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1 Jury, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 71 
they do so, they should be made to forfeit their titles. That is the only thing 
that will stop the monopolising of land. If such a provision is introduced 
speculators will not take the land up, because, with the Chinamen barred, they 
will get no one to give them any rent for it. 
Mr. J. Scantan (Helidon): In our district there is a creek which in times 
of wet weather is well supplied with water, but in anything like a drought it 
gets pretty dry. There are places init, however, where springs are continuously 
running; and the point I which to emphasise is, that our roads and water 
reserves should be so marked off that it would be impossible for such springs to 
be monopolised by private individuals, or for divisional boards or Ministers for 
Lands to dispose of them. In our district, interested parties have managed to 
have a very desirable reserve closed and finally alienated. The result is that 
twenty or thirty selectors cannot get near to where the permanent water exists ; 
and I fancy if Mr. Murray-Prior had added something of this nature to his 
otherwise very able paper, I think it would have improved it. 
Mr. T, E. Coutson (Rosewood): It seems that we all like to be eloquent 
about our own districts, and I may first of all say that I come from a district 
that is second to none in Queensland. ‘The land is second to none, and there is 
also a very big variety of it. There is not the slightest doubt that Nature in 
nearly every country has provided for the people of that country, and, so far as 
this great State of ours is concerned, we have land admirably adapted for settling 
teeming millions of population and feeding them. We have no land, 
unfortunately, to let to Chinamen in Rosewood. There was once plenty of 
available land there, but men of capital would not touch it because it would have 
cost so much to clear it. There were men to take it .wp, however, and these 
were men whose only capital was their axes, a bag of flour, and a gun to shoot 
a wallaby to make a bit of soup with. Many of these men have now nice little 
banking accounts. We have a big country; andif all had done as I did, we 
would now have a big population. Nature has provided in this country for a 
teeming population to live upon the land, and what should be impressed upon 
the Government is, the necessity for setting apart good land for agricultural 
settlement—land fit for a man to make a living from. Every one of my boys 
tells me, if ever they take up a bit of land, that it must be good. 
Mr. A. Morrar (Radford): This morning you saw a delegate on this 
platform giving you a great big rigmarole of a paper on cheap money. The 
same delegate is now before you advocating cheap land. Jam very pleased 
with my colleague’s paper on land settlement. After all we have a great 
estate, called the Crown lands of Queensland, that do not belong to King 
Edward VII., the Duke of York, nor yet to the Minister for Agriculture. 
They belong to youand me. Why should we not have them? We have got 
a lot of men who have nice little properties, and who put a sort of fictitious 
price upon them. Supposing your property comes to be worth a fine big sum, 
what the better are you? If you sell your property for, say, £3,000, you have 
only got to go away and buy another so that you are as you were. I have got 
a bit of property, which Mr. Mahon tells me is worth £10 an acre. There are 
700 acres of it, so, if sold, that would mean about £7,000. But that would 
not benefit me. I would only have to buy another, or else leave the country 
and go home to Scotland. J am afraid the latter is what I would do. It is 
absurd trying to boom vur properties. 
Mr. L. Moopy (Geraldton) : I shall confine my remarks on the question 
under discussion to that part dealing with divisional boards. Mr. Murray- 
Prior recommends the placing of reserves about every 8 miles along the main 
stock routes, these reserves to be handed over to the divisional boards to 
fence and keep clear of stray stock, a small fee being charged for the grazing 
of travelling stock. I think there would be difficulty experienced in getting 
the boards to fence such reserves. Ina great many districts their means are . 
very limited, and it would be a serious item to have to fence in reserves every 
8 miles through some of the large Western districts. I will admit that this is 
a question that Mr. Murray-Prior probably understands better than any other 
