fact, the Australian squatter is nearly in the same position with what was once called the tenant in ancient demesne, who held in villenage under the crown, and the tenant by copy of court roll, who held under inferior lords. The English judges, indeed, always so fayourable to liberty of tenure, by a pardonable straining of construction, afterwards held that the will of the lord was to be interpreted and controled by the custom of the manor, and by thus establishing a fixed rule, instead of the uncertain and arbitrary caprice of the lord, got rid of the villein tenure at will, which even then was felt to be intolerable to the free spirit of the people. But it is a curious illustration of the maxim that extremes meet, that an experiment, founded upon a vaunted scheme of an enlightened political economy, has resulted in establishing, at least for a time, over a large portion of the Australian continent, the servile tenures of the middle ages unmitigated by the intervention of judicial authority.[1] I say established for a time, for I should be unwilling to do any man who has reflected on the subject the injustice of supposing that he wishes the system to be permanent. If, however, they are to be got rid of, much of the prosperity of the country will depend on the way in which this is done. It is to be remembered
- ↑ There is a wide difference between the position of the Australian squatter and that of the modern tenant at will in England, for whom all improvements are made and all buildings erected, and with whom there is at least a tacit agreement that no circumstance except his failure in performing his part of the contract shall lead to an eviction. Yet even this is scarcely a fit tenure for an independent man.
