secondary punishment has become greater than ever.-[Hence-to cut Mr. Gladstone a little short-transportation to Australia to be revived.]

But here a difficulty presented itself. 'It has happened, either by the enactment of positive laws, or by pledges said to have been made by her Majesty's Government, that no place is left in Australia for the reception of transported convicts, except Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island.'

Hence, Mr. Gladstone argued, the necessity for the erection of the new convict colony of Northern Australia under Colonel Barney.

The despatch concludes:

I cannot but advert to the possible, though I do not doubt improbable, difficulty with which you may have to contend. advert to the dissatisfaction with which the Legislature and the Colonists of New South Wales may contemplate this measure. I should much lament the manifestation or existence of such a feeling. It would be with sincere regret that I should learn that so important a body of Her Majesty's subjects were inclined to oppose themselves to the measures which I have thus attempted to explain. Any such opposition must be encountered by reminding those from whom it might proceed, in terms alike respectful and candid, that it is impossible that her Majesty should be advised to surrender what appears to be one of the vital interests of the British Empire--[i.e., to create a fresh Alsatia at the Antipodes].

Having practically relieved New South Wales, at no small inconvenience to ourselves (as soon as it became a burden), of receiving convicts from this country, we are acquitted of any obligations in that respect, which any colonist the most jealous for the interest of his native or adopted country could ascribe to us.

In a second despatch, covering two newspaper columns, dated May 8, he gives minute instructions as to the method of establishing the new convict colony of Northern Australia. Nor was this all. The Lord Auckland sailed early in January for Northern Australia, having on board: Lieutenant-Colonel Barney, superintendent of the projected colony, Mrs. Barney, and family; W. W. Billyard, Esq., chairman of quarter sessions; James S. Dowling, Esq., crown prosecutor; E. C. Merewether,

Esq., acting colonial secretary; Mr. G. H. Barney, clerk; Assistant Commissary-General Darling; Captain Day, 99th Regiment, Mrs. Day, and family; Mr. W. A. Brown, deputysheriff; Mr. Robertson, surgeon; Mr. George O. Allen; Mr. W. K. Macknish, wife and family. These, with twenty soldiers, and some labourers and servants, comprised the nucleus of Mr. Gladstone's penal colony.

However, Mr. Gladstone retired from the Colonial Office at this juncture, and his successor, Earl Grey, wrote promptly to Sir Charles Fitzroy, on November 15, to this effect :

I cannot conceal from you that her Majesty's present confidential advisers dissent from the view taken of this subject by their immediate predecessors, even in reference to the state of facts under which they acted, and to the considerations by which they were guided. . . . Since the decision was taken there has been such a change in the state and circumstances of society in the Australian colonies as would, could it have been foreseen, have doubtless been regarded by the authors of the project as conclusive against it. ... Her Majesty will, therefore, be advised to revoke the letters patent under which North Australia has been erected into a separate colony; and the establishment formed there must be immediately discontinued.

Mr. Lowe rose to the occasion. His pen now rarely found journalistic employment, for, after re-entering the Council, he soon ceased his connection with the Atlas; but such a subject as Mr. Gladstone's proposed penal colony was altogether too tempting. In the first instance, he dealt with it in a stirring leading article, written in his most pungent style. Then, when the expedition under Colonel Barney sailed out of Port Jackson, he wooed the comic Muse:

How blest the land where Barney's gentle sway
Spontaneous felons joyfully obey,

Where twelve bright bayonets only can suffice

To check the wild exuberance of vice

Where thieves shall work at trades with none to buy,
And stores unguarded pass unrifled by,

Strong in their new found rectitude of soul,

Tamed without law and good without control.

Still more ludicrous was the subsequent wail over the fiasco, which appeared in the form of an inscription on the monument proposed to be erected on the spot where Colonel Barney landed at Port Curtis :

Here Barney landed-memorable spot

Which Mitchell never from the map shall blot
For six long hours he did the search pursue,
For six long hours-and then he thirsty grew;
Back to the rescued steamer did he steer,
Drew the loud cork and quaffed the foaming beer;
Then ate his dinner with tremendous gust,
And with champagne relieved his throat adust,
Fished for his brother flat-fish from the stern,
And thus victorious did to Sydney turn!

Passing from poetry to the hard facts of the cost of this futile experiment, I find, from an official memorandum, that it amounted to some 15,402l. 6s. 2d., all of which was simply thrown into the sea.

However little one may accept the absurd saying, Vox populi vox Dei, it is quite true that it was the bulk of the respectable labouring men and women of Australia who won the battle that cleared their shores of the taint of convictism. As will be shown in a succeeding chapter, they found in Robert Lowe a valiant and eloquent leader, who threw himself heart and soul into the question, and became-what he never was before or after-the idol of the masses.

CHAPTER XXI

NOTES OF A GREAT SPEECH

Legislative Council, Sydney: Oct. 9, 1846

BEFORE passing on to the stormy scenes, many of them enacted under the blue vault of heaven, when Robert Lowe, in defiance of all his inborn traditions-his love of close reasoning, his keen but scholarly wit, his distaste for mere empty declamation-found himself compelled to be the leading agitator in the colony, let us take a glance at some notes of a fine and thoughtful oration delivered by him in the Legislative Council on his favourite subject of education.

This was on the evening of October 9, 1846, when he rose to move:

That an Address be presented to his Excellency the Governor, praying that he will be pleased to place on the Estimates of Expenditure the sum of 2,000l. to meet the expenses of schools to be conducted on the principles of Lord Stanley's National System of Education; and that his Excellency will be pleased to appoint a Board favourable to that system, and take all other steps necessary for bringing it into immediate and effective operation.

It will be remembered that almost from the time he entered the Council as a Crown nominee, Mr. Lowe had been the chief educational reformer in Australia. The question, moreover, had for the last two years been amply discussed both in the Council and on the public platform. During this period the clergy had organised their forces,

while the leaders of the Roman Catholic church had made a complete volte-face. It was from that quarter that the reformers had most to fear; for its flocks were both numerous and ignorant. Mr. Lowe began to see that the victory would not be won easily, and that, do what he might, it would in all likelihood take some years simply to educate his masters the voters in the community. But he remained undaunted; and, on the evening referred to, set himself the task not only of explaining the advantages of a general system of education, but of meeting and controverting the position taken up by his opponents, who declared that he was advocating a 'godless' system. His answer to this charge will furnish the first extract from his speech, which is given as nearly as possible in the words he used in addressing the Legislative Council.

The objection urged to this system when it was first brought forward was that it was a godless and irreligious system. Now, I am ready to confess that I am an advocate for irreligious teachingthat I would have people made shoemakers or tailors without the aid of religion at all-that all mechanical arts should in fact be taught irreligiously. I am of opinion that religion should be mixed up with none of these things, on the principle that it is sufficient to teach one thing well at a time; and if children are to be taught to read and write, their attention should be confined to reading and writing, and I repudiate the idea of teaching reading and writing according to any system of religion. So also I am for an irreligious system of arithmetic, for I can see nothing but evil from blending theology with simple addition, or cosmogony with subtraction. God forbid that I should wish children to be brought up irreligiously. I would have a child instructed in religion as in anything else, but what I want is that religion should not necessarily be mixed up with instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The whole fallacy, indeed, turns on the word education; if the word meant reading and writing, then ought religion to have nothing to do with the matter; but if it embraced a wider scope-if it contemplated the entire training of man- the fitting for higher views and nobler purposes than those for which his original nature fitted him-if it was to raise and improve the whole faculties of his being, to make him a

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