MILDURA.
steps to deter new settlers from taking up land, and they did in fact succeed in putting a stop to settlement. Their action was perfectly natural under the circumstances, but it dried up the resources with which the Colony was being carried on, and brought about the failure of the company. Had settlement continued at the same rate as in 1891, funds would have been available for lining the channels where necessary, the vacant blocks commanded by the channels would have been settled up as anticipated by the Chaffeys, and the company might have pulled through.
The Government should have retained rights of supervision.If the Chaffeys failed to do their duty in certain respects, ought not the Government in the first place to have seen that the enterprise had a fair chance of being started with sufficient capital? In the second place, ought they not to have exercised some supervision over the progress of the settlement? The Commission hold that the statement that Mildura and Renmark were under the supervision of the Governments of Victoria and South Australia, which was so extensively advertised, and was the means of inducing the majority of the settlers to take up land, was justified by the wording of the indentures. No supervision or control was attempted at Mildura, though numerous official and semi-official visits were paid to observe the progress of the settlement. In South Australia there was some attempt at official control, which was at any rate effective in preventing the spreading out of the Colony.
Fruit-growing at Mildura may be profitable.So far we have been dealing with the questions affecting the settlement as a whole. We must now inquire, What has been the result to individual settlers?215
