Whatever we may conclude about the motives behind the concession of Home Rule to Australia and New Zealand, we may regard it as fortunate that they lay too far away for any close criticism from statesmen at home, whether before or after the attainment of self-government.  Most of these statesmen would have been scandalized by the manner in which these vigorous young democracies, destitute of the patrician element, shaped their own political destiny by the light of nature and in the teeth of great difficulties.  Almost to a man their leaders in this great work would have been regarded as “turbulent demagogues and dangerous agitators,” and often were so regarded, when the rumour of their activities penetrated to far-off London.  The old catchwords of revolution, spoliation and treason, consecrated to the case of Ireland, would have been applied here with equal vehemence, and were in fact applied by the official classes in the Colonies themselves, round whom small anti-democratic groups, calling themselves “loyal,” crystallized, as in the Provinces of Upper Canada and in Ireland, and with whom the ruling classes at home were in instinctive sympathy.  There were stormy, agitated times, there were illegal movements against the reception of convicts, struggles over land questions, religious questions, financial questions, the emancipation of ex-convicts, and the many difficult problems raised by the discovery of gold and the mushroom growth of digger communities in remote places.  There was in the air more genuine lawlessness—­irrespective, I mean, of revolt against bad laws—­than ever existed in Ireland, though there was never at any time any practical grievance approaching in magnitude to the practical grievances of Ireland at the same period.  But, could the spirit of English statesmanship towards analogous problems in Ireland have been maintained in Australasia, systematically translated into law and enforced with the help of coercion acts by soldiers and police, communities would have been artificially produced presenting all the lawless and retrograde features of Ireland.

The famous affair of the Eureka Stockade in 1854 is an interesting illustration.  A great mass of diggers collected in the newly discovered Ballarat goldfields had petitioned repeatedly against the Government regulations about mining licences, for which extortionate fees were levied.  This was before responsible government.  The goldfields were not represented in the Legislature, and there was no constitutional method of redress.  The authorities held obstinately to their obsolete and irritating regulations, and eventually the miners revolted under the leadership of an Irishman, Peter Lalor, and with the watchword “Vinegar Hill.”  There was a pitched battle with the military forces of the Crown, ending after much bloodshed in the victory of the soldiers.  Lalor was wounded, and carried into hiding by his friends.  Other captured rioters were tried for “high treason” before juries of townsmen