Laughing at Delusions of Faded Frontier Royalty

This satirical ballad by Banjo Paterson offers an irreverent perspective on the pretensions and fading power of wealthy Australian pastoralists or squatters in the late 1800s.

Adopting an exaggeratedly venerating tone, Paterson humorously punctures the swaggering bravado of squatters who once dominated the outback frontiers through sheer self-interested force.

Mock heroic descriptions likening the squatter to a king satirize his bloated sense of entitlement and indifference to underclasses. References to scorning British manners after returning wealthy poke fun at the squatter’s delusions.

While comically exaggerated, the poem reflects sobering truths about the waning prestige of squatters who once ruled their pastoral fiefdoms like tyrants. Their rough, authoritarian dominance proved unsustainable.

Ultimately, Paterson’s caricature provides insightful commentary on the diminished relevance of exploitative systems and figures who flourished in Australia’s wild early eras but became archaic as society modernized. The pretense and bluster of the “fine old squatter” is deflated through droll critique.

THE SQUATTER OF THE OLDEN TIME

(Air: “A fine old English gentleman.”)

I’ll sing to you a fine new song, made by my blessed mate,
Of a fine Australian squatter who had a fine estate,
Who swore by right pre-emptive at a sanguinary rate
That by his rams, his ewes, his lambs, Australia was made
great–
Like a fine Australian squatter, one of the olden time.

His hut around was hung with guns, whips, spurs, and boots
and shoes,
And kettles and tin pannikins to hold the tea he brews;
And here his worship lolls at ease and takes his smoke and
snooze,
And quaffs his cup of hysouskin, the beverage old chums
choose–
Like a fine Australian squatter, one of the olden time.

And when shearing time approaches he opens hut to all,
And though ten thousand are his flocks, he featly shears
them all,
Even to the scabby wanderer you’d think no good at all;
For while he fattens all the great, he boils down all the
small–
Like a fine old Murray squatter, one of the olden time.

And when his worship comes to town his agents for to see,
His wool to ship, his beasts to sell, he lives right merrily;
The club his place of residence, as becomes a bush J.P.,
He darkly hints that Thompson’s run from scab is scarcely
free–
This fine old Murray settler, one of the olden time.

And now his fortune he has made to England straight goes he,
But finds with grief he’s not received as he had hoped to be.
His friends declare his habits queer, his language much too
free,
And are somewhat apt to cross the street when him they
chance to see–
This fine Australian squatter, the boy of the olden time.