The Globe. MONDAY, APRIL 24, 1876.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 576, 24 April 1876, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, APRIL 24, 1876.

We publish elsewhere a telegram from the Chief Secretary of Queensland with reference to the newly discovered goldfield in the northern portion of that colony. He states that reliable information has been received that ! Mulligan’s rush is a total failure, and that eicht hundred men have returned ,to Cooktown in groats distress, Mr

Macalaster begs the Government of this colony to give people warning of the folly of joining in this rush, and of the distress which will await them should they insist on going. We are afraid, however, that this information has arrived too late to prevent many people from leaving our shores. Already a considerable number have taken their departure from the various ports of the colony to this supposed new B 1 Dorado, and many more are preparing to follow. Wo do not suppose that the warning which has just been given will be sufficient to deter them from making the attempt. There is always a certain element in the population of all these colonies which cannot be fixed to any one locality. There are certain men whose lives are spent in moving from district to district, and colony to colony. The love of change has become so thoroughly a part of their nature that they are prepared to give up a certainty on the smallest pretext in favour of the exaggerated expectations of a distant rush. Those men, therefore, we do not hope to influence. But there are others, totally unacquainted with the mode of life, hardships, and many dangers attending a rush to such a country as Northern Queensland, who might have been tempted to try their fortune in this region of golden yidons, who may take naming by the telegram of the Chief Secretary of Queensland. It is plain that the people of that colony view with considerable alarm, the project of a great rush from the other colonies. It is plain that our neighbours in Queensland are of opinion that a rush such as they anticipated would be attended with serious dangers to that country. Were they of opinion that the population thus attracted to their shores could be absorbed in the ordinary manner, they are scarcely likely to warn people from going. They have been, like New Zealand, spending large sums in immigration, and it is not probable, therefore, that they would take steps to prevent population reaching them, at no cost whatever to the Government. They must be convinced that poverty and starvation awaits those who are rushing to the new field, and so they have adopted measures for giving warning to those meditating a visit. The Queensland papers during the last few weeks have been writing in the same tone. The Brisbane Courier, in an article on the subject, points out that Mr Mulligan’s description of the field is not such as to justify the great expectations which have been formed of it, and then goes on to say that even were the field as rich as it is painted, it would bo folly on the part of those at a distance to rush the field. There were, our contemporary says, at the time of the last published official report from the Warden, 7000 Chinese and 2500 Europeans on the Palmer goldfield, and many more of the former have since arrived; and if the new discovery were merely as described by Mr Mulligan, it would be rushed by those diggers and overdone, and half the rushers back at their old workings, before any vessel from the South or even Brisbane could reach Cooktown. With such a prospect therefore staring them in the face, we hope none in this province will be induced to change the comforts of a settled home and good wages for the dangers and miseries of that distant field.