Arrived with an Empty Pocket.
Mr. H. Denning, in responding to the toast of “The Pioneers,” at a banquet at Mount Tarampa, in the Lowood district (South Queensland) in 1913, said:—“It was now 35 years since he became a resident of the district. He arrived with an empty pocket, and on arrival found he was compelled to cut a road 1-1/2 miles through scrub to get to the boundary of his selection. He cleared 2 acres, and after six months harvested his first crop of maize and sweet potatoes. He hired a wagon, and took a load into a firm in Ipswich. For the maize he received 9d. per bushel, and the sweet potatoes realised sufficient to pay the hire for the wagon, leaving him nothing for his labour.” He added: “He had seen selectors compelled to walk 4 or 5 miles for water, and carry it to their holdings in kerosene tins. Numerous times he had seen children waiting for their father’s return with water so that they could quench their thirst. Those were the days,” concluded Mr. Denning, “when the settlers required ‘grit,’ and he could truthfully say that they had abundance of it.”