History revisited – Queensland joins fight for self government

By December 1920, the new state fire that Victor Thompson had lit in January 1920 may, as Earle Page said, have burnt well, but the new Movement still had to turn that heat into reality.

The events that followed over the next four years are complex, deeply entwined in local, state and Federal politics. I can only sketch some of the key features.

The embryo movement formed at the Glen Innes convention in August 1920 was transformed into a full scale movement that, by the end of 1921, had 200 leagues across the North.

Recognising the need for national support, the Northern leadership took the subdivision cause onto the road. They reached out into Queensland where support for separation was already strong in Central and Northern Queensland. Here they were joined by Labor politician and later Prime Minister Frank Forde (photo)  who, as member for Rockhampton in the State Parliament, had been actively promoting the subdivision of Queensland.

In Southern New South Wales, the Northern campaigners were successful in creating an active movement seeking statehood for the Riverina. Then, in July 1922, a national new state conference was held at Albury. Convened jointly by the Riverina and Northern Movements, the conference aimed to coordinate the activities of the various separation movements that had sprung up as a result of the Northerners’ campaign.

Attended by representatives including seven parliamentarians from twelve organisations covering NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia, it formed an All Australian New States Movement with Earle Page as President, Victor Thompson as secretary.

Also in July 1922, Frank Forde successfully moved a motion in the Queensland Parliament calling for constitutional change to allow the formation of new states, while Drummond moved a motion in the NSW Parliament calling for immediate action to create a new state in Northern New South Wales.

This motion was opposed by the Labor opposition who argued that any subdivision should take place only in the context of an overall revision of the Federal Constitution that would strengthen Federal powers and replace the states with provinces.

The Government’s position was more complicated. The Premier conceded that new states were inevitable in the longer term, but also felt that it was simply unreasonable to expect members to agree to a motion that would mean loss of territory for NSW. An amendment was therefore moved and passed asking the Federal Government to convene a convention to consider the question, thus neatly shelving the issue.

The Federal elections of December 1922 saw the election of new staters P P Abbott to the Senate, Victor Thompson to the House of Representatives as member for New England. It also saw the emergence of the Country Party in a position of balance of power.

Page, now Country Party Leader, was determined to assert country interests. He demanded that the new Government be a joint one, a coalition of equals. The result was the formation of the Bruce-Page ministry.

The door now seemed open to real action to force self-government for New England. It wasn’t to be as easy as that.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 20 August   2014, the next in a series telling the story of the Northern or New England self-government moment. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

If you want to follow the story of the Northern or New England self-government movement, this is the entry post for the whole series

History revisited – Thompson’s separatist fire burns well

Tamworth Observer editor Victor Thompson could not have foreseen the scale of impact of the Northern self-government campaign he launched through the paper in January 1920. Over 1920, the movement grew and grew.

Following the initial success of the Thompson campaign, a meeting of Northern newspapers held at Glen Innes in March 1920 agreed to form a New State Press League and Press Propaganda Executive with Thompson as secretary to direct an intensive propaganda campaign.

Over the next twelve months, the twenty-seven newspapers that had joined the League funded the Propaganda Executive to distribute news and editorial material to Northern newspapers. By August 1920, sixty newspapers from the Upper Hunter to the border were publishing League material.

The Thompson campaign coincided with campaigning for the NSW State election.

Earle Page had already been elected to the Federal Parliament in 1918 as member for Cowper representing the newly formed County Party. Now the March State election saw the election of a number of members for the newly formed Progressive Party including Mick Bruxner and David Drummond who had specifically campaigned on the new state cause.

In April 1920, the Tamworth Municipal Council circularised other councils in the North asking for an expression of opinion on the desirability of new states. Many reported enthusiastic support and followed Tamworth’s example by calling public meetings to launch new state leagues. By the end of May, fifty four councils were prepared to take action.

The Northern parliamentarians, particularly Page, Bruxner and Drummond helped the cause by speaking on tour and by assisting in the establishment of local leagues.

In late May, Drummond was the main speaker at a 5,000 strong Tamworth rally. The rally was preceded by a procession more than a mile long including 500 children clad in white. Denied a half holiday for the event, the children deserted school to march anyway.

In August, a Glen Innes conference appointed a provisional central executive for the newly forming Northern New State Movement pending a full convention to be held in Armidale. Following this, Progressive Party Parliamentarians Raymond Perdriau and David Drummond were appointed to organise the North Coast and Inland respectively.

December saw the publication of what would come to be called the new state bible, Australia Subdivided. Largely edited by Glen Innes Examiner editor Ernest Sommerlad with a foreword signed by seven parliamentarians, Australia Subdivided provided a detailed presentation of the new state case. It also bemoaned the absence of teachers’ colleges or universities in the North, a view that would be of considerable importance to Armidale’s future.

At year’s end, Page could fairly write to Thompson “Altogether, I think that you will be satisfied with the results of your labours this year. The fire you started has travelled far, and burnt well.”

The fire had indeed burnt well. However, now the new Movement faced major challenges in turning the dream into practical reality.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 August   2014, the next in a series telling the story of the Northern or New England self-government moment. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

If you want to follow the story of the Northern or New England self-government movement, this is the entry post for the whole series

History revisited – January 1920. Tamworth Observer’s Victor Thompson re-launches fight for New England new state

Tamworth, Monday 5 January 1920. Victor Thompson as editor of the Tamworth Observer re-launches the campaign for self-government for the North with an editorial on country neglect. Over the next eleven issues he published a series of articles calling for the establishment of a new state in Northern NSW.

Born in Sydney in 1895, Thompson (first photo) had entered country journalism at eighteen and soon accepted country values and aspirations. Appointed to the Observer as senior reporter in 1911, he quickly became a campaigning editor. In doing so, he would transform the paper from a local paper to the Northern Daily Leader, the leading paper of the Tablelands and North West.

Thompson’s new campaign fell on fertile ground. While the separatist agitation of the 1880s had subsided, the idea of self-government for the North as a way of solving local problems had taken root.

At Grafton in 1915, public anger over the withdrawal of the steam ferry Helen from Clarence quickly turned into calls for a new state. The leader here was Dr Earle Page, then mayor of South Grafton.

Born at Grafton in 1880, Page was a clever mercurial man who would have a significant impact on Australian history. A shrewd business man committed to Northern development, Page was also a born agitator able to stir emotion and gather popular support.

Within a few months, the newly formed Northern New South Wales Separation League had grown to twenty two branches along the North Coast. Then it died down because of the war. However, during the agitation Thompson had promised Page that he would take up the cause as soon as the war had ended.

Page returned to Grafton in 1917 and resumed campaigning for separation and country development. In October 1918, a conference attended by coastal delegates from Kempsey to the Queensland border formed the North Coast Development League.

In April 1919, Page took his campaign inland, leading to the formation of a sister North-West Development League at Inverell.

One of the 300 people who packed the hot Inverell picture theatre to listen to Page pour out facts and figures over two and a half hours was a twenty nine year old share farmer named David Drummond. The younger Drummond absorbed the message. Page would become his life-long friend and mentor. The links that would shape Northern history in the first part of the twentieth century were forming.

While the new state cause was rising, a second political movement was emerging. Driven by concerns about country neglect, farmers had begun to discuss the formation of a new political party, leading to the formation of the Progressive, later Country Party.

The Northern people such as Drummond or Mick Bruxner who became involved with the new party were largely political clean skins. Lacking connections to the established political order, they identified with the new state cause. It became a natural part of their political platform.

Later, this close relationship between the New State Movement and Country Party would create difficulties for the New State Movement. In 1920, it contributed to the explosive success of Victor Thompson’s newspaper campaign.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 August   2014, the next in a series telling the story of the Northern or New England self-government moment. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

If you want to follow the story of the Northern or New England self-government movement, this is the entry post for the whole series

History revisited – Lang vs Clark Irving: the battle for Northern self-government begins

Following the separation of Victoria in 1851, our sometimes irascible clergyman John Dunmore Lang turned his attention to the matter of Moreton Bay. In 1854 he was re-elected to the NSW Legislative Council, this time by the Moreton Bay District, to press the case for separation.

Lang’s vision did not yet include self-government for what we now call Northern NSW or New England. He wanted the bigger Northern NSW that stretched to Torres Strait to be broken into three colonies; separation for Morton Bay was a first step. He also wanted the boundary of Moreton Bay to be south of the present line.

As it became clear that this was not possible, Lang turned his attention to a new project, the creation of a new colony in Northern NSW. The battle that now raged was fought out in the Northern Rivers. There Lang was pitted against Clark Irving, merchant, ship owner, pastoralist and politician.

Irving had been elected in 1856 to represent the Clarence and Darling Downs in the first Legislative Assembly formed after the grant of responsible government to NSW. In 1857 he lost his seat in the face of local dislike of leadership from Sydney, as well as justified doubts about Irving’s support for the Moreton Bay separatist cause.

Now overtly anti separatist, Irving used his not inconsiderable political skills and financial resources to fight back, gaining re-election in 1859, the year of Queensland separation, as member for Clarence.

Irving controlled the local newspaper. Lang and his supporters therefore decided to establish a rival paper. In 1859 financial backing was found to bring William Vincent to Grafton to establish the Clarence & Richmond Examiner, now the Grafton Daily Examiner. This marks the start of the Vincent newspaper family that was to play such an important role in the history of the New England press and in the promotion of Northern causes.

Irving won. The agitation died down, resurfacing at Glen Innes in 1875 and then again in a stronger way in 1887-1888. This agitation is important because it saw the emergence of concepts and arguments that are still important today.

From the start of the 1880s, all the capital cities began gaining population at the expense of the rest of their colonies. The problem was most pronounced in Victoria, leading to the formation of decentralisation leagues to campaign for balanced development.

The decentralisation movement spread. In Newcastle, some speakers at an 1888 protest meeting, called over the railway plans of the Sydney government, advocated separation. The move was rejected, but the newly formed North and North-western Decentralisation League subsequently proposed that the Colony should be divided into ten provincial districts (regional councils), each entitled to a share of the national revenue.

The Newcastle discussion over separation reflected the resurgence of separatist support further north. Beginning in 1887, a campaign for separation spread along a line from Grafton through Glen Innes to Inverell. For the first time there was a clear expression of Northern identity, a creation of the period since Queensland separation.

Agitation died. However, a base had been laid for the bigger campaigns of the twentieth century.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 30 July 2014, the second in a series telling the story of the Northern or New England self-government moment. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

If you want to follow the story of the Northern or New England self-government movement, this is the entry post for the whole series.