132 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



the patrician of the State, became the chief collective 

 power in New South Wales. Such was the outcome of 

 a mere claim to a constructive title or pre-emptive right 

 in respect of pastures held under license. 



The making and the conceding of the claim were the 

 beginning of woes. The battle resembled the struggle 

 between the great fief-holders of England and the 

 Crown ; and the steps by which the feudal chieftains 

 emancipated themselves from their obligations to their 

 suzerains and acquired an absolute property (as absolute 

 as ever British law allows it to be made) in their granted 

 and their hereditary estates, was a rehearsal of the 

 struggle between the run-holders of New South Wales, 

 claiming property in their runs, and the Government and 

 the people. 



Towards the end (December 19) of 1840 Governor Sir 

 George Gipps luminously explained the situation to 

 Lord John Russel, then Secretary for the Colonies. He 

 described the licensed occupiers, or squatters, and 

 plainly differentiated them from the American squatters. 

 They were often gentlemen of good family, officers of 

 the army or navy, or graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, 

 and they had always some means, while some of them 

 were wealthy. They did not yet claim (if Gipps was 

 right) to have a secure possession of their stations, nor 

 did they assert any right of pre-emption. They knew 

 that their lands would eventually be taken from them, 

 or that they would have to pay an advanced price to 

 purchase them, but they believed that, as the country 

 was gradually thrown open to occupation, one district 

 after another, in the scramble they would have at least 

 an equal chance with other buyers at auction. On 

 one point especially he doubted the A\dsdom of the 

 regulations made earlier in the year. One of these 

 regulations permitted individuals to select special 

 surveys of 5,120 acres. Had it been perpetuated, it 

 would have definitively legalised the large runholder. 

 Now, it was decided that no more special surveys of 

 5,000 acres, equal to eight square miles, like some near 



