late attracted the greater number of settlers, and enabled them to undersell the farmer of New South Wales, even in his own market; it is not surprising that the raising of grain in the colony should be confined to the richest soils—that lands; which have been exhausted by the carelessness and incompetence of those who cultivated them, have been entirely neglected—and that the capital and industry of the colony should be directed to other channels.
The most considerable of these, and that which seems to possess, for the capitalist, the greatest inducement is sheep stock, for which the climate of the colony has proved favourable in an uncommon degree, and for which its unsettled districts afford an almost unlimited range.
The attention of some individuals has been turned to the coarser manufactures, but the labour employed in these, however convenient to the colony in its present circumstances, is rather a bar to its trade with other countries, as the high price of labour, the want of skill which experience gives, and of improvements which an extensive capital can alone render available, must enhance the
industry of the settler, and supply what it has been found incapable of doing, a profitable article of export. And it is probable, that £1000 expended by government in bringing such an article to the notice of the colonist, would be attended with mere real and permanent advantage, than £50,000 in holstering up an artificial price of wheat.
