LATER DEVELOPMENTS 305 



Inheritance plays a modest part in the landed evolution 

 of Australia. The well-known race-horse breeder, James 

 White, inherited some two or three stations ; to these 

 he added station after station. Most of the large land- 

 holders have personally acquired their land, and they 

 seldom transmit it " in its integrity." The Australian 

 spirit is hostile to the laws of entail and primogeniture, 

 and it is indifferent to the founding of a family. Few 

 of the early squatters, we are told, are now represented 

 by one or more of their descendants ; fewer still see 

 sons of theirs on their old stations. Yet the statement 

 must not be exaggerated. Quite a number of such 

 cases are to be found in all the provinces. In New South 

 Wales there are still families that hold the lands that 

 were granted by Macquarie and Brisbane eighty or 

 ninety years ago.* Some of the oldest pastoral families 

 in Queensland still hold the stations they first formed. 

 The Archers are yet on Gracemere, which they dis- 

 covered, and a Bracker still dwells at Waroo, on the 

 Darling Downs. Their sons come to town and success- 

 fully build up branches of commerce, like the Joneses 

 and Burdekins, Dangars and Morts, or live on their 

 inherited wealth. Nor do they themselves continue 

 faithful to their elected pursuits. They retire from 

 rural life to the comforts and luxuries of the cities, 

 and become legislators, like Brodribb, in New South 

 Wales, or accept political positions, like Ebden in 

 Victoria, or get snugly ensconced in an influential 

 permanent political office, like Rusden, or are given a 

 magistracy, like " Rolf Boldrewood." We do not blame 

 them ; it was a natural result ; and their colonies 

 gained by their ripe experience and trained abilities. 

 Of the dwellers in that lost Arcadia the dispersion could 

 hardly have been more complete. 



The evolution of landed property in Australia has 

 described the same cycle or geometrical curve, whether 

 we call it, with Dr. Gustave le Bon, a parabola or a 



* Ida Lee, The Coming of the British to Australia, p. 215. 

 Browne, Old Melbourne Memories, ch. xi. 



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