Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/239

 short period in which the Right Hon. Mr. Spring Rice presided over the colonial department, it was suggested by that gentleman to the Lords of the Treasury, that a certain portion of the lan-drevenue of New South Wales should in future be appropriated towards the payment of the police establishment of the colony; and this suggestion having accordingly been approved of by the Lords of the Treasury, it was recommended to the governor and council of New South Wales to make such appropriation forthwith. It was thus virtually enacted by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that a large portion of that revenue, which had been unexpectedly and beneficently created, as if by the immediate interposition of the providence of God, for the counteraction of the enormous moral evils that had resulted from the past mismanagement of the transportation system in the Australian colonies, and for ensuring the moral welfare of these colonies in all time to come, through the annual importation of numerous industrious and virtuous free emigrant families and individuals from the mother country,—and to the exclusive application of which to that object of transcendent importance to their adopted country, the virtuous portion of the inhabitants of New South Wales were looking with intense anxiety and with the highest anticipations;—it was thus, I