HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



93 



FORT DEMSOX. 



conferred on the Council by the Imperial Parliament, it was felt that the time had at 

 last arrived when the life-long struggle of the patriot would be crowned with success. 

 The second reading of the Bill was moved by him in the session of the following year, 

 and was carried by a majority of thirty-four to eight. It was strongly opposed by a 

 considerable section of the public on the ground that the Members of the Upper House 

 should be elected, instead of 

 being nominated by the Crown. 

 But the nominee principle 

 was considered essential by 

 the framers of the Bill, for 

 the purpose of reproducing 

 the Constitution of the British 

 Parliament as closely as possi- 

 ble ; and in deference to those 

 views, the Bill was passed as 

 it stood. In order to assist its progress through 



the Imperial Parliament, Wentworth was commissioned by the Council to proceed to 

 England with the Colonial Secretary, E. Deas-Thomson, who had greatly distinguished him- 

 self by his successful conduct of public business for many years. The Bill, which was 

 passed in due course, was received in the colony in October, 1855. The old Legislative 

 Council was finally dissolved on the igth of December following, and the new Con- 

 stitution was formally inaugurated by the Governor-General, Sir William Denison, who 

 had succeeded Sir Charles Fitzroy in the beginning of the year. 



THE NEW CONSTITUTION. 



The establishment of responsible government brought about so great a change in the 

 political system of the colony that from that date the current of its history may be 

 said to run in a totally different channel. Other actors come upon the scene. The 

 martial figure of the Governor disappears, his place being occupied by men henceforth 

 known as the responsible Ministers of the Crown. The old system of arbitrary rule, 

 resting on military force, is superseded by a form of government iri which the elected 

 representatives of the people control the destinies of the country. Under the former, 

 the history of the colony was simply the biography of the Governor ; under the latter, 

 he becomes known as the representative of Majesty. From a mere handful of turbulent 

 and dissatisfied colonists always clamouring for political rights, and too often picking 

 quarrels with the Governor of the day in order to assert their claim to independence, 

 the people of New South Wales had suddenly begun to display the athletic forms and 

 proportions of national life. For more than half a century their progress had been a 

 slow and generally a painful one, although their destiny had been written in unmistak- 

 able lines by the hand of Nature, even at the foundation of the settlement. No 

 community ever struggled more manfully against the difficulties with which they were 

 surrounded from the outset of their history ; none ever fought more hopefully against 

 the long succession of disasters and reverses which met them on all sides in their 

 efforts to cultivate the wilderness. The great gold-discovery of 1851 might be said to 



