HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 9 i 



extension of settlement in the interior, the most conspicuous were the movements set on foot 

 for the construction of railways and the establishment of steam communication with England. 



The gradual increase in the tide of immigration had greatly contributed to promote 

 the prosperity of the people, and check existing abuses. It did not begin to How in 

 any sensible volume until the attention of the British 

 public had been drawn to the colony by the official 

 report prepared by Mr. Bigge, the Special Commissioner 

 sent out to report on Governor Macquarie's Administra- 

 tion. The publication of Edward Gibbon Wakefield's 

 celebrated " Letter from Sydney," in 1829, materially 

 aided in directing the attention of statesman interested 

 in the work of colonization to the true principles on 

 which immigration should be carried out. The progress 

 of settlement in the colony took the Home and Colonial 

 Governments completely by surprise. Flocks and herds 

 were driven further and further inland as each new 



discovery made the resources of the interior known ; but GOVERNOR SIR CHARLES i IT/.KOV. 

 stock-owners and settlers were met with the ever-increasing 



difficulty of finding a sufficient supply of labour. Convict labour was nominally cheap, but 

 really dear at any price ; and the growing repugnance felt towards it as an element of 

 home life, created a corresponding demand for the free immigrant. A system of free immi- 

 gration therefore became one of the great social questions of the time. Free grants of land 

 had been offered by the British Government in the early days ; but very few immigrants 

 were attracted in this way. Then came the bounty system, under which so much a 

 head was paid for every immigrant ; but that fell into disrepute, owing principally to 

 the starvation allowance and bad accommodation on board the passenger ships. Then it 

 gradually became recognized as a principle of State policy, mainly owing to Wakefield's 

 teaching, that the revenue arising from the land should be appropriated to the purpose of 

 promoting immigration. Under that system money was remitted by the Colonial Govern- 

 ment every year to be expended by a Board of Emigration Commissioners appointed in 

 London, who selected and despatched the best emigrants they could get. Bui American 

 competition was keenly felt in the labour market, and the Government had to tempt 

 people to emigrate to Australia by paying half the passage money and offering small 

 loans to mechanics, who could be induced to leave England on no other terms. 



The demand for labour became so great that in 1836 a Committee of the Council 

 reported in favour of a project to import coolies from India. But the coolie proposals 

 did not meet the necessity of the case, which in 1838 became still more serious, owing 

 to the cessation of the assignment system in that year. Select Committees of the Council 

 met year after year to consider the subject and devise remedies for the growing malady 

 of the State. \Yhen the land sales were large, both money and immigrants became 

 plentiful ; but when the sales declined, as they did in times of depression, there was 

 no money and no immigration. The Council then recommended that a loan should be 

 negotiated in England. Sir .George Gipps preferred economy to borrowing, and spoke 

 his mind out freely to the Council. The colony was thus compelled to struggle with 



