A diversity of opinion as to the effect of the new claim naturally
obtained; the older settlers still clung to their experiences of an
easy aboriginal holding of the soil, and were sceptical both as to
the validity and justice of these revived alien grants; but the newer
arrivals hailed this certain tenure of legal titles as a guarantee to
capital and an incentive to improvement. There was also a growing and
influential party of Eastern and Northern men, who were not sorry to see
a fruitful source of dissension and bloodshed removed. The feuds of the
McKinstrys and Harrisons, kept alive over a boundary to which neither
had any legal claim, would seem to bring them hereafter within
the statute law regarding ordinary assaults without any ethical
mystification. On the other hand McKinstry and Harrison would each be
able to arrange any compromise with the new title holders for the
lands they possessed, or make over that "actual possession" for a
consideration. It was feared that both men, being naturally lawless,
would unite to render any legal eviction a long and dangerous process,
and that they would either be left undisturbed till the last, or would
force a profitable concession.
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