interest enough to obtain grants; afforded
them an investment for savings, and
encouraged industry and marriage. Nearly
one million sterling was received, up to the
end of 1837, which was devoted partly to
internal improvements, and partly to the
importation of destitute labouring emigrants.
This was the commencement of the stream
of emigration which has done much towards
equalising the sexes, and diluting the convict
element in Australia. These emigrants chiefly
consisted, during the first years, of Irish persons
of the lowest class; the colony had so bad a
name in England, that few English would
consent to be, what they called, transported. But
by degrees the labouring population began to
appreciate the advantages of a country where
ample wages were paid for easy work, and
where good land was cheap.

Had the American plan, of good surveys,
small lots, and moderate price, been
continued, by this time a considerable fixed
agricultural population would have been
established on the numerous oases which dot the
pastoral districts of Australia; where the
quantity of cultivated land is large, although
the per-centage, as compared with pastures, is
small. But the pastoral proprietors, with all
the prejudices of slave-owners, were jealous of
losing servants, by their becoming farmers.
They wished to lord it over the soil, and to
make it one great sheep-farm. In their
protective and repulsive prejudices, they were
assisted by a new theory of colonisation, which
made a sort of Mahommedan conquest in
legislation, between 1835 and 1841.

The author of this theory assumed that it
was cheap land, whether granted or sold,
which made Australian colonists feed flocks,
like the patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob, over
millions of acres, instead of settling on
compact turnip farms, like Mr. Coke's tenants in
Norfolk; and he undertook, if the Government
would only sell land at a "sufficient
price," to keep wages down to such a figure,
as should create "model agricultural farms,
vineyards, tanks, irrigation roads, canals,
parks, mansions, keep packs of hounds,
picture-galleries, create respectful tenantry, and
a polished aristocracy," with all the advantages
of concentrated population.

The theory was very attractive; it promised
a new investment for English capitalists, and
a new means of providing for paupers, and
the younger sons of peers; it tempted colonial
landowners, by raising the value of their
possessions, and offering to keep down the wages
of " old hands." Anew colony was founded
on this principle—South Australia—to which
some thousand enthusiasts resorted, traded
with each other, and neglected the wool;
without which, the name of Australia would
never have travelled beyond the Colonial
Office and the criminal's dock.

After a gambler's life of between three and
four years, insolvency checked the career of
this promising South Australia, as a
provincial Government, to the tune of four hundred
and five thousand pounds; and checked
the career of the hopeful South Australians
to the tune of a vast unknown sum, without
their ever having enjoyed any of the
advantages, in wages and concentration,
promised by the author of the theory—their
only advantages being, all the while, a fine
climate, a fertile soil, and rich pastures for
sheep; none of which were invented by any
theorist to any age or country. The project
failed because wages and concentration appear
not to be regulated in the least by the price
of land. All prices, from five shillings an
acre to three pounds an acre, have been tried;
and the result has shown that wages have
been rather higher in the three pounds an
acre, than in any of the five shillings an acre,
colonies.

Still the foundation of South Australia had
an important effect upon the whole island.
It brought out fifteen thousand colonists of a
superior class; it improved the mode of
conducting emigration; and, while it ruined
hundreds, it resounded the real and imaginary
merits of Australia through the length and
breadth of Great Britain. It was
unfortunately the means of inducing the Government
to raise the five shillings an acre price,
which had worked so well in New South
Wales and the United States, to twelve
shillings and one pound, and of leading the
colonists to go mad in speculating in town
lots, and village lots, marked into streets by
surveyors' pegs, but which trowels never
touched.

At the same time that South Australia was
founded, colonists from Van Diemen's Land
were pouring their flocks and herds into Port
Philip; and, having first set them to feed,
followed the example of the South Australian
theorists, and set to work to speculate in
land. Thus, between 1836 and 1840, two
new colonies, and two new ports filled up the
coast line of Australia, and drew a large
stream of emigration from England.

In the midst of all the excitement of
colonising, feeding colonists, overland journeys of
one thousand miles with sheep and cattle to
South Australia, and speculating in town lots,
the home Government suddenly decided to
abolish transportation to New South Wales,
—a just and wise measure, although
suddenly, hurriedly, and rashly executed,—it
being the manner of our home-Misgovernment,
in most things, to tie red-tape bonds
very tight, until they burst; and then to let
them snap, and make an extraordinary
merit of it. Then, the career of Australia as
a free colony commenced—but it commenced
with the almost universal ruin of the '' great
fortunes: " the men of ten thousand a-year.
In the model colony of South Australia,
they had nothing to fall back on, but land
to be cultivated, and bills to be burned:
in Port Philip and New South Wales, there
were the sheep, the cattle, and the