3 FURTHER PAPERS RELATIVE TO THE ALTERATIONS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE VICTORIA. Despatches from Lieut.-Governor LaTrobe. No. 1. COPY of a DESPATCH from Lieutenant-Governor LATROBE to the (No. 54.) MY LORD DUKE, I HAVE the honour to transmit the enclosed copy of a petition to Her Majesty from a number of residents at Heathcote, McIvor Gold Fields, praying that the Royal Assent may be given to the clause in the New Constitution Act which contains provision for an annual grant of 50,000l. for religious purposes in this colony. 2. I have to apologize for the informal manner in which the original petition has been presented to me for transmission; but as the returning of the original to the memorialists with a request that regard should be had in every particular to the prescribed forms would probably preclude them from making their wishes known at all, I have preferred replacing that soiled original by a fair copy, and would request your Grace to allow the prayer which it contains to be laid before Her most Gracious Majesty. The Duke of Newcastle, I have, &c. (Signed) C. J. LATROBE. Unto Her Most Gracious Majesty VICTORIA, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, The memorial and petition of the undersigned Colonists residing at Heathcote Humbly showeth, That your memorialists are loyal and devoted subjects of Your most Gracious Majesty. That your memorialists know and are well assured that Your most Gracious Majesty is at all times anxiously desirous to promote the social and moral prosperity of all classes of Your Majesty's subjects, both at home and in every British colony. That a Bill has lately been introduced into the Legislative Council of this province, known to us by the name "The New Constitution Bill," intended for the better regulation of the laws of this province. That, in the said Bill, the clause No. (60) sixty contains a provision for an annual grant of 50,000l. for religious purposes in the province of Victoria aforesaid. VICTORIA. No 1. Encl. 1 in No. 1. VICTORIA. That, a number of Your Majesty's subjects residing in the cities of Melbourne and of Geelong, and their suburbs, in the said province of Victoria, met at the Mechanics' Institute Hall, in the said city of Melbourne, on Wednesday, the 1st day of March last, 1854; and there and then proposed and carried a resolution to the effect that a memorial should be presented to Your most Gracious Majesty, petitioning therein Your most Gracious Majesty not to sanction the said clause No. (60) sixty in the New Constitution Bill of Victoria as aforesaid, on the grounds that such an annual grant of 50,000l. for religious purposes will create mutual jealousies, heartburnings, and strifes among the various religious denominations in the province of Victoria aforesaid. That your memorialists, while giving the subscribers to that memorial or petition against the sixtieth clause of the New Constitution Bill every credit for the purity and goodness of their motives in so doing, your memorialists cannot at all agree with them in their expressed conclusions. That your memorialists therefore would humbly pray Your most Gracious Majesty not to disallow the sixtieth clause of the New Constitution Bill of the province of Victoria herein-mentioned, on the following grounds : That your memorialists have been (some more and some less,) about sixteen years residing in the interior districts of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, and more particularly some more and some less,) about two years on the Gold Fields of the province of Victoria. That your memorialists have, with deep sorrow, frequently observed that, owing to the scattered nature of the population of the interior of this province and of New Holland at large, and also the nomadic habits of a great many of Your Majesty's subjects sojourning there, a lamentable deficiency prevails throughout of the means of religious ordinances and religious instruction; in consequence of which inany of the rising generation in the interior are now growing up without any knowledge of religion whatever. That during the period of one year now most of your memorialists have resided on the Gold Fields at the M'Ivor diggings in the province of Victoria aforesaid; and that during that time your memorialists have seen no minister of religion officiating at this place, and only until lately a minister of the Church of England has come up to reside here, but who derives his only support at present from funds voted for religious purposes by the Legislative Council of this province, no other funds being available to support, in any way, religious ordinances on these diggings at the present moment. That again, besides the towns of Melbourne and Geelong, there are many more inland townships in the province of Victoria who have not protested or shown any objection to the passing of the sixtieth clause in the New Constitution Bill of Victoria, besides many other inhabitants residing in the interior, though not in any township. That, however good or just it may be considered by some the carrying out of the ordinances of religion and religious instruction on the voluntary principle, still, as no rule existeth without an exception, the said voluntary principle is not applicable to the rapidly increasing social and moral wants of the colony of Victoria. That a mighty interior in this great island continent of New Holland has yet to be explored, opened up, and populated, and thereby urgently requiring, for the due maintenance of religious ordinances and religious instruction, all the pecuniary aid and support which Your most Gracious Majesty's Government in conjunction with the mutual assistance of Your Majesty's subjects can conjointly supply-if only in supporting missionaries from each religious denomination who may choose to send forth such pioneers in the great cause of God. May it therefore please Your most Gracious Majesty to grant your Royal Assent to clause numbered (60) sixty, in the New Constitution Bill of the Province of Victoria, in Australia. And your Majesty's Petitioners, as in duty bound, will for ever pray. [Here follow 26 signatures.] No. 2. Not forwarded with either the original or dupli copy of this Despatch. No. 2. COPY of a DESPATCH from the OFFICER ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT to the Duke of NEWCASTle. (No. 76.) MY LORD DUKE, Melbourne, May 22, 1854. (Received August 8, 1854.) (Answered No. 19, August 29, 1854, p. 7.) I HAVE the honour to forward to your Grace the enclosed copy of a memorial to Her most Gracious Majesty, signed by 11,221 names, together with the copy of a letter which accompanied it, praying that the clause in the proposed New Constitution Act of Victoria, granting 50,000l. per annum for the purposes of public worship, might not become law. 2. It was impossible to forward it by the "Golden Age," from the time at which it was delivered to me; nor do I deem it right to forward the original by the overland mail, from its great size. It shall, however, be forwarded first eligible opportunity. the 3. The petitioners are opposed on principle to any state support of religion, into which question it is not necessary for me to enter. I shall merely call your Grace's attention to the fact that the clause was carried in the Legislative Council by a majority of 29 to 10, and that the sum of 50,000l. was carried on a division by 25 to 4. The Duke of Newcastle, &c. (Signed) I have, &c. JOHN FORSTER, VICTORIA. Enclosure in No. 2 MEMORIAL AND PETITION. Unto Her Most Gracious Majesty VICTORIA, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, The Memorial and Petition of the undersigned Citizens of Melbourne, and other Humbly showeth, THAT your memorialists, cherishing the most sincere and respectful attachment to Your Majesty's person and government, and convinced of Your Majesty's anxious desire to promote the peace and prosperity of Your Majesty's subjects in all parts of your wide spread dominions, approach Your Majesty on the present occasion on a matter of the very last importance, involving as it does the interests of vital religion, and the harmony and peace of this new and important dependency of the British Empire. That your memorialists complain of the introduction into the new constitution of the colony of a clause appropriating annually 50,000l. for ecclesiastical purposes, together with a serious aggravation of that evil by the insertion of another clause thrown out in the third reading of the Bill, requiring a majority of two thirds of the future Council before this or any other objectionable portion of the constitution can be removed; thus perpetuating beyond all remonstrance for an indefinite period, the grievous wrongs which your memorialists believe will inevitably result from the operation of such measure. Your memorialists have further to complain that the aforesaid clause should have been enacted in opposition to public opinion, legitimately, emphatically, and repeatedly expressed. In the city of Melbourne, at the instance of a numerously signed and highly respectable requisition, embracing individuals belonging to the different denominations, a public meeting had been duly convened and presided over by the Right Worshipful the Mayor, with the view of obtaining the sense of the community in respect to the said clause. At that meeting, which was unusually large and spirited, resolutions condemnatory of the proposed endowment were all but unanimously passed, only four hands being held up in opposition; and a petition was forwarded to the Legislative Council, praying that the proposed clause should have no place in the new constitution. In Geelong and other parts of the colony similar public meetings had been held, where the measure had been protested against with similar unanimity and determination; and that from these meetings and congregational associations together there had gone to the Council no fewer than nineteen petitions against the clause, while not a single public meeting had declared for it, nor a single petition from any source had been forwarded in its favour. In connexion with this point your memorialists cannot omit to state a very striking fact illustrative of the importance of the present question, and the depth of feeling with which it is generally entertained. That although the colonial government invited the free expression of public opinion on the various clauses of the proposed constitution, on this clause alone had any public agitation taken place, or any manifestation of public sentiment been given forth; if we may except a remonstrance and protest from the digging population against the competency of the present Council to deal with the new constitution at all, seeing that they were not an entirely representative body; and your memorialists have to complain, that the public opinion thus readily, earnestly, and extensively afforded, should have been so little regarded by the very parties who solicited it, and that apparently with so much humility and eagerness for their guidance and direction in laying a sound foundation for the future government and prosperity of this important colony. That your petitioners participated largely in the universal gratitude and joy with which the much wanted and long expected boon of colonial self-government was received; and their disappointment and regret are all the deeper on the present occasion to find that boon already damaged by the insertion of a clause which, besides the glaring absurdity and practical contempt of all religion which it involves, is certain to entail on the community a long series of mutual jealousies and alienations, heartburnings and strifes among the different religious denominations. That your petitioners deeply deplore that the present Council, who may be regarded in the light of "mere returning officers" to the new constitution that is shortly to sit, did not see it to be their duty to leave this and other questions of an important character, Encl. in No. 2. and concerning which the strongest and most conflicting feelings are entertained, to be disposed of in a House entirely composed of members chosen by the suffrages of their fellow colonists, as is contemplated by the new constitution. Indeed, your petitioners have to deplore the course pursued by the present Council in dealing with the new constitution at all, and they cannot but think that a wiser and more becoming course would have been to have dissolved the Council and entrusted the forming of the constitution to members wholly elected by the people. Had such a course been adopted, your petitioners feel persuaded that no such clause as the one now complained of would have been admitted into the constitution. That the clause is objected to, not only by those committees who are opposed on principle to all state endowments of religion whatever, but by large numbers even in those bodies that are in actual receipt of state aid. A vast majority of the Wesleyans are opposed to all state grants, and no inconsiderable proportions of the Episcopalians, with their truly estimable bishop at their head, are strongly opposed to the indiscriminate endowment which the clause contemplates, and are prepared to encounter all the difficulties attending the immediate withdrawal of all assistance from the state rather than be parties to the fearful guilt which they believe the state is contracting. Of the Presbyterian per suasion more than two thirds are opposed to the clause, and in the Roman Catholic communion the opposition has many that sympathise with it, for it is asserted by leading men of that communion that the grant is valued more on account of the political equality which it is considered to impart than for any amount of emolument which it affords; forgetting, however, that were the grant entirely abolished, the equality of the different sects in a civil point of view would be necessarily perfect and permanent. In short, if all who are opposed to the clause on the ground of the indiscriminate endowment of truth and error which it contemplates are taken into account, with the large and increasing section who are opposed to all state endowments whatever as being unscriptural, unnecessary, impolitic and unjust, the introduction of such a cause will be found to be opposed to the wishes of a decided majority of the colonists. That the jealousy and alarm with which this measure is regarded by the community, and the amount of opposition which has been directed against it, cannot be duly estimated without taking into consideration the general apathy that exists in the colony in respect to political matters, and the peculiar difficulties attending the manifestation of public sentiment on any great question arising from the mutual estrangement of an immigrant population, its unsettled and fluctuating character, the immediate pressure of private and domestic necessities, and the absorbing character of those mining and mercantile pursuits in which the great body of the pecple are engaged. Finally, your memorialists have only to bring under the notice of Your Majesty what has already been done by the free contributions of the people in the purchasing of sites, erection of churches and schools, and support of ministers of the gospel, and in overtaking generally, as detailed in the statistics in the margin, the religious wants of the community-in order to demonstrate how groundless are the fears of those who imagine that the country would lapse into heathenism, were state aid withdrawn. And if in any country the various religious denominations may be safely left to their own resources, and to stand upon their own merits, it is in this country, where wealth is so abundant. And your petitioners believe that, were the christian churches thrown on their own resources, an unwonted freshness and energy would characterize them, which would fully keep pace with the spiritual wants of the population. May it please Your Majesty, were the present Legislative Council entirely composed of members elected by their fellow colonists, and had this clause been enacted by the acknowledged representatives of the people-however much your memorialists might have lamented such a decision--their respect for free institutions would not have permitted them to refer this matter to Your Majesty's revision; but the present constitution of the Council is such as leaves your memorialists no other alternative. May it therefore please Your Majesty to withhold your Royal Assent from the sixtieth clause in the new constitution, appropriating 50,000l. of the public funds for religious purposes. And your memorialists and petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. [Signed by 13,000 persons.] No. 3. COPY of a DESPATCH from the Right Hon. Sir GEORGE GREY, Bart., to (No. 19.) SIR, Downing Street, 29th August 1854. I HAVE to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. LaTrobe's Despatch, No. 54, of the 15th April, and of Mr. Foster's, No. 76, of the 22nd May, the one enclosing the copy of a of a petition to the Queen from a number of residents at Heathcote, Melvor Gold Fields, who pray that Her Majesty will give her assent to the clause in the New Constitution Act for providing an annual grant of 50,000l. for religious purposes in Victoria; and the other forwarding a numerously signed memorial, praying that the same clause may not become law. You will inform the petitioners that I have had the honour to lay both of these memorials before Her Majesty. I have, &c., VICTORIA. |