Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/198

 selected on the basis of population alone would destroy the squatters, and endanger many serious interests; others foresaw in this proposal the first plunge into the muddy waters of American democracy, and Mr. Fellows, who had transferred himself to the Upper House, insisted that the measure should be postponed till an Elections Regulations Bill providing for the representation of minorities had been passed.

I shall not embarrass this narrative with names unless when they are names of cardinal significance. It is enough to say that the man of greatest wealth in the House (who was Commissioner of Customs in the new Government) warned them that rejecting this Bill was not the way to protect property, but the way to inflame public opinion against it and to lead to an immediate dissolution of Parliament to be followed in all probability by a more democratic assembly. But remonstrance was in vain: the measure was rejected by a narrow majority; the Government withdrew the second Bill and prepared for a general election. Before the Session terminated the Chief Secretary announced that a new Session would speedily open, when the Reform Bill would be again sent to the Council to enable them to consider more deliberately whether they would reject a measure dealing exclusively with reform in the Legislative Assembly, and which had been unanimously adopted by that body. If it did, it might be necessary to consider serious changes in the constitution.

The Session closes with a respectable imitation of a Whitebait Dinner, except indeed that the Australian Ministers, instead of enjoying the good things in secret, invite their Parliamentary supporters in the Lower House to share these festivities, which are commonly as joyous and exuberant as a schoolboy holiday festival.

When the recess arrived I found a huge accumulation of correspondence and agenda which occupied my leisure as long as I had any, and overflowed into the succeeding Session. The character of the writers make some of the letters of permanent importance.

In the middle of this century English opinion got entangled in the strange fallacy that the colonies were a burthen to the empire. The British troops were in the end withdrawn in