Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/142

 woman-employing coal-worker, could have taken a narrower view of the question.

There is unfortunately in all of us a germ of selfishness which, when unchecked by public opinion or political opposition, is apt to grow into injustice and tyranny. In private life the squatters were excellent, generous, hospitable men; but one large proportion consisted of old colonists accustomed to convict servants, who cost nothing beyond their board and lodging, and another of young bachelors of capital, who arrived in the colony to make a fortune, intent on returning to the old country as soon as it was made. The one despised, and the other were indifferent to the opinions of the working classes. Both dreamed of naturalising in Australia the miserable wages of the southern counties of England and the Highland counties of Scotland.

To resist the aggressions of Sir George Gipps on the pastoral interest the squatters had formed themselves into a protective association, and by an easy process the association, founded to resist unjust confiscation and taxation, branched off into a combination for permanently lowering the wages of the colony. At the head of this association was the late Mr. Benjamin Boyd. Mr. Boyd arrived with the express purpose of making investments at the time (1841) that the colony was in a general state of insolvency, or, as he expressed it, "in a jam." A yacht of the Royal Squadron, an apparently unlimited capital, an imposing personal appearance, fluent oratory, aristocratic connexions, and a fair share of commercial acuteness, acquired on the Stock Exchange, at once and deservedly placed him at the head of the squatocracy. His aim was the possession of a million sheep. He was the chief of the hundred thousand sheepmen, with whom he combined to obtain fixity of tenure for their sheep pastures, to put down small settlers, and to reduce wages.

At the period we are describing, from 1841 to 1844, the colonial labour market presented the most curious contradictions. The bounty agents were pouring in a crowd of most unsuitable persons, who, once landed, were soon left to shift for themselves. Among the merchants of the town of Sydney distress prevailed in consequence of the cessation of building and other works, the wages of mechanics were depressed to a rate before unknown, and newly-arrived immigrants were astonished at the low rate of pay for town labour, so different to the flaming representations of the crimps by whom they had been collected. But in the country districts, and especially in the bush, where sheep and cattle were breeding, while their proprietors were going through the insolvent process, wages were maintained; and the anomaly was presented of