where Macdermott, Dr. Macfarlane, and Captain Moore were bound over to keep the peace. These disagreeable incidents were brought before the Council at its next sitting, and a committee was appointed to consider them. This was the first case of "privilege," and it was a source of great perplexity. The committee were of opinion that the Council had not the power to deal directly with the offender, but recommended that an Act should be passed securing this right. In the present case they proposed that the Attorney-General should prosecute Macdermott and his friends in the courts of law. These recommendations were carried after a long discussion by fifteen votes to thirteen, Mr. Lowe voting in the majority, and the prosecution accordingly was commenced, but fell through on technical grounds. Meanwhile public opinion was roused on the subject. At the request of a huge number of citizens, the Mayor called a public meeting, and resolutions were passed against the appropriation of public money for the purpose of the prosecution and condemning the proposed legislation as oppressive and unjust. For the time Mr. Lowe was the most unpopular man in the colony, and the Council for the action it had taken shared in the opprobrium. On August 21st, 1844, Dr. Lang, then one of the members for the Port Phillip district, moved a resolution affirming the desirability of the separation of what subsequently became the colony of Victoria from New South Wales. This secured the unanimous adhesion of the six members for the district, but Mr. Lowe was tho only other member who gave them his support and vote. He hoped the time was not remote when Great Britain would give up the idea of treating the dependencies of the Crown as children who were to be cast adrift from their parents as soon as they arrived at manhood, and substitute for it the far truer and nobler policy of knitting herself and her colonies into one mighty confederacy, confident against the world in arts and arms." The most important task before the Council was the assertion of constitutional rights in connection with the lands of the colony. Mr. Cowper had obtained a committee on Crown lands grievances, of which Mr. Lowe was a member. The Council, ably led by Wentworth, Lowe, and Cowper, never rested until it obtained the distinct declaration that the Crown lands should be subject to the control of the local Legislature. A matter more particularly connected at this time with Mr. Lowe's name was popular education. He had obtained a committee and brought up a report recommending the introduction of Lord Stanley's Irish scheme. This report at once raised a storm. The Anglican bishop summoned a meeting of Churchmen, which was adjourned and lasted over two nights. The clergy were opposed-to anything but a denominational system pure and simple. The friends of a general system induced the Mayor to convene a town meeting. Mr. Lowe on coming forward to move the first resolution was howled down with cries of "Privilege! privilege!" The meeting was so disorderly that the Mayor adjourned it until next day. This adjourned meeting was quite as rowdy, but at length on a third day the opponents of Mr. Lowe's views stayed away, and able speeches were delivered in support of the recommendations of the committee. The Catholics held a meeting, under the presidency of their bishop, at which the proposals were temperately discussed, but they were adverse to the new scheme. The Council, in spite of the clamour on the part of the denominationalists, approved the committee's report. In successive sessions Mr. Lowe continued to press forward the subject, and in 1846 he succeeded in passing a resolution authorising the formation of a national board. After Mr. Lowe had completed his education report, he resigned his seat as a nominee member of the Council. When he was first appointed he was inexperienced in colonial politics, and his sympathies were with the Colonial Office. He expected that he could give a general support to the Government, though he was in no way pledged to do so. The Colonial Office had authorised the formation of district councils, with powers of taxation for local objects. Sir George Gipps thoroughly approved of this, and in spite of the objection that the population of the colony was then too sparsely scattered for the councils to be anything but an intolerable burden, he endeavoured to force them on an unwilling people. Mr. Lowe became one of the bitterest opponents of this pet scheme of Sir
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