Note Footnote a: — Chapter I

The value of autonomous government is generally appreciated; but the free gift of land made by the Imperial authority to the various self-governing colonies has no parallel in human history. In the case of Queensland the recipients were a mere handful of people, mostly settled at one end of a vast territory, at least half of which was unexplored. Plenary authority was in fact given to manage and control the waste lands belonging to the Crown, as well as to appropriate the gross proceeds of the sales of any such lands, and all other proceeds and revenues of the same from whatever source arising, including all royalties, mines, and minerals, all of which by the Letters Patent and the Order in Council were vested in the Legislature. This vesting, however, was subject to a proviso validating all contracts, promises, and engagements lawfully made on behalf of Her Majesty before the proclamation took effect. The proviso also stipulated that there should be no disturbance of any vested or other rights which had accrued or belonged to the licensed occupants or lessees of Crown Lands under any repealed Act, or under any Order in Council issued in pursuance thereof.a This reservation was really for the protection of a number of people in the colony, and not for the benefit of the Imperial Government. The licensed occupants would be subject to the mandates of the Legislature; while the reservation in favour of the owners of freehold lands was of a comparatively trivial nature, the total area alienated from the Crown a year after the establishment of the new colony amounting to only 108,870 acres, which had yielded £305,250 as purchase-money chiefly to the New South Wales Treasury. Taking the 670,500 square miles within the colony thus handed over to be worth five shillings per acre, or £160 the square mile, the total value of the Imperial gift to Queensland would be £107,280,000. Of course that price was not immediately realisable, and before much of the vast area could be utilised millions of capital must be expended in reclamation and development; but as some indication of ultimate value it may be pointed out that the land sold up to 31st December, 1860, realised at the rate of nearly £3 per acre. That the "waste" land was not a dead asset was shown by the fact that the public revenue of the colony for the first year of its existence was £178,589, to which rents and sales of land contributed a substantial proportion. It was not surprising, therefore, that Sir George Bowen's early despatches to the Secretary of State testified to the grateful and enthusiastic loyalty of the people of the colony to the Queen and the mother country.