Arthur Bruce Smith (28 June 1851 – 14 August 1937), commonly referred to as A. Bruce Smith, was a long serving
Australian
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...
and leading political opponent of the
White Australia policy
The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting i ...
. He has been described as the most prominent Australian advocate for classical liberalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Early life
Born in
Rotherhithe
Rotherhithe () is a district of south-east London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse on the north bank, as well as the Isle of D ...
,
Surrey,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, Smith was the fifth of seven sons of wealthy ship owner William Howard Smith and his second wife Agnes. One brother,
Edmund (1847–1914), would serve in the
Victorian Legislative Council
The Victorian Legislative Council (VLC) is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative C ...
from 1901 to 1903. The family immigrated to
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
in 1854 where Smith was educated at
Wesley College and studied law at the
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...
before leaving for England where he was called to the Bar in 1877.
Colonial politics
Returning to Melbourne the next year, Smith was admitted to the Victorian Bar and on 15 January 1879, married Sara Jane Creswell, who bore him four sons and three daughters. Developing an interest in politics, Smith unsuccessfully stood for the Victorian
electoral district of Emerald Hill
Emerald Hill was an electoral district of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, Australia. It covered part of the inner-city suburb South Melbourne and consisted part of the previous Electoral district of South Melbourne which was abolished in 185 ...
in February 1880, before moving to
Sydney in 1881, where he won a Legislative Assembly by-election for
Gundagai
Gundagai is a town in New South Wales, Australia. Although a small town, Gundagai is a popular topic for writers and has become a representative icon of a typical Australian country town. Located along the Murrumbidgee River and Muniong, Hon ...
in 1882.
Resigning from parliament in April 1884, Smith returned to Melbourne to run his father's business,
WM Howard Smith and Sons Ltd. In March 1885 Smith founded the
Victorian Employers' Union
Victorian or Victorians may refer to:
19th century
* Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign
** Victorian architecture
** Victorian house
** Victorian decorative arts
** Victorian fashion
** Victorian literatu ...
, serving as its inaugural president until 1887, and the Victorian Board of Conciliation. Union leaders favourably commented upon his willingness to work with unions to achieve consensus, an attitude missing in fellow employers.
In 1887, Smith published ''Liberty and Liberalism'', a defence of classical
Adam Smith liberalism in politics and economics and an attack against what he considered the increasing interference by the state. Additionally, Smith later wrote books on the
Constitution of Australia, the dangers of socialism and a volume of verse.
After an argument with his father in December 1887, Smith sold all his shares in Howard Smith to his brother
Edmund Smith and resigned from the board. Disinherited by his father, Smith returned to Sydney to continue his career as a barrister and founded the
New South Wales Employers' Union
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
.
Elected as the member for
Glebe
Glebe (; also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s))McGurk 1970, p. 17 is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved ...
in the
New South Wales Legislative Assembly
The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament Ho ...
in February 1889, Smith was almost immediately promoted by
Premier Henry Parkes
Sir Henry Parkes, (27 May 1815 – 27 April 1896) was a colonial Australian politician and longest non-consecutive Premier of the Colony of New South Wales, the present-day state of New South Wales in the Commonwealth of Australia. He has ...
to Secretary for Public Works, and later, Treasurer. Smith proved to be a hard working minister but abrasive figure, frequently clashing with Parkes and accused of threatening to "shoot down" striking maritime workers "like bloody dogs". He did not seek re-election at the 1894 election.
He never held ministerial office again.
In March 1897 Smith stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in the election of delegates to the Australasian Federal Convention, receiving little more than half the votes of William McMillan the candidate most resembling Smith in political position. Smith griped that the weaker of the ten successful candidates were, variously, 'a nuisance', 'unstable' and 'stupid'. Nevertheless, Smith ardently embraced the constitution the Convention produced, and stumped for it in the subsequent referendums. In 1898 Smith unsuccessfully contested Glebe for the
National Federal Party and served as a member of the party's Federal Executive finance committee and as editor of their newspaper ''
United Australia'' from 1900 to 1902.
Federal politics
Following the
Federation of Australia on 1 January 1901, Smith successfully contested the newly created federal
Division of Parkes
The Division of Parkes is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales.
History
The former Division of Parkes (1901–69) was located in suburban Sydney, and was not related to this division, except in name.
The divisio ...
at the
inaugural Australian federal election as a
Free Trade Party representative. He campaigned strongly against the idea of restricting non-white immigration, believing it to be racial discrimination; in doing so, Smith was the only candidate to oppose all of what would become the White Australia Policy (
Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher (29 August 186222 October 1928) was an Australian politician who served three terms as prime minister of Australia – from 1908 to 1909, from 1910 to 1913, and from 1914 to 1915. He was the leader of the Australian Labor Party ...
argued that any
Kanaka who had converted to Christianity and married should be allowed to remain in Australia).
In parliament, Smith often clashed with his Free Trade colleagues, particularly party leader
George Reid
Sir George Houston Reid, (25 February 1845 – 12 September 1918) was an Australian politician who led the Reid Government as the fourth Prime Minister of Australia from 1904 to 1905, having previously been Premier of New South Wales fr ...
, over his refusal to toe the party line. He opposed the deportation of Kanakas, tariffs, social welfare provisions and "meddling legislation". He believed that 'if the issue
f Federationwere to come again before the people it would be negatived by the people'. Smith was a strong supporter of the women's movement and was known as parliament's preeminent political economist and one of its finest debaters.
While a member of parliament, Smith continued to act as a barrister and was made a
King's Counsel in 1904. Additionally, he served on numerous commercial boards, including as a director of the
Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Ltd, and held senior positions with community organisations such as New South Wales president of the
British Empire League
The British Empire League existed from 1895 to 1955; its purpose was to secure permanent unity for the British Empire.
Origin
The British Empire League was a society founded by Lord Avebury (1834-1913), Lord Roberts (1832-1914) and Lord Strathc ...
in Australia and state president of the Association for the Protection of Native Races.
Smith lost Nationalist preselection at the
1919 election and was defeated as an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
candidate, having spent almost all his period in federal parliament in opposition. He was offered the role of
Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Parliament of Australia. The counterpart in the upper house is the President of the Senate. The office of Speaker was ...
twice but declined in order to concentrate on other matters.
Post-political life
In 1925 he retired to
Bowral, New South Wales, where he died in 1937. Survived by two daughters and a son, Smith was buried beside his wife in the Bowral Church of England cemetery.
Smith was considered an anachronism by the end of his political career but his stature has been revived in recent years, thanks in part to the recent republishing of ''Liberty and Liberalism''. Prominent historian
Keith Windschuttle
Keith Windschuttle (born 1942) is an Australian historian and former board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
He was editor of '' Quadrant'' from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the board and editor-in-chief. He was the pub ...
refers to Smith as "one of the outstanding intellectuals of Australian history", adding "were anyone to write a proper history of ideas in Australia, Smith should figure prominently". According to
Geoffrey Bolton
Geoffrey Curgenven Bolton (5 November 1931 – 3 September 2015) was an Australian historian, academic and writer.
Life
He attended Wesley College, Perth from 1943 to 1947. He published works on Australian history, authoring 13 books, his fina ...
, Smith was once "dismissed as a spokesman for employers who wanted to introduce cheap non-European labour into White Australia", but by the late 20th century had been rehabilitated as "a tolerant multiculturalist ahead of his time".
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Bruce
1851 births
1937 deaths
Free Trade Party members of the Parliament of Australia
Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
Members of the Australian House of Representatives
Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Parkes
People educated at Wesley College (Victoria)
Melbourne Law School alumni
Treasurers of New South Wales
Commonwealth Liberal Party members of the Parliament of Australia
Nationalist Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia
Independent members of the Parliament of Australia
20th-century Australian politicians
Australian King's Counsel
20th-century King's Counsel