John Gale (journalist) - National Capital Advocate

National Capital Advocate

The Australian colonies became a federated nation at the beginning of 1901. Gale strongly advocated making the Canberra-Queanbeyan district the site of Australia's future capital city. Gale later recorded in his newspapers and on page five of his valuable book Canberra History & Legends that on Christmas Day, 1855, he was riding his horse across the Limestone Plains to Kurrajong Hill (now called Capital Hill where the new Parliament House is built) when he had a "prophetic inspiration":

"... with the mountains to the south and to the east and the shimmer from the river, the scene invoked a mental, if not a vocal, exclamation: "What a magnificent site for one of Australia's future cities!"

On 11 June 1900, Gale (with 11 other local men) gave evidence to a NSW Royal Commissioner, Mr Alexander Oliver, proposing that Queanbeyan-Canberra be the site for the Federal Capital City. Commissioner Oliver had been appointed to examine and report to the NSW Parliament on the suitability of all the proposed locations for a National Capital. Oliver, however, favored Dalgety in his report and rejected Canberra.

The Federal Government introduced in 1904 a parliamentary bill naming Dalgety as the Federal Capital site. NSW strenuously objected to the bill. On 10 July 1907, Sir John Forrest, former Western Australian Premier, tabled his Report: "An Unique Site for the Federal City", as a formal minute in the House of Representatives in Melbourne. It contained “nine factors” each glorifying Dalgety and belittling Canberra. Some members of the NSW and Commonwealth parliaments approached John Gale and asked him to deal with Sir John’s report. The result – Gale’s now famous paper "Dalgety or Canberra, Which?" Gale read his paper on 24 July 1907 at a public meeting in Queanbeyan, where local residents dissented from the Commonwealth Parliament's choice of Dalgety. Queanbeyan Mayor Hinksman ordered that Gale’s paper be printed and copies sent to every member of the seven Australian parliaments and to influential citizens. Gale’s paper, with its “nine factors” of logic and "indisputable facts", put Dalgety in the background and strengthened Canberra's case to be Australia's capital city .

In 1907, former Australian prime ministers George Reid and J.C. Watson spoke strongly in favor of Canberra's claims to be the National Capital in speeches to the Commonwealth Parliament. Sir John Forrest MP, the then Premier of Western Australia and a vocal opponent of the Canberra option, said later that it was John Gale's pamphlet "Dalgety or Canberra, Which?" that won the day for Canberra as the preferred site, persuading him to alter his vote in its favour. Eventually, in 1908, Canberra was chosen as the site of Australia's National Capital.