as the market would be spoiled for the sale of their building lots, but
they would be rightly served for asking a monopoly price to respectable
new-comers, who ought to be enabled to obtain a town allotment for a
trifle of the Government.
In New South Wales they are sold by auction as applied for, and put up
at 20_s._ each, at which price they are generally knocked down; but with
a view to prevent any monopolizer buying them up, to the injury of the
_bona fide_ settler, every purchaser must sign a bond to the Government
in a penalty of £20, that he will build a house on the allotment, of a
certain value, within three years, or otherwise the land reverts
absolutely to the Crown, and the penalty is enforced too. This is as it
should be, and the evil working of the old system ought to have been
forseen, but at South Australia the Commissioners and Survey Department
disdained to copy anything from such a colony as Sydney and made the old
saying good about advice, that those who want it most like it least. Now
the late Governor, Captain Hindmarsh, was quite the opposite of this,
and was most diligent in seeking out the best way of doing everything,
and was not above learning even from those ignorant neighbours, New
South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. Here is a proof.
(Copy)
"Government House, _25th April, 1838._
"The Council being about to meet this morning to discuss a subject with
which Mr. Horton James is particularly well acquainted; the Governor
will thank Mr. James, if he would do him the favour to attend the
Council this morning about half-past nine o'clock, to give the Council
his opinion on the subject.
"T.H. JAMES, ESQ., Adelaide."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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