I know a few of you are waiting
for me to write about John O'Toole and his marriage to Mary Marcella
Hall. I will get to that, but I am waiting on a certificate (isn't it
always the way?). In the meantime here is another
chapter in the varied life of Mary Marcella Hall's great grandfather, James
Slater.
How much have we heard lately about
the Rum Corps? Everytime there's a mention of Eddie Obeid or Chris
Hartcher, the Corps gets brought up - "The most corrupt public
figure since the Rum Corps" (um, actually I think that dubious
honour goes to Robert Askin - he died with all his corrupt dealings
unpunished and his ill-gotten gains intact. At least this lot are
being pursued), "nothing like it since the days of the Rum
Corps" and so on.
 |
| Redcoats at Old Sydney Town. Image from Wikimedia Commons |
Yes, things are bad. Many of our
politicians are little more than self-serving, greedy, manipulative
pigs who treat the public (their BOSSES, which they seem to have
forgotten) with utter contempt. I'd love a federal ICAC, but both LNP
and Labor have yet again blocked that (ask youself why, what are they
trying to hide).
But are things really as bad as the
days of the Rum Corps? Look into it a little and you may find that
the answer is no1.
Why no? We have ICAC, which has been
fearless, and the judiciary has remained separate from the corrupt
operators. That was not the case with the Rum Corps.
Some things are the same. There are
brave, hard-working journalists doing all they can now, such as Kate
McClymont of the Sydney Morning Herald, and there were brave,
hard-working journalists then, too. They did all they could to expose the dealings of that
ruthless bunch of jumped-up bully-boys.
So let's
start with what the Rum Corps actually was. First off, it was the New
South Wales Corps. It was given the nickname Rum corps when it gained a
monopoly on trade goods coming into the colony (the most popular
means of payment for goods was rum). The NSW Corps was sent out with
the Second Fleet to replace the Royal Marines. It was to be the
permanent military force in the Colony and subject to the rule of the
Governor. It was not made of the best the English army had to offer.
Some members had been in military jails, or were known troublemakers.
Many had been in occupations displaced by the industrial revolution
and had joined the army as a last resort2.
When Governor Phillip left the Colony to return to England there was
a power vacuum, and Grose, head of the NSW Corps, filled it. He gave
large land grants to officers, and assigned them convicts to work the
land, paid for on the public purse. This was then extended to other Corps members. Produce from the
farms was sold to the government at a steep profit. Grose ensured the
Corps had a monopoly on Rum importation and on Rum distillation, and
a general monopoly on trade3.
During 1793 there was a drought and a resultant shortage of grain.
Rather than ensure a good supply to the populace, much of the grain
was held back for distillation. At one point John Macarthur was
Colonial Secretary, which meant that the man with the largest trade
capacity in the colony was also in charge of government business and
trade. As Max Gillies once said, not so much a conflict of interest
as a confluence.
All this
sounds fairly familiar – those in power granting favours and
control of money-making enterprises to friends and colleagues. It's
not that different to all the murk surrounding Cascade Coal or AWH.
But Grose went further. He suspended the civil courts and set up
military rule, giving judicial appointments to Corps officers and friends, such
as John Macarthur.
.jpg) |
| Francis Grose. Image from Wikimedia Commons |
The Corps
enjoyed the exercise of power and stymied the efforts of two
subsequent governors, Hunter and King, to bring them to heel. Then
Bligh came along, who immediately set about reining them in. He took
strong measures to give relief to the settlers on the Hawkesbury
(who were struggling after a flood) and acted to end the monopolies
of the Corps and Macarthur (Macarthur had been using the supply
problems from the Hawkesbury as a means of raising prices on some
commodoties, such as sheep). Bligh was something of a bull in a
china-shop, and a known authoritarian, but it was the threat to
vested interests that caused the Great Rebellion4.
Forget the rewritings of history that have since taken place - it was not a blow for democracy or the overthrow of a scoundrel and
dictator. And Bligh did not hide under a bed – that story came from
the colony's first political cartoon, commissioned or drawn by
Sergeant Major Whittle of the Corps within hours of Bligh's arrest.
It is probable that Bligh was actually trying to escape from
Government House to join the settlers on the Hawkesbury5.
Macquarie, the next governor after Bligh,
was able to restore some order and stabilise the currency by bringing
in the holy dollar and dump, but it took time to truly break the
corrupting influence of the Corps in New South Wales. The problems
with the judiciary continued for many years, well into the rule of
Governor Darling. Those who had risen to the top in the bad old days
remained firmly entrenched.
What's
the big deal about the Rum Corps and the judiciary? Well, just
imagine if ICAC was headed by Ian McDonald, or Joe Tripodi, or Arthur
Sinodinos. What if Chris Hartcher could pass judgement on his case if
it comes to court, or could sit in judgement on Darren Webber or Nick
di Girolamo? This is the situation that existed in New South Wales in
the early part of the 19th Century.
And James
Slater got caught up in it.
The
Monitor was a Sydney newspaper that only operated between 1826 and 1828 but in those two years it
fiercely targetted the misuse of judicial power. There were numerous
reports, including the appalling case of a convict shepherd
complaining to his master of insufficient rations and being sentenced
by his master, a magistrate, to 500 lashes. In another case, a man
was imprisoned for fourteen weeks without formal charge for insulting
a clergyman-magistrate before finally being released6.
James' problems were mild by comparison.
In the
early months of 1828, James was ordered by a local magistrate, G.
Innes, to put up his servants when they were in Sydney (Innes had
moved out to Bathurst, but sent his convict servants up to Sydney to
complete some business for him). The servants stayed with James in
his Pitt Street residence for a number of days and James then duly
presented Mr. Innes with an invoice for expenses incurred, amounting
to £4 15s 6p. Innes'
response was to issue a summons for “harbouring prisoners of the
crown”7.
The Monitor continues:
But it
didn't end there. James had had enough of corrupt lawyers and corrupt
judges (he's the one I think was framed to get him out to NSW), and
what's more he was literate and smart. James got a counter summons
issued against Innes, but was told there was insufficient evidence
that the money was actually owed. He approached the Solicitor
General, Commissioner Foster and asked how to proceed. Foster told
him to get affidavits from Innes' servants, which he did. On 5 June
1828, James appeared before Commissioner Foster and presented the
affidavits which Foster refused to receive.
Moreover, Foster dismissed the suit. James asked for an adjournment
of ten minutes so he could fetch a witness. This was also refused8.
They all back each other up.
As
far as I can tell, James Slater had little option but to give up. He
was owed over £4
and had incurred at least another £1
in legal expenses, but there was little he could do. The corrupt establishment in New South Wales had well and truly won. I am sure James would have loved an ICAC.
1Don't
think for a minute I do not believe things are bad. There is no
denying the corruption, calumny and fraud that is coming out in ICAC
and that many of us were fairly certain was going on before that.
Just ask anyone living on the Central Coast how much they thought
was being spent on the election campaigns of the three Liberal
candidates. There were unhappy mutterings well before the 2011
election.
2“So...
What Was the Rum Corps?” Linda Mottram interviews Paul Burton of
State Library of NSW, ABC 702, 13 November 2012,
http://blogs.abc.net.au/nsw/2012/11/so-what-was-the-rum-corps.html
3The
1808 'Rum Rebellion', State Library of New South Wales,
http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/history_nation/terra_australis/rebellion/index.html
4
In the 1850s William Howitt wrote a history of
Australia. Howitt was a Temperance man and keen to
paint alcohol as the cause of all Australia's woes, hence the
appellation of the Rum Rebellion (prior to Howitt that event was
known as the Great Rebellion).
6
“To the Editor”, The
Monitor,
28 June 1828, p. 5, col. 3; digital images,
Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au
: accessed 5 Nov 2012), Digitised newspapers and more
7
“Domestice Intelligence”, The
Monitor,
17 May 1828, p. 8, col. 1; digital images,
Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au
: accessed 23 Feb 2013), Digitised newspapers and more
8“To
the Editor”, The
Monitor,
7 June 1828, p. 5, col. 3; digital images,
Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au
: accessed 23 Feb 2013), Digitised newspapers and more
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