THE FIKST LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 341 



of his colleague, the Attorney-General, whose somewhat imperious 

 manner soon dominated the Lieutenant- Governor and his other 

 advisers. The general opinion that Captain Lonsdale was weak, 

 and wanting in capacity, was tempered by the belief that his long 

 experience of local affairs might be counted as a set-off, and it was 

 almost impossible for Latrobe to disregard his seniority in the 

 service of the Crown. 



The Parliament thus elected was to continue for five years, 

 unless earlier dissolved by the Governor, and its powers came very 

 short of those conferred by later statutes. The ordinary revenue 

 of the colony from taxation was at their disposal for public pur- 

 poses, but they were prohibited from passing any law that should 

 interfere with the sale or appropriation of the lands belonging to 

 the Crown or any revenue derived therefrom. One-half of this 

 was devoted to immigration, and what was called the unappropri- 

 ated moiety was to be expended under the direction of the Execu- 

 tive on public works. The Executive, unlike the Ministerial 

 Cabinet of later days, owed no responsibility to Parliament. There 

 was nothing in the shape of party government, the ten nominees, 

 as a rule, sat on the right of the Speaker, and the twenty elected 

 faced them on the left. Whatever their want of confidence might 

 have been in the Executive, there was no machinery by which 

 they could remove them by its expression. Probably in the early 

 stages this impossibility of raising the perpetual struggle between 

 the ins and the outs was not without its advantages, for there was 

 much to do, and above all there was much to learn as to the proper 

 way of doing it. An analysis of the occupations of the first Council 

 shows that out of the thirty members there were twelve squatters 

 and landowners, six merchants, four members of the legal profes- 

 sion, two doctors, two newspaper proprietors, and four tradesmen 

 or shopkeepers. On the whole they proved a good working body, 

 and by no means deserved the ungenerous sneer which Dr. Lang 

 printed in 1853 : " The Legislative Council of Victoria is certainly 

 a very paltry affair as yet. ... In point of intelligence and general 

 ability it is remarkably below the level of the first Legislative 

 Council of New South Wales ! " 



The members were called together for business on the llth of 



