Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/82

 In addition to this are the other articles specified in the tables, the total amount of which, together with the wheat and flour, is valued at £1,088,343, giving an annual average of £155,477; but striking off about one-third for the high prices of those years, and as an allowance for the rice and maize, which must still continue to he imported from foreign parts, there is an annual consumption to the value of about £100,000 a year for the agriculturist to supply.

But whether agriculture yield a large per centage on the capital embarked or not, there is one thing of which a man may be certain, which is, of having every comfort and many luxuries on the cheapest terms. In every part of New South Wales living costs a mere trifle. I have before given the prices of the mere necessaries of life—flour, sugar, tea, and meat, in January, 1844: flour, at £10 per ton, or ten pounds for a shilling; brown sugar, £16 a ton, or seven pounds for a shilling; white sugar, 4½d. a pound; tea, £5 5s. per chest, or 1s. 7½d. per pound; mutton and beef, l½d. per pound;—of course when purchased by retail these things cost something more. In Melbourne house-rent is very low; excellent brick cottages, with five or six rooms, can be had for from forty to fifty pounds per annum. So that a man may remain for six months or more if he chooses in the town, and may judge for himself the course most proper for him to pursue, without being driven, as people formerly were, to decide in a hurry, from the feeling that every day they deferred doing so, they were at an enormous expense. And, although every person who emigrates is naturally anxious to