1832 - Busby, J. Authentic Information relative to New South Wales and New Zealand - ADVICE TO EMIGRANTS NEWLY ARRIVED IN NEW SOUTH WALES, p 23-42

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ADVICE

TO

EMIGRANTS NEWLY ARRIVED

IN

NEW SOUTH WALES.

[Reprinted from the Sydney Almanack for 1831.]

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ADVICE TO EMIGRANTS NEWLY ARRIVED IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

THE situation of an emigrant, just landed in this Colony from England, is, in every respect, so peculiar, that it is not at all surprising many individuals find themselves involved in difficulties and embarrassments which they could not be expected to foresee, and which they are ill prepared to meet. It has often been a matter of regret, to the writer of the following pages, that so many persons should be left, in a great measure, to work their way through these difficulties by dint of their own exertions, without any guide to assist them in obtaining such a knowledge of official forms, as would tend to facilitate the transaction of their business with the different public offices, and accelerate their arrangements for settling upon their grants.

The following pages are put together with a view to assist persons in these circumstances. They do not profess to do more than to afford such information as appeared to the writer most important to assist the new settler in forming a judgment of the prospects he may reasonably entertain on settling upon his land; and to offer a few suggestions, which are not likely to occur to a person little acquainted with official business; but which, nevertheless, relate to matters of some importance to him, now that he has business of that nature, probably for the first time in his life, to transact. It is presumed they will appear sufficiently reasonable to entitle them to credit and attention.

It is not possible that any person should seriously even contemplate removing himself, or his family, from his native country, to settle, after a voyage over half the globe, in a new, and to him untried situation, without having his expectations highly raised, and his feelings strongly excited, by the very magnitude of the undertaking; much less is it to be expected that an individual should have actually landed in the country of his adoption, without being keenly alive to every thing which, can, in any degree, affect the success of his enterpriser

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With his feelings thus excited, and his expectations raised, in consequence, to a higher pitch than a sober consideration of the circumstances in which he is placed would warrant, --could the state of his mind admit of sober consideration, --the emigrant is too ready to attach an undue importance to the little difficulties and embarrassments he meets with. Without considering that such difficulties are, in fact, inseparable from his situation, he is disposed to regard his reasonable prospects as blasted, on finding that anticipations which were the offspring of a heated imagination, and of long indulged hopes, rather than of deliberate judgment, are not to be realized.

It too often happens that persons under the influence of such feelings, --and most persons on their first arrival are under the influence of them, ---become acquainted with individuals whose own views, whether unreasonable or otherwise, have been disappointed; and who, as is sufficiently natural, without the imputation of bad faith, are willing to attribute their failure to any thing rather than their own misconduct or imprudence.

The statements of such individuals respecting the resources of the country, and the prospects of the settlers, ought not to be received without the greatest caution. Whatever information they communicate will be tinged with their own soured and disappointed feelings, and will not only mislead the new comer respecting the difficulties he must encounter before he is settled upon his grant, but paralyze his exertions, by representing that, after all these difficulties have been surmounted, the object which has been obtained is not worth the pains.

His judgment will, in all probability, be also misled, and his spirits depressed, by the accounts of another class of individuals, who have been for some years settled in the country; and who, although they can be charged neither with indolence nor imprudence, find, that at the end of several years of laborious exertion, their efforts to improve their circumstances have proved abortive, and that they have, under the present circumstances of the colony, no prospect but that of insolvency before their eyes.

But the fate of this class of individuals, which is indeed a large class, comprising a large majority of those; who arrived

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within the last seven years, however much it may deserve the commiseration, ought not to excite the fear of the new-comer, for the circumstances which brought ruin upon the former, are such as can never again occur; nor is there any train of similar circumstances at all likely to interfere with the comfortable settlement and eventual independence of a settler arriving in the present situation of the colony, if, in addition to INDUSTRY and FRUGALITY, which ought ever to be considered as the CARDINAL VIRTUES of the settler, his proceedings are guided by an ordinary share of prudence and circumspection.

In order to make this sufficiently plain, it is only necessary to advert, very shortly, to the circumstances alluded to above as having brought such great and general distress upon the settlers.

It would appear that up to the year 1825 or 1826, a greater quantify of butcher's meat had not been brought into the market than was required to supply the consumption of private families, and a small part of the public establishments. Large quantities of salted provisions had always continued to be imported, by the Government, for a great portion of the convicts retained in the service of the Crown, or under colonial sentence at penal settlements; and salted provisions, imported upon private speculation, had, up to that period, continued to find a ready market, and to pay the importer a handsome profit upon his speculation. As, however, it had long been generally admitted that the profitable occupation of the lands of this colony, to any extent, at least with its present limited population, must be necessarily and essentially pastoral; and as the Colonial Government, acting upon this persuasion, had opened, to the selection of settlers, large tracts of country in the interior, and made grants of lands to individuals of such extent as were calculated to afford ample scope to pastoral pursuits; and as every facility was also afforded to the older inhabitants of the colony to avail themselves of the temporary occupation of unlocated lands; the live stock of the colony continued to increase, at a ratio calculated to excite astonishment in the mind of any individual, who has not had an opportunity of witnessing the effects of unlimited pasturage in a most genial climate, under the care

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and attention induced by its still continuing a most lucrative investment of capital.

About the period above alluded to, the Colonial Government had recommended that no further supplies of salted provisions should be sent to the colony for the use of the public establishments, as it was considered capable of supplying all its inhabitants, of every class, with meat of colonial production. This measure contributed to extend the demand for butcher's meat in the colony; and, joined to the independent circumstances of the stockholders, who were neither forced to limit their flocks and herds for want of pasturage, nor to raise money by parting with a share of what they possessed, kept the prices so high as to yield immense returns to the holders. It was therefore not at all surprising that such individuals should rather have preferred extending their establishments in the interior, and increasing the numbers of their flocks and herds, to parting with any share of such a profitable possession, unless tempted by very high prices.

Under these circumstances, it required little competition among the buyers to keep the exchangeable value of live stock at the highest rate which afforded a prospect of a fair return for the capital invested in it. But, unhappily for those individuals who had their farms to stock at that period, and whose situation is now under review, this competition was not wanting to add to the effect already produced. A greater number of persons, possessing considerable capital, and of individuals in a situation of life which procured them credit, arrived in the colony at this time, than at any former period; and the establishment of the Australian Agricultural Company, flattered the stockholders with the prospect of disposing of all their surplus stock at a high price. Add to this, that Australian wool had become an article of demand in the London market, and began to be sought for with avidity, on account of qualities which were not found united in the finest wools of other countries.

When all these circumstances are considered, it is not so much a matter of surprise, that the new settlers should have stocked their farms with cattle and sheep at prices which

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seemed to be founded on an expectation of a continuance of their value, to whatever extent they might increase, rather than to the extreme depression in price which must always be the necessary consequence of excessive supply without a corresponding demand.

It is probable that the quantity of butcher meat which the colony was capable of yielding, had for some time been fully equal to supply the consumption of its inhabitants, before any considerable depression took place in the price; and the balance would, perhaps, have been for some time longer swayed in favour of the stockholders, had every member of their body continued in circumstances as independent as formerly.

It pleased Providence, however, during the years 1826, 1827, 1828, and part of 1829, to visit us with a drought, the consequences of which were so distressing to the colonists, as to reverse the most reasonable prospects of success, and to plunge many individuals into irremediable difficulties, who had every fair chance of competence and independence.

The operation of this distress among the settlers was twofold. It obliged them to make purchases, at an excessive price, of imported bread corn 1 for the support of their households and establishments; and in order to raise the funds for these purchases, it compelled them to make forced sales of their live stock, at a most unfavourable crisis. For, as the distress was confined to no one district, the competition of sellers became as great as the competition of buyers had formerly been; and the consequence of this re-action was, to sink the prices of stock as much below their natural level as ever they had been raised above it. This depression was also materially assisted by a cause less to be expected than either the fall in the price of that portion of our flocks and herds, which finds its vent within the colony, or the severe droughts which accelerated that fall; namely, by the alteration in the value of wool in the London market. This almost exclusive article of export on which the settler had as yet calculated, and which he fondly hoped would always maintain a permanent or increas-

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ing value, had fallen from 50 to 75 per cent, and it only wanted this to make the depreciation of property complete.

The mere statement of these facts would appear to be sufficient at once to account for the distress which pervaded, and still continues to pervade the colony; and which is the general theme of conversation among all persons connected with the agricultural interests. It is to be hoped too, that it will convince the settler, arriving under the present circumstances of the colony, that this distress cannot affect his interests, unless in a beneficial way; and it is solely with this view, that the preceding rapid statement of them has been introduced.

The period of greatest depression has now gone past. The genial rains which have from time to time refreshed vegetation, since the breaking up of the drought in September, 1829, have renewed the confidence of the colonists in the general goodness of the climate; and the superabundance of all sorts of food upon which we may calculate, should we be blest with a continuance of favourable seasons, will make this, if not one of the richest regions of the world, certainly one of the most abundant in all the necessaries of life; and if not in the most desirable of its luxuries also, the blame will rest with those who do not second the capabilities of nature to produce them.

The command of money can, in the present state of the colony, secure immense advantages to the new settler. He will be able to invest his capital in live stock, at such prices as must continue, under any circumstances, to yield most profitable returns. Fine wooled sheep may now be purchased at a rate at which the wool alone will repay the capital invested, without taking the carcase into account; and horned cattle may be purchased at an equally low rate, and with an equal certainty of profit.

The establishment of salting-houses, for the curing of beef, will fix a limit for the value of that article, below which it cannot permanently sink. This limit will of course, be the price at which, after repaying the expenses and profits of the salter, it will enter into competition with the beef of other

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countries, in the general market of the world; and surely the excellence and cheapness of our native pastures ought to enable us to realize a profit, even when the price ceases to remunerate the stockholders of other countries, of which it would be difficult to name one possessing the same advantage in an equal degree.

It has been said above, that such circumstances as have involved many of his predecessors in distress, are not at all likely to interfere with the comfortable settlement and eventual independence of the settler arriving in the present situation of the colony. Those who conceive that there is no independence except in the accumulation of money, will mistake the meaning of the word as it is here used. New South Wales is not the country to realise a fortune, either by farming or grazing-- at least those who do make fortunes by such pursuits, must possess advantages not attainable by every one, and be gifted with acuteness and a spirit of enterprize, which are more often found among merchants than farmers. The settler will in most cases have little money, and it will be, or ought to be, his happiness that he will have little occasion for it; he will be nearly in the desirable situation contemplated by the poet--

The settler's independence will arise from his being able to obtain, without money, the greater part of those necessaries which money is elsewhere required to purchase; and if his money income be small, when he compares it with his expenditure, he may, nevertheless, find himself a richer man than when he was in the receipt of a large revenue in England, all of which he was obliged to spend without securing any provision for his family, and even perhaps without being able to procure as much for his present wants as he now raises "on his own ground." Whoever has got through the late difficulties, and

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finds himself settled upon his farm, free from debt, and with a fair proportion of live stock, ought to consider himself a wealthy man, and the fault is his own if he be not a happy one.

Independently of all the luxuries which the climate of this country will enable its inhabitants to procure, the climate itself is a luxury which immeasurably outweighs most of the drawbacks to comfort, which are inseparable from the present state of society. To these drawbacks upon his comfort the settler must reconcile himself, and he must give up the hope of enjoying many of those elegancies and refinements which are the accompaniments of an advanced state of society. If there be a person on the point of becoming a settler in New South Wales, to whom these are indispensable, and whose circumstances enable him to command them, he had better return to England at once--he is not a fit denizen of an infant community, and will do no good in it, to himself or to others.

The new-comer will do well to compare these facts and observations with the complaints of distress and ruin among the settlers, which will, in all likelihood, be the subject with which he will be most generally entertained, unless he should fortunately fall into the society of persons of better judgment and steadier habits than most of the loungers about Sydney.

Before proceeding to point out the methods by which the settler can, with the greatest facility, transact his business with the Government, relative to his settlement on his land, it seems desirable to offer a few observations upon the nature and extent of his claims upon the Government, and the attention they owe to him. This is the more necessary, as it is a subject on which very erroneous ideas are generally prevalent, even among well-informed people. --It is the privilege of John Bull to grumble, and so long as he only finds fault with public measures affecting the community generally, he may be safely left to digest his discontent as he best can; but the case becomes a very different one when these measures become a personal question between himself and the Government, involving matters of dispute relative to his. own individual interests. In such a case, it is of great importance to his own happiness that each

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individual should be correctly informed of what he has a right to expect, for there is not a more galling feeling than to labour under a sense of oppression from power; and persons transacting business with the Government, of the nature of that which a settler claiming a grant of land has to transact, is too much disposed to consider the rules, which have been established for the conduct of public business, as pressing with severity on his own particular case.

It is not the purpose of these pages to vindicate the members of the local Government. The Authorities to whom they are immediately responsible, have abundant means of appreciating their conduct, and the records of their proceedings will prove not only the general uprightness of their decisions, but the labour which has been bestowed in coming to a correct determination in each particular case; and however much the disappointed feelings of individuals may at present be inclined to impute blame, when these feelings have subsided, public opinion will eventually do them justice.

For any person possessing the prerogative of giving or withholding what nearly concerns the interests of a large class of individuals, to expect that he can conscientiously discharge his duty, and give universal satisfaction, would be too visionary an expectation, even for a mere novice in the business of the world, to entertain for a moment. It would, in fact, be to suppose that each individual was not only sufficiently enlightened to know exactly what he is entitled to expect, --but that he is sufficiently disinterested to be a judge in his own case, and sufficiently candid to acknowledge the justice of a decision which disappointed him.

It is not therefore with the vain and unnecessary intention of vindicating the members of the Government from the aspersions which have been cast upon them in the exercise of this prerogative, that the writer of these pages has undertaken to offer information and advice to the new-comer. But he has had many opportunities of observing that the discontent manifested by individuals, is attributable to a want of such information as would enable them to form a correct judgment of what they have a right to expect; and being of opinion that there are few

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things more painful to the feelings, or more ready to paralyze the exertions of a new settler, than a persuasion that he is suffering injustice from those to whom he was entitled to look for protection and encouragement, he is satisfied that, by informing the judgments of such persons upon matters so nearly concerning them, he is doing them a real and important service.

Among the other functions of Government, the Governor of New South Wales is vested, by his commission, with the power, subject to certain restrictions, of disposing of the unlocated lands, in such a manner as may seem to him most conducive to the beneficial settlement of the colony. As an inducement to the emigration of persons of respectability and capital, a scale has been established, proportioning the extent of land to which the possession of capital, imported by emigrants, gives a claim; and the difference of capital possessed by them is the only recognized ground of distinction in the extent of land granted. The reason for this distinction is sufficiently obvious. It will, generally speaking, require a greater inducement to make a man of capital leave the enjoyment of the advantages which capital would procure him at home, than a man of less property; and the power of the former, to improve the land granted to him, is also greater, in the former case, than the latter.

On application at the Colonial Office, in Downing-street, persons intending to proceed to this colony, as settlers, are furnished with a statement of the conditions under which lands are located. 2 Emigrants are entitled to one square mile, or 640 acres of land, for every £500 of capital immediately available for its cultivation, to the extent of four square miles, or 2,560 acres, which is the limit within which the Governor is authorised to make grants to one individual. Persons possessed of a less capital than £250, clear of all expenses of removing to the colony, have not hitherto been considered as eligible to be grantees of land. By a very late regulation, however, emigrants, as well as natives of the colony, if of good character, are allowed to select a small grant, of from 50 to 100 acres, in

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any of the districts which have been set apart for the location of small settlers, on the condition of actual residence upon it, although not possessing capital.

These preliminaries being stated, and mutually understood, the negotiation between the Colonial Government and the emigrant would seem to resolve itself into a plain matter of business, in which reciprocal obligations and duties belong to each party. The settler is bound, on the one hand, to establish his right to the land claimed, by proving that he possesses the corresponding capital, and means to employ it in the improvement of the land to be granted to him. On proof of this, the Government are pledged to make him a grant, and to afford him every facility, in its early selection, which is consistent with the due despatch of other public business of equal urgency.

The Government of New South Wales has always recognized the claims of a new settler to immediate attention, as superior to the ordinary routine of official business; and every exertion is used to hasten his business through the different offices. It still however happens, that its final settlement is often procrastinated, by unavoidable delays, and still oftener by a want of due information in the individual.

The most important business a new settler has to transact, is the selection of his land, and the early settlement of himself and his family upon it. The most important lesson he can be taught, in the transaction of this business, is, that more depends upon his own energy than upon any assistance that can be given, or facility that can be afforded to him.

In order to simplify the business, as much as possible, the Government have prepared printed forms of application, which the settler is required to fill up. On his first landing, he should immediately enquire for the office of the Colonial Secretary, -- state the object for which he came to the colony, --and request that a printed form of application for a grant of land, may be given to him. He will find no difficulty in filling up this form, which contains merely--his address, in order that an answer may be duly forwarded to him, --the nature and amount of the capital, under two or three general heads, upon which he claims a grant, --and his willingness to enter into a bond, under

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a penalty of £500, that he will not leave the colony within the period of three years. The object of the bond is merely to afford some guarantee to the Government that the person claiming land really intends to fulfil the conditions on which lands are granted; and does not mean to follow the practice, at one time sufficiently common, of obtaining a grant, raising money upon it, and then bidding the colony adieu. To a person whom the Government undertakes to encourage, and who really intends to fulfil the conditions under which he claims a grant, this bond is of course a dead letter. It is not possible to contrive another form of obligation, which will afford security to the Government, with so little restraint to the real settler.

On the settler's filling up his application, and transmitting it to the Colonial Secretary, a letter will be addressed to him by that functionary, informing him that his application has been referred to the Land Board, and requesting him to hold himself in readiness to appear before them, with proofs of his possessing the capital stated. At the same time that this answer is returned to him, his application is forwarded to the Land Board, from whom he will probably hear in another day. The letter from the Land Board requests him to give them one day's notice of his intention to appear before them, stating the hour, in order that the Board, or a majority of them, may be assembled. -- Should it, however, be of importance to the applicant, and should other business not render it necessary, they do not always insist upon a previous notice. The letter also states that it is expected the applicant will bring with him the necessary documents and means of proving the particulars of his capital; and be prepared to procure the attendance of one or two persons, of undoubted respectability, who can vouch for the truth of his statement.

The Land Board require from the applicant a detailed account of his capital, and each particular is entered separately in a schedule. The object of this is twofold. First, to ascertain that the capital, upon which the land is claimed, is such as can be admitted to be immediately available for investment in stocking and improving a farm; --and, secondly, that the Board may have an opportunity of putting such questions to the persons who are to attend to vouch for the truth of the appli-

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cant's statement, as, from the circumstances of the case, they may consider necessary.

The Board are only authorized to recognize capital immediately applicable to agricultural purposes as giving a claim to land--but in this they allow a considerable latitude. It is not required that the capital proved should consist of cash only. Bills, or letters of credit, if upon persons of undoubted responsibility, --and if there be evidence that it is a real transaction. All sorts of merchandize, imported by emigrants as a means of transferring their capital to the colony, are considered available capital, provided it be not the intention of the party to enter into mercantile business beyond the immediate disposal of his investment. Live stock, if imported by the applicant, and agricultural implements and stores, are also considered as capital --but not household furniture, plate, or family clothing and stores generally. It has, however, been lately determined that all kinds of stores and outfit, purchased for the voyage and the subsequent settlement, shall be considered as capital, provided the invoices or accounts can be produced--but not otherwise.

When an emigrant imports his capital in cash, the Land Board require that it shall be deposited in one of the Banks, or in the hands of some merchant of known respectability, and that a certificate of its being so deposited should be produced. In the case of merchandize, the original invoices are required to be produced; and collateral testimony is of course required, that the property, in whatever shape, has been actually imported by the applicant, and is his own bona fide capital.

The regulations require that the property should be actually in the colony. No claim can be admitted on capital in England or elsewhere, as, should it be vested capital, it is of course unavailable to the improvement of land here; and should it be in any shape which would allow of its transfer, the regulations assume that it would have been the interest of the individual to have brought it with him. Persons in the receipt of half-pay or pension from Government, or of an annuity, are, however, entitled to have their half-pay, pension, or annuity, valued at seven years' purchase. Persons in the receipt of rents of property, or of dividends from money in the funds, are allowed for one years' rent or dividend. Persons bringing out free. servants

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are also entitled to credit for the cost of their passage to the colony. When the applicant has given a schedule of his capital, and has signed a statement of such explanations as may have been required, the persons named as referees, for the purpose of vouching its truth, are expected to attend the Board. Should the Board feel satisfied, from the documentary and oral testimony adduced, of the truth of the applicant's statement relative to the amount of his capital, they immediately make their report, for the decision of the Governor, which is communicated to the party by the Colonial Secretary, with as little delay as possible; but should any discrepancy appear between the statement of the applicant and that of his referees, or should the referees be unable to bear out the statement of the applicant, the latter is again written to, in order that he may have an opportunity of explaining what seems inconsistent, or bringing forward additional proof where wanting, previous to the Board reporting their opinion upon his case.

When the applicant receives his answer from the Colonial Secretary, specifying the extent of land which the Governor may have decided upon granting to him, he will also be informed that on applying at the office of the Surveyor General, and paying a fee of 2s. 6d., he will be furnished with an authority to select. He will now also be permitted to examine the charts in that office, in order to ascertain what lands are vacant and are most eligible.

By following these directions, and by incurring no delay which can be avoided, most persons will find that they may be ready to proceed in search of their land almost as soon as they can get their luggage landed, and get their families, should they have families, clear of the ship. The authority to select is only valid for four months, which period is considered sufficient to allow enough to be seen of the colony to select a grant. At the end of this period the order is cancelled, unless, on a representation of peculiar circumstances which may have interfered with the selection, an extension of time should have been granted before the expiry of the specified term.

Persons proceeding in search of land ought to provide themselves, before leaving Sydney, with as much information as possible, relative to the most eligible situations for a location,

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as they cannot always depend upon finding a surveyor in the district; and. when they do find him, he is not always prepared to state what locations still remain open. It must be confessed that the difficulties attending the selection of a grant, in the present circumstances of the colony, are sufficiently discouraging; as, from the backwardness of the surveys, it is often a matter of no easy attainment to discriminate, by natural marks, a piece of land which may remain ungranted, from other portions in its neighbourhood, which may have been selected and may still remain unimproved; of from those portions of land which the surveyors may have marked off as eligible for future villages, or for church reserves; and which, in conformity with the King's instructions, are accordingly reserved for these purposes. As it is impossible also to prevent unlocated lands from being depastured by the sheep and cattle of persons in the neighbourhood, it thus also becomes the interest of those, from whom he would most naturally have expected advice and information, to mislead him. When, in addition to all these circumstances, it is considered that the proportion of good land to the inferior is very limited, and that a still more limited proportion is well watered, it is not at all surprising that the selection of a desirable grant of land becomes a most difficult and perplexing undertaking.

There is but one way in which the government could interfere to remove the difficulty, which is by restricting this selection of lands to one particular district, till all the other districts are surveyed and described. The facility with which a grant of land can be selected in the Canadas, or in the United States of North America, is frequently made a subject of comparison with the difficulty attending the same undertaking in this country, and inferences are in consequence drawn to the disadvantage of the government of New South Wales. It would be well for those who are inclined to reason in this manner, to consider what the effects would be if a similar system were adopted in New South Wales.

In the Canadas, in the United States, and the writer believes, even in South Africa, no tract of country is laid open for disposal, till a complete survey of it has first been effected, --the boundaries of each section or allotment accurately fixed, ---the

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nature of the soil, situation with regard to water, &c. described, --and, in fact, nothing left for the person making a selection to do, but to take down the numbers of those allotments on which his choice may have fallen.

In those long settled countries no inconvenience results from this system; and were it to be adopted here, the settler would, without doubt, be less bewildered in his choice, by being confined to a more limited range of country. It is, however, an alternative which those would most loudly deprecate who are the most ready to complain of the present state of matters.

But the Government have considered that the wealth of this country does not consist in immeasurable tracts of rich arable land, as in the countries above named, where a dense population can be advantageously settled from the first (and where indeed it is necessary to their success that they should be densely settled), but in the excellence of its natural pasturage, which requires a wide spread population to reap its advantages.

To allow settlers to avail themselves of this to the utmost extent, an immense extent of territory is thrown open, in any part of which they may locate themselves; and one consequence of this is, that they are perplexed with the vast variety of situations where they may choose. They find it difficult to decide among the relative advantages and disadvantages peculiar to each district, and many of them are sufficiently unreasonable to make the very extent of the accommodation which Government is desirous to afford them, a ground of complaint.

The limits to which these observations must necessarily be confined, debar the writer from offering to the new-comer any advice upon the best mode of selecting and effecting a settlement upon his land, or of making the requisite purchases of live stock; and it is the less necessary he should do so, as these matters have been already treated of in other publications. The same cause prevents his going into further details, relative to the regulations of the government respecting lands and convict servants; summaries of which regulations are published for general information in another part of the Almanack, and are also given in a detached form, to newly arrived emigrants, at the offices of the Colonial Secretary and principal Superintendent of Convicts.

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It might be reasonably enough supposed, that there are few persons not interested in the question, who could find any thing objectionable or unreasonable in the mode in which this branch of the administration of public business has been regulated. Whence comes it, then, that one so often hears complaints against the Government in transacting it? Undoubtedly the most general answer is, that many persons attempt to overreach the Government, by advancing claims which they cannot substantiate. But it would neither be consistent with fairness, nor with the truth of the case, to suppose that every complaint originated in this. The truth is, that the self-interest and self-love, of many even well-informed persons, lead them to consider, or imagine, that there are peculiar circumstances in their own case which give them a claim to exemption from the strict operation of the regulations.

It is undoudedly true that such circumstances may exist as it would be desirable to consider in this light; but the difficulty is to say where the admission of such claims is to stop. Were it possible to foresee and to define all the cases which might be brought forward and urged upon the government as grounds of claim, there would be less difficulty in the case. The regulations might be framed before hand to include them; but no regulations could be framed of such latitude as to comprehend every case which might be advanced on good or plausible grounds, as entitled to attention. The question would therefore come to this-- Whether the Government should administer this branch of the public business by general rules, sufficiently plain for every one to understand, and sufficiently determinate to enable every one, who brings himself under their operation, to know before hand what he is entitled to expect: or whether an entire discretion should be exercised in each individual case.

Supposing that it could be contended, for one moment, that the latter course, so inconsistent with the spirit of British institutions, would be preferable to the former, it is such a course as no Governor would be safe in adopting. The disposal of crown lands is an invidious and delicate duty, which no man could discharge to his own satisfaction, or with a due regard to his responsibility, without adhering to rule.

The necessity of establishing general rules, in the adminis-

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tration of all public business, is founded upon the principle that it is the general benefit of the whole community that those entrusted with power must consult. And what is best for the whole, can generally be determined before hand. A relaxation of these rules, in a particular case, might be desirable, but it ought to be such a case as would stand out very strikingly distinguished from all others; because, were it once known that the regulations were departed from on slight grounds, they would lose their force as regulations, --each individual would see something in his own case, which, in his own opinion, ought to be considered as a cause for exemption, --the Government would be inundated with applications and complaints, and every disappointed individual would consider himself an injured one.

The application of this reasoning to all public functionaries ought to convince every person who has business to transact with them, that it is not possible to afford the same facilities in public business as in the affairs of individuals among themselves. In the latter case, there is no rule for a man's guidance but his own discretion, and he is responsible to no one for its exercise; --in the former case, every individual transaction becomes a precedent for ulterior proceedings; and the implied understanding, that every person in the same situation and circumstances, is entitled to the same privileges, makes it imperative upon public functionaries to afford no facilities to one, which they cannot extend to all.

An attention to these circumstances, which are seldom duly considered, ought to satisfy individuals who are disposed to think their concerns do not receive that attention from the Colonial Government which is due to persons arriving in such a Colony as this, that however desirous the members of the Government may be to forward their wishes, it is public expediency, and not private feeling, that must be consulted in the business; and it may also serve to explain on what grounds the refusal of a public officer to attend to the wishes of an individual, even in a case which, viewed on its own isolated merits, could be attended with no injury to the public service, is not only not a proof of apathy or indifference towards the concerns of individuals, but may be consistent with a warm interest in their welfare.