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no statement for audit to any one, and paid over what balance, if any, to the next of kin of intestates when and how he pleased.

In 1838 the judges made rules of court requiring the registrar to pass his accounts and pay the balance into the savings' bank.

The great man remonstrated against these rules in a most indignant tone, "as threatening to take from him a source of legitimate income, on the faith of which he immigrated to the colony," and intimated that, "unless he was permitted to retain and make use of the money himself, he would use no exertions to obtain it."

At this audit he reported himself to be in possession of £1,989 17s. 04d., but the court, after argument, found £3,085 18s. 2d. due, compelled him to pay it into court, and, in spite of violent resistance, in which he was supported by one of the official legal advisers of the governor, had a set of rules of court sanctioned by the governor in council, under which the registrar was bound to account regularly and pay in the proceeds of every intestate estate within a certain fixed time (three months from the period of the intestacy); the injured registrar all the time protesting that "the judges were reflecting on his honour by calling for accounts, and depriving him of the legitimate profits to be derived from the employment of other men's money, which had induced him to settle in the colony."

The judges being firm, and supported by the council, the registrar then resorted to fraud, and in the course of two years became possessed of £9,000. When no longer able to conceal his appropriations, he announced his insolvency in a debonnair yet dignified manner-a condescending, much-injured style-which could only come from a colonial official.

The sufferers by this embezzlement petitioned for compensation from the home government. The correspondence with the appropriator is extremely rich and racy. Throughout he appears to consider himself deeply injured. The home government rejected the prayers of the petitioners.

The Patronage of the Law Courts.

The next case is illustrative of the confidence with which colonial secretaries set aside colonial recommendations; the avidity with which they embrace opportunities of patronage; the indifference with which they increase salaries; and the admirable skill with which certain governors imbibe the principles of the chiefs.

The judge, Chief Justice Dowling, finding it needful to recommend that certain offices included in the charter of justice should be filled

up, and especially that of prothonotary, at a salary of £800 per annum, for which he recommends one Mr. John Grover, late chief clerk, "who, from his long services, indefatigable industry, and experience, is admirably qualified for the office;" the Governor Gipps, the late captain of engineers, enters into a correspondence, as was his custom, with the judges, in which he instructs them how to manage the business of their courts, and save £50 a year.

The judges demur, and show the governor that he knows nothing about the matter.

The question is referred to the colonial secretary, Lord Stanley, who settles the question in King Stork fashion, without a moment's loss of time. He does not appoint the gentleman recommended by the judges; in other respects he follows the recommendations of the governor, and sends out two new officers, one at £1,000 a year, and the other at £850; creating a third for appointment, at £650, by the governor; at a blow saddling the colony with increased salaries to the extent of £400 a year, on the ground that in England competent persons could not be induced to accept these offices for less. An early act of one of these gentlemen was to set at defiance the local legislature on a matter of salary, while the other was a ruined, aged, brokendown attorney.

We have only to imagine, in order to understand colonial feeling on these subjects, the case of the town council of Liverpool applying for a stipendiary magistrate, stating their willingness to pay a salary of £800, and suggesting a particularly well-qualified gentleman to fill it, and their receiving a total stranger, with orders to pay him £200 more than they had offered. It seems the rule with all officials appointed from England to treat with the greatest contempt the colonists who pay them.

The Lunatic Asylum.

An inquiry into the management of the Colonial Lunatic Asylum brought out facts equally characteristic of the independence and irresponsibility of all officials, up to the time that the elected members of the Legislative Council began to exercise their privilege of inquiry. Again, in 1846, a select committee of the Legislative Council investigated the condition of Tarban Creek, the only lunatic asylum in New South Wales. In the course of this inquiry it appeared that the head keeper and his wife, the matron, in consequence of having received their appointment direct from the Secretary of State, had habitually resisted all attempts to control or even investigate the performance of

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their duties, by the visiting magistrates or colonially-appointed physician. Lunatics are sufficiently neglected and abused even to this hour in England, but it is only in a colony that a sort of turnkey for lunatics would presume to set the dignity of his office against both magistrates and medical men.

The visiting magistrate "had occasion to refer to the governor for definite instructions in consequence of the superintendent considering that he was interfering." "My authority is repudiated by Mr. Digby; he says I have no right to interfere; although he gives me every information in his power, he does so in courtesy, protesting against any right to interfere."

The committee found "no books or registers such as ought to be kept in a public establishment, no record of cases, no written statement of the appearance of any patient at the time of his admission, or of the progress of the disease, or of the treatment, medical and moral."

"The medical officer is not in his proper position." According to evidence, "He gets all his information from me (the keeper) as to the particulars of the case and form of insanity." The same witness stated, that in going round with the doctor, if he suggests any alteration in their moral treatment, and it appears to him (the keeper) an improvement, he acts upon it; but that if he does not approve of it he does not yield to him. For instance, he might recommend that restraint should be taken off a patient, but if, from a better knowledge of the party, he might not deem it advisable, he should refuse to do so." We quote this passage because it so perfectly illustrates the manner in which colonists and colonial interests are treated.

It is quite evident that the merits of this worthy officer of the order of the strait jacket were not duly acknowledged. He ought to have been a colonial governor or a colonial secretary. Colonists are treated like the Tarban Creek lunatics: they do not know what is good for them-neither do their doctors, their representatives. The governor is the man; he is responsible to no one; and, although the doctor stated the Legislative Council may recommend removing restraint, he knows better.

With these examples we leave the subject of official responsibility, and return to the three great questions which agitated the colony during the whole administration of Sir George Gipps, and which still continue to excite the interest and apprehension of all who look ahead

"The Land," and "Emigration," and "Taxation without Representation."

The Land Question.

In August, 1838, Lord Glenelg, who had become infected with the Wakefield theory, instructed Sir George Gipps to substitute 12s. for 5s. as the upset price of ordinary land, observing, "If you should observe that the extension of the population should still proceed with a rapidity beyond what is desirable, and that the want of labour still continues to be seriously felt, you will take measures for checking the sale of land even at 12s."

It is thus evident that at this time the Colonial Office believed that dispersion might be checked and labour cheapened by putting a high price on land, a fallacy which has long since been exploded.

Between 1838 and 1842 Sir George Gipps experimented by repeatedly raising and lowering the price of land. In 1840 and 1841, so far from the increased price of land having checked, it had stimulated dispersion, while labour was alternately dearer than ever, and unemployed.

It was under these circumstances that an effort was made to prop up the insolvent colony of South Australia, by passing, in 1841, an imperial act which fixed the minimum price of land in the Australian colonies at £1 an acre.

At the period that the elective Legislative Council commenced its labours in 1843, the dissatisfaction of the colonists with the fixed minimum price of £1 an acre had become universal.

The wealthy parties who had expected their free grants, and their purchases at 5s. an acre, to be augmented in value by the increased price, were disappointed; the speculators who, following the example of the South Australians, had purchased large lots in the hope of realizing large profits, by laying out proper towns and villages, were either insolvent or encumbered with tracts of useless waste land, unsaleable and unprofitable. The class of small settlers were deeply discontented with the impediments thrown in the way of purchasing small farms in good agricultural districts; while the great pastoral proprietors, who were also most of them landowners in the settled districts, were worried-no other word will express the policy of Sir George Gipps by regulations and restrictions imposed, repealed, and reimposed in a most arbitrary manner, with the view of compelling the purchase of occupation at the ruinous price of £1 an acre.

In the insolvent crisis which followed the land mania of 1837-8-9, live stock was absolutely valueless; cattle were allowed to rove wild unnumbered on the hills, and sheep which had cost 30s. a piece were

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unsaleable at 1s. 6d. ; when it occurred to an ingenious gentleman that an animal whom it would not pay to watch and feed, and whose flesh was worth nothing, might be worth something as tallow. He tried the experiment, and, after some difficulties of a mechanical nature had been overcome, he succeeded in establishing a minimum value on live stock according to the market price of tallow. Flocks and herds became at the worst "good to boil" for so much; and this is now one of the staple trades of the colony.

The boiling-down process suggested a caricature on the struggle between the rebellious squatters, who would not buy land, and the Wakefieldite governor, who was determined that they should. Sir George Gipps, with some of his principal abettors, was represented superintending the operation of a huge cauldron, in which bearded squatters were floating like shrimps, with a huge ladle inscribed "£1 an Acre:" he scoops out a few wretches, and observes, "After all they won't concentrate !”*

In the same year that the new council met, Lord Stanley's despatch accompanying the act of Parliament which gave legislative fixity to the land system, which had previously rested on orders in council, arrived in the colony, and damped the expectations of those who had hoped the failure of this panacea in promoting concentration, regulating wages, and encouraging cultivation, would induce the home government to consult a little more the wishes and interests of actual colonists. Land sales had ceased, the fund for emigration purposes was exhausted, and the pastoral interest found their fortunes already seriously injured by the depreciation of their stock, and threatened with ruin by the personal hostility of a governor aided by irresponsible advisers.

Under these circumstances, the first of four committees of the Legislative Council held its sittings, examined witnesses, and made its report. In 1843, 1844, 1845, 1847, and 1848, committees have investigated and reported always in the same sense, always with an increasing volume of evidence against this vain attempt to regulate wages, protect capital, and force concentration.

The committee of 1843 on "the crown land sales" examined, amongst others, Sir Thomas Mitchell, the celebrated Australian explorer, and engineer of the Bathurst road over Mount Victoria, one of the M'Arthurs, and several landed and pastoral proprietors. They reported that "the act of Parliament under their consideration cannot but be injurious in its operation-that it is calculated to prevent emi

In the despatches of all the Colonial Secretaries, from Lord Glenelg to Earl Grey, we find instructions which show that they were under the delusion that pastoral dispersion could be restrained by a high price of land.