GRAZING LEASES IN AUSTRALASIA 



By A, C, VEATCH ^ 

 United States Geological Survey 



WHEN the United States had 

 but one white man to every 

 10,000 square miles of terri- 

 tory, the matter of grazing on the 

 pubHc lands was one of little impor- 

 tance, but as the population increased 

 and herds of cattle and flocks of sheep 

 did likewise, each man desired for his 

 stock the choicest of the range. As 

 the range was theoretically the prop- 

 erty of every man, it soon became for 

 practical purposes the property of the 

 man strong enough to hold it by force. 

 This inevitably led to the "stock wars" 

 which have disgraced many parts of the 

 West, where one man or group of men 

 fixed an arbitrary line, to cross which 

 meant not only the destruction of the 

 stock of the offender, but in many in- 

 stances his life. Everywhere every man 

 tried to crowd out the other fellow, 

 and each man, feeling insecure as to the 

 future, endeavored to get all the feed 

 from the range. The result was over- 

 grazing, and in many places lands that 

 had formerly produced grass several 

 feet high were stripped. 



These conditions have led many 

 thinking men to feel that the time has 

 arrived when there should be no "free 

 range," but that all grazing on public 

 lands should be done under grazing per- 

 mits or leases. In Australia there has 

 been the same development, only in 

 Australia they have quit talking about 

 government grazing leases on public 

 lands and have exhaustively tried this 

 system. 



Our consideration of the matter of 

 grazing leases in Australasia need not 



go back beyond the time when a prac- 

 ticable route was discovered through 

 the Asutralian Blue Ridge Ranges, and 

 the great grazing region of Australia 

 discovered. Prior to that time the set- 

 tlers had occupied a narrow ribbon 

 along the eastern shores of AustraHa, 

 limited on the east by the sea and on 

 the west by a formidable range of 

 mountains. When this passage was 

 finally discovered, adventurous spirits 

 sought the new country away from the 

 restraining government influences, and 

 initiated the long line of Australian 

 squatters ; just about the same time sim- 

 ilar spirits began the settlement of the 

 great sheep-producing region of Amer- 

 ica. This country in Australia, west of 

 the Blue Ridge Range, was, as in the 

 case of the American sheep country, a 

 semi-arid region, but, by reason of its 

 natural grasses, well adapted to sheep 

 growing, and in a few years the whole 

 range was covered with sheep. The 

 first comers . parceled this country 

 amongst themselves and informed the 

 new comers that the range was theirs 

 by right of possession. Attempts were 

 repeatedly made on the part of the gov- 

 ernment to initiate a system of leasing 

 from which a proper revenue would be 

 obtained, but without avail. The mini- 

 mum price of land in New South Wales 

 at this time was about $5 per acre, and 

 when an attempt was made in the legis- 

 lative assembly to reduce it, the sheep 

 men, by this time wealthy and of great 

 influence, opposed it with all their 

 strength. When the price of the land 

 was finally reduced and people could 



^Mr. Veatch was appointed by President Roosevelt as special commissioner to investigate 

 the laws of the Australasian states relative to the leasing of mineral lands, and spent six 

 months in Avistralia in 1908-9. Opportunity was thus afforded for incidentally investigat- 

 ing the general subject of land administration in the Australasian states. 



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