of State to the resolutions of 18461 was laid before the Council. The answer merely adhered to the former position.3 On the 28th the report of the new committee was presented.* It is extremely lengthy, and in its general features can best be described as one prolonged grumble. It fails to meet the main argument of Sir George Gipps and the Home government, and is valuable only for one suggestion, and for the evidence which it affords of the appearance of a feeling on two distinct points, one of which proved afterwards of some consequence. The committee point out that the high selling price of land, combined with the greater security recently given to the squatters, will tend to make the squatting interests so permanent and powerful as to be a source of danger to the community. No one being anxious to buy the squatting lands at £1 an acre, the squatters will remain undisturbed until they acquire a moral, if not a legal title to their lands, by prescription. The jealousy of the great squatters, now beginning to manifest itself, is clearly indicated by the report, which also betrays some ill-feeling against South Australia as the model colony, to gratify whose doctrinaire founders the price of land in New South Wales must be maintained at a prohibitive price.5

After this report, upon which no decided action seems to have been taken, there was apparently a lull in the storm, broken only by the presentation of occasional petitions." The report was duly sent home, and on the 22d May 1849 the answer of the Secretary of State arrived. Earl Grey stands by his former position, maintaining that the experience of Canada and Western Australia, where unrestricted land alienation has been allowed, proves clearly the superiority of the restrictive system, pointing out that the reduction in the amount of the Crown land sales in later years has only been natural and perhaps desirable, as private individuals take the place of the Government in the land market, and hinting that 2 Votes and Proceedings, 1847, vol. i. p. 215. 4 Ibid. p. 219.

1 Ante, p. 101.

3 Copy in ibid. p. 507. 5 Report on Votes and Proceedings, 1847, vol. ii. p. 513. (It was suggested that a reduction of the minimum upset price in N. S. Wales would have drawn away immigration from South Australia.)

6 E.g. 29th Sept. 1847, Liverpool, Votes and Proceedings, 1847, vol. i. p. 731. 25th April 1848, Queanbeyan, 1848, p. 395.

24th Nov. 1848, Yass, Volume of Australian Papers, 1844-1850.

7 Votes and Proceedings, 1849, vol. i. p. 16.

CHAP. XI

COMMONAGE RIGHTS

103

the assertion of the report, to the effect that the raising of the price has almost annihilated land speculation, is a matter for congratulation rather than regret.1 Accompanying Earl Grey's despatch is a long letter from the Emigration Commissioners, who repudiate very warmly the suggestion that the policy of the 5 & 6 Vic. c. 36 was influenced by the South Australian Commissioners (whose commission was cancelled before the Act was passed), and who answer in detail, in much the old strain, the various allegations of the committee. The objection that the combined policy of the Sale and Squatting Acts encourages dispersion and tends to confirm a squatting into an owning title, they meet by pointing out that these evils existed before the new policy came into force, will be checked by the powers reserved to the Crown, and are even now made a source of revenue.2

Meanwhile a new and interesting phase of the Land Question had appeared. On the 29th March 1848 there had been issued a new set of Land Regulations, made in pursuance of an order of the Privy Council of the 9th March 1847, which, though primarily dealing with the squatting question, were also concerned with the purchasers and grantees of Crown lands. They provided that the holders of purchased lands within the settled districts should be entitled to pasture their stock, free of charge, on any vacant Crown lands immediately contiguous to their respective properties, but without the power of erecting any building or enclosure, or of clearing or cultivating any portion.5 But the permission was to carry no exclusive right, merely a right of commonage with other persons, and was to give way at once before any more permanent purpose for which the lands might be required.

Moreover, the holders in fee-simple of any land within the settled districts are to be allowed to obtain leases of adjacent vacant Crown lands, to the extent of their own holding, but not less than 640 acres, at a fixed price of ten shillings per section of 640 acres. If there are two or more claimants they must agree among themselves or (where there are only

7

1 Copy of despatch in Votes and Proceedings, 1849, vol. i. p. 481.

2 Ibid. p. 483.

3 Gov. Gazette, 1848, 29th March.

4 Copy in Gov. Gazette, 1847, p. 1071. The order itself was founded on the Act 9 & 10 Vic. c. 104, of which more anon.

5

Regulations, § 2.

6 Ibid. § 3.

7 Ibid. § 16.

two rivals) submit to an arbitration, or the leases will be put up to auction in the same way as those to which there is no pre-emptive claim.1 These Regulations do not specify the length or terms of such pre-emptive leases, but, by inference,2 we may assume that they were annual, for pastoral purposes only, and carried no right to claim compensation for improvements. Holders of granted lands on which the quit-rents have been redeemed are to be deemed purchasers for purposes of the Regulations; where the quit-rents are not redeemed, they stand on the footing of grantees-i.e. are not entitled to free commonage, but have a pre-emptive right to leases to the extent of their granted lands.3

It will be observed that these Regulations, whilst providing a commonage pasture for the small landholders, do not make any provision for a several or separate pasturage for any one whose holding is less than 640 acres. The claims of these persons, however, received attention later in the year, when the Government and the Surveyor-General between them devised a plan by which each smaller portion sold was surrounded by a belt of reserve, bounded by section lines or streams, described as "a sort of commonage," but really arranged as small severalties.5

4

Once more the whole question was considered by a committee of the Council, appointed on the 12th June 1849.6 Mr. Robert Lowe was again chairman. On the 3d October 7 another lengthy report was brought up, which, after combating at great length and with much acrimony the various arguments of the Home government, finally agreed with all those arguments in principle, but differed from them in the matter of application. The contention of the committee now is that the suggested price of five shillings an acre will do all that the existing price of £1 is supposed and desired to do, while it will allow a moderate sale of land, and put a stop to

1 $ 19.

2 § 4.

3 § 21.

The question was rendered important by the practice then recently introduced of selling "Special Country Lots" of twenty to thirty acres to small farmers.

5 Vide letter to Surveyor-General, Votes and Proceedings, 1849, vol. i. p. 816. See reference to this plan in Regulations of 21st November 1848, Gov. Gazette, 24th November 1848.

6 Votes and Proceedings, 1849, vol. i. p. 57.

7 Ibid. p. 289.

CHAP. XI

CRITICISM OF THE OPPOSITION

105

the encroachments of squatters. "Thus the colonists are at issue with the Home government, not on a question of political or economical science, but on the exchangeable value of a commodity regulated by local circumstances, of which the most ordinary intelligence on the spot must necessarily be a better judge than the most enlightened statesman in Europe.1

1

The contention of the committee being thus stated in a nutshell, we can test its validity in a very simple way. The committee argue that the price of £1 an acre is not merely restrictive, but prohibitory, and that five shillings is the fair value. Turning to the figures quoted in the report itself, we find the following facts

1. That the raising of the minimum price from five shillings to twelve shillings in 1839 apparently reduced the sales from 465,000 acres (1838) to 254,000 (1839), but that the sales in 1840 rose again to 527,000 acres.

2. That the introduction of a fixed price of £1 an acre at Port Phillip in 1841 was followed by a fall to 117,000 acres in the same year. But it is necessary to observe that, while the sales in Port Phillip, where alone the change worked, fell from 83,000 acres (1840) to 49,000 (1841), or a decrease of about 41 per cent, in the Sydney district, where there was no change at all, they fell from 444,000 acres (1840) to 68,000 (1841), or a decrease of about 600 per cent. Evidently the change was due to something

else than the alteration of price.3

3. That in spite of the restoration of the twelve shillings minimum in Port Phillip in 1842, the total land sales of the colony fell again from 117,000 acres (1841) to 44,456 acres in 1842.

4. That on the general raising of the minimum price to £1 an acre, in 1843, the sales fell again to 11,000 acres in that year, and to 7000 in 1844. But this was the lowest point. In spite of the maintenance of the high price, the sales rose in 1845 to 18,000 acres, to 27,000 in 1846, and to 62,000 in 1847, when the protests of the Council were loudest. They had, however, fallen again to 47,000 acres in 1848.4

It seems quite safe to draw two inferences from these facts: first, that other causes than the amount of the minimum price had a great effect on the quantity of land sold; second, that the fixing of the minimum price at £1 an acre did not prohibit the sale of Crown land.

1 Votes and Proceedings, 1849, vol. ii. p. 553.

2 Ibid. p. 552.

3 The necessary information as to the Port Phillip figures is taken from the tables in the Victorian Year Book, 1887-88.

4 See summary in Votes and Proceedings, 1849, vol. ii. p. 549.

Nevertheless the report was duly sent home, only once more to receive an emphatic refusal from the Secretary of State, founded upon another confirming opinion of the Emigration Commissioners.1

B. SQUATTING.

We turn now to consider the second division of the land question-the subject of squatting.

On the 13th September 1843 Port Phillip District was subdivided into four squatting districts for the purposes of the Squatting Act,2 these four replacing the old pair proclaimed on the 1st July 1840.3 The four districts were named respectively the Gipps Land, Murray, Western Port, and Portland Bay districts. The two new districts, Murray and Gipps Land, were mainly carved out of the old Western Port district of 1840, so that it would appear that squatting was then being pushed in northern and easterly directions. But on the 9th November 1846 the fifth district of Wimmera was added in the north-west. Perhaps a safer estimate of the increase of squatting pursuits may be obtained from a Return presented to the Council in pursuance of an Address dated the 3d October 1843.5 The Return shows that the receipts from fees paid to the Commissioners of Crown lands in the Port Phillip District rose from £10: 3:6 in 1839 to £40:16:6 in 1840, to £139: 12s. in 1841, and to £190 in 1842.6

4

But proportionally large as the increase had been, it was clear that the actual amounts received were ridiculously small. No returns as to the extent and stock of the squatting stations in Port Phillip at this date are to hand, but in New South Wales proper nearly 700 stations in the year 1840 paid just £60 for license fees, while the 800 of 1841 only yielded a third of that sum.7 As the total acreage in the stations of 1841 included 9000 acres under actual cultivation, it was

1 Volume of Australian papers, 1844-1850.

a Vic. No. 7 (N. S. W.)

4 Gov. Gazette, 1846, p. 1401.

6 Ibid. 1843, p. 493.

3 Gov. Gazette of that date (N. S. W.) 5 Votes and Proceedings, 1843, p. 111.

7 Ibid. p. 494. Later statistics show that in the Murray district in 1844 one squatter held 610,000 acres under one £10 license, another 96,000, two others 77,000 each. In the Gipps Land district the runs were smaller, the largest being 54,000 acres. But the smallest holding under one license was 1300 acres. (Cf. Votes and Proceedings, 1844, vol. i. pp. 672, 673.)