Category Archives: democracy

by Joel | 20 March 2024 · 7:00 am

The Weimar Constitution of 1919

From The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918–1933, by Frank McDonough (Bloomsbury, 2023), Kindle pp. 132-134:

But the biggest political event during the summer of 1919 was the ratification of the new democratic Weimar Constitution, which was adopted by the National Assembly on 31 July by a margin of 262 to 75 votes. It was signed by President Friedrich Ebert on 11 August and came into force on the same day. The Weimar Constitution (Weimarer Verfassung) was a compromise worked out between the various political factions represented in the National Assembly. It retained the term Reich, with all its imperial associations, to denote the new Republic. The chief author of the Constitution, the liberal Professor Hugo Preuss, decided to retain those features of the Bismarckian Constitution that were likely to function under a democratic system and to incorporate some aspects of the 1848 liberal Frankfurt Constitution which had never been implemented. The federal structure was retained, which was welcomed in the southern German states, and by the dominant state of Prussia, which covered 75 per cent of German territory, even though the power and autonomy of the states was weakened. Between 1919 and 1932, Prussia became a stronghold of the Social Democrats who ruled it in coalitions with the Centre Party (Zentrum) and the German Democratic Party (DDP).

The Weimar Constitution was divided into two main parts. The first, which had 77 articles, laid out the various components of the Reich government. Section 1 (Articles 1–19) defined the German Reich as a Republic whose power derived from the people. The territory of the Reich was defined as the regions covered by the German federal Länder. The legislative authority vested in the Reich was extensive, giving the federal government authority over foreign policy, defence, colonial affairs, citizenship, child-welfare, health, freedom of movement, immigration, public order, emigration, banking, taxation, customs, trade, social insurance, currency, postal, telegraph, telephone, railways, and water services. Except for all these, the Länder, elected by a secret ballot, could govern their territories as they saw fit. In the event of a conflict, Reich law superseded regional state law, but the adjudication of conflicts would be determined by an independent Supreme Court (Reichsgericht).

Section 2 (Articles 20–40) described the functions of the national parliament in Berlin, which retained the title of Reichstag. The Reich Chancellor was given a dominant position over the cabinet, and was required, along with the Reich cabinet, to resign in the event of a defeat in the Reichstag, after a vote of no confidence. In the event of a tie, the President had the deciding vote. The Reichstag also had the power to impeach the Reich President, the Reich Cabinet, or individual Ministers, before the Supreme Judicial Court (Staatsgerichtshof). All Germans – male and female – over the age of 20 were given the right to vote in all elections, which were to be held every four years unless a government lost a vote of no confidence in the Reichstag, in which case an election would be held within 60 days. In place of the former single member constituencies, the country was divided into 35 electoral districts. The voting system was based on an exact proportional representation of the votes cast for each party or independent candidate in elections: one seat was allocated in the Reichstag for every 60,000 votes. This allowed smaller parties to gain representation in parliament, with as little as 1 per cent of the votes. Only candidates on pre-prepared lists drawn up by the leaders of the political parties were allocated seats, which tended to mean only those known to be loyal to the party line made it on to the party list. Any constitutional amendments required a two-thirds majority in the Reichstag.

Leave a comment

Filed under democracy, Germany, nationalism, philosophy

by Joel | 19 March 2024 · 6:52 am

Weimar Republic’s Versailles Millstone

From The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918–1933, by Frank McDonough (Bloomsbury, 2023), Kindle pp. 126-127, 147-149:

On 28 June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, exactly five years after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the spark that led to the outbreak of the First World War. It was signed in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles where 48 years before the German Empire had been proclaimed. The treaty was ratified by a vote in the German National Assembly by 209 to 116 on 9 July. The politicians who signed the treaty on behalf of Germany were the Social Democrat Hermann Müller, and Johannes Bell of Zentrum.

The Treaty of Versailles was a staggering blow to the Weimar Republic. Instead of using their power to assist the embryonic democracy in Germany, the Allies treated its leaders as no different from Kaiser Wilhelm. Hatred towards those who had signed the treaty spread widely in the population, especially on the nationalist Right. The myth of the ‘stab in the back’ now made rapid headway. The leaders of German democracy were depicted by the Right as cowards and traitors under the umbrella term the ‘November Criminals’ and were blamed by the public for all the misfortunes that followed.

There was a huge contrast between the political and economic distress of the Weimar years and the vibrant culture of the period. Yet what is now routinely called ‘Weimar culture’ is by no means the posthumous glorification of a world destroyed. Many aspects of Weimar culture really were years ahead of their time. That culture not only encompassed film, literature, modern art, architecture, design, literature, drama, poetry, and cabaret, but also displayed path-breaking attitudes towards sexuality.

…

On 12 December, the leading British economist John Maynard Keynes launched a blistering attack on the Treaty of Versailles in his best-selling book The Economic Consequences of The Peace. Keynes, who became the most influential economist of the twentieth century, had attended the Paris Peace Conference, as a senior delegate of the British Treasury, but he was so appalled by the injustice the Germans had suffered in the Treaty of Versailles that he had resigned in despair, on 7 June 1919. His book was full of flashing insights and indignation, which laid out clearly the economic crisis facing Europe by explaining what the Treaty had failed to do, and what the consequences would be. Keynes pulled no punches and upset many people. He famously described the Versailles Treaty as a ‘Carthaginian Peace’ – a peace that has the intention of crushing the defeated enemy.

Keynes further argued that the Allies, blinded by self-interest, were determined to punish rather than to rehabilitate Germany. The Versailles Treaty offered nothing to make Germany a ‘good neighbour’, and had conceded far too much to the vengeful spirit of the French government, which wanted to keep Germany weak. It imposed impossible terms on Germany which would soon plunge Europe into economic chaos. The demand for reparations was way beyond what Germany could afford to pay. Keynes also warned the territorial provisions of Versailles would lead to future foreign policy disputes. He blamed the ‘idealist’ US President, Woodrow Wilson, whom he described as a ‘blind and deaf Don Quixote’, for being unable to produce a peace settlement based on his Fourteen Points, which it had been promised during the Armistice negotiations would give Germany a ‘just peace’ with no ‘punitive damages’.

Keynes predicted the economic demands on Germany would cause high inflation and economic stagnation, which would spread throughout Europe. The Treaty of Versailles had to be modified, not just for the sake of Germany, but for the benefit of the world economy. It would damage the conditions for economic recovery and sow the seeds for another world war. In his persuasively argued and deeply influential book, Keynes laid the foundation for the failure of the American Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, and he also helped to create a climate of public opinion in which Germany’s demands for a revision of the terms of the treaty met with a sympathetic response, especially in Britain. Here was sowed the seeds of the policy of appeasement.

Leave a comment

Filed under art, Britain, democracy, economics, France, Germany, literature, nationalism, U.S., war

by Joel | 17 March 2024 · 5:16 am

The First Weimar Elections, 1919

From The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918–1933, by Frank McDonough (Bloomsbury, 2023), Kindle pp. 85-87:

The elections for the National Assembly took place on 19 January 1919. This was the first of nine national elections held during the Weimar era. Weimar politics was characterised by a succession of unstable coalition governments, with each political party wanting to pull Germany in different directions. From 1918 to 1933, there were 20 different coalition governments, with an average life-span of no more than nine months, and none served for the full electoral term of four years.

The voter turnout was 83 per cent, with 30.53 million people casting their votes in Germany’s first truly democratic election. The Social Democrats performed best with 37.9 per cent of the vote, a total of 11.51 million votes. This was the highest percentage vote achieved by any Weimar party in any democratic election before 1933. It gave the SPD 165 seats, which was some way below the 212 seats needed for an overall majority. Zentrum came next with 19.7 per cent, representing 5.98 million votes and 91 seats. Those elected included a high proportion of right-wing Catholic Bavarians. Third place went to the DDP, recording 18.6 per cent, with 5.64 million votes, picking up 75 seats. A large number of middle-class voters opted for the DDP, as it had projected a strong anti-socialist stance during the election campaign. Some way behind was the conservative DNVP, with 10.3 per cent, polling 3.12 million votes and gaining 44 seats. The USPD, representing the far left, performed very poorly with just 7.6 per cent, a total of 2.31 million votes and 22 seats. Of the six main Weimar political parties, the DVP performed much the worst, taking a 4.4 per cent vote share, with 1.34 million votes, leaving it with only 19 seats.

The 1919 German election was a victory for the three parties who gave the most enthusiastic support to the new Republic – the SPD, Zentrum and the DDP, who between them polled 76.2 per cent of the votes. The two parties on the conservative Right, the DNVP and the DVP, could only muster 14.7 per cent between them. Their position seemed hopeless. The most revolutionary party on offer to voters, the USPD, registered just 7.6 per cent, showing left-wing radicalism had been resoundingly rejected.

On 3 February, the workers’ and soldiers’ councils formally handed over their powers to the new National Assembly, expressing a desire for the new constitution to create a unitary state in which the central government was supreme, and the powers of the federal states were done away with. They also expressed a desire for the incorporation of the rights of the workers’ and soldiers’ councils into the constitutional framework of the new Republic.

Weimar, a city in central Germany, in the state of Thuringia, was chosen as the first meeting place of the new National Assembly, as it was felt Berlin was still in a state of unrest and disorder. Weimar had been a focal point of the German Enlightenment and was an historic shrine of German liberalism.

Leave a comment

Filed under democracy, Germany, nationalism

by Joel | 16 March 2024 · 5:54 am

Germany Becomes a Republic, 1918

From The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918–1933, by Frank McDonough (Bloomsbury, 2023), Kindle pp. 50-52:

On 6 November, the MSDP [Mehrheitssozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands] leaders held a crisis meeting in Berlin. Scheidemann proposed an ultimatum should be sent to Prince Max stating that the Social Democrats would leave the government unless Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated. Friedrich Ebert, the joint leader of the MSDP, objected to the idea of sending an ultimatum, and suggested he would meet Prince Max to urge a speedy settlement of the abdication question. On the next day, Ebert told Prince Max: ‘If the Kaiser does not abdicate, the social revolution is unavoidable. But I do not want it, indeed I hate it like sin.’ The German Chancellor agreed to travel to Spa to see Wilhelm II and convince him to abdicate.

In the following days, what had begun as a revolt against suicidal naval orders developed into a fully fledged political revolution. Soldiers and sailors in numerous naval base and coastal towns were disobeying orders. Then the revolution spread through all the regions of Germany. The monarchical federal structure of the country, with its 26 constituent territories each with its own kings, dukes, and princes, dissolved. The course of the German Revolution differed from region to region, but what was remarkably similar in each place was the unwillingness of the local authorities, army and naval personnel and local police forces to intervene to stop it.

The Revolution soon reached the Kingdom of Bavaria in southern Germany. On 2 November 1918, the Bavarian king, Ludwig III, approved a series of democratic reforms, which meant laws in future would be based on a parliamentary majority, not royal consent. This came too late to save the Wittelsbach monarchy, which had ruled Bavaria since the 11th century, from being deposed. The events of 7 November were a key turning point in Bavarian history. On that day, there was a huge anti-war demonstration attended by 60,000 people. The speakers demanded peace and democracy, but taking the lead was the eloquent Kurt Eisner, a member of the USPD [Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands], who had adopted a strong anti-war stance that proved popular with the local population. Eisner was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Berlin. After studying philosophy and German at university, he became a journalist and had been the editor of the Social Democrat flagship newspaper Vorwärts (Forward). During the war, he was convicted of treason for inciting a strike of munitions workers in 1918. He served nine months in Munich’s Stadelheim Prison before being released during the general amnesty of political prisoners in October 1918. At the end of the huge peace demonstration, Eisner, supported by his followers, liberated the military garrisons, and met with no resistance from the soldiers. By 9 p.m. Eisner had proclaimed Bavaria a republic, and occupied the Bavarian parliament. On the next day, he established a Provisional Government with himself as Minister-President and Foreign Minister. The old order in Bavaria had collapsed with no resistance.

Within days the regional German kings, princes and dukes were all deposed in quick succession. There was no resistance offered anywhere. On the morning of 9 November, only King Wilhelm of Württemberg and Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany, remained in office.

Leave a comment

Filed under democracy, Germany, nationalism, war

by Joel | 15 March 2024 · 6:22 am

The Kiel Mutiny, November 1918

From The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918–1933, by Frank McDonough (Bloomsbury, 2023), Kindle pp. 48-50:

The anti-war propaganda campaign unleashed by these left-wing socialist groups made a deep impression on sailors in the High Seas Fleet (Hochseeflotte), who opposed a German admiralty plan, codenamed ‘Plan 19’, scheduled for 28 October 1918, for one last make-or-break North Sea battle. Hopelessly outnumbered by the Allied navies, which included British, French, and American ships, the plan had little chance of success. Few sailors were interested in sacrificing their lives on such a pointless suicide mission. The Naval Supreme Command had sanctioned Plan 19, on the basis that the British would demand the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet as part of the armistice agreement.

The centre of the agitation against Plan 19 was in the port city of Kiel, on the Baltic coast, which along with Wilhelmshaven formed the anchorage base of the Kaiser’s fleet for the duration of the war. Blockaded by Allied ships, it had remained inactive ever since the inconclusive Battle of Jutland in late May 1916. Kiel also contained 50,000 troops stationed in barracks, and many industrial workers were working in armaments factories and shipyards. On 29 October, sailors on two major ships at Kiel failed to return from shore leave. Within hours, the mutiny spread to a number of other battleships and cruisers, forcing the Admiralty to abandon Plan 19.

The mutineers held a meeting on 2 November on a large parade ground in Kiel. They wanted the release of their comrades who had been imprisoned during the rebellion. The key speaker was 27-year-old Karl Artelt, a committed revolutionary and a member of the USPD [Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands], who called not only for the release of all the rebel sailors, but for the abolition of German militarism and the overthrow of the ruling classes. The sailors held a further meeting on 3 November 1918, again supported by USPD members, attended by about 6,000 people. They demanded the immediate release of the imprisoned sailors. The demonstrators then moved in the direction of the Waldwiese, a beer hall temporarily acting as a naval prison. The guards fired on the demonstrators, killing seven and wounding 29 others. On the next day, the rebel sailors moved through the town, and soon brought public and naval institutions under their control, detaining their officers, and taking control of their ships. By the end of 4 November, about 40,000 rebels in Kiel had formed councils elected at mass gatherings of sailors, soldiers, and workers. The Revolutionary Shop Stewards announced that a general strike in Kiel factories would begin on 5 November 1918.

Within Prince Max’s government, there was concern over the wider implications of the Kiel Mutiny. A sailors’ mutiny at a time when armistice negotiations were at a very delicate stage could only weaken the hand of the German government. Scheidemann feared the rebellion in Kiel might ignite a revolution against the old order and he was worried the formation of sailors’ and soldiers’ councils would turn the naval mutiny into a broader Marxist uprising.

Leave a comment

Filed under Britain, democracy, France, Germany, military, U.S., war

by Joel | 13 March 2024 · 2:45 am

Germany’s Eastern Victory in WW1

From The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918–1933, by Frank McDonough (Bloomsbury, 2023), Kindle pp. 21-22, 25-26:

Germany’s confident hopes of a swift victory were halted in September 1914 by British, Belgian, and French troops on the Marne River in France. From this point onwards, the war on the Western Front became a stalemate, with 8 million troops stretched along a 450-mile front from the North Sea to the Swiss border. Numerous attempts to break the deadlock turned into dogged struggles for mere yards of territory, with millions of lives lost and little ground gained. Barbed wire entanglements impeded the advance of competing armies and machine guns mowed down advancing troops. It was a struggle in which an average of 6,000 troops were killed every day.

The stalemate in the west contrasted sharply with the stunning victories of the German Army on the Eastern Front in 1914 and 1915, masterminded by General Paul von Hindenburg, the chief of the Supreme Army Command (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL), and his brilliant Chief of Staff, the Quartermaster General, Erich Ludendorff. By the end of 1915, the Germans had driven the Russian armies back remorselessly over 250 miles. These stunning victories turned Hindenburg and Ludendorff into national heroes. As the war progressed, Kaiser Wilhelm proved incapable of effective leadership, which resulted in a power vacuum, filled by the military high command. In late August 1916, Germany became a de facto military dictatorship led by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who were able, until the later stages of the war, to ignore the wishes of the parliamentary parties.

…

On 19 July 1917, Erzberger introduced a resolution in the Reichstag for a ‘peace without annexations’, which was passed by 212 to 126 votes. It was the first major intervention by the Reichstag to oppose the war, but Kaiser Wilhelm refused to be bound by the Reichstag. Hindenburg and Ludendorff considered the resolution a ‘scrap of paper’ and ignored it. The blame for the political crisis was placed on Bethmann Hollweg, who had rightly been sceptical about unrestricted submarine warfare. He was forced to resign as Chancellor.

His replacement, Georg Michaelis, who took office on 13 July 1917, was the first German Chancellor who was not of noble birth. His background was in business, but his only previous minor political posts were as an undersecretary of state in the Prussian Treasury, and as the head of the Reich Grain Agency (Reichsgetreidestelle), the office responsible for the distribution of corn and wheat. The prime movers in the unexpected elevation of this inexperienced bureaucrat to the role of Chancellor were Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who felt he would do their bidding. True to form, Michaelis kept the Reichstag completely in the dark on matters of war and foreign relations. He was forced to resign on 1 November 1917 after his refusal to give support to Erzberger’s peace resolution led to the loss of a vote of confidence in the Reichstag.

In Eastern Europe, relentless German military pressure contributed to the abdication of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917, which eventually led to the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin coming to power in November of that year. Lenin’s return to Russia was assisted by his sealed train being given permission to cross German territory – an incident in which Ludendorff played a key role.

After seizing power, Lenin and the Bolsheviks opened negotiations for a peace settlement with Germany. This resulted in the signing of the punitive Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918, under which Russia lost possession of 34 per cent of its population, 54 per cent of its industry, including 89 per cent of its coalfields, and 26 per cent of its railways, and was also obliged to pay 6 billion marks in compensation for German losses. The Treaty completely contradicted the Peace Resolution of the Reichstag, which had pledged ‘peace without annexations’, yet the Reichstag deputies ratified the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk without suggesting any amendments.

Leave a comment

Filed under democracy, Eastern Europe, economics, Germany, industry, migration, military, nationalism, Russia, war

by Joel | 12 March 2024 · 9:22 am

Bypassing the Reichstag in World War I

From The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918–1933, by Frank McDonough (Bloomsbury, 2023), Kindle pp. 18-23:

At the start of the First World War, Imperial Germany was not a parliamentary democracy, but nor was it an autocracy. It had a constitution, a national parliament, and independent states which controlled the local budgets of each region. The national parliament consisted of the Reichstag directly elected by the German people and an upper unelected chamber known as the Federal Council (Bundesrat), with representatives from the 26 individual princely states. Voting in elections for the Reichstag was confined to all males aged 25 and over and based on a constituency-based, first-past-the-post system. Neither the Bundesrat nor the Reichstag had the power to draft legislation but were expected to approve it. Even so, more people were entitled to vote in German parliamentary elections in 1914 than was the case in Britain.

Despite the Reichstag’s lack of political power, German national elections were hotly contested….

The power and influence of the military was stronger than that of any of the political parties. It was often described as a ‘state within a state’. The Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II, the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria, had been in power since 1888. He had the final say on policy, controlled the armed forces, appointed the German Chancellor and the cabinet ministers and was able to veto decisions taken by the Bundesrat and the Reichstag. The German Empire’s governing system, dominated by the Kaiser, was called an ‘autocratic state’ (Obrigkeitsstaat). On the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914, the German Emperor told the assembled members of the Reichstag: ‘I no longer recognise parties. I know only Germans.’ He then asked the Reichstag members to endorse an Enabling Act which suspended elections and Reichstag meetings and afforded him unlimited powers. Under Article 68 of the then German constitution, the Army seized wide-ranging executive powers, which included a strict censorship of the press.

Kaiser Wilhelm decided to finance the war not by raising taxation, but by creating Loan Banknotes (Darlehenskassenscheine), issuing three-month Treasury Bills and printing money. The idea was for these loans to be paid back in the event of Germany winning the war, capturing territory, and imposing reparations on the defeated powers. It was only in 1916 that new taxes were belatedly introduced on business, but not on incomes. Only 13.9 per cent of Germany’s war costs came from direct taxation, compared to 18.2 per cent for Britain. During the war, the amount of money in circulation rose from 7.4 million to 44.4 million marks, which inevitably led to high inflation.

The Germans prided themselves on the superiority of their armed forces and the strength of their economy. In 1914, Germany possessed the most powerful and dynamic economy on the European continent, which had experienced 50 years of uninterrupted growth. Germany produced two-thirds of Europe’s output of steel, half its coal production, and 20 per cent more electrical energy than Britain, France and Italy put together. It had a population of 67 million, which had grown from 25 million in 1800. It was also Europe’s leader in modern industries such as chemicals and pharmaceuticals. In agriculture, it produced a third of the world’s output of potatoes.

…

Germany in the period from 1916 to 1918 has been correctly described as a ‘Silent Dictatorship’. Censorship over newspapers was tightened; at the same time, Hindenburg ordered the systematic economic exploitation of German-occupied areas in France, Belgium and in East Central Europe, under the Hindenburg Programme of August 1916, which aimed to double industrial production by increasing the output of munitions, explosives, weapons, artillery, and ammunition. On 1 November 1916 Hindenburg and Ludendorff founded the Supreme War Office (Kriegsamt), under General Wilhelm Groener, to create a command economy ruled by the army. Compulsory military service was introduced for everyone aged 16 to 60, and businesses not related to the war economy were closed down. More alarmingly, compulsory hard labour was imposed on prisoners of war in labour camps, often under appalling conditions. Under the ‘Silent Dictatorship’, Germany pursued its war aims in a ruthless manner. At the beginning of 1917, the Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) adopted unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic to disrupt British and French supplies arriving from the USA. This proved counterproductive and provoked the Americans, led by President Woodrow Wilson, to enter the war on the Allied side in April 1917.

Leave a comment

Filed under democracy, economics, Germany, industry, military, nationalism, war

by Joel | 1 March 2024 · 5:30 pm

Australia’s Currency Lads and Lasses

From In For The Long Haul: First Fleet Voyage & Colonial Australia: The Convicts’ Perspective, by Annegret Hall (ESH Publication, 2018), Kindle pp. 443-445:

The younger Rope family members were typical of the new generation of free colonialists, commonly known as the ‘currency lads and lasses’. This was the expression used in the colony to describe those who were Australian born with emancipist or convict parentage. This generation grew up in an adult society in which free immigrants often made slights and barbs about their origins – they were ‘the offspring of thieves’ and ‘good for nothings’. But the spirit and energy of this new breed had its admirers. Surgeon Peter Miller Cunningham was optimistic about the ‘currency youth’.

Our colonial-born brethren are best known here by the name of Currency, in contradistinction to Sterling, or those born in the mother-country. … Our Currency lads and lasses are a fine interesting race, and do honour to the country whence they originated. … The Currency youths are warmly attached to their country, which they deem unsurpassable, and few ever visit England without hailing the day of their return as the most delightful in their lives….

The currency lads and lasses were also referred to as Corn Stalks because they were taller than their British counterparts the Sterlings, and they had a distinct way of talking. The children of exclusives saw themselves as the pure bloods of the colony and, if they came from large estates, as the Pure Merinos. Among the colony’s youth, the currency lads stood together and if one was attacked the ‘whole hive sally to his aid’. Interestingly, drunkenness was much less common among the currency youth than their parents or the adult population as a whole.

Most had at least one convict or ex-convict parent but, to the surprise of their elite contemporaries, they were generally law-abiding. Work was plentiful in the colony, and many had respectable well-paid jobs. In fact, there were far fewer temptations for youth to commit crime in the colony than in the overcrowded and underemployed British cities. Australia had shown itself to be a land of promise for the parents of the currency youth, and so it would be for them. Toby Ryan, as the son of a convict father, reflected on this in his book Reminiscences.

Many of the early Australians sprang from the well-behaved emancipists and military men, who settled down at once, uncontaminated by drink, disease, or other enervating diseases; the result was fine men and women. Of course, hard work and wholesome food were partly the means of raising so fine a race…. Their red cheeks showed the bloom of health and beauty, and they required no artificial means to make them representable. They moved with agility, and were straight and well-formed, showing that their ancestors came from a good stock.

For most emancipists and their children Australia was their home, and they had no intention of returning to the Mother Country. They formed a strong political block that sought to ensure lawful access to all levels in Australian society. In 1821 the emancipists sent a petition to King George IV requesting the removal of any impediments to legal representation and rights. Some members of the community, and particularly the exclusives, government officials, and even governors, consistently discriminated against them. Their work opportunities were improving, but they now feared that the rapid increase in new free immigrants arriving would slow their acceptance into Australian society.

Equal opportunity remained a hot issue in the colony.

Leave a comment

Filed under Australia, Britain, democracy, economics, labor, migration, military, nationalism

by Joel | 27 February 2024 · 10:27 am

Macquarie’s Egalitarianism in NSW

From In For The Long Haul: First Fleet Voyage & Colonial Australia: The Convicts’ Perspective, by Annegret Hall (ESH Publication, 2018), Kindle pp. 382-385:

The appointment of Lachlan Macquarie as governor in January 1810 brought much needed stability and efficiency to the colonial administration. With William Bligh’s reputation reinstated, the settlers had hoped that Macquarie would follow a similar policy of assisting small farmers to increase food production in the colony. However, although Macquarie gave assurances of his support for this policy, his actions by no means matched those of the Bligh administration. The governor’s first priority was to try and heal the serious rifts still in the community, and he avoided overt favouritism, initially at least, to any particular sector. In his hands, the colony’s overall economy began to recover from the mishaps of the rebel administration.

Nevertheless, Macquarie made it clear that grain production was a priority for the government, and the free and emancipist settlers quickly understood this. Most importantly, with the removal of the New South Wales Corps from the marketplace, the financial rewards to farmers who cultivated large crops rose sharply. Fair-trading became the norm and grain prices were stable and predictable. Macquarie made sure the government civil servants and the court officials treated everyone equally, independent of their social status or occupation. His policies eventually enabled people from all sectors of the community to be promoted into important positions in the administration, and he insisted that emancipists in the community be given the same social and business opportunities as free settlers.

It was not long before Lachlan Macquarie realised that some ‘better members of society’ were excluding emancipists who had become successful through hard work and entrepreneurship from legitimate recognition in the colony. Such unjustified discrimination clashed with his Scottish and military upbringing, and he was determined that it be stamped out. As early as April 1810, Macquarie appointed the emancipist farmer-industrialist Andrew Thompson as a Justice of the Peace and Magistrate in the Hawkesbury District. Thompson was the first ex-convict to become a Magistrate, and Simeon Lord, another emancipist, was the second. Lord was appointed as Magistrate on the Sydney court benches. These appointments were strongly criticised by wealthy free settlers and civil officers, who argued such men had no place in respectable society, and that granting them positions of power would corrupt the social order. Macquarie believed these criticisms were made by people who had only recently achieved social standing in the colony and did not want this diluted by nouveau-riche emancipists.

Reverend Marsden was one of the most outspoken opponents of Macquarie’s encouragement for widespread social equality. Marsden’s views on the importance of social distinctions were in stark contrast to those of the governor, and he became a persistent critic of all aspects of the Macquarie administration. When Marsden refused to join a trustee board of which Andrew Thompson and Simeon Lord were members, Macquarie considered it an act of civil disobedience. Like Bligh, Macquarie was a military man who had little tolerance for dissent. He was hostile to those opposing his egalitarian efforts, maintaining that equality was essential to the harmony of such a diverse community.

Andrew Thompson gained wide acceptance in the community for his courage, honesty and fairness as a magistrate, and became a regular dinner guest at Government House. Unfortunately his health deteriorated rapidly following his heroic rescues in the Hawkesbury floods and he died in October 1810 at the age of 37. He was one of the colony’s wealthiest settlers with an estate worth in excess of £20,000 (over £2 million today). Thompson, who was unmarried, bequeathed a quarter of his estate to Governor Macquarie for recognising his abilities, and a quarter to his friend and fellow emancipist-magistrate Simeon Lord. The remaining half was to be equally divided between his brother, and four nephews and nieces in Scotland. Bizarrely, they never accepted the inheritance – perhaps believing that benefiting from a transported criminal’s honest earnings would taint their good name. Their refusal to benefit from Thompson’s estate is a telling example of 19th century propriety and prejudice, befitting a Charles Dickens tale. Andrew Thompson had been an honest, industrious and successful young man, of whom any family would have been proud if they had known of his achievements and good deeds.

Leave a comment

Filed under Australia, Britain, democracy, labor, migration, military, philosophy

by Joel | 26 February 2024 · 8:24 am

Captain Bligh’s Foes and Fans

From In For The Long Haul: First Fleet Voyage & Colonial Australia: The Convicts’ Perspective, by Annegret Hall (ESH Publication, 2018), Kindle pp. 365, 377-381:

In one sense, the life of Bligh is a tragedy, but a tragedy in the grand manner. He was the victim of two mutinies, one at sea, the other on land. In neither case was he the victim of his own tyranny. The objective of the Bounty mutineers was immediate return to the Lotus Land of Tahiti. In the case of Bligh’s New South Wales administration, the thought of forcible rebellion was probably suggested by the fact of the prior Bounty mutiny. It is only a child who would reason that, because there were two mutinies against Bligh, he must have been guilty of conduct justifying both.

…

William Bligh was a blunt opinionated man who vigorously opposed anyone who disagreed with him. He had little time for the fripperies and subtleties of society; he lived by simple rules and expected others to do so as well. Despite the colony’s small size and isolation, it had strict social protocols and etiquettes, and the veteran mariner’s language and brusque manners probably shocked upper-class sensitivities. For people who knew him well, Bligh’s social crassness was more than offset by his courage, his honesty, and a generosity to those he thought deserved it. Few leaders, then or today, could rise above the indignities and pressure he had been subjected to, and fought so strongly for what he believed in. In a very real sense Australia’s egalitarian society and fair judicial system survived because of Bligh’s determined spirit. He had fought against entrenched opposition and won.

…

The minor penalties imposed on [Rum Rebellion leaders] Johnston and Foveaux are unlikely to have satisfied William Bligh. While the courts had clearly vindicated him and his government, the sentences imposed on the rebels were unusually light. From all accounts, Bligh shrugged off his disappointment and moved on. In 1812, Bligh was promoted to Rear Admiral of the Blue, and in 1814 to Vice-Admiral of the Blue. In 1812, he was invited to give advice to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Transportation, and a year later was granted a full government pension. Vice-Admiral Bligh died on 7 Dec 1817, aged 63.

What can be said about the contribution of this controversial man to the fledgling colony? The Hawkesbury settlers regarded him as a person of courage and honour; a heroic fighter against what they saw as a corrupt system. He was considered ‘one of them’, who had fought for their cause and had been arrested as a consequence. Portrayals of Bligh’s character vary greatly in contemporary history, ranging from a fractious troublemaker to inspirational leader. But all assessments agree that Bligh’s actions were always honest. He strived to do the right thing by the colonialists who battled the hardest, however, he appeared unable, or unwilling, to rally the entire colony to his causes. Bligh either lacked, or undervalued, the political and diplomatic skills needed to convince the businessmen that his goals would lead to a successful prosperous colony. His blunt edicts were uncompromising, and this outraged the trading community who expected some give and take in government transactions – in any case, since Hunter’s time they were accustomed to get what they wanted. Bligh’s rigid no-compromising reforms came as a real shock, and those most effected believed they had no option but to fight against them.

In modern times, the support or damnation of the Bligh governorship seems to be divided along ideological lines. One right-wing opinion is that the rebellion ‘was caused not by rum but by the code of honour, which set out how gentlemen should behave. Governor William Blight was overthrown by the powerful people of Sydney because he was no gentleman’. Those in the opposite corner, claim that Bligh’s battles with Macarthur and the Corps were to protect the underprivileged, and to preserve democracy and equality. Overall, the latter camp appears to have many more historical facts on their side.

The commonly cited negative traits of Bligh are difficult to reconcile with our knowledge that he was a devoted family man and was considered something of a hero by most of the small farmers. Some settlers named their newborn sons after him and the use of ‘William Bligh’ or ‘Bligh’ as forenames for boys born in that era are evidence of this admiration. One example of this is William Bligh Turnbull, who was born in 1809 in Windsor, and is the ancestor of a former Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.

…

The earliest writings damning Bligh were written by the colony’s educated elite who supported his overthrow. The written opinions of the illiterate emancipists went largely unrecorded, but the few surviving letters and petitions show their determined support and admiration. Probably the most learned and detailed analysis of William Bligh’s governorship is that of the socialist politician, lawyer and historian, H.V. Evatt. In his book Rum Rebellion Evatt reveals that he is an unapologetic admirer of Bligh. This is not surprising. Knowledge of Evatt’s own character, and his fierce battles in the Australian Labor Party and Australian Parliament, leads one to suspect that he and Bligh would have been the very best of friends, had their lives coincided.