THE BERRY INFLUENCE, 1875-1882 201 



ferences were held, with the result that before the opening of Par- 

 liament three County Court Judges and three Police Magistrates 

 and Coroners were reappointed. 



The Assembly resumed on 5th February, and on the following 

 day Mr. Berry carried a resolution, " That all votes or grants passed 

 in Committee of Supply become legally available for expenditure 

 immediately the resolutions are agreed to by the Assembly ". This 

 effort to reduce the Council to a nullity, and practically to alter the 

 Constitution by the fiat of one House, was naturally resented. 

 Petitions were addressed to the Queen, one by the Council charging 

 the Governor with abetting the illegal violence of a political con- 

 spiracy ; another by the Assembly lauding His Excellency as the 

 personification of honourable impartiality, whose actions were ap- 

 proved by the vast majority of the colonists. The Secretary of 

 State was perplexed, but advocated non-intervention. The incom- 

 plete Appropriation Bill, having received the assent of the Assembly, 

 Mr. Berry proceeded, in terms of the lately carried resolution, to 

 draw money from the Treasury in defiance of the Audit Act. The 

 Governor hesitated to sign the warrants. He had been instructed 

 that when he had any doubts about the legality of actions proposed 

 to him by his Ministers, he should take legal advice before acting. 

 He therefore consulted two barristers, of all men in the colony 

 probably the least disinterested Mr. Trench, the Attorney- General, 

 and Sir Bryan O'Loghlen, who had just joined the Ministry in an 

 honorary capacity. Their assurance that everything was strictly in 

 order overcame any scruples he might have felt, and he signed the 

 warrants. The damage was done long before he learned that the 

 advice on which he acted was entirely at variance with the leading 

 jurists of the colony, and was directly negatived by the formal 

 opinion of the Law Officers in England to whom Sir Michael Hicks- 

 Beach submitted the question. 



The Council was defeated by the Governor declining to recognise 

 its rights to any voice in the public expenditure. The 30,000 electors 

 which it represented were but as the dust in the balance against the 

 preponderating vote, which, under manhood suffrage, returned the 

 members of the Assembly, and the voice of the multitude was loud 

 and threatening. Undoubtedly, the Council's function was to check 



