large bodies of men being employed at the expense of government, at high wages, at public works, on a sham labour test, while flocks were wanting shepherds in the interior. Several causes supported this anomaly: 1st, There was no government machinery for distributing newly-arrived emigrants; 2ndly, The preference of the squatters for single men left families on the hands of the government; 3rdly, The Squatters' Club were not sorry to see the government embarrassed by the presence of a large body of unemployed labourers in Sydney; 4thly, The dishonest conduct of certain masters in withholding or unfairly deducting wages promised had given the bush a bad name; 5thly, Many of the emigrants were of a class who, having left parish aid behind, liked to keep close to government rations and wages. All were engaged, as far as their short-sighted views would permit, in killing the golden goose of colonisation.
Mr. Boyd's evidence before the immigration committee of 1843 affords, when read with the notes we can supply, a fair specimen of the haughty, gentlemanly, selfish class he represented. He had then been eighteen months in the colony, and was employing two hundred shepherds and stockmen, besides artificers. He was building a town and port at Twofold Bay; had two steam-boats, and a schooner yacht, the Wanderer. He had devised a wild scheme of saving labour, by putting three thousand sheep, instead of eight hundred, under the charge of one shepherd, on horseback.
Mr. Boyd despaired of the prosperity of the colony "unless the wages of a shepherd could be brought to 10 a year, or about 3s. 10d. a week, with meat and flour, without tea and sugar." The two last had been previously universally allowed; but he expressed his intention of doing away with them, "being of very questionable utility and necessity, although such is the waste and extravagance here that 8 lbs of tea and 90 lbs. of sugar are consumed per head." He states, further, that he "had no difficulty in engaging shepherds at 10 with these rations, but much difficulty in getting men engaged at these low wages forwarded to stations, as they were generally picked up on the road." "Any money advanced towards travelling expenses was usually spent in public-houses;" and it is his decided opinion that "more than 10 a year only does harm to shepherds, by sending them to public-houses."
Mr. Boyd also mentioned how he had kindly given a free passage to Twofold Bay, distant 600 miles from Sydney, to one hundred labourers out of employ. He did not mention that, on their arriving there, those who refused to accept 10 wages were refused a passage back for less than 5 j and that, while a few strong men walked back
