with which he manages everything. Indeed, were it not flat heterodoxy, I should be inclined to say that Mr. Duffy is the only statesman we have here. He is, at any rate, the only public man here who knows anything about Parliamentary tactics; and had he a fair opportunity he would, I doubt not, be of infinite use to this country.
The Ballarat Courier, which had habitually supported the McCulloch Government, was one of a dozen goldfield journals which preferred the new Government to the old. "All the pent-up stream of life," it exclaimed, "pours downward like a cataract. The Ministerial demonstration at Sandhurst reads more like a royal progress than a compliment paid to a newly-formed Administration."
I am not writing history, or it might be needful to inquire, How has Victoria lost the primacy which belonged to her in that era? These transactions, when this narrative is being written, present themselves to me in the perspective of history, and I cannot but recognise that I committed one serious mistake. The opponents of the Government consisted of three sections who had recently assailed each other with imputations which it might be assumed could never be forgiven. The late Government had been charged by one of the other sections with having manipulated an Act of Parliament to put many thousand pounds into their private purses, and in return the assailants had been treated with habitual and exasperating scorn. I unwisely took it for granted that these offences could never be pardoned. In one speech I complained banteringly that I did not know who was leader of the Opposition. The hon. member for Richmond was generally assumed to be so, but whenever there was a remote chance of a gentleman being sent for by the Governor, there were three Richmonds in the field. The leader of Opposition (I said on another occasion) ought to be a man who commanded a party ready and able to act as a Government, but though such a party once existed, I exultingly declared that it had disappeared. "Hans Breitmann had a party. Where is that party now?" This was perilous chaff, and taught my opponents the necessity of uniting.
Mr. Verdon performed the functions of Agent-General to my entire satisfaction, but the office was tenable only for three years, except in the case of formal reappointment, and the salary was inadequate. I was well disposed to set these
