160 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



whole range of soft goods and hardware, and brought into the fiscal 

 net much that had hitherto escaped. The additions were estimated 

 to increase the Customs revenue by 200,000 per annum, and the 

 ledger was pronounced to be squared. On the 23rd of November 

 Parliament was prorogued, and Mr. Duffy enjoyed five months of 

 recess to mature his reforms. 



Sir George Verdon, who had been knighted during his tenure of 

 office as Agent-General, sent out his resignation of that post, having 

 received an important banking appointment. Mr. Duffy was quite 

 confounded by the rush of applicants for the vacancy. Mr. Francis 

 made overtures to secure it for Sir James McCulloch, who had also 

 received the honour of knighthood, and had temporarily betaken 

 himself to London. But an earlier applicant was in the field in the 

 person of Mr. H. C. B. Childers, who had just retired from the 

 position of First Lord of the Admiralty, on the ground of ill-health, 

 and who was duly appointed, to the great disgust of many local 

 Parliamentarians. A year later, in August, 1872, when Mr. Childers 

 re-entered the Gladstone Cabinet, Sir James McCulloch obtained his 

 desire, and acted as the official representative of the colony for a 

 couple of years, during which time he was promoted to the higher 

 dignity of K.C.M.G. 



With the reassembling of Parliament on the 30th of April, 1872, 

 Mr. Duffy's troubles revived. One of the charges brought against 

 his Government was that the Governor's speech made no promise 

 of an Education Act, which the country imperiously demanded. 

 This shot failed to destroy, though it aroused a long and acrimonious 

 debate tinctured with a good deal of the odium theologicum. Within 

 the month, however, charges of abuse of patronage, and a tendency 

 to regard nationality and religion as the test of fitness, began to hurtle 

 in the air, and finally, on the question of the propriety of the appoint- 

 ment of Mr. Cashel Hoey as Secretary of the Agent- General's office 

 in London, the vote was distinctly adverse and the Ministry resigned. 

 Mr. Duffy, remembering the enthusiasm his speeches had evoked in 

 the country, believed that he owed his defeat to an unworthy cabal 

 of office-seekers, whose verdict the electors would promptly set aside. 

 He endeavoured to convince the Governor that he was entitled 

 by all constitutional precedent to a dissolution. But Lord Canter- 



