TO THE EDITOR OF THE "ARGUS."

Melbourne, March 29, 1855.

SIR,-Twenty-five years ago this day, on landing in Sydney from England, -after touching ten days at Hobart Town-on greeting with inexpressible delight (which the termination, in health and safety, of a tedious voyage of six months could not fail to heighten), the fair and long-looked-for continent of Australia; I found it to contain fifty or, I believe, sixty thousand inhabitants, of whom eighty or ninety per cent. were "Prisoners of the Crown". i. e.-convicts under unexpired sentences of transportation; and, perhaps, three-fourths of the free population, consisting of "emancipists" (convicts whose sentences had expired or been remitted); the small remaining proportion, of about five per cent., being composed of military, and the staff of civil officers of various grades, from the governor,-Major-General (afterwards Sir Ralph) Darling, to the overseer of convicts in Hyde Park Barracks ;—and a small number of free settlers, comprising retired officers from the two services, and a sprinkling of enterprising colonists—in general of high respectability—who had been, most fortunately for themselves, induced by the temptation of free grants of land, and unlimited convict labour, and even greater advantages held out by the ministry of George IV., as formerly, but with less success, by that of George III., to such of their Majesties' free subjects as would display the vast amount of moral and physical courage, at that time deemed to be evinced by the act of voluntary emigration to the antipodal penal colony of "Botany Bay." A fourth, or more nearly, a third of the whole population of Australia, was located in Sydney in 1830; of whom about one-tenth part only, were females.

The 29th of March, in that year, I joyfully celebrated, by sleeping on terra firma, in Prince's-street. This, my quarter-century anniversary-albeit no jubilee to me—I am employing in reminiscences of five-and-twenty eventful years passed in these colonies; and, in contrasting the strange and astounding present-the golden era of the World in general and of Victoria in particular, in 1855; with the interesting, young, and promising country which I found Australia (although gold was not dreamt of for twenty years thereafter), in 1830. But as it is not for the mere amusement of my own mind, but in an humble effort to render my experience conducive to the benefit of some at least, of the quarter or half million of fellow-colonists to which the population of this fifth continent has increased during my residence in this hemisphere, that I am desirous of spending this day;-I propose, with your

kind permission, to throw out a few hints of a practical character, on one or two of the many subjects of great local importance, which the observation of the latter and more serviceable half of my life, and the great and wonderful changes it has witnessed in this "fifth quarter of the globe" may, perhaps, have qualified me to submit to my fellow-colonists, in aid of public opinion, now very naturally, because feelingly, directed to the Question of questions,LAND,-how to get it and how to enjoy it, with advantage to the resident owner (or tenant), and to the state.

Amongst the numerous aphorisms which, confirmed by experience, have become established for the guidance of mankind-none will be more generally or more readily admitted, than the maxim propounded by the great philosopher, as well as lexicographer, of the last century, Dr. Johnson, that, "He is one of the truest patriots, and greatest benefactors of mankind, who causes two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow, where but one had previously grown.”

With this consideration impressed on my mind, and the enormous prices at present current in Melbourne, of two shillings the four-pound loaf; meat, sixpence; potatoes, fourpence per pound; water, fuel, and all other necessaries, in proportion (these last, consequent on the high rate of wages), increased by the expense of carriage, some articles fifty, others 100 per cent., at the gold-fields; I could wish to impress it on the inhabitants of this colony, whose population is increasing, and likely to increase, by many tens of thousands yearly, whilst its insignificant extent of cultivation, if happily no longer diminishing—as it had been doing since the gold discovery in 1851, till the present year-is not yet extending in any degree at all commensurate with the wants of the community. Impressed with these important facts, well may anxiety be felt by the government, and by the people, and well may public attention be directed to the consideration of LAND, and the most legitimate and effectual mode of bringing it into cultivation, so as to render the inhabitants of the city, and of the towns—of the gold-diggings, and even of the rural districts-less dependent on imports of bread-stuffs, even of hay for our horses (at actually the same price per ton as sugar!)—of oats, and bran, potatoes, fruit of every kind (dear and damaged); and to afford a hope, and some chance at least, of obtaining vegetables on our tables with our meat, and such a horticultural curiosity as horseradish, in this land of beef-which can hardly be said to be the case at present; for, it is a favoured minority only of this wealthy community, which is so fortunate as to be dieted on more luxurious or more wholesome fare, than rations of bread and meat in towns; and of meat and damper in the country.

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What a change has come over the spirit of my dream, during the last twentyfive years! The new chums" will scarcely believe; but the patriarchal "old hands" will bear me out in the fact; that, from twenty to twenty-five years ago, the current price of meat was one penny per pound; and I retain

one of my butcher's bills, of 1831-Mr. New's of Parramatta-as a curiosity, in which I am charged, for so many pounds of beef and mutton, the same number of pence; and for a quarter of beef, at three-farthings per pound! About this time, I well remember being present at a public meeting of the "settlers"-meaning farmers and graziers in those days-held for the purpose of taking into consideration their distressing circumstances, as the owners and breeders of sheep and cattle; at which Messrs. M'Arthur, Blaxland, Lawson, and other graziers and flockmasters, descanted feelingly on their unhappy circumstances; lamenting that, although the government had more than doubled the convict's ration of meat, and they (the graziers) were well supported by the free population, who in general, with their families, patronised them at luncheon and supper, as well as at breakfast and dinner, seldom eating beef or mutton ad libitum, less than four times a day; yet, their flocks and herds gained upon them to such an alarming extent, as to give rise to serious apprehension that their live-stock would soon be so abundant, and so far in excess of any possible consumption, as to cease to have any value at all, beyond that of their wool and their hides: and the chairman, Sir John Jamieson, actually suggested, and seriously proposed, that, in order to avoid a state of things so much to be dreaded, and which seemed clearly to be impending, the owners of live stock throughout the colony, ought mutally to agree to kill their lambs and calves, to keep down their increase; and it was suggested that Sir John and the other stockowners present, should set the example! This sapient proposal, however, few will be surprised to learn, was not carried;" but, after a protracted discussion, it was arranged that a trial should be made to form an export trade in cured beef; and the gentlemen in the room put down their names, with the number of cattle which they respectively pledged themselves to deliver to the manager of a "beef export company," then and there agreed to be formed; to be slaughtered, salted, and shipped to London in tierces.

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The effort to establish an export trade, proved triumphantly successful; the meat was approved by the Royal and Mercantile Navy; and pronounced excellent, when some barrels were brought back to Sydney, after having been carried round the globe. Within a year or two, meat advanced to threehalfpence, and prime joints even to two-pence, per pound, and has never since declined, but progressively increased in price-chiefly arising from seasons of drought increasing the difficulty of bringing cattle and sheep from the remote pastoral districts to Sydney; which was so much the case in the fearful summers of 1838 and 1839, that meat rose to what was, at that time, considered the famine price of sixpence per pound; though, on the return of wet and genial weather, meat fell rapidly to threepence; and I believe it has, since that period, been but seldom below that average in Sydney, or in any other town of the Australian colonies.

Little, indeed, was it foreseen by the settlers, or colonists, sixteen or

seventeen years ago, when their flocks and herds were first driven beyond the settled districts, to graze on the unoccupied Crown lands in the then unexplored regions of New England, Yass, the Murray, and Murrumbidgee rivers; of Bathurst, Wellington, Maneeroo, and the Darling Downs; and the term "squatter" was introduced and thoroughly established in the vocabulary of Australia's Anglo-Saxon sons; that an illimitable demand was about to be created for their superabundant supply of live stock, and for any possible increase, by the simple process of "boiling down" for the fat, which was introduced some few years later; and which, though most wasteful in a physical sense, was but little so in a monetary point of view, as proved by the fact, that the settler, or "squatter" realised, for many years, very nearly, if not, as some think, quite as large a net profit from the sale of the fat and hides of his flocks and herds, in the markets of London and Liverpool, as he could have obtained for the animals of the butchers, in the colonies: and still less could have been anticipated, the virtual transfer of Smithfield Market to Melbourne, by the influx of hundreds of thousands of British, American, European, and Asiatic immigrants, attracted hither by the universal and omnipotent magnet,—Gold,—at that time undiscovered and undreamt of in Australia, but found some ten years later in these colonies; first in New South Wales, and early, in one enormous mass of 106 pounds weight, pointed out by an aboriginal native to his fortunate master, near Bathurst; and soon afterwards in Port Phillip (now Victoria), in quantities incredible, both on the very surface and at considerable depths; of every conceivable form and weight, from a grain to a quarter or half hundredweight, at Ballaarat and Mount Alexander;-in one instance, a nugget of 132 pounds, and upwards (I think 1618 ounces, some penny-weights): but I. speak from positive knowledge, having not only seen this magnificent specimen, which had some very minute proportion of quartz, or conglomerate, adhering to it,—supposed not to exceed five or ten pounds; and which, in appearance was very much like a small leg of mutton, with the knuckle cut off; but I saw it weighed at the Gold-office, in the Colonial Treasury; and seeing is believing.

But if such markets for the consumption of beef and mutton could not be anticipated fifteen or twenty years ago, neither-it is fair to observe-did it enter the mind of man in Australia in those days, as a circumstance within the range of possibility, that in so few years thereafter, the entire extent of some hundred millions, and upwards, of acres available for pasturage, could be taken up and located, and more or less grazed, by the new, respectable, enterprising, and valuable section of the community and class of colonists, the squatters, who, even now, numbering about 3,000 only in Victoria and New South Wales, share amongst themslves under the Government Regulations twice the area of Great Britain, and on an average, perhaps, 40,000 or 50,000 acres to each "Run," or more properly" Principality," as designated by that able governor, Sir George Gipps.

Having thus rapidly glanced at the past; permit me, Sir, to direct your attention and that of your readers, to the present state of things in Victoria and New South Wales, with a population of some half-million of souls, and the same number of mouths, increasing and likely to increase, by births and immigration, say, 50,000 if not, as seems possible, 100,000 per annum.

It would be beside my purpose, and would be drawing unconscionably on your valuable columns, to enter upon the delicate and much trodden ground of colonial politics, or to enlarge upon the causes and consequences of the anomalous and deplorable state of things existing in Victoria; namely, a population of 300,000; an area of fertile soil adequate to the supply of 30,000,000; including a quantity of land purchased and possessed as freehold, if not literally occupied by the colonists, ample, if cultivated, to supply the inhabitants-numerous and daily increasing as they are-with an abundance of all the necessaries and most of the luxuries of life; yet are we dependent on importation from Van Diemen's Land and South Australia, from Britain and America, for nine-tenths of our provisions, as for the entire of our apparel, furniture, and manufactured goods-in short, for everything but meat and bricks; nor may even these be wholly excepted, as ship-loads of American bacon and English fire-bricks abundantly testify to our confusion, and to our national and individual loss.

Except in order to point to a remedy for these great social evils, which convert this, in gold the richest, and in all natural advantages, one of the most favoured countries on the face of the globe-into one of the dearest, most comfortless, and most undesirable of colonies to reside in; it would be as futile and unpatriotic, as painful, to allude to these sad facts, which are patent to all intelligent persons in this colony, or even out of it, if at all connected (as who is not, directly or indirectly?) with this wonder and loadstar of the world. These deplorable circumstances, have been brought about mainly, as everybody knows, by the enormous rate of wages which, until of late, have necessarily prevailed in the colony, since it became the grand theatre of attraction to all persons of all countries who had a taste for digging gold out of the earth for themselves, in preference to working, even at immoderately high wages, for others: but such being the case, the matter for present consideration is, WHAT, under existing circumstances, can be and ought to be done, to remedy such intolerable evils, and to convert this fair province into the land of peace and plenty, which I will not doubt that it is by Providence destined to become-I pray speedily.

The only, and the natural means of producing " plenty" (by which I mean, principally, food of all kinds in abundance, and consequently at low prices), appears to me to be by bringing the Lands of the colony into cultivation to such an extent, that the agricultural and horticultural productions of Victoria shall be equal to, and in géneral excess of, the great and increasing demand of her large population. This opinion may, perhaps, be assented to as a mere

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