The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TlMES.—Nothing can be more striking than the
contrast which is observable between the progress
of the Australian Colonies in all matters of material
prosperity and the proceedings of their Governments.
The manner in which the new settler adapts him-
self, as it were by instinct, to a totally new set of
circumstances, the facility with which he casts off
old habits, and the good sense with which he seizes
and appropriates to his use the powers afforded by
nature, strange and in her least known garb, are
worthy of all admiration. It is melancholy to re-
flect bow little the Governments which these young
energetic communities have set over them correspond
to the character of the people whom they rule. The
progress of individuals is neutralised only too often
by the retrograde character of the public policy.
Men whose whole life is, in private, one long and
successful struggle against nature are sacrificed to
the superannuated fallacies of Protection, or taxed
exorbitantly in order to supply an amount of ex-
travagance which the legislators have neither the
will nor the power to correct. W hen we turn from
political progress, however, we have a most gratify-
ing account of that upon which everything else must
ultimately depend—the advancing settlement of the
country. Large tracts of Australia, particularly in
the far interior, are adapted mainly. to pasture, and
are destined for all time to come to the support of
scattered flocks of sheep and herds of cattle ; other
lands are unsurpassed in fertility, and admirably
fitted for the abode of an agricultural population.
Both these kinds of land fell originally into the
hands of the graziers, and it has required a long
struggle to win back the land so occupied for the
useof the people at large. The story is curious. These
lands were originally held by annual license from the
Crown in consideration of a small annual payment.
A Governor some years ago, finding himself in
want of money, bethought himself of this source
of revenue, and arbitrarily increased the amount of
money payable for the grazing properties of the land.
At this stretch of prerogative the Colonists took fire.
It was stigmatised as an abuse of power, and as
tending to neutralise the control over the public re-
venue voted in the Assembly. In the quarrel that
ensued the Colonists came out victorious, but the
graziers, having become cognisant of their own
strength, turned the arms which had succeeded so
well against the Governor upon their own allies,and
set up a claim to be protected by leases, pre-emptive
rights, and compensation for improvements against
the invasion, not only of the Crown, but of their
fellow-colonists. An act of Parliament was passed
to give validity to these leases, and under it a very
considerable portion of the lands of New South
Wales and Victoria has been held up to the present
day. When the Australian Colonists obtained self-
government they set themselves to remedy this cry-
ing grievance, but for a considerable time with only
very partial success. It was found very difficult to
pass actsfor this purpose in an Assembly where the
grazing interest was adequately, and more than
adequately, represented ; and when the acts were
passed the pastoral interest tried for a long time to
defeat them by availing themselves of powers which
were intended to be used against themselves. We
are glad to be assured that in Victoria, at any rate,
the new act is working in accordance with the po-
licy of its framers. It is complained, however, that
in the western part of the Colony of Victoria the
graziers, by employing the powers conferred by the
local act for the benefit of the poorer settlers, have
contrived to get into their hands large tracts of
country which were intended and calculated to be
the seat of a dense population. This mischief was
probably unavoidable under the circumstances.
No law intended for the benefit of all can pre-
vent the advantages derivable from superior local
knowledge and larger capital from telling in
favour of their possessors in the open market.
Nor are these lands, though they have fallen
into the hands of wealthy persons, likely
to be long locked up from occupation by agricultu-
ral possessors. They are too valuable to be used for
pasture merely, and the only difference will be that
the intending purchaser must deal with the purchaser
from the Crown, and not with the Crown itself. One
of the finest districts in the continent, lying at its
south-eastern corner, between the Australian Alps
and the sea, known by the name of Gipps' Laud,
has at last been invaded in earnest by agricultural
settlers. It is a land of singular temperance and
amenity of climate, full of large lakes and streams,
and protected from the burning blast of the north
by a high range of snowy mountains. The process of
clearing, cropping, burning the deal timber, build-
ing houses, and fencing is described as going on
with the utmost activity, and all this in aspot where
two months ago there reigned the most absolute soli-
tude, and the land now the scene of such busy exer-
tion was unoccupied and unappropriated. There
needs no argument to prove that such a proceeding
as this must be highly beneficial to the interest of a
new community, but there is in it even more than at
first sight appears. These countries have been handed
over by the ill-judged liberality of Parliament to
the influence of the most unbridled democracy. The
step cannot be easily recalled, and the only remedy
seems to be to evoke the influence which always re-
sides in land, and to bring over numbers to the
side of order and economy by giving them some-
thing to lose. It is notorious that in America the
influence that saves the country from perdition re-
sides in the votes of the tillers of the soil. The pas-
toral nature of a great portion of the land of Aus-
tralia unfortunately prevents the same remedy from
being applied to the same extent, but we observe
with pleasure that a palliative is found to an evil
which it seems impossible wholly to remove. Nor
can we enough rejoice that a territory is at last fairly

open to an intending emigrant, separated from the
troubles and anxieties which beset the rest of the
world, with a climate so mild that a labourer may
work every day in the year, where fire is a mere
luxury and fuel is only absolutely required for cook-
ing food, where there are no wars, no conspiracies,
no troubles to disturb the onward progress of civi-
lized man, except only such as he raises up for him-
self in the insolence of a, too exuberant prosperityiand
of a constitution framed in somewhat too ample a
spirit of confidence in the perfectibility of mankind.
Once let the lands of Australia be fairly thrown
open to the intending emigrant, and there is really
no sort of comparison between it and any other part
of the globe as a home for hard-working men and
women who find themselves overcrowded at home.
The knot which Parliament so unwisely tied the
Colonial Legislature are occupied in unloosing, and,
from an Imperial as well as a colonial point of view,
we heartily congratulate them on the success of
their enterprise.

COURSING.

COURSING MEETINGS TO COME.
DECEMBER.

Naino. Judge. Days of Running
Corrie, Lockerbie ... Mr. Warwick

JANUARY, 1867.
Huntingdon Club Mr. Warwick l, 2,
Lincolnshire, Holbeach Mr. Spafford
Cook, co. Cork (Open) -
Third S. Lancashire, (South-
port (Open) Mr. Wostropp 9, 10, 11
Spolthorne Club Mr. Warwick
Border Union (Longtown)
Cumberland Mr. Warwick
Barton-on-Humber, Lincoln. Mr. Spafford
Altcar Club, Lancashire -
Wigtonsh. Club (Stranraer) Mr. Boulton
Little Crosby Mr. Welding
County Louth Club, Ireland Mr. Spafford
Ridgway Club, Lytham - 3O, &c.
FEBRUARY.

Rufford, Lancashire
Cardiff Club Mr. Warwick l4, 15
Waterloo, Lancashire - 2O, 21, Scc
Tamworth, Staffordshire ... Mr. Warwick

•
MARCH.
Irish Grand National (Open),
county Loutn -
Ardrossan, Sharphill -
South Lancashire (South-
port) Champion Mr. Westropp l4, 15, &c
Leinster (Open) Courtown... Mr. H. Springall l9, 20
Scottish Open, Lanarkshire - 26, &c.
SEPTEMBER.

Brampton, Cumberland Mr. Warwick
OCTOBER.
Ancaster and Willoughby,
IVLiucolnshire Mr. Spafford