THE SQUATTER IN POLITICS 323 



consisted of the younger pastoralists ; and when con- 

 tingents of rifle-carrying cavahy, or of mounted infantry, 

 were demanded during the 8outh African war, the sons 

 of the squatters rushed to the fray. Their addiction to 

 the chase, which is "an image and a school of war," 

 was in the nature of military training. Their habitual 

 and often day-long riding in mustering cattle or in 

 pursuit of them was a no less valuable discipline. 



Pastoralists Avho have been accustomed to " annex " 

 whole provinces, like the overseer or the foreign count 

 who discovered Gippsland, in Victoria, or the discoverer 

 of (the Australian) Kimberley, or the first occupiers of 

 strath or plain, of river-flat or mountain-plateau, can 

 perceive no reason why their colony or country should 

 not annex an unappropriated island or territory in any 

 quarter of the globe. Thus, Australian and New Zealand 

 pastoraHsts in general heartily approved of the annexa- 

 tion of New Guinea by Queensland, while they urged 

 the acquisition of Fiji, Samoa, and New Caledonia, and 

 were ardent supporters of the South African war. In- 

 deed, men who need ever- wider stretches of grass lands 

 for their ever-increasing flocks and herds are of all the 

 most clamorous for the appropriation of waste lands. 

 The agriculturist can find relief under pressure in more 

 intensive cultivation of the soil, and the industriaUst 

 demands only space enough to build his factories upon 

 or to find the iron-ores and coal-mines that are the 

 breath of his life ; but the cry of the pastoralist is, like 

 that of the daughter of the horse-leech : " give, give ! " 



