But whatever I owed to Nature, I owed also something to Fortune. I bought my sheep at little more than 7s. each. When I left, none were worth less than 15s., and the fat sheep were worth L1. (4) I had an excellent shepherd, and my whole care, night and day, was the improvement of the flock. I was fortunate, too, in entering Australia before the system miscalled “The Wakefield” (5) had diminished the supply of labor and raised the price of land. When the change came (like most of those with large allotments and surplus capital), it greatly increased the value of my own property, though at the cost of a terrible blow on the general interests of the colony. I was lucky, too, in the additional venture of a cattle-station, and in the breed of horses and herds, which, in the five years devoted to that branch establishment, trebled the sum invested therein, exclusive of the advantageous sale of the station. (6) I was lucky, also, as I have stated, in the purchase and resale of lands, at Uncle Jack’s recommendation. And, lastly, I left in time, and escaped a very disastrous crisis in colonial affairs, which I take the liberty of attributing entirely to the mischievous crotchets of theorists at home who want to set all clocks by Greenwich time, forgetting that it is morning in one part of the world at the time they are tolling the curfew in the other.
(1) Cowley: Ode to Light.
(2) Cowley on Town and Country. (Discourse on Agriculture.)
(3) How true are the following remarks:—
Action is the first great requisite of a colonist (that is, a pastoral or agricultural settler). With a young man, the tone of his mind is more important than his previous pursuits. I have known men of an active, energetic, contented disposition, with a good flow of animal spirits, who had been bred in luxury and refinement, succeed better than men bred as farmers who were always hankering after bread and beer, and market ordinaries of Old England... To be dreaming when you should be looking after your cattle is a terrible drawback... There are certain persons who, too lazy and too extravagant to succeed in Europe, sail for Australia under the idea that fortunes are to be made there by a sort of legerdemain, spend or lose their capital in a very short space of time, and return to England to abuse the place, the people, and everything connected with colonization.—Sydney. Australian Handbook (admirable for its wisdom and compactness).
(4) Lest this seem an exaggeration, I venture to annex an extract from a manuscript letter to the author from Mr. George Blakeston Wilkinson, author of “South Australia”—
“I will instance the case of one person who had been a farmer in England, and emigrated with about L2,000 about seven years since. On his arrival he found that the prices of sheep had fallen from about 30s. to 5s. or 6s. per head, and he bought some well-bred flocks at these prices. He was fortunate in obtaining a good and extensive run, and he devoted the whole of his time to improving his flocks, and encouraged his shepherds by rewards; so that in about four years his original number of sheep had increased from twenty-five hundred (which cost him L700) to seven thousand; and the breed and wool were also so much improved that he could obtain L1 per head for two thousand fat sheep, and 15s. per head for the other five thousand,—and this at a time when the general price of sheep was from 10s. to 16s. This alone increased his original capital, invested in sheep, from L700 to L5,700. The profits from the wool paid the whole of his expenses and wages for his men.”
(5) I felt sure from the first that the system called “The Wakefield” could never fairly represent the ideas of Mr. Wakefield himself, whose singular breadth of understanding and various knowledge of mankind belied the notion that fathered on him the clumsy execution of a theory wholly inapplicable to a social state like Australia. I am glad to see that he has vindicated himself from the discreditable paternity. But I grieve to find that he still clings to one cardinal error of the system, in the discouragement of small holdings, and that he evades, more ingeniously than ingenuously, the important question: “What should be the minimum price of land?”
(6) The profits of cattle-farming are smaller than those of the sheep-owner (if the latter have good luck; for much depends upon that), but cattle-farming is much more safe as a speculation, and less care, knowledge, and management are required. L2,000 laid out on seven hundred head of cattle, if good runs be procured, might increase the capital in five years from L2,000 to L6,000, besides enabling the owner to maintain himself, pay wages, etc.—Manuscript letter from G. B. Wilkinson.