899. 202 O’Connor to Deakin, 24 June 1899 (NLA 1540); Helen Harris to Barton, 21 July 1899 (NLA 51/1/349–50); Walker to Symon, 20 December 1899 (NLA 1736/9/144). 203–4 For the tipoff, see Blackmore to Barton, 12 September 1899 (NLA 51/1/377); Griffith to Chamberlain, 19 October 1899 (CO 234/69, 32940), quoted by R.B. Joyce in Samuel Walker Griffith (St Lucia, 1984), p. 208. 205–7 H. Bentham Cox to Barton, 30 March 1899, enclosing a telegram from Dibbs, Want and Maclaurin supporting Chamberlain’s amendments (NLA 51/1/601); Barton to Lyne, 2 April 1900 (NLA 51/1/420) and 6 April 1900 (NLA 51/1/541). 208–9 Deakin’s account can be found in Macintyre, chapters 20–2; H. Campbell Jones, ‘Autobiography’ (NLA 8905); Barton to Lyne, 5 May 1900 (NLA 51/1/444); Bryce to Barton, 4 May 1900 (NLA 51/1/633 and 634). Bryce, however, complimented Barton on the clarity and close argument of his case. 210 Salomons is so described by Deakin in Macintyre, p. 154. Barton’s speech is reproduced on p. 156. Times (London), 2 May 1900; the Cambridge visit is covered in Henry Jackson to Barton, 22 May 1900 (NLA 51/1/650); Rosebery to Barton (referring to Barton as ‘Mr Speaker’), 5 May 1900 (NLA 51/1/635). 211 Dilke to Barton, 7 May 1900 (NLA 51/1/636); Macintyre, pp. 157–62; Barton to Lyne, 18 May 1900 (NLA 51/1/547–8). 213 Griffith wrote to Inglis Clark, 29 June 1900: ‘I think the behaviour of Barton and Kingston has been monstrous’. For the origins of the final compromise, see J.A. La Nauze (1972), The Making of the Australian Constitution, Carlton, pp. 248–69; R.B. Joyce (1984), Samuel Walker Griffith, St Lucia, pp. 212–13; Argus, 4 June 1900; Quick and Garran, p. 247; and Barton to Lyne, 28 June 1900 (NLA 51/1/680–3). 216–17 Dibbs to Barton, 28 September 1900 (NLA 51/1/716); Deakin to Barton, 29 August 1900 (NLA 51/1/707); Anderson to Barton, 21 September 1900 (NLA 51/1/707). Barton describes the pleasure of ‘yielding up most of the time’ to those who would have rather ‘watched me in hell than talked to me in Kirribilli’ in his correspondence with Deakin, 5 November 1900 (NLA 1540). Barton’s manifesto is undated (NLA 51/1/724). 218 Alfred Deakin’s rough diary (NLA 1540/2/37), 26–27 September and 22–23 November 1900: Deakin to Barton, 24 October, 7, 14 and 19 November 1900 (NLA 51/1/718–19, 723, 725–6, 727). Kingston’s preference for a cabinet post to the speakership is covered in B a rton to Dea kin, 14 Decemb er 1900 ( NLA 1540/14/31); Kingston to Barton 14 December 1900 (NLA 51/1/729); the offer to McMillan, Gunnar, Good Iron Mac, p. 131.)

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219–22 J.A. La Nauze, The Hopetoun Blunder (Carlton 1957); Garran, op. cit. pp. 139–42; H. Campbell Jones, 20, 21 and 24 December 1900; Lyne’s version is contained in J. Hume Cook.’ ‘Recollections and reflections’; Kingston’s comment in Kingston to Barton, 20 December 1900 (NLA 51/1/735). See J.T. Walker’s diary entry for 21 December 1900. A telephone conversation between the author and Mrs Marjorie Barton, 3 November 1995. 227 Holder’s disappointment is documented in Deakin’s diary entries for 30 December 1900 and 1 January 1901; and Griffith’s diary entry for 12 January 1901 (MS2 196). The ceremonies are covered in the SMH, 2 January 1901; J.T. Walker, in his diary entry for 1 January 1901, estimated that it took the procession 70 minutes to pass one point. 228–9 Deakin is ‘enigmatic in his moment of triumph’, according to Macintyre (p. xiv); Barton is described as an ‘Indian nabob’ in the Melbourne Punch, 28 December 1905. See A. Pratt, ‘Rt. Hon. Edmund Barton KC’ Age, 10 June 1902; ‘Ithuriel’, Argus, 10 January 1920; J.G. Drake, ‘Reminiscences’, p. 4; H. Campbell Jones, chapter 7; Atlee Hunt, Argus, 5 December 1931. 230 Deakin documented Barton’s lateness for the first cabinet meeting in his diary entry of 2 January 1901; Barton’s ‘authority and moderation’ in G. Sawer (1956), Australian Federal Politics and Law 1902–1929, p.16; Morning Post, 26 February 1901. Claude McKay (This is the Life, Sydney, 1962, p. 26) relates that the Daily Telegraph reporter who missed ten crucial minutes of the speech was threatened with the sack, but Barton stepped in, telling the man’s boss: ‘I’ll say nothing about it and don’t you’. 231 See Maitland Mercury, 17 and 18 January 1901, SMH 18 January 1901. A draft of the speech in Barton’s handwriting can be found at NLA 1487, Series 1, Appendix A; also NLA 51/1/974. 232 For Deakin’s comment see the Morning Post, 26 February 1901. Of Reid, Barton wrote, ‘He gives the same old speech everywhere, and a very good platform utterance it is, though filled with fallacies and with inaccurate statements’. (Barton to Inglis Clark, 18 January 1901: Inglis Clark MSS) 233 Truth, 16 December 1900; also 20 January, 10 and 17 February, 7 and 31 (especially) March and 14 April 1901. 234 The campaign is covered in the SMH and Maitland Mercury, February to March 1901. 236 Bavin’s appointment is described in ‘Amicus’, ‘Life of T.R. Bavin’ (NLA 562); Truth of course criticised Hunt’s appointment (12 May 1901). 237 Barton’s annotation, ‘DAMN precedence’, can be found in the Hunt MSS (NLA 52/1254). See also Hopetoun to Barton, 15 April 1901 ( NLA 51/1/767) ; Forrest to B a rton, no d a te, a nd 24 February 1901 (NLA 51/1/769–70 and 776–79); Hopetoun to Barton, 21 February 1901 (NLA51/1/759–61); the Tom Roberts

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anecdote is taken from Humphrey McQueen (1995), Tom Roberts, Melbourne. 238 Barton is described as ‘conspicuous in his gorgeous brilliancy’ by Aud rey Tennyson, in Audrey Tennyson’s Vice-Regal Days (Canberra 1978), p. 158; she also noted that on 11 May Barton was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Melbourne ‘and was sung up the room by students with ‘‘He’s a jolly good fellow’’ ‘. Other prime ministers have been received differently at universities. Hopetoun to Barton, 6 June 1901 (NLA 51/1/786–93); Barton’s apartment is described by Drake, ‘Random recollections’ pp. 5–6; Keating’s recollections as reported by Reynolds (NLA 292). 240 ‘I was not going to be a lunatic,’ Barton told Parliament: ‘I am not one of those who think that the proper means of constituting a public service is to fill it with your enemies’ (CPD, vol. 1, p. 984). 241 See the Morning Post 22 Ja nua ry, 26 Feb rua ry, 25 July, 30 August, 18 and 26 September 1901 (Stewart’s stockwhip) (‘The Federal Government must speedily make up its mind to thrill us or be forgotten’); Bonython to Cockburn, 26 June 1901 (PRG 979/1, Mortlock Library; Keating loc.cit. 242 Morning Post, 23 Oct 1901. 243–6 CPD, vol 3, pp. 3498, 4625–858; the motion of censure is covered in vol. 4, p. 6011 et seq., p. 6791. See also the Morning Post, 5 November 1901. 246 On Pacific Islanders see C. Moore, Kanaka (St Lucia, 1991); Hopetoun to Barton 16 and 31 August 1901 (NLA 51/1/816–18 and 819–23); Courier 26 October 1901 (the Morning Post correspondent, 3 December 1901, wrote of ‘a great meeting in Brisbane . . . more disorderly that ever witnessed’). 247 CPD, vol. 5, pp. 7141–355, 8302, 8365–92. On the possible reservation of the Bill, see Hopetoun to Barton, 11 November and 11 December 1901 (NLA 51/1/849; 874–5). 248–9 On the New Hebrides, see Anderson to Barton, 9 August 1901 (NLA 51/1/802); on New Guinea see Griffith to Barton, 6 July 1901 (NLA 51/1/799–801); Hopetoun to Barton 1 October 1901 (2), 8 October 1901, 27 November 1901 and 3 December 1901 (NLA 51/1/829–30, 831, 832–5, 860–2, 872). 250 Catholic Press, 9 November 1901, Critic, 2 December 1901 and Morning Post, 10 December 1901. 251–2 Campbell Jones, chapters 8–9. 252 George Barton’s widow, see Bonython to Cockburn, 2 October 1913 (PRG 979/1) 254 On Wilmansrust, see Hopetoun to Barton, 4 January 1902 (NLA 51/1/892) 256 Barton to Deakin, 26 December 1901 (NLA 1540/14/105); Argus 18 January 1902; Morning Post, 26 January 1902; Reid to Barton 14 January 1902, Barton to Reid 13 January 1902, Reid to Barton ‘Tuesday morning’ (NLA 51/1/896–8). The ANA lunch was

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covered in the Argus, 28 January 1902, Hopetoun to Barton 30 January 1902 and 31 January 1902 (NLA 51/1/906, 908–9); Argus, 31 January 1902. 258 Atlee Hunt, Argus, 12 December 1931; the Vera Deakin story was related by her grandson Tom Harley. 259 See the Hunt diaries (NLA 52); Argus, 12 December 1931. The Athenaeum Club debacle is reported in correspondence between Bonython and Cockburn, 16 January 1901 (PRG 979/1) as occurring during the Federation celebrations. 260–1 ‘Amicus’, ‘Life of T. R. Bavin’ p. 19; Hopetoun to Barton 11 February 1902 (NLA 51/1/916–17); Barton to Bavin, 9 May 1902 ( NLA 560/1/7) ; J. Hume Cook, ‘Recollections a nd reflections’, chapter xviii. 262 The question of the woman’s vote is covered in CPD, vol. 9, pp. 11450–599, ‘Ithuriel’, Argus, 12 April 1902 and Barton to Rose Scott, 10 July 1911, (Scott MSS 38/27). The precariousness of Barton’s position is discussed in Hopetoun to Chamberlain, 9 April 1902 and Tennyson to Chamberlain, 12 May 1902 (Chamberlain MSS, University of Birmingham JC17/2/1 and 14/1/1/60). 263 For Lyne’s grumbles see Hopetoun to Barton, 8 May 1902 (NLA 51/1/969–70); for Deakin and salaries see the Morning Post, 26 September 1901; J.A. La Nauze, Alfred Deakin, pp. 252–3, Barton to Deakin, 24 April 1902 (NLA 1540). 264 B arton to Ma claurin, 2 May 1902 (University of Sydney Archives); R.M. Crawford, ‘A Bit of a Rebel’ The Life and Work of George Arnold Wood (Sydney 1975), p. 223. The Morant case was covered in the Argus, 3 April 1902. 265 Barton’s briefing included a nine-page memorandum from Hopetoun, 20 April 1902 (NLA 51/1/954–64); Bulletin editorial, 22 November 1902. 266 CPD, vol. 9, pp. 12213–42; Hopetoun to Barton, 30 April 1902 (NLA 51/1/966–7). 267 For Barton’s belief in the efficacy of oysters, see Barton to Bavin, 9 May 1902 (NLA 560/7); for Deakin’s description of public reaction, see Deakin to Barton, 29 May and 10 June 1902 (NLA51/1/973, 996); O’Connor to Barton, 21 June 1902 (NLA 51/1/990); Downer to Barton, 3 June 1902 (NLA 51/1/992a). 268 Hopetoun to Chamberlain, 14 May 1902 (Chamberlain MSS JC 14/1/1/50); 24 May 1902 (JC 14/1/1/42); Times, 21 June 1902; Carrington to Barton, 27 June 1902 (NLA 51/1/1002), also Anderson to Barton, 3 October 1902 (NLA 51/1/1032–4); Downer to Barton, 3 June 1902 (NLA 51/1/992A–82); GCMG Warrant at NLA 51/1/1035. 269 The only other example was the Canadian prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. 270 For O’Connor’s salary see J.A. La Nauze, Alfred Deakin, p. 270; O’Connor to Deakin, 10 August 1902, 4 March 1903 (NLA 1540);

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Deakin to Barton, 24 June 1902 (NLA 51/1/999); O’Connor to Barton, 1 July 1902 (NLA 51/1/1005–6); Hopetoun to Chamberlain, 25 July 1902 (JC 14/1/1/45). 271 For a retrospective view, see Cardinal Moran to Barton, 26 June 1903 (NLA 51/1/118). 272 Father John Parsons has analysed Barton’s engagements during the 1902 visit. 273 See Balfour to Barton, 9 August 1902 (NLA 51/1/1018). 274 See N. Meaney (1976), The Search for Security in the Pacific, 1901–1914, Sydney, pp. 80–3; also L.D. Atkinson, ‘Australian defence policy: a study of Empire and nation, 1897–1910’ (PhD thesis, Australian National University 1964); Times, 14 July 1902. 275 See Cockburn to Bonython, 2 August 1902 (PRG 979/4); ‘Barton has done splendidly over here—He has taken just the line at the Conference’. 277 Memorandum on Imperial Conference (Chamberlain papers 17/1/1); Barton to Deakin, 19 October 1902 (NLA 1540/14/235–6). 278 See Wise to Deakin, 17 October 1902 (NLA 1540/14/231); Way to Darley, 29 September 1902 (PRG 30); Bennett to Barton, 6 November 1902 (NLA 51/1/1041s–2). 279–80 On problems with Kingston, see Barton to Deakin, 19 October 1902 (NLA 1540/14/285–6); Barton to Deakin, 26 January 1903 (NLA 1540/14/331). For the Vondel case, see Anderson to Barton, 3 October 1902 (NLA 51/1/1032–4); Anderson to B arton, 21 November 1902 (NLA 51/1/1040); and G. Sawer, p. 31. 281–2 Barton to Tennyson, 24 January 1902 (NLA 51/1/1064–70); Barton to Deakin, 26 January 1903 (NLA 1540/14/332); ‘Minute’ to Tennyson, 5 February 1903 (NLA 1540/14/342). 282 On the Tasmanian row, see Fysh to Barton, 6 April 1903 (NA 51/1/1103); Barton to Deakin, 12 May 1903 (NLA 1540/14/358), 283 See the Morning Post, 8 May 1903. 284–5 The ‘Mr. Dooley’ piece is held by Barton’s granddaughter, Mrs Anne McIntosh, Bellevue Hill; Barton to Deakin, 20 March 1903 (NLA 1540/14/354). 286 Barton to Tennyson, 7 and 20 April 1902 (NLA 1963/144–6); Meaney, pp. 98–9; Barton to Bavin, n.d. (NLA 560/3). 287 The Order of the Rising Sun is held by Barton’s grandson, Mr Edwin Barton, Greenstead Green, Essex ; see also H. Shore to Barton, 17 and 19 June 1905 (NLA 51/1/1366–68); ‘Ithuriel’, Argus, 30 May 1903; Drake, ‘Random recollections’ p. 6; Kamimura to Barton, 23 May 1903 (NLA 51/1/1171). 288 CPD, vol. 14, pp. 1772–802; on the Naval Agreement speech, Glynn commented: ‘a good speech but overloaded with detail’ (Diary, 8 July 1903, PRG 78). 289 Barton to Tennyson, 22 July 1903 (NLA 1963/202). 290 Bavin’s comment, SMH, 8 May 1927. 291–2 For Kingston’s resignation, see Kingston to Barton, 23 July 1903

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(NLA 51/1/1198) and 24 July 1903 (NLA 51/1/1202); Barton to Kingston, 23 and 24 July 1903 (NLA 51/1/1199 and 1200). For High Court appointments, see Deakin to Inglis Clark, 24 August 1903 (Inglis Clark papers, C414); Forrest to Barton, 16 August 1903 (NLA 51/1/1218); Coles to Barton, 17 August 1903 (NLA 51/1/1219 294 Barton showed Deakin a medical certificate following his fainting spell: Deakin, diary entry for 1 September 1903; Dr Frederic Bird to Barton, 31 August 1903 (NLA 51/1/1222); Tennyson to Barton, 7 September 1903, in which Tennyson encourages Barton to serve under Griffith (NLA 51/1/1229). 294–6 Barton to Tennyson, 8 September 1903 (NLA 1963/267). 296–7 Deakin to Barton, 15 and 17 September 1903 (NLA 51/1/1232); Barton to Tennyson, 22 September 1903 (NLA 1963/2415); Barton to Tennyson (private correspondence), 22 September 1903 (NLA 479/2/305). 297 For the negotiations with Griffith, see Barton to Griffith (telegrams) 19, 21 and 22 September 1903 (MS2 190/1159, 1161 and 1165); also 23 September 1903 (MS2 1167–9). 298 Deakin wondered whether to invite Kingston to join his cabinet: Barton said that if he did he would lose Forrest: ‘I would advise ‘‘remember Jack’’’, (Barton to Deakin, 23 September 1903 (NLA 1540/14/382)). 299 See the Argus, 24 and 25 September 1903. Sir Samuel Way commented: ‘Commanding as Sir Samuel Griffith’s talents may be there are few men who would have stood aside for him though there are not a few who might have done so for Sir Edmund’ (Way to Sir G. Sydenham Clarke, 25 September 1903 (PRG 30)); congratulations are at NLA 51/1/1271–323. 300 Audrey Tennyson on Griffith; p. 307; Argus, 7 October 1903; Bonython to Cockburn, 7 October 1903 (PRG 979/1); Way to Sir Cyprian Bridge, 18 November 1903 (PRG 30). 301 Barton to Bavin, 19 January 1904 (NLA 560/1/25); Barton to Deakin, 11 January 1904 (NLA 1540/15/329). 302–3 For the High Court controversy see W.G. McMinn, ‘The High Court imbroglio and the fall of the Reid-McLean government’, JRAHS, vol. 64 (1978). See also Griffith to Deakin, 23 June 1905 (NLA 1540): Barton to Deakin, 8 August 1905 (NLA 1540/15/422–3 and series 16, passim); his wife wants Barton to resign, Barton to Deakin 21 June 1905 (NLA 1540/16/385). 304 D.A. Maugham to A.H. Chisolm, 30 July 1948 (NLA 51/8/1036): on Barton’s work habits, Griffith to Lady Griffith, 22 March 1906: ‘We are getting on slowly but have delivered all the reserved judgements….I believe Sir Edmund sat up all Monday night preparing one. He never begins till the night before the day appointed for delivering judgement.’ (ML MSS 363/4 f 102; quoted by D. Markwell (1984), ‘Sir Edmund Barton and the retirement of Sir Samuel Griffith’: Barton himself said ‘I hate

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work, Sir Samuel lives for it’. (Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, diary entry for 24 March 1915: ML696): Sawer, p. 27. 305 See Reynolds, p. iii, Garran, p. 170 and Judges’ notebooks (Australian Archives, A10612); the doodle is in vol. 7 (22 June 1908); comment on Isaacs can be found in vol. 11 (25 June 1912, R v Finlayson). 307 For Barton on Halsbury see Barton to Bavin, 20 February 1907 (NLA 560/1/43) and 26 January 1908 (NLA 560/1/47). On 10 August 1906 he wrote (Barton to Bavin, NLA 560/1/41); ‘ . . . the Judicial Committee seems rather on the lookout to keep us hopping’. For Barton’s income tax see Barton to Commissioners of Taxation, 18 October 1912 (NLA 560/1/1438) and 15 September 1913 (NLA 51/1/1460): Sawer, pp. 58–9. 308–9 See Sawer, chapters 2–4 310 Barton to Maclaurin, 14 April and 1 May 1905 (University of Sydney Archives: Coutts scholarship); R. Bedford (1976), Naught to Thirty-Three, Melbourne, p. 330. 311–12 For Arnold Barton’s career, see James Burns to Barton, 15 March 1905 (NLA 51/1/1364): William Murray to Barton, 19 February and 19 March 1913 (NLA 51/1/1443–4 and 1447). 313 The attack of typhoid is mentioned only in an anonymous article in Fifty Famous Australians [?Sydney 1951] but is corroborated in an auctioneer’s catalogue issued by Geoff K. Gray Pty Ltd, Sydney, on 4 December 1969. Among items sold by John Barton, Item 331 is endorsed in Sir Edmund’s handwriting: ‘Two of many Commissions for opening of Federal Parliament. These enclosed were executed during convalescence from Typhoid’. For the Piddington episode see L.F. Fitzhardinge (1964), William Morris Hughes, Vol 1: That Fiery Particle 1862–1914, Sydney, quoting DT, 13 December 1922. 314 See Sawer, chapters 6–8. 315 Barton’s comments were compared to a housemaster’s report by J. Richard (1984), The Rebel as Judge: Henry Bownes Higgens, Carlton, pp. 274–5; Barton to Griffith, 22 and 30 June, 25 August and 2 September 1913 (ML2 MS2191,863–91); copies can be found in the Isaacs papers (NLA 2755/2/11–15; 16–18; 24–5; 32). Deakin’s retirement is discussed in Deakin to Barton, 14 January 1913 (NLA 51/1/1441); and Forrest to Barton, 26 Jan 1913 (NLA 51/1/1442). 316 Denman to Munro Ferguson, no date (NLA 696/7399). 317 Barton to Munro Ferguson, 2 and 27 October 1914 (NLA 696/4051–2, NLA 696/4022–5). 318–19 Commonwealth Law Reports, vol. 20, p. 54. 319 The Will is held by the Australian Dictionary of Biography Office, Australian National University, Canberra. 320 Barton to Munro Ferguson, 16 June and 18 November 1915 (NLA 696/4034–9, NLA 696/4053–7). 321 Barton to Reid, 7 Jan 1915 (NLA 7842/7). On Kingston’s memorial

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see M. Glass (1997), Charles Cameron Kingston: A Federation Father, Melbourne. Bonython commented: ‘I was immensely pleased that a greater than Galwey had undertaken the duty and carried it out so well that it was the striking incident of the occasion. ‘‘You astonish me,’’ Barton said, ‘‘as I at once perceived that you were asking me to do something quite worth while.’’’ See also Bonython to Cockburn, 30 May 1916 (PRG 979/1). 322–3 Barton to Jeanie Barton, 14 October 1916 (NLA 51/1/1549); Commonwealth Law Reports, vol. 22, p. 556; L.F. Fitzhardinge (1979), William Morris Hughes: Vol. 2, The Little Digger, 1914–52, Sydney, p. 180, attributes the idea of a referendum to Barton and Griffith. 324 Even after conscription was defeated at the 1916 referendum Barton, probably thinking about his experience with the New South Wales Federation referendum, expected that a second referendum would reverse the verdict; Barton to Oswald Barton, 3 June 1917 (Oswald Barton MSS). 325 Barton to Munro-Ferguson, 29 December 1917 (NLA 696); Barton to Oswald Barton, 20 December 1917 (Oswald Barton MSS); for Barton as ‘an old dear’ see R. Munro Ferguson, diary entry for 7 June 1918 (NLA 696). Barton urges a pension for Griffith, see Barton to Hughes, 22 April 1918 (NLA 1538/16/111). 327 Barton to Oswald Barton, 24 March 1919 (Oswald Barton MSS): Bonython to Barton (enclosing Forrest’s tribute), 17 June 1918 (NLA 51/1/1584). 328 Barton to Oswald Barton, 10, 12 and 24 February 1919 (Oswald Barton MSS). 329 Barton to Griffith, 23 June 1919 (ML MSS 3636/5x f 147); for Munro Ferguson’s comment, see his diary entry for 16 October 1919 (NLA 696). Barton’s colleagues’ support is documented in Rich to Barton, 4 July 1919 (ML MSS 249/4 ff 165–82); Powers to Griffith, 11 Oct 1919, Higgins to Griffith, 20 October 1919 (ML 363/5x f207, 213–14). Barton discussed his valedictory address with Munro Ferguson (diary entry, 6 July 1919) stating: ‘Australia would never be herself until she had had adversity’; the full text of the speech can be found in the Novar MSS (NLA 696/4100–31). 330 Daily Mail (Brisbane), 11 July 1919 (later reproduced in SMH); Barton to Farmer Whyte, 8 July 1919 (NLA 51/1/1611–12). 331 The Governor-General to the Secretary of State for Colonies, 27 November 1919 (NLA 696/2283). 332 Evatt, University of Sydney Senate Minutes, 11 August 1919; Barton to Pattie Deakin, 8 October 1919 (NLA 1540/23/27); the cabinet decision was reported in secret correspondence from the Governor-General to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 27 November 1919 (C.O. 418/178 fols 433–4: secret). 333 Hughes to Munro Ferguson, 16 October 1919 (NLA 696/2824);

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Notes 369

334

335

336

337

R. Munro Ferguson, diary entries for 16 and 17 October 1919; Bonython to Cockburn, 28 January 1920 (PRG 979/1): ‘The Government were unwilling to give Barton the privilege of d eclining the Chief Justiceship b eca use it would ha ve established the undesirable precedent of promotion on the Bench.’ I am indebted to the comments of the late Geoffrey Sawer (letter to the author, no date, [April 1992]). Barton to Jeanie Barton 19 and 21 October 1919 (NLA 51/1/1639 and 1641–2); Argus, 21 and 22 October 1919; Barton to Oswald Barton, 24 October 1919 (Oswald Barton MSS). I can find no contemporary account of the Menzies episode, but Sir Hayden Starke was still alive and capable of contradiction when Menzies first published the story in an ‘Introduction’ to Reynolds, Edmund Barton, p. x. See also R.G. Menzies (1966), Afternoon Light, Melbourne, pp. 322–3; D. Markwell, ‘Sir Edmund Barton and the retirement of Sir Samuel Griffith’ (unpublished paper, 14 December 1984). Barton to Munro Ferguson, 11 November 1919 (NLA 696 ff 4106–7); Munro Ferguson to Barton, 17 November 1919 (NLA 696 ff 4104–5); Barton’s health is described in Barton to E.G. Quinlan, no date (NLA 51/1/1652). Hargrave letter in SMH 24 January 1920; Barton in optimistic mood about his health can be seen at Barton to ‘Muffie’ (Jean Maughan), 2 January 1920 (NLA 51/1/1646); SMH 8 January 1920. R. Munro Ferguson to Jeanie Barton, 7 January 1920 (NLA 51/1/1647); Griffith’s diary entry for 31 December 1919; Courier, 8 January 1920; SMH, 8 January 1920; Age, 8 and 9 January 1920; Argus, 8, 9 and 10 January 1920.

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Bibliography Bibliography

MANUSCRIPT SOURCES National Library of Australia Barton MSS (NLA 51) Bavin MSS (NLA 562) Carruthers MSS (NLA 2829) Clarke MSS (NLA 7753) Dowling MSS (NLA 47) Higgins MSS (NLA 1057) Hughes MSS (NLA 1538) Hume Cook MSS (NLA 601) Isaacs MSS (NLA 2755) Jersey MSS (NLA 2896) Jones (H Campbell) (NLA 8905) Novar MSS (NLA 696) Reid MSS (NLA 7892) Reynolds MSS (NLA 292) Symon MSS (NLA 1736)

State Library of New South Wales Athenaeum Club Records (ML 3175) Barton MSS (ML 249) Bathurst Peoples Convention MSS (ML 1163) Griffith MSS (MSQ 184–91) McMillan MSS (ML 2958) Parkes MSS (ML A871–1053) Walker MSS (ML 2729, microfilm CY 844) Wise MSS (microfilm CY 1781–2)

State Library of South Australia (Mortlock Library) Baker MSS (PRG 38) Bonython MSS (PRG 979) 370

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Bibliography 371 Glynn MSS (PRG 78) Way MSS (PRG 30)

University of Tasmania Inglis Clark MSS

PRINTED SOURCES Official Publications National Australasian Convention (1891), Official Report of Debates, Sydney, 1891 National Australasian Convention (1897–98), Official Report of Debates, 2 vols, Melbourne, 1898 Parliamentary Debates, Commonwealth of Australia, 1901–03, 1920 Parliamentary Debates, New South Wales, 1879–1900 Proceedings of the First National Protection Conference, Sydney, 1889

Books Australian Dictionary of Biography (15 volumes to date), Melbourne, 1966–2000 Barcan, Alan (1965) A Short History of Education in New South Wales, Sydney Bartley, Nehemiah (1896) Australian Pioneers and their Reminiscences, Brisbane Bedford, Randolph (1976) Naught to Thirty-three, Melbourne Blackett, Walter (1927) May it Please your Honour, Sydney Blainey, G. (1968) The Rise of Broken Hill, Melbourne Bollen, J.D. (1972) Protestantism and Social Reform in New South Wales, 1890–1910, Melbourne Buxton, G.L. (1967) The Riverina 1861–1891: An Australian Regional Study, Carlton Campbell, Thomas W. (1999) George Richard Dibbs, Canberra Cockerill, G. (1942) Scribblers and Statesmen, Melbourne Coghlan, Timothy A. (1918) Labour and Industry in Australia, vol. 4, London Cowen, Sir Zelman (1967/1996) Isaac Isaacs, second edn, Carlton Crisp, L.F. (1990) Federation Fathers, Carlton Crowley, F.K. (2000) Big John Forrest, Nedlands Deakin, Alfred (1963) The Federal Story, ed. J.A. La Nauze, Carlton Dermody, K. (ed.) (1997) The Constitution Makers, Papers on Parliament no. 30, Canberra Dickey, Brian (1969) Politics in New South Wales 1856–1900, Melbourne Dilke, Sir Charles (1890) Problems of Greater Britain, London Ely, Richard G. (1976) Unto God and Caesar, Melbourne Evans, R., Moore, C., Saunders, K. and Jamieson, B. (1997) 1901, Our Future’s Past, Sydney Fitzhardinge, L.F. (1964 and 1979) William Morris Hughes, 2 vols, Sydney Foster, S.G., Marsden, S. and Russell, R. (1998) Federation: The Guide to Records, Canberra Gammage, Bill (1998) Narranderra Shire, Narranderra Garran, Sir Robert (1958) Prosper the Commonwealth, Sydney Glass, Margaret (1997) Charles Cameron Kingston: Federation Father, Carlton

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Gordon, D.C. (1965) The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defence, 1870–1914, Baltimore Gunnar, P. (1995) Good Iron Mac, Sydney Haines, G. (1976) Lay Catholics and the Education Question in Nineteenth Century New South Wales: The Shaping of a Decision, Sydney Haward, M. and Warden, J. (1995) An Australian Democrat: The Life, Work and Consequences of Andrew Inglis Clark, Hobart Hawker, G.N. (1971) The Parliament of New South Wales, Sydney Hayes, A.G. (1959) Australian Cricket: A History, Sydney Hirst, J.B. (1988) The Strange Birth of Colonial Democracy 1848–1884, Sydney Holder, R.F. (1970) Bank of New South Wales: A History, 2 vols, Sydney Hughes, C.A. (ed.) (1968) Readings in Australian Government, St Lucia Hughes, W.M. (1950) Policies and Potentates, Sydney Inglis, K.S. (1985) The Rehearsal, Sydney Irving, Helen (1996) A Women’s Constitution: Gender and History in the Australian Commonwealth, Sydney — (1997) To Constitute a Nation, Cambridge — (ed.) (1999) Centenary Companion to Australian Federation, Cambridge James, R.R. (1972) Rosebery, London Jones, C. (ed.) (1975) The Manly-Warringah Story, Dee Why Joyce, Roger B. (1984) Samuel Walker Griffith, St Lucia Kendle, J.E. (1967) The Colonial and Imperial Conferences 1887–1911, London La Nauze, J.A. (1965) Alfred Deakin, 2 vols, Carlton — (1972) The Making of the Australian Constitution, Carlton Livingston, K. (1997) The Wired Nation Continent, Melbourne Loveday, P. and Martin, A.W. (1966) Factions and Parties: The First Thirty Years of Responsible Government in New South Wales, 1856–1889, Melbourne Macdonnel, F. (1972) The Glebe, Sydney Macintyre, Stuart (ed.) (1995) ‘And Be One People’: Alfred Deakin’s Federal Story, Carlton McKenna, Mark (1996) The Captive Republic, Cambridge McMinn, W.G. (1989) George Reid, Carlton McQueen, Humphrey (1995) Tom Roberts, Melbourne Mansfield, Bruce (1965) Australian Democrat, Sydney Martin, A.W. (1980) Henry Parkes, Carlton Meaney, Neville (1976) The Search for Security in the Pacific, 1901–1914, Sydney Menzies, R.G. (1966) Afternoon Light, Melbourne Merritt, John ( 1999) That Voluminous Squatter: W.E. Abbott Wingan, Bungendore Moore, C. (1991) Kanaka, St Lucia Murdoch, Walter (1923) Alfred Deakin: A Sketch, London Nairn, N.B. (1973) Civilising Capitalism, Canberra Norris, R. (1975) The Emergent Commonwealth, Carlton O’Collins, G. (1965) Patrick McMahon Glynn, Melbourne Parkes, Henry (n.d.) Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History, London Parkes, Henry (1890) The Federal Government of Australia, Sydney Piddington, A.B. (1929) Worshipful Masters, Sydney Pollard, J. (1987) The Formative Years of Australian Cricket 1823–1901, Sydney Portus, G.V. (1951?) ‘Introduction’ in Fifty Famous Australians (no publication date or editor given), Sydney Quick, Sir John and Garran, R.R. (1901) Annotated Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, Sydney

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Bibliography 373 Reid, George H. (1917) My Reminiscences, London Reynolds, John (1948) Edmund Barton, Sydney Rickard, John (1976) Class and Politics: New South Wales and the Early Commonwealth, Canberra — (1984) The Rebel as Judge: Henry Bourne Higgens, Sydney Roberts, S.H. (1924) History of Australian Land Settlement 1788–1920, London Russell, R. and Chubb, P. (1998) One Destiny! The Federation Story—How Australia Became a Nation, Ringwood Salsbury, S. and Sweeney, K. (1988) The Bull, The Bear and the Kangaroo: The History of the Sydney Stock Exchange, Sydney — (1992) Sydney Stockbrokers: Biographies of Members of the Sydney Stock Exchange, Sydney Sawer, Geoffrey (1956) Australian Federal Politics and Law 1901–1929, Melbourne Shann, E.O.G. (1930) Economic History of Australia, Cambridge Souter, Gavin (1992) Lion and Kangaroo, Sydney Thompson, R.C. (1980) Australian Imperialism in the Pacific: The Expansionist Era, 1820–1920, Carlton Trainor, Luke (1994) British Imperialism and Australian Nationalism, Cambridge Turner, H. Gyles (1911) The First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth: A Chronicle of Contemporary Politics 1901–1910, Melbourne Turney, C., Bygott, U and Chippendale, P. (1991) Australia’s First: A History of Sydney University, Sydney Webb, S. and Webb, B. (1965) The Webbs’ Australian Diary, ed. A.G. Austin, Melbourne Wise, B.R. (1913) The Making of the Australian Commonwealth, London

ARTICLES (Anonymous) (1901) ‘Eminent federalists: Edmund Barton’, United Australia, II, 6, April Atkin, B. (1958) ‘Antecedents of the New South Wales Protectionist Party, 1881–1891: the Protection and Political Reform League’, JRAHS, 44, pp. 239–58 Backhouse, A.P. (1960) ‘The freshman’s guide to the University: XI: Early days of the Union’, Union Recorder, 30 June, pp. 116–17 Blainey, G. (1950) ‘The role of economic interests in Australian federation’, HS, iv, 15 Broinowski, R.A. (1949) ‘The first five prime ministers of Australia’, JRAHS, 35, part 2 Dickey, Brian (1966) ‘The Broken Hill strike, 1892’, Labour History, 11, pp. 40–53 Ellis, M.H. (1962) ‘Edmund Barton: luck and destiny’, Bulletin, 26 May Fredman, L.E. (1963) ‘The Tenterfield oration: legend and reality’, Australian Quarterly, 35, September Hunt, Atlee (1931/1932) ‘Recollections’, Argus, 5,12, 19 and 26 December and 2 January ‘Ithuriel’ (1920) ‘Sir Edmund Barton’, Argus, 10 January La Nauze, J.A. (1968) ‘Who are the fathers?’, HS, 13, 51 Mackerras, C.B. (1968) ‘Sir Henry Normaund Maclaurin’, JRAHS, 54, 3 — (1970) ‘Dibbs versus Duff: the sad story of a colonial governor’, JRAHS, 56, 4, pp. 296 ff. McMinn, W.G. (1966) ‘Sir Henry Parkes as a federalist’, HS, 12, 47, p. 413 — (1965) ‘Some observations on the personal element in the federation movement’, University Studies in History, iv, 3, pp. 7–18

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— (1978) ‘The High Court imbroglio and the fall of the Reid-McLean government’, JRAHS, 64 Markwell, D. (1984) ‘Sir Edmund Barton and the resignation of Sir Samuel Griffith’, seminar paper, University of Western Australia Martin, A. W. (1953) ‘Economic influences in the ‘‘New Federation Movement’’’, HS, 6, 21, pp. 63–9 Nairn, N.B. (1967) ‘The political mastery of Sir Henry Parkes: New South Wales politics 1871–1891, JRAHS, 53, 1, pp. 1–51 Parker, R.S. (1949) ‘Australian federalism: the influence of economic interests and political pressures’, HS, 4, 13, pp. 22–3 Penny, B.M. (1967) ‘The age of empire: an Australian episode’, HS, 11, 41, pp. 32–42 Pringle, R. (1972) ‘The 1897 Convention elections in New South Wales: a milestone?’, JRAHS, 58, 3 — (1975) ‘The Federal issue in New South Wales politics, 1891–1899’, AJPH, 21, 2, pp. 1–13 — (1979) ‘Public opinions in the federal referendum campaigns in New South Wales 1898–99’, JRAHS, 64, 4 Scott, Sir Ernest (1939) ‘A masterly leader: Edmund Barton and federation’, SMH, 22 July Shaw, A.G.L. (1990) ‘Centennial reflections on Sir Henry Parkes’ Tenterfield speech’ Canberra Historical Journal, 25, p. 2–10 Shortus, S.P. (1973) ‘Colonial Nationalism: New South Wales identity in the mid-1880s’, JRAHS, 59, 1, pp. 31–53 Wright, D.I. (1971) ‘The Australasian Federation League in the federal movement in New South Wales 1983–1899’, JRAHS, 57, 1, p. 61

THESES Atkinson, L.D. (1964) ‘Australian defence policy 1897–1910’, PhD thesis, Australian National University Bairstow, D.L. (1985) ‘The Australian Agricultural Company at Port Stephens: an archaeological contribution to history’, PhD thesis, Sydney University Davies, H. M. (1972) ‘The administrative career of Atlee Hunt’, MA thesis, Australian National University de Garis, B.K. (1965) ‘British influence on the federation of the Australian colonies, 1880–1901’, DPhil thesis, Oxford University Harris, I.C. (1969) ‘The Federal Council of Australasia’, MA thesis, University of Newcastle Lyons, M. (1972) ‘Aspects of sectarianism in New South Wales circa 1865 to 1880’, PhD thesis, Australian National University Melhuish, K.J. (1966) ‘Australia and British imperial policy: colonial autonomy and the imperial idea, 1885–1902’, PhD thesis, Sydney University Pringle, R. (1969) ‘The workings of the federation movement in New South Wales, 1891–1899: the roles of parliament and public opinion’, MA thesis, Macquarie University

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS Note: Indicating the period over which a periodical was consulted does not imply that research was undertaken in every year of that period.

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Bibliography 375 Age (Melbourne) 1890–1903 Argus (Melbourne) 1870, 1890–1920 Australian Star (Sydney) 1889–1900 Bathurst Times (Bathurst) 1877, 1896 Bulletin (Sydney) 1880–1920, 1962 Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 1880–1903 Evening News (Sydney) 1879, 1890–99 Lithgow Mercury (Lithgow) 1889, 1920 Maitland Mercury (Maitland) 1901–03 Macleay Argus (Port Macquarie) 1898 New Federalist (Adelaide) 1997–2000 Newcastle Chronicle (Newcastle) 1868 Newcastle Morning Herald (Newcastle) 1877, 1898–1903, 1938 Register (Adelaide) 1897 Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) 1832–1920, 1939 Town and Country Journal (Sydney) 1972 Truth (Sydney) 1894–1903

PAMPHLETS (Anonymous) (1894) Rules and Proposals of the Australasian Federal League, Sydney Barton, William (1832) Report of a Trial on an Indictment Promoted by Captain Sir W. Edward Parry, RN, London — (1837) The Affairs of the Australian Agricultural Company, London

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Index

Index

Abbott, Sir Joseph Palmer, 71, 140, 141, 170 Abbott, William, 65 Abigail, Francis, 98 Aborigines, 62, 232 Adelaide, 223, 321 1897 Convention, 140–56 passim Admiralty (UK), 265, 274–6 ‘Advance Australia Fair’, 196 Advertiser (Adelaide), 154 Aga Khan III, 210 Age (Melbourne), 140 Allen, Sir George Wigram, 34–5, 41, 45 American Revolution, 16 Anderson, Sir John, 217, 280 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 248, 286 Annear, Desbrowe, 310–11 anti-semitism, 315 arbitration see industrial arbitration and conciliation Archibald, Jules François, 30 Argus (Melbourne), 213, 296, 339 Astley, William, 102–3, 137 Athenaeum Club, 29–30, 42–3, 57–9, 73, 99, 135, 136, 220, 222, 310, 326 Australasian Federation League, 104–6, 108–9, 113–16, 121–2, 127–9, 132–3, 134–5, 159, 172, 195, 217 ‘Australia’, suggested name for New South Wales, 63 ‘Australia’s noblest son’, 188, 198 Australian Agricultural Company, 1–3 Australian Fire and Life Assurance Company, 4 Australian Joint Stock Bank, 120

Australian Natives Association, 62, 69, 105, 217, 256 Badham, Charles, 10, 18, 23 Baker, Sir Richard Chaffey, 161, 199, 208 Balfour, Arthur James, 273 Bank of New South Wales, 52, 56, 120 Bank of New Zealand, 199 banking crisis, 1892–93, 94, 106–8 impact on federation, 108 Barker, Bishop Frederick, 6 Barker College, 164 Barton, Alice (later Hamersley), 6–7, 13, 270 Barton, Arnold Hubert, 51, 164, 214, 272, 311, 340, 341 Barton, David, 59 Barton, Edmund Alfred, 2, 56–7, 163, 214, 272, 311, 340, 341 Barton, Edmund Farley, 312 Barton, Ellen, 7 Barton, George Burdett, 7–9, 15, 56, 59, 252, 326 Literature in New South Wales, 9 Barton, Henry, 7, 14, 19, 21 Barton, Jane (née Hungerford), 308 Barton, Jeanie (née Jane Mason Ross), 56–7, 74, 93, 110, 111, 115–16, 136, 163, 238, 253–4, 258, 302 as a federalist, 197–8 and financial management, 135 in later life, 311, 320, 323, 326–7, 328, 335, 336, 337, 340 model house, 93–4

376

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Index Barton, Jean Alice (later Maughan) (‘Muffie’) 29, 65, 267, 312, 340 Barton, (Leila) Stephanie (later Scot-Skirving), 93, 319, 326, 340 Barton, Mary Louisa, 1–3, 4–5, 14, 15 Barton, Oswald, 57, 312, 319, 326, 328 Barton, Sydney Fitzgerald, 6 Barton, Ursula (née Crace), 312 Barton, William, 1–5, 7, 8, 14, 15, 16, 21–2 Barton, William Jr, 7, 8 Bathurst, 19, 230 People’s Conference 128, 137–8 pro-federation, 139, 187–8 Bavin, Thomas (Barton’s secretary), 164–5, 236, 253, 258, 260, 285 Beatson, Brigadier-General, 254 Beauchamp, William, Seventh Earl, 219 Bedford, Randolph, 310–11 Black, George, MLA, 102 Blackmore, R.G., 204 Blue Mountains, 135, 327, 335–6 Boer War see South African War Bonython, Sir John Langdon, 244, 327 Botany Bay, 29 ‘Braddon blot’, 169, 170, 178–9, 193, 252 Braddon, Sir Edward, 146, 148, 151, 161, 167, 169, 193 Bradley, Burton, 13, 51 Brient, Lucien, 30, 199 urges Barton as coalition leader, 46–7, 53, 89 Brisbane, 6, 195, 200–1, 223 Brodrick, St John, 277, 278 Broinowski, Leon, 196 Broken Hill, 174 1892 strike, 97–9, 102, 131–2, 200, 202 Broken Hill Proprietary Limited, 632 Brookes, Herbert, 341 Bruce, Stanley Melbourne, 339 Brunker, James Nixon, 140, 157 Bryce, James, Lord, 209–10 Bulletin (Sydney), 62 quoted, 35–6, 39, 46, 51, 120, 122, 125, 126, 132, 134, 136, 185, 187, 192, 194, 276, 292, 296 Bullmore, Dr Herbert Henry, 329, 335 Burns, Philp & Co., 62, 248, 311–12 Bushveldt Carbineers, 264 Byrnes, Thomas J., 122 Canada, 73, 77, 123, 199 defence, 254, 275–7 Barton’s visit to, 115–16, 277

Carrington, Charles, Third Baron, 53, 68 Carruthers, Sir Joseph Hector, 69, 115, 130, 157, 1897–98 Convention, 140, 143, 146, 151, 155 on Barton, 143–4, 154 Catholic Church in New Hebrides, 248 in New South Wales, 25, 27, 28, 34, 284–5 Catholic Press (quoted), 249–50 Centennial Park, 227–8 Chamberlain, Joseph, 162, 204, 248, 262, 280, 281, 282 and London delegation, 203, 205, 211, 213 naval policy, 285 resignation, 297 tariff policies, 225, 265, 297–8 White Australia policy, 243, 245 Chinese immigration, 38, 56, 245 City Bank, 107, 111, 120 Clark, Andrew Inglis, 66, 73–4, 140 1891 Convention, 78–80 and High Court, 292, 303 Clark, Manning, 343 Clarke, Francis, 187, 188, 194 classical tradition, 10, 16 Coal Vend, 309–10 coalmines, ventilation of, 87 Cockburn, Sir John, 142, 210 Cockerill, George, 188, 339 Coffey, William A., 97–8 Coghlan, Sir Timothy, 107 Coles, Jenkin, 292 Colonial Office, 162, 205–7, 217, 247–8, 280 Commercial Banking Company of Sydney, 107 Commercial Travellers Association, 186 ‘Commonwealth’, as name for federation, 79, 160 Commonwealth, 128–9, 134 Commonwealth Literary Fund, 326 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 261 conscription, 323 Constitution, draft, 78–81 Royal Commission, 1927–29, 339 constitutional convention, proposed, 1920–21, 333, 338–9 Cook, Hume, 260–1 Cook, Sir Joseph, 239, 315, 316 Cootamundra, 174–5

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Copeland, Henry, 90, 187 Corowa, 104 Conference, 115–16, 129 Coulter, Janet, 12 Coulthard, George, 22 Council of Education (NSW), 25 Courier (Brisbane), 195, 246 Coutts, Ida, 310 Crawford, R.M., 343 Crick, W.P., 118 cricket, 9, 11, 18 Sydney riot, 1879, 22–3 Crisp, L.F., xi, 344 Cullen, Sir William, 313 Curtis, George Silas, 162 Daily Mail (Brisbane), 330 Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 39, 86, 106, 117 anti-federation stance, 109, 188 Dalley, William Bede, 30, 38, 43 Darley, Sir Frederick, 131, 219 David, Sir (Thomas) Edgeworth, 317 Davies, G.C., 13 Deakin, Alfred 1891 Convention, 76, 78–9 1897–98 Convention, 140–2, 143, 146, 155, 161, 170 as attorney-general, 218, 226, 261, 287–8 on Barton, 16, 30, 60, 79, 185, 200, 210, 214, 231, 232–2, 241, 242 celebrations for federation, 227, 228, 237 on colleagues, 189, 230, 238, 240, 249, 263, 289 death, 332 on federation, 76, 198 historiography, 341–3 home life, 258 on Hopetoun, 216–18, 220, 267 as part of the London delegation, 1900, 203, 205, 208–9, 211, 213, 214 as Morning Post correspondent, 232, 240–1, 245, 250, 256, 283 oratory, 143 on Parkes, 70–1 as prime minister (acting), 264, 279–80; as PM, 302, 306, 307, 209 in Queensland, 195 resignation threat, 263 Steward affair, 282 Webbs’ visit, 190 White Australia policy, 245

Deakin, Vera (later White), 258 defence, 61, 67 federal policy, 226, 265, 273–6 federal power, 73 Denman, Thomas, Third Baron, 316 depression (1890s), 90, 94, 106–9 1930s, 340 Dibbs, Sir George Richard, 38, 42, 43, 50, 53, 55, 67, 84–6, 96, 98, 189, 216 banking crisis, 107–8 on Barton, 96, 110 federation with Victoria, 123 as premier, 47, 63–5, 89–91, 94–6, 98–100, 106–8, 115, 125–6, 133 as republican, 54, 68 as sceptic about federation, 68, 71, 81, 206 Dibbs, Sir Thomas, 107 Dickey, Brian (quoted), 97 Dickson, Sir James Robert, 183, 220, 227, 229 death, 230 as part of the London delegation, 1900, 203, 205, 209, 211, 213 as minister for defence, 226 dictation test for migrants, 243–5 Dilke, Sir Charles, 24, 204, 211 double dissolution, 168, 316 Dowling, Edward, 106, 115, 116, 134, 164 Downer, Sir John, 77–8, 79, 120, 179, 193 1897–98 Convention, 141, 143, 148, 155, 160–1, 167 and High Court, 292 as senator, 240, 267, 268 Drake, James George (quoted), 196–7, 228, 238 as senator and cabinet minister, 230, 290, 291 drought, 1901–02, 224 Duff, Sir Robert, 126 Duffy, Sir Frank Garvan, 314, 315, 319, 322, 329, 333 Dunne, Finlay Peter, 284 East Sydney electorate federal, 292 New South Wales, 28, 30–3 Edinburgh, Alfred, Duke of, 25 education, 25, 27, 32 Edward VII, 210, 263, 271 elections, federal 1901, 230–2, 234–6 1903, 302 1917, 324

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Index electoral laws federal, 145 New South Wales, 81, 95, 100 Engineers case, 338 Evatt, Dr H.V., 332 external affairs, 226, 279–80 Fairfax, J.R., 30 Farnell, J.S., 38 Federal Association, 172, 173, 174, 180, 195 Federal Council, 42, 44, 61–2, 66, 69–70, 129–30, 138, 157 federation Barton on, 320–1 campaign, chapters 9–10, passim people’s movement, 183–4, 188–9 proposed, 36–7, 43 Fegan, John Lionel, 236, 240 Ferguson, Sir Ronald Munro see Munro Ferguson Ferguson, William John, 202 financial relations, Commonwealth–State, 168, 339 see also ‘Braddon blot’ Fisher, Andrew, xi, 309, 321 Fitzhardinge, Frederic, 11 Fitzpatrick, Michael, 28 Forrest, Sir John, 84, 130, 193, 198, 228 1897–98 Convention, 143, 145, 148, 150–4 as Barton’s cabinet colleague, 218, 220, 226, 236, 237, 238, 249, 261, 270, 290–1, 296 as High Commissioner, 296 in later life, 315, 325, 327 as minister for defence, 230, 264, 265, 274 Forrest, Margaret, Lady, 270 Fox, Charles James, 16 free trade, 25, 44, 48 Free Trade Party (Commonwealth), 218, 234, 235–6 Free Trade Party (New South Wales), 63, 84 Fuller, Sir George, 289 fusion government, 309 Fysh, Sir Philip Oakley, 142, 143, 283, 327 as a member of the London delegation, 1900, 203, 205, 210 minister without portfolio, 230, 289–90 Gallipoli, 318, 320 Galwey, Sir Henry, Governor, 321

Gardiner, Albert, Senator, 214 Garran, Andrew, 30, 72, 85, 95, 159, 160 Garran, Sir Robert Randolph, 164, 173, 341 1897–98 Convention, 149, 167 as federal public servant, 229, 236 quoted, 68, 119, 347 George V, 315 visit to Australia as Duke of York, 214, 236–8, 281 Gillies, Duncan, 67 Gladstone, William Ewart, 41–2, 130 Glynn, Patrick McMahon, 150, 151, 182, 191, 287 Golding, Belle, 197 Gordon, General Charles, 45 Goulburn, 139, 174 governor-general, elected, 137, 145 governors-general (Australia) see Denman, Hopetoun, Munro Ferguson, Tennyson governors (New South Wales) see Beauchamp, Carrington, Duff, Hampden, Jersey, Loftus, Robinson Grand Hotel, Melbourne (now Windsor), 167, 238, 287 Grantham, William, 85, 91 Great Britain relations with Australia, 247–8, 272 Barton on, 45, 317 Green, Alderman, 33 Gregory, Dave, 18, 22 Grey, Sir George, 78 Grey, Henry, Third Earl, 36 Griffith, Sir Samuel Walker, 43, 84, 98, 137, 149, 150, 237 1891 Convention, 73, 74–82 and 1900 London delegation, 204, 209, 213 on British New Guinea, 248–9 as High Court Judge, 301–9, 314–19, 320, 322–5 negotiations for cabinet post, 218, 220, 227 negotiations for chief justiceship, 292–4, 296–7 retirement and death, 327, 328, 331, 335–7, 338 Griffiths, George, 31–3, 202 Hackett, Sir Winthrop, 84, 138 Haldane, Richard, Viscount, 320 Halsbury, Hardinge, Earl of, 307 Hamersley, Alice see Barton, Alice Hampden, Henry, Viscount, 157

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380

EDMUND BARTON

Handcock, George, 264 Hardie & Gorman (real estate agents), 111 Hargrave, Lawrence, 29, 120, 336 Harris, George, Fourth Baron, 22, 62 Hastings and Macleay electorate, 187–9, 191 Hawkins, James, 72 Hay, Sir John, 45 Hay federal league, 197, 198 Heidelberg School, 62 Heydon, Charles, 136, 158, 190 Heydon, Louis, 71, 158 Higgins, Henry Bournes, 140 1897–98 Convention, 145, 146, 147, 150, 155, 156, 169, 345 federal parliament, 257, 262, 266 as High Court judge, 303–4, 306, 308, 314, 315, 331 High Commisionership to United Kingdom (Barton), 296, 320–1 High Court, chapters 14–15 passim Barton as a possible member, 197, 288 planned, 73, 77, 80, 146, 230 and Privy Council, 213 set up by legislation, 284, 287–8 High Court cases Blundell v. Vardon, 305 Brown v. Lizars, 305 D’Emden v. Pedder, 306–7 Duncan’s case, 322–3 Engineers case, 338 Facey v. Burnett, 322 Webb v. Outtrim, 306 Section 92, 318, 322 Hobart, 223 Hodges, Mr Justice, 292 Holder, Sir Frederick, 151, 213, 218, 220 as Speaker, 227, 298 Holman, William, 202 Home, Ellen, 12, 13, 17, 21 Hopetoun, John, Seventh Earl (later Marquis of Linlithgow), 214, 227–8 appoints first prime minister, 218–22 and Barton, 237, 238, 260 and British New Guinea, 248–9 on politicians, 262, 263 resignation, 268 salary, 243, 266, 267–8 South African war, 256–7 White Australia policy, 246, 247 Hopetoun, Countess of, 272 Hoskins, James, 158–9 Howe, John H., 169

Hughes, William Morris, 158, 185, 199, 201, 202 as attorney-general, 309, 312–13, 317 as prime minister, 321, 323–5, 332–3, 338–9, 341 White Australia policy, 245 Hunt, Atlee, 164, 229 on Barton, 258–60, 339 as secretary for external affairs, 236, 237, 238, 240 Hunter electorate, 230, 291 Hutton, Major-General Sir Edward, 265 Hydro-Majestic Hotel, 335–6 Imperial Federation, 69–70 Imperial Reserve (proposed), 277–8 implied immunity of instrumentalities, 306–7, 338 income tax, 106, 307 industrial arbitration and conciliation federal, 149, 231, 303, 307–8, 309–10, 314–15, 338 New South Wales, 95 Interstate Commission, 146, 156, 168, 230, 243, 318–19, 338 Ipswich, 195 Ireland, 273 Irvine, Sir William, 295–6, 333 Isaacs, Sir Isaac, 20, 288, 341 1897–98 Convention, 140–1, 148–9, 154, 160–1 on biographies, 341 in federal parliament, 264 on High Court, 291, 303, 305, 306, 309, 314, 314, 319, 322, 323, 329, 331, 334, 338 ‘Ithuriel’ (Argus political correspondent) (quoted), 228–9, 256–8, 260, 287 James, Sir Walter, 158, 198 Japan, as a Pacific power, 225–6, 243, 286 Japanese squadron, 1903, 286–7 Jenkins, Sir George, 260–1 Jennings, Sir Patrick, premier, 45, 48, 53 1891 Convention, 71–2 as federalist, 115 Jersey, Victor Albert, Seventh Earl, 89, 96 Jones, Charles Barton, 234 Jones, Herbert Campbell (quoted), 208, 251–2

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Index Kamimura, Rear-Admiral, 286 ‘Kanaka’ labour trade, 75, 243, 246–7 Keating, J.H., Senator, 238, 241, 261, 299 Kelly, Andrew, 102 Kelly, Revd R.H.D., 188 Kennedy, Edmund, 5 King division, electorate (1895), 133, (1898), 182–7 Kingsley, Mrs Henry, 273 Kinnane, parliamentary candidate, 125 Kingston, Charles Cameron, 179, 195, 219, 299, 306 1891 Convention, 73, 79–80 1897–98 Convention, 141–2, 148–9 as federal minister, 218, 226, 237, 264, 290 as member of the London delegation, 1900, 203, 205, 208, 209, 211, 213–14 memorial, 321 tariff policy, 252–3, 279, 290 Kipling, Rudyard, 272 quoted by Barton, 219 Kitchener, Herbert Horatio, Viscount, 262, 272, 320 knighthoods, 55, 96, 120 Knox, Sir Adrian, 129, 331, 332–4 Kyabram, 262 Labor Party 1891–94 Parliament, 86–7, 91, 95 1895–98 Parliament, 171 1898–1901 Parliament, 191, 199–200, 201 federal, 224, 261 New South Wales, 84, 113 Labor Federal Party, 195 La Nauze, J.A. (quoted), 79–80, 161 historiography, xi, 342 land registration (NSW), 25, 26, 27, 30, 34, 38–9 land policy (tropics), 74 land revenue, 44, 46 larrikinism, 54 Laurier, Sir Wilfred, 175, 275 Law, Bonar, 320 Lawson, Henry, 62, 136, 345 Lee, Charles Alfred, 118–19 Legislative Assembly (NSW) on federation, 157–8 disorderly, 39, 49–50 reformed, 92 Legislative Council (NSW) Barton as a member of, 53, 64–5, 157

on federation, 71–3, 157–60, 194 obstructive, 95, 100, 106 Leo XIII, 270, 283 Lester, alias Froude, 13 Lewis, Sir Neil Elliott, 227, 230 Lindsay, Norman, 256 liquor laws, 29 Lithgow, Barton’s major speech at, 68 Loftus, Lord Augustus, 34 Long, Walter, First Viscount, 320 Lucinda, 79–81 Lyne, Sir William John, 28, 64, 90, 104 1897–98 Convention, 140, 147, 150, 153, 155–6 as aspirant to prime ministership, 215–17, 219–21, 296–7 as federal minister, 26, 229, 249, 262, 263, 290, 291 in later years, 303, 316 opinions on federation, 90, 116, 134 as premier, 201, 203, 207, 209, 213, 229 as Protectionist party leader, 133–4, 171, 187, 189, 194, 200 McCallum, Sir Mungo, 317 McDonald, Charles, 289 Macdonald, Sir John A., 199 McEachern, Sir Malcolm, 294 McElhone, John, 31, 33, 39, 49 McGregor, Gregor, Senator, 247 McIlwraith, Sir Thomas, 75 Macky, Revd Dill, 270 Maclaurin, Sir Normand, 159, 160, 172, 194, 207, 264, 310 McMillan, Sir William, 30, 63, 65, 70, 78, 108, 130, 218 1891 Convention, 85–7 1897–98 Convention, 140, 148, 152–3 as deputy-leader of the federal Opposition, 240, 253, 297, 300 as federalist, 101, 112, 114, 115 Macrossan, John Murtagh, 78, 146 McSharry, James (arbitration case), 136–7, 174, 189–90, 233 Mahdi Muhammed Ahmed, 45 Mahon, Hugh, 234 Mainwaring, Robert, 92 Manly, 57, 83, 93 Manning, Sir William (Judge), 52, 56, 59, 71 Manning, Sir William (Lord Mayor), 85, 111, 112, 114, 115 Martin, Sir James, 45 Maughan, David, xiv, 164, 312, 319, 340, 341

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Medlow Bath, 336 Melbourne, 11, 70, 82, 223, 238 Menzies, Sir Robert Gordon, xi, 334, 341 Mercury (Hobart), 282 Micah, 301 Millen, Edward, Senator, 239 Minto, Gilbert, Fourth Earl, 277 Mitchell, Sir Edward, 334 Mont de Piete, 120 Moran, Patrick, Cardinal, 137, 234, 237, 270, 285–6 Morant, Henry ‘Breaker’, 264 Morning Post (London), 210 Deakin as correspondent, 232, 240–1 Mount Rennie case, 54 Munro Ferguson, Sir Ronald Munro, 316, 317–18, 320, 321, 323–5, 329, 331, 332–4, 337 Murchison Times (Cue), 140 Murdoch, Sir Walter, 341 Murdoch, William, 18, 22 Murray, an Aboriginal, 19 Murray–Darling river system, 156, 167–8 Natal dictation test, 243–5 National Australasian Convention (1891) approved, 71 proceedings, 74–81 National Australasian Convention (1897) approved, 130 delegates chosen, 134, 139–40, 140–1 proceedings, 141–57, 160–3, 166–71 National Library of Australia, 340–1 naval policy, 265, 273–6, 277, 286, 288–9 Nelson, Sir Hugh, 122, 130 New Caledonia, 42, 96 New England secession movement, 340 New Guinea, 42, 61, 248–9 New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 96, 248 new protection, 303, 308 New South Wales and federation, 171–7, 193 New Zealand and federation, 71, 81, 199, 207, naval policy, 274–5 Newcastle, 12–13, 21 Barton’s campaigns, 139, 196 St Andrew’s church, 13, 21 Nicholls, a murderer, 11 Nicholls, R.H., 282

no-confidence motions Commonwealth, 246 New South Wales, 84, 86, 94, 98, 102, 106 Norton, John, 91, 124, 137, 199, 219, 233–4, 299 O’Connor, Daniel, 159 O’Connor, Richard Edward, 9, 20, 30, 55, 270, 284 1897–98 Convention, 140, 148–9, 154–5, 160, 166, 167, 169, 170 on federation, 115, 133, 137, 139, 159, 187, 190 as High Court judge, 298–9, 301–2, 304- 306, 308–9, 313 as leader of Senate and cabinet minister, 218, 227, 230, 236, 238, 240, 246–7, 261, 279, 284 as solicitor-general (NSW), 89, 97, 100, 117, 118–20, 136 as supporter of Barton, 202, 263–4 old age pensions, 169, 230 ‘one-man-one-vote’ 1891 Constitution, 81 Commonwealth, 102 New South Wales, 95, 110 O’Sullivan, E.W., 115, 116, 158 Pacific region in foreign policy, 42, 67, 96, 248–9 Parkes, Sir Henry, 24–6, 31–3, 34–45, 47, 1–6, 1–7, 133, 134–5 and Barton, 87–9, 111–12, 115, 117, 122, 123–4, 129–30, 132–3, 134 as leader of the Opposition, 48, 50–1, 52–3 as premier, 53, 55, 63, 65, 84–9, 95 urges federal party, 84, 130 urges federation, 37, 66–71, 100, 188–91, 196 Parkes, Varney, 85 Parkes–Robertson coalition, 24, 25, 27, 30, 34, 48 Parliament (NSW), 24, 54 see also Legislative Assembly, Legislative Council Parliament House, Melbourne, 236 Barton’s bachelor apartment, 238–9, 258 Parry, Lady, 2 Parry, Sir Edward, 2–3 parties see political parties Pastoralists Review, 108 Paterson, A.B. (‘Banjo’), 22, 62 Patterson, Sir James, 123

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Index Perth, 223 Petty’s Hotel, Sydney, ix, 135, 137, 164 Philp, Sir Robert, 230, 246, 254 Piddington, A.B., 58, 82, 133, 158, 313, 345 Playford, Thomas, Senator, 291 political parties Commonwealth, 235–6, 302, 309 New South Wales, 48, 55, 63, 65, 68 Port Stephens, 2 Powers, Charles (Judge), 314, 315, 319 Pratt, Ambrose (quoted), 228 precedence, royal visit, 237 premiers’ conferences (1895), 130 (1899), 193 (1900), 209 (1901), 283 (1902), 283 (1903), 283 prime ministership, Commonwealth, 214–22 Privy Council, judicial committee 1897–98 Convention, 156, 158, 162, 170 Barton’s views on, 77, 80–1 decisions, 41, 49, 56, 305, 306–7, 320 London conference (1900), 203, 207–11, 213, 293 property qualifications, voters’, 145 Protectionist party Commonwealth, 217 New South Wales, 63, 65–6, 68, 133–4, 155–6, 201 Protestants, 234, 270–1, 278, 285 Proudfoot case, 118–19, 155, 233 public service, Commonwealth, 229 Punch (Sydney), 8 Pyers, Robert, 187 Queens Club, 311 Queensland and federation, 67, 122, 138–9, 153, 157, 162, 193–4, 195, 198, 200–1, 213 and Privy Council appeals, 213 separation movements, 77, 81, 162 White Australia policy, 246–7 Queenstown, 283 Quick, Sir John, 116, 121–2, 296 Quick and Garran (cited), 115, 194 Quirindi, 174 Quong Tart, 245 Rae, Arthur, 117 railway commissioners (NSW), 118

railway unions, 295–6 railways, 62, 84, 117, 146, 168, 239 Redmond, John, 272 referenda on conscription, 1916–17, 323–5 on federation, 1898, 171–9 on federation, 1899, 195–201 Register (Adelaide), 150, 153–4 Reid, Flora, 198 Reid, Sir George Houston, 30, 38, 320–1 1897–98 Convention, 134, 140, 141, 145–6, 147, 150–3, 156, 162, 166, 167, 168, 170–1 and Barton, 11, 125, 131–3, 161, 165, 181–5, 191, 208, 299, 320–1 death, 327 on federation: in opposition, 83–4; in support, 100–1, 112, 129, 137–8, 191; ‘Yes-No’, 171–2, 175, 177, 179 finances, 203 Free-Trade party (Commonwealth), 218, 234 Free-Trade party (NSW), influential backbencher, 34–5, 64, 65, 91; as leader, 91–2, 94, 108 King division elections, 133, 181–5 in later life, 320–1 as leader of Opposition, Commonwealth, 234, 238, 239, 241, 245, 246, 253, 261, 267, 283, 289, 291, 302 as minister for public instruction, 38 as MLA for East Sydney, 28, 47, 85–6 as negotiator of federation, 186–7, 193 as premier (NSW), 127, 132–5, 136, 163 as prime minister (Commonwealth), 302, 303, 309 Renwick, Sir Arthur, 23–4, 28, 31, 33, 159 republicanism, 49, 54–5, 66, 101, 174 1893 demonstration, 113–15 responsible government, 147 Review of Reviews, 122 Reynolds, Sir John, x, 42, 68, 96, 128, 254, 305 Rich, Sir George (Judge), 314, 315, 319 Rising Sun, Order of the, 287 Riverina, 104–5, 340 Roberts, Frederick, First Earl, 272 Roberts, Tom, 237, 344 Robertson, George, 136 Robertson, Sir John, 25, 26, 30, 33, 48 anti-federation, 44, 83 Rose, Thomas, 101

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EDMUND BARTON

Rosebery, Archibald, Fifth Earl, 61, 111, 210–11, 326 visits New South Wales, 41–4 Ross, David, 13 Ross, Euphemia, 13 Ross, Jane Mason (Jeanie), 12, 13, 17–18, 21 see also Barton, Jeanie Ross, Nellie, xiv, 326 rowing, Barton and 10–11 Royal Navy, 226 Saint Patrick’s Day, 284 Salisbury, Robert, Third Marquess, 76, 272 Salmon, Carty, 200 Salmon, Nellie, 15, 326 Salomons, Sir Julian, 89, 159 as agent-general, 203, 210 Samoa, 225 Sawer, Geoffrey (cited), 304, 307 School of Arts debating society, 11, 202 schools see Sydney Grammar, Upper Fort Street Scott, Sir Ernest, 339 Scott, Rose, 173, 197, 262 Section 92 (Constitution), 318 Seddon, Richard, 274 See, Sir John, 28, 90, 92, 108, 284 Selborne, William, Second Earl, 275 Senate (Commonwealth) 1891 Convention, 73–81 1897–98 Convention, 146–7, 148, 150–3, 155 1901–03 performance, 247 Barton’s views on, 76–7, 78, 145 seen as being undemocratic, 114, 224 Service, James, 44, 54, 62 Shepherd, John, 28, 49–50 Slattery, Thomas, 90 Sleath, Richard, 202 Smith, Bruce, 115, 137, 190 Smith, Sydney, 187–9 South African War (1899–1902), 205, 225, 254–6, 264–5 South Australia, 140, 179, 195, 279 Speakership (NSW parliament), 34, 35, 38–53 passim Spofforth, Frederick, 18 ‘Spy’ (cartoonist), 272 Starke, Sir Hayden, 334 states, subdivision, 77 statute law (NSW), codified, 136 Stephen, Sir Alfred, 19, 124 Stephen, Matthew, 136

Stephens, A.G., 136 Stephens, J. Brunton, 67–8 Steward, George, 281 Stewart, John, Senator, 240 Storey, Sir David, 124–5, 134 strikes 1890 maritime, 72 1891 shearers, 75 1892 Broken Hill, 97–9 1903 railwaymen, 295–6 Stuart, Alexander, 30, 38–9, 42, 46–7 Sudan campaign, 1885, 45–6, 254 sugar industry, 246 Supreme Court (NSW), 41 Suttor, Sir Francis Bathurst, 90 Suttor, William, 71 Sydney, 81, 82, 172–3, 223 Sydney Bazaar, 3 Sydney Grammar School, 7, 9, 164 Sydney Morning Herald, 45–6, 106, 198, 218 on Barton, 20, 24, 39, 77, 140 quoted, 74, 84, 90, 112, 123–4, 139, 175, 185, 189–90, 193, 218, 287, 337 Sydney Town Hall, 112, 113–15, 217, 268, 278 Syme, David, 140 Symon, Sir Josiah (quoted), 213 1897–98 Convention, 142, 146, 147, 148, 155, 160 as attorney-general (Commonwealth), 302–3 as leader of the Opposition (Senate), 236, 247 Tamworth, 123, 133, 139 tariff protection federal policy, 224–5, 230, 252–3, 261–2, 344 tariffs federal power, 73 New South Wales, 191 Western Australia, 207–8 Tarrant, Dr Harman, 109–10 Tasmania, 140, 178, 198 Barton’s visit to, 282–3 Tattersalls Lottery, 282 Taylor, Adolphus George, 34, 39–41, 49, 53–4 Taylor, William J., 58 Teece, Richard, 12 Tennyson, Hallam, Second Baron, 262, 280–2, 285–6, 293–4, 297–8 Tenterfield, 33 Parkes’ oration at, 67–8, 196

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Index Thomson, Sir Edward Deas, 21 Thynne, Andrew J., 79 Times (London), 210, 268 Tocumwal, 104–5 Toowoomba, 195 trade, federal power, 73 trade unions, 224, 308 Trenwith, William, 147, 200 Trickett, William, 50 Truth (Sydney), 124, 233, 299 Turner, Sir George, 179, 213, 220, 238 1897–98 Convention, 140, 151, 167 as federal treasurer, 218, 226, 252, 253, 254, 265, 290 United States of America, 69, 73, 225 Universities Cambridge, 210 Edinburgh, 272 Oxford, 272 Sydney, 10, 264 and Barton, 9, 43, 264, 337 parliamentary seat, 19–21, 23–4, 27 Senate, 29, 58, 135, 310, 332 University of Sydney Cricket Club, 11, 18, 22, 29 Vancouver, 115–16 Vanuatu see New Hebrides Vaughan, Archbishop Roger Bede, 26–7 Victoria, 140–1, 178, 198, 295–6 Victoria, Queen, 96, 156, 214 Victory banquet (1919), 329–30 Vondel affair, 279–80, 283 Vosper, F.B.C., 114 Walker, J.T., 140, 202–3 1897–98 Convention, 146, 150–1 quoted, 141, 220, 311 Wallington, Captain Edward, 281 Want, J.H. (Jack), 101, 131, 136, 157, 158–9, 172, 184, 194, 207

Ward, Ebenezer, 310–11 ‘Warung, Price’ see Astley, William Warwick, Frances, Countess, 210 Watson, John Christian, 289, 302 Way, Sir Samuel, 204, 278, 279, 301, 303 Webb, Beatrice, 190 Webb, Sidney, 190 Wellington (NSW), 28 Wentworth Chambers, 135 West Maitland Town Hall, 230–1 Western Australia, 81, 154, 198, 207–8, 214, 231, 240 White Australia policy, 231–2, 239, 243–8 Whydah, Mary Louisa see Barton, Mary Louisa Whtye, T. Farmer, 330 Wilmansrust, 254 Wilson, Edward, 115 Windeyer, Sir William, 20–1, 23 Wise, Bernhard Ringrose, 111–13, 115, 119, 130, 200, 213 1897–98 Convention, 144 as attorney-general (NSW), 55, 278 on Barton, 87–8, 119, 278 as a federalist, 173 on O’Connor, 284 as parliamentary candidate, 230 Wise, Lilian, 198 women and federation, 173, 197 Women’s Federal League, 197–8 women’s suffrage, 125, 145, 173, 197–8, 231, 262 Wood, G. Arnold, 264–5, 343 Worker (Brisbane), 115 Wrixon, Sir Henry, 79 Young, James Henry, 188, 189

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