THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR HENRY BARKLY 83 



Land Convention, were now members of the new Parliament, and 

 joining forces with Mr. Duffy, Mr. Heales, and some of the extreme 

 radicals, they attacked the Bill with incisive vigour. So many 

 amendments were made in committee of the Assembly that by 

 the time it was sent to the Council it had become a thing of shreds 

 and patches ; and so many clauses were altered there that Mr. 

 Nicholson felt constrained to disown the changeling, and to tender 

 his resignation. This the Governor declined to accept, believing 

 that as the Bill had been passed by a substantial majority in the 

 Assembly, it would be impossible for any member of the Council 

 to form a Ministry strong enough to carry on the business of the 

 country. Further, he was of opinion, as the result of conferences, 

 that some of the opponents of the Bill in the Council were willing 

 to reconsider their amendments to bring them in line with the 

 Assembly. So he asked Mr. Nicholson to persevere with the Bill 

 by means of a conference with the Council. This was done, and 

 the proposed Act was banded about between the two Houses for 

 over four months, suffering in all over 250 amendments of its 

 original form, until after compromises on both sides it emerged 

 in legally complete, but sadly mutilated form, and became law on 

 the 18th of September, 1860. 



Useless and unworkable as the Act proved to be, it is probable 

 that no measure was ever carried through Parliament with more 

 stormy debate and struggle, both within the House and without. 

 During the latter months of the discussion the " Victorian Land 

 Convention " held high festival in the Eastern Market reserve, and 

 on the 28th of August a clamorous mob invaded the Legislative 

 Chambers during the sitting of the House. They burst in a door, 

 drove back the few policemen on duty, demolished some of the 

 windows of the library with a shower of stones, and violently 

 assaulted two or three members whom they supposed to be identified 

 with the pastoral interest. The Mayor was summoned and read 

 the Riot Act, and a troop of mounted police finally drove the crowd 

 out of Parliament Yard. Not however without some casualties, at 

 least half a dozen constables having sustained more or less serious 

 wounds from the flying missiles. Messrs. Wilson Gray and C. J. 



Don were directly charged by many members with having instigated 



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