THE SQUATTERS' BATTLE 135 



seemed menaced) and the rights of the people. Meetings 

 were held in Melbourne and Sydney and elsewhere. 

 The storm, for such small communities, was loud and 

 threatening. 



Though of iron mould, Gipps bent before the blast. 

 He privily communicated to a member of the Council 

 certain modified, indeed new proposals. Settlers buying 

 their homesteads would secure thereby undisturbed 

 possession of their runs for eight years. A second 

 purchase would secure another eight years' tenancy, 

 and so on. Rights of the Crown over the runs, he ad- 

 mitted, were still absolute, but he laid stress on the 

 security derived from the character of the British 

 Government, which would not arbitrarily deprive any 

 squatter of his run. 



This concession but slightly appeased the rage of the 

 great landholders. Ben Boyd, holding 388,000 acres, 

 and paying as a quit-rent what Mr. Mantalini would 

 have termed " the ridiculous sum " of £80, presided 

 over a protesting meeting. Robert Lowe, who at one 

 time was a henchman and nominee of the Governor, 

 strongly opposed the Regulations, doubtless finding 

 in the squatters his most remunerative clients. Lord 

 Stanley loyally stood by the Governor. He refused 

 to acknowledge the doctrine that an absolute pro- 

 perty in their runs inhered in the occupiers. Still, he 

 would communicate to the runholders a feeling of 

 security by granting them leases for an eight-years' 

 occupation of their runs. 



Not only did the combatants win their cause ; they 

 accomplished a far greater result. They succeeded 

 in annulling the regulations of Sir George Gipps, but 

 they also made the triumph of the squatters' cause a 

 certainty. It was largely through the influence of 

 Lowe, Wentworth modestly said, that the pastoralists 

 were granted fixity of tenure and rights of pre-emption. 

 Lowe and Lang aided in bringing about that reign of 

 the shepherd kings they were the first to deplore. 



