LAISSEZ FAIRE 
A.D. 1776 with reference to English territorial ideas. Each of the 
"convicts, as he became free, received a grant of thirty or 
forty acres, if he chose to apply for it, at a quit rent, for the 
property in the soil was carefully retained by the State. 
The pasture of Australia, though plentiful, was poor, and 
Captain Macarthur calculated” that three acres were necessary 
for every sheep, and that a square mile would only suffice for 
a flock of two hundred. There was a strong feeling against 
allowing any single individual to monopolise large areas of 
land in the neighbourhood of the growing town. The diffi- 
culty was met by a proposal which was put forward by 
Sir Joseph Banks. “As you and the gentlemen concerned 
with you®,” he wrote, seem determined to persevere in your 
New South Wales sheep adventure, and as I am aware that 
its success will be of infinite importance to the manufacturers 
of England, and that its failure will not happen without 
much previous advantage to the infant colony, I should be 
glad to know whether the adventurers would be contented 
with a grant of a large quantity of land as sheep walks only, 
resumable by the Government in any parcels in which it 
shall be found convenient to grant it as private property, 
on condition of an equal quantity of land being granted 1m 
recompense as sheep walk. The lands to be chosen by your 
agent in lots of 100,000 acres each, and a new lot granted as 
soon as the former has been occupied, as far as 1,000,000 
acres.” This was the form of tenure which was eventually 
adopted ; many graziers held the area for grass alone, and re- 
moved elsewhere, when the Government notified them that the 
land was required for other purposes ; they were in consequence 
spoken of as squatters’. Captain Macarthur may be described 
4 Bonwick, 104. 2 Ib. 75. 8 Ib. 77. 
i Ib. 78. The term squatter is associated in England with settling on a common 
‘see above, p. 568). In Australia the first plan was to grant common grazing rights 
sver a considerable area to a group of settlers by lease (Governor King's Proclama- 
tion, 1804, in Bonwick, 105). This system soon proved too restricted for the rapidly 
increasing flocks, and in 1820 letters of occupation were granted to some individuals, 
30 as to allow them to range beyond the limits prescribed in this lease (Bonwick, 
106). In 1831 (see p. 861 below) the policy of the colony was so far changed that 
he out-and-out sale of land was introduced, partly, it would appear, through 
ihe influence of Mr Wakefield (Art of Colonisation, 45)—though mining rights 
were still reserved (Bonwick, 107)—but the prices were prohibitive, so far as 
sraziers were concerned, and but little relief was given to them till 1847, when