now three
or four months due.

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