THE TRANSITION TO RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT 53 



unseemly violence often necessary for its due collection ". It sub- 

 stituted for it a document, happily called a " Miner's Eight," at a fee 

 of 1 per annum. This was not to be demanded by the police, but 

 was simply an evidence of the miner's legal possession of his claim, 

 and his right to the gold he extracted. Without it he could be dis- 

 placed, and his earnings confiscated by those in possession of the 

 proper authority. Further, the document should confer upon the 

 miner, pending the enactment of electoral arrangements under the 

 New Constitution, the right of voting for an additional eight members 

 of the Council to represent the goldfields. To compensate for the 

 loss of revenue an export duty on gold of 2s. 6d. per oz. was pro- 

 posed. 



The manner in which the Commission dealt with the want of 

 land grievance, and the claims of the miners to political rights, was 

 not very acceptable to the Governor. Nor did he admire their 

 drastic comments on the enormous expense and inefficiency of the 

 cumbrous official staff, and the blundering, muddling methods of the 

 civil commissariat. The report recommended the immediate aboli- 

 tion of the latter department, together with that of the Chief Com- 

 missioner of Goldfields, and that one-half of the police should 

 be dispensed with. To stop the official wrangling arising out of 

 divided responsibility, it was suggested that all authority should centre 

 in a new head, to be called the Warden of the District : such an 

 official to be appointed for Ballaarat, Sandhurst, Castlemaine and 

 Beechworth, to be responsible only and directly to the Government. 



The report was signed by Westgarth, Fawkner, Hodgson, 

 O'Shanassy and Strachan unconditionally ; but W. H. Wright, the 

 Chief Commissioner, wished to add a protest, complaining that his 

 colleagues had not done justice to the officers of his department, who 

 had been so vehemently attacked by many of the witnesses. The 

 Commission decided that as his administration was practically on 

 its trial his rider was inadmissible. 



The report, reaching the hands of the Governor just at the time 

 when the acquittal of the Ballaarat rioters was evoking a turbulent 

 display of sympathy, greatly depressed him. The vindicatory tone 

 of his despatches of the 2nd and 3rd of April, in which he forwarded 

 a copy of it to the Secretary of State, is not without a certain touch 



