80 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



burning question of land settlement to the enlarged Parliament. 

 The session lasted five months, and dealt with the special matters 

 referred to it much after the manner of preceding efforts. The 

 electoral boundaries were fought out at tedious length, almost every 

 member having some alteration to press, and by the time the Bill 

 reached its final stages, the ninety-three members originally proposed 

 had been reduced to seventy-eight. This reduction in numbers 

 apparently mollified the members of the Council, for they not only 

 passed the Bill very promptly, but in consideration of their privileges 

 not having been attacked, they added four new clauses, largely re- 

 ducing the property qualification of the electors of the Council, and 

 extending the franchise to the learned and professional classes, irre- 

 spective of property. The Assembly readily accepted the additions, 

 and the Bill became an Act, to come into force on the 1st of May 

 following. The remaining measures of the session were formal or 

 unimportant, and the first Constitutional Parliament of Victoria 

 was dismissed by the Governor, with the usual complimentary 

 phrases, on the 24th of February, 1859. 



The alterations of the electoral machinery took a long time, 

 but the compilation of the rolls was less costly than in 1856, for 

 the new Act, while extending the franchise to every adult male 

 not specially disqualified, required those who were not on any rate- 

 payers' roll to take the trouble to register their own claims, and 

 obtain a certificate of their right to vote. The value set upon this 

 right, as indicated by the indifference of the nomadic element in 

 the colony, seemed very small. The Reform Associations and 

 Land Conventions, and other democratic leagues, which were such 

 notable factors in political life in those years, found a large portion 

 of their energy had to be expended in getting the indifferent regis- 

 tered, and subsequently in hunting them to the polls. In the 

 Metropolis and suburbs these organisations exercised a consider- 

 able sway, and used it with success, for the second Parliament of 

 Victoria, which assembled on the 13th of October the product of 

 the first trial of manhood suffrage contained a distinctive number 

 of members pledged to the support of special class interests. 



During the recess the bond of friendship that had united Duffy 

 to O'Shanassy was severed by many repeated frictions, and he 



