Before 1859, Queensland was part of New South Wales. It began life as a penal settlement, not unlike other places. Those red cliffs that Captain Cook saw, as he sailed past in 1770, later became the home for convicts.
Before 1859, Queensland was part of New South Wales. It began life as a penal settlement, not unlike other places. Those red cliffs that Captain Cook saw, as he sailed past in 1770, later became the home for convicts.
There was an exclusion zone around Brisbane, and ships brought settlers into Maryborough, as one of the major ports.
There was an exclusion zone around Brisbane, and ships brought settlers into Maryborough, as one of the major ports.
Gradually areas were settled, and lands were purchased by early settlers and speculators.
When Queensland became a separate state in 1859 more settlers began arriving in their droves to settle and farm the lands, and new towns were created. In the Fassifern Valley, a huge number of German settlers created farms from the bush.
But, how many people realise that the northern suburbs of Bald Hills and Bracken Ridge were settled by immigrants from Scotland?
They were able to obtain land, either lease or purchase, from the Government. The monies had to be repaid, and the purchase price was £1.00 per acre. They could have terms and repay the loan in 3 years.
Some it seems worked their land for others, some mortgaged their lands in order to gain financial assistance. Sometimes their land would be transferred to a businessman at the time of death. Possibly as payment for one of the debts.
They cleared the land, in order to farm, and sell their crops. They created communities around their farms. Sometimes a church was the first community building, then a school. Followed by numerous pubs and other services to cater for the residents. Those communities then became towns.
Most towns then were recognised by being named. Bald Hills and Sandgate were the named towns, both either side of Bracken Ridge
When Queensland became a separate state in 1859 more settlers began arriving in their droves to settle and farm the lands, and new towns were created. In the Fassifern Valley, a huge number of German settlers created farms from the bush.
But, how many people realise that the northern suburbs of Bald Hills and Bracken Ridge were settled by immigrants from Scotland?
They were able to obtain land, either lease or purchase, from the Government. The monies had to be repaid, and the purchase price was £1.00 per acre. They could have terms and repay the loan in 3 years.
Some it seems worked their land for others, some mortgaged their lands in order to gain financial assistance. Sometimes their land would be transferred to a businessman at the time of death. Possibly as payment for one of the debts.
They cleared the land, in order to farm, and sell their crops. They created communities around their farms. Sometimes a church was the first community building, then a school. Followed by numerous pubs and other services to cater for the residents. Those communities then became towns.
Most towns then were recognised by being named. Bald Hills and Sandgate were the named towns, both either side of Bracken Ridge
Sketch of the Moreton Bay Settlement from South Brisbane,
attributed to Henry W. Boucher Bowerman c.1835 (courtesy State Library of Queensland)
On the East Coast of UK there is a lovely fishing town called Whitby. If you take a walk down the close alleyways between the old tenements, you will find Captain Cook, in a Museum.
Sketch of the Moreton Bay Settlement from South Brisbane,
attributed to Henry W. Boucher Bowerman c.1835 (courtesy State Library of Queensland)
On the East Coast of UK there is a lovely fishing town called Whitby. If you take a walk down the close alleyways between the old tenements, you will find Captain Cook, in a Museum.
He lived in the house for 6 months while he trained they now have a small maritime museum there.
******************************************************************************
When working on a comparison of the lot numbers from the records at the Queensland Archives, and the map showing the allocated lot numbers, there were differences.
He lived in the house for 6 months while he trained they now have a small maritime museum there.
Trying to find out why was a mammoth task, and my sincere thanks to Rob Carseldine for his valuable assistance. Working on his family knowledge, and details obtained from some probate records, he poured over documents until he located an explanation.
However, I believe I have
resolved the difference between the Lot numbers on your list and the Portion
numbers on the map.
They are both correct. If you look on the Land Purchase
documents in Ancestry NSW Land Records 1856 -1859, the description of the land
includes reference to the previous Lot numbers.
Example below for Loudon’s 22
Jan 1857 purchase, Portion 22 previously Lot 21:
One of the lovely things to come from undertaking this sort of a research project, is the new "friends" that you can meet along the way, and often never even meet. A fellow researcher assisted me while doing John's convict ancestors, and between us we searched for around 4 months continuously for an article that I had fleetingly seen, then could never find again. Sue was over the moon when she found it late one Saturday night. My theory was true!
***************************************************************************
Trying to find out why was a mammoth task, and my sincere thanks to Rob Carseldine for his valuable assistance. Working on his family knowledge, and details obtained from some probate records, he poured over documents until he located an explanation.
However, I believe I have
resolved the difference between the Lot numbers on your list and the Portion
numbers on the map.
They are both correct. If you look on the Land Purchase
documents in Ancestry NSW Land Records 1856 -1859, the description of the land
includes reference to the previous Lot numbers.
Example below for Loudon’s 22
Jan 1857 purchase, Portion 22 previously Lot 21:
So that explains all the
differences. I have checked several to be sure.
One of the lovely things to come from undertaking this sort of a research project, is the new "friends" that you can meet along the way, and often never even meet. A fellow researcher assisted me while doing John's convict ancestors, and between us we searched for around 4 months continuously for an article that I had fleetingly seen, then could never find again. Sue was over the moon when she found it late one Saturday night. My theory was true!
QUEENSLAND IMMIGRATION
AND
THE BLACK BALL LINE
by WARWICK FOOTE
Read at a Meeting of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland
on 23 February 1978
After separation on 1 December 1859 the First Parliament of the new Colony of Queensland resolved on 31 May 1860 that a select committee be appointed to consider and report on the best
means of promoting immigration to the Colony.
The committee sat during June, July and August 1860. Its object was "to elicit opinions as to the best mode of inducing a cheap, healthy and continuous flow of immigration to Queensland
and to gain evidence as to the working, satisfactorily or otherwise, of the present and other systems which have been in use for some years".
These systems, which were conducted under the control of the Imperial Emigration Commissioners in England, were —
Free immigration, under which the conveyance of immigrants to the Colony was entirely at the cost of the Government;
Remittance immigration, under which a remission of 80 per cent on all purchases of land was made to parties sending home for their friends; and
Assisted immigration, by which the immigrants were required to repay a large portion of their passage money within a certain period after their arrival in the Colony^.
The select committee recommended, among other things —
(a) That the Government make arrangements for the introduction of any number of immigrants, the cost of whose passage may be guaranteed by responsible parties in the Colony . . . these immigrants to be entitled to a land order on production of a certificate from their employer to the effect that they have fulfilled the conditions of their agreement to repay to him the amount of their passage
money;
(b) That parties importing their own servants or friends be allowed a remission in the shape of a land order to the amount of f.l8 for every statute adult (a statute adult being anyone over the age of 12 years, or two children between the ages of one year and 12 years);
(c) That these conditions be extended to all individuals paying their own passages from the United Kingdom and who are able and willing to settle down upon the land at once or after two or three years' residence in the Colony;
(d) That a selecting agent be appointed in Great Britain, one who possessing a thorough knowledge of the country and its requirements should adopt active measures for disseminating the knowledge of the new Colony by means of lectures and advertisements and pointing out to those who would be desirable immigrants the many advantages offered by Queensland; and
(e) That all parties emigrating to Queensland and all ships conveying them be under the supervision of the Emigration Commissioners in England.
As a result of the committee's recommendations the Queensland Government instituted a system of immigration known as the land order system to supplement that carried out under the control of the Emigration Commissioners.
Originally the land order system provided that every adult immigrant who paid his or her own passage to Queensland was to be granted a land order for 18 acres and, after two years' residence in the Colony, a further order for 12 acres. The orders were valued at £18 and £12 respectively.
A shipowner who brought free passengers or assisted passengers to Queensland at his own
expense was to be given a land order for £18 for each adult immigrant carried. These provisions were altered from time to time.
Furthermore, assisted passages were to be granted to any immigrant who was unable to pay his full fair and free passages were to be given to female domestic servants and persons whose
circumstances were such as to warrant the granting of a free passage.
The land order system operated under the Immigration Regulations promulgated under the Alienation of Crown Lands Act. From the Government's point of view, the immediate advantage to be gained from the system was that, by paying a shipowner in land orders instead of in cash, the young Colony
was saved the need of calling upon its meagre financial resources to meet the cost of immigration of free and assisted passengers.
However, as was to be discovered later, the granting and circulation of a large number of land orders resulted in a drastic reduction in the sale of Crown lands, on which the Colony relied heavily for its revenue.
Recruiting settlers
In the mid-1860's there was a scheme introduced in Queensland where "agents" would spend years in overseas countries "interviewing and seeking new immigrants to settle the land".
This they carried out in Germany, where many came, and settled in the Fassifern Valley.
In Scotland, Henry Jordan worked remarkably hard to increase his quotas of Scottish folk.
"In terms of persistent, high profile and effective recruitment, Queensland surpassed all the other Australian colonies in the four decades between responsible government and confederation. The groundwork was done in the 1860s by Henry Jordan, who had emigrated to Sydney, and lived in Brisbane before being appointed as agent in Britain in October 1860, a year after Queensland’s separation from New South Wales. He spent the next five years lecturing, publishing pamphlets, advertising in newspapers and offering land grants to full-paying passengers, as well as free passages to poorer recruits.
He covered 5,000 miles a year on lecture tours, giving a total of 192 lectures to an estimated 161,200 people, and he liaised closely with the hundreds of amateur passenger brokers scattered throughout the country. Those individuals earned their commission by screening applicants, making a preliminary selection and issuing tickets, and Jordan made much more extensive use of such local recruitment networks than did his counterparts in the other Australian colonies.
Queensland’s sudden rise in popularity among Scots in 1865, when over 1,500 embarked on the Clyde, was attributable to Jordan’s enthusiastic canvassing two years earlier, and by the time colonial recession brought his efforts to a halt in 1866, he had orchestrated the removal of nearly 36,000 British emigrants in eighty-five ships"
From May to November 1860 he represented Brisbane in the colony's first Legislative Assembly. In 1861 he was sent to London as commissioner and immigration agent. He wrote a pamphlet on emigration to Queensland, 'the future cotton-field of England', lectured widely and dedicated himself to attracting migrants to the colony.
His superior, (Sir) Robert Herbert, visited England in 1862-63 and found fault with Jordan's lack of discipline. In turn Jordan complained of his miserable allowance which caused him to spend part of his own income on lecture tours and to bargain with Mackay Baines & Co. of the Black Ball line for sending a migrant ship each month to Queensland in exchange for land orders. The bargain started well with one-class ships for free migrants but Black Ball soon began to carry paying cabin passengers and then to demand cash for its land orders.
Imagine if you will,
joining the settlers in a Meeting in 1860! This transcript is lengthy but provides in insight
into just how the many settlers who arrived post 1860 were able to purchase lands.
NEW
SCHEME OF IMMIGRATION.
On Monday evening last, Mr. Henry
Jordan, the newly appointed
Emigration Commissioner for the colony, and who is about proceeding to England on
his mission, - delivered an address in the hall of the School of Art, explanatory of the new
scheme of immigration adopted by the
government. At the commencement of the proceedings the audience was small, but
this was principally owing to the fact
that the time fixed had been variously stated
at 7 o'clock in the newspapers, and half-past 7 in the 'Gazette;' but
the hall became well filled before the lecturer had gone far into his
subject.the interruptions were frequent, but good-humoured, and it's only
justice to Mr Jordan to say that he
acquitted himself with considerable tact and ad-roitness.
The chair was occupied by His Worship the MAYOR (J. Petrie, Esq.),
who merely introduced the lecturer to
the meeting, and claimed for him a fair and impartial hearing.
Mr. JORDAN then came forward, and
was received with mingled tumult and and applause. he commenced by saying that
the object for which they were called together, is they all knew, was to
hear from him an exposition of the new
government scheme of Immigration (Here, hear, and uproar, and a cry of "five bob an acre")
He had been told that this was not a popular subject; that this was a scheme
generally disapproved of, and, above all, that the person addressing then was
very unpopular (Hear, hear, and a laugh.) People entertained the idea that he
had accepted the office" for the
sake of the £600 a year attraction to it, but he could assure them that it was
no pecuniary advantage to him whatsoever. (Uproar.) he would be able to prove
this to them, if they would only listen to his explanation of the government
scheme of immigration, if they would, he repeated, he would make a statement
establishing the truth of what he said. In accepting this office, his
objects were as pure and disinterested
as they were when he first came before them. (Cheers and uproar.)
It has always been the characteristic of an
English audience that, when a man had anything to say, he was sure of fair
play; and if he said what he had to say
civilly and properly, he hoped they would give him a proper hearing (Hear,
hear, and uproar.) He could stand any
amount of abuse. (Renewed clamour.)
he had no great amount of brass in his exposition, but lots of wire, and
he could stand a good deal. His motives had been of the purest, and he had not,
as stated, been guided in this matter
by a lust of wealth. It was no benefit whatever to him in a pecuniary sense.
(Hear, hear.)
Coming now to his subject, they
would remember that, at a very early
period of the session, a select committee was appointed to take this important
question of immigration into consideration. In doing so, the committee had of
course (the advantage of looking at the various schemes which had at different
tunes been in vogue in the Australian colonies, seeing where these schemes had
failed, and availing themselves of all that was worth adopting in them.
They were thus greatly assisted
in striking out a scheme of immigration, which should have the effect of
introducing into this colony the great want of every country - population,
population of the right kind - able-bodied labourers, small capitalist farmers,
and large capitalists too, men who would be induced to come because they would be sure of a regular
supply of labour which could alone render capital safe. He would allude to one
or two of these schemes in order to
institute a comparison between them and the one newly determined upon.
First, there was free
immigration. On this plan the government paid the whole cost of the passage to
this colony of anyone selected by the Emigration Commissioners at home on a
method of their own devising. In other words, the expense of immigration was
borne by the colonies themselves. It was thought that the whole of the proceeds
derived from the sale of lands might be very legitimately employed in relieving
England of her surplus population.
Two ideas seemed to have
possessed the minds of the Commissioners; the first was - that the poorest,
The Imperial government has
placed the money derived from the sale of
lands into the hands of the colonists themselves, to do with it as they
thought best, and it was not now deemed desirable to devote it to the purpose
of relieving England of her worst paupers. The next scheme was one by which the
government only bore a portion of the cost of transit from England to
Australia. A man who was not doing very well at home, and who has made up his
mind to go somewhere else to try and do
better, would think a long time before he gave three times as much to come to
Australia as he would have had to pay to go anywhere else, and the
government thought it wise to bear a
portion of the passage money.
By this scheme of assisted
immigration the government paid one-fourth of the expense, and three-fourths of
the cost ol the passage was refunded by the immigrant himself out of his first year's
wages. Two other methods pursued were - the remission or 80 per cent on the
price of land to the importer of labour,
and bearing three-fourths of the cost of the passage of those whose relatives
contributed one-fourth. each of these schemes had been found to work well to a
certain extent, but not on the whole.
The assisted immigration scheme was not equal to meeting the wants of any new country, nor was it
altogether calculated to introduce the
class best fitted to lay the foundations of society.
Free immigration, as he had
previously said, brought into the country the poorest, and most worthless - not
that he objected to the poor, on the contrary, he was anxious to see them come so
long as they were not absolutely worthless. While this scheme of immigration
was less expensive than the other, it was
not perfect, the employers found they were not always able to get the money due to them
refunded.
Immigrants who had bound themselves
to work an employer often performed
their service un- willingly, and there
were cases in which the employer has
quietly taken the money from the wages of
the immigrant, quietly pocketed it, and forgotten to honour his own promissory note to the
govern- ment. (Laughtcr) These
schemes were very expensive, but that would not have mattered so much if commensurate advantages were
accrued. This, however, was not the case. It was found that great numbers of persons went away to some
other colony, leaving the one which had
paid the cost of their passages; and this had been the case to a great extent
in Queensland.
Attracted by the goldfields of Victoria; or hearing that
Sydney was a very fine city, and a much
better place to live in than this out-of-the-way hole, as some of them chose to call it, - they went away by every
steamer, and we had to pay the price. Supposing we had six ship loads coming
here in as many months, with 300 people on board each ship, the colony
would incur an expense of £28000, but
all to very little purpose if they left the country directly. This happened,
often, while other colonies acting on the same system, but now this system had
been abandoned by them. Otherwise, the task of bringing labour into the new colony would have been like
pouring water into a sieve. (Hear, hear)
He did not wish to weary them
with detail, but, as he happened to be a member of a committee appointed to
investigate the subject, he wished to show them that some pains had been taken
to inquire into it, in all its different bearings. Men were examined ho had a
great deal of experience both in colonisation and immigration, and whose
opinions were worthy of the best
consideration - Sir Charles Nicholson, Dr. Lang, Dr. Cannan, Dr. Kendall, Dr. Hobbs, and others, being among the
number.
The result was well considered by
the committee; it was brought up to the House by the Chairman, the Colonial Treasurer; it was
discussed by the a full chamber without
a single alteration, and, if he re-collected rightly, it passed finally without
a division. He was thus particular because he was anxious to show them that
this subject received the best
attention of their parliament; but he would now proceed to give the particulars
of the new government scheme. The
question of immigration is immediately connected with colonization, and is interesting alike to the colonists
themselves, and to statesmen at home.
Three hundred thousand people must go somewhere every year to make
room for that amount of increase in the population of the United Kingdom. On
the one hand they had England, with her enormous wealth, with her wondrous
manufactories, with her teeming population, and on the other, the vast colonial
territory of Australia,-(a voice
"With a paltry government,") - forming part of that boundless empire
of which an American writer has said that its "morning drumbeat, following
the sun, and keeping company with the hours, encircles the earth daily with one
continuous and unbroken strain of the
martial airs of England." On this side, millions of square miles now
covered with the primeval forest, waiting the hand of man to cover it with
waving fields of corn and plantations of cotton (Ironical cheers.)
The Englishman, with his
indomitable skill, dauntless courage, and untiring energy, seemed to have been
marked out by Providence as the great colonising agent. (Uproar.) By
Englishmen, of course he meant English, Irish, and Scottish, he intend the
whole British nation It seemed they were destined to be the chief agents of
spreading throughout the world universal peace and happiness. here were some
25,000 people, owning a million of square miles of territory. Who could say that there was not
room for more? He believed that there was room for hundreds of thousands, and
believed so because he held the life of a man to be superior to the life of a
sheep. (Hear, hear.)
There was an abundance of
alluvial land for an honest and hard-working population on the banks of our
creeks and river, and on the shores of our bays, and there was an abundance of room both for the
people and the agricultural interests.
He did not wish to say a word against the pastoral interest as an interest. (A
Voice: "200,000 square miles.") He did not mean to say a word against
that interest, but he could not bring himself to believe that sheep and cattle
only were to enjoy the bounties of the land, or to live under its beautiful climate. (Interruption.) There
could be no denying one fact that the pastoral interest stood as the first
great interest of the colony at present, but nobody could imagine that the
splendid tablelands of this country, high above
the level of the sea, and stretching away hundreds
Nothing at all; if this state of
things continued, capital would soon cease to be embarked in pastoral pursuit«. Supposing that gold
seeking here had been successful, or that the attractions or the Victorian gold-fields had drawn away our
industrial population, there would have been no labour for the squatter at all. (A voice: "At
his own price.") Not so. {Another
auditor : "free selection.") He begged they would listen to him
for the present; he would answer any
question any gentleman present might put to him after he had had his say. (Hear, hear.) It must be
evident to them that any scheme of immigration must be or such a kind ad would supply labour to the
flock owner.
The present scheme of immigration
accomplished all this, inasmuch as it
enabled the squatter, or anyone else,
to get the labour he required, without
costing him anything; for he would have full value for the money he might advance. The 20th
clause of the Land Sales Act provided that any person paying his own passage to this colony direct
from Europe, or paying the passage of another, should his receive a land order for £18.
The Immigration Agent at
Brisbane, and the Clerk of Petty Sessions throughout the colony, would be
supplied with printed forms, and
anybody in want of labour would go to one or other of these parties, and
ask for one of these forms. Perhaps a
groom is wanted, or a cook, or a
housemaid, and the forms are filled up
accordingly, and handed over to somebody at
home - not their humble servant, but somebody they would sooner trust
than they would him (the
speaker)-(laughter)-and the required parties are engaged for one or two years at the current
rate of wages. He did not mean by the
current rate of wages that new chums
just arriving in the colony would receive equal wages with those who had been
here a long time,-not at all ; by the current rate he meant the rate new immigrants were worth
on their arrival. (Laughter and cheers.)
The party sending for them would have to pay their
passage- money, and a land order for £18 for each immigrant paid for would then
be paid to the credit of the employer
in the public treasury. The object this was to secure the services of the
immigrants to the employer for twelve months at least, as, if the immigrant did not refund the
passage-money to his employer, the latter had the land order to
The government were bound to receive the land
orders as representing their full value, so that they could never depreciate, and they could always be
changed into money. For instance, the
holder of an order might go to a
government land sale, and say to a party
who was buying a country lot or a town lot,
" Here you are ; give me £17 10s. for this £18 land order, and you
shall have it." The scheme was at
once simple and valuable. ("Yes, for the
squatter.") It was equally good for the poor man as for the
squatter. The poor man at home who
cannot afford to pay his own passage out here, would be able to come out under this system,
would have a living when he came here,
and if he chose to repay his employer he
would have eighteen acres of hind to
commence with on his own account, and if he stayed two years in the colony, he
would have twelve acres besides. he (Mr.
Jordan) thought they would agree with him
that this scheme would be of
incalculable benefit to the country. (A voice: "When is the land to be given
to him? Hisses and cheers.) He had been very anxious for the evening to come.
(Laughter and hisses.)
He had been told in Ipswich that
he dared not meet his Brisbane constituents, and some of his friends wanted him
to avoid doing so, but he told them he could stand a great deal of abuse, and would do so whatever came of
it. (Hisses and uproar.) He could stand
a great deal of that, and he could tell them that he was not afraid of meeting
any man. He had acted for the best, and
he had acted honestly, and in strict accordance with the promises made to his
constituents, (Uproar, and a voice-" You sold them.") The scheme was
not alone calculated to benefit the squatter. There was the farmer, who might
send home for his labour ; and there was the tailor, the shoemaker, the draper,
the banker, and every man wanting labour.
The more we had here the more
would want to come, and any one would be able to get on here who had his head
screwed on the right way. (Laughter, and a voice-"'You've done it well
enough.") Every man contributes to the revenue, and the more population
came into the country, the better would it be for the country at large. Some
people were afraid that there would be too much of it; that too great an influx
of population would take place ; but he believed there could not be too many if
proper care were taken to procure the right
sort. Little or no trouble attended it; if they wanted a groom or a gardener,
("Oh!") or a housemaid, all they had to do was to apply to the
Immigration Agent or Clerk of Petty Sessions, and one would be engaged for
them. It did not matter what kind of character was wanted, whether a fat boy to
wait at table, with no end of buttons running up and down the breast of his
jacket, or a man with a wooden leg, it would be all the same ; they would be
brought if required. ("Soft
soap).") He did not keep that article ; what he had to say he said
honestly, and he knew they believed him to be honest. ("You don't believe
it;" interruption.)
Then if any colonists wanted to get their
friends out-their brothers, sisters, or perhaps the old folks at home, it would
be very easy to do it. Under an old system persons who wanted to get out their
relatives, the government paid ¾ths of the passage, but the full amount of this assistance was confined to cases
where the parties were not over the age of 35; so that if a man's parents happened to be
over that age-which was more than
probable in the majority or instances-he
had to pay nearly the whole amount. But to the new system there were no
limitations whatever, and any one might get out his friends without difficulty
-brothers starving on a few shillings n week, or sisters paid at the rate or £5
a year and very scanty fare.
He would suppose the case of a
young woman who had come out here and got a good place, and who had yielded to
the soft persuasions of a stout young farmer and become his wife. She would say
to her husband, "Bill, I'd like to have our father and mother, and my brother
Thomas." Bill would of course be very glad to do that kind of thing, and
being well-to-do and thrifty, he would be able to pay the migration Agent the
necessary money for each or them, and
when they came out, Bill would be entitled to land orders to the amount of
£54.
("Question.") He would be able to
select 54 acres of land on one of the agricultural reserves, on which the new
comers might go to work, and at the expiration of two years from their arrival,
they would be able to claim and have 36
acres more. (Interruption.)
Thus they would become useful
colonists and-well-to-do men, and need not fear dreaming about the workhouse
when they went to sleep. He thought
they would admit the government scheme of immigration to be infinitely superior
to the former one, by which the proceeds of land sold at an enormous price were
devoted to the introduction of a useless class of persons. Nobody was taxed by
the new plan. ("Five bob an acre.") He would explain everything to them bye mid bye.
("Yes, you can explain anything.") Something was wanted besides labour-capital,
and the scheme was calculated to meet this want. There was a desire to which
every Englishman was subject,-the desire to become the possessor of land
himself. This feeling existed in great intensity, and it was for them to avail
themselves of this feeling.
If we can only make it easy to
people on the other side of the globe to come here and gratify this part of
their nature, it would prove as attractive to them as gold. This "earth
hunger," as a Germán writer has
called it, would be satisfied, and every person
brought out to this colony under the new regulations might satiate his
appetite if he liked.
Many a man would be encouraged to hope that
better times were coming for him, and would dispose of his goods and chattels
in order to make his way to a country that offered him 30 acres of land for
nothing, with no rent to pay, and gave him 8d. a pound for all the cotton he
grew, besides 1s. 4d. he could get from the merchant. Should he be so
unfortunate as to be married, - (laughter) - he would have 30 acres for
himself, 30 for his wife, and if he had a child over fourteen years of age,
30 acres more, and for every two
children under that age -whether twins or not- 30 acres more. (A voice:
"Yes, when the government has time to survey it.")
There would be plenty surveyed by
the time he people came out to occupy it, and it was no small inducement to
tell a single man that he could have 18 acres on landing and 12 more in two
years. (A Voice :-"What was your scheme when you came out as a candidate?') If the man
intends to go to farming at once, he (Mr. Jordan) knew that the government were
disposed to let him have the whole 30 acres at once, if it were found that
there was nothing in the act positively forbidding such a course.
Now these regulations would have
the effect of bringing to this colony a superior class of men-he did not mean
superior in point or wealth;-but men who have been fortunate enough to be able
to bring a little capital with them when they came here. This was the class
which formed a large proportion of the great stream of emigration to America,
and this fact was well illustrated by a statement made in England by the
Chairman of the Emigration Board that when a vessel named the "Ocean
Monarch" was wrecked some time
ago, It was found that the 320 people on board of her were possessed of £10,000
among them. This "flight of farmers," as it was called, frightened
the people, but it was found that no
serious harm ever accrued, notwithstanding the rate at which the migration went
on.
He (Mr. Jordan) had lately seen a
return of the numbers of persons who had emigrated from the United Kingdom in
the seven years between 1847 and 1854, and he found it stated that 302,620
persons left England every year during
that period. Most of these were honest, industrious, and saving people,
who went to avail them-selves of the liberal land regulations of the United
States. Canada saw the effect which the liberality of the States laws was
producing, and, she, too, offered attraction to the immigrant, saying
-"Come here and we will give you
land for nothing."
The stream of immigrants
immediately divided, and part flowed into the ports of Canada, being only too
eager to avail themselves of her free grants, and Canada was now rapidly
becoming settled by a population who carried with them their honesty, industry,
frugality, and their money too. Seeing this state or things going on, New Zealand began to
think, and ultimately decided upon offering a grant of 40 acres for nothing to
anybody who would spend £20 in getting there. When they reached there,
how-ever, they found it was not 40 acres of land at all, but 40 acres of
pipeclay - (laughter, and a voice: " There's plenty of that here,") -
or 40 acres of fern roots, and they were consequently disappointed.
With respect to the agricultural
reserves he was authorised to say that the government intended to include the
very best land in Queensland in those reserves. That he knew to be the case. He
had just been to Rockhampton, and before reaching it the steamer stuck on the
flats for some time. Whilst in that
interesting position he amused him-self by looking over the flats and saw a
magnificent tract of thinly timbered
alluvial country in fact, the finest
block of land in the-Fitzroy River. On
his arrival at Rockhampton he found that this had been selected as an
agricultural reserve. When at Ipswich he had been met by a gentleman who
brought him to task by the assertion that though he was himself over the
country to advocate his scheme he was afraid to meet his own constituents. He
then told him that he was going to meet them here. After a great many more
questions to floor him, he made inquiries of him respecting the agricultural
reserves at Drayton and Toowoomba.
He went to Toowoomba, and there met with an
intelligent farmer who had a farm of 40 acres of truly good land, which he was
cultivating with success, and who went to show him the agricultural reserve.
Amongst that selected he found that there was much that was badly situated,
water not being accessible, but on other land closely contiguous being pointed
out to him he examined it and found that water was not only accessible but that
the land was really good.
The surveyors had since received
instructions to add more land to the reserve and on his showing him (Mr.
Jordan) the plans of the additional 18,000 acres, he found that the very land
he had examined and found so good had been included. (Cheers.) There were also two
miles along the side of Gowrie Creek, on the western slope of the range
requiring very little trouble in clearing, and this he had since been informed
by the Colonial Secretary was added to that reserve. He afterwards went to
Drayton, where, from its being so near Toowoomba, it would hardly be expected
that a reserve would have been proclaimed. Many of the people there were
dissatisfied with the land, but on talking with the more intelligent he found
that the reserve contained 14,000 acres, of
which more than 10,000 consisted of really good land.
He went thence to Warwick, where he found that
the reserve picked upon formed part of the Canning Downs run. He there met
Captain Daveney, the manager of the Canning Downs Station, who said that though
he would admit that the taking this reserve would much injure the station the
government might still have done better by taking another part of it further
off; but as he (Captain Deveney) was an interested person, he would recommend
him (Mr. Jordan) to consult the people
in the town. He did so, and found that by going twelve miles out of Warwick a
reserve could be found containing the pick of the whole country, well watered,
and coming under the regular rains, and this was Killarney, twelve miles from
Warwick.
During the three days he was at
Warwick, there was not a drop of rain, but at Killarney there was rain the
whole time. At Warwick he saw Mr. Evans, a gentleman who knew men that had
grown into affluence as farmers in that neighbourhood, and who had for a
longtime grown wheat. On his observing to him (Mr. Jordan) that it was a pity
the reserve had not been fixed upon at Killarney, Mr. Jordan replied that
though the act limited the reserve to a distance of five miles from the
township, he believed the government were so desirous of selecting the best lands,
that the distance would be no obstacle, and
accordingly recommended him to write to the government on the subject.
He was not aware whether Mr.
Evans had done so, but he had since seen
the Colonial Secretary, and informed him of the state of things, and had
been assured by him that the government were so desirous of selecting the best
lands for reserves, that in all probability this would be included. (Applause.)
The scheme was not designed to bring out people to compete with those already
here, but to bring out the hard-working and industrious, possessed of a little
capital, who would be able to cultivate their own land and thus benefit others.
(A Voice: "What's the odds to you
whether they come or not?") If they
came they could not eat the land, it was true but they might grow plenty
that they could. He had been told that cabbages could not be grown here;
and he knew farmers who had told him
that agriculture would not pay in the country. There were many such men in the
colony, who belonged to the class of croakers, and who represented Queensland
as a miserable, dry, parched up country. One of this class he met some time
since, who had on a good coat, fit for the Governor, with hat and boots to
match, and who was, in short, a jolly, happy specimen of a distressed
agriculturist. (Laughter)
He put a few questions to him,
and his reply was that he had come to the country about five years since from
Somersetshire, where he had worked as agricultural labourer for 10s. per week.
He asked him what he was doing then ?
He was farming and had a bit of land which was his own, and paid for ; it was
fenced in, cleared, and he had a house on it. He had also a few pigs and some
cows. Now here was a fair sample of such men. A man who five years since was
earning but 10s a week, and would in all probability have done so for the next
twenty-five years, had he remained in England, and at last have died in the
workhouse.
Some farmers in Queensland were
more honest, and avowed that farming would pay them. Mr. Hartenstein, of the
German Station, assured him that he had grown arrowroot for some years and
found that it would pay better than anything else, for although the demand was
to a certain extent limited, it was a certain one. He had grown at the rate of
a ton per acre, which, at 1s. a pound,
yielded £112. There was no mistake about it. (A voice: "Has he done
that?") He (Mr. Hartenstein) assured him he had, and that not reckoning it
before it was ground, but clean arrowroot. (A voice: "How about the cost
of labour?") He (Mr. J.) made enquiries about that too, and found that it
required comparatively little. Mr. Hartenstein showed him a machine of his own contrivance, a kind
of large nutmeg grater, by which the arrowroot was reduced to pulp. A man and a
boy could dig the root, grind, wash, and pack it in tin canisters for the market,
in one month.
Mr. Walter Hill, of the Botanical Gardens, whom
they all knew as an honest and intelligent man, had assured him that an acre of
ground would readily yield six hundred pounds of cotton, and this, Mr. Bazley,
of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, had stated to be worth, on the average,
1s 4d a pound. There was the government bonus of eightpence a pound to be
added, which would increase the produce of the acre to about £50.
Mr. Stewart, of the Bald Hills formerly of the
Hunter River, told him that he had tried wheat-growing in that locality, and raised thirty bushels to the acre of splendid
grain, samples of which he (.Mr. Jordan) was going to take home to England with
him. Manchester must be supplied with cotton, and in England there were
annually three hundred thousand people who required to be fed and provided for in some part of
the world; whilst Queensland, with her capabilities for growing and quantity,
and abounding with other resources, was
in need of the population to develop them.
Seeing this he was determined to
make the trial, and to bring out that population he was going home. If those
people found that farming would not pay, if the experiment failed they need not
starve; he would recommend them all to grow the sweet potato.(Loud laughter.)
He had been told that in highly favoured districts twenty-five tons of this
wholesome esculent had been grown to the acre, and that even on poor land ten
tons to an acre could be procured. Thus supposing they did not grow rich they
would not starve; children must have something to eat, and their mouths could
always be stopped with sweet potatoes. (Renewed laughter and up-roar.) When the
rush of fifteen thousand people took place to Canoona, no doubt there was great
distress, for then there was neither gold nor potatoes to be dug from the earth
; but he felt convinced that if under the present scheme thousands came out,
there would be no starvation, no hunger.
If he returned to the colony in about four
years, as he hoped to do, he felt certain that on all hands he would be warmly
welcomed by thousands whom he had induced to immigrate to these shores ; then
he would see agriculture flourishing, and find ships in the harbours loading
with cotton for Manchester; - (laughter)-then, indeed, would he feel glad at
having taken part in bringing about these things. (Voice from the gallery.
"No doubt you'll see wonderful
things.") One gentleman had said he would see wonderful things ; doubtless
he would, and he had done so already in Queensland. When first the cry for
separation was raised, some time ago, people laughed at it, and at the idea of
having two houses of Parliament assembled in Queen-street, but it had been
accomplished never-the less. It might be said that his scheme would be good for
the people in England, but what did it do for them ? ("Why, did not the
government give them the 30
acres?") They would admit that it was good for the people at home. (Cries
of "No, no.")
That was all very fine, but they
knew it was, and, if in no other respect, they were benefitted by the opening
of the new agricultural reserves, which they admitted would attract population.
That was all he wanted. (A Voice: "Yes, that's all.") It was, and doing so would be a benefit to
every man in Queensland, where every man was, or ought to be, worth something,
if it was only a wheelbarrow, a pig, or a cow. (Uproar und merriment.) What he
contended was, that with an increased demand the value of everything would be
enhanced. There were some there who had houses in the Valley they could not
let, town allotments they could not sell, and cows without being able to sell
their milk; but only let population come out, and bye and bye they would find
tenants for their houses, customers for their milk, and be able to sell their
town allotments for £4 or £5 a foot. ("Sweet potatoes")
Any one who had the effrontery to tell him
that they would not be benefitted by the increase of population knew nothing of
the matter. (A Voice: "How did squatting pay you?") A great deal
better than going home to England as their agent would, and he would tell that
gentleman that he was going home with the approbation, sympathy, and good
wishes of the great majority of the intelligent and thinking inhabitants of the
country. (Increased interruption.)
He would then visit all the towns
or England, Ireland, and Scotland, go to
the town halls and address himself to more attentive audiences, he
hoped, than he had there that evening. (From the gallery: "Yes, they won't
know you so well." Loud laughter.) He would tell them the advantages
awaiting them in Queensland, ("Yes, and a great deal more.") There
was no necessity for that, for if he told them only the extent of what he knew,
they would be well satisfied if he told them how many respect-able people there
were ("oh!"); how few went to gaol ("oh!" and laughter);
how many went to church ("oh!"); and the rest ("oh!"); if
he described its sunshine and its bright skies ("oh!"
"Cock-a-doodle-doo"); if he told them how much they could earn as
shepherds by going up into the bush, they would believe him and come out in
hundreds and thousands, very many to realise more than he had promised them.
("A Voice: "I don't believe it.")
He would go to Scotland and talk
to some of the cautious and wary Highlanders. (Three hearty cheers were here
given for Dr. Lang.) He would tell them all about him, he hoped to work with
him. ("But he's on his own hook ; three more cheers for Dr. Lang.")
He would go to Ireland, and then from its towns and villages induce numbers of
her stalwart sons to emigrate to this country, which they would readily
exchange for "taturs and Tipperary." (Laughter.) He would go through
England, and there ask hundreds and thousands to do the same, and then
bye-and-bye come out himself, when he was convinced all would be glad to see
him, and welcome him as one who had done much towards making Queensland one of
the most prosperous of the British colonies. ("Oh, oh," and cheers.)
Then with respect to his
appointment. He did not create the office ; it was one that had been resolved
upon after due deliberation of the representatives of the people, and that
being the case, it became the bounden duty of the government to send a fit and
proper person to discharge its duties. If they wanted a house built, or
anything else done, they would not select a stranger to the work, but one who
was well acquainted with what he had to do. So if they wanted a man to go to
the other side of the globe to advocate their Interests, they would send one
who understood their wants, who could lecture in a free-and-easy style, so that
people would listen to and believe him. This the government was bound to do ;
but he did not say that he was such a man. ("Oh, oh!" and laughter.)
It was asked, why not send Dr. Lang? To any
agreement there must be two parties-both must be willing, and Dr. Lang had
declined to go. (Mr. CRIBB: "Was he asked to go?" and three cheers more for Dr. Lang.) He could not say;
but if he had, he believed he would have taken office. He saw a letter from him
to the government, stating that he had heard his name had been mentioned, and
if so, he must decline to act. Besides, Dr. Lang's scheme was a different one ;
it was to establish a company in England, to whom the land orders were to be
transferred.
That being the case, whoever said
that Dr. Lang would have gone had he been asked, knew nothing of the matter.
Some had said he was going to get £600 a year, clear of costs, and asked him if
he was going to pocket any of the expenses. He would tell them that he was to
pay his own passage home, and that would cost him upwards of £250. Then he was
to be allowed travelling expenses, but of them a strict account would be kept,
and after all he believed he would be a loser. He did not think they would
consider £600 a year too much. He would ask them if they would be willing to
give up a good business for one that would bring in less. Every one knew that
he was not a loose hand without employment; indeed he had never made less
than £600 a year in Brisbane, so that he
should not make a penny by the appointment. (A Voice: " What did you get
for your business when you sold it?") It was a matter of great
consideration with him whether he would act justly to him-self were he to have
to make arrangements by which he would lose nearly the whole of the profits of
his station.
He expected to find, at the end
of three years, that he was a poorer man than he was then. What then became of
the assertion that he went into the House for a billet? He had advocated
liberal principles. ("Free selection.") He had never talked about it
("five bob an acre;" "What about the pamphlet?") In his
pamphlet he advocated the upset price at auction to be five shillings an acre,
feeling assured that though good land would realise a far higher price, the
power to get indifferent land at 5s. per acre would prove a great attraction to many people. But even
that scheme was not likely to be so attractive as having the best land picked
out for agricultural reserves to the extent even of the whole country, - and
this was possible, as the act required that the supply in each reserve should
always be five thousand acres in excess of the demand, so that the whole colony
could be taken up if wanted.
To those who said he had been
false to his principles he would say that he was chiefly instrumental in the
abolition of pre-emptive right. On the proposal for its abolition being lost by
a majority of one, a meeting was called
to consider the subject,-and he was en-trusted with the petition passed at that
meeting. The result was that the question was re-opened, and by one or two
coming over pre-emptive right was abolished. On that occasion one of the
members who came over told him (Mr. Jordan) that he had been influenced in the
alteration of his views mainly through his arguments. ("Oh, oh!")
However, it was admitted by some
who were clamorous against him that he had one quality, that of being able to
talk. In a letter which recently appeared in the public press under the
signature of "Paul Pry" the writer asked "what special aptitude
Mr. Jordan had for the office he had managed to obtain." He did not manage
to obtain the office. When he heard that Dr. Lang would not go-("You know
what he (Paul Pry) says is true")-he determined he would go if he could,
even without making a penny by it. On his mentioning his determination to the
Governor he was pleased at the idea, and shortly afterwards received an
intimation from the Governor through the Colonial Secretary that they would be
glad for him to go, if he would make the application. He declined to do so, and
shortly afterwards on seeing the Governor, he told him that he was willing to
go, and it was agreed that he should pay his own expenses home and back. He had
always carried out the principles which he advocated when he came to the
country five years before.
He felt himself a colonist; he had married in
the colony; and he felt that by going home and bringing out population he
would be doing more good than by
continuing their member. Paul Pray also says "I want to know how it is that the requirements for Mr. Jordan's presence
at his station happened so opportunely as to call him away just when the
ministry wanted to hurry the Crown Lands Leasing Act through the House?"
In answer to this he could say that he had carried out the principles he
enunciated on the hustings, and that he was present when the Crown Lands
Leasing Act was passed through the House clause by clause. (Cheers.) He might
say that he was encouraged in going home by the hearty good wishes and sympathy
manifested towards him by those whose intelligence and esteem he most valued in
the town.
One of these made use of this language to him,
"Go and you will succeed, and
carry with you the hearty good wishes of the majority of your
fellow-towns-men." He felt that would be the case, and that if when he
returned in four years' time, he came out as a candidate they would put him in,
and they would say that he was one of the best members they ever had in the
house. (Loud laughter, cheers, and uproar.) Paul Pry said that he was absent at
his station whilst tho Crown Lands Leasing Act was passing through the House.
What did the public papers say? Why that he was only absent four days, and he
could tell them that he was only absent on those occasions.
The bill passed through Committee
on the 6th September, and was read the third time on the 7th September. On the
day following the Bill being carried through Committee, he found it stated that
he was present in the house that evening. Paul Pry would per-haps say that he
meant the Crown Lands Sales Bill, but that had been passed previously. He
opposed this bill on the ground that £1 an acre was retained, and that the
agricultural reserves were not defined nor likely to attract population, and he
voted that the bill be read again that day six months. The end of the matter
was, that the reserves were clearly defined, that they were always to be kept 5000 acres in advance of the
demand, and such alterations were made as greatly altered the character of the
bill. He had also watched it while going through Committee. It was originally
proposed that purchasers should be able to lease additional land at two
shillings an acre, someone else proposed sixpence, and be proposed one penny an
acre.
Though unsuccessful in this he
did all he could to carry it. In conclusion Paul Pry said,-"I want to
know, in conclusion, what system of political economy he has so readily
mastered, as it must have been a simple one to be so soon acquired by a mere
novice in political matters?" Now that ought to have been the very cream of the whole affair, but what did
it amount to? He had never said that he had ma-tered any system or political
economy. He considered himself a modest man-(roars of laughter) -and merely
said that the want of the colony was population, and that farming would pay.
When he came forward at the eleventh hour he used no claptrap, nor made a single disparaging
remark of any of the other candidates, nor had he asked for a single vote
individually. He simply explained his sentiments, and his last words wore
"that he was not anxious to be returned unless they thought the principles
he declared would meet their appro-val, and that he would act for them as an
honest man."
He knew that he stood well in the
opinion of his fellow townsmen, but if not, though he liked to do so, he would
not forego his sense of honour and uprightness for all the plaudits ever
bestowed on man. (Cheers.) It was for no government place that he went into the
House, and he had no idea of accepting any kind of appointment, but he would
own that, before he came out, when he found he could not continue his practice
and his station together, he intended to give up his business and apply for a
certain government appointment which would enable him still to live in the
town, and still carry on his station. He believed that he could have got it,
but the moment he presented himself as a candidate he abandoned the idea
entirely ; nor did he think it would have been right to act otherwise. He never
made a promise to his constituents that he would not accept a post. Such a
pledge he believed would be derogatory to his character as an honest man. He
believed the true principle was to put the right man in the right place, and if
the government wanted a man, they were bound to get the best they could,
whether in the House or out of it.
He had never nibbled for office,
nor did he support the government generally for that purpose ; what he thought
right he supported, what he thought wrong he opposed with all his might.
(Cheers.) He told them when he first came before them he would do the best he
could for the colony, and to that he had been true. When he found Dr. Lang
would not go home-(A voice : " Was he asked to go?")-he gave up his
prospects in the colony, and with the honest determination to do the best he
could for the country. With the views he held on the question of immigration,
he believed he could carry out the system proposed, and as no better man was
coming forward - (Ironical cheers, hisses, groans, and uproar.) They know no
better man was coming forward, and they might hiss as they liked. (Cheers and
uproar.) As he found no better man coming forward, he honestly believed that he
could do what was required (A voice:
"You did do it, and no mistake about that;")-and that; - and he
believed he should be successful.
Having concluded his address, Mr.
Jordan announced that he should be happy to answer any questions put to him
that were pertinent to the subject or to his appointment.
Mr. HUTTON : What class of
immigrants will you select for this colony-farmers' labourers only?
Mr. JORDAN : The idea embodied in
the scheme is that persons who want labour should send home for it themselves. If you want relatives and you are going to pay their
passages, you procure the land orders here, and send to them a passage certificate;
or, if a man wishes to come out on his own account, he gets 30 acres of land
for coming.
Mr. HUTTON : You will have to
sign the orders won't you ?
Mr. JORDAN : I shall not have to
sign them. I shall have to go about the country, addressing just such attentive
audiences as I have had to-night-(laughter)-and I shall say to them, "Some
of you may wish to go to Queensland, and may want to know something more about
it; if so, just come to my place at such and such an hour, and I'll tell you all
about it." I shall stay a week at the large towns, after having delivered
a first lecture, und I shall deliver a second before I go, giving them further
information. This is the way I propose to act, and when I have ascertained that
a number of people wish to come, I shall say to the shipping agent, " Here
are 50 people who want to go out to Queensland ;" and they will then be
forwarded by the Commissioners.
Mr. HUTTON: Will you make any
difference as to class ?
Mr. JORDAN : No difference. The
Commissioners will have to send out the men recommended by me.
No other questions being asked,
Mr. W. BROOKES rose, amidst much
cheering and merriment, to propose a vote of confidence in Mr. Jordan as the
Emigration Agent for the colony. He did not think it right that a gentleman
like Mr. Jordan should leave the colony, entrusted by the government with such
a responsible mission, without receiving some expression of confidence from the
people. They might differ as much as they pleased from him, but he hoped they
would separate the Emigration Agent from the man, and show Mr. Jordan that,
when he leaves for England, he carries with him the sympathies and best wishes
of the intelligent part of the country. ("Oh, oh," cheers, and
uproar.) They came there to have a little bit of fun, and they had had it; now
for a little business. (Renewed laughter.) He begged to propose a vote of
confidence in these terms-"that the great leading question of immigration
may be safely en-trusted to Mr. Jordan, to whom this meeting wishes a prosperous
voyage to England, and every success in the great work in which he will be
engaged." (Cheers and hisses.)
Mr. S. DOIG seconded the motion.
Mr. HUTTON moved, by way of
amendment, that Mr. Jordan ought first to thank the electors for having put him
in a position to obtain such a situation.
Mr. JORDAN said he did thank the
electors for having returned him, and in going home, if he succeeded in his
mission, he would be quits with them, ns he was going to serve them in the most
effectual way by bringing out population. (Applause.)
The MAYOR then put the resolution
to the meeting, and declared it to be carried.
Mr. JORDAN rose to return thanks,
and said that, on the night when the poll was declared for the city, he
happened to be away in the country, not being aware that It would be declared
so immediately after the election, and he therefore lost the chance of thanking
them for having conferred upon him the highest honour they could bestow on any
man. (A voice: "It was a mistake.") Not at all; and the party who
said that it was would live, he hoped, to acknowledge it was not. Had he been there, he should have told them
then, as he told them now, that it was
the proudest moment of his life, (Laughter.) He knew they believed him to be an
honest man, and they must all believe that he would act as one. (Cheers and
countercheers.)
Mr. JORDAN then moved a vote of
thanks to his Worship the Mayor for his conduct in the chair, Memorial Hall.
So
a totally logical explanation for how the settlers in the Bald Hills/Bracken Ridge
region acquired their land!
This research has been compiled using data from the early map of the Lots as recorded in what appears to be the original purchaser,
QUEENSLAND IMMIGRATION
AND
THE BLACK BALL LINE
by WARWICK FOOTE
Read at a Meeting of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland
on 23 February 1978
After separation on 1 December 1859 the First Parliament of the new Colony of Queensland resolved on 31 May 1860 that a select committee be appointed to consider and report on the best
means of promoting immigration to the Colony.
The committee sat during June, July and August 1860. Its object was "to elicit opinions as to the best mode of inducing a cheap, healthy and continuous flow of immigration to Queensland
and to gain evidence as to the working, satisfactorily or otherwise, of the present and other systems which have been in use for some years".
These systems, which were conducted under the control of the Imperial Emigration Commissioners in England, were —
Free immigration, under which the conveyance of immigrants to the Colony was entirely at the cost of the Government;
Remittance immigration, under which a remission of 80 per cent on all purchases of land was made to parties sending home for their friends; and
Assisted immigration, by which the immigrants were required to repay a large portion of their passage money within a certain period after their arrival in the Colony^.
The select committee recommended, among other things —
(a) That the Government make arrangements for the introduction of any number of immigrants, the cost of whose passage may be guaranteed by responsible parties in the Colony . . . these immigrants to be entitled to a land order on production of a certificate from their employer to the effect that they have fulfilled the conditions of their agreement to repay to him the amount of their passage
money;
(b) That parties importing their own servants or friends be allowed a remission in the shape of a land order to the amount of f.l8 for every statute adult (a statute adult being anyone over the age of 12 years, or two children between the ages of one year and 12 years);
(c) That these conditions be extended to all individuals paying their own passages from the United Kingdom and who are able and willing to settle down upon the land at once or after two or three years' residence in the Colony;
(d) That a selecting agent be appointed in Great Britain, one who possessing a thorough knowledge of the country and its requirements should adopt active measures for disseminating the knowledge of the new Colony by means of lectures and advertisements and pointing out to those who would be desirable immigrants the many advantages offered by Queensland; and
(e) That all parties emigrating to Queensland and all ships conveying them be under the supervision of the Emigration Commissioners in England.
As a result of the committee's recommendations the Queensland Government instituted a system of immigration known as the land order system to supplement that carried out under the control of the Emigration Commissioners.
Originally the land order system provided that every adult immigrant who paid his or her own passage to Queensland was to be granted a land order for 18 acres and, after two years' residence in the Colony, a further order for 12 acres. The orders were valued at £18 and £12 respectively.
A shipowner who brought free passengers or assisted passengers to Queensland at his own
expense was to be given a land order for £18 for each adult immigrant carried. These provisions were altered from time to time.
Furthermore, assisted passages were to be granted to any immigrant who was unable to pay his full fair and free passages were to be given to female domestic servants and persons whose
circumstances were such as to warrant the granting of a free passage.
The land order system operated under the Immigration Regulations promulgated under the Alienation of Crown Lands Act. From the Government's point of view, the immediate advantage to be gained from the system was that, by paying a shipowner in land orders instead of in cash, the young Colony
was saved the need of calling upon its meagre financial resources to meet the cost of immigration of free and assisted passengers.
However, as was to be discovered later, the granting and circulation of a large number of land orders resulted in a drastic reduction in the sale of Crown lands, on which the Colony relied heavily for its revenue.
Recruiting settlers
This they carried out in Germany, where many came, and settled in the Fassifern Valley.
In Scotland, Henry Jordan worked remarkably hard to increase his quotas of Scottish folk.
"In terms of persistent, high profile and effective recruitment, Queensland surpassed all the other Australian colonies in the four decades between responsible government and confederation. The groundwork was done in the 1860s by Henry Jordan, who had emigrated to Sydney, and lived in Brisbane before being appointed as agent in Britain in October 1860, a year after Queensland’s separation from New South Wales. He spent the next five years lecturing, publishing pamphlets, advertising in newspapers and offering land grants to full-paying passengers, as well as free passages to poorer recruits.
He covered 5,000 miles a year on lecture tours, giving a total of 192 lectures to an estimated 161,200 people, and he liaised closely with the hundreds of amateur passenger brokers scattered throughout the country. Those individuals earned their commission by screening applicants, making a preliminary selection and issuing tickets, and Jordan made much more extensive use of such local recruitment networks than did his counterparts in the other Australian colonies.
Queensland’s sudden rise in popularity among Scots in 1865, when over 1,500 embarked on the Clyde, was attributable to Jordan’s enthusiastic canvassing two years earlier, and by the time colonial recession brought his efforts to a halt in 1866, he had orchestrated the removal of nearly 36,000 British emigrants in eighty-five ships"
From May to November 1860 he represented Brisbane in the colony's first Legislative Assembly. In 1861 he was sent to London as commissioner and immigration agent. He wrote a pamphlet on emigration to Queensland, 'the future cotton-field of England', lectured widely and dedicated himself to attracting migrants to the colony.
His superior, (Sir) Robert Herbert, visited England in 1862-63 and found fault with Jordan's lack of discipline. In turn Jordan complained of his miserable allowance which caused him to spend part of his own income on lecture tours and to bargain with Mackay Baines & Co. of the Black Ball line for sending a migrant ship each month to Queensland in exchange for land orders. The bargain started well with one-class ships for free migrants but Black Ball soon began to carry paying cabin passengers and then to demand cash for its land orders.
Imagine if you will,
joining the settlers in a Meeting in 1860! This transcript is lengthy but provides in insight
into just how the many settlers who arrived post 1860 were able to purchase lands.
NEW
SCHEME OF IMMIGRATION.
On Monday evening last, Mr. Henry
Jordan, the newly appointed
Emigration Commissioner for the colony, and who is about proceeding to England on
his mission, - delivered an address in the hall of the School of Art, explanatory of the new
scheme of immigration adopted by the
government. At the commencement of the proceedings the audience was small, but
this was principally owing to the fact
that the time fixed had been variously stated
at 7 o'clock in the newspapers, and half-past 7 in the 'Gazette;' but
the hall became well filled before the lecturer had gone far into his
subject.the interruptions were frequent, but good-humoured, and it's only
justice to Mr Jordan to say that he
acquitted himself with considerable tact and ad-roitness.
The chair was occupied by His Worship the MAYOR (J. Petrie, Esq.),
who merely introduced the lecturer to
the meeting, and claimed for him a fair and impartial hearing.
Mr. JORDAN then came forward, and
was received with mingled tumult and and applause. he commenced by saying that
the object for which they were called together, is they all knew, was to
hear from him an exposition of the new
government scheme of Immigration (Here, hear, and uproar, and a cry of "five bob an acre")
He had been told that this was not a popular subject; that this was a scheme
generally disapproved of, and, above all, that the person addressing then was
very unpopular (Hear, hear, and a laugh.) People entertained the idea that he
had accepted the office" for the
sake of the £600 a year attraction to it, but he could assure them that it was
no pecuniary advantage to him whatsoever. (Uproar.) he would be able to prove
this to them, if they would only listen to his explanation of the government
scheme of immigration, if they would, he repeated, he would make a statement
establishing the truth of what he said. In accepting this office, his
objects were as pure and disinterested
as they were when he first came before them. (Cheers and uproar.)
It has always been the characteristic of an
English audience that, when a man had anything to say, he was sure of fair
play; and if he said what he had to say
civilly and properly, he hoped they would give him a proper hearing (Hear,
hear, and uproar.) He could stand any
amount of abuse. (Renewed clamour.)
he had no great amount of brass in his exposition, but lots of wire, and
he could stand a good deal. His motives had been of the purest, and he had not,
as stated, been guided in this matter
by a lust of wealth. It was no benefit whatever to him in a pecuniary sense.
(Hear, hear.)
Coming now to his subject, they
would remember that, at a very early
period of the session, a select committee was appointed to take this important
question of immigration into consideration. In doing so, the committee had of
course (the advantage of looking at the various schemes which had at different
tunes been in vogue in the Australian colonies, seeing where these schemes had
failed, and availing themselves of all that was worth adopting in them.
They were thus greatly assisted
in striking out a scheme of immigration, which should have the effect of
introducing into this colony the great want of every country - population,
population of the right kind - able-bodied labourers, small capitalist farmers,
and large capitalists too, men who would be induced to come because they would be sure of a regular
supply of labour which could alone render capital safe. He would allude to one
or two of these schemes in order to
institute a comparison between them and the one newly determined upon.
First, there was free
immigration. On this plan the government paid the whole cost of the passage to
this colony of anyone selected by the Emigration Commissioners at home on a
method of their own devising. In other words, the expense of immigration was
borne by the colonies themselves. It was thought that the whole of the proceeds
derived from the sale of lands might be very legitimately employed in relieving
England of her surplus population.
Two ideas seemed to have
possessed the minds of the Commissioners; the first was - that the poorest,
idlest, and most worthless -
those who were no use at home, and whom they were very glad to get rid of, would do very well to send out here; and
secondly, - they appeared to think that
the whole of our land fund would be properly disposed of in sweeping England of
her useless population The very poorest, the most degraded, the most worthless,
men of no value, either to their employers or to themselves, seemed to have
been selected as being most in need of a change of air, as if their removal
to a distant part of the globe
would effect any transformation in such characters - make the lazy, hulking loafer an industrious, thrifty, and
frugal man, or transform the miserable slattern into a clean and tidy housewife.
Now, however, these things were altered.
The Imperial government has
placed the money derived from the sale of
lands into the hands of the colonists themselves, to do with it as they
thought best, and it was not now deemed desirable to devote it to the purpose
of relieving England of her worst paupers. The next scheme was one by which the
government only bore a portion of the cost of transit from England to
Australia. A man who was not doing very well at home, and who has made up his
mind to go somewhere else to try and do
better, would think a long time before he gave three times as much to come to
Australia as he would have had to pay to go anywhere else, and the
government thought it wise to bear a
portion of the passage money.
By this scheme of assisted
immigration the government paid one-fourth of the expense, and three-fourths of
the cost ol the passage was refunded by the immigrant himself out of his first year's
wages. Two other methods pursued were - the remission or 80 per cent on the
price of land to the importer of labour,
and bearing three-fourths of the cost of the passage of those whose relatives
contributed one-fourth. each of these schemes had been found to work well to a
certain extent, but not on the whole.
The assisted immigration scheme was not equal to meeting the wants of any new country, nor was it
altogether calculated to introduce the
class best fitted to lay the foundations of society.
Free immigration, as he had
previously said, brought into the country the poorest, and most worthless - not
that he objected to the poor, on the contrary, he was anxious to see them come so
long as they were not absolutely worthless. While this scheme of immigration
was less expensive than the other, it was
not perfect, the employers found they were not always able to get the money due to them
refunded.
Immigrants who had bound themselves
to work an employer often performed
their service un- willingly, and there
were cases in which the employer has
quietly taken the money from the wages of
the immigrant, quietly pocketed it, and forgotten to honour his own promissory note to the
govern- ment. (Laughtcr) These
schemes were very expensive, but that would not have mattered so much if commensurate advantages were
accrued. This, however, was not the case. It was found that great numbers of persons went away to some
other colony, leaving the one which had
paid the cost of their passages; and this had been the case to a great extent
in Queensland.
Attracted by the goldfields of Victoria; or hearing that
Sydney was a very fine city, and a much
better place to live in than this out-of-the-way hole, as some of them chose to call it, - they went away by every
steamer, and we had to pay the price. Supposing we had six ship loads coming
here in as many months, with 300 people on board each ship, the colony
would incur an expense of £28000, but
all to very little purpose if they left the country directly. This happened,
often, while other colonies acting on the same system, but now this system had
been abandoned by them. Otherwise, the task of bringing labour into the new colony would have been like
pouring water into a sieve. (Hear, hear)
He did not wish to weary them
with detail, but, as he happened to be a member of a committee appointed to
investigate the subject, he wished to show them that some pains had been taken
to inquire into it, in all its different bearings. Men were examined ho had a
great deal of experience both in colonisation and immigration, and whose
opinions were worthy of the best
consideration - Sir Charles Nicholson, Dr. Lang, Dr. Cannan, Dr. Kendall, Dr. Hobbs, and others, being among the
number.
The result was well considered by
the committee; it was brought up to the House by the Chairman, the Colonial Treasurer; it was
discussed by the a full chamber without
a single alteration, and, if he re-collected rightly, it passed finally without
a division. He was thus particular because he was anxious to show them that
this subject received the best
attention of their parliament; but he would now proceed to give the particulars
of the new government scheme. The
question of immigration is immediately connected with colonization, and is interesting alike to the colonists
themselves, and to statesmen at home.
Three hundred thousand people must go somewhere every year to make
room for that amount of increase in the population of the United Kingdom. On
the one hand they had England, with her enormous wealth, with her wondrous
manufactories, with her teeming population, and on the other, the vast colonial
territory of Australia,-(a voice
"With a paltry government,") - forming part of that boundless empire
of which an American writer has said that its "morning drumbeat, following
the sun, and keeping company with the hours, encircles the earth daily with one
continuous and unbroken strain of the
martial airs of England." On this side, millions of square miles now
covered with the primeval forest, waiting the hand of man to cover it with
waving fields of corn and plantations of cotton (Ironical cheers.)
The Englishman, with his
indomitable skill, dauntless courage, and untiring energy, seemed to have been
marked out by Providence as the great colonising agent. (Uproar.) By
Englishmen, of course he meant English, Irish, and Scottish, he intend the
whole British nation It seemed they were destined to be the chief agents of
spreading throughout the world universal peace and happiness. here were some
25,000 people, owning a million of square miles of territory. Who could say that there was not
room for more? He believed that there was room for hundreds of thousands, and
believed so because he held the life of a man to be superior to the life of a
sheep. (Hear, hear.)
There was an abundance of
alluvial land for an honest and hard-working population on the banks of our
creeks and river, and on the shores of our bays, and there was an abundance of room both for the
people and the agricultural interests.
He did not wish to say a word against the pastoral interest as an interest. (A
Voice: "200,000 square miles.") He did not mean to say a word against
that interest, but he could not bring himself to believe that sheep and cattle
only were to enjoy the bounties of the land, or to live under its beautiful climate. (Interruption.) There
could be no denying one fact that the pastoral interest stood as the first
great interest of the colony at present, but nobody could imagine that the
splendid tablelands of this country, high above
the level of the sea, and stretching away hundreds
of miles northward of the 28th
parallel of latitude, were not to be used for other than grazing purposes when
required. But what mattered it to the sheep owner or the grazier that all this
was available to him or that the intrepid Stuart had planted his flag in the very middle of
the continent, and found all fertile and
beautiful which had hitherto been
supposed to be an arid and sterile desert; what mattered all this to him if he were unable to obtain the labour he
required?
Nothing at all; if this state of
things continued, capital would soon cease to be embarked in pastoral pursuit«. Supposing that gold
seeking here had been successful, or that the attractions or the Victorian gold-fields had drawn away our
industrial population, there would have been no labour for the squatter at all. (A voice: "At
his own price.") Not so. {Another
auditor : "free selection.") He begged they would listen to him
for the present; he would answer any
question any gentleman present might put to him after he had had his say. (Hear, hear.) It must be
evident to them that any scheme of immigration must be or such a kind ad would supply labour to the
flock owner.
The present scheme of immigration
accomplished all this, inasmuch as it
enabled the squatter, or anyone else,
to get the labour he required, without
costing him anything; for he would have full value for the money he might advance. The 20th
clause of the Land Sales Act provided that any person paying his own passage to this colony direct
from Europe, or paying the passage of another, should his receive a land order for £18.
The Immigration Agent at
Brisbane, and the Clerk of Petty Sessions throughout the colony, would be
supplied with printed forms, and
anybody in want of labour would go to one or other of these parties, and
ask for one of these forms. Perhaps a
groom is wanted, or a cook, or a
housemaid, and the forms are filled up
accordingly, and handed over to somebody at
home - not their humble servant, but somebody they would sooner trust
than they would him (the
speaker)-(laughter)-and the required parties are engaged for one or two years at the current
rate of wages. He did not mean by the
current rate of wages that new chums
just arriving in the colony would receive equal wages with those who had been
here a long time,-not at all ; by the current rate he meant the rate new immigrants were worth
on their arrival. (Laughter and cheers.)
The party sending for them would have to pay their
passage- money, and a land order for £18 for each immigrant paid for would then
be paid to the credit of the employer
in the public treasury. The object this was to secure the services of the
immigrants to the employer for twelve months at least, as, if the immigrant did not refund the
passage-money to his employer, the latter had the land order to
fall back upon ; and if the
immigrant served his full time, the land
order was in safe hands for him.
These land orders would be available for the purchase of any kind of land-country,
suburban, or otherwise, and they would
be transferable, so that they would always be worth about £18.
The government were bound to receive the land
orders as representing their full value, so that they could never depreciate, and they could always be
changed into money. For instance, the
holder of an order might go to a
government land sale, and say to a party
who was buying a country lot or a town lot,
" Here you are ; give me £17 10s. for this £18 land order, and you
shall have it." The scheme was at
once simple and valuable. ("Yes, for the
squatter.") It was equally good for the poor man as for the
squatter. The poor man at home who
cannot afford to pay his own passage out here, would be able to come out under this system,
would have a living when he came here,
and if he chose to repay his employer he
would have eighteen acres of hind to
commence with on his own account, and if he stayed two years in the colony, he
would have twelve acres besides. he (Mr.
Jordan) thought they would agree with him
that this scheme would be of
incalculable benefit to the country. (A voice: "When is the land to be given
to him? Hisses and cheers.) He had been very anxious for the evening to come.
(Laughter and hisses.)
He had been told in Ipswich that
he dared not meet his Brisbane constituents, and some of his friends wanted him
to avoid doing so, but he told them he could stand a great deal of abuse, and would do so whatever came of
it. (Hisses and uproar.) He could stand
a great deal of that, and he could tell them that he was not afraid of meeting
any man. He had acted for the best, and
he had acted honestly, and in strict accordance with the promises made to his
constituents, (Uproar, and a voice-" You sold them.") The scheme was
not alone calculated to benefit the squatter. There was the farmer, who might
send home for his labour ; and there was the tailor, the shoemaker, the draper,
the banker, and every man wanting labour.
The more we had here the more
would want to come, and any one would be able to get on here who had his head
screwed on the right way. (Laughter, and a voice-"'You've done it well
enough.") Every man contributes to the revenue, and the more population
came into the country, the better would it be for the country at large. Some
people were afraid that there would be too much of it; that too great an influx
of population would take place ; but he believed there could not be too many if
proper care were taken to procure the right
sort. Little or no trouble attended it; if they wanted a groom or a gardener,
("Oh!") or a housemaid, all they had to do was to apply to the
Immigration Agent or Clerk of Petty Sessions, and one would be engaged for
them. It did not matter what kind of character was wanted, whether a fat boy to
wait at table, with no end of buttons running up and down the breast of his
jacket, or a man with a wooden leg, it would be all the same ; they would be
brought if required. ("Soft
soap).") He did not keep that article ; what he had to say he said
honestly, and he knew they believed him to be honest. ("You don't believe
it;" interruption.)
Then if any colonists wanted to get their
friends out-their brothers, sisters, or perhaps the old folks at home, it would
be very easy to do it. Under an old system persons who wanted to get out their
relatives, the government paid ¾ths of the passage, but the full amount of this assistance was confined to cases
where the parties were not over the age of 35; so that if a man's parents happened to be
over that age-which was more than
probable in the majority or instances-he
had to pay nearly the whole amount. But to the new system there were no
limitations whatever, and any one might get out his friends without difficulty
-brothers starving on a few shillings n week, or sisters paid at the rate or £5
a year and very scanty fare.
He would suppose the case of a
young woman who had come out here and got a good place, and who had yielded to
the soft persuasions of a stout young farmer and become his wife. She would say
to her husband, "Bill, I'd like to have our father and mother, and my brother
Thomas." Bill would of course be very glad to do that kind of thing, and
being well-to-do and thrifty, he would be able to pay the migration Agent the
necessary money for each or them, and
when they came out, Bill would be entitled to land orders to the amount of
£54.
("Question.") He would be able to
select 54 acres of land on one of the agricultural reserves, on which the new
comers might go to work, and at the expiration of two years from their arrival,
they would be able to claim and have 36
acres more. (Interruption.)
Thus they would become useful
colonists and-well-to-do men, and need not fear dreaming about the workhouse
when they went to sleep. He thought
they would admit the government scheme of immigration to be infinitely superior
to the former one, by which the proceeds of land sold at an enormous price were
devoted to the introduction of a useless class of persons. Nobody was taxed by
the new plan. ("Five bob an acre.") He would explain everything to them bye mid bye.
("Yes, you can explain anything.") Something was wanted besides labour-capital,
and the scheme was calculated to meet this want. There was a desire to which
every Englishman was subject,-the desire to become the possessor of land
himself. This feeling existed in great intensity, and it was for them to avail
themselves of this feeling.
If we can only make it easy to
people on the other side of the globe to come here and gratify this part of
their nature, it would prove as attractive to them as gold. This "earth
hunger," as a Germán writer has
called it, would be satisfied, and every person
brought out to this colony under the new regulations might satiate his
appetite if he liked.
Many a man would be encouraged to hope that
better times were coming for him, and would dispose of his goods and chattels
in order to make his way to a country that offered him 30 acres of land for
nothing, with no rent to pay, and gave him 8d. a pound for all the cotton he
grew, besides 1s. 4d. he could get from the merchant. Should he be so
unfortunate as to be married, - (laughter) - he would have 30 acres for
himself, 30 for his wife, and if he had a child over fourteen years of age,
30 acres more, and for every two
children under that age -whether twins or not- 30 acres more. (A voice:
"Yes, when the government has time to survey it.")
There would be plenty surveyed by
the time he people came out to occupy it, and it was no small inducement to
tell a single man that he could have 18 acres on landing and 12 more in two
years. (A Voice :-"What was your scheme when you came out as a candidate?') If the man
intends to go to farming at once, he (Mr. Jordan) knew that the government were
disposed to let him have the whole 30 acres at once, if it were found that
there was nothing in the act positively forbidding such a course.
Now these regulations would have
the effect of bringing to this colony a superior class of men-he did not mean
superior in point or wealth;-but men who have been fortunate enough to be able
to bring a little capital with them when they came here. This was the class
which formed a large proportion of the great stream of emigration to America,
and this fact was well illustrated by a statement made in England by the
Chairman of the Emigration Board that when a vessel named the "Ocean
Monarch" was wrecked some time
ago, It was found that the 320 people on board of her were possessed of £10,000
among them. This "flight of farmers," as it was called, frightened
the people, but it was found that no
serious harm ever accrued, notwithstanding the rate at which the migration went
on.
He (Mr. Jordan) had lately seen a
return of the numbers of persons who had emigrated from the United Kingdom in
the seven years between 1847 and 1854, and he found it stated that 302,620
persons left England every year during
that period. Most of these were honest, industrious, and saving people,
who went to avail them-selves of the liberal land regulations of the United
States. Canada saw the effect which the liberality of the States laws was
producing, and, she, too, offered attraction to the immigrant, saying
-"Come here and we will give you
land for nothing."
The stream of immigrants
immediately divided, and part flowed into the ports of Canada, being only too
eager to avail themselves of her free grants, and Canada was now rapidly
becoming settled by a population who carried with them their honesty, industry,
frugality, and their money too. Seeing this state or things going on, New Zealand began to
think, and ultimately decided upon offering a grant of 40 acres for nothing to
anybody who would spend £20 in getting there. When they reached there,
how-ever, they found it was not 40 acres of land at all, but 40 acres of
pipeclay - (laughter, and a voice: " There's plenty of that here,") -
or 40 acres of fern roots, and they were consequently disappointed.
With respect to the agricultural
reserves he was authorised to say that the government intended to include the
very best land in Queensland in those reserves. That he knew to be the case. He
had just been to Rockhampton, and before reaching it the steamer stuck on the
flats for some time. Whilst in that
interesting position he amused him-self by looking over the flats and saw a
magnificent tract of thinly timbered
alluvial country in fact, the finest
block of land in the-Fitzroy River. On
his arrival at Rockhampton he found that this had been selected as an
agricultural reserve. When at Ipswich he had been met by a gentleman who
brought him to task by the assertion that though he was himself over the
country to advocate his scheme he was afraid to meet his own constituents. He
then told him that he was going to meet them here. After a great many more
questions to floor him, he made inquiries of him respecting the agricultural
reserves at Drayton and Toowoomba.
He went to Toowoomba, and there met with an
intelligent farmer who had a farm of 40 acres of truly good land, which he was
cultivating with success, and who went to show him the agricultural reserve.
Amongst that selected he found that there was much that was badly situated,
water not being accessible, but on other land closely contiguous being pointed
out to him he examined it and found that water was not only accessible but that
the land was really good.
The surveyors had since received
instructions to add more land to the reserve and on his showing him (Mr.
Jordan) the plans of the additional 18,000 acres, he found that the very land
he had examined and found so good had been included. (Cheers.) There were also two
miles along the side of Gowrie Creek, on the western slope of the range
requiring very little trouble in clearing, and this he had since been informed
by the Colonial Secretary was added to that reserve. He afterwards went to
Drayton, where, from its being so near Toowoomba, it would hardly be expected
that a reserve would have been proclaimed. Many of the people there were
dissatisfied with the land, but on talking with the more intelligent he found
that the reserve contained 14,000 acres, of
which more than 10,000 consisted of really good land.
He went thence to Warwick, where he found that
the reserve picked upon formed part of the Canning Downs run. He there met
Captain Daveney, the manager of the Canning Downs Station, who said that though
he would admit that the taking this reserve would much injure the station the
government might still have done better by taking another part of it further
off; but as he (Captain Deveney) was an interested person, he would recommend
him (Mr. Jordan) to consult the people
in the town. He did so, and found that by going twelve miles out of Warwick a
reserve could be found containing the pick of the whole country, well watered,
and coming under the regular rains, and this was Killarney, twelve miles from
Warwick.
During the three days he was at
Warwick, there was not a drop of rain, but at Killarney there was rain the
whole time. At Warwick he saw Mr. Evans, a gentleman who knew men that had
grown into affluence as farmers in that neighbourhood, and who had for a
longtime grown wheat. On his observing to him (Mr. Jordan) that it was a pity
the reserve had not been fixed upon at Killarney, Mr. Jordan replied that
though the act limited the reserve to a distance of five miles from the
township, he believed the government were so desirous of selecting the best lands,
that the distance would be no obstacle, and
accordingly recommended him to write to the government on the subject.
He was not aware whether Mr.
Evans had done so, but he had since seen
the Colonial Secretary, and informed him of the state of things, and had
been assured by him that the government were so desirous of selecting the best
lands for reserves, that in all probability this would be included. (Applause.)
The scheme was not designed to bring out people to compete with those already
here, but to bring out the hard-working and industrious, possessed of a little
capital, who would be able to cultivate their own land and thus benefit others.
(A Voice: "What's the odds to you
whether they come or not?") If they
came they could not eat the land, it was true but they might grow plenty
that they could. He had been told that cabbages could not be grown here;
and he knew farmers who had told him
that agriculture would not pay in the country. There were many such men in the
colony, who belonged to the class of croakers, and who represented Queensland
as a miserable, dry, parched up country. One of this class he met some time
since, who had on a good coat, fit for the Governor, with hat and boots to
match, and who was, in short, a jolly, happy specimen of a distressed
agriculturist. (Laughter)
He put a few questions to him,
and his reply was that he had come to the country about five years since from
Somersetshire, where he had worked as agricultural labourer for 10s. per week.
He asked him what he was doing then ?
He was farming and had a bit of land which was his own, and paid for ; it was
fenced in, cleared, and he had a house on it. He had also a few pigs and some
cows. Now here was a fair sample of such men. A man who five years since was
earning but 10s a week, and would in all probability have done so for the next
twenty-five years, had he remained in England, and at last have died in the
workhouse.
Some farmers in Queensland were
more honest, and avowed that farming would pay them. Mr. Hartenstein, of the
German Station, assured him that he had grown arrowroot for some years and
found that it would pay better than anything else, for although the demand was
to a certain extent limited, it was a certain one. He had grown at the rate of
a ton per acre, which, at 1s. a pound,
yielded £112. There was no mistake about it. (A voice: "Has he done
that?") He (Mr. Hartenstein) assured him he had, and that not reckoning it
before it was ground, but clean arrowroot. (A voice: "How about the cost
of labour?") He (Mr. J.) made enquiries about that too, and found that it
required comparatively little. Mr. Hartenstein showed him a machine of his own contrivance, a kind
of large nutmeg grater, by which the arrowroot was reduced to pulp. A man and a
boy could dig the root, grind, wash, and pack it in tin canisters for the market,
in one month.
Mr. Walter Hill, of the Botanical Gardens, whom
they all knew as an honest and intelligent man, had assured him that an acre of
ground would readily yield six hundred pounds of cotton, and this, Mr. Bazley,
of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, had stated to be worth, on the average,
1s 4d a pound. There was the government bonus of eightpence a pound to be
added, which would increase the produce of the acre to about £50.
Mr. Stewart, of the Bald Hills formerly of the
Hunter River, told him that he had tried wheat-growing in that locality, and raised thirty bushels to the acre of splendid
grain, samples of which he (.Mr. Jordan) was going to take home to England with
him. Manchester must be supplied with cotton, and in England there were
annually three hundred thousand people who required to be fed and provided for in some part of
the world; whilst Queensland, with her capabilities for growing and quantity,
and abounding with other resources, was
in need of the population to develop them.
Seeing this he was determined to
make the trial, and to bring out that population he was going home. If those
people found that farming would not pay, if the experiment failed they need not
starve; he would recommend them all to grow the sweet potato.(Loud laughter.)
He had been told that in highly favoured districts twenty-five tons of this
wholesome esculent had been grown to the acre, and that even on poor land ten
tons to an acre could be procured. Thus supposing they did not grow rich they
would not starve; children must have something to eat, and their mouths could
always be stopped with sweet potatoes. (Renewed laughter and up-roar.) When the
rush of fifteen thousand people took place to Canoona, no doubt there was great
distress, for then there was neither gold nor potatoes to be dug from the earth
; but he felt convinced that if under the present scheme thousands came out,
there would be no starvation, no hunger.
If he returned to the colony in about four
years, as he hoped to do, he felt certain that on all hands he would be warmly
welcomed by thousands whom he had induced to immigrate to these shores ; then
he would see agriculture flourishing, and find ships in the harbours loading
with cotton for Manchester; - (laughter)-then, indeed, would he feel glad at
having taken part in bringing about these things. (Voice from the gallery.
"No doubt you'll see wonderful
things.") One gentleman had said he would see wonderful things ; doubtless
he would, and he had done so already in Queensland. When first the cry for
separation was raised, some time ago, people laughed at it, and at the idea of
having two houses of Parliament assembled in Queen-street, but it had been
accomplished never-the less. It might be said that his scheme would be good for
the people in England, but what did it do for them ? ("Why, did not the
government give them the 30
acres?") They would admit that it was good for the people at home. (Cries
of "No, no.")
That was all very fine, but they
knew it was, and, if in no other respect, they were benefitted by the opening
of the new agricultural reserves, which they admitted would attract population.
That was all he wanted. (A Voice: "Yes, that's all.") It was, and doing so would be a benefit to
every man in Queensland, where every man was, or ought to be, worth something,
if it was only a wheelbarrow, a pig, or a cow. (Uproar und merriment.) What he
contended was, that with an increased demand the value of everything would be
enhanced. There were some there who had houses in the Valley they could not
let, town allotments they could not sell, and cows without being able to sell
their milk; but only let population come out, and bye and bye they would find
tenants for their houses, customers for their milk, and be able to sell their
town allotments for £4 or £5 a foot. ("Sweet potatoes")
Any one who had the effrontery to tell him
that they would not be benefitted by the increase of population knew nothing of
the matter. (A Voice: "How did squatting pay you?") A great deal
better than going home to England as their agent would, and he would tell that
gentleman that he was going home with the approbation, sympathy, and good
wishes of the great majority of the intelligent and thinking inhabitants of the
country. (Increased interruption.)
He would then visit all the towns
or England, Ireland, and Scotland, go to
the town halls and address himself to more attentive audiences, he
hoped, than he had there that evening. (From the gallery: "Yes, they won't
know you so well." Loud laughter.) He would tell them the advantages
awaiting them in Queensland, ("Yes, and a great deal more.") There
was no necessity for that, for if he told them only the extent of what he knew,
they would be well satisfied if he told them how many respect-able people there
were ("oh!"); how few went to gaol ("oh!" and laughter);
how many went to church ("oh!"); and the rest ("oh!"); if
he described its sunshine and its bright skies ("oh!"
"Cock-a-doodle-doo"); if he told them how much they could earn as
shepherds by going up into the bush, they would believe him and come out in
hundreds and thousands, very many to realise more than he had promised them.
("A Voice: "I don't believe it.")
He would go to Scotland and talk
to some of the cautious and wary Highlanders. (Three hearty cheers were here
given for Dr. Lang.) He would tell them all about him, he hoped to work with
him. ("But he's on his own hook ; three more cheers for Dr. Lang.")
He would go to Ireland, and then from its towns and villages induce numbers of
her stalwart sons to emigrate to this country, which they would readily
exchange for "taturs and Tipperary." (Laughter.) He would go through
England, and there ask hundreds and thousands to do the same, and then
bye-and-bye come out himself, when he was convinced all would be glad to see
him, and welcome him as one who had done much towards making Queensland one of
the most prosperous of the British colonies. ("Oh, oh," and cheers.)
Then with respect to his
appointment. He did not create the office ; it was one that had been resolved
upon after due deliberation of the representatives of the people, and that
being the case, it became the bounden duty of the government to send a fit and
proper person to discharge its duties. If they wanted a house built, or
anything else done, they would not select a stranger to the work, but one who
was well acquainted with what he had to do. So if they wanted a man to go to
the other side of the globe to advocate their Interests, they would send one
who understood their wants, who could lecture in a free-and-easy style, so that
people would listen to and believe him. This the government was bound to do ;
but he did not say that he was such a man. ("Oh, oh!" and laughter.)
It was asked, why not send Dr. Lang? To any
agreement there must be two parties-both must be willing, and Dr. Lang had
declined to go. (Mr. CRIBB: "Was he asked to go?" and three cheers more for Dr. Lang.) He could not say;
but if he had, he believed he would have taken office. He saw a letter from him
to the government, stating that he had heard his name had been mentioned, and
if so, he must decline to act. Besides, Dr. Lang's scheme was a different one ;
it was to establish a company in England, to whom the land orders were to be
transferred.
That being the case, whoever said
that Dr. Lang would have gone had he been asked, knew nothing of the matter.
Some had said he was going to get £600 a year, clear of costs, and asked him if
he was going to pocket any of the expenses. He would tell them that he was to
pay his own passage home, and that would cost him upwards of £250. Then he was
to be allowed travelling expenses, but of them a strict account would be kept,
and after all he believed he would be a loser. He did not think they would
consider £600 a year too much. He would ask them if they would be willing to
give up a good business for one that would bring in less. Every one knew that
he was not a loose hand without employment; indeed he had never made less
than £600 a year in Brisbane, so that he
should not make a penny by the appointment. (A Voice: " What did you get
for your business when you sold it?") It was a matter of great
consideration with him whether he would act justly to him-self were he to have
to make arrangements by which he would lose nearly the whole of the profits of
his station.
He expected to find, at the end
of three years, that he was a poorer man than he was then. What then became of
the assertion that he went into the House for a billet? He had advocated
liberal principles. ("Free selection.") He had never talked about it
("five bob an acre;" "What about the pamphlet?") In his
pamphlet he advocated the upset price at auction to be five shillings an acre,
feeling assured that though good land would realise a far higher price, the
power to get indifferent land at 5s. per acre would prove a great attraction to many people. But even
that scheme was not likely to be so attractive as having the best land picked
out for agricultural reserves to the extent even of the whole country, - and
this was possible, as the act required that the supply in each reserve should
always be five thousand acres in excess of the demand, so that the whole colony
could be taken up if wanted.
To those who said he had been
false to his principles he would say that he was chiefly instrumental in the
abolition of pre-emptive right. On the proposal for its abolition being lost by
a majority of one, a meeting was called
to consider the subject,-and he was en-trusted with the petition passed at that
meeting. The result was that the question was re-opened, and by one or two
coming over pre-emptive right was abolished. On that occasion one of the
members who came over told him (Mr. Jordan) that he had been influenced in the
alteration of his views mainly through his arguments. ("Oh, oh!")
However, it was admitted by some
who were clamorous against him that he had one quality, that of being able to
talk. In a letter which recently appeared in the public press under the
signature of "Paul Pry" the writer asked "what special aptitude
Mr. Jordan had for the office he had managed to obtain." He did not manage
to obtain the office. When he heard that Dr. Lang would not go-("You know
what he (Paul Pry) says is true")-he determined he would go if he could,
even without making a penny by it. On his mentioning his determination to the
Governor he was pleased at the idea, and shortly afterwards received an
intimation from the Governor through the Colonial Secretary that they would be
glad for him to go, if he would make the application. He declined to do so, and
shortly afterwards on seeing the Governor, he told him that he was willing to
go, and it was agreed that he should pay his own expenses home and back. He had
always carried out the principles which he advocated when he came to the
country five years before.
He felt himself a colonist; he had married in
the colony; and he felt that by going home and bringing out population he
would be doing more good than by
continuing their member. Paul Pray also says "I want to know how it is that the requirements for Mr. Jordan's presence
at his station happened so opportunely as to call him away just when the
ministry wanted to hurry the Crown Lands Leasing Act through the House?"
In answer to this he could say that he had carried out the principles he
enunciated on the hustings, and that he was present when the Crown Lands
Leasing Act was passed through the House clause by clause. (Cheers.) He might
say that he was encouraged in going home by the hearty good wishes and sympathy
manifested towards him by those whose intelligence and esteem he most valued in
the town.
One of these made use of this language to him,
"Go and you will succeed, and
carry with you the hearty good wishes of the majority of your
fellow-towns-men." He felt that would be the case, and that if when he
returned in four years' time, he came out as a candidate they would put him in,
and they would say that he was one of the best members they ever had in the
house. (Loud laughter, cheers, and uproar.) Paul Pry said that he was absent at
his station whilst tho Crown Lands Leasing Act was passing through the House.
What did the public papers say? Why that he was only absent four days, and he
could tell them that he was only absent on those occasions.
The bill passed through Committee
on the 6th September, and was read the third time on the 7th September. On the
day following the Bill being carried through Committee, he found it stated that
he was present in the house that evening. Paul Pry would per-haps say that he
meant the Crown Lands Sales Bill, but that had been passed previously. He
opposed this bill on the ground that £1 an acre was retained, and that the
agricultural reserves were not defined nor likely to attract population, and he
voted that the bill be read again that day six months. The end of the matter
was, that the reserves were clearly defined, that they were always to be kept 5000 acres in advance of the
demand, and such alterations were made as greatly altered the character of the
bill. He had also watched it while going through Committee. It was originally
proposed that purchasers should be able to lease additional land at two
shillings an acre, someone else proposed sixpence, and be proposed one penny an
acre.
Though unsuccessful in this he
did all he could to carry it. In conclusion Paul Pry said,-"I want to
know, in conclusion, what system of political economy he has so readily
mastered, as it must have been a simple one to be so soon acquired by a mere
novice in political matters?" Now that ought to have been the very cream of the whole affair, but what did
it amount to? He had never said that he had ma-tered any system or political
economy. He considered himself a modest man-(roars of laughter) -and merely
said that the want of the colony was population, and that farming would pay.
When he came forward at the eleventh hour he used no claptrap, nor made a single disparaging
remark of any of the other candidates, nor had he asked for a single vote
individually. He simply explained his sentiments, and his last words wore
"that he was not anxious to be returned unless they thought the principles
he declared would meet their appro-val, and that he would act for them as an
honest man."
He knew that he stood well in the
opinion of his fellow townsmen, but if not, though he liked to do so, he would
not forego his sense of honour and uprightness for all the plaudits ever
bestowed on man. (Cheers.) It was for no government place that he went into the
House, and he had no idea of accepting any kind of appointment, but he would
own that, before he came out, when he found he could not continue his practice
and his station together, he intended to give up his business and apply for a
certain government appointment which would enable him still to live in the
town, and still carry on his station. He believed that he could have got it,
but the moment he presented himself as a candidate he abandoned the idea
entirely ; nor did he think it would have been right to act otherwise. He never
made a promise to his constituents that he would not accept a post. Such a
pledge he believed would be derogatory to his character as an honest man. He
believed the true principle was to put the right man in the right place, and if
the government wanted a man, they were bound to get the best they could,
whether in the House or out of it.
He had never nibbled for office,
nor did he support the government generally for that purpose ; what he thought
right he supported, what he thought wrong he opposed with all his might.
(Cheers.) He told them when he first came before them he would do the best he
could for the colony, and to that he had been true. When he found Dr. Lang
would not go home-(A voice : " Was he asked to go?")-he gave up his
prospects in the colony, and with the honest determination to do the best he
could for the country. With the views he held on the question of immigration,
he believed he could carry out the system proposed, and as no better man was
coming forward - (Ironical cheers, hisses, groans, and uproar.) They know no
better man was coming forward, and they might hiss as they liked. (Cheers and
uproar.) As he found no better man coming forward, he honestly believed that he
could do what was required (A voice:
"You did do it, and no mistake about that;")-and that; - and he
believed he should be successful.
Population must be had, with him
it was population first, population middle, and population all the way through
; and in this he had been true-true to his constituents-true to his
promises-and true to the colony. ("Oh, oh!" and cheers.) In nothing
that he had done had been untrue to them, and he was convinced that he should
serve them in the most effectual way, and act in the best manner for the
interests of this great and flourishing colony, by going home as their
Emigration Agent. (Pro-longed cheers and uproar.)
Having concluded his address, Mr.
Jordan announced that he should be happy to answer any questions put to him
that were pertinent to the subject or to his appointment.
Mr. HUTTON : What class of
immigrants will you select for this colony-farmers' labourers only?
Mr. JORDAN : The idea embodied in
the scheme is that persons who want labour should send home for it themselves. If you want relatives and you are going to pay their
passages, you procure the land orders here, and send to them a passage certificate;
or, if a man wishes to come out on his own account, he gets 30 acres of land
for coming.
Mr. HUTTON : You will have to
sign the orders won't you ?
Mr. JORDAN : I shall not have to
sign them. I shall have to go about the country, addressing just such attentive
audiences as I have had to-night-(laughter)-and I shall say to them, "Some
of you may wish to go to Queensland, and may want to know something more about
it; if so, just come to my place at such and such an hour, and I'll tell you all
about it." I shall stay a week at the large towns, after having delivered
a first lecture, und I shall deliver a second before I go, giving them further
information. This is the way I propose to act, and when I have ascertained that
a number of people wish to come, I shall say to the shipping agent, " Here
are 50 people who want to go out to Queensland ;" and they will then be
forwarded by the Commissioners.
Mr. HUTTON: Will you make any
difference as to class ?
Mr. JORDAN : No difference. The
Commissioners will have to send out the men recommended by me.
No other questions being asked,
Mr. W. BROOKES rose, amidst much
cheering and merriment, to propose a vote of confidence in Mr. Jordan as the
Emigration Agent for the colony. He did not think it right that a gentleman
like Mr. Jordan should leave the colony, entrusted by the government with such
a responsible mission, without receiving some expression of confidence from the
people. They might differ as much as they pleased from him, but he hoped they
would separate the Emigration Agent from the man, and show Mr. Jordan that,
when he leaves for England, he carries with him the sympathies and best wishes
of the intelligent part of the country. ("Oh, oh," cheers, and
uproar.) They came there to have a little bit of fun, and they had had it; now
for a little business. (Renewed laughter.) He begged to propose a vote of
confidence in these terms-"that the great leading question of immigration
may be safely en-trusted to Mr. Jordan, to whom this meeting wishes a prosperous
voyage to England, and every success in the great work in which he will be
engaged." (Cheers and hisses.)
Mr. S. DOIG seconded the motion.
Mr. HUTTON moved, by way of
amendment, that Mr. Jordan ought first to thank the electors for having put him
in a position to obtain such a situation.
Mr. JORDAN said he did thank the
electors for having returned him, and in going home, if he succeeded in his
mission, he would be quits with them, ns he was going to serve them in the most
effectual way by bringing out population. (Applause.)
The MAYOR then put the resolution
to the meeting, and declared it to be carried.
Mr. JORDAN rose to return thanks,
and said that, on the night when the poll was declared for the city, he
happened to be away in the country, not being aware that It would be declared
so immediately after the election, and he therefore lost the chance of thanking
them for having conferred upon him the highest honour they could bestow on any
man. (A voice: "It was a mistake.") Not at all; and the party who
said that it was would live, he hoped, to acknowledge it was not. Had he been there, he should have told them
then, as he told them now, that it was
the proudest moment of his life, (Laughter.) He knew they believed him to be an
honest man, and they must all believe that he would act as one. (Cheers and
countercheers.)
Mr. JORDAN then moved a vote of
thanks to his Worship the Mayor for his conduct in the chair, Memorial Hall.
So
a totally logical explanation for how the settlers in the Bald Hills/Bracken Ridge
region acquired their land!
This research has been compiled using data from the early map of the Lots as recorded in what appears to be the original purchaser,
No comments:
Post a Comment