the law of the land, and from the first has worked admirably. It is amusing to notice how anxious Dr. Lang is to claim the credit of any and every possible kind of reform inaugurated during his fifty years of political activity in Australia. Unfortunately he knew little or nothing of Mr. Nicholson, but he consoled himself with the reflection that the Victorian legislator must have acquired his notions about the ballot from a former literary assistant of his, who was then Town-Clerk of Melbourne. In this way, to the great satisfaction of the majority, but the evident alarm of not a few, did the colonists democratise their Constitutions. Hard and bitter were the recriminations of both parties during the brief but determined struggle.
It is a very difficult matter to review what is all but contemporary colonial history in an impartial spirit. For my part, I do not attempt to conceal my popular sympathies; but this does not imply surely that I should be prepared to justify every act of the popular party in these heterogeneous democratic colonies. Yet this is the assumption that runs through every page of a work like Mr. G. W. Rusden's History of Australia. Government is at
