On the Wallaby Through Victoria

by Elinor Mordaunt

“Ach, I could pay fine; but what should I be afther wasting good money paying rint fur? Now, tell me that.”

It sometimes seems to me that many of the would-be farmers, who in Melbourne clamour for land, hold much the same opinions as did that Irishman. Why should they waste good money buying land, or paying “rint” either? though the plea which is put forward is that the settlers want to buy the land, and the squatters—the two Camperdown men among others—wish to merely lease out and not to sell their properties. Perhaps it would be as well in either case to follow the precedent of the pie-man, and insist, as he did—“Show me first your penny”—or, anyhow, show the young men, if not their pennies, before subdividing any more of the large estates; for it may yet happen that Government finds more on its hands than it clearly knows what to do with.

The latest concession which the Government is agitating for on behalf of the working-man is a Compensation Bill, compelling an employer not only to compensate any man injured while at work, but also to provide for him in any disease which he may contract while in his employment. This, like the minimum wage, is a measure which, if carried out, will press heavily on the weak—the very people who, I believe, it honestly hopes to benefit. For the man with a cough, who might develop consumption; for the man who looks as if he might have a weak heart or a weak back, who even appears in any way delicate, it is ruinous; for who would dare take the risk of a responsibility which might run them in hundreds of pounds? The small settler who has heretofore eked out his living by casual work, at a busy season, on some neighbouring station, dairy, or fruit-farm, will suffer too; for who will venture to employ for a few days a man whom in the end they might have to support for life? It is all very well to temper the wind to the shorn lamb, but why skin it first? By the time this appears in print it is more than likely that the proposed Bill will have become law, for many members will vote for it, not because of their convictions, but because, if they stand firm, Federation may intervene with some measure even more stringent.

The worst part of Federation is that nobody quite realizes its power; it may be merely a semblance of reality, or it may be an ogre. It is like those shadows which lurk in the dark corners of a room, frightening wakeful children; or the genii that Sinbad at first hoisted, with such genial good-will, upon his back.

When I landed for the first time in Australia the relations between the landowners and the working-people were certainly far happier than they are now. People were proud of the vast estates, as indicative of the size of the country; of the immense flocks of sheep, and the merino wool that nowhere else could be matched for quality and quantity. Certain especially silky wools are procured from sheep in certain parts of the Western District of Victoria, and nowhere else, lambs’ wool actually reaching the price of 2s. a pound in Geelong market this last season. It was famous wool such as this, grown largely by the Macarthur and Russell families, which built up the reputation of Victoria far more surely than gold ever did, or pigs or onions ever will. Sheep do not reach to such a pitch of perfection by chance, and the Western District merinoes would scarcely be recognized by their original progenitors, popularly supposed to have emerged from the Ark. Immense sums of money have been spent on importing animals and bringing them to the highest pitch of perfection, and a question that has got to be faced is: Who—when the land is cut up into small holdings—will have either the money or enterprise necessary for importing fresh blood; and how will all the evils of inter-breeding, always such a danger on small farms, be avoided? Even now stud sheep are being sent out of the country, one owner a few months back having shipped off close on a dozen to Natal, feeling, I suppose, that there was nothing more to be made out of valuable sheep in a country which was, bit by bit, being cut away from under his feet.

“Men are more valuable than sheep,” is the parrot-like cry of politicians—some men I would say. In any case, men can live on sheep, and they cannot—unless they are cannibals—live on each other. If the large estates are not put to a proper use, if the sheep and wool they produce are a menace to the credit of the country, or when all the unsettled land is gone, then a reconstruction will become imperative. Meanwhile it is well to remember what has been done with the sheep, and what the sheep have done, and are still doing, for the country.

The original flock of sheep which formed the chief part of the stock owned by the Henty family was formed in Sussex at the end of the eighteenth century, taken out to Jamaica, then, later on, transferred to Portland by Edward Henty. To this flock many of the best of the Victorian sheep owe their origin, merinoes, also originally imported from England, being brought down from New South Wales by Captain Macarthur. In 1836 there were, officially, 41,332 sheep in Victoria—or Port Phillip. By 1842 the number had risen to 1,404,333, from which the number went on increasing by leaps and bounds till, in 1891, it reached 12,692,843, when the run of dry seasons, which lasted till 1901, decreased the flock to 10,841,790. The enormous rate at which the value of the export of wool increased may be gathered from the fact that between the years 1837—the year following the settlement of the Henty family in Portland—and 1840, five years after Faulkner’s settlement on the bank of the Yarra, and six years before the recognition of Victoria as a separate colony—this value rose from £11,639 to £67,902. In but one more year it leapt up to £85,735; while in 1908–09 the total value of the wool-clip in Victoria, with wool stripped from Victorian skins and exported on skins, has been estimated at £3,556,168, the weight of wool from the Western District sheep alone weighing 27,708,920 pounds.

The first live stock landed by Captain Phillips in Australia, in 1788, comprised 7 horses, 6 cattle, 29 sheep, 12 pigs, and a few goats.

Four months later the live stock in the colony were estimated, in a letter from Captain Phillips to Lord Sydney, Secretary of State for the Colonies, as follows:—“7 horses, 7 cattle, 29 sheep, 74 pigs, 18 turkeys, 29 geese, 35 ducks, 205 fowls, and 5 rabbits”—so that Mr. Austin was not the first, or the only, culprit in respect to Master Bunny.