EFFECTS OF THE GOLD MANIA UPON AGRICULTURAL AND COMMERCIAL PURSUITS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3412, 23 June 1868, Page 4

EFFECTS OF THE GOLD MANIA UPON AGRICULTURAL AND COMMERCIAL PURSUITS.

|To the Editor of th» Dau,t Sovthmw Okosq. Sib,— "There are times and seasons in which th« ~ clearest judgment becomes clouded, in which the moit sensitive temperaments lone their elasticity, and the man whose hearing ia ordinarily joyous and inspiring becomes taciturn and subdued j th« once vigoroun suggeater sinking into the helpless listener. At such a time, the imagination dwells with painful pertinacity upon things uncertain and obscure, filling up their misty outline with gloomy details, ' presenting in the aggregate a distorted phantom which cannot be contemplated without dismay.* 1 That which at times befalls individual" in sometimes, suffered by a -whole community, producing, if unchecked, a state of panic and an amount of sufferin?, seoret and acknowledged, enough to make the very angels weep. It generally follows torn* bait in. a rapid and prosperous career, some fundamentals change in an order of things, under which comfort and prosperity bad, until then, been enjoyed. We, the good people of Auckland, are somewhat in this condition. We are, many of us, fearful that, because gold has been discovered some fifty or a hundred miles »way, our splmdid pastures will smile no more, our oxen no more be strong to labour, that our sheep and cattle will diminish, our streets be desolate, our houses of business be deserted, and we ourselves be constrained to hunt for nuggets in a land of scoria and volcanoes, or lead a wandering kind of existence. We, the people of Auckland, have been, and are, again, somewhat in this condition. It is scarcely three years since our assumed capitalists fell headlong into sohemes of buying and selling land, building houses, &o. Melds became townships; fabulous prices were given for a few feec of ground which II few months before would have sold for ss. or 10s. per foot. A reaction came, the Imperial troops' -were withdrawn, and consequently the money for their support and pay is not forthcoming. A stagnation of trade is the consequence : houses and property are mortgaged to their utmost value in order to stem off the fatal day. This came. We were almost in a state of gtneral bankruptcy, when Providence came to our relief. >( A payable goldneld was discovered, our surplus population flocked to it, and trade is reviving ; but we have still our fears for the pastures, and unless we encourage immigration they will remain untilled, and we shall have to import that which our land is -fully capable of producing — the staple artiole of foodflour. I admit that the gold discovery, is, in its immediate results, highly inconvenient. We live in a thriving *nd happy land, where there is no surplus copulation ; where every man is, or if he choose may be, of some value to his fellow men j where we can,not afford to part with one well-ordered person, tit may be that for a time the labour required for our city and our country settlements, already insufficiently supplied, will become much scarcer, and that a> check will of necessity be put upon every work that is not absolutely indispensable. A far more serious question, however, suggests itself, with reference to the fascination of gold upon pastoral and agricultural labour. There are some who gloomily imagine that this will be altogether absorbed, and that our fields will be for a period deserted, our sheep and cattle dispersed and destroyed. I have no fears on this Bcore. I believe that the fanner, will find means of sowing his grain, and the squatter of protecting his flocks and herds, even though farmer and squatter be deserted by all about them. It may demand much personal energy .and con-! siderable increase of expenditure, but I feel assured that what is required will nevertheless ' be done. We are doubtless experiencing, even already, a great alteration in the state of our domestic trade, and, by a sort of tacit understanding, it seems to be taken for granted that every species of property has undergone a terrible diminution in its market value. This I take upon myself to state at once is the result of panio, of a vague notion that Auckland is about to be depopulated, and that in a few weeks almost every description of property will be sent for sale to a mart where not a buyer can be met with. Short* land will take the lead of Auckland, unless the A uckland merchants bold out more inducement to miners and others to supply themselves with pro* visions and other necessaries of life. . Victorian capitalists will, at the commencement of spring, put on a line of packets, and supply the Shortland market far cheaper than it is in the power of the Auckland merchants to do, unless they will be satisfied with email profits: then, 'and only then, will they be able to cope with their enterprising neighbours. Now, to apply all I have urged upon your readers to the great subject of which we as a people are absorbed in the consideration, I believe that the existence of the Thames goldfield has been providentially revealed so as to attract to this thinly populated colony the people it is capable of supporting in happiness and comfort. I believe that numbers will hasten hither, allured by the prospect of metallic wealth, who will find, when they arrive, occupations more fitting to their character!, and more useful to their countrymen, than that of a mere metallic accumulation. I believe that gold will be found in sufficient abundance to procure for this favoured land, in rich profusion, all the comforts and elegancies of civilised life, in addition to the more primary blessings which are now within the reach of us all} that the treasures we have laid open will be sufficiently abundant to gratify every reasonable desire, but not so enormous a« to produce, as some prognosticate, surfeit and death. Gold-huntirjg or golddigging is not, per se, a desirable occupation. Its success is not dependent upon moral worth, and it has a tendency to destroy rather than promote, the observance of those rules of conduct whiob, while they contribute to worldly welfare, elevate the individual vrho practises them, and promote social happiness. It is this deteriorating influence tjbat constitutes the drawback to an otherwise almost unmixed good — a drawback bo serious that, persuaded as I am of our obtaining an abundant share of the Thames gold, I am by no means anxious that' it should be turned up at our very doors. Gold does not constitute wealth, although by common consent it represents it : the richest country is thai where food and the materials of raiment exist in the greatest abundance,— these constituting advantages that will draw to them every art and luxury that civilisation has produced. The discovery of gold at the Thames and other parts of New Zealand 'will immensely augment the exchangeable power of the real wealth of the province of Auckland in particular ; and, as a necessary consequence, it will not only greatly increase the prosperity of our own colony, but add materially to the welfare of the whole New Zealand and Australian colonies. Well indeed will it be if, in the general 'prosperity, " class " animosities disappear. We oannot all be great, but we all may be united, and like the stars above us, though moving in separate orbits, pursue our allotted path without jarring or collision, forming here below a system as noble and harmonious as that wbich the firmament above discloses to the astronomic vision. lam not sanguine W. to the immediate advent of a state of general prosperity and social unity, but, in common with all believer! in revelation, I look to * period when these will co-exist with a univerial reception of Christian truth. Ifc may seem fanciful and visionary ,to imagine any connection, however remote, between these discoveries of gold and that great event which the ' Christian believer expects one '' day r will', be developed; but I cannot help feeling' that^they are calculated to bring about a state of things which is likely to precede it. I may expect ' them' to induce an immense diffusion Of mankind, under'circumstances highly favourable to the production of physical comfort, by the encouragement they .will offer f to the exercise of att and science in the 1 rapid creation of the luxuries and products of civilisation, not by the instrumentality of mere human bone and muscle, but by that of the' steam engine and' the laboratory. I believe that the time will come when unskilled labour wilL be superseded ''bymechanical.inventions j when men, en joying in such abundance the bounties of nature, will be employed^ in the grateful application of its priorities to^ejf development of the useful and the beautiful, a'dcbm- ** panied by a practical' carrying out of Christian principles, of which the beauty is now acknowledged; while their authority is too often disregarded. How far the incidents in the world* history, which are now forcing themselves upon our contemplation, " are calculated to bring abont a stafe of thine* such as I have described, I must leave to the speculation of your readers, they bearing in mind that, while the ways of Providence are inscrutable, they are planned by infinite wisdom, jmd will assuredly lead, though it may be in a way we. wot not of, to the ultimate happiness of man. ' ~' ' I ' ' Sratoi;

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