Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/173

 answers between the representatives of the colonists, the governor, and his patrons in Downing-street.

For- instance, the colonists proposed to reduce the salaries of certain colonial custom-house officers; in the next session of the British Parliament, it is presumed at the instigation of Governor Gipps, the British Colonial Secretary passed a special Act, taking that department from the control of the newly-created colonial Parliament. The colonists proposed to spend £9,000 of their own money in building a lighthouse in Bass's Straits; they were informed that they must first consult the home government on its situation—a matter of two years' delay. The colonists passed an Act, establishing mortgage and register for mortgages on wool; the Colonial Secretary of State, without consulting the colonists, disallowed the Act, as "repugnant to the laws of England." See p. 164. But after long delay and great loss of property, the home government was obliged to yield and sanction a measure indispensable in a pastoral country. The colonists examined and unanimously protested against the land system established by the Imperial Parliament, arid still more unanimously against the ordinances affecting pastoral occupation. Lord Stanley, without regarding petitions which, as Sir George Gipps admitted, expressed the almost unanimous opinions of the colonists, hastened to pen in a despatch "his determination to uphold the land system, and his perfect approval of the arbitrary powers exercised by the governor against the squatting interest." A bill was introduced into the British Parliament for establishing the new system of pastoral occupation—the ex-governor was consulted—the Legislative Council were left in ignorance of the provisions of the bill.

In fact, the records of the Legislative Council are largely occupied with discussions between the governor and the elected members on every possible subject, the governor constantly adopting a line of defiance, always treating the opposition as if it were rebellion. On the one side were the colonists, on the other the governor, backed by the home government, concentrating in his own person all power and patronage, supported by the official members, and the nominees, who were plainly instructed that, unless prepared to support the governor, "right or wrong" (if a governor could be wrong), they must resign.

The ability and integrity of the colonial secretaries of state during the administration of Sir George Gipps, and of Sir George himself, are indisputable; but they obstinately insisted on knowing whether shoes fitted or not better than the people who wore them, and insisted too, that they should wear them, whether they pinched or not. Fortunately the prosperity of the colony did not entirely depend on the