colony landowners renewed their old agitation. With the opening up of the new country in the north the question of leasing regulations had come to be of much importance.
Mr. M. W. Clifton became a leader of the agitation. In 1854 he proposed the imposition of a land tax of ½d. per acre, which should be remitted when the land was cleared and brought under cultivation. His proposal received little consideration. In the Champion Bay district immense areas of land were taken up on lease, and a few of the wealthiest men were acquiring nearly the whole area. The land was surveyed in large blocks so that a rich man could select where a poorer could not go. Mr. Clifton spoke effectively on this point in the Legislative Council in October, 1856. He said people were afraid to seek to purchase land situated on squatting runs because the leaseholders were sure to bid against them. The blocks in the northern district were so large that every one was shut out; one leaseholder alone had over 100,000 acres. That person confessed that this area was out of proportion to his stock, but that he selected the land to prevent other people from getting it. Similar stories were told of leaseholds in the Blackwood country. Mr. Clifton proposed that the minimum price of Crown lands at auction be fixed at £1 per acre for 50 acres and under, 10s. for 100 acres, and 5s. for areas above 100 acres. Governor Kennedy sympathetically replied in equally strong terms. From Port Gregory to the Greenough, and south of that district, he said, there was hardly any available land, yet the proportion of stock was ridiculously small. Such a system might be profitable to the individual, but the district could never prosper while it produced only wool. He considered that a new system should be introduced, for at present there was no encouragement for agriculturists; they were not able to purchase land. Mr. Clifton asked that the Executive Council should devise a better plan.
Governor Kennedy, while addressing the Agricultural Society at Toodyay in the same month, confirmed his anxiety to effect an alteration by calling for expressions of opinion regarding the disposal of waste lands. At the same time he stated that for £100 received from land sources in 1850 there was £1000 in 1856. Mr. T. N. Yule told the Lords Committee on convicts that it was useless to charge more than 10s per acre for public lands; he believed 5s. was much more advisable. Other witnesses agreed, and the committee in its report recommended the Imperial Government to make a large reduction in the price of land in Western Australia.
In 1857 the local authorities, in pursuance of the prevailing sentiment, made important suggestions to the Imperial Government. In addition to appointing a committee to draw up new regulations, the Governor circulated a printed list of seventy-nine queries, so as to obtain the views of landholders. The committee, which reported in June, 1857, was composed of Messrs. J. S. Roe, F. P. Barlee, and A. O'Grady Lefroy, who advised that the regulations dealing with town allotments remain unaltered. But they suggested amendments in the regulations for the alienation of Crown lands to the satisfaction of the most adverse critics. Thus, they proposed that the price of waste lands be reduced to 5s. per acre, cash, or 6s. credit; that sales by auction be abolished in favour of a fixed price; that the minimum block be forty acres; that credit sales extend over a term of three years; that grants of twenty acres be made to every adult paying a cabin fare from the United Kingdom who is prepared to purchase Crown lands to double that amount (two children between the ages of ten and fourteen years to be considered as one adult), such land to be selected within twelve months of arrival, and such applicant to reside for three years on the grant before the issue of the title deeds. For pastoral leases the rate should remain at 20s. per 1,000 acres in Class A, and 10s. per 1000 acres in Class B lands. Several alterations were, however, devised in the division of these lands. The maximum quantity of land to be taken up by one individual in Class B was set down at 10,000 acres, and the conditions of renewal at 50 per cent. increase on first, and 50 per cent. on second renewals. The lessee was to be given the sole right of purchase during the first year of lease. Forfeited leases were to be put up at auction at such upset price, in addition to rent, as improvements effected might warrant; all improvements were to revert to the Crown.
In the sale of lands covered by a B lease, it was proposed that the lessee should have the right to claim compensation for lawful improvements made on the land selected out of his lease, but he should only claim the actual amount expended. Tillage leases should be abolished; and mineral lands purchased at 20s. per acre, in blocks of not less than forty acres. Mineral leases should terminate at the end of one year, with right of renewal from year to year—the rental to be 1s. per acre per annum. The lessee might give up land at any time during the year without compensation, but he must fill up all holes prior to surrendering his lease.
All these proposals meant a radical change in the land laws, and substantially embraced the majority of requests made by the public in the preceding twenty years. It is unnecessary to describe the general rapture. The Legislative Council was as pleased as the majority of landholders, and on 24th June received, and unanimously adopted, the report as embodied in a bill. Mr. Clifton and Governor Kennedy eulogistically complimented the committee. The proposals were forwarded to the Secretary for the Colonies for the assent of the Imperial Government. The despatch, in reply, was considered by the Legislative Council in September, 1858.
The Secretary for the Colonies, while agreeing with most of the proposals, would not consent to a very important part of them. He was not convinced of the wisdom of reducing the minimum price for waste lands to 5s., and fixed it instead at 10s. per acre. He was much concerned on learning the enormous size of some selections, and coincided with the view that the colony could not prosper under such conditions. He suggested the imposition of a land tax, and also of a poll tax on cattle and sheep. The Legislative Council received this despatch by resolution with "mingled feelings of satisfaction and concern," and dissented from the recommended poll tax. In May, 1859, Lord E. B. Lytton, Secretary of State, replied to resolutions passed by the Council regarding this despatch, and counselled the Governor, while giving a right of pre-emption to pastoral lessees, to be careful not to exclude new settlers. He enclosed an exhaustive communication from the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners on the land regulations of Western Australia. The commissioners contended that it was not advisable to make colonial lands too cheap, for then every colonist would be a landowner, and not one a labourer. The requirement of the colony was not actually labour and cheap land; capitalists were "not tempted to a country by the mere cheapness of land, but by the return which can be obtained from
