Victoria Land

“ Early on the morning of the 4th of September, 1839, the Beagle was once more slipping out of Port Essington before a light land wind. We had taken a hearty farewell of our friends at Victoria, in whose prosperity we felt all the interest that is due to those who pioneer the way for others in the formation of a new settlement. No doubt the hope that our discoveries might open a new field for British enterprise, and contribute to extend still more widely the blessings of civilization, increased the sympathy we felt for the young colony at Victoria. ”

“ One knows, of course, that Victoria must be more thickly populated. But one cannot wonder that squatters whose fathers have acquired vast areas of land, who have built dwelling-houses, fenced and planted, invested money in stock, and, in fact, devoted the whole of their life to the care and the improvement of their properties, should feel aggrieved at seeing them taken away from them, chopped up into small holdings, and allotted to men who have never done anything towards the furtherance of the export and import trade, or the gain and credit of their country. ”

“ For myself my design was to make the possession of land as nearly universal as possible, to counterpoise the fact that political power was absolutely universal, and to give a healthy and pleasant pursuit to the large class of diggers who, when they became unfit for that trying pursuit, might become discontented and dangerous to the public safety; and I hoped to see a multitude of my own countrymen, who had been driven from the land in Ireland, find a safer and more prosperous home on the genial soil of Victoria. ”

“ With land at four shillings an acre, and time allowed for payments, together with the improved state p.47 of communication between Victoria and the back settlements, we may hope that the inhabitants of the town will not in future be so dependent on neighboring countries for their supplies of produce. ”

“ Lastly, there is the disputable question as to how the much wider area of New South Wales than Victoria bears upon the question. Is that a help to her or a drag? With the present scant population to either, the advantage seems to me with Victoria, compact as she is, and full of fertile land. Fifty years hence, when the population of each has passed from one million to ten millions, and when a system of irrigation has fertilized the large proportion of now sterile areas of the larger colony, the latter will assert her precedence and, perhaps, easily pass her rival. ”

“ Think of Australia alone—parts of which I have seen grow under my own eyes, and have even known some of the first white men who ever set foot on a part of its shores—the now colony of Victoria—and made of it in such a short space of time so great a land. The story of that fine race, the Hentys, ought to stimulate any one. ”

“ Progress seems always to involve a trampling underfoot. It is a Moloch whose chariot-wheels spurt blood at every turn. Many of the Victorian landowners are not only indignant, they are genuinely aghast; heart-sick at the deprivations of the Land Board, their grievance being aggravated by the undoubted fact that there is still a great quantity of land which is literally no man’s ground, as far as settlers are concerned. ”

“ Still less must we forget the man at the helm and master of the ship, His Excellency Governor Douglas, who, by his sagacity, penetration, and godly fear, coupled with his long experience of personal rule over men, ever knew what to do and when to do it.
Thus from Victoria went forth an influence for law and order throughout the land, which will not soon pass away. Our little city has ever been noted as being English in character and law-abiding in conduct. May she remain so. She does well to rejoice and be thankful for the natural beauties which so richly adorn her site. ”

“ An English colony, such as Victoria, is a virtually independent country, attached to England mainly by ties of loyalty or of well-understood interests, but placed at such a distance from the mother country that England could without inconvenience, and would without hesitation, concede to it full national independence when once it was clear that Victoria desired to be a nation. Victoria, in short, is a land which might at any moment be independent, but which desires to retain or strengthen the connection with England. ”

“ The original settlers took possession, as squatters, of as much land as they found necessary for the pasturage of their flocks and herds. This was, indeed, the most natural arrangement at the commencement of the colony, nor had the government power to order it otherwise. Those who wanted to buy land paid five shillings an acre. Things went on very well in this way; the squatters first occupying the land and then buying it for themselves, or else giving place to others and moving back upon unoccupied tracts. ”

“ The discovery of abundant gold-fields in the adjacent colony of Victoria has undoubtedly materially contributed to this enormous expansion, and has perceptibly increased the immigration, but the development of the capabilities of the land itself has not been less steadily increasing, wherever the population have pursued the surer and more solid occupation of agriculture and cattle-rearing. ”

“ The land grievance; the inadequacy of the supplies of land as compared with the wants of the population; the want of sufficiently frequent opportunities, and upon reasonable terms, for the acquision of a piece of land; the difficulty, amounting with thousands to an impossibility, of investing their small capital or their earnings of gold upon a section of ground; from want of which facilities many thousands, it is to be feared, have left and are still leaving this colony to enrich other countries with their industry and capital. ”

“ All that is known of the original condition of the natives of Victoria points to this: that the rivers were their homes. The River Murray from Albury to the River Lindsay was well peopled; the Rivers Mitta Mitta, Ovens, Goulburn, Campaspe, Loddon, Avoca, Avon, Richardson, Glenelg, and Wimmera gave refuge to many tribes; in the lake country and on the coast and in Gippsland the tribes were numerous and strong; but as regards the rest of the land included within the boundaries of Victoria, it was either unknown or but frequented for short periods in certain seasons. ”

“ If large and enthusiastic meetings, the hearty support of an influential and exceptionally able press, and the cordial approval of the clearest thinkers form a sufficient index to popular opinion, then one is justified in saying that the idea of national unity appeals strongly to the sentiment and to the reasoned conviction of the people of the next great colony, Victoria. The dominating energy of Victoria has extended its interests to every corner of the Australian continent. Its business connection with the mother-land is more important and intimate than that of any other colony. ”

“ In her free selectors, Victoria will gain a class of citizens whose political views will contrast sharply with the strong anti-popular sentiments of the squatters, and who, instead of spending their lives as absentees, will stay, they and their children, upon the land, and spend all they make within the colony, while their sons add to its laboring arms. ”

“ A short sketch of the rise and progress of this colony will, perhaps, justify me in the conclusion to which I came, that most of these evils are to be attributed to the difficulty of procuring land; the labourer, in receipt of large wages, being thus deprived of the inducement to save his earnings and invest them in a settled home. ”

“ People would not pay the high price for land; settlers continued to spread over the country as squatters; the land-sales almost entirely ceased, and so did emigration.
Still the home government was prepared to go farther in backing up Mr. Wakefield; and in 1842 they passed an Act (5 and 6 Vict. c. 36) "for regulating the sale of waste land belonging the crown in the Australian colonies." The substance of this Act was, that no lands must be held unless they had been bought or were held by licence; the lowest upset price to be £1 per acre ”

“ I have seen my own people cut down the great forests of Western Victoria, and here were people doing the same, with exactly the same wanton extravagance, and in this country, with its seven months of bitter winter, in all probability the trees take three times as long to come to maturity. But it is virgin land, this glorious fertile country, and was practically uninhabited till the Russian Government planted here and there bands of Cossacks who, they say, made no endeavour to develop the land. ”

“ Looking at the more than twenty years it had taken to reach their present population of six hundred souls; looking at the inaccessibility of the Island to all but a few adventurous or wealthy immigrants; allowing also full force to the new attraction of a land whose people enjoyed the privilege of self-government ”

“ The land upon either side as you enter the river is bold and well defined, but from the margin of the western shore, an extensive mud and mangrove flat, not entirely above the level of high-water, and reaching to the base of a range of hills, about seventeen miles from the water's edge, seems to indicate that at one time the waters of the Victoria washed the high land on either side. ”

“ The measure, amended by a subsequent Parliament, became the permanent law of Victoria, and has regulated agricultural settlement for more than a generation. The French Government in New Caledonia, where there were no squatters in possession to conspire against the law, adopted my Land Act almost in its entirety for use in that colony. Another division of the Act dealt with the rent of pastoral land. The undoubted and express intention of the measure was to obtain an increased rent; and from a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year was expected. ”

“ A great many of the large estates in Victoria are being subdivided into farms, the squatters being under compulsion to sell a certain proportion of their property. The Land Branch has now acquired forty-nine properties, which it has subdivided into 1,203 farms, and 589 allotments for workmen’s houses—the question as to who the workmen are to work for apparently not having been very seriously considered—while shortly the Werribee Park Estate of 23,214 acres will also be available. ”

“ The surrender of the land to the management of the colonial Legislatures has placed the question of emigration in their power. They will compete with each other; the wisest arrangements will be rewarded with the greatest success. Population in such a country as this means an overflowing land fund—ample revenue—a wide basis for taxation, railroads, agricultural prosperity: and last, not least, political strength. We have land—in the United Kingdom and Europe, population—how then can they be brought together? ”

“ The plan of this gentleman was to sell the lands by auction at the high upset price of £1 per acre, and thus secure the land in the hands of men of property, and keep the colonists concentrated. The proceeds of the sales were to be devoted to the introduction of free emigrants, so that the settlers of capital might be well supplied with labour at low rates. ”

“ But instead of the farm areas being reduced by subdivision they are steadily growing larger by aggregation.... The evil is intensified,145 because as the land goes out of cultivation, the workmen leave the district and general stagnation ensues.... Not one-tenth of the available land is under cultivation.”15 And it must be borne in mind that agriculture is the basis of existence in Victoria. ”

“ Lately one of the members of the Victorian House of Representatives declared that he could, within twenty-four hours, bring to Parliament House a hundred young men—with plant, capital, health, and industry—who for months had been vainly seeking for land on which to establish themselves. In answer to this, two squatters near Camperdown, where the pick of the Western District country is to be seen, have each offered to find good land at a reasonable rental, and under a liberal lease for ten out of these hundred men. ”

“ Across the street where the Five Sisters Block stands was a vacant lot with a log hut in the rear where the Hudson’s Bay Company baked bread for the citizens, four-pound loaves being twenty-five cents, and very good it was. From Mr. Harry Glide, who arrived in Victoria in 1856, and has lived near the Outer Wharf for fifty-four years, I have learned much of the condition of things previous to the inrush from California in 1858–1859. He says all James Bay District was covered with fir trees and all the land from the mouth of the harbor along Dallas Road to Beacon Hill was "Beckly Farm." ”

“ As the country became safe, land became valuable, and was sold instead of being granted away, and sheep and wool brought a certain degree of prosperity. Still no great amount of wealth was made by the settlers up the country, and in the towns those who made money by trade generally migrated with it to Victoria, and settled there where there was more scope for them, and the less adventurous built themselves comfortable houses in or immediately around Hobart Town ”

“ Five, six, seven thousand pilgrims in a day became the order and still they came, overflowing the pensions, spreading out on the benches in the yard, eating lunches under the maples in the garden and washing down the big slice with copious draughts of water from the big Fountain—Saint Anne’s fountain.
“Saint Anne’s” became as well known in the land as Ottawa, Quebec or Montreal, more popular than Halifax, Saint John or Vancouver. Why? It is the Capital of Faith, the Place of the Miracle. And faith lies very close to the human heart. Hence the Pilgrims by the thousands. ”