THE QUACK AND THE LAND. 43 



sary, that might have been easily effected with 

 little or no disturbance of general conditions. 

 There were ample other lands to offer as lease- 

 holds to the dispossessed. But, alas, there was 

 no great political campaign possible on the basis 

 of arranging good areas for 5,000 or 10,000 

 farmers. There was, however, fine politics in 

 a raging, tearing denunciation of the pastoralist 

 as a tyrant, a despoiler of the widow and the 

 orphan, an oppressor of the poor, a monopolist 

 of the land, a villain without rights and outside 

 the law. The pastoralists were few in number. 

 They were as a class the most capable and 

 courageous of the community (it needed both 

 courage and capacity to carve a sheep run or a 

 cattle run out of the wilderness), and, therefore, 

 they were not the most popular. (It is the 

 option which faces us all, I suspect, in old as 

 well as new communities, to be good-tempered, 

 easy-going, and popular, or to do things and 

 arouse antagonism.) In a whirlwind of popular 

 passion the Land Acts of 1861 were passed, and 

 the people had the land opened to them. 



In a very complete sense they now had the 

 land, these people of New South Wales. There 



