Whatever success democratic legislation may have had in the coastal districts in forming what used to be called in England a yeoman class, it has failed utterly to do so in the Interior.

The reasons for this have already been indicated.

Pastoralism in Droughtland (let me repeat once more) can only be made to pay when undertaken on an enormous scale.

The clamour of the tenuiores has resulted in land bills that have thrown open to selection at almost nominal rents the pick of the squatters' leaseholds.

In Queensland the '84 Land Act permitted selections of one hundred and sixty acres.

The permission was useless.

Scarcely any one cared to profit by it.

I remember going to pay a visit to a friend of mine who had taken up one of these selections under the Range close to Toowoomba.

There is no richer land in Queensland or Australia.

The soil is several feet deep in vegetable mould.

The sudden rise of the great tableland precipitates the coastal rains.

He was within a few miles of a railway station, and he enjoyed “permanent water.”

He considered himself singularly lucky.

I went with him to look at the “permanent water.”

The dry bed of a torrent which had not run for years led us to two deep holes half filled with a turbid liquid, the support of a not inconsiderable quantity of the lower animal and vegetable life.