respects to that adopted in the United States of America." In 1824 the Secretary of State for the Colonies issued regulations for the disposal of land in New South Wales, of which the following is an abstract:—
"1. A division of the whole territory into counties, hundreds, and parishes, is in progress. When that division shall be completed, each parish will comprise an area of 25 square miles. A valuation will be made of the lands throughout the colony, and an average price will be struck for each parish.
"2. All the lands in the colony not hitherto granted, and not appropriated for public purposes, will be put up for sale at the average price thus fixed.
"3. All persons proposing to purchase lands must transmit a written application to the governor, in a certain prescribed form, which will be delivered at the surveyor-general's office to all parties applying, on payment of a fee of two shillings and sixpence.
"4. The purchase-money must be made by four quarterly instalments. A discount of 10 per cent, will be allowed for ready money payments.
"5. The largest quantity of land which will be sold to any individual, 89,600 acres. The land will generally be put up in lots of three square miles or 1,920 acres.
"6. Any purchaser who, within ten years of his purchase, shall by the employment and maintenance of convicts have relieved the public from a charge equal to ten times the purchase-money, will have the money returned, but without interest. Each convict employed for twelve months will be computed as £16 saved to the public."
Persons desirous of becoming grantees without purchase might obtain land on satisfying the governor that they had the power and intention of expending in the cultivation of the land a capital equal to half the estimated value of it.
On grants of not less than 320 acres, and not more than 2,560 acres, subject to a quit rent of 5 per cent, per annum on the estimated value, redeemable within the first twenty-five years at twenty years' purchase, with a credit for one-fifth part of the sums the grantee might have saved by employing convicts. No quit rent was required for the first seven years, but the grantee was subject to forfeiture of his grant if unable, to prove to the satisfaction of the surveyor-general that he had expended a capital equal to one-half its value.
Detailed regulations like those above quoted as to expenditure of capital can never be enforced. In practice, quit rents fell in arrear
