THE QUACK AND THE LAND. 47 



It was all loss ; and there was no gain which 

 might not have been won by other means. I 

 think it is a classic example of political quackery 

 in dealing with the land. And it all happened 

 less than a century ago in a new and democratic 

 community. There were no ancient wrongs to 

 be righted, no dukes to arouse class feeling. 

 But there was to appeal to that unalterable, 

 ever-recurring popular instinct that " the land 

 is the people's " — an instinct to which the 

 vociferous (with roguish or merely foolish intent) 

 of all ages and all civilizations can appeal with 

 almost any kind of wild scheme. Perhaps, if 

 the pastoralists of Australia had met the " Free 

 Selection Campaign " with more suavity and 

 less contempt, with argument rather than abuse, 

 if they had been more politic and less over- 

 bearing, this sordid story would never have 

 had to be told. The moral of it is that the 

 land quack, and the mental conditions which 

 make the land quack successful, we have always 

 with us, and they must be dealt with patiently. 



counties. Between the 1901-11 census period population decreased 

 in 43 of these counties. The settlers tempted out into remote dis- 

 tricts drift back nearer to the big centres of population, in spite of all 

 the efforts of the Government to help them with railways, etc. 



