Sir William John LyneKCMG (6 April 1844 – 3 August 1913) was an Australian politician who served as Premier of New South Wales from 1899 to 1901, and later as a federal cabinet minister under Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin. He is best known as the subject of the so called "Hopetoun Blunder", unexpectedly being asked to serve as the first Prime Minister of Australia but proving unable to form a government.
Lyne was elected leader of the Protectionists in 1895, and became Leader of the Opposition in New South Wales. He stood aside in 1898, but returned as leader the following year and became premier at the head of a coalition with the Labor Party. Lyne led an energetic and progressive government, instituting a number of major social reforms. He considered the draft constitution to be too unfavourable to New South Wales and supported the "no" vote at the 1898 and 1899 referendums.
In the mid 1860s, he left Tasmania at 20 to take up land in northern Queensland. He journeyed with Henry Steiglitz and camped on the Gregory River before heading to George Sutherland's Rocklands lease on the Georgina River. At this place, Lyne participated in a skirmish with the local Aboriginal people where one of the group fired a shot, hitting a group of boomerangs which scared the Aboriginal people into fleeing.[2] Finding the climate did not suit him, he returned to Tasmania a year later. He became a clerk at Glamorgan Council. After 10 years, Lyne left for the mainland again in 1875 and took up land at Cumberoona near Albury, New South Wales.[3]
Lyne was the member for Hume in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1880. A Protectionist, he was Secretary for Public Works in 1885 and from 1886 to 1887 and Secretary for Lands in 1889.[4] From 1891 to 1894, he became Secretary for Public Works again in the third ministry of George Dibbs. Lyne was a strong protectionist and fought hard for a high tariff. He also strongly supported railway expansion and pressed on with the building of the Culcairn to Corowa line in his own electorate.[5]
George Reid won the 1895 election on behalf of free traders, and Lyne became Leader of the Opposition as Dibbs had lost his seat. In September 1898 Lyne vacated the leadership of the opposition to Edmund Barton on the latter's entry into parliament. But within twelve months the fracturing of George Reid's free trade government by the issue of Federation made possible a protectionist minority government as long as Lyne replaced Barton, and accordingly Lyne resumed leadership of protectionists in August 1899. Lyne was hastened into the premiership by scandal. Reid had entrusted John Cash Neild with a preparation of a report upon old age pensions, and he had promised the leader of the Labor Party that he would give Neild no payment for this without the sanction of Parliament. Finding that the work was much greater than he expected, Neild had asked for and obtained an advance in anticipation of a vote. Lyne, by a clever amendment of a vote of want of confidence, made it practically impossible for the Labor party to support Reid, thus aligning the Labor Party who held the balance of power against Reid. Lyne became Premier by agreeing to reforms proposed by the Labor Party.[3][6] Lyne promised the Labor Party specific reforms and he passed 85 Acts between July and December 1900, including early closing of retail shops, coal mines regulation and miners' accident relief, old-age pensions and graduated death duties.[5]
In the constitutional debates of the 1890s Lyne favoured unification of the Australian colonies over their federation. He was one of the representatives of New South Wales at the 1897-8 convention, and sat on its finance committee, but was absent from 49 percent of its divisions, the worst record of any delegate but one.[7] He publicly advocated No in the referendum of 1898, and in the second referendum of 1899, the only New South Wales convention representative still dissatisfied with the amended bill. George Reid, the premier, had declared himself whole-heartedly on the side of federation, and the second referendum showed a substantial majority on the "Yes" side.[3] Lyne protested the contamination of the result by ballot fraud, but soon reconciled himself to the new political reality.[8]
Federal politics
William Lyne at the 1898 Australasian Federal Convention
As Premier of the largest colony, Lyne considered himself entitled to be the first Prime Minister of Australia when the colonies federated in January 1901. This was in accordance with the precedent established at Canadian Confederation three decades earlier.
The Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun, was also of this mind, and offered the post to Lyne in December 1900, heading an interim government that would serve until the first federal election. However, since Lyne had opposed federation, most senior politicians, notably Alfred Deakin, told Hopetoun that they would not serve under Lyne. When it was apparent that Lyne would not be able to form a government, he returned his commission to Hopetoun. Eventually, Hopetoun was forced to accept the majority view that Edmund Barton, the leader of the federation movement, should be prime minister. Lyne's failure to form a government is known as the "Hopetoun Blunder."
In April 1907 Lyne accompanied Deakin to the colonial conference and endeavoured to persuade the British politicians that they were foolish in clinging to their policy of free trade. Deakin and Lyne returned to Australia in June, and when Sir John Forrest resigned his position as Treasurer at the end of July 1907, Lyne succeeded him.[3]
Lyne's name is associated with the 'Lyne Tariff'— the Customs Tariff Act of 1908—which significantly increased levels of protection for local industry.[9] It represented the final triumph of politicians favouring protection, over those advocating free trade, and brought to an end the main political divergence of pre-Federation Australia.
Fusion government
In November 1908, the Labor party withdrew its support from Deakin, and Fisher succeeded him and held office until June 1909, when Deakin and Cook joined forces and formed the so-called "Fusion" government. Lyne accused Deakin of betrayal and thereafter sat as an independent Protectionist. His bitter denunciations of his one-time friend continued during the 11 months the ministry lasted but Deakin did not respond. The Labor Party came in with a large majority in the April 1910 election, and Lyne was elected as a pro-Labor independent. However, Lyne lost his seat in the May 1913 election when the Labor Party lost to the opposition Commonwealth Liberal Party.
Personal life
Following the death of his first wife Martha née Shaw, Lyne remarried in 1911, to Sarah Jane Olden.
Sir William Lyne died in the Sydney suburb of Double Bay, in 1913. He was survived by one son and three daughters of the first marriage and by his second wife and her daughter.[3] On 8 April 1960, Lady Sarah Lyne presented a lithograph portraying the opening of the first Federal Parliament to the then newly opened Lyneham High School.[10] Lady Lyne died in Canberra in 1961 and is buried in Woden Cemetery.[11]
Assessment
The 1949 Dictionary of Australian Biography assessed Lyne as:[3]
Lyne was more of a politician than a statesman, always inclined to take a somewhat narrow view of politics. He did some good work when Premier of New South Wales by putting through the Early Closing bill (regulating shopping hours), the Industrial Arbitration bill, and bringing in graduated death duties; but even these measures were part of his bargain with the Labor party.
He was tall and vigorous, in his younger days a typical Australian bushman. He knew everyone in his electorate and was a good friend to all. He was bluff and frank and it was said of him that he was a man whose hand went instinctively into his pocket when any appeal was made to him. In Parliament, he was courageous and a vigorous administrator.
Scarcely an orator, he was a good tactician. Although overshadowed by greater men like Barton, Reid and Deakin, his views had much influence in his time. In his early political life he was a great advocate of irrigation, and in federal politics he had much to do with the shaping of the policy of protection eventually adopted by the Commonwealth.
His reputation has been sullied by Alfred Deakin's description of him as "a crude, sleek, suspicious, blundering, short-sighted, backblocks politician".[12]
Lyne was also largely responsible for pushing through Parliament the bounty scheme that brought the Thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) to its extinction. In extensive reviews of the bounty scheme payments and official sheep farming records, Lyne's insistence of the threat posed by the native marsupial to sheep seems to have been largely at odds with the facts.[13]
^William Coleman,Their Fiery Cross of Union. A Retelling of the Creation of the Australian Federation, 1889-1914, Connor Court, Queensland, 2021, pp.147.
^William Coleman,Their Fiery Cross of Union. A Retelling of the Creation of the Australian Federation, 1889-1914, Connor Court, Queensland, 2021, pp.416.
^"THE LYNE TARIFF". Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931). 3 September 1907. p. 4. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
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