340 TBE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTtlALASlA 



and he knew that his monopol}^ was doomed. Everj' 

 landholder in New Zealand was willing to sell out, said 

 a New Zealand squatter in 1884, could he do so on bis 

 own terms. As a matter of fact a large number of 

 pastoral estates were freely surrendered to the New 

 Zealand Government from 1893 onwards, but there 

 came a time, perhaps ten or t^^elve years later, when 

 the squatters stood out against the Government valua- 

 tion, and refused to sell at the price assessed by boards 

 of valuators, or, in some cases, to sell at all. Then 

 entered the element of compulsion — what is sometimes 

 called, confiscation — or, somewhat later, the thumb- 

 screw of a smashing land-tax. 



The decline or the transformation of the squatter 

 has not even now been arrested. Not only has the 

 policy of the various Australasian Governments in 

 encouraging or providing for closer settlement necessarily 

 involved the breaking up of the larger estates. The 

 conception of the class of estates suited for breaking 

 up has been expanded. Land that, little more than 

 ten years ago, was reckoned to be sheep-country 

 because it was distant from a market, now ranks as 

 possibly agricultural land, suitable for small farms, 

 because lines of railway have been carried into the 

 interior, or because the new system of agriculture 

 imported from Cahfornia or others of the Western 

 States, and known as dry farming, has made the con- 

 version of pastures into wheat-fields practicable. A 

 panorama of golden grain now waves where lately there 

 were thousands of sheep in their pastures. 



Disintegration is now rapidly proceeding. Every 

 year settlement encroaches on the old runs. The 

 harvester drones and the plough furrows where stock 

 horses once galloped. Yet there is no diminution of 

 the number of sheep. The combined farms into which 

 a grazing run has been cut up yield as many sheep as 

 their predecessor station held. The old graziers are 

 co-operating with the movement. Many of them, 

 especially on tho Rivcrina, have broken up the whole 



