emigrants in the Australian colonies, and to order that all Crown land in these colonies should thenceforward be sold by public auction, on being applied for by intending purchasers; (the upset or minimum price to be five shillings per acre;) and that the revenue arising from all such sales of land should be devoted exclusively towards the encouragement and promotion of emigration. Numerous and strong objections were advanced at the time both in Great Britain and in New South Wales against this change of system; and it was long and loudly asserted, that the proposed arrangement would completely put a stop to emigration, and that no revenue of any amount could ever be realized from the sale of waste land in the colonial territory. I am happy to state, however, that these objections have all proved unfounded, and that the system of selling land has already enabled the colonial government to realize a large and rapidly increasing revenue from that source; the future and exclusive appropriation of which to the encouragement and promotion of emigration promises not only to supply the free colonists of New South Wales with free labour to any extent, but to introduce an entirely new era in the colonial history of the empire, by rendering those transmarine and expensive appendages of the country, which have
