Failing the hope of efficient Government aid to the growth of the Australian colonies—as we think it will fail—those colonies have within their reach the means of aiding themselves in one vitally important matter—the securing of a larger supply of labour. The funds accruing from the sale of lands in the colony have, for some years past, been devoted to the purpose of assisting the emigration of useful classes of labourers—principally agricultural—to the various colonies; the business being managed in this country by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners. Of course, a crotchety management was to be anticipated from such a body, composed of parties utterly unversed in the business. We believe it will be found by the colonists that the management has not only been crotchety, but extravagantly expensive, and even destructive of the lives of the intending emigrants. A few extracts from the Report of the Committee (1853) to the Colonial Secretary will be sufficiently intelligible as to the inefficient working of the present system. In the first place, it will be made clear that a great public office, with already a multiplicity of business to conduct, is incompetent, from its very composition, of carrying on a trade in which they have to compete with experienced private firms. After mentioning the utter failure of an experiment made by them of sending out a large number of Highland emigrants on board H.M.S. the “Hercules,” which was proceeding to Hong-Kong as an hospital-ship, and was offered them by the Admiralty for the purpose, the Commissioners report:—