Charles Griffith

“ The circulating medium, which, like the blood in the animal system, diffused life and activity through every part, has been withdrawn from use and the colony is now in a state of inanition. What renders the matter worse, is the fact that a large portion of the sum paid for land, and thus applied to the purposes of immigration was borrowed."
I admit the general principle that capital and labour should exist in proportion to each other; but they should also exist in proportion to land. ”

“ The younger members of such families are incapable of aiding in the production of means for their own subsistence, and, when very numerous, form a heavy burthen to the employer. A shepherd, with a wife, and five or six young children, requires an amount of rations for their support fully equal to the services he can render, or at all events only justifying the employer in giving a rate of money wages so small as to create dissatisfaction on the part of the labourer, who is but too generally indisposed to make the requisite allowance for the peculiar circumstances in which he is placed. ”

“ The evil thus created to the colony is great. Its resources have to a large extent been expended in the introduction of a class of persons unsuited to its wants—unproductive, so far as regards its great staple commodity, and who, from the want of work, and the consequent cry of distress amongst them, discredit the statement that the species of labour really applicable to, and indispensible for, the country is needed. ”

“ No field, your committee apprehend, can be selected for emigration that holds out a fairer prospect to the emigrant himself than New South Wales, providing the selection be made of such as are suited to its wants. The salubrity of the climate—the excess of physical comforts of life—the constant employment presented in rural or grazing occupation—the moderate rate of wages that may be ensured—constitute advantages to the labouring emigrant which it appears questionable whether he can command elsewhere. ”

“ The expenditure of so large an amount, and its sudden abstraction from the colony, has been productive of consequences which your committee cannot but regard as disastrous, and as originating to a considerable extent the embarrassments under which the community are now suffering.
"The advantages which the colony had previously enjoyed from the supply of cheap labour, under the transportation system, had, conjointly with the advanced price of wool, created a high degree of prosperity. ”

“ Bowman, men of great consideration and high standing in the colony—many of them large landed proprietors, and who, if they were capable of listening to the dictates of a selfish and unenlightened policy, might think perhaps that they served their own interest by assisting to keep up the present high upset price of crown land. ”

“ The present mode of lodging money in the commissioners' hands in England being, as they remark, "one to which emigrants may naturally feel some repugnance, as it is only reasonable to suppose that almost every person will he desirous to retain the disposal of his capital in his own hands until he can become personally conversant with the character of the country to which he is about to emigrate." ”

“ Neither has the selection that has hitherto been made of even pastoral and farm labourers in the United Kingdom been unexceptionable in its character. Labourers burdened with numerous and young families have formed no inconsiderable proportion of those who have been sent to the colony at the charge of the land fund. ”

“ But if there were a confidence on the part of the colonists that a stream of immigration would be kept up sufficient to retain wages at this moderate rate, agriculture, vine-growing, and other pursuits of this kind, would no doubt be largely engaged in, and employment provided for a still larger number. ”

“ If it had been added that far the greater part of the land was bought on speculation, in order to sell again at an enormous advance to expected immigrants—that a small number of men, having a large command of capital, attempted a monopoly with this object, and that this speculation failed—that while the land yielded no return, the interest on the borrowed. ”

“ A reduction in the upset price of land they however consider as an essential preliminary to any sales being effected. They further recommend that a remission should be made to emigrants in the purchase of lands on their arrival in the colony, equivalent to the amount they may have paid for their own conveyance to the colony, or for that of their families and servants, and this without the emigrant's being forced to place any money in the hands of the commissioners at home. ”

“ The high upset price affixed by her majesty's government is an anticipated value, that in a great majority of cases will not be realized for centuries to come. The crown lands of the colony must consequently remain unsold, unless a different system be adopted from that now in force. ”

“ However desirable it may be to have (and in many respects it is undoubtedly so) the basis of a future population thus presented to us, its advantages are counterbalanced by corresponding difficulties. ”

“ The annual increase of sheep is about one-third of the whole, after making all deductions; and three men are required to every 2,000 sheep. In the Port Phillip district there were, in December, 1843, about 1,800,000 sheep, the increase on which would be about 600,000 for this year. ”

“ With the qualification above mentioned, your committee have no hesitation in expressing their belief that four thousand shepherds and farm labourers would readily find employment at rates of wages from £10 to £12 per annum, with lodging, fuel, and rations. ”

“ These would give, employment to 900 shepherds and hut-keepers. Allowing 100 more as additional bullock-drivers, shearers, stock-keepers, &c., the whole would amount to 1,000; but as we may reckon that the sudden influx of labourers would have the effect of reducing wages to £10 or £12 per annum, 200 more would be pretty sure to find employment in agriculture. The increase of black cattle does not involve a corresponding increase in the labour required to attend them ”