CHAP. XI UNPOPULARITY OF THE MEASURE 97 that, in pastoral pursuits at least, the land will not support a twentieth of that number. The report, therefore, recommends that there shall be a division of the waste lands into classes, according to their value, a proportionate minimum price being set on each. The actual recommendations are— Minimum price 6d. an acre. 1. The sandy and rocky scrubs. 2. The common pasture lands. 3. The rich pasture lands. 4. The alluvial banks of rivers having access to the markets, and the rich brush lands along the coast. Minimum price £1 an acre. It is worth while to bear in mind the purport of this report, for it first embodies in definite terms the economic views which have played such an important part in the history of Australia. The weaknesses of some of them are very obvious, but there is no doubt that the recommendation with regard to the immigrants was admirably conceived. If it could have been carried out, it would both have checked the influence of inferior immigrants and held the hands of the great capitalists. Unfortunately it is just the class of immigrants aimed at which is most difficult to get. To the rich capitalist a remission of passage-money is too small an inducement to be of much avail. To the penniless labourer it is a mere mockery. While the person to whom it would be a real boon, the small tradesman or mechanic, with a hundred pounds or so of spare capital, is just the man whom it is most difficult to move. has not enough means to speculate, he has too much to be reckless. To spend the savings of years in passage-money seems to him to be a reckless throwing away of the hard earnings of his labour. Had the scheme been carried into effect, the patience of Australians anxious for the speedy development of their country would have been sorely tried. He The report was, however, adopted,1 and resolutions founded upon its conclusions passed by the Council and embodied in the form of an Address to the Governor, with a request that they, together with copies of the report and evidence, should be forwarded to the Home government.2 But, before any 1 Votes and Proceedings, 1843, ii. 231. Three government officials concurred in the adoption. 2 Ibid. 231, 241. It will be observed, however, that the resolutions did not repeat the view of the committee that the employment of the Land revenue for purposes of immigration was "a fatal wrong." H reply could be received, the Council, in the following year,1 appointed a second committee to inquire into all grievances connected with the lands of the territory, and to report, distinguishing between those which could be redressed in the colony and those which could not. On the 20th August 1844 the report was laid before the Council. So far as the sale price of land is concerned, the report confirms the views of its predecessor, emphasising its conclusions by recent evidence, and pointing out that in almost every other British colony, Canada, Ceylon, the Cape, land could be obtained by immigrants on far easier terms than in Australia, while the national deterrents from emigration to Australia were in some respects greater than anywhere else.3 The report recommends the total and immediate repeal of the 5 & 6 Vic. c. 36, and also of so much of the Constitution Statute as reserves the land revenue from the control of the colonial legislature. This last recommendation, to which it will be necessary hereafter to recur, and which was supported by a long précis of historical evidence, perhaps reveals, more clearly than anything else, the ultimate hopes of the Council. But these hopes were not realised for another decade. The report was taken into consideration on the 13th September, and, after some debate, was adopted, by the vote of the elective members, the ministerialists of course voting against it. A long series of resolutions dealing with the recommendations of the report was passed, and, accompanied by petitions to Her Majesty and both Houses of Parliament, embodied in an Address to the Governor. Meanwhile, a disclaimer of the more extreme language of the report, signed by 210 "Members of Council, Magistrates, Barristers, Clergy, Landholders, Bankers, Merchants, Traders, and other Inhabitants of New South Wales," was presented to the Governor and duly acknowledged by him and the Home government.' 8 10 On the 5th August 1845 the answer of the Home government to the Address of 1843 was laid before the Council by 1 On the 30th May, Votes and Proceedings, 1844, i. p. 19. 2 Ibid. p. 135. 3 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 125. 4 Ibid. p. 139. 5 Ibid. vol. i. p. 211. 7 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 121. 9 Volume of Australian Papers, 1844-1850 (Melbourne Public Library). 6 Ibid. p. 216. 10 Ibid. pp. 3, 4. CHAP. XI GOVERNOR GIPPS' VIEWS 99 the Governor.1 It appears that in forwarding the address and report to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir George Gipps had stated at length his views on the subject. He pointed out that the action of the Government, in raising the minimum price to £1 an acre, did not commit the Government to the view, assumed by the report, that all the land in the colony was worth £1 an acre, but merely to the view that it would be better for the present not to sell land of less value; that whereas the report professed to deprecate the step as prohibitive of the occupation of land, the real feeling of its authors was that it prohibited the sale of land. Upon this latter point the Governor says plainly, " A high minimum price acts as an inhibition on the sale of land which is not worth improving; and lands which are destined to remain for ages in an unimproved state are, in my opinion, better in the hands of Government than in the hands of private individuals. I am not at all prepared to admit that a tract of unimproved country, say any tract of ten thousand or twenty thousand acres of unimproved land, yields, at the present moment, more profit to the community, in the hands of an individual, than the same tract of lands would in the hands of the Government; I rather believe the contrary to be the fact." The Governor also points out that the existing system does not prohibit occupation of the Crown lands, because of the permitted squatting practice, nor really the sale of land in reasonable quantities, for there is still much private land in the market. And then he goes on to hint pretty plainly that what the Council wishes is a return to the old land boom which lasted from 1835 to 1841, when enormous quantities of land were forced on the colonial market, bought with borrowed money, and then driven up to fancy prices in the English market by judicious advertisement. The Governor attributes the existing commercial depression of the colony to the reaction from that period of speculation. But he frankly admits that the report speaks the sentiments of a vast majority of persons of all classes in the colony.2 The Secretary of State took the opinion of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners, and they, in an elaborate 1 Votes and Proceedings, 1845, p. 14. 2 Despatch in full in Votes and Proceedings, 1845, p. 333. report, confirmed the views of Sir George Gipps, further pointing out that the remission system recommended by the Council was practically unworkable without a return to the old and condemned practice of free grants, and that the conclusions of the Council upon the relationship of labour and capital were refuted by the fact that the demand for labour in the colony was as great as ever.1 Fortified by the opinions of Sir George Gipps and the Emigration Commissioners, Lord Stanley sent back a decided refusal of the requests contained in the address. The request for a transfer of the Land Fund contained in the report he barely alluded to, preferring to treat it as a "demonstration." But he pointed to the enormous material progress made by the colony since the introduction of the sale system, as conclusive proof that it had not failed, and he expressed his determination to adhere to it. One thing, however, the Government would do; to remove all just cause of complaint, they would enable the squatter to purchase sufficient land for a homestead, and thereby render the land beyond the boundaries available not merely for pastoral occupation but for permanent residence.2 Whatever may be the opinion as to the wisdom of the policy pursued by the Home government on this occasion, there can be no doubt that it was actuated by the best motives and the most careful consideration. The Government declined to allow the colonists of New South Wales to treat its vast area as their private purse, it claimed a share in the land for all the subjects of the empire, and especially for the overcrowded populations of English cities. But it also asserted, and with obvious justice, that in supplying the colonists with labour at a low rate, it was giving them the one thing needful to their real prosperity. It is clear that the old days of indifference to colonial affairs were now over. 3 On the 20th May 1846 the Governor laid before the Council two despatches from Lord Stanley on the subject of Crown lands. The first dealt mainly with the question of squatting, and therefore falls to be considered under another It is, however, worthy of notice that the despatch head. 2 1 Report in Votes and Proceedings, 1845, p. 338. Despatch printed in Votes and Proceedings, 1845, p. 342. 3 Votes and Proceedings, 1846, vol. i. p. 13. CHAP. XI 3 FURTHER PROTESTS 4 ΙΟΙ approves of a measure recently introduced into the House of Commons with the object (amongst other things) of declaring the Crown's right to grant land, reserving the minerals or a royalty thereon.1 This was the beginning of a subject which was afterwards to prove very important. The second despatch was in reply to the resolutions of 17th September 1844,2 and is also concerned almost entirely with the squatting question. On the 2d June the Council addressed the Governor for a return of all correspondence between the executive and the Surveyor-General, since the date of the last returns, relative to the alteration in the upset price of land.5 On the 10th September this correspondence was laid before the Council and proved to be very short, showing merely that the Governor had adopted the advice of a subordinate with regard to the size and minimum price of suburban allotments. On the 25th, on the motion of Mr. Robert Lowe, the Council adopted a series of resolutions condemning the raising of the minimum price, and affirming the principle that the minimum upset price of land ought to be reduced to a sum not exceeding its value.7 It is noticeable, 6 however, that Mr. Lowe had only a bare majority on this occasion. Still the matter was not allowed to drop. On the 23d July 1847 a committee of the Council was appointed to inquire into, and report upon, what ought to be the minimum "upset price or prices of land in the various counties and districts of New South Wales."8 On the 13th August the Council addressed the Governor for a return of "all Acts and Regulations of the Government-Home as well as Colonial— affecting Crown lands, either as regards their sale or occupation, since the abolition of free grants in 1831."9 In answer to this address the Council received (on the 9th September) a most valuable return, in which many documents affecting the question, which can scarcely be seen elsewhere, are set out at length. On the 24th September the answer of the Secretary 10 1 Votes and Proceedings, 1846, vol. i. p. 59 (copy of bill enclosed). 2 Ante, p. 98. 4 Ibid. p. 34. 6 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 249. 3 Votes and Proceedings, 1846, vol. i. p. 65. 5 Ibid. 7 Ibid. p. 46. 8 Votes and Proceedings, 1847, 10 Ibid. p. 633. |