association with convict shepherds and herdsmen, ticket of leave men, and emancipated convicts possessed of sheep and cattle in the interior. In this way also, a large amount of valuable property is annually lost or destroyed throughout the territory, through carelessness or evil intent. On the other hand, the colonial proprietors of sheep and cattle are now well able to employ free emigrant herdsmen and shepherds; and the small additional expense which the employment of such persons would cost them, in comparison with that of convict labour, would be repaid them ten times over in the preservation and security, and consequently in the greatly increased value, of their flocks and herds. The continued assignment of convict servants to this class of colonial settlers is therefore no longer necessary, as a means of advancing their individual prosperity; while it is obviously ruinous to the morals of the native youth, the rising generation of Australia.
As for the second class of settlers, the growers of grain and other field produce for the colonial market, as they consist generally of industrious emancipated convicts, or of free emigrants, originally of the class of agricultural labourers, who have previously lived as hired servants on estates in the colony; it is obvious that they do not constitute a class of persons to whom
