AUSTRALIA'S GOLD ROMANCE

Grey River Argus, 15 April 1911, Page 2

AUSTRALIA'S GOLD ROMANCE

If the ordinary person were told that £520,000,000 worth of gold had been won from Australia during- the last sixty years he probably would' be Surprised. But this is the latest official estimate. It is not yet a hundred years ■ since the precious metal was first discovered in Australia. I.n 1823 a New South Wales surveyor named M'>Brien found gold near Bathurst, ibut no steps were talfcenf tSdj work the ground. In 1839 Count Stezelcki, the Polish explorer, reported a discovery of g-old to the Governor, but at his Excellency's request it was kept quiet, as it was feared in official circles that economic conditions in the young colony might be disturbed by a gold rush. The fear seems to have 'been well founded, for when, in 1851 Mr Hargreaves, a squatter with Californian experience, found a rich deposit of the precious metal in Bathurst, there was a rush that brought the commercial industries of the colony to a standstill. Within a year of Hargreaves's discovery £2,660,946 worth of gold was secured in New South Wales. Almost simultaneously .the fabulously lich auriferous fields of Victoria were discovered and half a million sterling was won from them in the first six months. Then the tig nuggets began, to be turned up, and a rush' set in from all parts of the world, busi-ness-in Sydney a_nd Melbourne was almost stopped, for everybody, from professional men to their office ,boys sought the goldfields. The excuement can be . imagined when it was reported to the civilised world that in a country unknown .as a produc- r ol precious metals'. in. .1850, gold *o ■the value of ; £13,000,000 ' was won in 1856. Tn" 1850 the population of Australia was 405,000, but in 1860 it was i.145,000. It was long after thy; of course, that West Australia leapel suddenly into fame as a gold-produc-ing country, and although it has rot had the experience of ■ unearthing sensational nuggets, it is interesting to know that its gold production has averaged from the years "l9ol to 1909 nearly eight millions per ainn^n. There is still the north of this maivellous gold-producing country to exploit, and the Commonwealth Government, which has recently "-.afcea over the . administration of the Northern Territory, is contemplating" sending a scientific commission of • experst to explore this territory It is almost certain that the Commoiwealth should have an initial int^r ;?t in any wealth that the Territory may possess