From this it
will be seen that more than half of the entire population is within
twenty miles of Melbourne, a third of the residue within fifteen miles
of Geelong, and the remainder scattered, including the 1200
squatting-stations, over a very extensive country. These towns are
not, in my opinion, a natural growth, but have been forced into their
present magnitude from the difficulties in obtaining land at a price
to make up for the utter want of every convenience, a want arising
from the total absence of any effort on the part of the government
hitherto to make even one great trunk-road through the colony.
Facilities for internal communication would cause towns to increase
naturally. Now, people arrive with glowing ideas of the beauty and
fertility of the country, and finding everything difficult of access
there, betake themselves to shopkeeping, forcing up rents to an
exorbitant sum, and losing their little capital. I think my opinion
borne out by the fact, that the country population of Grant County was
1959 in 1846, and 4469 in 1851; Geelong in 1846 had 1911, and in 1851,
8000--the town population more than quadrupling itself in the last
five years, the county increasing only 2510.
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