Note 154 — Chapter X

In these matters it is impossible to get at truth. Each man judges upon certain data, but though the conclusion of each may be correct, yet because the data were partial and imperfect, so likewise will the conclusions be. Mr. Mann, who was examined by the Committee upon South Australia, gives it as his opinion that about four-fifths of the land in that colony were bad. However, he had never been more than three weeks in it nor above fourteen miles from its chief town, so his judgment was formed principally upon hearsay. Others, probably, have gone into the contrary extreme of praising the soil too highly, and truth may, as usual, lie between the two extremes.