THE COLONIST. NELSON, FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1859.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 147, 18 March 1859, Page 2

THE COLONIST. NELSON, FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1859.

We concluded our last article by observing that although ' the view we then took .' was more applicable to the social state of England and" the English, people, it would require no very great stretch-of the perceptive faculties'to discover an incipient,tendency to a similar state of things nearer our own doors. Since writing that article, we have received a file of the Melbourne papers, which fully bear out our surmises, and which certainly exhibit a very curious state of the extremes to which it is the peculiar tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race to oscilate; and if these papers give anything approaching to a correct representation, the much vaunted, flourishing Australian colonies are fast following in the wake of the mother country. The Argus' tells us that probably in no country in the world has there been so great and so sudden a change in the relation of capital and industry, as has taken place in that colony in the last few years. From 1851 to 1853, there was no distinct class of monied capitalists; there were, doubtless, numbers of nominally rich men, whose wealth was estimated in fictitious values which had been put upon their land and houses. Before the discovery of the gold-fields, however, they had very little money in their coffers. At that time the bulk of the money was in the hands of the working classes. The few monied men employed their capital in the purchase of gold, the price of which, from the scarcity, of purchasers, was very low. Shortly after, nearly' every door .was .labelled, " Gold Broker's Office." Following upon this came the bankers, the recipients of ;the surplus money of the colony as deposits—these thus became possessed all at once of some six or seven millions of money, by which they were enabled to.command a.monopoly of the money market, and drive all private dealers out of it. ."Following the.stage of the progress, the publicans, and'-spirit'merchants, and retail traders of all classes, acquired rapid fortunes, which they embarked, in the purchase of land, and the erection of costly gin palaces and gorgeous emporiums. Then came over-speculation, and over-trading, and all the consequences attendant upon such a state of things. Nevertheless, the prolific resources of the colony soon restored things to their former, prosperous condition, until the advertising columns of the newspapers were doubled, to enable the money brokers to .announce their ability to lend money to atvy conceivable amount; and they conclude with the wish that as London is to the' Northern Hemisphere so might Melbourne become to'tlie Southern. The first steps towards this object would be, it is argued, the further development of the gold-fields, and the establishment of an Exchange, with a class of sivoi n brokers, to facilitate the necessary transfer and exchange of capital. From the above representation of the state of that colony, it would appear a perfect El Dorado, particularly when on turning to the account of land sales we find a ten-acre block of land, divided into sixty-three sections, selling for £11,000, not apparently, for immediate occupation, but as profitable investment. On reading further, however, we come to some statistics, which in a philanthropic and truly philosophical point of view, will, we think, detract somewhat, from the glittering and high-colored picture. It would appear that a great portipn, ,of ;;the productive population of that 'flourishing colony is more like the tribes of . wandering Arabs than that of a bold peasantry, its country's pride. It appears that out of an immigration of 87,000 souls within the year 1858, 28,000 emigrated. .-We nextiind, as a necessary consequence to such a state of tilings, that the funds of the various benevolent and charitable institutions are exhausted, and little disposition on the part of the dives to replenish them, as, owing to the influx and reflux of the tide of emigration, many distressed objects are unavoidably stranded on the beach, and that the recipients of these charities appeared to be so well satisfied with the donations, that, they-'present themselves again and again. The chairman of one of these societies, iv an eloquent appeal to a select audience,.stated he "had never known more want and poverty existing in his district than at the present time, arid j what was more distressing, was that so far from matters getting better, the sufferings and wickedness increased, and he found that nearly every one had sunk Morally before they had sunk materially ; nevertheless, that was no reason that they should be suffered to starve." And this extraordinary state of things is deliberately announced as existing in a colony which exports annually upwards of ten millions of gold. It has been said (profanely), "The nearer the Church the farther from God;" surely we may add, the greater the .wealth of Melbourne the greater the misery and destitution of the great mass of the people iv it. And yet with all this" staring us in the face, as the inevitable result of all the gold-fields in the world, we have the columns of our contemporary, teeming with abuse of our Executive for not pledging the revenue to raise funds to enable'speculative gamblers to decoy a restlesss set of tramps to pitch their tents in our hitherto peaceable settlement, and grant mining' leases of our gold-fields by the square mile to every speculator who. may present himself at their office, when if, as he would represent them they are really worthy the name of gold-fields, as many square yards would suffice for the profitable employment of all the capital Messrs. Gibus and Co. could command. Take for instance the Cas- . tlemaine diggings. The mining board have a set of.leasing regulations, which.are, represented as being very liberal twenty acres of alluvial ground at the maximum limit of one lease for ten years, and one thousand three hundred and twenty yards by one hundred for quartz reefs, with a given number of men actually employed on them, with adequate machinery to ensure bona fide .working. Lot our contemporary compare the above terms with the very modest request of his protogee, and when he has done so we will venture to say that if he will take pattern by the one here presented for ! his consideration, and make his application to any ; tribunal authorised to deal with our gold-fields, he will ;find no difficulty in obtaining: even more liberal terms than the above. : .;