THE EKA OF EXTEAVAGANCE 273 



the treatment of Chinese in Australia had invariably been humane 

 and considerate. This was going rather too far, and the statement 

 was vigorously condemned as misleading by some independent mem- 

 bers of Parliament, and by a portion of the press that could afford 

 to be outspoken. The rioting and violence in the other Colonies 

 was not without its effect in Victoria, and under the auspices of the 

 Trades Hall Council large meetings were held to support exclusion 

 in the Melbourne Town Hall and at Ballaarat. But there was 

 happily no repetition of the associated outrages which had disgraced 

 New South Wales and Queensland. It was at the time of this 

 excitement that the case of Ah Toy v. Musgrove came before the 

 Victorian Courts. The complainant was a Chinese passenger from 

 Hong Kong, who assumed that he had been illegally debarred 

 from landing in Melbourne by the defendant, who was Collector of 

 Customs administering the Immigration Act. In the Supreme 

 Court of Victoria the Chinaman gained his case, four out of the 

 six judges being in his favour, Chief Justice Higinbotham and Judge 

 Kerferd dissenting. With commendable moderation, which Sir 

 Henry Parkes probably despised, the Victorian Government instead 

 of defying the law decided to appeal to the Privy Council. Mr. 

 H. J. Wrixon, the Attorney- General, was deputed to go to London 

 to state the case before that imposing tribunal. The constitutional 

 question of the right of Australian Governments to exclude foreigners 

 arriving from a pountry with which Great Britain had reciprocal 

 treaty obligations was left untouched. The Privy Council decided, 

 greatly to the satisfaction of Mr. Higinbotham, that the Colonies 

 had the right to make any regulations they chose for the admission 

 of aliens, and that in this case those regulations had been con- 

 travened. They therefore reversed the decision of the Supreme 

 Court. No appreciable benefit arose from the agitation. It involved 

 the expenditure of a large sum of money, and elicited the expression 

 of much intolerant ill-feeling, but the number of Chinese in Victoria 

 continued as heretofore to decrease, until by the end of the century 

 it stood at 6,160 immigrants and a few half-castes. 



An amendment of the Electoral Act in December, 1888, in- 

 creased the number of members of the Assembly to ninety-five, 

 and of the Council to forty-eight. It cannot be said that there 



VOL. II. 18 



