page_title: Graham Berry
section_title: Premier
hierarchical_section_title: Graham Berry / Political career / Premier
caption_attribution_description: English: scanned from a 1904 newspaper - said Adam Carr.
context_page_description: Sir Graham Berry, KCMG,
  Australian colonial politician, was the 11th Premier of Victoria. He was one of the most radical and colourful figures in the politics of colonial Victoria, and made the most determined efforts to break the power of the Victorian Legislative Council, the stronghold of the landowning class.
context_section_description: After the conservative interlude of the Francis and Kerferd governments, Berry assumed leadership of the liberals and became Premier and Treasurer in August 1875. But the liberal majority in the Assembly was unreliable, and in October the government's budget was defeated and Berry resigned. He asked the Governor, Sir George Bowen, for a dissolution, but was refused. He then campaigned across the colony in opposition to the third McCulloch government. At the May 1877 election, with the powerful backing of the Melbourne Age under David Syme, he won a huge liberal majority in the Assembly and returned to office at the head of a radical ministry.
  Berry's election manifesto proposed a punitive land tax designed to break up the squatter class's great pastoral properties – about 800 men at this time owned most of Victoria's grazing lands. He also advocated a high tariff to foster local manufacturing, which threatened to harm the importing and banking interests. He promised that if the Council, which was elected on a limited property-based franchise, blocked his program, it would be "dealt with according to its deserts." He described the Council as "a chamber which robs the people of the gold in the soil and the land God gave them." Given that there was no mechanism in the Victorian Constitution to override the Council, this was taken by conservatives to be a threat of revolutionary violence.
  Berry was a devoted constitutional liberal and had no plans for illegal measures. But the Councillors were sufficiently alarmed to pass a modified version of Berry's land tax bill, despite the urgings of the ultra-conservative former Premier Sir Charles Sladen to reject it outright. Berry, emboldened, next introduced a bill for the payment of members of the Assembly, which the trade unions were demanding so that working class candidates could be elected. Berry "tacked" the bill to the Appropriation Bill so that Council could not reject it without paralysing the Colony's finances. The Council resented this blackmail and at Sladen's urging declined to pass the bill, laying it aside.
  With the two Houses deadlocked, Berry embarked on a public campaign of "coercion" against the Council. "We coerce madmen", he said, "We put them into lunatic asylums, and never was anything more the act of madmen than the rejection of the Appropriation Bill." To bring matters to a head, on 8 January 1878 ("Black Wednesday") Berry's government began to dismiss public servants, starting with police and judges, arguing that without an Appropriation Bill they could not be paid. Berry next brought in a bill to strip the Council of its powers, which the Council of course rejected.
  For the next two years Berry clung to office while the colony was gripped with class conflict, including huge torchlit processions through Melbourne sponsored by The Age (pro-Berry) and The Argus (anti-Berry) – although, remarkably, there was almost no violence. Almost no legislation was passed and the administration ground to a halt as funds ran out. Berry's next tactic was to pass a bill through the Assembly stating that finance bills did not need to be passed by the Council, but would become law when passed by the Assembly. Bowen thought this bill unconstitutional, but signed it on Berry's advice. When the Colonial Office learned of this, Bowen was recalled and the bill overturned.
  Finally a compromise was reached, the payment of members bill was passed, and the sacked public servants were reinstated. Berry then introduced another bill to reduce the powers of the Council. When this was rejected, he decided to appeal directly to London. In 1879 Berry and another leading liberal, Charles Pearson, travelled to London to try to persuade the British Government to amend the Victorian Constitution in such a way as to reduce the power of the Council. Unfortunately for them, the Conservatives under Benjamin Disraeli were in power, and the Colonial Secretary, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, refused to agree to Berry's requests.
  Returning to Melbourne empty-handed, Berry was welcomed by huge crowds, but the 
caption: An obituary illustration of Sir Graham Berry
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