THE BERRY INFLUENCE, 1875-1882 183 



ever, he dared to differ in a matter of detail from that influential 

 chief, the fickle crowd turned to rend him and refused to hear him. 

 When in his wrath he called them " a pack of howling idiots " they 

 drove him from Parliament, and kept him out for three years. 

 And, after all, the difference which was counted so deadly a sin 

 was of the most trivial character. Berry approved of McCulloch's 

 suspension of payments, and afterwards bettered his example. But 

 he objected to the machinery by which money was raised to carry 

 on the Government and minimise the inconvenience. He would 

 have made the public feel all the consequences of the stoppage 

 as more likely to bring the crisis to a head. 



It is unnecessary to enter at length upon the policy which 

 Mr. Berry outlined on assuming office, because he was displaced 

 before he could set his machinery in motion. Briefly, he promised 

 the masses extension of employment, and the manufacturers en- 

 hanced profits, by widening the area of protected industries, and 

 increasing existing duties where they had been found ineffectual. 

 A land tax, specially aimed at large estates, was to cover the 

 estimated deficiency in the revenue, and as a drag-net for miscel- 

 laneous votes, a hazy suggestion of constitutional reform, giving 

 the Assembly almost uncontrolled power, was flaunted before the 

 electors. The notable facts about this Ministry, which lasted less 

 than two months, were the unexplained selection of Mr. Berry by 

 the Acting Governor as the person to be sent for, and the dif- 

 ficulty with which a team was collected to take the field with him. 

 Naturally he turned first to McCulloch, who had backed him in his 

 attack on the Kerferd Ministry ; then to McPherson, under whom 

 he had formerly served : both squatters with growing conservative 

 tendencies. But they gave him the cold shoulder. He secured 

 Mr. J. B. Patterson for Minister of Public Works, though that 

 gentleman had hitherto posed as a rather boisterous Free Trader. 

 He prevailed upon Peter Lalor, the hero of Eureka, to take charge 

 of the Custom House, and he filled up the other posts with un- 

 known nonentities, one of them a recently dismissed civil servant. 

 His main difficulty lay with the Law Officers, for Sir Wm. Stawell, 

 who was then Acting Governor, refused to allow him to proceed 

 to business without an Attorney-General. Finally, Mr. J. M, Grant, 



