But these really great colonial anti-democrats were, after all, on this vital point of local patriotism, by no means typical of their class. The self-styled "upper classes" of Australia for many years (and the feeling is hardly yet dead) regarded their residence at the Antipodes, as I have already remarked, as a kind of exile. From this state of things arose what may be termed the optimism of the democratic leaders, grounded as it was in their firm faith in Australia as a permanent home for themselves and their descendants, and the equally marked, but fatal pessimism of the colonial "upper-class" party. Turning over the Victorian Hansard from 1865 onward, one must be struck with this essential difference in the tone of the two parties. It is often noticeable that the opposing disputants are very fairly matched, but one feels in reviewing these debates that the men who proclaimed their belief in the colony deserved to prevail over those who decried it.
On this particular point I was much impressed recently by reading a debate on a motion introduced on May 20th, 1869, by the present Judge Casey of Victoria, proposing to refer certain privileges of the Legislative Assembly to the decision of the
