Kemp - A free country: Australians’ search for utopia 1861-1901

This is number one hundred and eighty-three
in the second numbered series of the
Miegunyah Volumes
made possible by the
Miegunyah Fund
established by bequests
under the wills of
Sir Russell and Lady Grimwade.

Miegunyah was the home of
Mab and Russell Grimwade
from 1911 to 1955.

A FREE
COUNTRY

AUSTRALIANS SEARCH FOR UTOPIA

18611901

DAVID KEMP

Other volumes in the Australian Liberalism series cover the years

17881860

19011925

19261966

19662018

Henry Parkes (18151896), the foremost Liberal leader in New South Wales in the later nineteenth century, five times Premier, was the longest, and strongest, advocate for one Australian nation.

THE MIEGUNYAH PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

Level 1, 715 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

www.mup.com.au

First published 2019

Text David Kemp, 2019

Design and typography Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2019

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Text design and typesetting by Cannon

Typesetting Cover design by Philip Campbell Design

Printed in China by 1010 Printing Asia Ltd

ISBN 9780522873481 (hardback)

ISBN 9780522873498 (ebook)

For William, Andrew and Charles

Contents

Illustrations

David Syme, photographer unknown, date unknown, courtesy Dr Veronica Condon

Alfred Deakin, Johnstone OShannessy & Co., c. 187686, National Library of Australia

Charles Henry Pearson, J. Botterill, c. 1875, State Library of South Australia

William Edward Hearn, photographer unknown, c. 18551873, University of Melbourne Archives

James McCulloch, photographer unknown, c. 18631868

Graham Berry, photographer unknown, c. 1875

James Service, photographer unknown, date unknown, courtesy The Alfred Hospital

Duncan Gillies, Josephine Muntz-Adams, c. 1897, Parliamentary Library of Victoria

Janet, Lady Clarke, photographer unknown, 1880

Catherine Helen Spence, photographer unknown, c. 1880, State Library of South Australia

Edith Cowan, photographer unknown, c. 18951900, State Library of Western Australia

Vida Goldstein, Linley Blathwayt, c. 191418

Herbert Spencer, photographer unknown, date unknown, Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Bruce Smith, Swiss Studios Melbourne, date unknown, National Library of Australia

Encounter with the Natives at the Officer, Musgrave Range, 1873, from Ernest Giles, Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration, 1880

Aboriginal warrior, North Queensland, Henry King, c. 1900

An image depicting the violence against Aborigines killed in massacres during the white settlement, artist unknown, date unknown, Daily Mercury

William Stanley Jevons, photographer unknown, 1858

Alfred Marshall, photographer unknown, date unknown, University of Bristol Library, Special Collections

Henry George, Elliot & Fry, 1865, University of Bristol Library, Special Collections

Edward Bellamy, photographer unknown, c. 1889

Thomas McIlwraith, Kerry & Jones, 1891

Samuel Griffith, Queensland Government Photographic Unit, c. 1890, Queensland State Archives

Strikers library at Barcaldine during the 1891 shearers strike, photographer unknown, 1891, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

Queensland Native Police, photographer unknown, 1864, Queensland Police Museum

Large group of South Sea islanders on a Queensland plantation, photographer unknown, c. 1880s, State Library of Queensland

George Houston Reid, photographer unknown, c. 1910

William Pember Reeves, photographer unknown, date unknown

William McMillan, Swiss Studios Melbourne, date unknown, National Library of Australia

George Turner, Official album of the Australasian Federal Convention, 1898, National Library of Australia

Bernhard Wise, photographer unknown, date unknown

Edward Pulsford, photographer unknown, date unknown, National Library of Australia

Max Hirsch, photographer unknown, from Land Values Taxation in Practice, Memorial Edition, Melbourne, 1910

William Trenwith, Brookes family, 1910, Deakin University

William Spence, T. Humphrey & Co, 1908, National Library of Australia

John Forrest, photographer unknown, date unknown

Edward Braddon, photographer unknown, 1898, National Library of Australia

John Downer, photographer unknown, date unknown, Constitutional Centre of Western Australia

James Dickson, photographer unknown, date unknown, Queensland Government

Andrew Inglis Clark, Vandyck Photographers Hobart, c. 1909, National Library of Australia

Henry Bournes Higgins, J. Hubert Newman, c. 1900s, National Library of Australia

The drafting committee for the Australian Constitution Bill in Adelaide in 1897. Left to right: John Downer, Edmund Barton and Richard OConnor, Australian News & Information Services, 1903, NAA, A1200, L16929

William Gladstone, photographer unknown, 1861

Joseph Chamberlain, Eveleen Myers, c. 1890s, National Portrait Gallery, London

Federation Pavilion, Centennial Park, Sydney, Government Printing Office, 1901, NSW State Archives

Edmund Barton, photographer unknown, date unknown, State Library of New South Wales

Acknowledgements

A S WITH THE previous volume of this history, Land of Dreams, this book is a product of my time as a Vice-Chancellors Fellow at the University of Melbourne. My thanks are due to Glyn Davis, who was then Vice-Chancellor of the University, for his stimulation and encouragement, and for his willingness to read and comment on earlier drafts of this and the previous volume. I particular thank Tom Kelly, who assisted me with early research, especially on the nineteenth-century reforms leading to universal primary education. Again I also warmly acknowledge Allan Fels who, as Dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government, provided me with a room and resources to support the project.

Most of those who have had the energy and persistence to read early drafts of this volume are friends and family, and I owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr Denis White, my former colleague at Monash University, Melbourne, and dear friend, whose deep knowledge of political philosophy, encouragement and tireless energy have helped me greatly to improve the analysis of ideas and their impact on events. My brother Rod is also one of the small band who have been prepared to read whatever I chose to forward for comment, and to respond with important questions and useful suggestions. In this peerless company I also include my son Andrew, who was prepared not only to read many key chapters but also to respond to my pleas for advice on the ordering of the material and the logic of the argument. Finally in this category I must acknowledge the valuable advice of the late John Hirst, who read earlier drafts from start to finish and discussed with me the conclusions I had reached on some points of historical interpretation.