diate vicinity, has been fixed by Act of Parliament at twelve shillings; a minimum, which the colonization-commissioners of that colony have since increased to one pound: for as the price of all descriptions of agricultural and grazing stock, as well as of the necessaries of life, will for some time be much cheaper at Port Philip than in Southern Australia, it is not to be supposed that a prudent capitalist, arriving in the latter colony, would be deterred from crossing the meridional line that separates the one colonial territory from the other, when the comparative advantages of the two localities are in all these important respects—the price of land, of stock, and of provisions,—so very dissimilar. That line will soon be crossed in every part of its extent by sheep and cattle tracks innumerable, from the territory of New South Wales; and the emancipist, the ticket of leave man, and even the convict still in bondage, will ere long find their way across it into the land of freedom, let the colonists of Southern Australia do what they may to prevent them. In justice, therefore, to the inhabitants of that infant colony, His Majesty's government will undoubtedly be eventually constrained to raise the minimum price of land in New South Wales; and the sooner they do so, the more effectually will they protect the interests of the embryo colony: for it cannot
