THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1904. THE EUREKA STOCKADE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 49, 8 December 1904, Page 17

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1904. THE EUREKA STOCKADE.

jSsssivf stingy cable message in Tuesday's daily PaiP 6^ ran tllUfi ■' ' The jubilee of the l/\A\\v ureka Stockade was celebrated at Baliarat and in other mining centres of the CpmmonCfiw^Vv**) wealUh.' The scrappy tale told by the s>ubmarine wire recalls the spaciaus days that followed Esmond's discovery of gold at yr *\ Chines a,n,d the swift and strenuous life that in time overflowed up.oin us from Victoria, Hike the beckwash ot a tidal wave, and opened our mines alnld tilled our fields and set New Zealand u/pon the high roatf to prosperity. Transylvania long enjoyed the distijnetion of being termed ' the gold-mine of Europe.' In the eaily fifties BiaJl-arat cam© to be regarded as tihe wjorlid's gold-mine. It w,as a name to com jure with. People's heads were turned when the story went forth that, for instance, one little party ' lifted ' two tons of gold at TwoUcm Gully ; that a little knot of eigjat niihers raisejd £38,000 in a few days from a claim on the Caledonian Lead ; and that a Welshman, with, a few pick-

strikes, opened up t,he daveted glories of otne of those famous ' jeweller's shops ' where the yellow metlal lay ia d,u&t, grains, and Lumps lrom the size of a pea to that of an emu egg. The wild inrush of p'Opiulation from the ends of the earth Soon 'drew a population of 40,000 souls to the ba^nks of the yellow Yarrowee. In the mad scramble for sudden ami easy wealth, ploughs, flocks, scWools, ships, stores, a-nd offices were deserted , or ( dinjary tousuness was paralysed ; and there were many who ieardd that the lorllune of \ ictbria (the Port Phillip Kotl lenient, as it was then called) would prove, like the luckless gold of NibeLungen, a sourte of r,ui l ii l 0l 0 the colony.

Matters, 'however, soon righted themselves. Por did not ipedple soon discover that glold was to be easily and more surely won by leading, clothing, housing, an/d generally catering ior the needs of the ever-increasing population of miners *' The miner, .too, it he up tjie colony's Avealtili, did s,o with a millstone riauaid his nock. This! was the digger's license-lee of Unity shillings a month (inc: eased for a time to £'i per month) for a modest el-aim of eight feet square. The hcensc-fee chafed because the miners objected to the principle of taxation without representation (they had no votes at parliamentary elections) ; because that hea«vy tax upon their industry was imposed under the wholly erroneous impression that everyone who went to tiie golxlheld^ must necessarily make a fortune , and because of the odious and irritating methods by which the fee was collected. Police awd goLdfield Commissioners fell into an unpleasant habit of ordering miners to stand and deliver their magic bit of blue license paper, sometimes several times a 'day. ' Digger-Munting ' rapidly developed into a svience. There was a little brigade of spies, informers, plain-clothes constables, etc., anti fresh ruses were demised irom day to day to ciictim,\ent the nimble (and sometimes stamng) miner wlvosc licensefees were in arrears.

As a rule t|he battiue was conducted in the following way : A detachment of horse and foot, in skirmishing o,r,der,, s'urr,oun(d<*d the quarter of the minnng-field selected as the objective of IJlic tax raid. They then clo.sed in as rapidly as possible, like a li'ung net, abio,ut the miners. The first sight of the u'nifoims was greoted with the watfni'ng cry : ' Trap ' Trap ! Joe ! Joe ' ' Them ensued a wild hurry-skurry from tfie raiders on the part of the affrighted goM-Heekcrs who had negleLted to provide themselves with the talisma,mc ' bit of blue,' or to qarry it wi tUieir po< kcts Some of the defaulters txicd to get through the uniformed cordon of digger-hunters. Others made for the friendly cover oi the neighboring bush, while mounted tnoopers, with drawn swords, rode at lull speed to ' head them oft ' The majontiy siought a hiding-place within t)he fast closing circle ot pulrs'uers. Some concealed tiicnisches under the burniUs in their tents ; others scrambled dorm shafts and (.as the saying ran) ' pulled the hole in after them.' A gopdly batch of prisoners— sometimes sixty or mlore— was the ondi/nary result of a diggpr-hunl They wore 'handqulleid t'oigether, mardlied off to the polu-c can*p,i and qhained to logs in the open air utntil brought for trial before the Commissioners. The proceedings were ,very brief and Nummary and cn'ded m a fine of I's or .upwards, 'or m terms of imprisonment with or vvithout ihard lab,or.

As a rule, the treatment of the miners) was harsh and exasperating t^o a degree. The goldfiems officials seem to have disiplaydd a lamentable lack of the mosi ordinary tact m their methods ot eniorcmg an odious and, nn the main, oppressi\e law Asa result, a feeling of marked hostility grew up against the police (white an/I, tyack) and against the officials generally. Petty reprisals too,k pl'a/je from time to time antf feeling found .uproarious vent in the canvas and weatherboard theatres, in rough-and-tumble anti-police harlequinades, and in, the topical songs and metrical gibes of Thatcher.

By 1853 the agitation against license-fees had found organised expression. Some blood sftied during a collision between miners .and police in Ballarat brought matters near a cusis. The increased acrimony thereafter thrown into digger-hunts strengthened the hands of a strqng and active minority who opposed constittition.il agitation and held that the time had come to win their rights by aimed resistance. Foremost among ilhiose was Peter Lalor, a native of Queen's County (Ireland). He was elected commanjder-Ln-chief. Verne, a H'anovenajn, way next in command. After liim came TtoJom.is Koninqdy, a Scotsman, whose motto ran :— ' Moral persuasion is all a hunvbug ; Nothing convinces like 'a lick i' the lug.'

A mining the other leaders of the movement were Carbom Kanaello (an ex-Gar iba*dia'n Italian), a>nd James Esmond, t|hc discoverer of the first payable goldfield in ictoria. The ' Ballarat Times ' warmly qharrtp ironed the cause of armed resistance to the obnoxiqus tax. Firearms ot every kind were industriously collected or commandeered ; pikes were forge,d ; and an elementary and aimless form of drill went cm night and day. At the cllose of November, 1854, shops were closed and business was paralysed in Ballarat. Ueelong an/d Melbourne reacted to the tension of the crisis. Troops were la.pidly set in motion for Ballarat. On November 30, at the height of the crisis, ttfie Commissioners, with incredible folly, set out upon one of the most irritating displays of digger-hunting that had ever taken place in Ballarat. It was the last digger-hunt tlhat was over witnessed in Victoria.

The armed miners were encamped within a rough stockade of slabs, ropes, and overturned carts at the Kurek,a, enclosing ab,out an acre of grouiitd. They kept r;uard carelessly, feelung secure against attack till the arrival of Sir K. tickle's reinforcement of eight h'uki,dred men, who wexe tramping along on their toilsome way from Melbourne. One m(o.r,ning before daybreak— it was December H, 1 8 &4— Captain Thomas, of the local garrison, mo veld q,uietly on the Stockade witJh 276 infantry and mounted men. Martial law had not been proclaimeid nor tihe Knot Act rca!d, comparatively few diggers were withm the enclosure, and they were caught najpiping. 'IVhcre was a short, sharp struggle. Four soldiers were killed and a few wounded. Of the millers, thirty-fi\e to forty weie slain and a hundred and twenty-live taken prisoners. The whole affair wais over in twenty-fi\e minutes. Verne, the sword-clanker— the sccouvd in qommland of the miners— got safely away la their early im the fray for his reputation as a fighter. Raftaelio, the ex-(raribalidian, was captured irjp the sod clnminey ot Ins tent. L/alor, the Qommatider-i^chief, fell seiverely wounded early in the action. A prkeman concealed 'him by covering him with slabs. The same evening he was hurried away to the ranges on Father Smyth's horse, his wourids dreslsed, and his broken arm amputated. A reward of £500 was offered for his capture, but Jiis friends were true to him. The news of the struggle at the Eureka Stockade went like wildrire thnougjh the colony. Public sympathy, expressed in mass meetings, surged in a high tide in favor of the rumors' demands. Wjhen, early in 1855, thirteen of the Eure,ka prisoner's were arraigned in Melbourne for high treasiom they wore acquitted amidst the frantic plaudits of t/he multitudes assembled inside ar*d outside the court. A general amnesty followed ; tihe monthly li-cense-fee was abolished— itn its stead was. issued a miners right at twenty shillings (subsequently reduced to five shillings) a yca,r ; and the 'place of tSie hated Commissioners was taken by Local Courts, Mining Boands*, and Wardens' C'onrts. The cjiowjiing resiult of tfoe' Stockade insurreciio'n was the separation of Victoria from the mother colony of New Sjoulfh Wales and the granting cf a new Co'nstitiutitfn, which received the r.oyal assent on July 2,1, 1855. I-Punifiray, the leaider of the <peace party, and L'alor, the Rien^i of tyhe "party of arrneid re|fcte r tiajace, were elect/ed as the first representatives of Balllarat,

Lalor, lived to be knighted and was long the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. He passed away to nis rest in 1,899, and a life-size bronze statue of him now adorns the Qhief thoroughfare of Ballarat. This is, in brief, the sjtlory of the Eureka Stockade.