_4th_, Capitalists of L.1000 and upwards can make, apart from
wool-growing, twenty per cent. on their money without being in trade,
chiefly by buying at the government land-sales, and subdividing the
section into small allotments, or by building houses, shops, &c. The
average of rental returns the capital in four years. But this can only
be done if emigration continues--and emigration with a sprinkling of
holders of L.50 to L.200. If this stops, there can be few purchasers.
Should a fixed price be put upon government land, there might be a
difference in the way in which capital could be turned to profit; but
L.1000 and upwards can find so many favourable investments in a new
colony, that a living could be secured without much trouble or
anxiety.

_5th, Population_.--By the census just completed, there are 78,000
inhabitants in Victoria (Port-Philip); County of Bourke,
44,000--including Melbourne, the capital, 20,000; County of Grant,
12,000--including Geelong, its capital, 8000. Warnambool, Belfast, and
Portland, along the coast, only number hundreds, and Kilmore, forty
miles inland, nearly 2000: there are also various villages--on
paper--so called, numbering ten to fifty houses each. From this it
will be seen that more than half of the entire population is within
twenty miles of Melbourne, a third of the residue within fifteen miles
of Geelong, and the remainder scattered, including the 1200
squatting-stations, over a very extensive country. These towns are
not, in my opinion, a natural growth, but have been forced into their
present magnitude from the difficulties in obtaining land at a price
to make up for the utter want of every convenience, a want arising
from the total absence of any effort on the part of the government
hitherto to make even one great trunk-road through the colony.
Facilities for internal communication would cause towns to increase