The leading measures introduced by the Coalition Ministry during their four years' tenure of office were, if we except a Licensed Victuallers' Amendment Act, an Educational Act on the basis of that existing in the other colonies, which served as a trump-card at the 1881 general elections, and a measure for constitutional reform, in which they were checked by the Upper House in 1879. Sir Henry's object, like Mr. Berry's, was to strengthen the hands of the Assembly, but unfortunately for his scheme he had a very different class of electors at his back. As happened over the Land Act, his weathercock failed to point in the right direction. When the Council rejected his Bill, he indulged in threats and fulminations which would have done credit to a Berryite of the Berryites. But the country utterly refused to back him up. It would not be roused into indignation on one side or the other, and was utterly indifferent as to whether the Council was reformed or continued as of old.. So after a few days fuming and fretting, Sir Henry thought it wiser to let the matter drop. The Legislative Council still remains nominated by the Crown, the tenure of office being for life. On the Education Act, Sir Henry's platform was the consolidation of a system of secular education and the withdrawal of all grants in aid of denominational schools. Here, as on the Land Act, he had held other views in other times; but in this instance he caught the direction of the wind correctly and sailed before it triumphantly.
In the new Ministry there is plenty of promise but little of past performance, and withal a good many discordant elements. The Premier, Mr. Stuart, is a good business man, of education and manners, but that is all that can possibly be said for him. The Minister for Education, Mr. Reid, is decidedly able, but very young. The Attorney-General, Mr. Dalley, is a man of great literary ability and a leader of the bar, but he has wretched health. The rest of the Ministry are nonentities, and by omitting one or two men whose respectability is hardly equal to their ability, Mr. Stuart has raised himself up an Opposition out of his old following. These will probably combine with Sir Henry Parkes, and _qui vivra verra_.