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6
AUSTRALIA AND THE EMPIRE

pendent colony." With the exception of the five other members for Port Phillip, he had only one supporter—and that was Sir George Gipps' new nominee. With characteristic egotism Dr. Lang merely records the fact, and pays but scant tribute to the independence of mind that could have prompted such a vote, or could have supported it by so memorable a speech as Robert Lowe delivered that evening. I will endeavour to supply the Doctor's deficiency, by quoting the opening sentences of an address that was alone sufficient to raise the level of the debate from a mere provincial wrangle into the rare region of statesman like deliberation and discussion.

"As a general rule," began the new nominee member, "the interests of the Colonies are not consulted by frittering them away into minute particles, but by combining as large a territory into a single State as could be effectually controlled by a single Government, I cordially agree in the abstract truth of the motto prefixed to the article in the newspaper of this morning that ' Union is Strength'; and I would extend that principle to the whole Colonial Empire of Great Britain. I hold and believe that the time is not remote when