THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR HENRY BARKLY 91 



had yet held office in Victoria. Taking the Chief Secretaryship, he 

 associated with himself George Higinbotham and Archibald Michie 

 as his Law Officers ; G. F. Verdon as Treasurer ; Eichard Heales 

 in charge of the Crown Lands ; J. G. Francis at the Customs ; and 

 in subsidiary offices he had men of the calibre of J. M. Grant, 

 T. H. Fellows, Henry Miller and others, all experienced in depart- 

 mental administration. This Ministry held office continuously for 

 five years, and resumed it again, after a brief interval of two months, 

 for another term of fourteen months. As the average duration of 

 all Victorian Ministries up to the end of the century has been only 

 eighteen months, Mr. McCulloch's record stands easily first. 



Powerful as the Government was in the House with a sub- 

 servient majority, the five years passed away without the land 

 question reaching finality. And this was partly due to the con- 

 sciousness of power tempting Ministers into conflicts with the 

 Legislative Council on constitutional questions, which kept the 

 country in a ferment for several years. 



These episodes did not fall within the period of Sir Henry 

 Barkly's administration. In May, 1862, the Legislature, in one of 

 its intermittent fits of retrenchment, had passed a Bill reducing the 

 Governor's salary to 7,000 a year, as from the 1st of January 

 following. As this involved an alteration of the Constitution Act, 

 the Bill was necessarily reserved for the Eoyal assent. In trans- 

 mitting it to the Duke of Newcastle His Excellency tendered the 

 resignation of his office. The Secretary of State did not accept this 

 as a matter of course. He rather scornfully intimated that if the 

 Victorian colonists wanted a cheap Governor, he would take care 

 on the next vacancy to appoint a gentleman who would not object 

 to bring his scale of living into conformity with the colony's re- 

 duced means. But he would not consent to the reduction being 

 applied to the existing occupant of the office, in violation of the 

 safeguards provided by the Constitution Act. Nor would he evade 

 the difficulty by recommending Her Majesty to accept Sir Henry's 

 resignation, a course which would practically be placing the tenure 

 of the Governor's office in the hands of the local Ministry. " I am 

 unable," he says in conclusion, "to advise that Her Majesty should 

 assent to a Bill calculated to deprive her representative of more 



