156 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



Mr. MoCullooh, divorced from active association with Mr. Higin- 

 botham, was no longer the popular idol. The accusations so liber- 

 ally brought against him of personally profiting by the tariff changes 

 had been explained away and forgotten, but it was known that he 

 was largely interested in a conservative administration of the Land 

 Act, both as a holder of property and as a mortgagee in his business. 

 The world had prospered with him, and with that prosperity came 

 some doubts about the wisdom of the radicalism of which in his 

 younger days he had been an exponent. The popular cry was that 

 he had gone over to the enemy. Mr. Duffy, who was very frequently 

 in conflict with him, more than once declared that his retention of 

 office for so long was due to political corruption ; but then Mr. 

 Duffy never could see anything but wickedness and malignity in an 

 opponent. In one passage in his autobiography Mr. Duffy says : 

 " Mr. McPherson, as Minister of Lands, made such large reserves 

 on various pretences, that a map of the colony in which the reserves 

 were marked in red, and the land sold in blue, looked like a shawl of 

 the McPherson plaid ; and it was an aggravation of the wrong that 

 his chief, Sir James McCulloch, the largest owner of squatting runs 

 in the colony, got an inordinate share of these reserves." 



Despite this ungenerous comment there does not appear to have 

 been any glaring cases of mala fides in connection with the Land 

 Act at the period indicated ; at any rate no such charges were made 

 at the time. It was the Protectionist party, clamouring unsuccess- 

 fully for largely increased duties, that overthrew the Ministry. Mr. 

 McCulloch was by conviction a believer in the freedom of commerce ; 

 expediency had induced him to assist in giving Protection a start, 

 but he had already learned how much easier it was to set it going 

 than to resist its demands for permanent support. 



Under various pretexts the expenditure of the colony was being 

 continuously, and often most unjustifiably, increased. Unable to 

 stem the tide of this extravagance without incurring unpopularity, 

 McCulloch sought to increase the revenue in a corresponding degree 

 by the imposition of a property tax of sixpence in the pound. Duffy, 

 as the representative of an agricultural constituency, promptly took 

 up the cudgels in defence of the poor farmer, and Graham Berry 

 took the platform in the interest of the manufacturers. The com- 



