>> Go Back - page - >> List of Entriess
his engagement to a non-Jewish girl, succumbed to family pressures and joined the party. He arrived in Palmerston
in April, just one month before his twentieth birthday.
Solomon appears to have spent only a short time with the prospecting expedition and after a short visit to
Adelaide, returned to find employment in his brother’s general goods store in Palmerston. He soon became manager
and in 1877 went into business on his own account. Solomon’s business flourished. He carried a wide range of
goods and his large notice in the weekly paper advertised everything from ironmongery to liquor, including bulk
and tinned foods and clothes. He and his partners, F P Stevens and H H Adcock, also advertised themselves as
shipping agents, auctioneers and mining and real estate agents.
Solomon was also noted as one of Palmerston’s leading builders, the first of his constructions being houses for
his staff, who had formerly been living in tents. These buildings were followed by the construction of two large
business premises, a retail shop and a printing office in Smith Street, both built of cypress pine and corrugated
iron with cement floors and fronts ‘rusticated to look like cut stone-work’. In 1884 Solomon’s own house was
reputed to be ‘the most complete and substantial private residence Palmerston can boast of. However, the building
for which we remember Solomon today was probably not built by him, but for him, in 1885. This building, now
known as Brown’s Mart, was designed along simple but distinctive colonial lines by architect J G Knight and was
constructed of local stone for use as Solomon’s business premises.
Not content with business enterprise alone, Solomon became proprietor and editor of the local newspaper,
the Northern Territory Times and Gazette. Although his interest in the paper was not announced until January 1885,
it is highly likely that he edited the paper for some twelve months prior to this. Certainly the editorials which
appeared during this time bear a strong resemblance to Solomon’s clear, flowing and often dramatic style, typical
of a man of his class, time and education. These early editorials also echoed the strong political beliefs evident later
and for which Solomon became noted.
Before moving into a hiatus period of political disinterest, there was evident in early Palmerston a keenness
to participate in local government and colonial government to the extent that it affected Territory administration.
Solomon was generally to the fore in political activities. He was an active member of the Northern Territory Reform
Association, a body that was formed with the intention of exerting political pressure for changes to legislation
affecting the Territory. This association was neither long-lived nor influential and after a few years lost all impetus.
Solomon was able to exert more influence through the Palmerston District Council of which he was chairman for
many years.
With his wide range of interests Solomon became involved in many facets of political life but devoted much
of his time and energy to the achievement of two goals: the restriction of Chinese immigration to the Northern
Territory and the development of the Territory through appropriate liberal legislation. Neither problem was
as uncomplicated as Solomon would have had others believe but the question of Chinese immigration proved
particularly problematic as he, like many other Territorians, believed that development, and more specifically
agricultural development, was dependent on imported Asian labour. He also believed that Australia should be
developed for the benefit of Europeans and though he advocated the use of coloured labour, he claimed that Asians
should be allowed neither the same citizenship rights nor privileges as Europeans. As anti-Chinese sentiment gained
momentum in Palmerston, an Anti-Chinese League was established with Solomon becoming one of its leading
members. In 1889, he was commissioned by the League to present a series of lectures in the southern colonies on
the adverse effects of Chinese immigration and to present petitions to the premiers of New South Wales, Victoria
and South Australia. Time and distance failed to modify his views on this point and to the 1895 Commission of
Inquiry into Territory Affairs Solomon advocated only limited and strictly controlled use of Asian labour.
Absences from the Territory did nothing to alter Solomon’s views on the development of the Northern Territory
and he continued to express an unfailing belief in its potential. Unsuitable land laws were, he claimed, largely
responsible for South Australia’s failure in the Territory. His editorials in the Northern Territory Times and Gazette
expressed an exuberant optimism with each new mineral discovery and fledgling industry being hailed as a bright
new beginning.
Nor was Solomon a man of words only. From his earliest days in Palmerston, he showed himself willing to
invest heavily in a variety of business ventures, including mining and pearling. The considerable profits from his
successful Palmerston business were poured into speculative enterprises, often to his loss. Although known to have
had several resounding financial successes Solomon was eventually reduced to poverty and on his death, his wife
and family were left destitute.
While still very much involved in business in Palmerston, Solomon offered himself for election when, in
1888, the Northern Territory was granted two seats in the South Australian House of Assembly. He based his
campaign on his two principal political interests, development of the Northern Territory and the restriction of
Chinese immigration and, when Territorians went to the polls on 18 April 1890, Solomon was returned with over
half of recorded votes going to him. With J L Parsons, former Government Resident and the Territory’s second
representative, Solomon went to Adelaide, bringing to an end 17 years of life in the north.
However, this was not the end of Solomon’s interest or influence in the Northern Territory. He held his seat in
the House of Assembly until 1901 when he was elected as a South Australian representative to the newly formed
Commonwealth Parliament. From 1 to 8 December 1899 he served as Premier of South Australia, heading a
minority administration. During his years in the South Australian Parliament, he introduced a number of bills
relating to Territory affairs; predictably, most of them concerning the Chinese and land laws. He also introduced the
Northern Territory Justice Bill, a much needed piece of legislation and one for which he was highly commended.
On his move into federal politics, Solomon continued to promote the Territory and it was he who introduced the
motion into the House of Representatives, in 1901, that negotiations for the transfer of the Territory to the federal