Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/180

 franchise, whether they intended to accompany it by a kindred and equally urgent reform—an abolition of the property qualification for members of the Assembly. The Chief Secretary replied that they did not, and I immediately gave notice of a Bill of my own for this purpose. The reform was a very necessary one, as the qualification in Victoria was the most restricted in the world. In England, Mr. Bright had qualified out of his mill, another member out of a deposit receipt for £10,000, but in Victoria it was necessary to have an income arising out of real property situated in the colony. There was no property qualification in France, in Belgium, in the United States, or in almost any colony in the empire. Was Victoria likely to hold the foremost place she ambitioned in the march of freedom if she continued to maintain this system? It was said a member of Parliament ought to have an interest in the soil, but why, I asked, ought he? The judge, the naval or military commander, or the diplomatic agent has as serious duties to perform, but no one expected this qualification from him. A property qualification was not required in Scotland, or in English or Irish universities; it was abolished in order that competent men might not be shut out of Parliament by the want of it. This was the principle I desired to apply in Victoria. What reason was there to expect that the diggers, for example, who paid half a million to the revenue, should be owners of freehold? or the members of the learned professions? And were not both classes who ought to be in Parliament? There was another reason for desiring the reform which needed to be handled delicately, the rigid system produced, as such a system commonly does, a crop of evasions, and there were many bogus qualifications. The result of my proposal was satisfactory. A local journal of the period, the Age, says: "Apropos of Mr. Duffy and Parliamentary business, it is rather remarkable that he has been the first to lead the Opposition to victory against the Government, and the first to get a Bill carried through all its stages." This was a Bill to abolish the property qualification required by members of the Assembly. The Ministry opposed it and were defeated; but though beaten on a vital point in the Constitution they did not resign office. The most important of the provincial journals which had supported