COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 



'39' 



ing of the people was, under the circumstances, the one: thing necessary to transform a 

 convict camp into a commercial community. 



The early squatters were essentially a nomadic race. Like the early patriarchs, they 

 moved on with their Hocks and herds as soon as the country grew too small to hold 

 them, or when the land they temporarily occupied, without tenure or title, was sold by 

 the Government to whoever cared to pay the price for it. The graziers themselves wen- 

 willing enough to buy or rent the land when they found it suitable for their purpose, 

 but the tendency of the officialism of the day was to discourage squatting, and we frequently 

 find the complaint reiterated by the squatter that the Government would not allow 

 him to buy, or rent, or obtain a tenure. As time went on, and the pastoralists acquired 

 wealth and its consequent influence and power, however, their claims began to force 

 themselves on official attention, though not yet in the way the squatters themselves 

 would have preferred to see. Governor Bourke made the first step in this direction, by 



acknowledging the 

 legal existence of the 

 squatter to the extent 

 represented by a ten- 

 pound license, though 

 this tax was imposed 

 in the first instance in 

 order to give the Gov- 

 ernor power to with- 

 hold permission to 

 go upon the land for 

 squatting purposes, in 

 cases where he may 

 have deemed it neces- 

 sary. Kach license 

 covered only a certain 

 area, so that as the 

 limit was extended the 

 squatter had to get a 

 fresh license. Later 

 on, a police tax was 

 imposed on the graziers 

 at their own request. 

 In iS4 v v the Pastoral 

 Association for the pro- 

 tection of squatting 

 interests was first 



A SHEARER "KNOCKING DOWN'" HIS CHEQUE, 



spoken of in Sydney, when Sir George Gipps passed some regulations which the pastoralists 

 regarded as pressing on their interests unduly. In addition to the license fee and stock 

 assessment, the squatter was now to be compelled to purchase, at stated periods, whether he 

 wanted it or not, three hundred and twenty acres of land at the minimum price of one 



