THE SQUATTER IN POLITICS 311 



and deans, canons and prebends ; its richest benefices 

 were in their gift and were often held by their sons. 

 As constituting the " great unpaid " class of honorary 

 magistrates, they administered a large portion of civil 

 and criminal justice. They controlled the government 

 of counties and parishes. They were the leaders of 

 society. The three classes or castes together — nobles, 

 county families, and clergy — constituted a paramount 

 oligarchy and possessed political, ecclesiastical, and 

 ceremonial supremacy. 



The parallel between two social states is never com- 

 plete, and assuredly there is no complete parallel between 

 Australia in its pastoral stage and aristocratic England 

 during the long and varied period of the paramountcy 

 of the great territorial landholders. Yet certain 

 characteristic features are alike in both, and in both 

 they arise from similarities of structure. We observe, 

 first, in AustraHa and New Zealand, the ascendancy 

 of the great landowners. So long as there was a strong 

 anti-squatting Governor, who resisted their sway with 

 the aid of the permanent high officials appointed by 

 the Crown, the large pastoral! sts necessarily remained 

 in opposition. Save for the occasional and accidental 

 alHance of an outsider, governed by public motives or 

 by pique, they, indeed, formed the Opposition. Such 

 was the state of things in Australia when Sir George 

 Gipps was king. His chief allies were Deas Thomson 

 and the officials ; the Opposition was led by Wentworth, 

 with the squatters at his back, and casually supported 

 by Lang. From the time of Brisbane — certainly from 

 the time when the Legislative Council was reconstructed 

 in 1843 and the elective element introduced, or a year 

 or two later, till 1861, when the squatting majority, 

 Avith the president at their head, dramatically walked 

 out of the chamber in order to make a dignified protest 

 against the Free Selectors bill, this element had the 

 upper hand, and virtually ruled New South Wales, 

 both through the legislature and the administration. 

 Some scattered references, where a detailed scrutiny 



