196 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



menacing. But the display of force was unnecessary, for although 

 during the debates in the Council all the inequitable features of the 

 Bill were prominently brought out, and the tyrannical conditions of 

 its administration exposed, it passed into law by sixteen votes to 

 eleven in a nearly full House. 



Mr. Berry saw the passage of this Bill with mingled feelings 

 of pleasure and regret. He believed that the stoppage of public 

 business during the Council's deliberations had brought about its 

 acceptance, and to that extent he rejoiced in his masterly tactics. 

 But by this very acceptance he had lost his most effective rallying- 

 cry against the Council in that attack upon its power to which he 

 was pledged by his election speeches, and by the expectation of 

 which he had been able to command the blind support of his sub- 

 servient majority. If he could have based this quarrel upon the 

 ground that the Council had refused to tax itself, for the 800 

 persons from whom the Act contemplated extracting 200,000 a 

 year were all necessarily electors of the Council, then the mob who 

 paid nothing would have been righteously indignant, and as far as 

 talk might serve would have backed up the Ministry in any lawless 

 and violent course. There was no hope of finding any other ground 

 of attack that was so sure of the support of the masses. Yet Mr. 

 Berry held that the fight had to be fought, and his pledge to secure 

 the supremacy of the people's Chamber redeemed. Fortunately for 

 him he had an admirer, and a very adulatory one in public, in Sir 

 George Bowen, who soon found himself entangled in mediatorial 

 efforts to win over the recalcitrant Council. The approaching con- 

 flict centred in the question of a renewal of the temporary Act for 

 the payment of members, which expired with the current session. 



To secure this renewal at any cost Mr. Berry was pledged to 

 his followers by solemn compact, and by their docile obedience they 

 had paid their share of the bargain in advance. But as time wore 

 on, and their leader took no active steps, the rank and file began to 

 upbraid him with unseemly delay in what was to them so important 

 a matter. Under this pressure he put a sum on the estimates for 

 this purpose, and as this pointed to its probable inclusion in the 

 Appropriation Bill, a question was asked of the Ministerial repre- 

 sentative in the Council whether it was intended to afford that 



