The SERIES OF MONSTER MEETINGS on the Ballarat fields had their beginnings with one held by the Catholics on 15 October, in which they were concerned with the doings of Trooper Lord. The next general one followed on 17 October before the burning of the Eureka Hotel, and another was held by the Catholics on the day after, in which they reiterated their grievances. The spontaneous one on Saturday, 21 October, before bail was granted to McIntyre and Fletcher, served to illustrate, firstly, that the diggers were easily aroused and could be expected to come together in considerable numbers, and, secondly, that any successful protests to the government would have to be well organized. To that end a meeting was called for Monday, 23 October, and it is indicative of the mood of the diggers that they were prepared to stop work again, with the financial sacrifices entailed, in order to make quite plain their outrage at the arrest of their mates for the burning of the hotel.
Bakery Hill was again the focal point for the Monday meeting when about 10,000 people gathered at 2 p.m. Holyoake took a prominent part and called for subscriptions to obtain counsel for the defence of McIntyre and Fletcher. Kennedy followed with a resolution of indignation at the violation of personal liberty and the manner of law enforcement at Ballarat, while Humffray claimed that no act of incendiarism would have taken place had justice been done in respect of the Scobie affair. A resolution was passed calling for the removal of the Camp officials responsible for these transgressions, and it was decided to form a Diggers Rights Society which would help to curb any further unconstitutional proceedings by the Camp. The speakers climbed down from their specially erected platform and went off to the Star Hotel to plan further action. Up in the Camp all of this was quickly known for there were informers aplenty, besides the magistrate and shorthand writer whom Hotham had ordered to be present whenever the diggers came together for political purposes. The most important aspect of the affair was that, while 450 police and soldiers in the Camp were organized for defence, thousands of diggers were taking hesitant steps towards their own organization which, as yet, was perfectly constitutional, contained no threat force, and, despite the flamboyant language of some speakers (notably Kennedy), was loyal to all forms of authority from the Queen down.1
Although the Ballarat population was made up of widely diverse elements drawn from a multitude of nations (including, latterly, a few Chinese), the leadership of the diggers’ movement remained firmly in the hands of men who owed allegiance to Britain. After the Monday meeting Frederick Vern made a donation to the cause and from that time played some role in the deliberations of the leaders, but he stood alone as the one non-British element. Carboni acknowledged that Vern was ‘a lion amongst the fair sex’, given his generally favourable appearance, but he wondered whether Vern’s claim to come from Hanover was true, given his ‘bad English, worse German [and] abominable French’. Of one thing Carboni was certain: Vern believed in nothing except the gratification of his own ‘silly vanity, or ambition’, but he did not have ‘a dishonest heart’.2 At this stage neither the Germans nor the Americans, who were among the most successful at Ballarat, appeared to be taking any active role in the development of the movement; Lalor, still a minor figure with an interest in both the Scobie affair and the treatment of Joannes Gregorius, stood aloof; so that Humffray and Holyoake, with some emotional input by Kennedy, remained firmly in control. As a partial consequence, throughout the end of October and into November public and private meetings were held, but no acts of violence occurred; even the continued, vexatious practice of licence hunts went ahead without incident. The main sources of unrest lay like fused bombs, for the trials of Bentley and his accomplices, together with those of McIntyre and the other alleged incendiarists, had yet to take place. One definite source of irritation remained: the presence of the military in the Camp was a matter of day-to-day observance. ‘We asked for bread and we got a stone’, wrote a digger to the Geelong Advertiser. He held it as absurd for anyone to imagine that the Ballarat community had become ‘unruly’ from ‘mere wantonness’, for any reasonable person would assume that they had been provoked. He concluded, perhaps rashly, that a lack of military force had nothing to do with their behaviour which seemed to indicate that the diggers would have still burnt the hotel and engaged in protest even had Ballarat been inundated with military might. It was the kind of conclusion which a mind as set as Hotham’s would perhaps want to see put to the test.3
Together with Yorkey, ten others had been arrested on suspicion of involvement with the Eureka burning. Six were discharged and an American, Albert Hurd, was granted bail and the charge later dropped, although there were rumours that ‘back stair influence’ which was ‘half American, half masonic’ had been used on his behalf. Certainly Hotham was both puzzled and relieved to find that the Americans appeared in no direct way to be involved with the unrest on his disordered goldfield. The Consul, Tarleton, had been quick to write to Hotham on 24 October. He had spoken with Mr Nichols, an American, and in Tarleton’s estimation a man of intellect who resided at Ballarat. Nichols had given his assurance that the Americans had taken no part in the riot which was alleged to have been fostered by ‘Scotchmen’ on the reasonable grounds that Scobie was a Scot. Tarleton expressed his delight with this state of affairs and hoped and trusted that the future behaviour of his compatriots would be ‘such as to entitle them to that high position of law loving and law abiding citizens’. Hotham, understandably, was gratified at this display of well-meaning cooperation on the part of the representative of the fledgling, but powerful, republic with whom trading bonds were strong. Perhaps slightly suspicious of the attempt to throw the blame upon the Scots, he was cautious enough to deal a gentle warning to Tarleton whom he trusted to exert his every effort ‘to retain this high and distinguished character for your own countrymen’. Emery, the American part-owner of the bowling alley, had suffered a large personal loss, consequent perhaps upon his and other Americans’ support of Bentley in a letter to the Ballarat Times. This further strengthened the welcome conviction that the Yankees were standing aloof from the unrest.
In this mood of conciliation Hotham was moved to pardon the young Carey, a New Yorker, whose six months’ sentence for sly grogging had caused widespread resentment among the Ballarat community in general. His release helped to mollify the feelings of the Americans, especially as Carey had’ stuck out for an unconditional pardon rather than the conditional one originally offered by the governor. Furthermore, he had refused to allow himself to become a broker for the government to his countrymen, although, in recognition of his pardon, he proposed to stand aloof personally from political agitation. The dignity and inflexibility of Carey and the determination of the diggers, as revealed by their continued use of his case to prove the corruption of Ballarat officialdom, was warning enough to Toorak that the men of Bakery Hill were no mere rabble with whom bargains could be lightly struck. In any case they had nothing but their own integrity with which to bargain, and that particular quality was not to be sold cheaply.4
In the same weeks that the government used the goad on the diggers, conditions at Ballarat had begun to worsen. It was not because the overall yield of the field itself was falling, and indeed 1854 was prosperous compared with previous years. But as the old leads were followed they went deeper and deeper, with the necessity of greater labour and more time being spent in digging the shafts. As yet there was very little in the way of machinery being used and no transition had taken place, or seemed likely in the near future, towards large capital or company involvement. No word was heard from neo-Luddites about smashing machinery, and the Ballarat Times ran no items about the threatening chains of capitalism. Yet trouble there was because, deep below, the old rivers seemed to take perverse delight in their crookedness, shepherding became more a matter of chance, and after months of heartbreaking work shicers were more frequent. Tension rose; tempers became taut; disputes over claims increased.
On the Gravel Pits tension was highest because increasing and ever-richer yields meant more conflict as diggers jealously guarded their claims or cast covetous eyes on others. With complex and little-understood regulations, the commissioners could only deal out rough justice which, if a poor lead was involved, made little difference, but in other circumstances could mean the distinction between wealth and poverty. Given that parties of twelve now had to be formed to work on a minuscule patch fit only for four, which the regulations still demanded, conflict even within groups was inevitable, but its inevitability was even more heightened in respect of the government and the ‘Joes’ who did its work. Perhaps the digger who bought the Waverley novels in twenty-five volumes for £10 could soothe his spirits at night as he travelled with Scott through the vast glens of home; others who bought Gibbon may have wondered whether, in these small beginnings of corruption, they were witnessing the fall of another mighty Empire; hopefully, only a child read Marryat’s The Children of the New Forest lest perchance it may have wrought fancies of another civil war in the mind of an adult. For many others, however, it was the grog which brought solace, and Carboni recalled that at the monster meetings ‘a peculiar colonial habit’ was evident, for even on the platform a sly grogger plied those present with the contents of the black bottle!5
Yet, if the Gravel Pits still remained a source of immense wealth in those latter months of 1854, things were not as prosperous on Eureka where no one bottomed out for some weeks and the last famous nugget, of 40 lbs, had been found in early February. The home of the Irish, and in particular the resort of ‘The Tipperary Mob’, Eureka was removed physically from the Camp and had its own resident and generally respected policeman, its priest and its pubs. After the burning of the Eureka Hotel there were still other hotels, notably the Free Trade, to help assuage the thirst of the diggers, together with numerous sly grog outlets. Except for Lalor and others like him who had come with capital, and those who had made substantial gains at the Canadian, the Gravel Pits or more distant fields, the diggers had to hang on and hope to strike it rich. They thus remained at the mercy of the storekeepers, or small entrepreneurs, who were able to put up the money necessary for the enterprise to continue. Nonetheless, things were quiet. However, with both the Gravel Pits and Creswick booming, the population on Eureka declined as some diggers went elsewhere. On the Gravel Pits in September there had been several strikes arising from the haphazard enforcement of the regulations in respect of claims, but no such unrest appears to have taken place on Eureka.
On 18 October Carboni sat in his tent on Eureka within five minutes’ walk of the ruins of Bentley’s hotel. He decided to write to his friend of London days, William Archer, who was now Assistant Registrar-General.6 He had written from the same spot in June to tell Archer of good fortune on a hole 140 feet deep. Now he wrote to tell him of the officious behaviour of the police, even to the arrest of the German band ‘whilst playing the diggers’ favourite tune “Ben Bolt” ‘. He condemned the burning of the hotel as a wanton act of destruction and blamed it on the ‘injudicious’ behaviour of the Camp officials, but was tongue in cheek when he lamented that ‘the Law is turned into a Sow left weltering in the mire and the Law officers ridiculed as decrepit, diseased harlots’. More to the point he remarked that he saw few old faces among the crowd of ten to twelve thousand at the burning. To Carboni, it was an entirely new community, which he regarded as immensely ‘embittered’ by its lack of success on the deep leads, possibly rendered idle because it lacked capital, but not disposed to die from starvation or live in a workhouse. All this Carboni conveyed to Archer despite the fact that, apart from his own fervent imagination, there was no evidence of starvation or impending starvation thereabouts, and there were certainly no workhouses. In summary he thought this new community was overwrought, likely to want to do something desperate and unable to pay licence fees any more, even though many of them were ‘working night and day like Niggers on an American plantation’. These feelings of embitterment he ascribed to what had happened in the riot. He then portrayed Ballarat as a ‘Nugety [sic] Eldorado for a few, a ruinous Field of hard labour for many, a profound ditch of perdition for Body and Soul to all’.7
All of this was heady stuff, but it bore little resemblance to the truth of the state of affairs on Ballarat. Gold production certainly had not dropped, with 319,099 ounces in 1853 rising to 584,957 or almost double the yield in 1854. Hope, too, was well founded, even if a digger had to rely upon it awhile as his main motive. The yield kept rising steadily to a peak of 920,351 ounces in 1856, while 1855 was another good year.8 Perhaps on Eureka there may have been a temporary lull, but most diggers were prepared to stick it out and reach the bottom before declaring that their shaft was a shicer. At all events there is no indication that in late 1854 there was an abnormal number of such disasters among the diggers on that field. Indeed, if it had been true that Carboni had some grounds for his statement on 18 October, within a very few days things had changed for the better. In early November the Age correspondent reported that the diggers were all going about their work as if ‘nothing of importance was stirring amongst them’ and that the Camp authorities were beginning to show some restraint in licence hunting. Finally Eureka was going ahead ‘rapidly’ with great numbers flocking there ‘within the last fortnight’ and shepherds were out half a mile ahead of the last claims that had bottomed. He warned that, in the end, it could prove the case that those who rushed last would get least but—as for Eureka, so also for any other field—there was nothing new in that.
The most important thing is that Carboni wrote of Ballarat as a whole which, while conceding that hard labour was certainly everywhere necessary, makes of his ‘ruinous Field’ and his ‘profound ditch of perdition’ little more than hyperbole which could only have caused ribald mirth among most of the diggers. What is more interesting is his observation on the new community. The estimates for the adult male population on Ballarat rose by 3,700 from August to October, and by another 5,120 by December. This is indicative in itself of general prosperity and indeed makes quite remarkable the Carboni estimate of 10-12,000 present at the burning of the hotel, as in October there were only 18,470 adult males on all Ballarat.9 Certainly there was some movement, and especially to nearby Creswick where alluvial digging was predominant in contrast to the labour of the deep leads. Yet it was assuredly the case that the greater proportion of the Ballarat population was settled, otherwise the whole concept of deep-lead mining would have lost its meaning. Furthermore the evident development of schools, churches, stores, libraries, and even the hope of a hospital, bespeaks a population that, in large measure, had settled down. Carboni’s inability to recognize ‘but few old faces’ at the Eureka meeting indicates either myopia or, more likely, wishful thinking. He was determined to let Archer know how much he deplored the riot and he showed his desire not to implicate his old mates in it. That subsequent histories found it necessary to adorn with significance Carboni’s words on Ballarat, which he called ‘a ditch of perdition’ without specifying Eureka itself, does little more than confirm Carboni’s heading to Chapter XVII of his book: ‘Hidden, impenetrable and profound are the ways of him who gives being to nothing’.10
The sittings of the board of enquiry from 2 to 10 November in the comfort of Bath’s Hotel served to dampen the ardour of the fervent and strengthen the hand of the more moderate. They hoped, with Humffray, that its recommendations would bring relief in the shape of decisive government action. Meanwhile, the committee of the proposed Reform League continued to meet, given that the trial of Fletcher, McIntyre and Yorkey (Westerly) was set down for 20 November in Melbourne. Furthermore, from some quarters it was being stressed that change for the better on the goldfields rested in some measure in the hands of the diggers. The Melbourne Age thought that it depended ‘entirely upon the diggers’ whose ‘patience and forbearance’ hitherto was deemed highly creditable. What else they were supposed to do never became clear, but their behaviour had become so moderate that by 2 November Rede acquiesced in the removal of 2 sub-inspectors, 2 sergeants, 5 troopers and 29 constables to Melbourne and Geelong, although no thought was given to diminishing the strength of the military force.11 One of its own ranks, calling himself, in classical terms, ‘A Son of Mars’, wrote to the Ballarat Times to complain of the hardships to which the soldiers were being subjected, as if the officers were carrying out Wellington’s instruction ‘If you will have fierce and hardy soldiers, hard march and starve them’. This particular redcoat thought it was all intended ‘to inure us to the anticipated campaign with the diggers’. Nonetheless, to him at least, for ‘our paternal government’ to pay them two shillings a day and then expect ‘every man will do his duty’ was asking rather too much.12
At Creswick and at Ballarat two further meetings were held in the final week of November. The former was reassuring to the authorities because, while it aired the usual grievances, the 500 or 600 diggers present refused to endorse a call for separation from Great Britain. At Ballarat, on Bakery Hill again, some 3,000 turned out on Wednesday, 1 November, and were again addressed by Kennedy. The government observer, assistant engineer Henry Bowyer Lane, thought the Scot was a ‘mad enthusiast’ but, in his estimate, Holyoake, Black and Ross were more temperate in their utterances. Holyoake and Ross had been deputized to see to the defence of Fletcher and McIntyre and the meeting expressed satisfaction with their services in the cause of the prisoners. The subsequent arrests which had taken place on Ballarat had caused great resentment because the Camp authorities had promised the delegation on Saturday, 21 October, that no more arrests would take place over the burning of the hotel. The diggers were unaware that such a promise was merely a temporary one, contingent upon the despatch of further military reinforcements which, after their arrival on the Wednesday following, had emboldened Rede to make further arrests.
Nevertheless, any use of physical force was rejected, at least until all peaceful means had proven useless. The main, peaceful measure was seen as representation in the parliament. The abolition of the licence fee and the doing away with the whole apparatus of the gold commission were secondary, but necessary, means to restore confidence and good order. John Green, another government observer, was not all that sure of the peaceful intent of the diggers, although he came to the conclusion that as yet there was nothing ‘seditious’ in their behaviour. These observations were possibly formed in Green’s mind when he heard Kennedy state, with some bluster, that the Scots had a saying which put constitutional means in their proper perspective, ‘Mere persuasion is all a humbug, there’s nothing convinces like a lick in the lug!’
A third observer was delighted to see such a small crowd, given that an attempt had been made to rally the mob with a ‘parade of a band and banners’, but people apparently engaged in legitimate occupations had stayed at their jobs. To him the source of the trouble was ‘a few disaffected Irish, non-descript Yankees and old Vandemonians’. He appeared to overlook the fact that none of these types was represented among the leadership, unless he mistook Kennedy (who allegedly proclaimed himself a champion of the French Revolution and a believer in a socialist society) for a disaffected Irishman.13 More importantly, none of the observers made much of one vital resolution which assuredly did not escape the attention of Hotham and Rede when it was published in the Argus on 4 November. It was resolved ‘that the diggers of Ballarat do enter into communication with the men of the other gold fields with a view to the immediate formation of a general league, having for its object the attainment of the moral and social rights of the diggers’. Only two weeks previously, over at Bendigo, the diggers had met and resolved ‘never to cease agitating’ until they possessed all the rights, political and social, of ‘British subjects’, and Hotham himself had been attacked vigorously for his neglect of their grievances after the apparent concern he had expressed when he visited the field. Unrest which hitherto had been sporadic and isolated seemed to be coalescing, and Ballarat was unquestionably its focal point by early November.
Rede himself was not in Ballarat at the time, as he had been called to Melbourne for discussions with Hotham. He put in writing his objection to the method of collecting the licence fee, which he acknowledged was detestable to the diggers. Nonetheless, he still held that ‘the present system with some alteration as to the mode of issuing is the best’, while offering suggestions of alternatives, such as a low export duty, stamp duties on property and a doubling of the fees for licensed houses.14 All of this was mere verbiage, because Hotham and Rede had met to consider not ways of alleviating the lot of the diggers, but of devising an effective means of crushing their movement. While together in Melbourne they agreed upon a code in which Rede, on his return to Ballarat, would communicate with his superior. Ballarat, with its Camp fortified, as if on a battlefield, its military and its police ready for action and its commandant taking on all the trappings of a field officer, was indeed ready for anything the diggers could muster in the way of unrest—constitutional, peaceful or otherwise.
As if to prove that on Ballarat talk was not cheap, moves were set afoot for the formation, in an official and public manner, of a league to defend the rights of the diggers. For weeks plans had been afoot to this end and, in an informal way, the Ballarat Reform League was already in existence. But 11 November 1854, a Saturday, saw its official launching on Bakery Hill, in the presence of 10,000 diggers.
William Kelly happened to be in Ballarat on that Saturday afternoon and he wrote about the event in his reminiscences. The meeting began in a large tent, and Dr Carr made a lengthy speech in which theories of political representation were given a poor hearing, while unlocking the land was somewhat more popular. Kennedy opened his remarks with ‘Brother diggers’, denied the legality of the licence tax, swore that he would die for his Queen, but would ‘shed the last drop of his blood before he would pay another licence’.15 The meeting then moved outside onto the hill proper where Humffray, Kennedy and Vern addressed the assembly. Humffray was regarded as the leader and thus elected president, while George Black became the secretary, pro tem, of the committee. The aims of the League were twofold, in that a number of immediate objectives were set while others were of a long-term kind. In a document redolent of Lovett’s charter of 1838, shot through with overtones of the struggles of the working class in Britain in the 1840s, as well as mindful of their suppression at Newport and Birmingham, the revolutions of 1848 and the centuries of resistance to British rule by the Irish, the diggers set forth their statement containing an enunciation of political rights, grievances and immediate demands:
At a Meeting held on Bakery Hill in the presence of about ten thousand men on Saturday November 11th, 1854 the following were adopted as the principles and objects of the ‘Ballarat Reform League’.
That it is the inalienable right of every citizen to have a voice in making the laws he is called upon to obey—that taxation without representation is tyranny.
That, being as the people have been hitherto, unrepresented in the Legislative Council of the Colony of Victoria, they have been tyrannized over, and it becomes their duty as well as interest to resist, and if necessary to remove the irresponsible power which so tyrannizes over them.
That this Colony has hitherto been governed by paid Officials, upon the false assumption that law is greater than justice because, forsooth, it was made by them and their friends, and admirably suits their selfish ends and narrowminded views. It is the object of the ‘League’ to place the power in the hands of responsible representatives of the people to frame wholesome laws and carry on an honest Government.
That it is not the wish of the ‘League’ to effect an immediate separation of this Colony from the parent country, if equal laws and equal rights are dealt out to the whole free community. But that if Queen Victoria continues to act upon the ill advice of dishonest ministers and insists upon indirectly dictating obnoxious laws for the Colony under the assumed authority of the Royal Prerogative the Reform League will endeavour to supersede such Royal Prerogative by asserting that of the People which is the most Royal of all Prerogatives, as the people are the only legitimate source of all political power.
Political changes contemplated by the Reform League
Immediate objects of the Reform League
An immediate change in the management of the Gold Fields, by disbanding the Commissioners.
The total abolition of the Diggers’ and Storekeepers’ licence tax, and a thorough and organized agitation of the Gold Fields and the Towns.
That to carry out the foregoing objects there would be a large Tent erected in which to meet and conduct the business of the Reform League. Cards of membership will be issued in a few days and Ballarat divided into districts.
At the same Meeting the following, among other Resolutions, were passed
That this Meeting condemns the insolent language used by the Colonial Secretary, the Surveyor General, the Chief Commissioner of Gold Fields, and the Chairman of Committees, for their unwarrantable assertions respecting the veracity of the Diggers and the respectability of the representatives of the public press on the gold fields, and their sneering contempt at an appeal for an investigation into the mal-practices of the corrupt Camp at Ballarat.
That this meeting having heard read the draft Prospectus of the Ballarat Reform League approve of and adopt the same, and hereby pledge themselves to support the Committee in carrying out its principles and attaining its objects—which are the full political rights of the people.
That this Meeting expresses its utter want of confidence in the political honesty of the Government Officials in the Legislative Council, and pledge themselves to use every constitutional means to have them removed from the offices they disgrace. That this Meeting also expresses its disapprobation of the mode in which the Board of Enquiry was appointed. That it ought to have been composed of independent gentlemen and not paid government officials.
In Melbourne, on 27 November, George Black presented this document to Hotham. It has to be presumed that the Governor read it, that he took note of the fact that it was not narrow insofar as it presumed to speak for the right of all citizens and not only the diggers, that it spoke of ‘a thorough and organized agitation of the Gold-fields and the Towns’ and that his very own ill-chosen sentiment expressed at Geelong about the source of political power was repeated. Hotham, however, could afford to write Put away’ on the document as he had means, not merely words, to settle the question as to who would exercise the royal prerogative in the colony which Her Majesty had committed to his particular care.16
Two journalists, far apart, were much impressed by what was happening on Ballarat. Naturally enough Henry Seekamp was one. He observed carefully the proceedings on Bakery Hill on 11 November and was moved to prose of almost prophetic tone when he wrote it up in the Ballarat Times. The formation of the League, the first in the southern hemisphere was of great significance, he thought, because it was ‘not more or less than the germ of Australian independence’. Nothing now could stop the march to freedom begun on Bakery Hill by the League, and Seekamp dreamt that it would eventually become an ‘Australian Congress’.
Far away in London a resident of 28 Dean Street, Soho, took a much more sober view of these matters when he came to read of them. Living with his wife and children, in harsh circumstances in a two-roomed apartment, Karl Marx had accepted £50 to write a series of articles for the Neue Oder Zeitung of Breslau. Engels had once told him that Australia was a United States of ‘murderers, burglars, ravishers and pickpockets’. Marx thought otherwise and concluded that what had happened at Ballarat was only a symptom of a ‘general revolutionary movement in the Colony of Victoria’. He was certain that the symptom would quickly be suppressed, indeed would already have been put down by the time of his writing. Marx left it to others to devise the manner of the suppression. As to the movement itself only ‘complete concessions’ would serve to arrest it.17