THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR HENRY BARKLY 101 



sites. The selling did not come off for more than twenty years 

 after, and the prevailing winds had long before restored the land to 

 its original characteristic of rolling downs. The Ministry of that 

 day by its action gave a tacit consent to the doctrine that every man 

 had a right to employment, and that it was the duty of the Govern- 

 ment to find it for him if he failed in his own efforts to do so. 

 From that day forward, year after year, the unemployed have been 

 a prominent factor in Victorian politics, organised in their proceed- 

 ings, with a secretary to formulate their views, knocking at the door 

 of the Treasury and bearding apologetic Ministers. No Govern- 

 ment has had the nerve to be candid with them, because each 

 member of such deputations had as much voting power as the most 

 influential landowner or merchant in the State, and in combination 

 they were to be feared. Nor has any Government shown the 

 ability or found the leisure to deal with the question on remedial or 

 preventive lines. While the progress of the colony on the natural 

 side of its expansion agriculture and dairying has been seriously 

 retarded by the want of labour, not only has no comprehensive 

 plan been devised for fitting these opposing conditions to each 

 other, but the difficulty has been intensified by the tendency of 

 successive Governments to placate the workers by establishing 

 uniform rates of wages for all rates that in other countries could 

 only be earned by the skilled artisan. Needless to say they were 

 generally found prohibitive of employment in connection with the 

 smaller gains and more intermittent labour of the farmer. When 

 the railway works were commenced in June, 1858, the Sandhurst 

 line absorbed the labour of quite 4,000 men, and the Geelong to 

 Ballaarat line some 2,500 more, and for a time the workless were 

 less in evidence. But there always remained a residuum, chiefly 

 composed of the incapable, the physically unfit and the dissolute, 

 for the men with health, energy and common-sense had no difficulty 

 in finding where they were wanted. 



Two events that occurred during Sir Henry Barkly's adminis- 

 tration deserve extended notice. The first was a substantial refor- 

 mation in the Penal Department, which, owing to the inevitable 

 invasion of Van Diemen's Land criminals during 1852-53, had by 

 the strain put upon it proved lamentably incomplete in its equip- 



