CHAPTER IX 



THE GENESIS OF THE STATION 



The first plan or system — and very unsystematic it 

 was — consisted in the free granting of Cro^\ai lands in 

 absolute possession. No otlier had been devised, or 

 even thought of. The conquering or annexing Power 

 had grasped and taken the fee -simple of, as the lawyers 

 would say — the absolute property in and rights over — 

 the whole territory of what was then denominated New 

 South Wales. Having taken it without any reserva- 

 tions, and kept it without incurring any other than 

 moral obhgations to the indigenous population, it felt 

 free to confer it on all of its subjects who seemed likely 

 to use it to advantage. This first stage of colonial 

 land-ownership did not repeat that stage in European 

 history, when a conquering Power possessed itself of 

 all the rights which the overlords already had. When 

 Norman William conquered England, he did not take 

 from the English farmers or landholders all their land. 

 He simply took from their overlords all the rights that 

 inhered in those who were afterwards called seigneurs. 

 It was consequently these that he granted. In New 

 South Wales, on the contrary, the English conquerors 

 acquired, of course, by force, the absolute possession 

 of the soil, and it was this kind of possession — with 

 necessary reservations on the part of the Crown — that 

 was now conceded to the grantees. No other was 

 practicable, for very few of the grantees were in a 

 position to pay for them. On no other terms would 

 the grantees have cultivated their allotments. All 



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