CHAPTER IX. 



THE LAND QUESTION AND THE EAELY SALES. 



THE land question, in the abstract, is one that looms large in the 

 journalistic literature of Australia, even to the present day. The 

 landless section of all communities have caught up with enthusiasm, 

 untempered by experience, the theories of the school popularised by 

 Henry George, and thousands of pens have sputtered indignantly 

 over the iniquities of landlords and the iniquity of land owning. 



It does not fall within the province of this history to deal with 

 a movement that has, so far, been limited to a vigorous expression 

 of opinion, and has failed in Victoria to secure any legislative sanction. 

 The land question it is here proposed to examine is the method by 

 which the Crown disposed of the territory it had annexed, prior to 

 the establishment of responsible Government. The modifications of 

 those conditions by subsequent Parliaments, marked as they were 

 by the steady growth of democratic principles, will be dealt with in 

 their proper sequence. 



In the early days of Australian settlement, it may be said that 

 land was given away with reckless prodigality for imaginary services, 

 and often as a personal favour by the Government for no service at 

 all. Ketired officials and pensioned officers in New South Wales 

 were endowed with estates which have enriched their descendants 

 " beyond the dreams of avarice ". Trading companies, in return for 

 the confidence shown in subscribing capital for their development, 

 received tracts of country in New South Wales and Van Diemen's 

 Land equal in area to some of the minor European principalities, 

 and in most cases this alienation has in the end been found a 

 serious hindrance to a more industrial settlement. After an experi- 

 ence of fully twenty- five years of haphazard favouritism, the British 

 Government began to realise that some order must be introduced 



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