Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/315

 the Ministerial candidate for Dalhousie. On the day of pollig the constituents sent him back to Melbourne with the assurance that there were too many Ministerial sticks in Parliament already.

The Government had still a decided majority in the new Parliament. The Darling deadlock lasted for more than a year, when Mr. Higinbotham determined to throw upon the Council and their friends the impossible task of governing with such a hostile assembly. Sir James McCulloch resigned, and Mr. Sladen, a member of the Upper House, formed a Government. Time had greatly mitigated the determination of the Council, and the Darling vote was made an open question, and after a little time one of the new Government undertook to introduce a bill sanctioning the vote, but the new Opposition treated their complaisance with disdain. Everything they proposed was negatived. They were not even allowed to move the adjournment of the House till next day, the task being always assumed by Mr. McCulloch, the Leader of the Opposition. The Government, I presume, considered they were maintaining the Constitution by continuing in office under all circumstances till an unobjectionable Appropriation Bill could be obtained, but it may be doubted if Responsible Government was vindicated by ignoring the repeated decisions of the popular chamber, whose confidence is the necessary condition of its legitimate existence. I find in my diary of that day some speculations on the subject:—

"I do not believe that Mr. Sladen has any undue desire to remain in office, but under some influence which I only imperfectly understand, he consents to set an example pregnant with the most evil consequences. He evades authority, he violates the Constitution; what have any who went before him, or what can any who come after him do worse than this? The Queen enjoys her throne on the specific condition that she shall maintain and not violate the Constitution of England; and she is sworn to this pact, such safeguard being considered necessary for the ancient and robust English system; and yet Mr. Fellows makes a jest of the fact that the new Government strains and dislocates a Constitution not a dozen years in operation and ill able to endure such a process. Hitherto there has been no undue