126 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



a plan for evading the financial requirements of the Constitution 

 and the checks of the Audit Act. The six banks which in associa- 

 tion held the Public Account of Victoria were approached for a 

 loan, of an indefinite amount and term, to the Treasury officials. 

 The banks jointly took counsel's opinion, and were advised that 

 the proposed advance was illegal, if it was proposed to look to the 

 Government for repayment. One of the six, however, The London 

 Chartered Bank of Australia, of which Mr. McCulloch was the 

 local chairman, found itself over-persuaded by its director to a 

 course which eventuated in the manager's retirement. This bank 

 agreed to advance 40,000 to the Government, and, when it had 

 done so, promptly issued a writ for its recovery. By arrangement 

 no defence was entered for the Crown. The Attorney-General 

 confessed judgment for debt and costs, and the Governor signed a 

 warrant for payment of the amount out of the consolidated revenue 

 of the colony. This process was repeated every few weeks, and 

 the public creditor was duly paid without any legal certificate of 

 the validity of claims, or official supervision of the expenditure. 

 It was evident, if this process could be continued, that there was 

 no need for any Audit Department, or for the formality of an 

 Appropriation Bill, or even for the farce of deliberating on the 

 Estimates in Parliament. The Chamber of Commerce, alarmed at 

 such lawless proceedings, entered a formal protest against the 

 assumption by the Ministry of the absolute and irresponsible con- 

 trol of the finances of the colony, and followed it up by a petition 

 to the Queen, signed by some 20,000 citizens, praying for the 

 maintenance of the Constitution. 



On the 8th of November the Assembly, despite the resolutions 

 on the records, consented to undo the "tack," and sent up the 

 Tariff Bill alone to the Council. But, with a view to making it as 

 unpalatable as possible, the Attorney-General devised a new pre- 

 amble, in which the Assembly formally claimed the exclusive right 

 of granting supplies. On this ground, and because it included the 

 reduction of the gold export duty, which, as a revenue of the Crown 

 lands, came equally under the purview of the Council, and because 

 a clause had been inserted involving retrospective legislation, the 

 Council rejected the Bill on a division by nineteen to five. The 



