THE LAND QUESTION AND THE EARLY SALES 213 



Mr. D'Aroy, of the surveying staff, had two knocked down to him 

 at a very small cost. 



Although the Sydney papers professed to consider the price high 

 for allotments in the wilderness, the Governor was by no means 

 satisfied with the result, and it was decided to hold the subsequent 

 sales in Sydney. The result justified the decision from the Trea- 

 sury point of view, but it tended to stimulate the fever of specula- 

 tion which, within the next three or four years, worked such serious 

 disaster. 



The sixty- seven allotments in the town of Melbourne which 

 were offered in Sydney on the 13th of September, 1838, although by 

 no means so central as already sold, realised an average of 118 

 each, as against the modest 36 and 46 of the local sales. In 

 February of the following year a further offer of thirty-five allot- 

 ments realised an average of 124. Advantage was taken of the 

 enterprise shown at this latter sale to offer some suburban lands, 

 and 1,000 acres, now covered by the cities of Collingwood and 

 Fitzroy, were sold in blocks of about twenty-five acres, at an average 

 of 7 11s. per acre. On the same date fifty-three allotments were 

 offered in the newly surveyed town of Geelong, realising an average 

 of 52 10s. each, almost entirely to Sydney land jobbers, and 

 15,500 acres of country lands in the Geelong district were sold for 

 13s. 9d. per acre. 



The effect of this wholesale alienation to speculators, while the 

 people on the spot who wanted small residential allotments could 

 not get them, was to create much local indignation and to intensify 

 the financial panic of 1843, when the Sydney speculators, under 

 pressure of their creditors, made desperate efforts to realise. 



