Volume 66: Macarthur family correspondence relating to land, 1819-1881: No. 372
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 372]
and in districts, suitable in all respects for the immediate settlement of Agricultural Communities. The neighbourhood of Burrah Burrah, we respectfully but advisably submit, however rich the soil in places, is from position and climate, unfit for such settlements, in the actual state of the Colony. The sale of small farms there (more particularly if isolated) must be productive of ruinous consequences to us as Landholders, Wool growers, & graziers in that District, and as we sincerely believe, would frustrate the policy of the Government, lead to an immediate increase of crime and disorder, and occasion often consequences greatly to be deplored.
To show that these are not mere fancied evils, we would beg to state, that on the small subdivisions of sections which have been sold in the County of Georgiana, to the Northward and Westward of Burrah Burrah, we are informed from a highly respectable source, that Cattle Stealing, sly grog selling, and disorder already permits to an alarming extent. An ordinary course of proceeding in the part of the purchasers of such small allotments, is to take in Cattle to graze belonging to servants and others. A herd is thus established with a multiplicity of Brands, which are perpetually changing. This affords a cloak to sly grog selling and Cattle Stealing. The small proprietor receives an annual or monthly payment for goods to which he has no right, and which belongs either