Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/61

 Van Dieman's Land will probably take a good deal of cheese at a remunerating price. The home market at Melbourne is so small, and so easily overstocked, that it would not be worth the while of any person who does things on a large scale to undertake to supply it, at least at present, a certain market being of greater consequence to a producer than an occasional high price.

In April, 1844, (subsequent to the author's departure from New South Wales,) a set of regulations regarding depasturing licences, were published by the government, which have excited a considerable ferment amongst the pastoral interest in that country. Under these regulations one- license of ten pounds will not cover a station capable of containing more than 4000 sheep or 500 cattle, nor one extending over an area of more than twenty square miles, but in these, and one or two other cases, a second fee of ten pounds is required. It does not appear to me that there is any thing in these regulations to call for the strong censure which they have received, nor to account for the excitement caused by them in New South Wales. It seems but fair that a man who has 8000 sheep should pay more for his license to depasture them, than he who has but 4000, and that if he has to pay £20, while the latter pays but £10, he is only taxed to the same amount. Probably the fairest and most satisfactory mode of proceeding would have been to have done away altogether with the ten-pound fee for the license, and to have increased the poll-tax to three half-pence on each sheep, and so in proportion for cattle. Still there seems nothing so objectionable in