9 September 1937

Sometimes Squatters' "Dummies" Rebelled

BATHURST BURRS HELPED IRISHMAN TO WIN THROUGH

The old-time squatters played an important part in the colonising of Australia, but once the pioneering days had passed they presented a problem which gave successive Governments many a headache. In this real life story, 'Bogaduck' tells how some settlers refused to be dominated by the squatter.

People clamored for farming land, but at every turn the Government found itself up against a brick wall — squatters' leases. Most of them had many years to run, and the lessees refused to surrender or sell a foot of their land except at prices which would give new settlers no earthly hope of making their farms pay. As a result, the Crown had to repurchase or resume land in the areas of low rainfall for closer settlement.

Most of the men who took up the land out side Goyder's Line wasted their energy, capital and the best years of their lives in the struggle to make wheatgrowing pay there. There was splendid land for farming — hundreds of thousands of acres of it — in the areas of good and assured rainfall, but the squatters clung to it like the proverbial lump of warm beeswax on a sheepskin.

The day arrived, however, when leases expired and the surveyors started to cut it into farming blocks, which were in due course thrown open for allotment. Then the "dummying" evil appeared. The squatters check mated the Government's attempts at closer settlement by instructing their station hands to apply for the blocks. The Government had no alternative but to grant the applications, for all the station hands were given excellent references by their employers; they had the necessary capital — really money loaned to them by the squatters—and in those days there was little opportunity to pick and choose among applicants, for nearly every man in the bush was in the employ of a squatter.

Once the blocks were granted, the squatters would fence them, and build huts on them, but the men went on working on the stations and only sufficient cultivation and improving was done to comply with the law. When the statutory time had elapsed, the nominal owner of the block would sell it back to the squatter at his own price, and thus the subdivided land would revert to the former owner.

Instead of curing the evil of the big estates, it only made matters worse, for the land became freehold and only a voluntary sale on the part of the owner would give a farmer the chance to secure land thereafter.

Inspectors Powerless

There were inspectors, of course, and they soon realised what was going on, but they could never prove any thing. News of their coming always travelled ahead and when they arrived they would find a man hard at work on each block; there would always be a heap of ashes on the fire place hearth in each hut, a bed which had been slept in the previous night, kitchen refuse on the rubbish heap, and other artistic touches which had been carefully arranged to hoodwink the inspector. As soon as his back was turned the men went back to their usual jobs.

Now and again a man arose who had the pluck to tackle the evil and denounce the 'dog in the manger' policy of the big sheep men, but they did little good, except to point out things which everyone knew without being able to prove their statements.

The editor of one country paper penned some bitter attacks upon squatters in the district, who had taken the law into their own hands with regard to blocking roads and fencing off water reserves, but a couple of protracted law suits silenced him by forcing him into the insolvency court. The squatters held the whip-hand, and it was of little use to fight them.

If a bona-fide settler had a promising crop, the squatter's sheep would manage to break through the fence in some mysterious fashion one dark night, and would ruin the crop by morning. In other cases, a fire would start on the squatter's land and sweep across the farm, destroying all the feed, and somehow or other the station hands would never turn up to put it out until all the farmer's grass had been burned.

If the farmer then tried to keep his stock alive by grazing them on the surrounding roads, the squatter would send a big mob of sheep along in charge of a drover, and after that mob — made hungry by being shut in yards overnight — had passed, any grass left on the roads wasn't worth arguing about.

It would be a gross libel to say that all the big sheep men acted in this contemptible fashion, but a surprisingly large number did; it was only a matter of time before the farmer found himself beaten and was forced to sell out to the squatter.

Snags For Squatter

Now and again the squatter ran up against a snag in the shape of one of those dauntless souls whom nothing can defeat; and it is a curious fact that, if names are any guide, the men who beat the squatters were nearly always Irish or Scots; if what I have been told is true, the former won by sheer fighting ability, plus the aid of sympathisers among the station hands, while the latter used grim tenacity and dauntless courage.

"How did I get me place?" chuckled an old Irishman, whom I once questioned. "It was by giving as good as I took, or better, now. When the Guv'ment resumed some of the old stations and cut it up, the boss tells me to apply for a block and dummy it for him.

"Right y'are!" I tells him, but devil a bit of dummy did I intend to do. I waits until the boss fences the place, and builds a bit of a hut, then I buys a couple of horses, a plough and so on, and sets to work. Before long the boss comes down and asks me what I'm doing.

" 'Ploughing,' says I, innocent as ye like. He starts to get wild and asks me who told me to do it. " 'Does a man have to ask permission before he works his own place now?' I tells him. He gets wilder, and tells me that I'm not carrying out the agreement we made when I undertook to dummy the block for him. When I told him I'd changed me mind he got so mad he nearly bit himself. I went on with me work and paid no heed to the nasty things he was saying.

I grew a good crop, then one night his sheep got in — thousands of 'em — and made a mess of it. I did some thinking, then wrote to me old dad in New South Wales. He must've thought I'd gone mad, but he sent me what I wanted, in a gunny sack. I takes a handful out of the sack and marches off to interview me lord the squatter.

" 'What's this?' I asks, holding out me hand.

" 'Good heavens, where did you find them Bathurst burrs?' he shouts.

" 'In a bag,' I tells him. 'And I'm the only one who knows where that bag is. Now, listen to me. Next time them damn sheep of yours gets through the fence and messes, up me little bit of crop, all them burrs hops out of the bag and scatters over every one of your paddocks.' "

No more sheep gets into me crop after that, but when the feed on my place gets eaten out, I has to put me cows and horses out on the road to graze. Sure enough, along comes a big mob of me lord's sheep in charge of a drover, and down I goes to meet him.

" 'What d'ye mean by looking side ways at me?' I yells, as soon as I gets within range, and with that I gives the drover a crack that makes his nose change places with his left ear. Then I hunts his sheep back and tells him that I'll hang the tripe of the next drover the boss sends along on me front gate.

"And that's how I beat the old devil. Every time he tries to put one over me I hits back. And at last he leaves me in peace. When the time came for me to get the deeds of me place, the Guv'ment bloke shakes me by the hand. " 'Wish we had more men like you,' he says.'

How The Scot Won

The difference in racial temperament showed itself when an old Scot answered the same question. "Eight years I worked, and worked hard," he informed me. "I was a sheep drover, and I sawed wood at the saw-pits; I cracked stones on the roads and I went shearing. And all the time I kept ma eyes open for some land, and ma chance cam' when the creek paddocks o' a big station were resumed and cut up. I applied for a block and I got it, but then ma troubles began. Times were bad and the banks wouldna lend to a cocky farmer, so when ma savings were spent I had to go back to shearing again in the winter, earning enough to keep me working ma own place through the summer. The squatter cam' to me one day and promises to give me a steady job on the station if I'll sell him ma block when the time's up.

" 'I'll no work for ye and I'll no dummy for ye,' I said. 'Ye can go to the devil.'

"One by one ma neighbors sold out to the squatter, but I hung on, and many's the dirty trick that man played on me when I wouldna sell. "

The old man paused and his face darkened as he thought of old wrongs and the struggle which he had been through to get his start in life. Then he turned to me with a grim smile, and there was a world of triumph and satisfaction in his tone.

" 'The day cam' when I saw that squatter foreclosed on by the bank. I bought some o' the land, and I showed him no peety.' "

Dummying had its day, but is now to be numbered among the evils which have passed away. Gone are nearly all of the immense sheep runs. But what stories of human greed and injustice some of the time-yellowed documents in the vaults of the Lands Titles Office could tell! —"Bogaduck."