Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/62

 these regulations, as to account for the feeling which they have excited; and if the money raised hy them he applied to the keeping up a moderate stream of immigration, they will he of henefit to the stockholders themselves. We must therefore look deeper for the causes of the present dissatisfaction, which is attributable to this; that these regulations have forced upon the attention of the stockholding squatters the fact, that they and their property are completely at the mercy of the government, and they fear that other changes still more unfavourable to them may he in contemplation. They know that they have sprung into their present importance without the aid, and they believe in despite of the discountenance of government, and they fear that their interests, and through them, the interests of the colony, may be sacrificed to some hankering after the exploded Wakefield system. I have no doubt that these fears are exaggerated. It is absurd to suppose that government can have any other object than the welfare of the colony, lind it is almost equally impossible to imagine that they can long shut their eyes to the importance of the export of wool, whether it is looked upon as a colonial export, or as contributing nearly a third of the imported raw material of one of the most important branches of British manufacture. The interests, therefore, of the class of men by whom this article is raised, namely, the squatters, cannot be a matter of indifference, and it cannot be disguised that they are placed in a false position. Whether from too great a leaning to theoretical systems, and to the oldfashioned notion that it is more virtuous to grow a pound of flour