also provided that two children between the ages of four and fourteen should be reckoned as one statute adult. Further provision was made by which a bonus in land was to be paid during the next three years of L10 per bale of good cleaned Sea Island cotton, and for the two years next following L5 per bale. And finally any person or company was empowered to purchase land not exceeding 640 acres in one block for mining purposes, other than for coal or gold, at the upset price of 20s. per acre. The fourth measure of the "Code" was the Occupied Crown Lands Leasing Act, which enabled the lessee of any Crown land held under previously existing regulations, or under the Tenders for Crown Lands Act of the current session, to get a five years' renewal at the end of his term. The principle of compensation was recognised in these leasing Acts, but no provision was made for the continuance of the pre-emptive right of purchase, conferred by the old Orders in Council. [Illustration: BARRON FALLS, CAIRNS RAILWAY, NORTH QUEENSLAND] Sir George Bowen wrote to the Secretary of State in terms of exalted laudation of these four Acts. "I regard them," he said, "as a practical and satisfactory settlement of this much-vexed question, which is still embittering the social life and retarding the material advance of the neighbouring and elder colonies." To a friend in England he wrote,--"The legislation of our first Parliament has settled the long quarrel between the pastoral and agricultural interests which has raged in all new countries ever since the days of Abel, the 'keeper of sheep,' and Cain, the 'tiller of the ground!'" To the Secretary of State he added,--"This Parliament may fairly boast of having passed, with due caution and foresight, a greater number of really useful measures, and of having achieved a greater amount of really practical legislation, than any other Parliament in any of the Australian colonies since the introduction of parliamentary government." Sir George quotes a Sydney journal,[a] which before separation was antagonistic to that movement, as saying,--"The Government of Queensland has been either very fortunate or very judicious. The last to enter the race, Queensland has shot ahead, and taken the first place. While in Melbourne the popular rage has been worked up by its guardians into riot, and while in Sydney the tactics of the popular party have succeeded in placing the land question in a position of chronic blockade, in Queensland it has been settled on a moderate and reasonable basis, and without so much as a single ministerial crisis."