25 NOVEMBER 1865, Page 2

Earl Grey must chuckle, if he could do so plebeian

a thing, at the latest news from Melbourne. He consistently opposed the Great British idea that a colony must have an Upper House, which cannot be filled except by gutting the Lower of all Con- servative elements, but the Philistines were too many for him. Victoria has its two Houses, and the Constitution is consequently in abeyance. The few gentlemen who compose it think they can maintain the squatter monopoly if they can drive out the Ministry, and have accordingly refused to pass the Appropria- tion Bill with a tariff tacked on to it. There is therefore no money to pay anybody, but fortunately there is an Act enabling the Governor to pay any sum decreed against him by the Supreme Court. So the Governor borrows the money, confesses judgment, and then pays it back constitutionally, a device highly admired by the Assembly. The councillors, however, do not like it, and as they are appointed for life and cannot be swamped, they may lock the wheels comfortably, unless Melbourne should duck them, for a generation or so. Sir Charles Darling is of course abused for unconstitutional conduct, but when you are driving tandem and the leader will turn round, what is the coach- man to do ? Wait to be comfortably overset? Conservatives too often forget in the colonies the truth which Earl Grey saw, that absolute power must reside somewhere ; and in a free country, the beat depository is the representative body.