THE FIRST GREAT PASTORALIST 53 



The aid McArthur desiderated was of another sort. 

 He proposed the creation of a new class of landholders. 

 These were to have estates of at least 10,000 acres, 

 with contiguous reserves of equal extent — evidently, 

 to be available for future occupation. Such a body 

 would accumulate wealth, and might develope into an 

 aristocracy. Such a pastoral class would oppose ever 

 multiplying and enlarging, an effectual barrier to the 

 threatening democracy. 



Grantees of large estates, he held, should be com- 

 pelled to fulfil certain conditions, and should hold those 

 estates on the tenure of scientific breeding. Addressing 

 Governor Brisbane, McArthur undertook " to devise 

 methods by which the most respectable class of pro- 

 prietors might be excited to more strenuous exertions 

 to increase their flocks and improve the wool to the 

 utmost degree of fineness. . . ." He had still another 

 plan. He did, indeed, suggest to Commissioner Bigge 

 the employment of convicts in agricultural and pastoral 

 pursuits ; but the measure he most strongly urged was 

 the introduction of a large body of settlers. He con- 

 demned the class that had hitherto in good part immi- 

 grated to the unpopular Colony. " Adventurers without 

 capital," he maintained, " retard all improvement and 

 sink ever deeper into poverty and distress." All new 

 settlers should be " men of character," possessing both 

 skill and capital. Such men would soon become wealthy 

 and form an aristocracy. Years before Wakefield de- 

 vised means towards a like end McArthur aimed, by 

 arbitrarily hmiting Government grants of land, and 

 limiting also the assignment of convicts as servants, 

 to accompHsh the same result. His immediate success 

 was not encouraging, but he worked for the future. 

 Men of the stamp he desiderated dribbled rather than 

 flocked to New South Wales in later years, but they 

 came, and among them were not a few who would have 

 reflected honour on any State in Cliristendom. 



McArthur's personal immediate success was not 

 small. For one bale of wool sent by him to England 



