SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 67, 17 April 1852, Page 7

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

We have news from this Colony by the Van Diemen's Land papers, up to the 2nd March. The Victoria gold mania continued to draw off vast numbers to the diggings.

The Legislative Council had met to consider the' currency question, and had passed an act, whereby £3 11s. per oz. is provided to be given for all gold brought to the colony of South

Australia

Considerable reduction has taken place in the police force of the colony, by dismissing many constables, and by the resignation of

others,

The statements hitherto made of gold having been discovered in the province have received an official contradiction, and they are now regarded as nothing but a hoax. Numerous parties are still continuing the search.

The government appeared to be much embarrassed in its proceedings, and retrenchment in every department is the order of the day.

The whole staff of letter carriers for North and South Adelaide, had received notice that their services were no longer required, as the Government had determined to discontinue the out-door delivery of letters and newspapers. Dr. Wyatt, the Inspector of schools, had received intimation from the government that in consequence of the state of the revenue, his further services were not required.

The Mechanics Institution at the port had

closed, and to crown all, the natives in the Northern part of the colony were beginning to be troublesome. " The Surveyor General has left Adelaide with a part^ of Sappers and Miners for the purpose of surveying the overland route to Mount •^Alexander. 1 An extensive emigration to the diggings at Victoria is draining the province of a valuable portion of the population. The total number of departures, after deducting the arrivals, was in the last three months 4849. Many laborers from the mines are also leaving. The Adelaide Times of the 24th Jan., says : —Never was colony afflicted with a Governor so thoroughly imbecile, and unequal to a pressing emergency, as Sir Henry Young. The colony is smitten with a great commercial crisis, which threatens to eugulph the whole of its population in bankruptcy and ruin, and

Sir H. Young relieves himself of all thoughts of this by training his poodle to the water on the beach at Glenelg. This, at all events, was Sir Henry's first mode of dealing with the matter, but when further pressed upon by the private appeals, and public memorials of the colonists, he treats these appeals and memorials in a way bordering on contempt. His first essay of this kind was to laugh at the idea of the commercial interest of the colony being destroyed, and to tell his informant, that if that was the case, another would be created. On the contents of either we dare not trust ourselves to enter, but we leave them to speak for themselves. Bating the ridiculous and offensive parts of them, they are sorry attempts to talk the people into notions of political economy, when they want something to interpose between them and the Insolvent Court, or even to put a loaf in their mouths.

But the worst part of the Governor's conduct is his treatment of the memorial of the Chamber of Commerce, which he has now had in his hands nearly a week, and to which he has not yet condescended to give any reply at all. This calls for instant action on the part of the colonists, and they will be highly reprehensible if they abstain from it. We would not absolutely mcb Sir Henry Young, but we would have a Committee of public safety at once formed, and we would show him that what the colonists wish, that they intend to have done. Let a meeting be called to organise such a body at the Exchange to-day, and greatly as Adelaide is deserted, we will undertake to say that it will be densely crowded, and that the language it holds out will be altogether unmistakeable.

No time, we tell the colonists again, is to be lost. Every day adds to the stoppages of payment in Adelaide, and what, if this is persisted in, and one or more of the banks should close, would come next ? At present, we have no serious apprehensions of this latter, but who would undertake to say what would be the consequence, if we have a repetition of two or three weeks similar to the last, without any Government interference ? Sir Henry Young must be roused from his inaction, and if it cannot be without a Committee of Public Safety, it must be with it, and that, too, without any further delay. SWAN RIVER. The Melbourne Argus of the sth of Feb., gives the following news from Perth up to the 21st November. The question of convict expenditure was daily becoming more exciting. The inhabitants begin to find that instead of the Commissariat expenditure which was to be so beneficial, the charges of the convict department were being gradually transferred to the colonial revenue. In the latest papers before us we find the following complaint:—" The despatch from Earl Grey, intimating a probability that after two years, the expence of the mounted police will be chargeable upon the colonial revenue is another proof of how little dependence is to be placed in the promises of the home government. Here is a force to be established solely for the purpose of keeping in check the convicts of the mother country, and therefore indisputably one which would not be required, save for their presence ; yet in the face of the self-evident fact, Earl Grey intimates his intention of eventually throwing the burden upon ihe colony, despite all his assurances that no portion of the expence of the convict establishment should fall upon us, including, of course, all the expences contingent upon the presence of ticket-of-leave men." The salary of the Governor, in consequence of the increase of duties arising from the presence of convicts, was increased to £1300 ayear, the extra £500 for the present to be defrayed from the convict fund, but Lord Grey had intimated that ultimately it would have to be borne by the colony.