Page:Advanced Australia.djvu/72

 a market to the graziers, rather discouraged agriculture, until the decay of mining, in the period of transition from alluvial to reefing, before the value of the deep levels was established, threw some of the miners back upon the cultivation of the soil. The separation of the colony from New South Wales was obtained by great efforts. It was held that, being a remote district, it was neglected. So keen did the feeling become that the electors of Port Phillip District, as Victoria was then called, refused to send an actual representative to the Sydney Parliament, and elected Earl Grey, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies, as their member. This drew pointed attention to the grievances of the settlers, and the Privy Council decreed the separation of the present colony from the parent stem, the river Murray becoming the boundary. It is alleged that it was owing to a mistake of a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State for the Colonies in writing "Murray" instead of "Murrumbidgee"—(perhaps he found the former easier to spell) — that the Murrumbidgee was not made the boundary, that being the original intention. This would have given Victoria a large additional extent of fertile land; and she was left with a hankering for extensions even so lately as the 'eighties, when there was still talk of the Debateable Land on the South Australian boundary, and a vague notion of annexing the Riverina was a constant source of alarm to New South Wales. However, at the time, so delighted were the colonists with their success, that Separation Day was proclaimed a public holiday: and it was continually observed as such until a few years ago, when it seemed so inconsistent with the desire for federation to be still celebrating separation that the day was taken out of the list of public holidays.

It was the discovery of gold in 1851 which sent the