including the judges of the land, who interfere with our rights, that we have the power as well as the right to assert and enforce our rights, and in doing so to perform our duty."—(Victorian Hansard, vii. p. 783-8.)
Quite apart from the Constitutional question in debate, it will be noticed that, while the antidemocratic leader plainly avowed his pessimistic disbelief in the soundness of the body politic, the popular orator much more earnestly proclaimed his faith, as a basis for all legislative action, in the integrity of his fellow-colonists. These claims on behalf of the colonial democracy, based on its patriotism and public spirit, may even at this late day be met by the kind of cheap abuse that was once so common in the English press. Even so clever a man as Mr. Harold Finch-Hatton[1] seems to think that he is dealing with colonial politics in a sparkling and yet strictly impartial spirit, when he has related two or three stale derogatory stories against sundry local demagogues. The worst of it is, he imagines that these stray crumbs of club scandal are quite sufficient to overwhelm the entire political
- ↑ See Advance Australia! by the Hon. Harold Finch-Hatton, a wonderfully graphic and interesting book.
