SOUTH AUSTRALIA. [From the Sydney Morning Herald.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, 12 May 1852, Page 2

SOUTH AUSTRALIA. [From the Sydney Morning Herald.]

We have Adelaide papers to the sth instant. The mania for emigrating to the gold fieldsstill exists. About ten thousand ouuces of gold had been sent to the Assay Office, which had begun to issue ingots, but no relief was experienced in the money market. Many who were most urgent with the Governor to sanction the Assay Bill were beginning to see that it could not, and would not, have the desired effect. The following extract from a private letter shows the miserable state of affairs : — Our depopulation continues — 21 ships laid on for Melbourne, all of which will fill with, goods and passengers in the next ten day?. Commercial matters look brighter, and would improve fast but for the Ingot Act, which must throw us on our beam ends again. Numerous buyers from Melbourne are in our markets and stocks'are worked low. Large sums are brought by the diggers, chiefly by Melbourne bank drafts. Two of our banks (Union and Southern Australia) intend to pay these draftsnext week by their notes, and then to refuse paying these notes in specie, but will tender the unfortunate holder of their " promise to pay In sterling on demand" an ingot of supposed gold at 7 ls. per ounce;- Frightful consequences must soon arise fiom this suspension, of <;ash payments by two of our banks. The Bank of Australasia refuse s to be a party to this fraud on the public, bat intends (so we hear) to pay its notes and all its depositors in coined money. The concoctors of the Act admit its illegality, and expect the Governor must be recalled for sanctioning the swamping of a small community like this with an unlimited amount of inconvertible paper money, and rob« bing unfortunate depositors in the banks of money, or moneys value, of power to demand payment of it in any other shape than by ingots of gold of doubtful assay, at the rate of 71s. per ounce, or in unchangeable bank notes. Unless the diggers returned but little seed can be put in for another year's harvest : there are no means of getting the last crop knocked out and brought to market. The miners have generally speaking gone, though the Burra keeps about a fifth of their usual force.