Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/227

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AND COLONIZATION.
213

gether, and to appropriate the funds exclusively towards the immigration of families and individuals selected by the colonists themselves, or by agents duly appointed by them, and acting on their behalf.

Supposing therefore that a voluntary emigration of virtuous and industrious families and individuals is henceforth to take place to the territory of New South Wales, to the full extent to which the land revenue of that colony can be made available, it may not be out of place to estimate the future probable amount of that emigration, and the benefits which the land-selling system will thus be the means of securing both to the mother country and to the colony. The land revenue of New South Wales amounts at present to upwards of £100,000 per annum, but will probably be increased very shortly to double that amount. That revenue, it should be observed, however, is almost exclusively of colonial creation, upwards of nine-tenths of its whole amount being received for purchases of land and town allotments, made in extension of their former possessions, by residents of some standing in the colony, who have acquired the means of making such purchases chiefly by the rearing of sheep and the growth of wool. And it should also be borne in mind, that before the £100,000 has been paid into the colonial treasury