AN ERA OF CONSTITUTIONAL STRUGGLE, 1864-1868 125 



upright and independent judiciary is a marked attribute, caused 

 something like consternation. Though weakly allowed to pass 

 without protest from the Governor, it was hotly denounced by 

 all the leading organs of the press throughout Australia. Public 

 indignation was so strongly expressed that even the irate ardour 

 of the Attorney- General was compelled to restraint, and on the 

 6th of October he applied to the Court for leave to carry an appeal 

 to a higher tribunal. 



The volume of Hansard reporting the session of 1864-65 runs 

 to 1,560 pages. Any resolute investigator venturing into this 

 wilderness of words cannot but be struck with the moderation 

 and dignity of tone of the speeches on constitutional subjects 

 by the majority of the members of the Council, as compared 

 with those of the Assembly. An attitude of serene assurance 

 in their rights saved them from any display of temper, but the 

 calm passivity of their resistance intensified the anger of the As- 

 sembly until passion supplanted judgment. Some even amongst 

 the leaders of the House displayed a petty animosity, and many 

 of the minor lights discredited Parliament by intemperate language 

 and sweeping, slanderous aspersions of their opponents. 



After the Council had assured the Ministry of its willingness to 

 pass an Appropriation Bill when "presented in the usual and 

 accustomed manner," it adopted an address to the Queen, in which 

 the events of the difference were explicitly narrated, and solicited 

 the interposition of Her Majesty for the maintenance of the Con- 

 stitution as by law established. Two weeks later the Council 

 resolved, on the motion of Mr. Sladen, that it was desirable to refer 

 the difference between the two Houses to the Judicial Committee 

 of the Privy Council for final and authoritative decision. In the 

 Assembly the suggestion was scouted, Messrs. McCulloch, Higin- 

 botham and Michie all declaring that it was not a question of the 

 legal interpretation of an Act that was raised, but a matter of 

 political usage in which it behoved the Assembly to be its own 

 guide and judge. 



Meanwhile, the gazetted suspension of payment was attracting 

 invidious comment, and the legal ingenuity of the Attorney-General 

 combining with the business influence of the Chief Secretary devised 



