Melbourne bot Garden
15/7/72
I got safely back the large case, dear Dr Hooker, with Thymeleae &c also got the various parcels which you so generously added as a donation to my Museum Material and the sundry packages which you allowed for me to go to Kew from foreign friends.
I cannot write at length, as two men employed as writers1 on the Argus and Australasian (Edw Wilsons papers) have long since resolved to give me no peace, until they have kicked me out of my Directorship, about the functions of which these two low and ignorant persons know nothing. I wished you would kindly remonstrate with Mr Wilson and Mr M’Kinnon. Mr Darwin might help also. It is very cruel that all three proprietors of the Argus should stay in London and quietly look on the torture, which I have to undergo from their people here. Even only yesterday I induced the principle Editor Mr [H]adden2 to walk with me for a couple of hours through my ground, (he was not with me for years til then) pointed out my difficulties, also the enormous losses sustained, through an ignorant individual intruding on my Directorial position and how my progressive work of real value had been much stopped or largely ruined. For all that however this morning, just at a critical period, when Ministers finish their estimates for the new financial year (July 1872 til June 1873) a horrible leading article appears in the Argus,3 to give me if possible the last stab to ruin.
With every sentiment of gratitude and regard
Ferd. von Mueller
Thymeleae
Argus, Melbourne, 15 July 1872, pp. 4-5. There is a copy of the article, annotated by M, at Kew (RBG Kew, Miscellaneous reports, 7.7, Melbourne, Mueller, 1853-96 (MR/30), pp. 117-19), which also contains another cutting from the Argus,12 July 1872 (p. 107) with a report of an interview between the Minister of Lands, Mr Casey, M and Mr Ferguson, the inspector of forests, of which a verbatim account is given in another cutting, from the Daily telegraph (Melbourne), 12 July 1872, p. 3, but which differs in detail from that in the Argus. The Argus article of 15 July began: 'It has long been a matter of doubt whether the colony has gained or lost by the possession of the Baron von MUELLER'. It went on to list as benefits his talents as a descriptive botanist, his writings on botanical subjects, his correspondence, his attention to economic botany, and his introduction of ornamental, scientifically interesting and economically useful plants. On the debit side, 'it is undeniable that ... as a Government officer he is a most difficult person to deal with. He is constantly obtruding himself upon ... the public, and generally as an object of sympathy ... People known to have some little influence with the Government or the public — as members of Parliament, for instance — dare not visit the botanical gardens ... lest they be compelled to listen to a tedious story of his labours, or a pitiful narrative of his sufferings and wrongs ... his undignified subserviency has done most to alienate him from the esteem of the public.' The article goes on to comment on the long-running 'grievous complaint' which led to the Government putting 'Mr FERGUSSON, inspector of state forests, in charge of the grounds, in order that he, a practical landscape gardener might bring them into order'. [M underlined ‘inspector of state forests’ and ‘landscape gardener’, and wrote against this passage ‘!! Absurdity. false. annis dei 1870-72’.] 'No change', the article continued, 'in Dr MUELLER'S status or emoluments was contemplated’ [M underlined ‘emoluments’, and wrote against this sentence: 'no, on his starvation position not']. The dispute between M and Ferguson is rehearsed, and the view of the Board of Inquiry that the positions of Government Botanist and curator should be distinguished and defined is reported. Against this passage M wrote: 'have paid better gardeners than this forest man'. The article continues with comment on the interview recently held between James Casey, President of the Board of Lands and Works, M and Ferguson, 'that their differences might be arranged, if that were possible, [as the Estimates for the year were being prepared]. And again the Baron's wrongs had to be related with painful iteration — how a gentleman was placed on the board of inquiry who was personally hostile to him...’ [M underlined ‘gentleman’ and in the margin against this point wrote: 'who just before said in print "I should botanize on my mother's grave!"'] In concluding, the Argus'reminded' M that he was 'extremely well off, if only he could be induced to think so. He is tolerably well paid for doing work of a kind which hundreds of men quite as good as himself gladly perform out of pure love of science, and a disinterested desire to extend the domain of human knowledge.'
On 16 July a columnist in the Times & mines (Melbourne) wrote: 'The newspaper enemies of Baron von Mueller are endeavouring to upset his public position by arguing from what they are pleased to regard as alleged failings of his private character! His talents, as a scientific botanist, his world-wide correspondence, and his practical utility as an acclimatiser, and distributor of valuable woods, plants and vegetable products are admitted, because, I suppose, they cannot be denied, but then, says the great journal, he has sucha temper, and he is so obsequious. He really is so undignified. What preposterous nonsense. What childish nonsense. What random nonsense. What inconsequential nonsense. What thoroughly Argus nonsense.' (Cutting at RBG Kew, Miscellaneous reports, 7.7, Melbourne, Mueller, 1853-96 (MR/30), p. 121).
Please cite as “FVM-72-07-15,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/72-07-15