Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/576

 bfltiome wertltliy, unrl, with the support of the (ioverniuent, powerful as ai^f tirigtocracj'. The democratic oiiiltitode woiil<l look iipoTi their latj^e^H posaeaaions with &nvy, and upon the proprietora with liatr<?d. A a this democratic feeling has already taken deep root in the colony in oonflcquence of the absurd and niischievouB policy pursued by Governor MEiccinarie,^H and as there is already a strong combination amongst that class of per»OD%^| it cannot be too soon opposed with vigour." ^^^ Something of the sort must be done **if His Majesty's Government propose to retain thia colony as a dependency™ of Great Britam/' With augmentation of population the " aristocratic body should be enhirged. Flocks would mul- tiply, — Great Britain would receive fine wool, — ^and *' British manufactures to an immen&ie amount would be consumed in^ the colony/* jH Grantees of large estates should be com2>elled to fuMP^ certain conditions, otherwise the Government would be dis- appointed and the colony embarrassed. *' Adventurers with- out capital retard all improvement, and as they sink deeper into poverty and distress swell the mass of discontent, be- come most furious democrats, and attribute the misery into which they are plunged not to their own idleness or want of discretion, but to the errors of the Government, and the^ oppression of the wealthy.*' ■ The actual state of the colony may be discerned more^ clearly through the workings of Macarthur's mind in this ,| period than in the laboured disquisitions of numerous*! books. He descried the difficulty for which Gibbon Wake-™ field afterwards propounded a remedy in the ** sufficient price'' for land. He would withhold land from those who were not *' men of character possessed of skill and capi- tal.'; M Living in a colony where only convict labour existed, ■' Macarthur aimed by arbitrary limitation of government grants and assigmnents, to do that which the sagacious Wakefield strove to do in a free community by fixing such a price upon land as would restrict its occupation to those ^, who could profitably use it. Macarthur 's plan seemed H more arbitrary than Wakefield* s. Yet thoroughly to carry the latter into practice, it would have been necessary to be prepared to enhance the price in case of need so much BB practically to prohibit general sale, and thus the two plans coincided in prmciyle.