PORT PHILLIP.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 582, 1 March 1851, Page 2

PORT PHILLIP.

Melting Moments. —Thursday was J most oppressively hot day we have had due the present summer; rump steaks might hi been grilled on the flagging in Collins stre* and would have required sharp turning to ptt vent them from being done “ brown.” loti shade at noon the thermometer was 105, as at two o’clock 108. — Daily News, Jan. 3, A public meeting had been held in Mel hourne to consider the advisability of ftartiot a company to form a ship canal from Mel bourne to the beach, It appears that atpresent all goods imported into Melbourne are transhipped from the vessels into which proceed with them up the Yarn u Melbourne; the navigation of the Yanai circuitous, and obstructed by three bars; th lighter system is therefore tedious and costly but an additional evil is that thegoodsK only suffer injury by transhipment, but lb a system of peculation is practised, wbid causes every large importing house conside able loss. The direct distance from Melboun to the beach is only 2| miles, and the inis vening ground is level swamp, the desca from Melbourne being estimated at only If or three feet. Three projects are namef remedy these evils—to improve the navigiE of the Yarra ; to cut a ship canal through swamp to Melbourne ; and to erect ata pier or jetty at the beach, running a railr| or good macadamised road from thence t Melbourne; a fourth plan was named meeting, to cut a ship canal across a neck | land on the Yarra, thus avoiding twooc'J the three bars. The meeting decided l| the ship canal from the beach was the advisable plan, and that the best waytoefl it was for the Government to introduce a®4 ure creating a public trust for the purpostj Edward's River,—l have already if vised you ol the scarcity of feed and mi for flocks and herds, unwonted, at this 6ei| of the year, in this district. On some ofij vast plains there is scarcely a blade of m carrier has just come here (at the-I' 5 ! where I write) with three loaded drays ij teams. In crossing the plain (35 miles)| tween the Murrutnbidgee and the Mouleuj two of his bullocks dropped down from| haustion, want of water and pasturage-, I had to leave them there to perish ; he W. leave another bullock on the plain the Nyang (the Bank Company’s station)*! this place. Here (around the Sir Inn) there is abundance of fine feed, aon carriers, as they come, give their bullo«j| “spell” for a few days, to get theming tion for the remainder of their journey metropolis of Victoria. It is a rerotfh iact tnat there has been since the rigine can remember, an annual flood 0 *• River Edward at this season of the y ear ',J that the creeks and lagoons, which are Hg taries to it, were filled for the summer’ 6 ”] but, inis year, there has been no of the waters; many of the lagoons and the creeks are but scantily suppi* e °* only feed for the sheep, in manyjDBi B P ce 'j from the young shoots of the sm®’ I bushes, which flourish even in 86ftS01i 1 drought,— Argus correspondent, 1 ‘ 't On the 16th a meeting of the errnd |.; c ii| | migration Committee was hold, at J

appeared by the production of correspondence between Mr-. Westgarth and the government, that the colonial government has paid only £77 10s. as bountie» on the passage of the German immigrants to Port Phillip, instead of £lOOO ; the sum originally sanctioned by Earl Grey ; that the sum of £l2OO was still due to Messrs. Godeffroy, of Hamburgh, for passage money of the German immigrants by the first three ships; and that Mr. Westgarth bad made repeated ineffectual attempts to induce the colonial government to pay the balance of the bounty, while Mr. Delins had made unsuccessful applications on the same subject to the home government. The refusal of the government to pay any more of these bounties was founded mainly on two reasons : that a full list and description of the immigrants had not been submitted to the Emigration Commissioners before they sailed, and in time for the Commissioners to signify or withhold their approval ; and that a very i large proportion of the emigrants were descri- ; bed as “ artizans,” and were therefore ineligible for bounty. The committee gave Mr. ' Westgarth a vote of thanks, and regretted |the ill-success that had attended his efforts to Iprocurc payment of the bounties.