202 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



questionable legislation, where the public appeared indifferent or un- 

 informed. When the demands of the people became the dominant 

 note, it might be their duty to give way, even though a strong 

 minority were well assured that the vox populi was not the vox Dei. 

 The legislative councillors had striven to uphold the Constitution, 

 but if the people backed up the Governor and the Ministry in dis- 

 regarding its provisions and in refusing to take the legitimate means 

 for amending it, there seemed no course open but to bow to the 

 storm and put an end to a political ferment that was driving away 

 capital, diverting enterprise and thus retarding prosperity. Negotia- 

 tions were entered into ; promises were made ; revolt of the irrecon- 

 cilables in the Assembly was suppressed ; and finally, on the Ministry 

 undertaking to withdraw the obnoxious item from the Appropriation 

 Bill, an Act authorising payment of members until the end of the 

 existing Parliament was submitted to the Council and passed on the 

 28th of March without a division. On the 3rd of April following, the 

 expurgated Appropriation Bill was sanctioned, and on the 10th the 

 first session of the ninth Parliament of Victoria was closed after ten 

 and a half months of almost incessant dispute. It was stretched to 

 this undue length because with its termination payment of members 

 would have ceased. Had no compromise been arrived at, there 

 were indications that it would have been extended indefinitely, for 

 a considerable number of members were entirely dependent on the 

 salary they drew from the State. Mr. Le Poer Trench had resigned 

 the post of Attorney-General in the last days of the conflict, and 

 Sir Bryan O'Loghlen assumed the office. Five days after the pro- 

 rogation, a Gazette notice announced the reappointment of most of 

 the judges, Crown prosecutors and police magistrates who had 

 been dismissed, but a number of prominent officers were never 

 reinstated, and a large amount was disbursed in payment of com- 

 pensation and pensions. 



The community awoke as from some oppressive nightmare, and 

 cautiously commenced its business operations afresh. The press 

 generally in Victoria and the other Colonies condemned in un- 

 measured terms the high-handed action of the Ministry and the 

 support it had received from the Governor. Even in the carefully 

 selected despatches embodied in Sir George Bowen's Thirty Years 



