HISTORICAL REVIEW OF VICTORIA. 



361 



ceramics, hangings and metal ornaments, and many British and foreign houses established 

 branches in Melbourne for the purpose of supplying that demand ; while it also stimulated 

 local ingenuity, inventiveness and enterprise, and supplied higher standards of judgment 

 and comparison to colonial artificers than those previously accessible. 



During the seven months the Exhibition was open the admissions of all classes 

 numbered one million three hundred and nine thousand four hundred and ninety-six, the 

 receipts amounted to fifty thousand pounds, and the deficiency was covered by a sum 

 of about six thousand pounds. It closed in May, 1881, and after all the exhibits had 

 been removed, and the annexes disposed of to the Railway Department, the building was 

 handed over to the control of a body of trustees in order that it might be applied to 

 purposes of popular instruction and recreation. 



The only other important event which occurred during the time the Marquis of 

 Normanby was Governor of Victoria, was a reform in the Constitution of the Legis- 

 lative. Council. This was effected 

 in 1 88 1. It increased the num- 

 ber of Members from thirty to 

 forty-two, lowered the property 

 qualification required from them, 

 abbreviated the tenure of their 

 seats, and widened the electoral 

 basis upon which that House 

 rests ; any person rated on a 

 freehold of the annual value of 

 ten pounds, or a leasehold of the 

 annual value of twenty-five pounds, 

 being entitled to exercise the 

 franchise for the Legislative Coun- 

 cil. The same year may be said 

 to have witnessed the termination 

 of that epoch of political Sturm 

 tind Drang which the colony had 

 been passing through, with brief 

 intermissions, for a period of 

 thirty years. All the burning 

 questions had burnt themselves THE MARQUIS OF NORMANBY. 



out ; and after the overthrow of 



the third Berry Administration in July, 1881, and the advent to office of Sir Bryan 

 O'Loghlen who announced a policy of "peace, progress, and prosperity "-there was a 

 revival of confidence, and a general feeling that better times were at hand ; and this 

 feeling, which events were beginning to justify, was strengthened by the formation in 

 1883 of a coalition Government, comprising the leading members on both sides of the 

 Assembly. This was sufficiently strong in Parliamentary support, and in the encourage- 

 ment which it received from public opinion outside, to apply itself to the preparation 

 and passage of measures of great public utility. One of these enabled the creation 



