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 believe in the utility of constantly tilting in Parliament against a policy which the country had unmistakably approved by an overwhelming majority; and he therefore tendered his support to the administration of his old friend Mr. Francis, with whose general principles he agreed. In July 1874 Mr. Francis retired; and his Ministry was reconstructed under Mr., who succeeded in inducing Mr. Service to become Treasurer in the new combination. During his brief tenure of office Mr. Service slightly revised the tariff, but the next year, when he boldly proposed to reduce the ad valorem duties from 20 to 15 per cent., he was less fortunate. It is usual to consider the acceptance of the first item by a fair majority as tantamount to the acceptance of the entire budget, and this was obtained; but subsequently, there being only a majority of two in favour of adding two shillings to the spirit duty, the Ministry decided to appeal to the country, and being refused a dissolution, resigned office, making way for the first cabinet of Mr. (now Sir Graham) Berry. Mr. Service sat in opposition to this Government, and to that of Sir James MᶜCulloch, which replaced it, and during the session of 1876 delivered a scathing indictment of the latter's financial policy. The effect on the House and the country was enormous, and the blow was repeated with, if possible, added momentum, in a speech made at Maldon during the famous electoral contest of 1877. The forces of Sir James MᶜCulloch were annihilated, and the Stonewall party came back from the polls with an overwhelming majority. Mr., their victorious chief, recognising the potential assistance afforded him by Mr. Service, offered him any post outside the premiership, provided he would aid the new Ministry with the weight of his great financial authority. And though Mr. Service felt obliged to decline the offer, he gave the Berry Cabinet an independent support until the Black Wednesday dismissals occasioned its withdrawal. In 1880 Mr. Service formed his first Ministry; but not succeeding in obtaining a sufficient majority to carry his Reform Bill, which, whilst popularising the franchise of the Upper House, increased its financial powers, through the Lower Chamber, he appealed to the country, and, being placed in a minority, made way for Mr. Berry's return to power. Mr. Service now revisited England, coming back to the colony just in time to take part in the general election of 1883, when he was returned to Parliament for Castlemaine as the recognised leader of the Constitutional party—as the Conservatives had been rechristened. Coalescing with Mr. Berry, who, as leader of the Liberals, had a nearly equal following, Mr. Service became Premier and Chief Secretary of the colony. Amongst the principal achievements of the new Ministry were the measures by which appointments to the Civil Service and the control of the State railways were transferred from political hands into those of permanent Commissions. The general policy of the Government, especially in regard to Western Pacific affairs, tended strongly, also, to the development of a more decidedly Australian sentiment; whilst, in regard to the question of federation, Mr. Service "took up the mantle" of Sir, the well-known Queensland statesman, who had temporarily retired from public life; the result being the holding of the Sydney Convention and the formation of the Federal Council of Australasia. Mr. Service resigned at the end of 1885, and shortly afterwards left on a third visit to England, being subsequently appointed one of the four representatives of Victoria at the Colonial Conference of 1887. Mr. Service believes, with Sir, that this Conference should be the precursor of other similar conclaves, and is strongly of opinion that if the Empire is to be saved from the provincialism both of the Colonial and the English legislatures, the nebulous feeling in favour of Imperial federation must shortly take concrete form in a superior council, in which the entire Empire will be represented, and which will have the supreme control of all purely Imperial affairs. On his return to the colony Mr. Service, who generally approved the policy of the late Gillies-Deakin Government, evinced a strong disinclination to renew his participation in active politics. He however accepted a seat in the Upper House for the Melbourne province, and occasionally interposes when questions of 411