Beginnings 3
THE SAME YEAR saw the passage of the Scenery Preservation Bill and the consequent establishment of an integrated system of national parks administration. It was comprehensive and far-sighted legislation, amongst the first of its kind in the world and not surpassed in Australia for 40 years. All reserves were placed under the authority of the Scenery Preservation Board. Because of its importance, however, a special National Park Board was appointed on 26 January 1917, to administer the national park. The name Mt Field was not adopted until 1947 , and the township at its gates still bears the name National Park.
The park was officially opened by His Excellency the Governor, Sir Francis Newdegate, KCMG, on 13 October 1917. It was a gala occasion worthy, according to the Hobart Mercury, 'to rank with the epoch-making events in the history of Tasmania'. Despite 'the recent uncertainty of the elements', the day was magnificent and the many hundreds of visitors arrived not only on two special trains from Hobart, but 'by all sorts of transport', including 'motor-cars, motor-cycles, buggies, sulkies, traps, carts, waggons, horses and Shanks's ponies'.
There were all the expected speeches from the various dignitaries delivered from a massive tree stump near the main gate. 'I was told,' Governor Newdegate remarked, 'before 1 got on this stump that for once in my life 1 would become a "stump orator". If the speeches of such orators are as solid as this stump, they must be very valuable assets to society.'
It is indicative of the values of the day that as much emphasis was placed on potential development in Tasmania as on this act of conservation. His Excellency clearly experienced no sense of contradiction in congratulating Tasmania on its newly-acquired park on the one hand, and on the other pointing to the 'vast quantity of water which was now being harnessed for electrical purposes' and asking, 'Who would say that many great factories might not be established as a result, and that Tasmania might not become one of the great industrial centres of the Southern Hemisphere?' Equally unnoticed was the irony inherent in the main entertainment provided on the day - a wood-chopping contest.
Today, when the value, if not the inviolability, of national parks is clearly understood, it takes a real effort of imagination to understand how much vision Crooke and his supporters required to carry through their project. Few could see beyond the instinctive reaction that wilderness was man's enemy, something to be fought and overcome. Its proponents were forced to adopt utilitarian arguments. The Hobart Mercury's leader-writer at the time of the opening was clearly on side: