Even conservative loan institutions accepted valuations based on actual sales. Prices in many cases doubled and quadrupled in a few months without much regard to the income-earning power. Then people were told that Brisbane would by and by, with an immense railway mileage finding its terminus at the wharves, be as big as Sydney or Melbourne; that land in George-street and Collins-street was realising £2,000 per foot frontage, bare; and that therefore choice sites in Queen-street could not be worth less than £1,000 per foot frontage. Thus prices advanced until the second half of 1888, when the demand for real property almost ceased. From that time until 1893 values were as far as possible upheld by the mortgagees, for they believed that the stagnation must be but temporary. Then came the crisis in the world's money markets, and it smote Queensland with prostrating force. The gradual reduction of local authority endowments, followed by their abolition in the year 1902-3, and the consequent increase of rate burdens, had a depressing effect upon property values, so that even to-day, more than sixteen years after the collapse of the boom, city lands do not realise more than one-half the prices demanded and often obtained in 1888.
It is easy to blame the leading parliamentarians of the time for their prodigality in expenditure; but, when the most experienced bankers of the time threw prudence to the winds under pressure of a flooded money market, we may at this distance of time judge public men less harshly than they were judged in 1893. Confidence was universal, and the man who raised a warning voice found himself figuratively "sent to coventry." An epidemic of swollen values pervaded the entire continent. Even so late as 1893, two skilled and disinterested Ministers of the Crown, and both possessed of banking experience, who were commissioned by the Government to report confidentially on the securities of the Queensland National Bank soon after its suspension, failed to realise the full extent of the inflation of past years, or the depreciation in land values that had taken place despite the efforts made to maintain them. For they gave such a report of the values of the bank's securities as induced the Legislature to sanction an abortive scheme of reconstruction and the retention of Government moneys. It is, however, to Sir Hugh Nelson's credit that, three years later, he passed through Parliament an amending Act, embodying the scheme which has since restored the bank to the status of a "national" institution.
Nineteen years have elapsed since the close of this period of extravagant borrowing and reckless expenditure, both public and private. For some years past Queensland has been enjoying almost unexampled prosperity, and the question naturally arises whether that prosperity may not be followed by another crisis. On this point examination of fixed property values, which are a good index, leads to a favourable conclusion. Of city or town lands there has of late years certainly been no inflation. Farming and dairying land values have no doubt risen rapidly, but not more, perhaps, than in proportion to the enhanced stable income-earning value arising from the success of the sugar and dairying industries and the enlarged markets available since federation to farmers all over Australia. In pastoral country there has certainly been no such inflation as occurred in the 1880-90 decade. Buyers discounted the future when, to justify their anticipations, the 372,105 square miles of artesian water-bearing country should have been already opened up and the country made increasingly productive by the streams from thousands of bores. To-day, as shown elsewhere in this book, artesian water is flowing to such an extent in Queensland that it would, with complete reticulation, supply 12,000,000 people with 40 gallons a day each. This in a country, too, which formerly was almost destitute of surface water. More bores are every year being put down, while geological research has lately added considerably to the area of artesian water-bearing country in Queensland. Generally trade is sound to-day, while banking deposits have made but gradual progression in volume during the last twenty years. Close settlement is rapidly going on, and the pastoral industry, which furnishes about 50 per cent. of our exports, is in a most prosperous condition after several good seasons capped by recently advancing prices. Wool alone, whose producers are realising highly satisfactory profits, formed 28·55 per cent. of our exports in 1907. Over gold mining there may be a fleeting cloud, but every year's laboratory research extends the area of remunerative ore deposits by reducing the cost of treatment. The cost of production and transport in all the primary industries is being gradually lessened. Happily there is no boom, present or prospective, to disturb the steady progress of the country; and it is reassuring to learn from recent public speeches by eminent Australian bankers that they are refusing to make advances for other than legitimate development.
SWAN CREEK VALLEY, NEAR YANGAN, WARWICK DISTRICT
CHAPTER VIII.
CROWN LANDS LEGISLATION.
The Code of 1860.—Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868.—Pastoral Leases Act of 1869.—Homestead Areas Act of 1872.—Crown Lands Alienation Act and Settled Districts Pastoral Leases Act of 1876.—The Griffith-Dutton Land Act of 1884.—Co-operative Communities Land Settlement Act.—Land Act of 1897.—Forms of Selection.—Act to Assist Persons to Settle on Land by Advances from the Treasury.—Extension of Pastoral Leases.—Closer Settlement Act.—Land Orders.
The land code of the session of 1860, so enthusiastically eulogised by Sir George Bowen in his despatch to the Secretary of State, unfortunately by no means settled the complex questions involved in the management of public lands extending over 15 degrees of longitude and 18 degrees of latitude. Indeed, to-day the land laws are probably as complicated as ever they were in the history of Queensland, notwithstanding the desire of the Legislature to make them as simple as possible, and to meet the wants of every description of settler, whether he be a homestead selector with his 320 acres, a grazing farmer with his 20,000 acres, or a pastoral lessee with his 1,000 square miles.