THE TELEGRAM FROM MELBOURNE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3355, 17 April 1868, Page 2

THE TELEGRAM FROM MELBOURNE.

The one day's later telegraphic news from Melbourne, brought by the ' Prince Alfred' yesterday, is of considerable importance. The telegram states that a meeting -was held in Melbourne pledging the Darling Grant only in the Appropriation Bill, and refusing to recognise Downing-street interference. Without further information we cannot, of course, tell what weight the meeting referred to is likely to carry with it ; but the fact that the matter was considered of sufficient importance to be specially telegraphed to Sydney, shows that this was not a mere hole-and-corner meeting ; and there is no doubt that the McCulloch party, who favour the tacking of the Darling Grant to the Appropriation Bill, have a large majority in the country. This party has been obliged to resign the Ministerial benches in consequence of despatches recently received by the Governor, Sir H. Manners-Sufcton, from the Duke of Buckingham, intimating that the Home Government did not consider he would be doing right in again recommending an Appropriation Bill which included the proposed grant to Sir C. Darling. This is what is meant by " refusing to recog- " nise Downing-street interference ;" and an agitation of the kind was precisely what might have been anticipated in Victoria if the Home Government thought it necessary to interfere in the colonial affairs. "We sincerely hope that the excitement will pass away without any serious difficulty, but we have fears that the meeting referred to will act like a match in a barrel of gunpowder, and we should not be surprised to hear by the next mail that there was a general movement in Victoria to advocate a disregard of the late despatches from the English Government.