Protests Against the Regulations
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Protests Against the Regulations Upon the issue of the public announcement, the squatters in possession of extensive runs of Crown lands naturally objected to the limitations imposed, and, as published in the newspapers :— At a general meeting of stockholders . held at the Royal Hotel, Sydney, on April 9, 1844, the following resolutions were unanimously adopt^ :— Resolution No. 1 : Moved by W. C. Wentworth, Esq., M.C., and seconded by Robert Gore, Esq.— “That this meeting regard with feelings of the deepest alarm the regulations respecting the occupation of Crown lands under squatting licences, published in the Government Gazette of April 2, 1844; such regulations being, in the opinion of this meeting, unconstitutional in their application and character, oppressive in their influence, and calculated to add materially to the existing distresses of the colony, etc. etc.” Resolution No. 2 : Moved by Benjamin Boyd, Esq., and seconded by John Blaxland,. Esq., M.C.— “That the system of granting licences for so limited a period as twelve months is highly objectionable. That, in addition to the evil arising from the shortness of such a term, its injurious consequences are aggravated by the right of occupancy being uncertain, and rendered liable to change at the will and caprice of the Executive Government, either by alterations in the regula tions of the stations or by increase in the charge for occupation. That, consequently, this uncertainty of right of occupancy of Crown lands has a ruinous tendency upon the most valuable property in the colony, has a very demoralising effect on the entire community, and must continue so, until a fixity of tenure is granted to the occupier.” [Boyd’s resolution was what the pastoralists were really fighting for —“fixity of tenure” leases—and this they even tually succeeded in getting. Fourteen-year leases were not as long as they wanted, that being twenty-one years. Although the tenure would allow improvements to be made the worst feature in the proposal was that it meant practically handing over the greater part of the Crown lands of the colony to the pastoralists—many of them being already rich—for a very long term.] The remaining resolutions deal chiefly with details of the proposed Pastoralists’ Association. The chairman was William Bland, Esq. [In the bitter duel that followed the introduction of Gipps’s regulations almost the whole of the Press, with perhaps two exceptions, the Australian Chronicle and Duncan’s Weekly Register, were all out in support of the squatters. The Chronicle and Weekly Register by contrast sheeted home guilt for the parlous conditions unequivocally to the ‘wool- crats’ with their greedy speculation, extravagance and refusal to contribute honestly to revenue—they attacked squattage as a weird form of political economy, destructive of social, moral. 28 religious and economic value and calamitous for the future of the colony’. Barrie Dyster in the Royal Australian Historical Society Journal, Vol. 51, Part 1, deals strongly with this ques tion and with former writers on the subject.] The Governor, in commenting on the attitude of squatters with respect to the amended regulations, informed the Secretary of State that— The outcry which has been raised shows how completely the occupiers of these lands have accustomed themselves to look upon them as their own . The right to the occupation of a station has b e c o m e an article of common sale, and sums varying from £100 to £500 are commonly given for them . , . From returns of the Crown Commissioners, I fin d t h a t , reckoning one horse, ox, or cow to be equal to eight sheep, the quantity of stock depastured by the three largest of the squatters (holding collectively 305,920 acres) who called the meeting was equal to 78,360 sheep, and the quantity depastured by the three smallest holders (13,440) was equal to 14,168; the small holders of stock, therefore, pay very nearly one shilling per annum for 22 sheep depastured by them on Crown lands, whilst the large occupiers pay the same sum . per annum for depasturing 131 sheep. In a Gipps’s despatch of 16 April, 1844, we read :— ... I have long felt the necessity of entirely remodelling the squatting regulations in this colony. I may now add that I have felt this necessity more urgently since the months of August and September, 1842, when a discussion took place in the (old) Legislative Council on the case of a Mr. Lee* at Bathurst . The long continued distress of the colony, and the pressure of other important matters growing out of the recent change in its constitution, caused me to defer the promulgation of these measures longer than I at first intended, but the expiration of the sixth year of my government recently warned me that I ought no longer to postpone them. In a later despatch (17 May, 1844), we read :— ... It may throw light on the subject it I state that Mr. Benjamin Boyd, the gentleman who signed the protest as chairman of the Association, is one of the largest squatters in the country. He holds fourteen stations in the Maneroo (Monaro) district, paying licence for four only, and four stations in the district of Port Phillip, paying licence for two . Mr. Boyd is the gentleman who asserted at the Royal Hotel, on April 9, that so long as he paid his £10 licences, he considered he had a freehold interest in the land which he occupied . Mr. Boyd came to this colony about two years ago, and is the gentleman spoken of in Lord John Russell's despatches to myself . * In a note by the editor of the Historical Records of Aastralia (Vol. XX), having reference to the non-renewal of William Lee’s licence to depasture stock on his run in the western district, on the grounds that he had ceased to occupy his station, it is stated that “during the absence of Lee. his men were forced to leave his station on account of the drought and attacks by aborigines. Lee asked for an inquiry, in order to prove that the removal of his stock was only temporary and unavoidable. Although supported by eight magistrates, Lee’s request was refused and his licence cancelled. In August, 1842, a meeting of graziers was held at Bathurst to prepare a petition, which was presented to the Legislative Council on the 18th of the same month”. This meeting appears to have been the first of the scries which ultimately led to the adoption of “fixity of tenure" in the leasing of runs. 29 Later on in the same year (despatch of 11 August), Gipps again referred to the unequal incidence of the £10 licence by stating:— Returns show, amongst other things, that some individuals hold eleven hundred times as much land as others do for the same money . and that some occupiers feed 180 sheep on Crown lands for one shilling a year, whilst others pay nearly one shilling for every sheep depastured by them; some pay one halfpenny a year for a cow, others seven shillings. With reference to the petition of stockholders, the Governor briefly summarised the appeal as follows :— . The prayer of the petitions simply is that her Majesty will divest herself of all control over the Crown lands of the colony in order that they may be held by the present occupants for a period of not less than twenty-one years, and subsequently purchased by the same parties at a price to be fixed in the colony without reference to Parliament. In Lord Stanley’s despatch, 30 January, 1845, approving the new regulations of 2 April, 1844, with regard to the imposition of £10 per annum on every run, we read as follows : “Mr. Wentworth who moved the first resolution at the meeting of 9 April, 1844. complained that the elfect of the regulations would be that, as he had fifteen stations, he would be required to pay £150 a year instead of only £20, which payment now covers the whole fifteen runs . .” [The unpopularity of Gipps, which came upon him in consequence of his firm administration of the law in what he believed to be the enduring interest of the country, has been reflected in some books of Australian history, especially in such as were written at the time or not long after the contro versies in which he figured. “But he was in truth (says Ernest Scott), a singularly able and a most conscientious and high- minded Governor. His modest claim on the eve of his depar ture, ‘I have laboured to the best of my ability to advance the true interests of this land’, will be confirmed by any fair- minded student of this rule”. The Herald in 1846, which was antagonistic to Gipps, had this last shot at him :— . We have given it as our deliberately formed opinio n .... that Sir George Gipps has been the worst Governor that New South Wales has ever had. He has done for it the least amount of good—has inflicted upon it the largest amount of injury. We write these words ‘more in sorrow than in anger’, we sorrow that we sh ould take leave of His Excellency in terms so unkindly and so harsh; but we sorrow most of all that he should have bequeathed to our adopted country .... a legacy of thraldom which .... will cause generations of yet unborn to rue the day he ever set foot upon our shore.” The later researches of historians have largely confirmed the verdict that there can be little doubt that, if Gipps had had his way and the Home Government’s Crown Lands policy had continued, much of the trouble that afterwards arose would have been avoided.] 30 From time to time during the remainder of his term of office.