SQUATTING VERSUS AGRICULTURAL SETTLEMENT.

Colonist, Volume XVI, Issue 1657, 5 August 1873, Page 4

SQUATTING VERSUS AGRICULTURAL SETTLEMENT.

The recent census returns of South Australia furnish some figures which sKbw in a very marked manner how much more advantageous to the community is agricultural settlement as compared, with pastoral occupation. The squatters in that Colony are, in round numbers, about 400— that is, they are set'down as 401 in the year 1861, and 399 in .18.71. At the former period they had in their employment 3493 persons, and in the latter 2511. The labor employed by them is thus seen to be on the decrease, Imng 35 per cent., less in 1871 tban in 1861. Following out the comparison of the two decennial periods, we fiad that the export of wool was in 1861 of the value of £623,007, and in 1871 £1,170,885 : increase, £517,878, or 80 per cent. The land occupied in 1871 was 42,240,000 acres, at a rent of 34,560,000 farthings, or about five acres for one penny. Th© export of wool in the ten years (1861-71) was valued at £8,607,957, and the number of sheep had» increased from 3,038,356 to 4,412,055. With respect to the agriculturalists and their families, their numbers rose from 7242 individuals in 1861 to 8775 in 1871, the laborers and servants employed being 11,078 at the former, and 11,458 at the latter period; The land under cultivation, which in 1861 numbered 486,667 acres, had in 1871 been extended to 959,000 acres. The corn and breadstuff's raised for exportation by the farmers and their laborers from this acreage area during the ten years in question were of the value of £8,398,367, or within £209,590 of the value of the squatters' wool exported during the same term. The returns for 1872, the period that has elapsed since the date of the census, show like results, viz., value of export of woolin 1872, £1,647,387; and of corn and breadstuff's, £1,253,429— * difference, £393,958. From these figures it is Been, that 42 millions of acres of land devoted to pastqral purposes add to the produce and wealth of the eountrj little more than one million of acres devoted to agriculture. Further, it is seen that 400 resident and absentee squatters who employ only 2511 gervaata. and laborers derite from tta* tempowj pMtoml tewuwj o! tU

Crown lands an income in excess of that accruing to the 8775 freehold agriculturists, who employ 11,458 servants. It is unnecessary to do more than point to these figures to show the suicidal policy of the Colony in encouraging the squatting system, whilst doing little or nothing to promote agricultural settlement, and the increase of a. resident tax-paying yeoman population.— The Age.