DAYS OF TRIAL 323 



tative character, and so far finality has not been reached ; one section 

 of the community contending that they are destructive of business 

 enterprise, and another that they fall far short of the desired State 

 Socialism, which is to render the working man's lot happy and con- 

 tented. Perhaps the most important measure discussed, apart from 

 the overwhelming demands on members' time by the Federal move- 

 ment, was the Land Act of 1898. It adopted, somewhat too late in 

 the day, the principle of classification, dividing the whole of the unsold 

 Crown lands into four qualities, ranging down to 10s. per acre for 

 the poorest, which could be paid for over twenty years at the rate 

 of 6d. per acre per annum. Certainly if the possession of a piece 

 of land was the key to prosperity, as was so repeatedly declared, 

 here was every facility for honest poverty to acquire an estate, in a 

 country where labourers were in demand at 7s. a day. For those 

 who could not command even this attenuated capital, there was 

 provision for perpetual leasing, at a rental varying from li to 24 

 per cent, on the Government valuation of the land, subject to re- 

 vision at the end of every ten years. Sale by auction, under certain 

 conditions, was revived, and finally power was taken for the Govern- 

 ment to repurchase alienated lands, and cut them up into farms for 

 the purpose of closer settlement in agricultural districts. Unfor- 

 tunately, the unsold areas were not very attractive, and, except in 

 the Mallee districts of the North-west, the provisions of the Act 

 did not tend to any large increase of settlement. 



The real cause of failure to realise expectations was, however, of 

 more serious bearing. It was to be found in the decreasing popu- 

 lation of the colony. During the last five years of the century, 

 although the totals shown by the Statist's returns disclosed a slight 

 actual increase, it did not amount to one-fourth of the natural increase 

 by births over deaths. In round figures it meant that from 1895 to 

 1900 Victoria lost 75,000, mainly able-bodied adults, by emigration, 

 whose place was taken for census purposes by a rather larger number 

 of children under the age of five years. This loss of its working 

 power, and the substitution of dependent consumers, was indeed the 

 one adverse factor in estimating the future prospects of the colony. 

 It has unhappily remained so in the opening years of the new State, 



and it is chiefly by breaking down the obstacles which have been. 



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