Conservative instinct in Australian political thought: The Federation debates, 1890–1898

Abstract

Many historians of Australian political thought have attributed its pragmatic and anti-speculative tendencies to a Benthamite influence. Without denying the influence of Bentham and Benthamism on Australian thought and institutional development, this article challenges the assumption that the abovementioned tendencies necessarily betray a Benthamite heritage. By analysing the theoretical justifications for pragmatic, anti-speculative approaches to institutional design in the Federation debates (1890–1898), this article shows that there was a very strong Burkean impulse behind the sort of pragmatism that is usually attributed to Bentham. If the argument of this article is correct, then it is an invitation for historians and political scientists to reconsider significantly the nature of Australian political thought.

研究澳大利亚政治思想的史家将澳大利亚政治思想的实用、反思辨倾向归之于边沁的影响。本文并不否认边氏对澳大利亚思想以及制度发展的影响，但对上述倾向为边氏遗产的说法不能赞同。笔者分析了联邦辩论（1890—1898）中实用的、反思辨的制度设计，指出通常被归到边沁的实用主义，其背后跃动的实乃伯克的思想。如果此论不谬，历史学者和政治学者就应好好考虑澳大利亚政治思想的性质了。

Keywords:

• Australia
• conservatism
• Edmund Burke
• Federation
• utilitarianism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Two types of pagination for the Federation debates are used in this article. Pagination in brackets refers to editions cited in the bibliography. Pagination without brackets refers to the online text of the debates available at: adc.library.usyd.edu.au/index.jsp?content=collections%21fozfed%2ftext%2fintroduction.html&databasee=ozfed.

2 Gascoigne (2002); Sawer (2003); Melleuish (2009); Stokes (2004); Walter (with Moore) (2009).

3 An exception is Aroney (2009: c.f. 7).

4 Although Hirst (2000) contains many insights.

5 The debates are given a single footnote in Walter (with Moore) (2009: 81, fn. 54).

6 For a much more plausible approach to utilitarianism in Australian thought than Collins offers, see Irving (1999 [1997]: 168).

7 Deakin supplied a quote from Milton to this effect (Melbourne 1890: 94–5 [86]).

8 c.f. ‘The science of government being therefore so practical in itself, and intended for such practical purposes … it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice … without having models and patters of approved utility before his eyes’ (Burke 1909: 209).

9 ‘All governments, as Burke says, are mere contrivances for the benefit of the people’ (Adelaide 1897: 259 [423]).

10 A powerful upper house was understood as anti-democratic as the upper house would have an equal number of representatives from each state. This would give the smaller states relatively more power than the larger ones and was in opposition to the majoritarian principle of democracy.

11 The rhetoric of ‘evolution’ was also common in socialist ideology at the time, yet the concept was not used to justify specifically socialist policies in the Federation debates, and its Burkean inflexion is unmistakable. We thank the anonymous reviewer for raising this point.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by an ARC Discovery [grant DP140100246].