MORE TROOPS FOR THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD FIELDS. (From the "Times," May 7.)

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 669, 11 September 1852, Page 3

MORE TROOPS FOR THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD FIELDS. (From the " Times," May 7.)

Eight months ago, when the first news of the discovery of gold in Australia arrived in this country, we lost no time in emphatically warning the then Government of the perils which necessarily waited on the new state of things. We showed that owing to the mistaken policy which by artificially raising the price of land has prevented the permanent settling in homes of their own of the greater portion of the population, the working classes of the colony having broken through the ties which bound them to the mother country were extremely migratory and unsettled in their habits, and sure to be attractedfrom the ordinary peisuits of industry by thejenticing lottery of the gold field. We pointed out that a large number of these persons were men of lawless habits and desperate character, who would be drawn together by the common principle of attraction, and learn from their numbers the secret of their strength, and that if they had the will they would certainly have the power to dictate their own condition of the Executive Government. From all this we took occasion to urge upon Ministers the necessity of reinforcing the handful of troops in the colony, so as at once to defend public property and enforce obedience to the laws. Nothing but the weakness of the Colonial Government and the obvious impolicy of | parading that weakness, and teaching the miners J their own strength, could excuse the manner in which the rich golden deposits, the undoubted property of the public, have been abandoned to be rifled in consideration of a merely nominal payment. Had the Governors of New South Wales and Victoria possessed a force equal to the assertion of the rights of Her Majesty's Government, they would have been utterly inexcusable in allowing the resources of the public revenue to be wasted, the industry of the colony to be deranged, and its capital to be destroyed, in order to raise to sudden and unmerited affluence, never befoie heard of except in" an Oriental talesmen so little able to appreciate the value of the riches which have been thus almost forced upon them, that, improving upon the hint of Cleopatra when she drank diluted pearls, they can find no better use for the five-pound notes with which they are encumbered than to smoke them instead of tobacco. That the Colonial Government has acted prudently in not seeking to command where it was without the power to compel, is manifest from the failure of the attempt of Mr Latrobe, the Governor of Port Phillip, to double the license fee demanded from the miners in his colony. Instead of thirty shillings a month Mr. Latrobe demanded three pounds, a sum quite inconsiderable compared with the average of profit realised from the Victoria Goldfield. This demand he has been unable to enforce. A thousand of the miners met together, denouncing, though upon what ground we are unable to conceive, the increase as illegal, and passing a resolution Avhich pledged them to protect by force any miner from whom it should be sought to be exacted. The Government gave way without a struggle to these threats of stronghanded resistance to lawful authority, and the miners are for the moment satisfied. But the authority of the Government is gone, its weakness is confessed patent and notorious, and it henceforth only exists by the sufferance of a lawless and heterogeneous multitude whom it has instructed in a terrible secret of its own uncontrollable strength. The same will which repealed with a breath the reasonable and moderate demand of a Government for the price at which it was willing to part with the property held by it in trust for the community, can impose any other conditions and break through any other restrictions. Theii are no longer two parties to the contract between the gold seekers and the Government. 'They take as much and pay as little as they please, and it is not in the power of the Government to induce them to take less or to pay more. There is every probability that this evil is only in its commencement. The superior richness of ilie mines of Victoria is draining thither not merely the surplus population of South Australia, but fliose who have hitherto employed themselves in the rich but less productive districts of New South Wales, and the probability is that a very largo proportion of theadult population of the Australian colonies will meet together on a single spot, without, force to control, authority to guide, or enlightened intelligence to direct them. Robberies and murders are already rapidity on the increase, and while the material interest which hold society together are loosened crime is encouraged by impunity and stimulated by the abundance of its booty. As these persons have met together by no concert, and with no preconceived idea of common action, some time of course must elapse befoie they can be brought to act in unison, but every day bi'ings us nearer to such a result, without, as far as we can see, raising up any force adequate to counteract it. Under these circumstances we recur to the recommendation which we offered to the Government in September Jast, the sending without delay to the colony a sufficient armed force to enable Her Majesty's Government to assert the dignity of the law and protect the property of the public. Whatever be the terms on which it is thought expedient to permit the digging for gold on the lands of the Crown, those terms ought to be the result of free and calm deliberation, uninfluenced by fear or menace. Where this is not the case the public resources are surrendered to pillage. If a large mob of persons were to settle themselves on one of the Royal forests, and refuse either to remove or pay any rent except what ' they themselves might assess, it would be mere mockery to call such a strong-handed intrusion by the name of tenancy. Just so, if the riches of Australia are to be taken upon such terms as the takers please, the act is leady one of plunder though it be disguised under the name of licence. We have shown on other occasions how cruelly the vested interest of the colony suffer by their unequal competition with the enormous wealth which the working classes are dividing ainon" themselves ; the case is the harder when it is con° sidered that that very wealth which is the cause of their ruin might betnade the means of their preservation. The troops which would be required to protect the gold fields from the invasion of a lawless mob would by that very act of protection enable the local Government to raise a revenue far more than sufficient to defray the coast of their, presence. How strange that we who suffer the Colonial-office to regulate the minutest affairs at the Antipodes should abstain from inteifering to arrest an evil which threatens to subvert the very foundations of society! It depends upon our Government whether the boundless treasures of Australia shall be employed in debauching and corrupting the lower orders, recruited as they have been, year by year, by the most desperate and

incorrigible of out criminals, and in ruining those who have invested capital under the protection of our Government; or whether, after leaving an ample remuneration for the miner, a surplus should not be diverted to maintening the force requisite for the protection of law and order, and for transporting to those fortunate shores the want and misery which oppress us here. Anarchy and ruin on the one side— peace, order, and property on the other. The choice does not seem difficult, but unfortunately to save the colony re quires action, while its ruin can be accomplished without our aid; and the Colonial-office, which has so often tampered with the laws of political economy when they tend to the advantage of the colonies, cannot be induced to moderate then* severity when necessarily tending to their destruction.