THE SQUATTERS' VICTORY 137 



That was their ambition, and their habitual feeling 

 was one of possession. 



Rolf Boldrewood, in one of those very years (1844), 

 has well expressed the exultation of the runholder : — 



" Pride and successful ambition swelled my breast on that 

 first morning as I looked round on my run. My run ! my own 

 station ! How fine a sound it had, and how fine a thing it was 

 that I should have the sole occupancy — almost ownership — of 

 about 50,000 acres of ' wood and wold,' mere and marshland, 

 hill and dale. It was all my own — after a fashion — that is ; 

 I had but to receive my squatting license, under the hand of the 

 Governor of the Australias,* for which I paid ten pounds, and 

 no white man could in any way disturb, harass, or dispossess 

 me." t 



Their case had its strong points. It seemed a ter- 

 rible thing that men who occupied thousands of acres 

 with thousands of cattle and tens of thousands of sheep, 

 should be at the mercy of an outcry for the sale of any 

 portion of their land, and lack security of tenure. Fixity 

 of tenure, convertible into freehold by means of a right 

 of pre-emption, was their aim and their war-cry. They 

 scouted the rights of the Crown. They demanded that 

 the annual license-fee should be abolished or made 

 nominal ; that quit-rents should be waived or reduced ; 

 and that the control of the Crown lands should pass 

 into the hands of the Governor and the Legislative 

 Council, which should frame such leases as would give 

 security to occupiers. 



The clamour for security on the part of the squatters 

 was incessant. They asked that it should be made 

 impracticable for selectors to buy their runs, or any 

 considerable portion of them, over their heads. Was 

 it unreasonable ? Does not every tenant of a house, 

 in London, Sydney, or Christchurch, solicit an assurance 

 that some mean, grasping, or (it may be) vindictive 

 individual does not successfully tempt the cupidity or 

 unwisdom of his landlord by taking his house from him 

 by offering a higher rent ? And does he not desire 



* Sir C. FitzRoy was the first Governor-General of Australia. 

 I Old Melbourne Memories, ch. v. 



