from and by Sydney; an agitation in favour of separation commenced, and in 1851 Victoria was formed into a separate colony with an Executive Council appointed by the crown, and a Legislative Council, partly elective and partly nominated, on the same lines as that of New South Wales. The population at that dale was 77,435. Gold was discovered a few weeks after the colony had entered upon its separate existence, and a large number of persons were attracted to the mines, first from the neighbouring colonies—some of which, such as South Australia, Van Diemen's Land and West Australia, were almost denuded of able-bodied men and women—and subsequently from Europe and America. Notwithstanding the difficulties with which the local government had to contend, the task of maintaining law and order was fairly grappled with; the foundations of a liberal system of primary, secondary and university education were laid; roads, bridges and telegraphs were constructed, and Melbourne was provided with an excellent supply of water.
Local self-government was introduced in 1853, and the Legislature found time to discuss a new Constitution, which not Local self-government. only eliminated the nominee element from the Legislature, but made the executive government responsible to the people. The administration of the gold-fields was not popular, and the miners were dissatisfied at the amount charged for permission to mine for gold, and at there being no representation for the gold-fields in the local Legislature. The discontent culminated, at Ballarat in December 1854, in riots in which there was a considerable loss of life both amongst the miners and the troops. Eventually, an export duty on gold was substituted for the licence fee, but every miner had to take out a right which enabled him to occupy a limited area of land for mining, and also for residence. The census taken in 1854 showed a population of 236,778. The new Constitution was proclaimed in 1855, and the old Executive Council was gazetted as the first responsible ministry. It held office for about sixteen months, and was succeeded by an administration formed from the popular party. Several changes were made in the direction of democratizing the government, and vote by ballot, manhood suffrage and the abolition of the property qualification followed each other in rapid succession. To several of these changes there was strenuous opposition, not so much in the Assembly which represented the manhood, as in the Council in which the property of the colony was supreme. The crown lands were occupied by graziers, termed locally “squatters,” who held them under a licence renewable annually at a low rental. These licences were very valuable, and the goodwill of a grazing farm or “run” commanded a high price. Persons who desired to acquire freeholds for the purpose of tillage could only do so by purchasing the land at auction, and the local squatters, unwilling to be deprived of any portion of a valuable property, were generally willing to pay a price per acre with which no person of small means desirous of embarking upon agricultural pursuits could compete. The result was that although the population had increased in 1861 to 540,322, the area of land under crop had not grown proportionately, and Victoria was dependent upon the neighbouring colonies and even more distant countries for a considerable portion of its food. A series of Land Acts was passed, the first in 1860, with the view of encouraging a class of small freeholders. The principle underlying all these laws was that residence by landowners on their farms, and their cultivation, were more important to the state than the sum realized by the sale of the land. The policy was only partially successful, and by a number of ingenious evasions a large proportion of the best land in the colony passed into the possession of the original squatters. But a sufficient proportion was purchased by small farmers to convert Victoria into a great agricultural country, and to enable it to export large quantities of farm and dairy produce.
The greater portion of the revenue was raised by the taxation through the customs of a small number of products, such as spirits, tobacco, wine, tea, coffee, &c. But an agitation arose in favour of such an adjustment of the import duties as would protect the manufactures which at that time were being commenced. A determined opposition to this policy was made by a large minority in the Assembly, and by a large majority in the Council, but by degrees the democratic party triumphed. The victory was not gained without a number of political crises which shook the whole fabric of society to its foundations. The Assembly tacked the tariff to the Appropriation Bill, and the Council threw out both. The result was that there was no legal means of paying either the civil servants or the contractors, and the government had recourse to an ingenious though questionable system by which advances were made by a bank which was recouped through the crown “confessing” that it owed the money, whereupon the governor issued his warrant for its payment without any recourse to parliament. Similar opposition was made by the Council to payment of members, and to a grant made to Lady Darling, the wife of Governor Sir Charles Darling, who had been recalled by the secretary of state on the charge of having shown partiality to the democratic party. Indeed on one occasion the dispute between the government and the Council was so violent that the former dismissed all the police, magistrates, county court judges and other high officials, on the ground that no provision had been made by the Council, which had thrown out the Appropriation Bill, for the payment of salaries.
Notwithstanding these political struggles, the population of the colony steadily increased, and the Legislature found time to pass some measures which affected the social life and the commercial position of the colonies. State aid to religion was abolished, and divorce was made comparatively easy. A system of free, compulsory and secular primary education was introduced. The import duties were increased and the transfer of land was simplified. In 1880 a fortnightly mail service via Suez between England and Melbourne was introduced, and in 1880 the first International Exhibition ever held in Victoria was opened. In the following year the census showed a population of 862,346, of whom 452,083 were males and 410,263 females. During the same year the lengthy dispute between the two houses of parliament, which had caused so much inconvenience, so many heart burnings and so many political crises, was brought to an end by the passage of an act which reduced the qualifications for members and the election of the Legislative Council, shortened the tenure of their seats, increased the number of provinces to fourteen and the number of members to forty-two. In 1883 a coalition government, in which the Liberal or protectionist and the Conservative or free-trade party were represented, took office, and with some changes remained in power for seven years. During this political truce several important changes were made in the Constitution. An act for giving greater facilities for divorce was passed, and with some difficulty obtained the royal assent. The Victorian railways were handed over to the control of three commissioners, who to a considerable extent were made independent of the government, and the civil service was placed under the supervision of an independent board. In 1887 the representatives of Victoria met those of the other British colonies and of the United Kingdom in London, under the presidency of Lord Knutsford, in order to discuss the questions of defence, postal and telegraphic communication, and the contribution of Australia to the Imperial navy. In 1888 a weekly mail service was established via Suez by the steamers of the P. & O. and the Orient Companies, and the second Victorian International Exhibition was opened. In 1890 all the Australian colonies, including New South Wales and New Zealand, sent representatives to a conference at Melbourne, at which resolutions were passed in favour of the establishment of a National Australian Convention empowered to consider and report upon an adequate scheme for the Federal Constitution. This Convention met in Sydney in 1891 and took the first step towards federation (see Australia).
In 1891 the coalition government resigned and a Liberal administration was formed. An act passed in that year placed the railways again under the control of the government. Measures of a democratic and collectivist tendency have since obtained the assent of the Legislature. The franchise of
