THE TRANSITION TO RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT 63 



liminaries to taking the voice of the people, they were found, when 

 the elections came on, to be wofully incomplete. The electoral 

 rolls cost over 60,000 in their compilation, and as far as the gold- 

 fields were concerned it was largely wasted money. The excite- 

 ment was mainly confined to the Metropolis and its suburbs, and 

 to Geelong. The demand for the franchise, which had been one of 

 the grievances promoting the Ballaarat outbreak, had died away with 

 the abolition of the oppressive licence fee, and it was computed that 

 only about one-eighth of the registered miners took the trouble to 

 record their votes. Five of the candidates for the Council and a 

 dozen for the Assembly were allowed a walk over. On the other 

 hand, so little discrimination was shown in the selection of seats 

 that no less than twelve candidates went to the poll for the County 

 of Talbot, entitled to return two members. Some members dupli- 

 cated their chances, and wooed more than one electorate John 

 O'Shanassy was elected for Melbourne and for Kilmore; David 

 Blair contested Emerald Hill and Talbot, and won a seat in the 

 latter constituency ; John Thomas Smith and T. H. Fellows, who 

 were returned respectively for Melbourne City and St. Kilda, were 

 also defeated candidates to represent the Central Province in the 

 Legislative Council. 



The voting was largely controlled by personal feeling and 

 private influences, for there was no stirring party cry in the as- 

 cendant, and the quieting effect of the voting by secret ballot 

 made strongly for orderliness in the proceedings. In the urban 

 districts, however, the wire-pullers of political strife were not 

 idle. Geelong in particular took the lead by organising a strong 

 " Eeform Association," and the example was followed in Melbourne, 

 Collingwood and Eichmond. Differing somewhat in the extent 

 of their demands their aims were practically identical, and the 

 object was to ensure the return of members pledged in advance 

 to important alterations in the new-born Constitution. 



Yes, an ante-natal inquest sat on the coming emancipation 

 and denounced it, root and branch. The conception of free in- 

 stitutions which to the old settlers of the days of a military 

 bureaucracy seemed as a vision of the New Jerusalem excited 

 the hostility and the derision of the men of a later generation. 



