THE Grey River Argus. SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1868.

Grey River Argus, Volume V, Issue 341, 21 March 1868, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1868.

There can be now no hesitation whatever in declaring the Maryborough bubble to have burst, There is too much testimony from a great variety of sources any longer to doubt that the rush has proved a complete failure, so far as providing employment for any considerable number of men is • concerned, Hitherto we have contented ourselves with giving our readers such information regarding the Queensland diggings as was at our disposal, and have abstained from unfavorable comments which might, perhaps, have been regarded by our mining readers as being dictated simply by a wish to retain the diggers in the district. Now, however, there is such an amount of concurrent and confirmatory evidence that we are | justified in expressing opinions on something like a solid foundation. With the I solitary exception of the telegrams from Maryborough, published in the Sydney I and Melbourne papers, all the intelligence brought by the last mail is of the same unfavorable nature, and tells the tale of disappointment and distress. Letters from miners are published in various Australian papers including those of Queensland which are out of the influence of the diggings, all complaining that the available ground at Maryborough was very limited, that the country all round had been thoroughly prospected, but that nothing had been found capable of affording support to the thousands of men who had arrived. Similar letters have been received on the "West Coast of the same purport, and there has been besides the published testimony of intelligent practical miners who had spent months on the ground, and returned fully satisfied that Queenslaud was no place for them, and was not to be compared to New Zealand. And yet strangely enough the exodus of miners from the coast has gone on, and a few hundred more victims, we suppose, must be sacrificed before the excitement will cease, To-day we publish what may be considered the latest reliable intelligence from Queensland, and we seriously advise our mining friends to read it Avith attention, and then let them ask themselves if they are justified in leaving certain employment here for a district from which those who have already gone there are hurrying away. The loss which the miners have sus tamed, who have found their visit to Queensland a fruitless one is very great. Many of them left pa}', able claims on the West Coast; they have had to pay £12 or £15 each for passage money to and fro, and they have lost the rewards of two or three months labor. We would again "rge those who have been smitten with the Queensland fever to remain con teudeb where they are. There could not well bo a more unfavorable place for a large rush of mining population thau Queensland. If the diggings do not afford full employment, there is absolutely no resource for the unemployed. Queenslaud has suffered very severeiy under the general financial depression of the [ colonies ; her immigration has been over- | done, and the condition of the working classes, even before the Gympie Creek rush, was probably worse than that of the inhabitants of any other colony. The large public works which for some time afforded employment have either | been completed or have been suspended for want of means to carry them on. The labor market was overstocked before the Maryborough diggings broke out, but what must it be now ] There is no disguising the fact that unless an average amount of gold be got, the large population now congregated in the vieiuity of the Mary lliver must either leave the colony or seek the chance of an existence on the numerous scattered small diggings in Queensland and NewSouth Wales, Then again the climate ; is a great drawback to the place, and is especially distressing to those, who have become inured to the bracing healthy atmosphere of New Zealand. A returned digger the other aay made a very expressive remark : speaking of his satisfaction at having got back again, he said — " Theres one thing about New Zealand, a feller can always eat his tucker comfortably, but I'm hanged if he can in Queensland." When every circumstance is taken into consideration, we think that in the face of recent

information, and the many confirmatory statements made by diggers who have been on the ground, the man who would leave the West Coast in the expectation of finding a more remunerative field in Queensland must be something worse than foolish, and would deserve to suffer the consequences of his indiscretion.