,6 2 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



of a Harbour Trust, while another vested the administration of the whole of the railways 

 in Victoria in a Hoard of Commissioners, three in number ; a Chairman for that Board 

 having been procured from England, in the person of. Mr. Speight, a gentleman who 

 had acquired his valuable training and experience in the management of one of the 

 great trunk-lines in the mother-country. Under the prudent and commercial system of 

 working the railways introduced by these gentlemen, the receipts from those under- 

 takings have not merely sufficed to defray the interest on the loans contracted for their 

 construction, as well as the working expenses, but have yielded a small surplus to the 

 general revenue. As the removal of the railways from political influence had been 

 found to be attended by such beneficial consequences, the same method of administration 

 was resorted to for the whole of the Public Service of the colony ; and an Act was 

 passed by which a Board of Commissioners was instituted for this purpose also, so as to 

 remove appointments and promotions out of the hands of the Ministry for the time 

 being. The failing health of both the Marquis and Marchioness of Normanby induced 

 His Excellency to apply to the Secretary of State for the Colonies to be relieved from 

 duties which were beginning to press too severely upon him ; and on the i8th of April, 

 1884, the Marquis was authorized to relinquish his high trust into the hands of Sir 

 William Stawell, the Chief Justice, who acted as Governor until the arrival of Sir Henry- 

 Brougham Loch in the following July. The new Governor had held for many years a 

 similar appointment in the Isle of Man, where His Excellency and Lady Loch acquired 

 a high degree of popularity. They cordially accepted the duties and responsibilities as 

 well as the honours of their new position ; and were peculiarly well qualified, both 

 by character and by temperament, for the leadership of society in this distant land. 



On the ist of August, 1888, the Government celebrated the Centenary of the 

 settlement of Europeans in Australia by a second Exhibition ; which proved, especially 

 from an artistic standpoint, one of the most successful of its kind ever held beneath 

 the Southern Cross ; as a world's fair it challenged comparison with even those of 

 many of the established countries of the Old World ; while as a means of celebrating 

 the anniversary of the landing of Captain Phillip upon the shores of the Continent, and 

 the first rudimentary efforts at colonization, it outshone all the various attempts to render 

 the year a memorable one to those Australians who had reached a period in their 

 country's development, from which the struggles and the triumphs of a century might be 

 contemplated. At the beginning of the year 1889 Sir Henry Brougham and Lady Loch, 

 with their family, paid a visit to England, their departure being marked by a banquet 

 tendered to the Governor by -the citizens of Melbourne. On the day of the Arcadias 

 departure immense crowds gathered at the Williamstown Pier, and testified to His 

 Excellency's popularity by a genuinely enthusiastic valediction. The day following, the 

 9th of March, Sir William C. F. Robinson was sworn in as Acting-Governor, and on 

 the same day the Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition was open to the public 

 for the last time. Sir Henry Loch returned to the colony on the i8th of October, but 

 left again for England on the I5th of the following month. During his brief stay in 

 Melbourne a number of farewell festivities was tendered to the Governor by the people of 

 the colony and manifested the estimation in which he was held. Lady Loch was no less 

 popular, and before returning to England with her husband, by the Damascus, she was 



