19 May 1895, Lavender Bay Foreshore Park, Sydney, New South Wales
It was still a huge ship, thought Caroline Plantagenet, bigger than any other ship in Australasia, indeed bigger than most world wide. Sadly, that was now part of the problem, along with age. the former SS Great Eastern, now SS Australasia had shouldered the burden of bringing migrants out from Europe for 30 years from 1858 to 1888. Supplemented on the European run from 1889 and then refitted to screw propulsion in 1889-90, with a reduced passenger capacity and refrigerated cargo holds, she had spent five more years on the run. The results of the 1893 election had doomed the ship. Subsidies to encourage migration were scrapped by the Barton government effective 30.6.1893. Migration numbers had dropped and with the passage of the controversial Immigration Restriction Act in March 1894, numbers from Asia dropped as well. Large and not able to be received in some port, expensive to operate and slower at 15 knots than many newer ships, time had passed her by.
Reaction to the Immigration Restriction Act had been so strong, with so many protests, some of which had ended up in bloodshed, particularly in Melbourne, that the Barton government had been pilloried in the press, eventually having to water down some aspects of the bill, so as to allow the passage of family related to those already in Australasia. They had little choice, with the State governments of Fiji and Aotearoa threatening to bypass Protectorate laws at the state level. Now, the bill remained passed, however, family reunion provisions existed, as did the unrestricted immigration of people living in Hailing. Essentially, anyone could move to Hailing and, after a six months residency, travel elsewhere in Australasia. Study purposes was yet another loophole that had been opened up. It was a bill she had begged the government not to pass, yet they had stayed the course and taken their lumps after it had received assent, ignoring her advice.
She had sensed a change in Edmund Barton after the "Flinders Street massacre" had left 18 dead and 39 wounded. "Bloody Eddie" he had been called in the press. Now Barton had resigned effective the 31st May and would site as Chief Justice of the High Court from the 20th of June. With Barton, despite their differences, Caroline felt she could at least offer some sway to his views. With his replacement, Richard Seddon, "King Dick" as he was known in the press, she despaired of doing so, with Seddon's confident, bumptious manner. Barton's government had raised tariffs after the 1893 economic malaise the country was slowly emerging from and had just legislated old age pensions from 66. Seddon was another matter altogether.
She returned her though to the SS Australasia and the speech she would give. It would laud the ship's service and the benefits of immigration, so would be a subtle dig at the government. The ship had made her last voyage a few months ago, leaving London, she had called at Calais, Gibraltar, Cape Town, Singapore and Hailing, before docking at Brisbane and finally Sydney, arriving on the 28th March. She would join the former Royal Navy second rater HMS Cambridge as a museum ship, monuments to the tide of change in Australasia.
