The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-10-24 00:00:00

HOW TO BUY OR LEASE LAND IN AUS-

TRALIA

(From Sidney's Emigrant Journal.)
The following statement will supply a general answer
to the numberless inquiries which are daily addressed to
us on the subject of land in Australia. According to our
experience, nine-tenths of those who emigrate, of what.
ever rank, take that step with the view of becoming land-
holders. _ _ _

In New South Wales and Port Phillip the lands are
divided into town lots, suburban lots, and country lots.
Town and suburban lots must always be sold by auction.
Country lands, after having been exposed for sale by auc-
tion at least once, at an upset price of £1 an acre, may be
sold at any time by private contract, at not less than £1
an acre. Lands sold by government private contract
must be paid for in cash. Lands are put up for sale in
lots not exceeding one square mile (640 acres) in extent;
and, as a general rule, it is not easy to purchase a less
quantity than a square mile of country land. Suburban
lots are smaller and dearer. It is a principle of our
Colonial-office and Colonial government to throw every
possible obstruction in the way of the purchase of land
by labourers and persons of small capital, and for this
reason the lots are made up as large as possible. It is
better for persons of small means not to think of purcha-
sing- land from government. By looking about the inte-
rior of the settled districts of New South Wales, they will
find old grantees of the Crown, or ruined speculators, or
drunkards willing to sal small lots, and even farms, on
very reasonable terms, as low as 2s. 6d. an acre ; and for
£l, fine improved land. Great privileges are reserved
for great capitalists. The man with £20,000 may select
20,000 acres by special survey in any part of New South
Wales, whether surveyed or not ; while men of less for-
tune can only buy what happens to be surveyed. It is by
these special surveys that the great capitalists have se-
cured magnificent estates of fine, fertile, well-watered
land, while frugal shepherds have found it difficult, often
impossible, to purchase from government a little 80-acre
farm in a suitable situation—hence debauchery and ruin.
In these two colonies a pre-emption right to choose land
may be purchased in England, which entitles the purchaser
to name five labourers for every £lOO for a free passage,
but as this only entitles the party paying the money to a
credit, and not to a piece of land, it' he pay £lOO only he
may be years before he meets a £lOO lot to be sold, so
that as this privilege does not entitle the purchaser to a
free passage, and is of little use except to one who can lay
out £640, it is, as regards the working classes, a dead letter.
In South Australia, waste lands are sold by auction
only, but under the same rules as to a minimum price of
£1 an acre, as in New South Wales. In consequence of
the discovery of so many rich mines the special surveys
have been suspended, and land is sold in lots of moderate
size. This change in favour of small capitalists has been
brought about, not by any desire on the part of the au-
thorities to modify the colonial land. monopoly, but in
order to prevent the purchasers of lots of land of 640 acres
from also becoming the purchasers of mines of incalculable
value. The Burra Burra mine and 10.000 acres of surface
land cost £lO,OOO, and one shareholder out of many de-
rives an income of £16,000 a year from an original in-
vestment of £2OOO. But such cases cannot occur again.
In a word, whether in New South Wales proper, Aus-
tralia Felix, or South Australia, we recommend the man
with less than £lOOO to be very careful how he buys land
from government. There are few lots of waste land in
Australia, offered for sale by government, worth £640 for
640 acres for agricultural purposeS, Perhaps not more
than 100 acres fit for the plough out of the lot.

The Law of Squatters' Runs.—But if the laws for the
sale of waste lands are framed foolishly and unjustly, the

cupattOn Ot waste pastures are
upon a most satisfactory footing as regards those Who own
flocks and herds. Unless some occupation retains a co-

or regu

lonist near a town, it is much better to lease than ouy
land from the Crown. Indeed, the sale of land, except
near large towns, and in mineral districts, has virtually
ceased ever since the price was raised to £1 an acre.

-
LIVING WITHOUT MONEY.—There is a man in New-
ark, New Jersey, (says the New York Sun) named
Palmer, who has lately published an essay against the use
of money. He says it is "an engine only of evil," for
two years he has declined to receive or use it : and he is

now convinced that it is the duty of all to adopt a course
which will supersede the use of it. What that course is,
Mr. Palmer does not reveal.
REAL FAME.—Scott had tasted at our house the Yar-
_mouth bloaters (then an article of less savoury notoriety
than at present), allowed their superiority to the " Finnan
haddies, ' and inquired where they were to be got. My
hnvins undertaken the commission, applied to

h monger,