AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRA'JI-ll 







pound per acre, in order to provide a revenue for immigration purposes, for it was 

 held that the land should pay the expense of bringing an adequate population to 

 Australia. When these regulations were formulated, the squatters lost no time in 

 completing their organization, and it was at this stage that the term "squatter" first 

 began to be applied to the graziers in the sense it now bears. The Association drew 

 up a schedule of claims, which their representatives began thenceforth to advocate, 

 embracing a request for regular leases of their runs, a fixed tenure, and the right of 

 pre-emption. The agitation was carried on vigorously. The squatters carried their influence 

 to England, and, in so short a space of time as lay between the formation of the Associa- 

 tion and 1846, they succeeded in getting their claims granted and confirmed by Orders 

 in Council. In 1861, Sir John Robertson passed his Measure in the Parliament of New 

 South \Vales providing for free selection before survey ; and another for re-establishing 

 the pastoral tenure ; and in these two Measures the two great divisions into which the 

 pastoral interests of the Australian colonies class themselves the squatters and the free 

 selectors may be said to have received their legal charter. 



The land legislation of Sir John Robertson made a great change. Hitherto the 

 laws had expressed the wisdom of Downing Street ; now they were made to express 

 the views and feelings of practical settlers, and especially those of the class of small 

 settlers. The Government of the day had not taken much pains to create a body of 

 yeomanry-farmers, and when large grants ceased to be made, and all land was sold by 

 auction, the man who wished to buy a small farm too often found himself over-bid by 

 the squatter on whose run he wished to pitch his tent. To relieve him from this 

 competition, the new law dispensed, in the case of the genuine settler, with auction and 

 even with survey, and also with cash payment. He was allowed to settle where he 

 chose, excepting only on land specially reserved, but he had to mark his boundary in 

 conformity with certain very simple regulations. He was required to pay in cash only 

 five shillings an acre, and he had unlimited credit for the balance, but in return for these 

 privileges he contracted to reside on the land for three years, and to improve it to the 

 extent of a pound an acre. He could transfer only to some one who would take up 

 the conditions. The squatter, on the other hand, lost his general right of pre-emption, 

 but retained the right to purchase one square mile, and any land on which he had put 

 more than forty pounds' worth of improvements. After an experience of several years, 

 this system was found to have developed many consequences which were not intended. 

 The two classes of settlers were brought somewhat into antagonism, the selectors often 

 taking up land simply to be bought off, while the squatters tried to protect themselves 

 by heavy purchases of land at auction, by using their station-hands as dummy-selectors, 

 and by buying up and using the land-orders granted to volunteers for their military 

 service. Alterations have been made from time to time to try to deal with the complaints 

 that arose. The last law divides each run into two parts, giving the squatter a secure 

 tenure of one portion at an increased rental, and leaving the rest, at an annual lease, 

 open to free selection. The auction sale of rural lands has at the same time been 

 limited to 200,000 acres a year. Even this change does not give universal satisfaction, 

 and the land question, in its various phases, continues to be, as it has been from the 

 first, and promises long to remain, a puzzle and a perplexity to politicians. 



