We approved of the principle of returning no members for the Legislative Council (so far as the District was concerned) and we regret that an attempt is about to be made to overthrow these proceedings, by returning a Member for Melbourne in the person of J.F.L. Foster, Esq.
This is a question upon which, we are aware, some difference of opinion exists; but, having commenced the principle, so far as the District is concerned, we ought to carry it out; if we act otherwise it will be thrown in the teeth of the citizens of Melbourne that they disfranchised the District and then returned a Member on their own account to represent their city.
There required, however, to be unanimity to accomplish this, and some of the electors having proposed Mr. Foster as a fit and proper person to represent the City; those who were in favour of carrying out the principle already adopted at the District Meeting, had nothing left but to bring forward an opponent to Mr. Foster, and in the person of the Right Hon. Earl Grey has this opponent been found.
True, did the City wish to send a practical man, we are willing to accede that Earl Grey is not in a position to sit and work for us in the Council, but we wish, by electing a man who cannot act, at any rate for eighteen months, to carry out the principle which the Electors of the District have already agreed to be correct; we deem it then the duty of every honest man in this community to give his vote to Earl Grey, not so much out of respect for His Lordship, as to carry out a principle; a principle to which we consider the honour of Melbourne to be pledged.
Mr. Foster is, no doubt, a very excellent kind of man, but having been withdrawn by his friends, on the morning of the District Election, we must look upon him as shelved for the present. Let us then return Earl Grey as one member, and it may do us more good than we can well conceive at present, as it will give His Lordship a practical illustration of our helplessness, and thus hasten on Separation.
Hasten then, electors to the poll! and record your vote in favour of Earl Grey and SEPARATION!!
The Poll commences at Nine o'clock this morning.
Saturday, July 29th. Domestic Gazette. Election of a Representative for the City of Melbourne.—On Wednesday last, no little commotion was created by the election of a member (nominally) to represent the interests of the Citizens of Melbourne in the Legislative Council, but the thinking portion of the community having arrived at the conclusion that representation in the Legislative Council at Sydney, under existing circumstances, was a farce, had determined, virtually, upon adopting a similar course to that pursued at the nomination of Candidates for the District, and the Right Hon. Earl Grey was consequently proposed as a fit and proper person to represent our interests in the Legislative Council, and this proposition, with two or three exceptions, met with unanimous approval at the meeting. After the first hour's polling, it was clear that Mr. Foster had no chance, and as this became more and more apparent as the day advanced, some hundreds of voters who had intended to support the favourite were deterred from doing so under a conviction that their votes would not be required, and the unfavourable state of the weather counteracted the desire to be present at the scene of action. It was understood that the Mayor would, on the following day, declare on whom the election had fallen, and at noon, many hundred persons and, notwithstanding the still unfavourable state of the weather, assembled outside the supreme Court House, and a few minutes afterwards the excellent Band of the Total Abstinence Society, might be seen wending their way to the spot, headed by Mr. J.P. Fawkner.
The Mayor addressed the Meeting as follows:—"Gentlemen, I have called you together again for the purpose of declaring on whom the late election has fallen, but previously to doing so I will read two protests, one of which has been sent to a deputy returning officer, and the other to myself." His worship then read the protests, which are as follows:—"I, the undersigned burgher of Bourke Ward, do hereby protest against the Returning Officer receiving any votes for the Right Hon. Earl Grey, on the following grounds:—
"First, that Earl Grey as a Peer of the British Parliament cannot hold a seat in a Colonial House of Legislative Representation.