Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] - Page 626
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VICTORIA
PROMOTING AGRICULTURE BATTLING THE WASTE LANDS
March 5th 1855.
At a meeting of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce - the report of the Select Committee on the best means of promoting agriculture and settling the waste lands of the Colony was brought up & read. The report is arranged under three heads.
First The evils of the present system of land sales
Second The plan proposed by the Committee and
Third. The advantages resulting from the adoption of the new plan.
Under the first head the Committee have stated that the present Crown land regulations were radically defective, and had tended to produce and aggravate the drepression which at present existed, that out of sixty two millions of acres only 1: 400 : 000 acres had been sold, and that the remainder was held by Eight hundred persons; and further that not one tenth part of the land sold was under crop. That owing to the rapid increase of population, the resources of the colonists were impoverished by the yearly importation of bread stuffs to the amount of two millions from the neighbouring colonies, Chili [Chile], the United States, and the Mother Country, and besides these necessaries of life were sold at a greatly increased price, the following being the differences between 1850 & 1854 -
Wheat per bushel 1850 - 4/3d 1854 15/. Maize 2/6 - 10/-
Barley 3/.- 10/. Oats 3/5d- 9/6- bran 11d - 3/10 Hay per ton £4 - 15/. - £20
Flour per ton £10 - 10/. - £35- Potatoes per hundred weight 6/. - £2 - 5/-
The Committee were also of opinion that in a new Country land should be obtainable by actual settlers at a low rate, & the benefit of this has been seen in California, which, within six years, had become an exporting country; whereas in Victoria the Capital of the Colonists had been swallowed up in the purchase of land at a high price or in procuring food. The land sold during the first year had been as follows: From 1st July to 31st Dec 1853 - 145:600 acres for £838:557- or nearly £6 per acre From 1st J[?]ny to 30th June 1854. 213, 270 acres £810:789: or nearly £4 per acre and this money has been employed partly in making roads & bridges & partly in bringing out emigrants, but the Committee thought that the ex[?]ions of £1:600:000 from the pockets of the Colonists in twelve months has taken away Capital which, with land at a cheap rate, would have been available for its Cultivation and improvement. Further the present system enabled the Government and land speculators to combine against the interests of the Colonists generally. As an example, by the land sales [lost?] the Governor is empowered to raise the upset price of one tenth part of any country land offered for sale, but at a late land sale the proportions were
almost reversed, about one tenth having been put up at £1 per acre and nine tenths above that rate; besides this, the £1 lots were far too large for