Pincian Hill in Rome there is a long array of historic busts lifted exactly to the level of the eye, which makes the grand history of Italy familiar to the people.
What imagination the Belgians have put into their Palais de Legislation! The great principles of their Constitution—Religious Equality, the Freedom of the Press, the Right of Meeting, and so forth, each held aloft on a tablet or banner by a characteristic allegoric figure. Why should we not do as much in the Fitzroy Gardens or the Parliamentary Reserve? I instructed the Agent-General to procure from Italy and Belgium some necessary data, and I induced a few men of adequate knowledge in Melbourne to prepare a list of the statesmen of the empire who ought to be so honoured.
I took an early occasion of stating my political policy to my constituents in a speech which met with singular success in the Australian Press, but on which there is no need to return. It was also the subject of unusual comment in the London Press, of which I will only copy one paragraph from the Spectator:—
If anybody wishes to know what the empire loses by English inability to conciliate Irish affection, let him read the speech addressed by Mr. Gavan Duffy, the new Premier of Victoria, to his constituents. It contains the programme of the new Government he has formed in Melbourne, and we have not for years read a political manifesto so full of character and power. Mr. Duffy is an Irishman, a Catholic, and a rebel, a typical man of the class which we English say can neither govern nor be governed; but he speaks like the man for whom the Tories are sighing, the born administrator, utterly free of flummery and buncombe, clear as to his ends, clearer still as to his means, ready to compromise anything except principle, but giving even to compromise an impression of original force. There is not in the entire speech a Hibernian sentence or an Irish foible, unless it be shown in a little soreness at the hostility of the Press—a soreness we think we trace also in the speech of a man (Mr. Gladstone) who is not Irish, but Scotch, and who speaks at Whitby instead of Kyneton
But I was more anxious to ascertain the impression made on my opponents, and Judge Bindon, who had been himself one of the McCulloch Ministry, sent me a friendly report from the Melbourne Club, the headquarters of the squatters and the Conservative party:—
The verdict of the smoking-room on your speech was, "clever!" "clever!" "clever!" The opponents mute as mice; I only judge of their dissent by their silence. They were cowed.
I went to the Age office. George Syme was wild in his praises; said
