The Argus at KellyGang 27/4/1880 (2)
Selectors
It's all nonsense calling Sir Longmore the selectors' friend. I have been 29 years in this colony, and since he interfered between the selectors and the banks I have never seen capitalists placed in a better position to buy out selectors than they were in this district while the regulations were in force. A man with money could have bought out any number of leaseholders at £2 an acre last year. He cannot do it now-not since the last harvest. The land is good, and stock do well on the plains. A farm over there we sold for £1 17s 6d an acre last year-as good a one as there is in the district. The selector got a little bit involved, could not raise a loan, and had to sell out. His land is now in the hands of a working farmer who has money. There was a German living alongside who would have liked to have bought the same farm, but he did not know how things were going to end under Mr Longmore, and though he had money, let the opportunity go." Our informant wound up by saying he believed in moderate protection, and he had also been considering the fact that he was paying a duty of £9 on his stripper. The result of his ponderings however, he did not seem inclined to divulge so we drove on.
The considerable list of selectors talked with has not yet been exhausted. In fact the result of nearly the whole of the third day a inquiries remain to be described; but it is hardly necessary to keep on dealing with details to the same extent is has been done in the first three articles. A word or two may be said about a case in which the combined members of a family had cramped themselves by taking up too much land. The father, three sons and two daughters were holding 1,320 acres. One of the sons was £84 behind in his rent and each of the others owed arrears, varying from £16 to £48. The family began with a joint capital of £609. They built a weatherboard cottage, fenced and ploughed extensively getting by the end of the fifth year 200 acres under crop. The selections were taken up at deferent periods and in several instances the probationary period had not jet expired.
The produce of the last harvest, which amounted to between £500 and £600, enabled them to clear off the greater part of their liabilities and pay off a temporary advance obtained from the bank, but they had no funds in hand for meeting the rent. Their annual payment of rent amounted to £192. If this family had been content with 1,000 acres on which they would only have had to pay £100 per annum to the state, they might have been now free from all embarrassment. The land around the house was not enclosed, and there were neither out buildings nor garden to be seen. Five or six years ago there was a settlement of poor Germans on the Hill plain. They were under the guidance of a prophetess, or religious enthusiast. The greater number of them have moved into the county of Mandurang, leaving only two or three families behind. One German who had married an Englishwoman was found occupying a cosy slab and dab cottage, papered inside with newspapers. The children looked healthy, the surroundings of the cottage were clean, and the cultivation of the farm in a progressive state. Half a mile further on a different state of affairs was observed. The wife came out of a dark low roofed bark hut and said in broken English that her husband was out ploughing. She was not wearing boots or shoes, her clothes were tawdry, and in keeping with the general appearance of the hut, which presented a most uninviting front to the public view. Her knowledge of English was so scanty that no information could be obtained as to the prospects of the selection.
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