THE QOLDFIELDS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT 13 



respecting boundaries, priority, trespass and other points, often 

 involving the whole fortunes of individuals, and their decision was 

 final. Indeed, even protest was practically prohibited, for resisting 

 the decision of a Commissioner was punishable by a fine of 10, 

 or, in default, three months. The spirit of absolutism which such 

 powers engendered was bad training for young men. A few of 

 them stood up well under it, and lived into more tranquil epochs 

 as valued servants of the Crown in magisterial office. The majority, 

 however, developed an overbearing attitude towards the miners, and 

 some certainly took a strange delight in harassing them by frequent 

 demands for the production of licences in a manner that was quite 

 illegal. The Act authorised the arrest of any person who should be 

 found offending against any of its provisions, but the only common- 

 sense construction of that would be mining without having obtained 

 a licence. Over and over again men were arrested, imprisoned 

 and fined for not having their licence available when demanded, 

 though a reference to the register could have proved their compli- 

 ance with the law. Some of the Commissioners, and most of the 

 police, cultivated a belief that all diggers were liars, and they 

 persistently refused them the common law right of establishing 

 their innocence. 



It was in June, 1852, that Mr. Latrobe, after personally visiting 

 the principal goldfields, made a vigorous effort to bring their control 

 under suitable organisation. He appointed Mr. W. H. Wright to 

 the newly created office of Chief Commissioner of the Goldfields, 

 to be resident in Melbourne, and to administer the law through 

 three or four Resident Commissioners at important centres, and 

 about a dozen peripatetic Assistant Commissioners. At the same 

 time, to strengthen their hands, he also appointed three Eesident 

 Police Magistrates, to Castlemaine, Bendigo and Ballaarat respect- 

 ively. 



Although Mr. Latrobe had steadily advised his chief in Downing 

 Street that, in view of all the surroundings, the conduct of the great 

 majority of the miners was deserving of all praise, and that life on 

 the goldfields was far more orderly than the precedent of California 

 might have led him to expect, he had occasionally to admit the ex- 

 istence of a considerable amount of turbulence. His legislative 



