South Australia and Western Australia

I have said that Adelaide has been called a city of churches. It has also been nicknamed the Farinaceous City. A little gentle ridicule is no doubt intended to be conveyed by the word. The colony by the sister colonies is regarded as one devoted in a special manner to the production of flour. Men who spend their energy in the pursuit of gold consider the growing of wheat to be a poor employment. And again the squatters, or wool-producers of Australia, who are great men, with large flocks, and with acres of land at their command so enormous that they have to be counted, not by acres, but by square miles, look down from a very great height indeed upon the little agriculturists,—small men, who generally live from hand to mouth,—and whose original occupation of their holdings has commonly been supposed to be at variance with the squatters’ interests. The agriculturists of Australia generally are free-selecters, men who have bought bits here and bits there off the squatters’ runs, and have bought the best bits,—men, too, whose neighbourhood, for reasons explained before, has not been a source of comfort to the squatters generally. In this way agriculture generally, and especially the growing of wheat-crops for sale, has not been regarded in the colonies as it is certainly regarded at home. The farmers of South Australia are usually called “cockatoos,”—a name which prevails also, though less universally, in the other colonies. The word cockatoo in the farinaceous colony has become so common as almost to cease to carry with it the intended sarcasm. A man will tell you of himself that he is a cockatoo, and when doing so will probably feel some justifiable pride in the freehold possession of his acres. But the name has been given as a reproach, and in truth it has been and is deserved. It signifies that the man does not really till his land, but only scratches it as the bird does.

Nevertheless,—and in spite of any gibes conveyed in the words farinaceous, cockatoo, or free-selecter,—South Australia is especially blessed in being the one great wheat-producing province among the Australian colonies. The harvest of 1870-71,—which was, no doubt, specially productive, but is quoted here because it is the last as to which, as I write, I can obtain the statistics,—gave 6,961,164 bushels of wheat, which at 5s. 3d. a bushel, the price at which it was sold in Adelaide, produced £1,827,305. In the same year, that is, up to 31st December, 1871, which would take the disposal of the crop above mentioned,—for wheat, it must be remembered, in Australia is garnered in our spring, and not in our autumn,—104,000 tons of bread-stuff were exported, and sold for £1,253,342. So that the colony consumed not a third of the breadstuffs which it produced. The population of the colony up to 31st December, 1871, was 189,018 persons. So that the value of the breadstuffs exported in that year was something over £6 12s. 6d. a head for every man, woman, and child within it. With such a result, South Australia need not be ashamed of being called farinaceous.

It must not, however, be supposed that the year above quoted shows a fair average. The following table will give the amount of wheat produced, with the area from which it was produced, the average crop per acre, and the value per bushel, together with the amount of bread-stuff and grain exported for the year above named, and the four preceding years:—

In the following year, 1871-72, the decrease of production was very great. There were 692,508 acres under wheat-crops in the colony. The produce was only 3,967,079 bushels, and the average produce per acre 5 bush. 44 lbs. What was the amount of wheat exported up to the end of 1872 I am unable to say. In reference to the above table, I must call attention to the fact that the exported articles of which the value is given are not only breadstuffs, but breadstuffs and grain, and the sums named as their value are, therefore, in excess of the real value of the wheat. But the other grain exported is very little. In the year 1871 the total value of the agricultural exports was £1,254,444, whereas the value of the breadstuffs was £1,253,342, leaving the value of all other grain at £1,102. The amount is not sufficient materially to affect the comparison made in the above table. Of this wealth of wheat sent away from South Australia, the other Australasian colonies, including New Zealand, consume the greatest quantity, New South Wales being the best customer. In 1867, when the average produce of the last harvest had exceeded fourteen bushels to the acre, Great Britain was the largest buyer. The price realised was only 4s. 5d. a bushel, and it was worth while to send it home;—but, generally, South Australia is the granary of the colonies around her. She sends supplies also, small indeed in amount, to Cape Town, the Mauritius, and New Caledonia, and even to India and the ports of China.

So far I have ventured to say what South Australia does in producing wheat, but I dare not venture to say what she might do. English farmers will not think much of a system of farming which does not produce an average crop of above ten bushels to the acre,—nor will they think much of an average price of 5s. 4d. a bushel. The English farmer could hardly pay his rent, and manure and crop his land, and get in his harvest and take it to market, with a total gross result of £2 13s. 4d. an acre,—more especially as he would only repeat his wheat crop once in every four years. The answer to this is, of course, that the circumstances of the farmer in the two countries are very different. In South Australia the farmer pays no rent, does not manure his land, pays but little wages either for getting his crop in or out of the land, and grows wheat every year, instead of once in four years. The operations of the two men are distinctly different, and must continue to be different. But it may be well worth while to inquire whether the South Australian farmer might not learn a lesson in his business which would greatly increase his profits.

There can, I think, be no doubt that the cockatoo of South Australia is a very bad farmer,—and that he is so because he has hitherto been able to make a living by bad farming. With reference to the amount of produce, it must be admitted at once that the existing combination of soil and climate in the colony, though it has shown itself to be favourable to the growth of wheat in a country of vast area, is not only unfavourable to heavy crops, but is prohibitory in regard to a high average. Every now and then an average produce of fourteen bushels to the acre may be obtained, as in 1864 and 1867,—and there are districts in the colony in which the produce has on such years exceeded twenty bushels to the acre. In 1867 the average in the Robe district was twenty-three bushels to the acre. But there are, at any rate at present, sources of injury to the wheat crop which make the business of farming very precarious. In one year the red dust will almost destroy the crop, in another year,—as happened during the harvest-time of 1872,—the year last past,—a cloud of locusts will come and eat up wheat and grass throughout the country. That the red rust might be conquered by skill in farming at some future time is probable. And it is not impossible that altered circumstances of soil and climate, produced by population and cultivation, may be unfavourable to the locusts. With the drawbacks as they at present exist, the average produce of wheat must continue to be small. But it might probably be very much higher than it is.

Nearly two-thirds of all the cultivated land of the colony are under wheat every year. In 1870-71 there were 959,000 acres under cultivation in the colony; of these, 200,000 acres were under crops other than wheat; 154,000 were fallow, or laid down with artificial grasses; and 605,000 were under wheat. So that every acre of cultivated land is expected to bear wheat twice in three years. With us the best approved rotation of crops requires the land to give wheat only once in four years. But in fact the expectation and practice of the regular cockatoo farmer demands a crop of wheat every year from his land. The figures above given include, of course, cultivated land of all kinds,—and in all hands. There are agriculturists in South Australia who are endeavouring to give the soil a chance of being permanently productive, and who sow wheat at any rate not more than every other year. There are, too, growers of vines, of potatoes, and hay,—all of whom add their quota to the total of cultivated acres, and deduct materially from the favourable side of the above figures. The ordinary cockatoo knows nothing of the word fallow, and attempts to produce nothing but wheat. Year after year he puts in his seed upon the same acreage, and year after year he takes off his crop. He is the owner of a section of land which may be something between one hundred and two hundred acres,—which is his own, though he has not probably as yet paid for it the entire price. He does his work without any attempt to collect manure, or to give back to the land anything in return for that which he takes from it. He even burns the stubble from his field, finding it to be easier to do so than to collect it, that it may rot, and then be ploughed in. He ploughs his land, sows it, and then takes off his crop by a machine called a stripper, which as it passes over the land drags the corn out of the ear, leaving all the straw on the ground;—so that the corn is, as it were, threshed as it is taken off the ground. His labour, therefore, is very small. This last manipulation of the grain,—which would be impossible in England, where the climate demands that the grain should become dry before it can be taken from the ear,—is made practicable in South Australia by the great heat prevailing when the wheat is cut. The effect of all this is deleterious both to the man and to the land. The man has but one farming occupation,—that of growing wheat. He ploughs, and reaps, and sells; and ploughs, and reaps, and sells again. He employs his energies on the one occupation, with no diversification of interest, and with nothing to arouse his intelligence. Consequently the South Australian cockatoo is not a pushing or a lively man,—though it should be acknowledged on his behalf that he is orderly, industrious, and self-supporting. But the effect on the land is worse than that on the man,—for the land clearly deteriorates from day to day. No practical farmer will require figures to make him believe that it is so;—but the figures show it. The yield of wheat in South Australia has always been poor, but it has greatly fallen off. In six years, from 1860-61 to 1865-66, it averaged about twelve bushels an acre, and in the six subsequent years it averaged only nine bushels an acre.

The farmer usually owns the land. The system of tenant-farming is by no means unknown in the colony, but it is not popular either with tenant or landlord. The landlord obtains none of those side-wind advantages from his position as owner,—advantages over and above the rent,—which are so valued in the possession and are so dear to the imagination among ourselves. There is neither political power nor political prestige attached to such ownership. It has no peculiar grace of its own as it has with us. The privileges of a squirearchy are quite unknown in the colonies, or, if they exist at all, belong to great graziers and squatters,—or to men who hold large tracts of land in their own hands, and not to those who let their acres. There are game laws,—for the protection of birds in the close season,—but there are no game laws on behalf of the landowner. There is nothing picturesque attaching to the receipt of rural rents, no audit dinners, no dependency grateful alike to the landlord and to the tenant, no feeling that broad acres confer a wide respect. What percentage can a man get for his money if he let land to farmers, and what security will he have for his income? Those are the considerations, and those only, which bear upon the question. As well as I could learn details on the subject,—as to which no accurate information can be obtained because the arrangement is not sufficiently general to produce it,—a landlord may let cleared and enclosed land, worth for sale in the market about £6 an acre, for 10s. an acre;—and he may thus obtain, if he get his rent, something more than nine per cent. for his money. This would do very well as a speculation, if he were sure or nearly sure to get it, as are our landlords at home. But when bad years come the tenants do not pay. It is regarded almost as a matter of course that the payment of agricultural rents is to depend on the season. If the land refuse her increase, why is the loss to fall on the tenant harder than on the owner? The owner, no doubt, has the law on his side; but the tenant understands very well that when the land is barren, the law will be barren also. Unless his rent be remitted in such years, or at least in part remitted, he simply gives up his holding and goes elsewhere,—with his children and his plough, or without his plough if the landlord or other creditor should have seized it. The result is that the landlord is satisfied to remit half the rent in bad years, and the whole rent in very bad years. The further and final result is that the system of letting land to tenant farmers is unpalatable and unprofitable,—and therefore unusual.

The farmer therefore owns the land. He has bought it probably on credit, beginning simply with savings made from two or three years of labour, and owing the price, or the greater part of it, to the government. I will presently say a word as to the system of deferred payments for land which prevails. His homestead is too frequently bare and ugly, without garden or orchard or anything like an English farmyard around it; but it is substantial, and it is his own. The price of the land has probably been something between 20s. and 40s. an acre,—and he calculates that by growing wheat under the existing agricultural circumstances around him, he can live, and bring up his family, and free himself from his debt within ten years. If he be steady and industrious he can do so,—and he does do so. He does not confine his industry to his own farm; but in shearing-time he shears for some large squatter, or he keeps a team of bullocks and brings down wool to the railway station or to the city, or perhaps he takes a month’s work at some gold-digging,—for even in South Australia there are gold-fields, though they be not prominent among the resources of the colony. In this way he lives and is independent;—and who will dare to find fault with a man who does live, and becomes independent, and makes a property exclusively by his own industry? His life is not picturesque, but he cares nothing for that. His children go to the public school,—at which he pays perhaps 2s. a week for three of them,—and they have plenty to eat and drink. His wife has plenty to eat and drink, and has a decent gown, and material comforts around her. He has plenty to eat and drink, and a decent coat if he cares for it. And he is nobody’s servant. Nevertheless he is a very bad farmer, and unless he mend his ways soon the land which he now ploughs will cease to give him the plenty which he desires. It may not improbably come to pass that a considerable portion of the land occupied by farmers for the purpose of growing wheat, will, under the present system, cease altogether to give sufficient increase on the seed to pay even for the labour of ploughing and reaping. In that case it will go back to pastoral purposes and the farmer will remove elsewhere,—as has already happened in certain districts of the colony. But, though the area is immense, the area which will produce wheat is limited; and thus the well-being of South Australia may be much affected, unless a less wasteful use be made of the land.

The laws under which land has been sold in South Australia have been altered frequently,—as has been the case in all the colonies. The free-selecter, of whom I have been speaking, probably bought his land from the Crown at some price varying from 20s. to 40s. an acre, and was allowed four years,—or latterly five years,—to pay the sum, being charged interest at the rate of five per cent. Before entering upon his land he had only to pay one year’s interest in advance. He has thus been enabled to buy his land with money produced by the crops he has grown. In other words, he has paid simply a rent for a term of years, and at the end of that term the land has become his own. And this system, though never as far as I am aware clearly expressed in words, seems to have been the ruling policy as to the alienation of agricultural land in all the Australian colonies. If the new settler will come and live upon the land, will till it and fence it, and pay for its use, during a sufficient time to prove that he is in earnest as to the use of it, the land shall be his. The idea of drawing from the land the funds required for government, so that taxation should be unnecessary, which was once dear to the minds of many colonists, has gradually faded away. Great as has been the possession of the land, it has not been a source of wealth available for any such purpose. If only it could be used to attract serviceable immigrants, if only it could be equitably distributed among men who would really use it,—not take it for the purpose of bargaining and gambling with it,—if only it could be converted into homes for people who would accept such homes and thus become a nation, the land would then have done all that it should be expected to do. This seems to have been the real gist of Mr. Wakefield’s scheme, and to this theory all the land ministers of the various colonies have been tending; though, as it seems, their progress thitherwards has for the most part been an unconscious progress. But in this attempt to bestow the land there has still been the necessity of exacting Mr. Wakefield’s “sufficient price.” The land, if absolutely given, would be worthless. If it were to be had for nothing, it would be worth nothing. There must be a price upon it such as shall in some degree fix its value, and induce settlers to use with some economy and discretion that which can only be obtained for a stipulated sum of money. But the fund so raised has never been a source of wealth to a colony, and the colonies now cease to look for wealth in that direction. If the money raised will suffice to pay for surveys, to make roads, in any way to prepare the land for those who are to come and take it, all will be done that should be expected. “For a term of years you shall pay the colony such a rental as will enable the colony to make its land serviceable to you;—and then it shall be yours.” Such, in fact, are the terms offered to free-selecters.

When I was in South Australia a new land bill was under the consideration of parliament,—as, indeed, I found new land bills either just in operation or under consideration wherever I went in the colonies. The matter has been one which has required many changes, and as to which no two colonies have been able to agree. As I think it probable that the bill proposed to the South Australian parliament will become law, I will endeavour to explain that instead of referring in detail to the law existing at this moment;—premising that here, in this chapter, it is my purpose to refer to the proposed measure only as far as it relates to the sale of lands to intending farmers, or free-selecters.

I must first explain that South Australia is a country peculiarly subject to drought,—more so than are the other colonies,—and is especially so subject in the interior. This is a fact so well acknowledged, that all who know the colony are aware that wheat can only be grown in certain parts of it. In order that the government might have some guide to tell it what portions of the land it would be expedient to throw open to agriculturists, and from what portions it would be expedient to exclude them as being unfit for agricultural purposes, a line has been drawn. The surveyor-general, Mr. Goyder, has drawn an arbitrary line across the map of South Australia, which is now known as Goyder’s line of rainfall. It is anything but a straight line. It runs from a point on the eastern confines of the colony somewhat south of the city of Adelaide, in a direction north-west nearly as high as to the top of Spencer’s Gulf. Then with irregular curves it comes south half-way down the Gulf, which it crosses below Moonta and Wallaroo, and then runs north by east till it loses itself in unknown deserts. North of this line, or rather beyond it, no farmer should locate himself. South of this, or within it, he may expect sufficient rain to produce wheat. Of course Mr. Goyder gives no guarantee as to precise accuracy, but I found it to be admitted in the colony that the line had been drawn with skill and truth. North again of the dry and rainless region is a tropical country, which is subject to the usual conditions of tropical latitudes;—but on that Mr. Goyder’s line has no bearing, and of that district I shall not speak in attempting to describe the agricultural condition of South Australia as now existing. All land within Goyder’s line not hitherto sold, will, by the proposed law, which is called the “Waste Land Alienation Act,” be opened to purchase, and on that land would-be farmers in South Australia are invited to locate themselves. The lands will be thrown open to selection, and will be purchasable on a credit of sixteen years, at an interest which is computed to amount to 3⅗ per cent. per annum for that term. The settlement of the price to be paid will be in this wise:—The government will fix the upset price of all the areas offered for sale at what is supposed to be the present maximum value of the best land in the area,—which, for the sake of illustration, we may call £2 an acre. I was informed that £2 an acre is in fact the price at which the majority of the land will probably be first offered. It will then be in the power of any would-be purchaser to take it at that price. If there be no such purchaser, the commissioner of lands will, on the part of the government, reduce his demand by 5s. to 35s., and then to 30s., then to 25s., and if necessary to 20s.,—at intervals of perhaps a fortnight. Below 20s. an acre the price will not be reduced. According to the nature of the land will be the desire of purchasers to buy it at 40s.; or to wait till it be offered at 30s. or at 20s. It is impossible not to see that even this plan is open to the machinations of “land agents;”—land sharks, I have heard them sometimes uncourteously called. The land agent, whose special business it is to know who are disposed to buy this or that section of land, will offer to renounce his own intention of buying, we will say at 30s., on receiving 1s. or 1s. 6d. an acre on completing the purchase for his victim at 25s. The victim will feel himself obliged to pay the black-mail, as hundreds of victims have done, and the land shark,—I hope he will excuse my discourtesy,—will receive a very large payment, for which he will perform no service whatever.

And the payment of the money is to be arranged in this wise. On making his application for the land, at any fixed price,—say 30s. an acre,—the applicant will pay into the Treasury 10s. per cent. on the whole purchase-money. Presuming the land in question to be 200 acres in extent, the price would be £300, and he would pay down £30 as interest in advance for three years;—and would then be allowed to go in upon the land, and occupy it. He must effect certain improvements, and cultivate a certain portion, and must either live on it himself or by deputy. If he have not done so at the end of three years, he forfeits his £30. If he have done so, he pays another £30, and goes on for another three years. These payments are in place of interest, so that at the end of the six years he will have paid no part of the principal. He may then pay the whole principal, if he has it, and the land will be his; or he may postpone the payment for ten years, paying 2s. each year for each pound of the purchase-money, with interest at the rate of 4 per cent. for the further credit given. The payment for these last ten years would average something under £40 per annum, but would recur yearly. The purchaser of the 200 acres would thus pay £30 as advance rent on entrance; £30 again as advanced rent after three years; a rental of £40 a year annually for ten years further; and then the freehold would be his own.

The selecter may buy under this bill any amount from 1 acre up to 640 acres;—but in cases in which the land lies untowardly for division into exactly 640 acres, he may select as much as 700. If he should attempt to select more, to make applications in other names, or to defraud the land commissioner as land commissioners have been defrauded in all the colonies since the alienation of public lands commenced, terrible is to be the example made of that would-be free-selecter. All the money advanced by him for first payment or payments will be forfeited to the Crown.

The new land bill which I have attempted to describe does not vary very much from that now in operation. Its chief objects are, perhaps, to extend the area of land opened for selection, and to obviate the existing necessity of personal residence. No doubt the proposed terms are somewhat easier than the present to the proposed selecter. I think, however, it is obvious that the terms offered are such as should be attractive to men with small capitals, who are able to work with their own hands. To such I say again, that the South Australian “cockatoo,” though he be a cockatoo, is an independent man, living on his own freehold in plenty, and knowing no master.

On the other hand, I would not advise farmers to try South Australia with the intention of having their work done for them by paid labourers. Wheat at 5s. 4d. a bushel will not pay for labour at the rate of 22s. a week, which may be quoted as about the rate at which rural labour may be obtained. When it is wanted throughout the year, as it would be wanted by any grower of wheat intending to farm his land as land is farmed at home, the labourer is paid about £40 per annum, and also receives his diet, which is worth to the farmer about £18 per annum, making a total of £58 per annum. Twenty-two shillings a week throughout the year amounts to £57 15s. per annum. No doubt the South Australian free-selecter does pay something in wages during his harvest, unless he be specially blessed in the matter of sons who can work; but he pays wages at no other time, and then the demand is higher,—rising probably to 5s. a day, or 4s. with diet. For this expenditure he provides himself by wages earned by himself in the manner I have already explained.

In writing of the agricultural products of South Australia, I should be wrong not to mention the vineyards of the colony. On 31st December, 1871, there were 5,823 acres under vines, which during that year had produced 896,000 gallons of wine, being at the rate of 154 gallons to the acre. I was informed that South Australia produces more wine than any other colony, but have no figures by me which would enable me to test the accuracy of the information. There can be no doubt that the climate is admirably suited for the growth of the grape, but the cultivation of it has not hitherto proved to be remunerative. It seems, indeed, to be retrograding. In the year ended 31st March, 1871, there were 6,127 acres bearing vines. In the subsequent year the number had been reduced to 5,823,—from which it appears that 304 acres of vineyard had been grubbed up.

I cannot say that I liked the South Australian wines. They seemed to me to be heady, and were certainly unpalatable. I came across none that I thought comparable to the Victorian wine of the country made at Yering. I was told that I was prejudiced, and that my taste had been formed on brandied wines, suited to the English market. It may be so;—but, if so, the brandied wines suited to the English market not only suit my palate, but do not seem to threaten that a second or third glass will make me tipsy. The South Australian wines had a heaviness about them,—which made me afraid of them even when I would have willingly sacrificed my palate to please a host.

It must, however, be borne in mind that the making of wine is an art which, as far as we know, has not been learned quickly in any country. The perfection to which Spanish, German, and French wines are now brought, has probably come as much from observation and experience as from the peculiarity of soils or climate. There are many who believe that Italian, Greek, and Hungarian wines will soon rival those of France. If so, the wines of Australia and the United States will probably do the same, when the cultivation and manufacture shall have been long enough in existence for experience and skill to have been created.

In the meantime the one thing desirable in reference to Australian wines, is that the people of the country should drink the produce of the country, not only because it is wholesome, but also because it is cheap. The usual drink now consumed at public-houses is brandy,—so called,—which is a villanous, vitriolic, biting compound of deadly intoxicating qualities, and is sold at 6d. the glass. Though I found the South Australian wine to be “heady,”—drinking it after the fashion in which wine is drunk,—it is a beverage absolutely innocent in comparison with the spirits which the publicans sell; and it can be sold with profit at 2d. a glass,—the glass being a small, false-bottomed tumbler, about as big as an ordinary claret-glass at home. The wine can be sold by the grower fit for use at 2s. 6d. a gallon, and the gallon in the hands of the publican would run to twenty-five “nobblers” of wine. This would give a profit satisfactory, we may suppose, even to an Australian publican. A nobbler is the proper colonial phrase for a drink at a public-house. It would be very desirable that the men of the country should acquire a taste for drinking their own produce. As men have done so in all vine-growing countries, they will probably do so in South Australia, and when that time shall come the growing of grapes will be profitable.

Already the acreage under vines is very large. It must be remembered that grape-growing,—as is also hop-growing,—is an agricultural pursuit requiring great capital, and that the produce from the acre is very large. A grower with a hundred acres of vines on his hands has probably as great a stake in his vineyard as a farmer with a thousand acres of wheat has in his farm. In South Australia the acreage under vines exceeded that devoted to gardens, orchards, potatoes, lucerne, or artificial grasses. I annex a table, showing the number of acres under cultivation in South Australia in the year ended 31st March, 1871, with the number devoted to each class of growth,—premising with reference to the second mention of wheat, that cereals throughout all the colonies are grown for forage for cattle. They are cut green, and made into hay, and then stacked.

South Australia, year ended 31st March, 1871.

The proportion of wheat to that of any other crop grown,—which is so great as to make all the other cereals sink into utter insignificance,—shows very plainly what the South Australian farmer regards as his special business.