THE ECONOMICS OF THE STATION 235 



The lately-wealthy capitalist goes out, like the grizzled 

 pioneer after a life of toil, a beggar, and has to commence 

 life afresh.* 



Such experiences may seem to give the unfortunate 

 squatter some ground for believing, what more impartial 

 persons gravely assert, that the banks and money- 

 lending firms have always secured the lion's share of 

 squatting profits. Yet it should be remembered that 

 banks were themselves involved in the financial ruin 

 they were instrumental in bringing upon others. They 

 passed their dividends, or were " reconstructed " in a 

 manner that left their shareholders stricken for long 

 periods, or they faded out of existence. Only twenty 

 years ago the strongest bank in New Zealand, and a 

 perfectly solvent bank, as it has since abundantly proved, 

 came down with a crash that beggared its proprietors. 

 A few years later bank after bank in New South Wales 

 and Victoria put up their shutters, and the passer-by 

 saw their closed doors, while he read, with a pang, that 

 they had " suspended payment." The banks have, none 

 the less, played a large and beneficent part as " makers 

 of Australasia," and especially in connection with the 

 pastoral interest. Speaking one evening with his cus- 

 tomary violence at a college table, Ruskin blurted out 

 that " all bankers should be hanged." Nothing in the 

 early history of Australia is more striking than the 

 absolutely necessary rise of a banking-system. The 

 principal superintendent of convicts acted in his private 

 capacity as a banker and a moneylender, and this may 

 be considered the germ of the now-important Government 

 Savings Bank. But in 1817 a private bank, the Bank 

 of New South Wales, came into existence, and both its 

 genesis and evolution were closely connected with the 

 pastoral industry. 



Manj'^ of the earlier squatters, who had been indebted 

 to merchants or to the banks, either for the means of 

 purchasing or for the means of carrying on, had to sur- 

 render their stations, and became penniless. Others, 



* BoLF BoLDBEWOOD, A SquattcT^a DreaWn chs. xv, xvi. 



