TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 975 



of administration. Ultimately, however, both settlements were brilliantly auccess- 

 ful, and are indebted to Wakefield for the fine stamp of their early colonists. 



A land boom in South Australia showed at the outset the difficulty of fixing a 

 sufficient uniform price which should be low enough in normal times not to check 

 genuine settlement and yet high enough to be an obstacle to land speculation in 

 periods of inflation. This difficulty no fixed price could fully meet. As a rule, 

 the price was fixed too low rather than too high. 



Other drawbacks to the system were the frauds, blackmailing, and class 

 hatreds bred by the ' free selection' on pastoral runs. The best example of this was 

 found in the working of the Robertson Free Selection Act in New South Wales. 

 The land laws of the seven Colonies are a long series of expedients to prevent — (1) 

 speculative purchase for re-sale ; (2) the locking-up of lands in great pastoral 

 estates. Up to 1875 the amount of success they had was small ; since then it has 

 been much greater. In Austraha the laws chiefly endeavour to gain these ends, 

 limiting the area any one man can buy by insisting on hond-jide occupation by the 

 purchaser of each piece and on his working at the improvement thereof or other- 

 wise forfeiting it. 



New Zealand goes a step further, and retains the fee simple of the land, leasing 

 it out on a perpetual lease at a quit rent subject to conditions as to area, residence, 

 and transfer. 



The democratic party in the Colonies have been taught to condemn Wakefield. 

 But in my opinion they have done him great injustice. As between reckless land 

 grants or imfimited purchasing at low prices and his system of a sufficient price 

 the choice must be in his favour. The history of the Colonies is largely a story 

 of economic mischief, wrought, not because land was too dear, but because it was 

 too cheap. Superior as some of the systems now slowly evolved are to Wakefield's, 

 the knowledge which has built them up has been dearly purchased. 



In 1891, in New South Wales, 679 persons held about half the land alienated. 



In New Zealand 584 persons held more than half. 



In South Australia 1,283 persons owned half the alienated soil. 



In the three Colonies 1,255 persons held 35,000,000 acres. 



Thus the agrarian question in Australasia is, and is likely to remain, the source 

 of acute class feelins:. 



