I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute.
If it was really intended to attach a population to this lovely and fertile region, how did it occur that the choicest land was selected for the first sale in one compact block, with nominal subdivisions? Why were the farms to be offered for sale not selected at long intervals, scattered over the plains, and unconnected with each other, so as to prevent the result that has taken place? If it was intended to give one purchaser an opportunity of becoming the possessor of the choicest block of land in this superb district, why put the country to the expense of a subdivisional survey, or of laying out a township. There was nothing unfair or underhand in the purchase of this land by the buyer. It was all straightforward and aboveboard; but when it is taken into account that this fertile district connects the capital of all the Australias with the head of an internal navigation, extending thousands of miles through the interior, and that although that interior is our own, we will have to compete for its rising trade with Melbourne and Adelaide, it will be conceded that no portion of our territory is of more importance to the general interests of New South Wales, and that every effort should be made to turn the tide of population in this direction, and, further, that any Government would be justified in availing itself of those discretionary powers vested in it to promote such an object. We have hitherto been endeavouring to build a house by commencing at the garret-to plant a nation without a yeomanry -- and what have we produced. Let any man visit the clusters of pothouses in the interior, miscalled towns and villages, and then, and not till then, will he be able to answer the question. Three mighty navigable streams, receiving countless tributaries, all welling from the great dividing range, have been so distributed as to command the future commerce of the furthest interior of this favoured colony: one flows from our northern limits, another intersects the middle districts, and the third forms our southern boundary. For hundreds of miles their course is through plains verdant with the most luxuriant vegetation; these are flanked with swelling hills and long lines of ranges, clothed with rich grasses and stately forests ; and rising in the rear of all a wide expanse of table-land stretches to the eastward, broken by huge masses of granite, and other igneous products, upheaved at irregular elevations, trending to the north-west, while here and there a lofty peak lifts its head in solitary grandeur above the lower hills, forming a landmark in the wilderness; one vast forest waves over all this dreary waste, descending to the gloomy depths of the lowest gorge, and climbing to the glistening crest of the highest peak. At the base of these elevations fissures widen into deep ravines, and frightful chasms, through which, during the rainy seasons, the waters of the plateau, collected by a thousand rills, rush headlong to the lower plains, when all is verdant and redolent of life and beauty. But when the dry season sets in the fierce summer heat licks up every particle of moisture, and unless under the shadow of some overhanging rock, in the depths of a ravine, you may seek to quench your burning thirst in vain. All around is one arid desert; the grasses are withered, and dried up; the feathered tribe have flown to more hospitable regions; and on the drooping forest, and the parched and fissured earth, is everywhere written -- thirst, thirst, thirst. At long intervals following the windings of these great highways of nature the hut of the pioneer of the wilderness, the herdsman, may be seen either nestling in the foliage of the forest, or crowning the summit of a sheltered knoll, its base bathed by the babbling waters of some bill-born streamlet, and his flocks or herds depasturing on the distant slopes. The natural entrepôt for the commerce of this immense district is the nearest port to Lake Alexandrina, but the head of the navigation is in the neighbour-hood of Wagga Wagga, on the central stream, about three hundred miles distant from Sydney via Goulburn, Burrowa, and Murrimboolla. The country for all that distance, with the exception of a few miles, is fertile and suited for cereal agriculture, being capable of sustaining a population of two or three millions, as, after passing through the dividing range, the land is of the best quality, either north or south, for at least 108 miles. If the whole available resources and energies of New South Wales are directed to the extension of the Southern railroad, and its connection with, the head of our internal navigation, we will open up a country along its line capable of supplying bread stuffs sufficient for the consumption of our whole population-we will secure the commerce of the richest pastoral country we now possess, to which the squatters are removing their flocks and herds daily, and we will preserve what territory now remains to us. But if, on the contrary, we fritter away our resources, and our time, in a gradual extension north, south, and west, the rival capitals, Adelaide and Melbourne, will share the commerce of our interior between them; and before many years have elapsed by another partition, or perhaps an annexation, we may lose the fairest portion of New South Wales, and be informed that the Blue Mountains are our natural boundary. If we cannot make a road across them, it will be said with justice. The northern districts that we now stand possessed of will require but good roads for wheeled conveyances to the nearest ports for the next half century, but the advancement, the prosperity of New South Wales, depends upon her southern railroad, and her internal navigation. The day has arrived when those who have her interest at heart must look beyond mere operations in ten, sugar, and rum, or an occasional effort to create a monopoly in the market of foreign flour. It has been objected that our rivers are not navigable excepting at irregular seasons, but we have yet to learn how to build river boats of heavy burthen and light draught. On the Illinois several bars are passed over by boats of 200 tons burthen where there is not twenty inches of water when the river is low. Steamers capable of carrying a deck load of 300 bales of cotton have plied up and down the Trinity River, in Texas, for years, and in many parts of this stream the depth of water does not exceed twenty inches; between Houston and Austin, in the same State, numerous high pressure boats ply on the Colorado, carrying deck loads of four or five hundred bales besides other cargo, and in a trip of 180 miles pass over many shingly bars where at certain seasons of long duration the depth of water is less than two feet-the draught of the Sultana, one of the floating palaces on the Missisippi, with a full cargo on board, did not exceed four feet six inches, her saloon was 340 feet long, and she has carried 250 passengers and 2500 bales of cotton, besides miscellaneous cargo. The lines of these boats can be procured; there are men in Australia who can build them; and if our timber is too heavy for their construction, there would be no difficulty in obtaining iron suitable for the purpose. In fact, river vessels of 200 tons burthen can be built with a draught, when the cargo is all on board, not to exceed eighteen inches. The little boat now at Wagga Wagga, I am informed -- I do not know how correctly-draws seven feet. Men who are conversant with both streams have declared that the Murrumbidgee is incomparably a finer river than the Upper Ohio, in the course of which many rapids and shoals occur, having a less depth of water than two feet between Cincinnatti and Pitsburgh. The Murray is said also to be infinitely superior to the Missouri with its boiling current, shallows, snags, and shifting sand banks. Amongst the boats trading on this river may be named the St.Louis, 330 feet in length, carrying a cargo of 2500 bales, with a draught of three feet six inches; the Missouri, length 300 feet, cargo 3000 bales, with a draught of three feet five inches; and the little clipper Petona, length 280 feet, cargo 1800 bales, draught three feet, with a speed of eighteen knots an hour against stream. All these boats carry an additional burthen of from forty to fifty tons of firewood and miscellaneous cargo, together with a host of passengers, and the splendour of their accommodations are not surpassed by any class of vessels afloat. The day is not far distant when it will be no longer urged against New South Wales that she has no navigable rivers. The streams are there rolling on through unpeopled solitudes towards the ocean, but where is the spirit and enterprise necessary to turn them to account ! The road from Burrowa to Murrumboolla, thirty odd miles, is like a bowling green, and from thence to Wagga Wagga it is equally unexceptionable; a branch road could also be constructed to Gundagai from Murrimboolla, over a splendid series of declining plains, avoiding the frightful ranges, swamps, and mud holes in the vicinity of Jugiong. But of that district I will say more in my next, as we will return to Galong, and start from thence to Gundagai and the Adelong.