xtra votes for property and university degrees or
learned professions to cheek the too great advance of democracy. I was
prepared to trust the people; and Mr. Hare was also confident that, if
all the people were equitably represented in Parliament, the good would
be stronger than the evil. The wise would be more effectual than the
foolish. I do not think any one whom I met took the matter up so
passionately as I did; and I had a feeling that in our new colonies the
reform would meet with less obstruction than in old countries bound by
precedent and prejudiced by vested interests. Parliament was the
preserve of the wealthy in the United Kingdom. There was no property
qualification for the candidate in South Australia, and we had manhood
suffrage.

South Australia was the first community to give the secret ballot for
political elections. It had dispensed with Grand Juries. It had not
required a member of either House to stand a new election if he
accepted Ministerial office. Every elected man was eligible for office.
South Australia had been founded by doctrinaires, and occasionally a
cheap sneer had been levelled at it on that account; but, to my mind,
that was better than the haphazard way in which other colonies grew.
When I visited Sir Rowland Hill he was recognised as the great post
office reformer. To me he was also one of the founders of our province,
and the first pioneer of quota representation. When I met Matthew
Davenport Hill I respected him because he tried to keep delinquent boys
out of gaol, and promoted the establishment of reform schools; but I
also was grateful to him for suggesting to his brother the park lands
which surround Adelaide, and give us both beauty and health. To Col.
Light, who laid out the city so well, we owe the many open spaces and
squares; but he did not originate the idea of the park lands. Much of
the work of Mr. Davenport Hill and of his brother Frederick I took up
later with their niece (Miss C. E. Clark), and their ideas have been
probably more thoroughly carried out in South Australia than anywhere
else; but in 1865 I was learning a great deal that bore fruit
afterwards.

I fear it would make this narrative too long if I went into detail
about the interesting people I met. Florence and Rossamund Davenport
Hill introduced me to Miss Frances Power Cobbe, whose "Intuitive
Morals" I admired so much. At Sir Rowland Hill's I met Sir Walter
Crofter, a prison reformer; Mr. Wells, Editor