as warm as the climate in which they live, with a spirit to meet any danger, and an energy to carry them through any reverse of fortune, frank, generous, and hospitable, the squatters of the Australian colonies are undoubtedly at the head of their respective communities, and will in after days form the landed, as they do now the pastoral interests, from whom every thing will be expected that is usually required of an English country gentleman.  Circumstanced as they are at the present moment, most of them leading a solitary life in the bush, and separated by such distances from each other as almost to preclude the possibility of intercourse, they are thus cut off as it were from society, which tends to give them feelings that are certainly prejudicial to their future social happiness, but I would fain hope that the time is coming round when these gentlemen will see that they have it very much in their own power to shorten the duration of many of the sacrifices they are now called upon to make, and that they will look to higher and to more important duties than those which at present engage their attention.

The views taken by the late Sir George Gipps of the state of society in the distant interior of New South Wales is perfectly correct, nor can there be any doubt but that it entails evils on the stock-holders themselves which, on an abstract view of the question, I cannot help thinking they have it in their power to lessen, or entirely to remove, when an influx of population shall take place; but, however regular their establishments may be, they cannot, as single men, have the same influence over those whom they employ, or the settlers around them, as if they were married; for it is certainly true, that the presence of females puts a restraint on the most vicious, and that wherever they are, especially in a responsible character, they must do good.  I do not know anything, indeed, that would more conduce to the moral improvement of the settlers, and people around them, than that squatters should permanently fix themselves, and embrace that state in which they can alone expect their homes to have real attractions.  That they will ultimately settle down to this state there cannot, I think, be a doubt, and however repugnant it may be to them at the present moment to rent lands, on the occupation of which any conditions of purchase is imposed, I feel assured that many of the squatters will hereafter have cause to thank the Secretary of State for having anticipated their future wants, and enabled them to secure permanent and valuable interests on such easy terms.  Nothing, it appears to me, can be more convincing in proof of the real anxiety of Earl Grey for the well being of the Australian provinces than the late regulations for the occupation of crown lands.

I believe I am right in stating that every word of those regulations was penned by Earl Grey himself, and certainly, apart from local prejudices, I am sure a disinterested person would admit the care and thought they evince, and how calculated they are to promote the best interests of the squatters, and the future social and moral improvement of the people under their influence.  There seems to me to run throughout the whole of these regulations an earnest desire to place the stockholder on a sure footing, and to remove all causes of anxiety arising from the precarious tenure upon which they formerly held property.