CHAP. vii] RELATIONS OF THE HOUSES 627 
solemnly put forward by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in 1878 
in the case of Victoria, and though often asserted both at 
home and in the Colonies, was clearly a claim which cduld 
not be made good. Presumably, if the two Houses were 
elective and if the Upper House represented the wealth of 
the country, it was intended that the Upper House should 
have a free voice as to financial matters, and the agreement 
arrived at was intended in effect to maintain this free voice. 
Nor did it fail of its purpose, but of late years the Council 
has complained that the control of expenditure is passing 
from its hands! But this seems to be due not so much to 
any formal breach of the agreement as to the loan policy 
of the Government, which leaves them a wide discretion in 
the application of the moneys raised by loan. On the other 
hand, the Council is aware that it cannot reject a Loan Bill, 
for a public works policy is not merely essential to the state 
but is extremely popular, and any effort to insist upon con- 
trolling this policy would end in disaster to the Council. 
None the less, in 1910 they insisted on cutting an item of 
£1,000,000 out of the Loan Bill for public works, as they had 
not agreed to the proposal for wharves construction.? 
But if the Council must content itself with a lessening 
influence in financial matters pure and simple, they may 
reflect that they maintain an absolute predominance in all 
matters regarding ordinary legislation. They have never 
hesitated to reject year after year such Bills as they deemed 
unwise, and to amend as freely as they liked those which they 
accepted. The Workmen’s Compensation Bill® has been 
long delayed by the repeated refusal of the Upper House to 
accept the principle, or rather the details, of a measure 
which has been in force for long in England, and has been 
adopted in the other Colonies, not even with the exception 
* So they complained in 1908 of public works expenditure appearing in 
30 ordinary Appropriation Bill which they could not amend ; Legislative 
Council Debates, 1908, Pp. 622; and cf. Chronicle, December 26, 1908. 
? See House of Assembly Debates, 1910, p. 1277; 1911, pp. 104-10, 
192-4, 222-32, 251-60, 267-73, 
* Ct, House of Assembly Debates, 1910, pp. 209, 255 seq.; 1911, p. 100; 
and see Adelaide Advertiser, December 2, 1910.