persons desired a little house of peers, others the
appointment of senators by the crown, and for life: a greater number
were convinced that the legislature should be elective throughout. The
social equality of settlers who landed together could not be forgotten
in the diversities of their colonial fortune. The first collision of
opinion would bring the machinery of double chambers to a dead lock, and
no interposing power could adjust the dislocated frame-work. A stoppage
of supplies would follow the first impulses of resentment. In English
representation it is the last remedy, but then it betokens the dismissal
of a minister or the downfall of a dynasty.

The colonial press generally approved the ministerial bill, not as a
measure approaching perfection, but for some favorite object it was
calculated to hasten. It was hailed at Port Phillip because it secured
separation from Sydney; at South Australia, as certain to terminate the
ecclesiastical endowments; and in Van Diemen's Land it was welcomed,
with all its faults, as the engine sure to destroy transportation. Thus
the Colonial Reform Society, which attempted to defeat the government
measure, found little sympathy beyond New South Wales, where the change
gave nothing. The ministers interpreted the satisfaction of the colonies
as a testimony to their skill, not detestation of their government. The
real cause of colonial delight was the severance of their chains, and
the certainty that when broken all the power of Europe could never renew
them.

The bill suffered some mutilations in its passage to the throne. The
federal clauses were expunged. The local governors were opposed to the
establishment of an assembly of delegates, which would have overruled
their individual policy. They were fearful of compromising their
revenues by permitting to New South Wales the preponderance of members.
These objections, not indeed without weight, and, still more, the
jealousy of the conservatives of an organisation which seemed but a
prelude to independence, despoiled the measure of a provision which,
however modified, must be ultimately restored. A reduction of the
franchise of the bill from L20 to L10, nearly equal to household
suffrage, was, however, the most considerable change. It was suggested
by Mr. R. Lowe, to bear down an opulent emancipist interest in New South
Wales. It was expected to give irresistible power to that class in Van
Diemen's Land. The bill was carried through