AN ERA OF CONSTITUTIONAL STRUGGLE, 1864-1868 145 



necessity of throwing the colony into confusion ". His Excellency 

 passed these directions on to his Ministers, who promptly intimated 

 that they would not submit to any dictation as to what they should 

 include in the Appropriation Bill, and therefore they once more 

 tendered their resignations. This was on the 6th of March. Par- 

 liament was to meet on the 13th, and the harried Governor passed 

 a feverish week in seeking fresh advisers. Mr. Fellows, who had 

 resigned from the Council and been elected to the Assembly, was 

 the first applied to, but his stipulations were unacceptable, and other 

 members of the Opposition were tried without success. Parliament 

 was duly convened, but there was only a Ministry holding office 

 until their successors were appointed. No speech, no policy, no 

 money available. In the absence of Mr. McGulloch from illness, 

 the Attorney-General led the House with sixty supporters, eager 

 for action but powerless to proceed. The Governor again appealed 

 to his advisers to withdraw their resignation, but McCulloch re- 

 fused, unless he was allowed his own way in dealing with the 

 Council. Although His Excellency had received a later despatch 

 from the Duke of Buckingham, in which that official qualified his 

 previous instructions, by saying that the Legislative Council should 

 no longer oppose itself to the ascertained wishes of the community, 

 the Governor did not feel justified in active interference, and re- 

 newed his somewhat hopeless search for a Ministry. Two months 

 had passed away in formal meetings and immediate adjournments 

 of the Assembly. Nothing had been done, and public meetings 

 were again in evidence to denounce the waste of time, and to urge 

 revolutionary methods. 



At length, on the 6th of May, it was announced that Mr. Sladen 

 had formed a Ministry, which was represented in the Assembly 

 by Mr. Fellows as Minister of Justice, Mr. Edward Langton as 

 Treasurer, Mr. Duncan Gillies at the Lands Office, and four other 

 members of the attenuated Opposition in that House. Two of the 

 Ministers failed to retain their seats, and of course a Government 

 absolutely unable to command a quorum of members could do no 

 business. The Opposition had only to absent themselves to bring 

 everything to a standstill. But they did not adopt those tactics. 

 When the House met on the 6th of June a huge majority at once 



VOL. IL 10 



