These and other preliminary difficulties the applicant must prepare to encounter; but even when all are surmounted and the land measured there will be two or three months’ delay—­in all probability eighteen months or two years from the date of his first application—­before it is offered for sale.  Then, at last, the applicant will obtain his land, if he be fortunate enough to escape the determined opposition of some wealthy person in the neighbourhood, or has money enough, and determination enough to purchase it, that opposition notwithstanding.

If it is a fact that the agricultural interests of the country are subjected to more climatic difficulties than are the pastoral interests, I take it that that circumstance cannot, properly, be brought forward as a reason why the agricultural interest should not, under our laws, have a fair field and no favour, as compared with the pastoral interest, in entering the market to borrow money in time of doubt and general want of confidence in monetary matters.  If the agriculturist, in borrowing money to secure his crop, has to encounter a higher rate of interest than the grazier has to encounter, in consequence of the risk of damage to his crops from an unfavourable season being greater than the same in the case of the produce of the grazier, surely there is no reason why he should be compelled to submit to a still greater increase of interest, to compensate the capitalist for the additional risk of the borrower’s insolvency before the crops are realised, especially when the grazier is, through the aid of “The lien on Wool Act” exempted from paying for such risk.

The effects of the policy of the Government, which I have described, may be found, on the one hand, in the fact that the number of persons who have been bred to agricultural pursuits, at present residing in the towns of the colony, is, beyond example, excessive, showing our social conditions in that regard to be in a most unsatisfactory state; and, on the other hand, in the other fact, that the wholesale price of flour in the colony is three times higher, per pound, than the wholesale price of animal food, of the very best description—­a state of things not to be found in any other civilized country.

I am aware that the deficiency of agriculture, which is so remarkable in this country, is attributed to the aridity of the climate by many gentlemen whose experience entitles their opinions to respect; but, as I have during the eighteen years last past annually cultivated and sown with wheat a large quantity of land, in various parts of the Upper Hunter District—­a district generally considered to be unfavourable for the purpose—­and have, in that long period, only failed twice in obtaining crops, and have reaped two self-sown, which in a great measure compensated for even their loss.  I can come to no other conclusion than that, whatever may be the disadvantages of the climate they are not sufficient to cause such neglect of agriculture as has occurred.