THE DROUGHT IN AUSTRALIA.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 78, 25 December 1862, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE DROUGHT IN AUSTRALIA.

(From the Sydney Morning Herald, Norr. 13.) The drought of this year recalls some of the most distressing periods of our history. More than twenty years ago the visitation of a similar calamity, though of much more severity, plunged the colony into distress, and greatly exhausted the’ means of all classes. At that time the interior displayed ah aspect of desolation which almost equalled the descriptions ot Eastern drought. The ground became bare, the grass dried up at the roots, and the cattle perished by thousands. We hear that already this disaster is to some extent repeated, and that as many as forty head of cattle have been lost by single farmers in the county of Cumberland. Up to a certain point it is possible to avert this total loss, but a long continuance of drought starves the poor animals for want of grass and poisons them by putrid water. We have happily had many years free from such visitation, and few probably recollect what it was , how full of alarm and suffering, how fraught with commercial disaster; for all interests suffer with the distress of one. We pity the poor deluded people who have gone on their selected land, without capital and credit—without the power to wait for a crop, which in many instances will be hardly worth reaping. It is not a time for reproaches, but it is a time for instruction, and we fear we are destined to learn, at much co3t » what political economy might have taught us, that with cottage farmers the alternative of a crop is starvation. Capital, wherever it is neither privileged nor persecuted, is the great benefactor, for if it prevents wasteful consumption in abundant years, it at least intercepts the approach of destitution. The farmers are not, however, the only sufferers. The squatting interest will be much depressed in this arid zone. Ihey have incurred great obligations and are subject to heavy charges, and the drought is to many sanguine persons like a fiat in bankruptcy. Ihe fact is, the great prosperity of past years has blinded the eyes of many to the hazard of this calling. We greatly regret to hear of the severityof this calamity in Queensland. Had a year or two of success crowuied this colonising movement, Queensland would have escaped the great danger of all rapidly developed settlements ; but the check of a long drought will be incalculable. The newly-arrived immigrants are naturally much discouraged. But we hope they will find real friends, who wdll assist them over their difficulties, with the assurance that, notwithstanding the privations of an exceptional season, they have a noble inheritance. The vast tract over wdiich they may find employment, will prevent very great or lasting suffering, although it is probable that, coming at this time, they may endure much inconvenience and disappointment. It is, indeed, a great trial of patience to enter a new country as a stranger when the heaven is as brass and the earth as iron ; when the heat doubles the burden of toil ; when the long-desired produce of the kitchen garden is to be seen only in a few bitter cabbages and demoralised potatoes ; when with effrontery unspeakable, the purchaser of a decaying bunch of asparagus is asked half-a-crowm. We have seen such times, and hope we shall never see them again. After all, commerce has done something for us. The colonies are not all equally unfortunate, or so at once. When the last drought happened, flour was in this colony A‘Bo a ton. Thus whatever little advantage was gained by the few farmers, the whole community, including the pastoral interest, suffered much loss by the extreme cost oi subsistence. A laborer might earn five shillings a day, but if he had a family to keep, his bread w'ould take the greater part of his wages, and his rent would swallow up the rest. Fortunes were made, and we may add many were lost, but the poor were pinched severely, for here as elsewhere, cheap bread is the great blessing of the poor. The Australian colonies now extend over degrees of latitude which authorise the hope that no dearth will henceforth ever be general, and our commerce is now sufficiently established to prevent the monopoly of food. It used to be the theory that we have in Australia certain cycles wdiich bring on the colony a season of drought. It is, however, to be recollected that we have not seen this theory illustrated since colonisation extended to new regions. Sir Thomas Brisbane, when he propounded this notion, knew little more than the strip of sea coast—we have an interior and other colonies which evidently are not always subject to the same atmospheric changes. The arrival of rain will of course be too late to revive crops which have long lacked necessary moisture, but it would soon revive the earth and restore the cattle.