CHAPTER III
IN THE NEW PARLIAMENT
New Year's Day Levée—Opening of Parliament—The method in which the Governor should communicate with Parliament determined—Bill abolishing Property Qualification carried—Select Committee on Federation of the Colonies—Its proposal successful everywhere but in New South Wales—Controversy on the orderly conduct of Parliamentary business—Six cases cited—Errors in building the Victorian Parliament House—Motion respecting Cross Benches—Establishment of Municipal Franchise—Mr. Childers and Mr. Stawell appointed to permanent offices—Fall of the Haines Government—Mr. O'Shanassy commissioned to form an Administration—How the new Government was constituted.
The making of Victoria now commenced, and I need not hesitate to say that for a quarter of a century I took as large a share as any man living or dead in that reproductive work. But I am not writing the history of the colony, or of its party conflicts, but my personal memoirs, and I will concern myself only with transactions in which I was engaged, and which had some permanent consequences, or which illustrate significantly the condition or growth of the country. Before the session commenced the Governor, who was now Sir Henry Barkly, held a levée of which I find a note in my diary:—
"The New Year and the new Governor held a joint levée to-day. 'Full dress' in Melbourne means anything from the silk stocking, buckled shoes, and unexceptional toilet of the Speaker, to the soiled white trousers and vest of old P——, and his cocked hat, of the class long abandoned to coachmen and Leprechauns. He was the most ludicrous figure there, and made one rejoice he has got promoted out of the assembly. The Governor looks a fairly good figurehead of the State ship, and if the engineer and sailing master have the needful skill, we shall have a prosperous voyage."
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