Editing Eureka Rebellion (section)

====La Trobe introduces monthly mining tax as protests begin====
[[File:The Eureka Stockade Gold License.jpg|thumb|250px|A gold mining licence issued to [[Raffaello Carboni]]]]

On 16 August 1851, just days after Hiscock's lucky strike, [[Lieutenant-Governor]] [[Charles La Trobe]] issued two proclamations that reserved to the crown all land rights to the goldfields and introduced a mining licence (tax) of 30 shillings per month, effective 1 September.<ref>''Supplement to the Victorian Government Gazette'', No 6, 13 August 1851, 209.</ref><ref>''Victorian Government Gazette'', No. 8, 27 August 1851, 307.</ref> The universal mining tax was based on time stayed rather than what was seen as the more equitable option, an export duty levied only on gold found, meaning it was always designed to make life unprofitable for most prospectors.{{sfn|Barnard|1962|p=261}}{{sfn|Blainey|1983|p=158}}

There were several mass public meetings and miners' delegations in the years leading up to the armed revolt. The earliest rally was held on 26 August 1851 at Hiscock's Gully in Buninyong and attracted 40–50 miners protesting the new mining regulations, and four resolutions to this end were passed.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4780134 |location=Melbourne |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |title=GOLD. |date=30 August 1851 |access-date=19 May 2022 |page=2 |via=[[Trove]] }}</ref> From the outset, there was a division between the "moral force" activists who favoured lawful, peaceful and democratic means and those who advocated "physical force", with some in attendance suggesting that the miners take up arms against the lieutenant governor, who was irreverently viewed as a feather-wearing, effeminate [[fop]].{{sfn|Clark|1987|p=14}} This first meeting was followed by ongoing protests across all the colony's mining settlements in the years leading up to the 1854 armed uprising at Ballarat.