THE TRANSITION TO RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT 61 



The Council was possibly influenced in its final decision by an 

 unwillingness to take on a new leader pending completion of the 

 preliminaries for the New Constitution. So Mr. Haines and his 

 colleagues remained in office, and for the next fortnight devoted 

 their energies to pushing forward the Electoral Bill. The main con- 

 tention which raged round this measure was the question of the 

 ballot. Mr. William Nicholson, an ex-mayor of Melbourne, had 

 moved a resolution requiring its adoption in Parliamentary elections. 

 It was opposed by all the nominee official members, and even by 

 such independent radicals as Fawkner and O'Shanassy. But on 

 the 19th of December the resolution was carried by thirty-three 

 votes to twenty-five, and in accordance with the new-born theory 

 of responsibility, Mr. Haines, on the following day, tendered the 

 resignation of himself and his colleagues. Secure in the possession 

 of their nominee seats they could await developments with equani- 

 mity, and they believed that a man like Nicholson without de- 

 partmental experience would certainly be unable to command an 

 acceptable following. Reluctantly he faced the position from a 

 sense of duty, for, unlike the average run of politicians, he had no 

 personal ends to serve or ambition to gratify. Indeed, he had 

 much to lose, for he had arranged for an early departure to England, 

 and all his plans were upset by the sudden responsibility cast upon 

 him. It was on the 21st of December that the Governor com- 

 missioned Mr. Nicholson to form a Ministry, and the Council 

 adjourned to the 8th of January. A week, broken by the Christmas 

 holidays, passed and no progress had been made, Mr. Nicholson 

 having confined his overtures to his friends in the Council, and so 

 far failed. 



Apart from its political significance, the failure had painful 

 surroundings making it memorable. The Governor was failing 

 fast. Mental strain and ceaseless anxiety had undermined his 

 physical frame. The real torture of nerve and brain tissue had 

 laid hold of him ; such as comes to a man who strives to do what 

 he believes to be his duty, amidst clamorous, conflicting interests, 

 under spiteful misrepresentation, and with a half-subdued distrust 

 of the sufficiency of his own experience in a walk of life hitherto 

 undreamt of by him. At the inauguration of the Melbourne Gas- 



