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Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 425, 22 May 1871, Page 2

THE MORMONS IN" AUSTRALIA. [FfiOM TIIE " MELBOUBNE DAILY TELEGKRAPH."] Brigham Young, we have been told, is casting sheep'a-eyes upon Central Australia as a possible future abode for the Saints when G-entile persecution shall have rendered the Salt Lake district as unendurable as Zion (Jackson's" county) and Nauvoo. Stuart's desert, however, is scarcely likely ever to welcome the energetic apostle, nor will the women of his harem hang up their harps on the wattles of Cooper's Creek. We are tolerably cosmopolitan, only it is necessary to .draw the line somewhere, and there would be conclusive reasons for drawing it at Mr. Young, were the rumour anything more than a joke. Our objection to receiving him and his brethren will be easily stated. It is exactly opposite bo that which has made us put an embargo on the Chinese. Our celestial brothers bring too few women with them to share their huts and ameliorate their lot, and Mr. Youug and his friends would bring too many. Only it may be pointed out tkat if that impossible exodus were possible, it would have its compensations ; we could learn some practical lessons from the Moi-mons. What travellers to the Salt Lake dwell upon is not the peculiar institution of that singular people, but their astonishing success in subduing the wilderness. TheSainis have preserved one of the arts of the heroic age, which we seem to have lost namely, that of " planting" new countries. Wherever they have settled they have transformed the desert into farms, cultivations, and irrigated allotments, capable of supporting large and contented populations. They have ho overgrown cities, absorbing the life of the nation—playing the part allotted in fables to the vampire bat. Where we have one man settled on the soil] the Mormons have ten ; and while the real colonist, who comes to build a home for himself and his children, content to leave an inheritance and not a fortune, is the rare exception in Australia, he is the common rule in Utah. Altogether we should really be disposed ;to welcome the brotherhood here right heartily if they would forget their " amiable weakness," as Mr. Weller would term it—leave behind their Mormonism, and bring their colonising instincts.