Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/85

 glue-makers, tanners, soap-boilers, and tallow-chandlers will be in demand before long. A large number of shoemakers find employment, but the trade is overstocked. But the most helpless class consists of young men without capital, who have received a tolerable education, and who would perhaps be qualified to act as clerks in merchants' houses: there is but little chance of their getting an appointment of this kind, and their only resource is to become shepherds or stockmen, and perhaps qualify themselves in time to act as overseers.

There are two classes of persons who are almost sure to benefit themselves, and others, by coming to the country. One consists of small capitalists, and the other of agricultural labourers. A sheep station, as I said before, should not be undertaken unless the proprietors start with a command of two thousand pounds. A small number of sheep does not pay; and there is this further drawback, that the run must be necessarily small, and consequently, when the sheep increase to any thing of a paying number, it is necessary to move to another—a step attended by great expense, risk of loss, and almost certainty of infection. Persons with much less capital might embark in agriculture, dairy farming, or some other branch of industry: the grand principle being to keep out of debt, and above all things never to get a bill discounted. If a man acts on this system, he can scarcely be much straitened, for. every thing is so very cheap, that he can go on living at a very trifling expense, until he derives some return from his capital. The second class consists of agricultural labourers, farm-