simple of twenty acres being liable to military service. Officers got a proportionately larger grant. This is now a flourishing community of farmers and wool-growers.
In some of the country papers I noticed the advertisements of an Immigration Society, which seemed to me to be capable of a useful development in Australia. The idea seemed to be to encourage lads and lasses to emigrate under the auspices of the society; and it undertook to provide situations for the adventurous youths on their arrival in the colony. Farmers and settlers, desirous of having helps, were invited to send in applications to the local agents, or to the head office; and, from what I read, it seemed that in return for board and tuition in all sorts of country work, giving "colonial experience," in fact, the new comer was bound down for a term, to his host and teacher. Doubtless such a system might be abused. But under careful supervision, and the direction of genial men of tried probity, would it not be better than the haphazard no-system which is pursued in Sydney and elsewhere? In New South Wales emigrants are often shamefully treated. Domestic servants, indeed, are competed for as if they were prize pedigree stock, but mate labourers, artisans, and such like, are often turned adrift without knowing to what part of the country they should go for employment. A labour bureau after the American fashion would be a decided improvement on the present faulty system.
The scheme I refer to as being advertised in the
