Part 01: G. W. Rusden letters, 1846-1900

however. Nevertheless he would readily degrade the house by appointing bad men. If we had had a nominee house temp. Darling or Bowen it would have become equivalent to no house at all: for there would have been a swamping.

If ever you have an elective Upper House take care if you can that it shall be a sine quâ non that two responsible ministers shall be chosen from it.

It is a two-edged weapon. In the forming of a ministry the Upper House has to be considered, and the men who take office have to satisfy their constituents, who using a higher suffrage than that for the Lower House afford a guarantee that the new ministry is in accord with more than one class in the country. The ministry also is insensibly coerced into trying to be in harmony with two houses instead of thinking only of one. You can hardly imagine what evils we have experienced here from the absence of so simple a provision. It was

merely provided that at least 4 ministers should be in the Council or Assembly. So they often had none in the Council: and the thing became a one-horse sort of affair.

I am glad to hear that Sir W^m took a run down to see the Exhibition. My kind regards to him and all. The Campbells are well.

I am enraged with the English elections. That simpering Lord Granville perhaps thinks that he and L^d Hartington can guide the storm. He will find that he is an idle figure head on a creature which is moved after its kind by the tail: in which the main joints are J. Bright, Chamberlain Gladstone Bradlaugh et hoc genus omne. Ugh! my gorge rises at it. A mad world! No country profits by the experience of another. Only by their own sorrows will men learn to be wise.

Yours very sincerely

[signed] G W Rusden

[centred Gothic-print letterhead] The Melbourne Atheneaum. Melbourne ........... 6... Sep^r........1880...

My dear Onslow

Excuse my writing on this paper while I am detained in Town for a meeting at this place, and to save time do not walk up to the Club and back. Thank you very much for the trouble you have so kindly taken about the Deniliquin trial.

The letter of M^r Williams gives me full information. I suspected that the bail bonds were not enforced and M^r Williams accounts for it sufficiently, as they had the corpus of the criminal.

Of course the fellow wanted to escape from the country. Oddly enough in the same year 1876 a sub-inspector of Police in Queensland was committed for trial for a brutal murder of a black-boy:— a Supreme Court Judge took bail for him, the trial was not to take place for several months and the fellow ran away. I wrote to Palmer the Col Sec: the other day about it, and he tells me that the fellow has never been heard of since.

The frightful load of debt which the colony is piling up under the misguidance of the men who have fastened the Exhibn expenditure on a county from which they strive to exclude importations of merchandise makes it unplasant to think of the affair, and I have felt no inclination to look at it.

However I shall be glad to go with you to it if you come over. I hope the spring weather will improve the health of Sir Wm & Mrs Macarthur.

Give them and Mrs Onslow and the young folks my kindest regards please. We have here now a regular epidemic of measles but it will be over before November I suppose and if you bring over any little companion there will be no risk of infection.

There will be only a few miles of coaching to do when you come so the journey wont be neither fatiguing nor of long duration.

I am aware that bail can be taken in murder cases, but it is very uncustomary and almost always improper. Great influence was used to deter the publican from giving true evidence about the threats of Giles that he would shoot the blackfellow, and a man named Sims committed palpable perjury at the trial.

However, I need not prosecute the subject. I am sorry to hear of the drought near Sydney. Here we have an unusually wet season, though they say that in the Western districts and at the Darling there has been no rain since April.

I saw Mr Campbell the other day:- he tells me he has asked you to stay with him if you come to see our white elephant. You will no doubt be very comfortable there and handy to the Exhibition, but I hope you won't forget that if any thing happens to prevent you going to him my smaller cottage is gaping to welcome you. I have never been to see our Exhibition building and don't know whether I shall.