NEW SOUTH WALES AND PARLIAMENT. 331 



It has been comparatively easy to show how autocracy 

 brought about its own peculiar difficulties, to see in particular 

 instances the difficulties of administration, of legislation and of 

 jurisdiction. The faults and follies of " personal " Government, 

 the gradual growth of political interest, the powerful sentiment 

 of budding nationality, all these are plainly written in the history 

 of the period. Criticism too of many sides of governmental 

 activity has been called for, and the lines of that criticism, and 

 the suggestion of alternative policy, have for the most part been 

 obvious enough. But, looking at the subject as a whole, the 

 task of criticism becomes infinitely greater. 



By the foundation of New South Wales the Government 

 offered a solution of the two problems of how to people a new 

 country and how to get rid of convicted criminals. The experi- 

 ment proved in the end a remarkably successful one, and it had 

 from the beginning one great advantage. The method placed 

 upon the Government .the responsibility for the welfare of the 

 prisoners and thus indirectly of the whole country, and for this 

 reason New South Wales received in its early years a greater 

 share of attention and revenue than any previous British Colony 

 at the time of its establishment. 



The introduction of free settlers was probably inevitable, but 

 their introduction gave a distinct character to the Colony's 

 development. The double enticement was held out to them of 

 free labour and free land. But in agriculture pure and simple 

 the convict labour was found to be inefficient, and it was thus 

 impossible to carry out the policy of granting land in small 

 holdings. The use of convict labour led directly to an increase 

 in pastoral farming, to the aggregation of small freeholds into 

 large sheep runs, and to an ever greater area of Crown grants. 

 Especially after 1821 the pastoralist with his thousands of acres 

 began to take the place of the farmer with his few hundred: 

 as the real instrument of colonial progress. Macquarie fought 

 against this tendency, trying to hold the small agriculturist, 

 emancipist or free, above the sheep-farmer, but he could not 

 (though he did his best) bring servile labour to an end, and 

 long as this lasted his attempts were bound to fail. 



The presence of a convict population, the growth 

 alist farming, and the increasing area of land granted away by 



