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!