1900s: finding our way together
s the 19th Century turned into the 20th Century, Queen Victoria’s long reign was about to come to an end. Australia was coming to terms with its status as a nation, attempting to fashion one people from distinct and disparate colonies and the department was responding to the challenges imposed by Federation.
In 1900, the finalised draft of Australia’s new Constitution, prepared by Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, the Chief Justice of Queensland, had to be approved by the British Parliament before Australia could be granted nationhood. Whitehall wanted safeguards for British investors in Australian enterprises and assurances that matters from the Australian High Court were still appealable to the Privy Council in England. After changes that had been voted on by the Australian electorate, the Constitution was passed and Australia as a nation came into being on 1 January 1901, with Griffith uniquely placed as its Chief Justice.
Still clinging to the indentured labour and the plantation society ideals banned by legislation introduced by Griffith, Queensland’s participation in the federation process and its progress towards becoming a member state of the Commonwealth of Australia was the narrowest margin of all the colonies. Ironically, the ‘yes’ vote was strongest in the rural northern and central parts of the state where it was viewed as the best way to divide Queensland into at least two new states and to overcome Brisbane’s domination. Brisbane and Ipswich voted overwhelmingly ‘no’, as did Toowoomba and Rockhampton.
People were largely unmoved by the idealism and principles involved and cast their votes according to economic and local issues. However, the dream of a separate northern state effectively died with Federation. It was far more difficult to convince an entire Australian electorate of the desirability of a separate state than to show the colonial powers the advantages of splitting an existing colony into two.
Townsville and, to a lesser extent, Rockhampton rose in importance throughout the decade and it was common for trade to bypass Brisbane. Queensland was strongly decentralised with its regions populated from various centres along the coast. Transport arteries carried people, goods and services one way and rural or mining products the other way, giving local communities an air of independence and a sense of ownership.
Townsville’s growth in size left no doubt as to the most important place in the north of the state. Cyclone Leonta in 1903 destroyed many of the settlements and towns in north Queensland, from Townsville to Ayr and Home Hill and into the Burdekin Valley. As a result much of the funding earmarked for expansion of courthouse facilities was reallocated to replace and repair existing facilities. The courthouse at Ayr was restored and re-roofed, and some of the Clerk of the Court homes were rebuilt.
The impact of Federation on the staff of the court service brought the loss of titles to magistrates and clerks of petty sessions (as clerks of the court were then known).
Customs had been handed over to the Commonwealth as belonging rightly to the national interest, as had most of the bankruptcy jurisdiction. With these changes, the titles of collector of customs and district receiver in insolvency both passed into memory. The change to more traditional legal work resulted in some centres losing their resident magistrate to larger places. Officers had been appointed as sub-collectors of customs in Cardwell and Geraldton (to be renamed Innisfail in 1910), and held only secondary appointments as police magistrates. In 1909, the Police Magistrate at Geraldton, Peter Macarthur, was relieved of having to visit Cardwell. Instead, it was approved that the Police Magistrate from Ingham, Robert Blain Hetherington, was required to visit Cardwell ‘several times each year’, a far cry from the days when Cardwell was the thriving port of the Hinchinbrook region and had a resident police magistrate.
Queenslanders voted the Kidston Labor Government into power in 1906, retaining one of the men to have a lasting impact on Queensland and its politics, James Blair, as Attorney-General. Blair was to become Chief Justice, Lieutenant-Governor and, eventually, Chancellor of the University of Queensland.
As the decade rolled on, the national confidence grew and talk of secession from the Commonwealth declined. While Queensland still had its roots firmly in the bush, the plantation society mentality was dying. In 1900, Queensland produced more than two-thirds of its export earnings through meat, wool and sugar, which were worth the equivalent of about $19 million. Yet by the end of the decade, even with the markets now interstate as opposed to intercolonial, export earnings had dropped to $16.3 million. More than four-fifths of these earnings were from meat and dairy, with sheep contributing more than half of this percentage. Queensland was still riding ‘on the sheep’s back’. Only something cataclysmic would change the state; sadly, such a thing was about to happen.