conclusion, however, that he did not obtrude his views on the point very pressingly on the Cabinet of the day." The effect was electric. Mr. Ireland had not much character to lose, but that little was lost for ever. His election committee immediately sent him notice that he need not return to Kilmore, which he then represented, and though he tried another constituency when the opportunity came, he was never during the remainder of his life re-elected to Parliament—a signal instance of public justice.
What was called the Darling trouble arose in this way:—
In the General Election which immediately followed my departure for Europe, the main policy of the McCulloch Government was the protection of native industries, and they obtained a large majority pledged to this policy. The wealthiest men in the colony, bankers, import merchants, and their friends, had a strong interest in resisting Protection, and a fierce controversy ensued. It soon became manifest that the Upper House was in sympathy with the Opposition and would probably reject any Tariff Bill establishing Protection. The arbitrary will of Mr. Higinbotham was not easily baulked, and he advised the Government should fall back on a practice abandoned for a century in England, and tack the Tariff Bill to the Appropriation Bill, which the Council were not entitled to alter and could only reject with the most disastrous consequences to the colony; but party passions had grown very fierce and the Council, when this Bill reached them, declared their privileges to be imperilled, and the practice of Parliament violated by the tack, and ordered the Bill to be laid aside. The Government, after protracted trouble, did what they should certainly have begun by doing, they sent up the Tariff separately. But meantime new difficulties had arisen. Since the passing of the Protectionist resolutions, there were practically two tariffs in existence, it being the established practice to collect duties on the vote of the Lower House, while the necessary Bill was passing through its stages; but this practice was improperly protracted by the controversy between the two Houses, and certain merchants had obtained decisions of the Supreme Court against the Government who had proceeded under both. The separate Tariff Bill contained a retrospective clause negativing these judicial decisions, and
