Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/179

 farmer. He was notable for a character without stain, and the cordiality which springs from a generous nature. His position in the Legislature somewhat resembled Lord Althorp's in the House of Commons. Men did not count upon him to do anything original or striking, but they were confident he would do nothing that was vicious. The mining members were at this time a third of the House, but it is a curious and suggestive fact that though men who had lived on the goldfields came to office from time to time generally one at a time, the Digger Government which appalled the minds of capitalists neither then nor ever after came into existence.

It was plain to an experienced eye that there was no party organisation among the Opposition; they had elected no officers, Mr. O'Shanassy was tacitly accepted as leader, but there was no secretary to summon the party, and no Whip to secure their punctual attendance. When there are not great political passions at work the political activity of a new country is like the movements of an anthill, and the absence of permanent relations in public or private life robs it of one of the x centres round which party combinations gradually form. In other respects the meeting of the new Assembly was a pleasant surprise to me, though I had come recently from the House of Commons, and had in memory the encounters between its leaders, and the fundamental fact which is always its chief attraction, that there are men there who are experts on every subject of human interest—often men who never open their lips in debate, but can tell you, if they choose, all that it is requisite to know of the mysteries of politics, commerce, literature, and science. I was rejoiced to recognise that in this Assembly there were men who understood the interests of Australia, and, perhaps, the agencies which make a country prosperous, as well as any man in the new Palace of Westminster understood his wider range of duties. The Chamber consisted chiefly of barristers, attorneys, doctors, squatters, miners, and wholesale traders.

Shortly after this Parliament had assembled I asked the Government, who were proposing an extension of the