260 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



ment made some stand against further increase, but when Mr. 

 Gillies began year by year to display the growing surplus, economy 

 was denounced as mean parsimony, and no man dared to raise his 

 voice in warning lest he should be accused of wanting faith in the 

 grand future which the lavish present seemed to promise. Both 

 the revenue and the expenditure which Mr. Gillies dealt with in 1886 

 were the highest the colony had then known. From that starting- 

 point the figures marched gaily onward until 1890, when the first 

 check was experienced. Towards the end of 1889 an inquisitive 

 member called for a return of the cost of the Civil Service. When 

 it was laid before the Assembly it disclosed the fact that there 

 were 31,247 persons in the public service, drawing salaries aggre- 

 gating 3,452,857, and that one in every thirty-two of the entire 

 population was in receipt of Government pay. 



But the Civil Service, overgrown as it undoubtedly was, had 

 not been the sole appropriator of the redundant revenue. Members 

 fought for their own districts, and while Mr. Gillies dazzled the 

 Assembly with his recurring surplus, he was impelled to promise 

 140,000 to increase the subsidies to municipalities ; 150,000 to 

 shires for wire-netting to help the farmer in his desperate contest 

 with the rabbits ; 250,000 to promote the agricultural and wine 

 industries ; and an indefinite sum to increase the vote for State 

 school buildings. Of course, the ordinary expenditure of the 

 country necessarily increased in some departments, notably in the 

 railways, extending at the rate of 150 miles every year, and gener- 

 ally giving something like fair returns ; in the Education Department, 

 with an increasing population to provide for, and an increase in 

 cost of public buildings. This latter outlay had long been on a scale 

 absurdly extravagant for the handful of people who had to pay the 

 bill. Buildings like the Parliament Houses, the Law Courts and the 

 Governor's residence had been conceived on a scale which accepted 

 the popular belief in Victoria's wealth and importance, and ignored 

 the overshadowing effects of the approaching Federation. The 

 Assembly had no man in those years of plenty to pose in the un- 

 popular role which Joseph Hume assumed in the House of Com- 

 mons. It found one later on, when the financial bubble had been 

 pricked, who took the matter of retrenchment very firmly in hand ; 



