Australian Items.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 769, 14 March 1870, Page 3

Australian Items.

The Melbourne Age sayß: —"The Northern part of the Colony is in a deplorable condition, An up country paper reports J that the ground is as bare of grass as a ■well trodden highway, and it is difficult to believe that on the bare earth now lying heated and perfeetly*grassless beneath the sun, flocks of sheep have been bred and fattened. Thousands have been killed for the sake of what little they might yield through the nrelting pot, while the youngest and strongest are sent off to travel and ob tain that support on the lower runs which is absolutely impossible to get where they now are. Not only sheep but all descriptions of wild animals and game have left the place for lands where there is still some pasture. It is feared that many of the squatters who hold interests in the districts referred to will be heavy losers." The Melbourne Age says that a wellknown M.L.A. propounds a scheme by which all the machinery of immigration agents and lecturers might be dispensed with. His plan is to off ;r to any company that may be formed for the purpose of starting a line of steamers via the Cape of Good Hope, the sum of £lO per head for every adult landed in the Colony who had not been previously here. Of course all such immigrants to be approved of by the Agent-General. In this way the company would be turned into a vast immigration agency. There is not a village or hamlet in Great Britain in which an offer to convey passengers to Australia for £5 would not find its way. Every newspaper throughout the whole kingdom, would become a canvasser for immigrants. Possibly a contract sum might be taken less than £ls per passage. In this case, the sum to be paid per head by the Colony, and that by the passenger, would be reduced ii) proportion.