The parliament of a colony, especially one so small in population as Tasmania, can have in general only petty local questions to discuss. With no foreign relations, such as an altogether independent state has, and therefore no foreign policy, and generally with no clearly defined or special domestic policy either, there are no opposing principles for opposite parties to adopt. The result is that, so far from agreeing, they divide with tenfold greater hostility and rancour on personal and private grounds. It is sometimes difficult, when a government is defeated and resigns, for the Governor to know whom to send for to form a new Ministry. The plan at first resorted to, of sending for the proposer of the hostile motion, might not improbably result in obtaining a new Premier with no other claim or qualification for the office than his hostility to his predecessor. An instance of personal and party feeling overriding plain public justice occurred some years ago, in the case of one of the judges—with this one exception always a good set—who endeavoured to borrow money of a suitor pending the decision on his case. The suitor refused and made the scandal known; whereupon the judge, fearing the consequences, pleaded ill-health and applied for a retiring ill-health pension in the ordinary way. This the government, under the circumstances, refused; but afterwards, finding that the judge would not voluntarily resign without a pension, and that his partisans and friends in the House were too strong to allow a vote of the House summarily dismissing him to pass, they were compelled to bring in and pass a special Act granting him the full amount of the pension asked for, as the only means of getting rid of him from the bench. Shortly afterwards, his alleged bad health notwithstanding, he got himself elected and took his seat in the House. The pension, of course, he still continues to enjoy.