"It is now pretty well agreed," wrote the editor, "that public opinion is the power which does and ought to rule mankind. The most splendid fabrics of human policy—the Papacy of Hildebrand, the Aristocracies of Venice and England, and the Empire of France, have crumbled into dust before its silent power."
The "local application" of this asserted law of human development, so Sir George Gipps was curtly informed, was to "dissolve the Council and let the country select a new organ which will represent its opinions; and then obey it. If you dare not dissolve, and will not obey—Resign."
This drastic remedy was further enforced by a set of characteristic verses entitled "The Tyrant's Lesson," in which the same writer, under the pseudonym of Machiavelli, imparted to the poor Colonial magnate some very sinister advice:—
"Keep thy people in slavery; straiten their flocks,
Be miser of desert and niggard of sand,
Extort the full price of the Government rocks.
And the gum-tree that shelters the fountainless land.
Thus ignorant, drunken, impoverished and tame,
With nought that is manly, enlightened, and free.
With nought of the land whence they sprang but the name.
Perchance they may fawn on a ruler like thee."
