Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/391

been appointed, of which I was Chairman, and its Report exhibited the practice in operation in nearly every civilised country in Europe and America. A Bill to continue the practice was passed by a large majority in the Assembly, but rejected by the Council. Some of the supporters of the principle then demanded that a sum should be put on the Estimates to provide for this service, a method which had already been employed in some British colonies. These gentlemen were sufficiently influential to induce the Berry Government to follow their counsel, and the item appeared on the Estimates, and consequently in the Appropriation Bill. In the Darling dispute the right of the Council to have such novel expenditure submitted to them in a separate Bill had been fiercely insisted on, and the Council refused to adopt an Appropriation Bill containing such an item. A bitter hostility sprung up between the majority of the Assembly and the class who thwarted them. Some members of the Government, generally supposed to be Mr. Lalor and Mr. Grant, proposed a stroke in return which was harsh and unjust. On the 8th of January, 1878, the Government Gazette announced the suspension from office of a serious number of officials, including heads of departments, police magistrates, County Court judges, and a large number of minor officers. It was said the delay of the Appropriation Bill endangered the stability of the public treasury, and justified large reductions, and no doubt it was felt by the Government that the Civil Service had nearly universally been appointed by their opponents, and that their supporters had not fair play. The event belongs to my narrative because some of the enemies which a public man cannot fail to make if he does his duty, raised a report that I had advised this measure. The Chief Secretary, it was said, had been on a visit to the Speaker in the country, and Duffy had taken vengeance on the squatters and their friends. But my relation to the transaction was very different. I had never heard of the project till it became public. I stated at once my entire disapproval of it, and when it was intimated to me that a second batch of removals would include the Clerk of Assembly, Mr. Barker, and the Assistant Clerk, Mr. Jenkins, I went to the Government and remonstrated against this