Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/283

 threat aroused the attention of that large, but too often politically indifferent class, who, especially in democratic communities, are only too apt to exclaim, "A plague on both your Houses!" When the election came on, these quiet respectable men went to the unaccustomed polling-booths in such numbers that the threatened legislator was returned despite the "Irish vote," and the "little finger" that directed it, at the head of a most triumphant majority. This is the meaning for those who can see behind the scenes of colonial politics, of the division of fifty-nine against three votes, by which the action of the Imperial Government was upheld in the matter of colonial Governorships, on the evening of November 29th, in the