The Evening Star TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 3030, 5 November 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1872.

When party polities run high : when passion, roused by opposition, enters into the discussion of measures professedly intended for the public good, much that would conduce to it is lost sight of. Not only is party spirit rampant in the House, but in the country, and in the excitement of theoretic politics, that which is possible and practical is often lost sight of. We are inclined to think the true functions of Governments remain to be developed. They have hitherto been made too much mere steppingstones for “ vaulting ambition” to take its spring from, and interested men have industriously 7 endeavored, for their own purposes, to limit their sphere of operations to little beyond law and police, under cover of the specious theory that private enterprise is equal to providing all appliances for industrial development when they are needed. We need not at present cite cases in which this theory is notoriously disproved, although history and experience contradict it every day. The absence of a system of thorough investigation by which inquirers after investments would be able to acquire correct and reliable information is one of the consequences of this ill-considered theory j and were they traced through their various ramifications. the waste of energy, loss of capital, and misdirected industry to which they have led, would be startling. For n, time party strife is over, and though it will not do to close our eyes to passing events, breathing time is afforded ; we can look around us and ascertain in what direction our line of progress lies. Latterly we have endeavored to direct attention to the advisability of developing our coalfields. Co-operation in this direction seems to us likely to be the best investment that can be made for the Province ; but in order to render this safe, we should recommend that their value should be tested by the Government. This course would give confidence to capitalists or companies, which would be easily formed in small shares, were there sufficiently reliable data to justify taking them up. Without this reliable data, there is so much risk of deception for mere private profit or through the sanguine representations of partially educated prospectors, that few persons like to enter into enterprises, the management of which is beyond their control, and without the limits of their experience. To test the value of a coalfield is a heavy expense to a company, but it is necessary before large outlay would be justifiable. Spread over the whole population, it would be an expense individually unfelt, and, compared with the advantage of developing a new industry that would raise the Province to a high degree of prosperity, it would he as a drop in a bucket of water. We have already felt the inconvenience of dependence upon coal mines fifteen hundred miles away, and even for our own home consumption, for the successful development of iron works and every species of manufacture, it is advisable that the true value of our coalfields should be known. But a wide market is open to us. We have often pointed out that Victoria alone could absorb any quantity that could be raised for many years to come, if supplied at reasonable prices. A cry has come across the water, confirming what we have pointed out. A new journal, Town and Country , places it thus forcibly before us The major portion, both of rough and line work, is now almost wholly monopolised by England and Belgium. The productive capacities of those two" countries have stimulated, as it were, the energies of the inhabitants, and therefore, to a very great extent, the whole of the iron and similar branches of trade have fallen into their hands. There can he no doubt that this result has been greatly induced by the facilities and cheapness of production, the possession of the one great necessary coal. If the dream that Yictorfa is to become, sooner or later, the great manufacturing centre of the .Southern Continent is to be realised, the necessity of proving whether we possess one of the most important conditions for success is urgent. The discovery of coal-fields would in reality act more beneficially on our future than that of a gold-field as rich as Ballarat in its palmiest days ; for the former would at once place us in a position to utilise the recent mineral discoveries made in other portions of our continent, whilst the establishment of smelting and iron work's would offer a large field of employment for our rising population. It might ho urged that the difference in the rate of wages existing here and in Europe, would prevent our competing successfully with the older countries without resorting to extreme protective measures, A careful study of the actual state of this trade, and its future prospects, will, however, if not convince, at least suggest that if wo possessed, near at hand, the requirements necessary, we would have little to fear from their underselling us in our own markets. In Europe, within the last twelve months, the cost of production in the iron trades, owing to the increase of wages aucl the price of cpal, has advanced quite per

cent., and if the latest trustworthy advices from the English metal market can be taken as an index of what maybe expected in the future, there appears to bo every probability of the 25 per cent, becoming 50. Under these circumstances it behoves us to be looking around us to sec how we are to use this change of affairs to our own interest. Of the raw material there can bo no lack. Tasmania is rich in iron stone, the most recent samples forwarded to this market will give something between 75 ami 80 per cent, of pure metal; whilst the dailry reports from Queensland show that our resources of tin and copper arc being largely developed. To utilise these discoveries, and to turn them to the permanent advantage of the whole of Australia, is worthy the attention of any Government. The present have the opportunity of initiating the movement, either by offering a large reward for the discovery of coal, or of appointing a thoroughly competent staff of geologists, to examine and fully determine as to the value of the coal formations in .South Gipps Land. If the information we have received is correct, and the natural formation of the country warrants some belief in it, there exists in the near vicinity of Welshpool coal deposits of no ordinary extent. To test the truth of these statements may require the outlay of more money than private speculators may care to risk, but with such an object as has been previously referred to, the voice of the country would, we assume, heartily support any Government who would take the necessary steps to initiate such an examination. Surely if England has not deemed it a waste of money to attempt to gauge the quantity still remaining to her ol this valuable commodity, no justification would be required for the expenditure of any reasonable sum in ascertaining whether wo have it not within our own boundaries. The writer does not seem to be aware that twelve years ago those fields about Welshpool were tested by the Government, and though rich enough, the cost of working them would be too great, as the dip, as ascertained by Mr Selwyn, is under Bass’s Straits,