Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/637

 NEWSPAPER STAMP ACT, 1830. CURRENCY. 609 ordered man, armed with two pistols and a carving knife, assailed him as he was leaving church, there were to be found some who agreed that a Governor was to blame, and that his assailant was aggrieved. When the Act 9 Geo. IV. cap. 83, arrived in the colony in 1829, Darling was relieved from the necessity of obtain- ing the Chief Justice's certificate that projected measures were not repugnant to English law. In Jan. 1830 he amended the stringent Newspaper Act of 1827. Banish- ment was not to be for such term of years as a Court might order, but might be severe. "If any person shaU be legally convicted of printing or publishing any blasphemous or seditious libel, or any libel tending to bring into hatred or contempt the Government of the colony as by law established, or the Governor or Acting-Governor for the time being, or to excite any of His Majesty's subjects to attempt the alteration of any matter in Church or State as by law established, otherwise than by lawful means, or to adopt any illegal proceedings, and shall after being so convicted offend a second time and be legally convicted, such person shall on such second conviction be adjudged to be banished from New South Wales for such term of years, not less than two, nor more than seven, as such Court shall order. " For publication after such second conviction there was a tine of £100 for each offence. One can understand the wrath of publishers at such an enactment, and their deter- mination to wage war against Darling by impeachment in England. The Home Government thought the Act too harsh, and (27th Sept. 1831) Darling carried a short measure repealing the portion of it which related to banishment. Publichouses ; the administration of justice; a census; dividing fences; pounds; the Orphan School lands; and the control of convicts, formed the basis of Darling's legislation. Brisbane's Act legalizing notes pay- able in Spanish dollars was abrogated by an Act (1826) "to promote the circulation of sterling money of Great Britain in New South Wales." A celebrated Act, known as the Bushranging Act, dealt, in April 1830, with the crimes of "robbery and house- breaking, and the harbouring of robbers and housebreakers." It was introduced and was passed in one day (21st April 1830), when one Donohue and his accomplices were at large. Chief Justice Forbes moved the necessary suspen- sion of the Standing Orders. Suspected persons might he