Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/104

 to have influenced the framers of our new constitution, as it was one which was urged against the English reform bill, but was not considered of much weight, and justly so; for if men have rights, they are entitled to have them assured to them, and not to have them left to accident.

But, as far as the Port Phillip district is at present concerned, it makes but little difference what may be the qualification of members of the legislative council, or of the electors who return them; for as long as Port Phillip is joined to the Sydney district, and the council holds its sessions at Sydney, it is impossible that the former can be adequately represented. The number of men is very small indeed who in a new country can afford to leave their homes and the superintendence of their business for two or three months of the year, even if they were willing to incur the expense of living at Sydney, and to take a journey of six hundred miles in a wretched conveyance, over a bush road, or a voyage of eight hundred miles in a very stormy part of the southern ocean. Even in England, amongst the number of men of independent property, who can leave home without inconvenience or loss, and with all the facilities for travelling which they possess, how few men would be willing to go into parliament if its sessions were held at Gibraltar, the voyage to which would be more easily performed than that from Melbourne to Sydney? The consequence of this has been, that out of six candidates at the only election for the district, four were residents at Sydney, none of whom I believe had ever been at Port Phillip until immediately preceding the election; and of the other two one I hear