THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR HENRY BARKLY 81 



had resigned his office as Minister of Lands before the general 

 election. Looking back upon this episode in his career, he says in 

 his autobiography with charming frankness : "In the Government 

 I gradually found my opinions were not in a majority, and that 

 there was apparently a jealousy of the individual position I occupied 

 in public life, as a man of a certain experience and knowledge ! " 



When the House met the Ministry found themselves in a 

 hopeless minority, and they were immediately confronted with 

 an amendment on the reply to the Governor's speech, which 

 explicitly declared that neither the House nor the country had 

 any confidence in his advisers. Mr. Duffy declined to vote on the 

 motion, but he filled fifteen columns of Hansard in detailing his 

 grievances against his late colleagues. Mr. O'Shanassy occupied 

 nearly as much space in his answer, but the whole community 

 was indignant at the pitiful insufficiency for so much recrimina- 

 tion. Mr. William Nicholson, who had moved the hostile vote, 

 carried it by fifty-six votes to seventeen, after a debate extending 

 over four sittings, and the Governor consequently commissioned 

 him to form a Ministry. 



He assumed office on the 29th of October with a fairly strong 

 team, including Mr. James McCulloch as Treasurer, and Mr. James 

 Service in charge of the important department of Crown lands. 

 His Law Officers were rather weak, but to compensate for this he 

 had secured the services of Mr. Fellows in the Upper House, as an 

 honorary member of the Cabinet. It shows how vaguely party lines 

 were then recognised, that Mr. Nicholson offered Mr. Duffy once 

 more the position of Minister of Lands, but that gentleman stipu- 

 lated for the right to name two or three of his colleagues as the 

 price of his adherence, and this demand the remainder of the 

 Cabinet would not concede. 



The Nicholson Ministry lived just thirteen months, and it 

 succeeded in passing a Land Act that was speedily recognised as a 

 deplorable failure, having neither a guiding policy nor any con- 

 tinuous principle of action. In justice to Mr. Service, who intro- 

 duced the Bill, it must be said that the final measure which passed 

 in September, 1860, was almost unrecognisable as the outcome of 

 the Bill submitted by that gentleman in the previous January. It 



VOL. IL 6 



