were produced annually. It was said that by these various liberal provisions we were giving land worth many pounds an acre to the first comer at a nominal price. We were giving it to settlers who could occupy the country, and to get settlers abundantly agriculture must have its prizes. Would mining have prospered if it had been declared that all nuggets beyond a certain size would be reserved from the digger? There must be large nuggets of land to tempt settlers and to reward settlement. But in truth the squatter who had got the land hitherto had bought it at an average of about £1 1s. an acre.
The squatter's tenure was put upon a, new footing, their claim to permanency or the right of pre-emption was extinguished, and their occupation authorised by an annual license, which was to terminate altogether at the end of nine years, the runs in the meantime being liable to be taken for public purposes or sold by auction by the Government, or occupied for mining purposes as before. A large party in the colony claimed the immediate abolition of squatting licenses, but as such a stroke would involve the destruction of a vast quantity of private property, and as more than one-fourth of the public lands were taken away for the purpose of agricultural areas, I considered it a just compromise to sanction this additional occupation. The squatters did not exhibit any violent discontent, and they were generally supposed to have made a good bargain. But in secret they plotted to evade, by shameless and unprincipled devices, the purpose and provisions of the law.
When the measure came into operation the Argus, in its character of leading journal, declared that it abounded in possibilities of good, and was capable of giving a greater impulse to the progress of the Colony than any event which occurred since the discovery of gold. This beneficent measure encountered formidable difficulties, and for a time failed in its main purposes. Dishonest persons, hired by the squatters, took up large quantities of land, not for their own use and benefit, as they falsely affirmed, but for the use of their paymasters. And the punishment which the act provided for such offences was skilfully and successfully evaded. Now, when the whole facts are familiar, we can fairly judge the
