XV. 
rights as an encouragement to permanent residence and interest in the country. 
Governor Gipps, on the contrary, among other innovations, proposed, at a time when 
the colony was already in financial difficulties, to make the purchase of a certain 
proportion of the land held compulsory at the end of each successive five years’ lease, 
and to raise the upset price of Crown lands from five shillmgs per acre to the 
prohibitive one of twenty shillings, his idea being to restrict the sale of Crown lands 
until they could be sold at the price named, or as he says in one of his despatches to 
the Secretary of State, “I am an advocate for selling at a comparatively high price 
or not at all.” 
The troubles of the squatter arising from this source and having relation to the 
tenure of the land, however, were not all that at this time hampered his progress. 
Drought and bad seasons, intense commercial depression wide-spread and deep in 
the years 1842-4, during which stock of all kinds became almost unsaleable and 
advances of money were only procurable upon ruinous terms of interest and security, 
together with outbreaks of scab, catarrh, and anthrax among the flocks, supervened 
and well-nigh completed the measure of the squatter’s woes. 
A timely rise in the price of wool at the end of 1844, and the newly introduced 
practice of boiling down sheep for the tallow obtainable, mended matters somewhat; 
and finally the discovery of gold in 1851 with the much needed influx of population 
and consequent demand for stock of all kinds, helped the squatters out of their 
troubles and placed the colony shortly afterwards in the enjoyment of a full tide of 
prosperity. 
The material welfare of the Australian colonies at the present time has a three- 
fold souree—pastoral pursuits, agriculture, and mineral wealth, of which the first is 
not only the oldest, for as Dr. Lang says “ Every Australian colony was necessarily 
in the first stage of its existence a pastoral colony,” but still is the greatest source of 
wealth. It is not surprising therefore, that, as the squatters were the wealthiest 
and most powerful section of the community and included in their ranks men of good 
birth and education, they should have aspired to be represented in the Councils of the 
country. Such matters as land-tenure, the opening up of the country by roads and 
in due course the construction of railways, and others of cognate importance requiring 
legislative enactments underlay the great pastoral industry upon which the welfare 
of the country at first mainly depended and the expansion of which, reinforced by the 
discovery of gold, was so largely instrumental in laying “the foundation of an empire 
on the sweepings of British gaols.” 
Time has materially softened down, if it has not entirely extracted any sting 
from, the fierce denunciations with which Australian squatters as a class were assailed 
in some quarters only about forty years ago. No doubt there have been squatters 
