In 1908 there were, roughly speaking, 87,043,266 sheep in this colony, the result of breeding and importation from the old country, from India, and the Cape, the sheep in the six years from 1902 to 1908 having increased by 33,374,919; while the value of the wool exported from the entire colony in 1908 was £22,914,236. In the face of these figures and the well-known fact that the number of sheep in all other countries is diminishing, it does seem rather like killing the goose with the golden egg to prohibit big estates, which, after all, are the only estates possible for pastoral success, As long as there is plenty of land still vacant and the output of wool is not only a great source of wealth, but also a credit to the country, it seems a mistake to financially cripple, beyond all hope, the people who produce it; while the fact that many of the large estates have been on the market more than once and found no purchaser, seems to have escaped the notice of Mr. Fisher when he so light-heartedly sent the maximum rate careering upwards. It seems, indeed, like trying to hang a man who has already been beheaded to take away all the land that is worth anything and impose the heaviest possible tax on that which is worthless.
As yet no one seems to know whether the Federal Parliament is or is not within its rights in levying any such tax at all. However, if their action is proved unconstitutional, the landowners will not be very much better off, as the State Parliament will be only too ready to impose a progressive tax on their own account. Still, they should certainly be able to show a trifle more discrimination than is possible for the Federal Government, while there is some hope that they may differentiate between the man who owns a vast stretch of land, far from any railway or town, and only possible for pastoral purposes, and the man with a small, compact estate, with rich soil, well watered, and capable of the closest cultivation; while something might be done to compensate individuals and companies “away out back” for the disadvantages under which they will labour in competing with the lease-holders of Crown lands, who will have no tax whatever to meet.
There is an idea in England, among the people who do not know much—and these are always the readiest to express their opinion—that the squatter simply sat down on a piece of land and raked in just as much as he could get from the surrounding country, mile upon mile upon mile of it; riding round, killing off horse after horse in the process, sticking up a post here and a post there, and asserting:—“All this is mine”; straddling over the land, with his long legs, and his top-boots, and his picturesque slouch hat, striking his breast, just like a man in a play, and reiterating, “Mine, mine!”
But it was not like that at all. It was blood, and sweat, and sheer endeavour, and hard cash. For one must remember that the men who hold the large estates are not the same men who ran up a fortune in a year on the gold-fields.
The land was paid for—and to the Crown, too—up to as much as 20s. and 25s. an acre. Yet, as Sir Henry Wrixon says during his report on the Federal Land Tax in the Argus of August 20, 1910, the present Government, in its desire to still have the cake its predecessors have eaten, would say to the landowners: “True, we have sold you this land and have got your money; indeed, in some cases we urged you to buy at more than its real value, in order to facilitate your plans for land settlement. But now we have altered our views; we want no large purchasers or holders of land. Clear out, you miscreants. Tremble before the vengeance of a triumphant democracy.”
It may be political, but is it—to put it in a characteristically Australian term—“is it cricket?” and is it sense? And is it the sort of behaviour that is likely to tempt new settlers with means to invest their money in Australian land?
At a public meeting lately Mr. Fisher assured a delegation of mercantile men that they might always rely on him in commercial matters. But Mr. Fisher, in as far as he counts—that is, politically—is not immortal, and his successor may in his turn “barrack,” to use another popular expression, altogether for the landowners; while the mercantile class may in their turn go to the wall with one single twist of the kaleidoscope.
If such a tax as is now determined on was not retrospective there would not be much to complain of. If it was even decreed that it would be regarded as a capital crime in the future to acquire any land over 5,000 acres in extent, that might be fair. But to sell a man anything, then count it a crime that he should possess it—well, it seems, to say the least of it, a peculiarly feminine way of looking at things. And I cannot help wondering if Mr. Fisher was going to try on a new suit, or buy a new hat, or anything else really important, when he lately dismissed the deputation of prominent pastoralists—headed by Mr. J. A. Campbell, President of the Pastoral Union of Southern Riverina—who sought to lay their side of the question before him, after twenty-five minutes, with the airy remark that:—“Doubtless we are all of us desirous of going somewhere else this morning.” And this to men whose homes and families, whose whole means of life, and pride of life, depended on such a twenty-five minutes!
It is true that Mr. Fisher promised to consider the new facts brought before his notice by the deputation. Still, it is not generally considered quite the best thing to mix a cake after it is baked. In our old nursery days we were inoculated with the saying that “It is better to be sure than sorry”; and it is an odd feature of the political affairs of this country that, while all discussion is perfectly free, and praise, criticism, and condemnation equally open to all, great questions are still settled and great measures passed with hardly any discussion at all, or even thought.
From the beginning that part of the new land tax which has been most carefully impressed upon the people is that, while they will all benefit from it, only some 6 or 10 per cent. will be called upon to pay it. This all the electors completely understand, as they naturally would anything that has been so carefully explained.