THE KNELL OF THE SQUATTER 331 



their farms speedily and without cost. In 1860 a step 

 towards this result had been taken. An able minister 

 of the squatter class, Sir John Hay (no relative of the 

 recent millionaire) carried in the Legislative Assembly 

 a resolution to the effect that selection might be made 

 after survey. Concession though it was, the victory 

 was momentary. A dissolution of Parliament ensued, 

 and Robertson carried the elections on his own plat- 

 form. Free selection before Survey, the war-cry of the 

 new party, was to be the gateway to universal occupa- 

 tion of the untilled soil. The bill was again sent up 

 to the Legislative Council, which had previously rejected 

 it. The squatting majority still dominant there was 

 prepared again to reject it, when the Government 

 resolved to swamp the Council by placing in it twenty- 

 one new members who would more than counter- 

 balance the majority of twenty that was opposed to it. 

 The Governor, Sir John Young, yielded to the pressure 

 put upon him, but the Council would not yield. The 

 faithful Abdiels of squatterdom, with their honoured 

 President at their head, resigned their seats in a body 

 and left the Council in a dramatic manner. The Duke 

 of Newcastle, then Secretary for the Colonies, con- 

 demned the Governor, but did not dare to exercise the 

 royal veto, and in 1861 the bill became law. 



The accounts given of its Avorking and its effects 

 are various and, indeed, contradictory. The historian 

 of the squatters, reflecting their prejudices and their 

 beliefs, damned it comprehensively. " It poisoned 

 the springs of Government, defrauded the revenue, was 

 the agent of demoralising the people, and scattered 

 them in places remote from production and subject to 

 evil influences." * 



Dr. Lang, the inveterate opponent of the squatters, 

 speaks of the Act in very different terms. He describes 

 it as a piece of " salutary legislation" and as having 

 effected a beneficent revolution in New South Wales. 



In certain districts, as even the spokesmen of the 

 * RusDEN, History of Australia, iii. 540 (first edition). 



