THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR HENRY BARKLY 85 



agitation, being entrusted with a no-confidence motion, which was 

 seconded by Mr. O'Shanassy and promptly carried. The Governor 

 applied first to Mr. O'Shanassy and then to Mr. Ebden, but neither 

 of these gentlemen would undertake the task of forming a Ministry. 

 Finally, he fell back on Mr. Brooke, who accepted the task and 

 adopted the unprecedented course of summoning a caucus of the 

 Opposition members, who proceeded to elect the various officers of 

 the State from amongst themselves by ballot. The result of this 

 irregular proceeding was the election of Mr. Richard Heales as Chief 

 Secretary ; E. D. Ireland, Attorney-General ; George F. Verdon, 

 Treasurer ; J. H. Brooke, Minister of Lands ; Robert S. Anderson, 

 Commissioner of Trade and Customs ; and J. B. Humffray, the 

 former Secretary of the Ballaarat rebels, was selected for Com- 

 missioner of Mines. 



Mr. Richard Heales had been in Parliament for some three years 

 when called to this important office. A man of the people, who 

 had in his early colonial days earned his living as a working coach- 

 builder, his sympathies were strongly with his fellow-artisans. Not 

 only did he seek to assist them by liberal measures for inducing 

 their settlement in the colony, but, as a social reformer and tem- 

 perance lecturer, he strove manfully for their uplifting. Exceedingly 

 popular with the masses, he was deficient in strength of character 

 for so onerous a post, and his efforts were somewhat impaired by 

 weak health. Eventually the cares of office broke him down, and 

 he died prematurely in 1864. Few men who have had so short a 

 public career have left more friendly memories behind them. He 

 is entitled to credit for having, as a private member, carried an Edu- 

 cation Act, on which the national system of the colony is founded, 

 abolishing the old unsatisfactory control of rival Boards and their 

 attendant theological strife. 



It was in connection with land settlement that Mr. Heales 

 developed his most radical views, being soon satisfied that the Nichol- 

 son Land Act was useless for its professed purpose of substituting 

 agriculture for the growth of wool. If he had been less philanthropic 

 and more business-like, he would have seen the futility of trying to 

 cajole men into farming by offering them land at one-third of its 

 market value, while there were buyers around who, if they could 



