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Government (1911) made little difference to the rate of progress. The number of live stock increased very slowly; the white population grew by only a few hundred between 1911 and 1920; mining stagnated; immigration was largely cancelled by emigration; the whole political and economic history is unspeakably depressing, and the Territory is to-day more than ever a most perplexing tropical white elephant.

The History of Land Legislation and Tenure. The tangled story of Australian land tenure can be divided into four periods. (1) Crown grants and free gifts; (2) land sales and pastoral leases; (3) selection before survey; (4) experimental reform. The problems which have been faced in recent years are partly the result of early economic history, when the land was regarded as a pastoral area alone; they are also due to early legislative and administrative errors or omissions, to bad laws or no laws. The free grants tied up some of the best land; the influence of the early landowners' parliaments made for big estates, while at the same time the need to attract population to Australia necessitated a generosity which, though justifiable at the time, sowed the seed for future trouble.

Free Grants (1788-1831). The early governors were given power to make free grants to such as wished to settle in Australia. At first only small areas were given away to each person, but much larger grants were soon allowed. Macarthur got 5,000 acres, the Australian Agricultural Company 1,000,000 acres, the Van Diemen's Land Company 400,000 acres, while the settlement at the Swan River (1829) was killed at birth by allowing large tracts at Fremantle and Perth to go into the hands of a few men. In Tasmania, as in New South Wales, the power of the Governor to make free grants was often abused; favouritism was rampant, and the friends and subordinates of the Governor obtained big areas, although they had no intention of settling thereon. During this first era of land distribution over 3,000,000 acres were given away; of these, the great bulk were in large holdings, for which the prescribed small quit rents were seldom paid; but though the alienations increased fivefold between 1820-30 the population grew only 50 per cent.

Land Sales and Pastoral Leases (1831-1861). While the free grants were causing little development and bringing less revenue, a body of men in England was working out a theory of colonization. Of these men, the chief was Edward Gibbon Wakefield, whose "Letters from Sydney," really written in Newgate Gaol, began a revolution in colonial land policy. Wakefield declared with truth that the free-grants system had failed, in that it provided no labour supply, except convicts, and gave no funds for public works. He, therefore, urged that henceforth land should be sold at a "sufficient price,” and the proceeds devoted to public works and the immigration of agricultural labourers. The price was to be so high that labourers would be unable to buy the land until they had worked some years in the colony; at the same time every sale of land would mean more money for roads and a steady influx of labour. By careful choice of the labourers the colony would get quality as well as quantity, and as the wage-earners in turn saved sufficient to buy land their purchase-money would bring out others in their place. Although never applied exactly as Wakefield wished, his ideas formed the basis of the new land policy. Land sales had been made since 1825, and in 1831 it was decreed that free gifts should be abolished. Henceforth all land must be sold by auction at an upset price of 5/- per acre.

This minimum price was raised later to 12/-, and in 1842 to £1. Of the fund thus provided, at least half was devoted to assisting immigration, and under this arrangement thousands of labourers were brought to Australia. Wakefield's theory was also responsible for the settlement of South Australia and New Zealand, but owing to deviations from his plan, and an outburst of speculative land dealing among the early arrivals, these new colonies had a chequered career at first.

Meanwhile a new problem had to be faced--the squatter. At first those pastoralists who did not wish to buy land took their flocks westward and found "feed" on the unoccupied crown lands. By 1830 many of these men were squatting in this manner, refusing to buy a holding and paying nothing for the benefits they were enjoying. As wool was now the staple export, it would be unwise to attempt to suppress the squatter. In 1836, therefore, the pastoral areas were cut up into runs, and licences to use them were granted at an annual fee of £10 per run. In 1847 an Order-in-Council improved the squatters' position by allowing leases for one year in the settled areas, eight years in the middle districts, and fourteen years in the backblocks, with the first right to buy any part of the lease at £1 per acre. This arrangement gave the squatters fixity of tenure and pre-emptive rights; it played completely into their hands. They bought up the "eyes" of their runs-i.e., the water places, fords, etc.—and thus made the surrounding land useless to any but themselves. This was often done, and hence, when the diggers left the exhausted goldfields and looked for land on which to settle, they found the best land had been either given away, sold, or leased to men who had bought out the "eyes." This was especially the case in New South Wales. In Victoria and South Australia the 1847 Order was not utilized. Many diggers wanted land for arable purposes, but as no classification of lands had been made much good wheat land, along with the land near roads, railways, and towns, was under pasture. Out of this situation came the third era.

Selection Before Survey (1861-1893). The first event in the struggle between squatter and selector was Robertson's Act of 1861, which abolished the pre-emptive right of the leaseholder to buy any part of his run. Henceforth any man might pick a piece of a pastoral leasehold at the end of the lease, reside there, make small improvements, and pay off the £1 per acre in small instalments. This Act, which was copied by most other states, aimed at creating a class of peasant proprietors; but it failed completely, and did harm rather than good. The squatter, borrowing from the banks, bought out the good bits as before, and in one case 258,000 acres were secured by buying 700 forty-acre blocks in different parts of the holding. When the bank would not lend, the squatter persuaded someone to play "dummy'' for him, acquire the good patches, and subsequently hand them over to him. Some independent buyers took land, not for settlement, but to blackmail the invaded squatter to buy them out. Speculation was rife, fraud and deceit were the rule; very few patches were really farmed, and out of 60,000 applications in 22 years two-thirds were failures or dummies. As a means of land development the new method failed badly, and really helped to build up bigger holdings than ever. In 30 years 50,000,000 acres were alienated; yet the rural population of New South Wales increased by only 200,000, and the cultivated area by less than 600,000 acres. The towns grew, the country languished. By 1890, therefore, the situation was most unsatisfactory, and called for a thorough revision of the whole land policy.

Recent Experiments and Reform. This revision was influenced by both economic and political factors. The Labor Party was naturally hostile to the big landowner, and believed in small holdings, preferably owned by the state and let to peasant tenants. Orcharding, dairy farming, irrigation, etc., all needed small areas of suitable land, and some of that suitable land was in big pastoral holdings. Three main lines of policy can therefore be traced.

(1) Land must be utilized in the most advantageous manner, and regions capable of cultivation must not be locked up as pasturage. This involves a survey and classification of all unalienated land; the classification vitally affects the conditions under which any piece of land may be secured, the kind of tenure, the use to which it may be put, the price per acre, the length of lease, the liability to invasion for settlement or resumption, and so on. For instance, land classified as first-class agricultural may be sold in small blocks; cattle land may some day be wanted for cultivation, and so is only let in large blocks for a fixed number of years.

(2) The ideal of a big rural population settled on holdings which are not too large to be fully worked or too small to provide a comfortable living is sought in two ways:-(a) By selling suitable crown lands in blocks of limited size, (b) by buying back large estates and cutting them up for closer settlement. In some cases these old and new holdings are put up for auction, but the small man is more frequently attracted by the possibility of conditional purchase. He pays a deposit, lives and works on his plot for a specified period, and completes his purchase by paying instalments for about thirty years.

Resumption for closer settlement began in New South Wales in 1901, and has been practised in every state. The area of suitable crown land was small, so big estates had to be bought back in order to provide plots for small farmers. The power to resume land compulsorily was obtained by New South Wales in 1904, and is possessed by most states to-day. By the middle of 1918 3,500,000 acres had been resumed, and over 12,500 holdings established. The policy received a great impetus when the various governments began to buy estates on which to settle returned soldiers.

(3) The influence of Henry George and of the advocates of land nationalization is visible at many points. The Labour Party has always opposed any further alienation of crown lands and favoured perpetual leases. In 1916 Queensland discontinued grantiag freehold entirely, and all states except West Australia and Tasmania have perpetual leases in existence. In some cases the rent of these leases is re-assessed periodically, so as to make the holder pay a little for any increase in the value of his property in consequence of the growth or efforts of the community-e.g., by the provision of roads, railways, etc. Land taxation has the same aim.

Land Taxation. In spite of the experiments of twenty years, the big estates were still numerous in 1910. In that year 13,387 men, of whom 2,171 were absentees, owned estates whose unimproved value was over £5,000, their total unimproved value amounting to £178,000,000. Of this land, a considerable proportion was not being used to the fullest capacity. To break up these big estates, or at least to compel the owners to put them to better use, taxation was urged. The idea was by no means new, for the single-tax, with double rates on unimproved land, had been urged by Melville, a Hobart journalist, as early as 1836. The theories of Henry

George found many supporters in Australia, and in 1884 South Australia,
the pioneer in many land reforms, levied a tax on the unimproved value of
land-i.e., the real value less the value of improvements. Other states.
followed this example sooner or later. But the big estate still survived,
though in places the weight of taxation induced men to put the better parts
of their land to greater use. In 1910 the Federal election was fought on
the land question, and the return of the Labour Party was followed by the
passing of the Federal Land Tax Act. This measure had a double purpose:
firstly, to raise revenue to help defray the cost of defence and social reforms;
secondly, to break up, or bring into cultivation, the big estates.
To this end,

a graded land tax, rising from 1d. to 6d. in the £, was imposed on all estates
whose unimproved value was above £5,000, with an extra 1d. on the property
of absentees. This tax is now yielding over £2,000,000 each year, and
has had some effect in causing the break-up of large holdings. At times.
the disruption is purely artificial, and is carried out to evade taxation, whilst
really keeping the estate together. Still, on the whole, in spite of an occa-
sional battle of wits between landlord and tax-gatherer, the pressure of the
land tax has been sufficiently great to compel owners of land which is too
good for extensive pasture to divide and sell their holdings.

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Books Recommended. Jose, W. A., "History of Australasia, chaps. 5, 12, and 16; Mills, R. C., "The Colonization of Australia"; Wise, B. R., "The Commonwealth of Australia"; Commonwealth Year Book, chapter on Land Tenure and Settlement; Collier, J., "Pastoral Age in Australasia''; Federal Land Tax Commissioner's Annual Reports; Atkinson, M., tralia: Economic and Political Studies,'' chaps. 8 and 9.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

SIDE by side with the agricultural revolution described in Chapter II there was carried out an industrial and commercial revolution. Its first and most important phases took place in Britain, and helped to give that country a century's industrial and commercial supremacy. Its outstanding features were the invention of machinery, the discovery of improved methods of treating metals and using coal, the harnessing of non-manual power, and the application of science. These four things-machinery, metal, power, and science-are the foundations of modern industrial technique. They dominate and make possible the vast volume of production; they have abolished distance, and established speedy communication; they have made the nations of the world dependent on each other for the satisfaction of their wants. At many points the scientist and investigator have been the leaders of technical progress, though many of the 18th century inventors were untutored workmen or interested onlookers. But this immense revolution created as

many problems as it solved. The blunders of the transition period left a legacy of social evils; the economic system which emerged to take advantage of the new methods raised in an acute form problems of employment and distribution, and while mankind as a whole benefited by the increased production of wealth the growing democratic sentiment chafed at the autocracy of capital in the new regime and the economic inequality which persisted in spite of political equality.

Phases of the Revolution. The Industrial Revolution can be divided into three stages:-(1) The period of beginnings (1730-1830), marked by the discovery of infinite uses for coal and iron, the invention of the first machines, improvements in land and water communications, and the consequent transformation from old to new forms of industrial organization. (2) 1830-1880, the period of mechanical progress, due to improvements on, and applications of, the discoveries and inventions of the first period, the coming of the railway, steamship, and telegraph, the use of steel in place of iron, and the beginnings of applied science. (3) The age of science (1880 to the present day), marked by the careful scientific investigation of economic problems, and the consequent extension of electricity, automatic machine production, utilization of waste products, economizing of fuel, the tapping of new power sources, and scientific management. These developments were all accelerated by the war.

The Coming of Machinery. The beginnings of modern invention were due to the pressure of demand upon supply. Necessity is really the mother of invention. The growth of trade and population during the 18th century caused an increased demand for cloth. The slow methods of hand-loom weaving were incapable of coping with this growing demand until the invention of the flying shuttle by Kay (1733) accelerated the rate of weaving. As this shuttle was adopted, the spinners, working on the old distaff or spinning-wheel, were unable to keep pace with the weaver's demand for yarn. Hence the next inventions dealt with spinning, and the machines

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