124 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



stood at gd. a Ib. In December, 1816, the Governor, finding 

 that the herds and flocks were greatly increased, reduced the 

 price to 6d. from the 24th of the following January. 1 Tenders 

 which had been made at gd. were declared null and void and 

 new tenders at 6d. called for. 2 Riley described the results of 

 this measure in iSig. 3 "I consider," he said, "that they (the 

 settlers) have also suffered severely by the reduction of the 

 price of meat ... by which the property of every stock-holder 

 in the Colony was most considerably lowered, so much so, that 

 many settlers, when sued to pay their debts to Government for 

 cattle purchased at 28 per head, were incapable of finding a 

 market for them at 10; it was a measure that injured the 

 property of every individual in the Colony. . . ." 



In 1818 the price was further reduced to 5d. a Ib., and 

 Macquarie congratulated himself on the savings he was making 

 for the Government. These amounted to no less than ,9,000 

 for the year ; but it is doubtful whether, when the effects on the 

 settlers are taken into account, the real saving amounted to 

 anything at all. It was, as Riley said, " a very expensive 

 economy ".* Macquarie's own theory differed rather from his 

 practice. Thus he wrote in 1819 : 5 "Such is the overruling 

 influence that this Government must necessarily possess in 

 the market, that were a Governor to order the price of animal 

 food to be reduced from its present rate of 5d. per Ib. to 2d., 

 and that of wheat from los. to 5s. a bushel, I have no doubt 

 the grazier and cultivator would furnish the stores so long as 

 their present stock on hand would enable them ; but such would 

 be the inhuman policy of doing so, that in less than two years' 

 time there would not be a bushel of wheat grown for the supply 

 of the stores, nor further attention paid to the increase of herds 

 or flocks, and the country, so far as it depended on the free 

 population, would be abandoned and once more become a 

 desert." 



As it was, Bigge thought the cattle were being slaughtered 

 in too great a number, and that the herds were not increasing 

 rapidly enough. The great number of convicts arriving in 



J S.G., z8th December, 1816. "S.G., i8th January, 1817. 



3 C. on G., 1819. Ibid. 



8 D. 26, i2th June, 1819. R.O., MS. 



