QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Ardent spirits shared

Gentlemen— I have received with much gratification this address from the numerous German immigrants who have adopted this district for their homes, and have here become loyal subjects of the British Crown, and valuable members of our community. You Germans inherit that love of enterprise and adventure, combined with that love of law and order, which are common to all branches of our great Teutonic family. As your native land possesses no colonies to receive its surplus population, you naturally prefer to settle among your Anglo-Saxon kinsmen, who are allied to you by so many ties of race, of language, and of national sympathy. I thank you for the samples of the produce of your vineyards, which you have presented me with; and I entirely agree with you, that when there has been sufficient time to ascertain the mode of culture best suited to the soil and climate of Queensland, there is every hope that your wines will compete successfully with those of the Fatherland, and will supplant, in a great measure, the use of ardent spirits among your fellow colonists. The official returns of 1866 show that spirits, wine and ale, to the value of no less than £240,000, were imported into Queensland during last year. There is, consequently, a wide scope for your enterprise in this field of industry. Gentlemen, some of the happiest days of my life have been spent in Germany. I have visited all your rich and beautiful provinces, and all your old historic cities, from Aachen to Wien, and from Berlin to Baden. I have quaffed with your countrymen in the old world many a goblet – in the phrase of your own Weihclied, Vaterländschen Trankes voll ; and I trust that you will revive on the hills of Queensland the fame of the vine-yards that crown the banks of the Rhine and of the Danube. In a word, I would have you create here a new Germany, under more free institutions ; under more sunny skies ; and in a land where the wars and tumults of your native country sound but as distant thunder in your ears. You all know that your glorious national song, Was ist der Deutschen Vaterland, restricts the German Fatherland to no single region, or even hemisphere, but defines it to be wherever “the German tongue is heard, and sings hymns of praise to God in Heaven”: — ‘So weit die Deutsche zunge klingt, Und Gott in himmel lieder singt Dass soll es seyn; Dass, wackerer Deutscher, nenne dein.’ Toowoomba, June 14th 1867

The address by the German farmers in the Toowoomba district (left) was published on page 3 of The Darling Downs Gazette and General Advertiser on Saturday 4 May 1867, so we may surmise that the gifts mentioned for Lady Bowen were an early dispatch down the newly-opened rail line to Ipswich and onwards to Brisbane. Throughout June 1867, His Excellency’s official reply (right) was printed and reprinted in every major newspaper, on the 22nd in T he Darling Downs Gazette . Although Sir George’s language may strike readers today as rather hearty – and perhaps effusively so (one wonders if he’d sampled the samples to be able to pen an honest and informed reply!) – there is, nonetheless, much of charming breadth and depth we can read in these elegant, formal exchanges. Perhaps Sir George, unavoidablly detained by flooded creek crossings from reaching the opening ceremony, simply wanted to ensure his absence caused no affront. THE GERMAN ADDRESS TO THE GOVERNOR The following reply by his Excellency the Governor to the address of the German population of Toowoomba and its vicinity was not furnished to the local papers, but appears in a Supplement to the Government Gazette published last Tuesday :—

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