THE CRISIS IN VICTORIA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 60, 11 March 1878, Page 2

THE CRISIS IN VICTORIA.

To ths Editor op the * Evening • Mail.'

Sir,— l saw an extract from the Ballarat Star in your paper on Monday misrepresenting tlit cause of the " crisis " now going on in Victoria. Some of your readers, I hope, are interested to know the truth. The quarrel is not caused by Mr Berry because he cannot get £300 per annum for his followers. Paymeut of members has been in force now for about six or eight years (as a temporary measure), and it was to be made a permanent law this year. The annual sum (£20,000) for payment of members was sent up, as usual, in an Appropriation Bill for £300,000, aud thrown out by the Council. This is the apparent trouble ; but the real cause is that the Berry Ministry have introduced a Property Tax, which the Council were afraid to throw out ; they had also a measure in preparation to reach "absentees" and the large sums of tnoney known to be sent out of the colony from various sources every year — without returning any- equivalent value— all measures very obnoxious to the Council and the mouied classes, or " capital," as it is expressed. On the Appropriation Bill being thrown out, the Ministry determined to take the bull by the horns, and di»charge the public servants when the Council refused them the money to pay their salaries with. This stroke does not appear to have been anticipated by the Council, and they thought, on appealing to the Governor, he would dissolve the Assembly ; but he declined, and remained neutral. An appeal to the Home Government has met with no better success ; they announce by telegram that they will not interfere. The Council met on Wednesday, the sth, and adjourned for a week. The Assembly has adjourned for three months. This remarkable contest will be watched with much interest by all students of political economy, if only for this reason — that it is an attempt by the Upper House, or Conservative branch of the Legislature, to seize the power of the purse. Stopping the supplies has always been the most trenchant weapon of the House of Commons, and by its moderate and timely use has its present vast power been built up. But that the Upper House should gain the same power is an impossibility in the present day. The Government would then be an oligarchy pure and simple— only idiots could dream of it. This Victorian Legislative Council is an anomaly in Parliamentary Government; it consists of thirty members, who are elected for ten years. The qualification is possession of real property to the value of £5000; it cannot be dissolved; it is elected by a limited number of voters, who must hold property or pay rent of the yearly value of £50. So that they are elected by about 8,000 or 10,000 voters out of a population of some 850,000. How it came about that the honorable Council ever supposed they could obtain tho " power of the purse " h inconceivable — it is one of those follies that jire crimes. It should also be borne in mind that the last time they tried it— it was the chosen minister of "capital" that was in power— Sir James M'Culloch. However, no doubt, the '' Constitution" will be altered after this "fit," The «f necessaries pf life " has two different meanings to hon Councillors aud those a few grades below them. They have to find out that they are not quite so powerful as the English House of Lords. And there is every reason to believe that the House of Lords •would have been swept away if they had tried such a dangerous experiment at any time since Charles II. — I am, &c, Traveller.