basin of Port Lincoln, along the margin of the deep water, consisting of 640 acres, divided into building lots of one rood each, which will be enough for a population of 50,000 persons, which is as many as the most sanguine friend of the Colony can anticipate for a century to come.  There, under the shelter of Boston Island, or in Spalding Cove, the merchant may leave his office and walk across a plank into the last ship that arrived from England, and all the hundreds of bullocks now employed dragging up waggon loads of rubbish and merchandise from Adelaide Swamp to Adelaide Township, may then be dispensed with and go a-ploughing, as they ought to have done long since, which will save L20,000 a year to the settlers in the item of land carriage alone, and by being employed on the farms instead of on the road the Colony will not require such frequent importations of farm produce from Van Diemen’s Land, to the great impoverishment of the community.  What, abandon Adelaide!  I think I hear the carriers exclaim.  Oh no, let Adelaide remain as before, it will always answer well enough for a country village, and stand a monument to the folly of the projectors, but let the Governor and Civil Establishment move their head-quarters without loss of time, to Port Lincoln, before more money is thrown away.  Every month that this measure is delayed it is made more difficult and therefore should not be postponed at all.  The buyers of the 1,200 town acres would feel much disappointment at the measure, as the market would be spoiled for the sale of their building lots, but they would be rightly served for asking a monopoly price to respectable new-comers, who ought to be enabled to obtain a town allotment for a trifle of the Government.

In New South Wales they are sold by auction as applied for, and put up at 20_s._ each, at which price they are generally knocked down; but with a view to prevent any monopolizer buying them up, to the injury of the bona fide settler, every purchaser must sign a bond to the Government in a penalty of L20, that he will build a house on the allotment, of a certain value, within three years, or otherwise the land reverts absolutely to the Crown, and the penalty is enforced too.  This is as it should be, and the evil working of the old system ought to have been forseen, but at South Australia the Commissioners and Survey Department disdained to copy anything from such a colony as Sydney and made the old saying good about advice, that those who want it most like it least.  Now the late Governor, Captain Hindmarsh, was quite the opposite of this, and was most diligent in seeking out the best way of doing everything, and was not above learning even from those ignorant neighbours, New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land.  Here is a proof.

(Copy)

“Government House, 25th April, 1838.

“The Council being about to meet this morning to discuss a subject with which Mr. Horton James is particularly well acquainted; the Governor will thank Mr. James, if he would do him the favour to attend the Council this morning about half-past nine o’clock, to give the Council his opinion on the subject.