AN EEA OF CONSTITUTIONAL STRUGGLE, 1864-1868 113 



poorest specimen of a Governor ever permitted to represent Her 

 Majesty in Victoria. And yet, by virtue of his undisguised oppo- 

 sition to the Legislative Council, he invariably received the plaudits 

 of the mob in his public appearances, and especially on the occasion 

 of his somewhat dramatic departure. 



On the same day that the Governor was installed, and imme- 

 diately after that ceremony, he was escorted to the Legislative 

 Chambers and formally prorogued the House. He had thus a few 

 months to familiarise himself with his surroundings during a lull 

 in the normal conditions of political strife, for Parliament did not 

 resume its sittings until the 26th of January, 1864. The first 

 session of which he had experience, and which closed on the 2nd of 

 June, was both brief and colourless. On the 2nd of February Mr. 

 Heales brought in a Bill to amend the Duffy Land Act, which 

 afforded a jaded discussion for a couple of months, and then went 

 to the Council to meet the fate which had befallen a similar effort 

 in the preceding session. It was no great loss, for it was but a 

 feeble attempt to cure an incurably bad piece of legislation, by 

 increasing stringency of supervision over the selector during a 

 period of five years' probationary leasing, and by making the 

 Minister of Lands the judge of his bona fides. It proposed to 

 extend the Parliamentary generosity, hitherto confined to the " poor 

 selector," to the creation of a race of " poor squatters " by granting 

 ten years' licences of blocks of 2,560 acres at a trifling rental. The 

 holders of these " grazing farms," when the capitalistic squatters, 

 with their flocks and herds, had been "driven across the Murray 

 with their own stock-whips," to quote a favourite figure of the day, 

 were to provide the local supply of meat, and the exportable quan- 

 tity of wool which had been wont to give an air of commercial 

 prosperity to the colony abroad. Mr. Duffy opposed the Bill on 

 the ground, amongst others, that there was no prohibition of the 

 present pastoral tenants of the Crown becoming tenants of these 

 grazing farms. So strongly did he feel in this matter, that he said 

 he would vote for the Bill, much as he disapproved of some of its 

 provisions, if clauses were introduced making it impossible for a 

 squatter to acquire a lease, and rendering its future transfer to such 

 a person illegal ! But the session passed away and the perennial 



VOL. II. 8 



