Eureka: An historic distraction

Correspondence from some ACM supporters, such as Mrs Janette Taylor who has seen the musical, commented, “It is a better quality production than many previous Australian musicals and it seems to me a shame to ‘can’ it for some historical inaccuracies or exaggerations”. James Button of The Age summed up the potential historical influence precisely, suggesting, “As one of the main events leading up to the 150th anniversary of the Eureka stockade … it will influence the way people think about an event that is the closest Australia has ever come to a revolution”. The show may indeed be a theatrical masterpiece, which can be likened to Les Miserables, nevertheless it should not become confused with historical reality and the negative message it sends about our heritage of British law and institutions, does not pass into popular history.

The events surrounding Eureka have become the focus of competing historical interpretations in regard to the event itself and its significance to Australian nationalism and democracy. So what is the truth about Eureka, Australia’s historical distraction? Here are some quick references:

• There were around 100,000 miners in total on the Victorian goldfields near Ballarat at the time of Eureka. Of this about 150 men were present at Eureka during the raid, of which around 30 Miners and 5 soldiers were killed.
• The Government at the time was forced to implement taxes to pay for the services demanded by the sudden influx of miners into the region. This tax was conducted through the miner’s licence. The miner’s licence had been introduced in NSW earlier and was copied in Victoria with the aim of deterring those in the labour force from becoming miners, and to provide revenue for service provision.
• At the time of Eureka, much resentment was encountered in relation to the miner’s licence. Those administering the licence under the successor to popular Governor La Trobe, Sir Charles Hotham, were not equal to the massive administration requirements, and only served to aggravate the situation.
• On November 16, 1854, Hotham had established a Royal Commission into the situation on the goldfields to improve the situation and relations with the miners. Hotham made many mistakes in his administration of the goldfields, being young and inexperienced, but he refused to let the miners take the situation into their own hands.
• Hotham was keen to talk with the miners about their grievances, but also to ensure that the rule of law was kept. Alarmed by the revolutions of 1848 in Europe, he sent more troops to secure the area and further aggravated the miners with a licence hunt on November 30. As the historian Geoffrey Blainey has commented in a recent article, “In 1854 every governor in the western world … probably would have acted similarly”.
• Republicanism did not play a major role. It was mostly influenced by radical immigrants such as the author of the only contemporary account of Eureka the Italian radical Raffaello Carboni. Such men had been influenced by insurrections that had occurred elsewhere, had not been in Australia long and were very quick to leave after the insurrection.
• The Eureka leader Peter Lalor went on to be a mine owner and a conservative Member in the Victorian Parliament. The miners at Eureka were either radicals or what some might term “little capitalists”.
• Work on a Victorian constitution had begun in 1852, and during the time of Eureka it was before the British Parliament about to be passed. It was then subsequently approved by the Legislative Council in Melbourne. This constitution provided for the franchise for holders of a miner’s licence.
• South Australia, as Geoffrey Blainey has pointed out, was able to achieve a “democratic” constitution at the same time as Victoria with no need for violent insurrection.
• Too often we forget the soldiers involved who gave their lives to ensure that democratic reform continued peacefully and that the rule of law was enforced.

These references imply that Eureka was indeed a violent distraction in Australia’s past, an exception in what has otherwise been a proud example of democracy evolving through peaceful means. Luckily, insurrections such as Eureka did not destabilise the democratic process, and the colonial governments remained steadfast in their resolution to continue with the reforms towards the implementation of self-governing constitutions.

If anything, Eureka symbolises the path our early Australians chose NOT to take. Many immigrants to Australia had experienced the violence of Europe and other continents as they struggled towards democracy. By shunning the violent route to democracy as exemplified in Eureka, Australians laid the foundations for the peaceful democratic reform upon which our system has continued to evolve. Eureka is indeed a unique event - it is a unique example of violent insurrection that Australians have since rejected.