238 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



which the majority demanded. To overthrow that, which he hon- 

 estly believed to be prejudicial to the moral well-being of the colony, 

 he sometimes descended to intrigue, and offered conditional alliances 

 which several Governments in succession found to be seriously dis- 

 turbing influences. He took his rejection very grievously to heart, 

 stung by the ingratitude, as he openly declared it, of his own people, 

 for it was for them he had worked without any taint of self-seeking. 

 His health gave way, his spirit was broken, and after a few weeks 

 of depressing melancholia he died within three months of his defeat, 

 and was accorded a semi-public funeral on the 7th of May, 1883. 



The man to whom the country now looked to chart its political 

 course was James Service. On his return from England he had 

 announced his intention of re-entering Parliament, and he was a can- 

 didate for Castlemaine at the general election. His speech to the 

 electors there on 7th February, 1883, contained an able review of 

 the O'Loghlen administration. His special skill in matters of fin- 

 ance enabled him to locate in the Treasury the sources of its greatest 

 weakness. He had, in London, been a deeply interested spectator 

 of the failure of the Four Million Loan offered by Sir Bryan at the 

 wrong time and at the wrong reserve, in opposition to expert bank- 

 ing advice tendered to him both in London and Melbourne. Mr. 

 Service was able to present the transaction in its true light, and 

 to show that the failure was not, as the press generally contended, 

 due to loss of credit, but entirely to want of reasonable foresight 

 and some slight knowledge of the operations of the money market. 

 But he was far from confining himself to fault-finding. He dwelt 

 upon the necessity for practical legislation, the desirability of giving 

 the lately achieved Eeform Bill a fair trial, without perpetual tink- 

 ering amendments, and the paramount importance of superseding 

 political patronage in the Government service by carefully prepared 

 legislation. In answer to questions as to his attitude towards Pro- 

 tection, he said : "I have always been and am now a Free Trader, 

 but I shall never be a party to alter the policy of the country 

 surreptitiously. When I can convince the rest of the colony that 

 Protection is wrong and Free Trade is right, and when the country 

 sends in a Free Trade Parliament, then, but not till then, can the 

 Protectionists' policy be overturned." 



