The Struggles Of Early Squatters

Adopting the voice of a struggling squatter, Paterson provides a glimpse into the decline of the pastoral elite due to economic volatility, government policies, and droughts.

Through melancholy recollection of prosperous days, the speaker contrasts the respect and social standing squatters once held against their precarious fate during downswings. References to dead cattle, debt and destitution reveal the losses.

Details like uncared for land and cueing crows convey the dissolution of the squatter’s legacy and authority. Paterson implies their business model could not withstand challenges.

While less sympathetic than accounts of laborer woes, the speaker’s grieving for a vanishing way of pastoral life comes through. By closing with reference to having no court of appeals, Paterson hints at unfair policies tipping things against squatters.

So while exaggerated, “The Broken-Down Squatter” chronicles the decline of the Australian pastoral gentry from unchecked power to vulnerability. Their lament reveals they were not immune to the whims of the harsh landscape.

THE BROKEN-DOWN SQUATTER

(Air: “It’s a fine hunting day.”)

Come, Stumpy, old man, we must shift while we can;
All our mates in the paddock are dead.
Let us wave our farewells to Glen Eva’s sweet dells
And the hills where your lordship was bred;
Together to roam from our drought-stricken home–
It seems hard that such things have to be,
And its hard on a “hogs” when he’s nought for a boss
But a broken-down squatter like me!

                Chorus

For the banks are all broken, they say,
And the merchants are all up a tree.
When the bigwigs are brought to the Bankruptcy Court,
What chance for a squatter like me.

No more shall we muster the river for fats,
Or spiel on the Fifteen-mile plain,
Or rip through the scrub by the light of the moon,
Or see the old stockyard again.

Leave the slip-panels down, it won’t matter much now,
There are none but the crows left to see,
Perching gaunt in yon pine, as though longing to dine
On a broken-down squatter like me.

Chorus: For the banks, &c.

When the country was cursed with the drought at its worst,
And the cattle were dying in scores,
Though down on my luck, I kept up my pluck,
Thinking justice might temper the laws.
But the farce has been played, and the Government aid
Ain’t extended to squatters, old son;
When my dollars were spent they doubled the rent,
And resumed the best half of the run.

Chorus: For the banks, &c.

‘Twas done without reason, for leaving the season
No squatter could stand such a rub;
For it’s useless to squat when the rents are so hot
That one can’t save the price of one’s grub;
And there’s not much to choose ‘twixt the banks and the Jews
Once a fellow gets put up a tree;
No odds what I feel, there’s no court of appeal
For a broken-down squatter like me.

Chorus: For the banks, &c.