THE WONDERS OF AUSTRALIA.
(From the “ Times” July 5.) “ We have just received another of those astonishing documents which have taught us to view plain, sober, practical truth as more strange and more extravagant than the wildest Oriental fiction. The gnome or the genius who showerel upon his favourite the hidden treasures of deep caverns and secluded mountains gave him nothing but the power of gratifying his passions, his luxury, and his magnificence. It never entered into the head of the Eastern fabulist to conceive the simultaneous enrichment of a whole community, and to trace the effect of the change oa the destinies of nations and the commerce of tie world. The tale usually represents the Sultan as richer and his Court as more splendid, bat leaves his subjects pretty much as it found them, and regards the increase of wealth as a means of foreign conquest aud external aggression. Pluto 3 has dealt more favourably with the Australian colonies ; his favours have been lavished on communities instead of individuals, and are felt as strongly on one side of the world as on the other. It is impossible within the limits allotted to us to give an adequate idea of the revelations contained in the report of the Melbourne Cham’ ber of Commerce, a document ably dravya up and containing a statement of facts such as never before have been submitted to the perusal of man* kind. Progress and Advancement are but faint and inadequate terras to express what has been happening in Port Phillip: the thing, as witnessed there, has no name, for the world has seen nothing in the least resembling it. All we can do is to call in figures to our aid, and leave our readers to estimate as well as they may the facts of wlucn those figures are the symbols. *• Eighteen years ago the Province of v' was a savage and unknown wilderness, inhabited by a few barbarous tribes, and contributing more to the wealth and progress of the wor than it would have done if its shores had dl submerged beneath the waves of the Southern Pacific, From that time to 1851 its progress was wonderfully rapid—its population had risen 95,000 souls—its shipping inwards to 669 vessel* with a tonnage of 126,000 tons, and its revenue £380,000., —an increase we believe, never e ceeded by any community. Now mark the ference of a single year. In 1852 thepop u ‘® - had become 200,000, the shipping inwards vessels, with a tonnage of 408,000 tons, an revenue £1,577,000, of which £342,000 was WJ from Customs, During the year 1851 the of imports amounted to £1,056,000; in . ,051 increased to £4,044,000; the exports m , were £1.424,000 in 1852 they had reach £7,452,000 ; but, taking into consideration large amount of gold which has left the c / without being recorded, the total amountio ports is not, probably, less than annum, —that is, every man, woman ana oll Victoria produces an export to the amount 0 per bead. But even this statement does & . full justice to this astounding influx ol pr° £ P The production of gold is taken from its mencement, when most of the inexperienced, and the machinery they ein l" rude and imperfect. The colony was unprep for so vast an accession to its population, an . er roads, and imperfect supplies, and e , vt J7^ rV 0 f physical difficulty have impeded the the miners. There is no symptom of or exhaustion in the gold-field; the supply lß P tically boundless, and seems to admit 01 crease in proportion to the number oU°* u
loved and the greater facilities of transport, enl F an ’(j machinery. Seven hundredand twenty n lusand pounds have been voted by the Legisi *»re of Victoria for public works, and, besides k-q three railroads have been sanctioned, one to t "i 3 ’ c t Melbourne with the port, another to conC t Melbourne and Geelong, and another to n %e Melbourne and the gold-fields of the in- + n 'or each at a guarantee of five per cent, on capital advanced for a period of twenty-one tn 1 -\y e way remark, in passing, that the town Melbourne, which in 1851 contained 23,000 "habitants, had increased by the end of 1852 to JC ulation 0 f go,ooo, an amount probably much V nt down by the impossibility of finding house ccommodation, and that the population of Gee- ? c had increased in the same period from 8000 + 20 000. Of the prospects of railways some fftirnate may be formed from the fact, that the 6 of supplies to Bendigo and Mount Alex°nder'iast year was at the rate of £1 per ton per 3 He and that it is estimatad that the cost of the ’arriW of supplies during the last Australian winter from Melbourne to these two places would have defrayed the expense of constructing a rail- „ 'fhe fluctuation of prices has been as extraordinary as the increase in wealth and population. 3 Hay is dearer, weight for weight, than the best quality of flour, and oats are twice the price of the best imported oatmeal. Cabbages are Is. 6d. a piece; pears, lettuces, and turnips are 6s. a dozen; potatoes 245. a hundredweight; ducks, 12s. a pair; geese and turkies, 14s. each; and this in a country which until the discoveiy 0 f cold had some claims to be considered the cheapest in the world. “The account of this sudden and incredible prosperity suggests a consideration as to the wants of the colony, which parents and guardians in England would do well to bear in mind. What the country wants is neither cultivated intelligence nor in-door employes ; the effort of the colony is, and for many years will be, to bring the amount of its fixed capital into some proportion with the aggregate of its treasures. The inhabitants of Melbourne, infinitely the richest town of its size in the world, are worse lodged nnd cared for, in all matters of physical comfort, than the denizens of the poorest and most decayed city of Spain or Germany. Roads they have none, and the tracks which lead to the_ spots where nature squanders her treasure with so lavish a hand are difficult in summer, and barely passable in winter. What they want is masons and carpenters to build them houses, and “ navies” to make them docks and railroads. Till these wants are supplied, it is vain for young men of talent and knowledge to seek their fortunes in a land wanting nothing which they have to give, and appreciating far more highly the coarsest manual, than the finest intellectual labour. This is the tendency of every new country. Physical material wants must be first supplied, and only when men have pained leisure from the struggle will they turn their minds to the cultivation of the intellect or the taste. What cruelty can be greater, what misconception more lamentable, what betrayal of a trust more reprehensible, than to send a boy from school or a student from college, with a few pounds in his pocket, to seek his fortune in a land which wants nothing that he can contribute, and wlil contribute nothing that he . wants ? To send such a person to Australia is, in fact, to sentence him to work on the roads at ten shillings a-day—good pay, certainly, but a miserable avocation for one brought up with the feelings and aspirations of a gentleman. “Even with the goods which other countries can contribute, Victoria has, as appears from the scale of prices, been but scantily supplied; but there is a marked distinction between those things which she can procure from abroad and those which she must, from necessity, produce for herself. Till this inequality is reduced everybody’s mind will be absorbed in mere material progress. The owner of thousands who cannot get a house, until he is released from the necessity of living in a tent or a bark hut, will scarcely think of a tutor for his sons or a governess for his daughters. We feel it right to couple thj account of this unprecedented prosperity with this warning, because we are well aware that every ship carries out to Australia its contribution of young men and women destined to poverty and wretchedness from & neglect of these very obvious considerations.”
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New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 782, 12 October 1853, Page 2
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1,386THE WONDERS OF AUSTRALIA. New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 782, 12 October 1853, Page 2
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