GOLD AND COLONIZATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 422, 19 November 1856, Page 3

GOLD AND COLONIZATION.

(Prom tho '■ Times.")

In the days of our youth there used to be story-books—where are they all gone ?—of the golden age of English enterprise. There was Whittington, whose master sent an " assorted cargo" to Morocco, and brought back a shipload of gold. There was Drake, who used to watch for the Spanish galleons as a spider does for a fussy, glittering bluebottle. India was supposed to be always overflowing with the precious metals. Wherever Robinson Crusoe went dollars, and cpiadi-oons, and pieces of eight, and moneys with unaccountable names, were lying in heaps, waiting for the first comer. When the gold mines o^' America had brought ruin on the'r owners the African slave trade revealed a n.ew supply of " dust," and the auri sacra fames, said to be inherent in the breast of man, seeme^Lto have its longing. At length, however, tYiere came a sort of gold drought. Guineas became very precious at the beginning of this century, and, had not political economists discovered as a philosophical fact that gold was neither the only form of wealth nor essential to human happiness, nor anything else than a very handy medium of exchange, the world seemed condemned to universal pauperism. There really were people who expected to see the last guinea, iv which they also saw the last fragment of wealth, the last element of civilization, the last art and science, the last king, the last bishop, the last nobleman, the last patriot. All the glory of the earth was to vanish as guineas disappeared, and it was only after the conclusion of the great war, when we obtained a little gold and silver with the expenditure of twice as much of our own from South America, and when the Emperor of Russia Avas passing rich with a million a-year from the Ural Mountains, that we began to hope the world was coming round again. The earth had begun to dread eternal poverty. The greatest men of the age busied, themselves with devices how to keep the gold in the country, in order that, even if the rest of the world sank to utter barbarism, we might retain for a short time our religion and manners. In fact, it became a political creed and a religious orthodoxy how to keep the gold in the country, and the balance of trade always j.n our favour. Gentlemen who knew ever^hing, and who wrote histories in twenty volumes, made this the first object of their sublimer speculations. So universal was the belief in the omnipotence, the sacred efficiency, and the approaching evanescence of gold, which was to recede from the earth like Asteea and the last

gods, and so profound a conviction Avas there in 5, the best informed minds that our planet would have seen its best days when it had spent its last guinea, that only ten 3'ears ago it was the favourite and only correct opinion. Yes, even after the repeal of the corn laws there Avere men who held it little else than blasphemy to doubt tbatAveAvere all on the w ray to ruin, both of body and soul, because gold was scarce, the supply was limited, and threatened Avith exhaustion, and the British Legislature rashly neglected the only policy calculated to keep our little stock Avithin our OAvn shores. The fundholder Avas exposed to an increasing odium. With his fatal gripe on the actual sovereign he seemed to possess in reversion the Avhole Avealth of the world; and it became an honest, moral, and most reputable opinion, held by men not at all scoundrels, but rather the reverse, that all honest men, ought to join together, repudiate the metallic obligation, and send aAvay the fundholder with an inconvertible bit of rag in full of all demands. '„.. Such Avas the state of things only ten years ago. There Avas also another state of things in a matter, as we are uoav disposed to regard it, much more important. We possessed magnificent colonies, that is, magnificent islands and shores, Avhich avc had colonised Avith the sineAvs not of our population, but of our gaols. We had sent there our worst men, on the speculation that human nature Avould recover itself Avhen removed from the corrupting influence of British society and our cherished institutions. No doubt, there was much to be said for the theory in the abstract, but it did not answer in practice. We tried to get up an emigration of an ordinary character to those same regions; and in one Avay or another thero did rise up a colonial class Avith the sentiment of virtue and honour. This proved the ruin of our colonies

as penal settlements. The virtuous Lot of the colony was vexed Avith the evil doings he saw about him, and gave the colony a bad name. So, in one way or another, \ partly because our Australian colonies Avere too bad, partly because they were too good, they would not increase and multiply. The industrious and enterprising people of this country preferred the United States, and much scandal Avas caused by tho indecent and almost ostentatious readiness Avith Avhich people changed their allegiance from a George or a William, or even a Victoria, to a General or a plain Mister residing at Washington. Here we Avere boasting that Aye possessed a sort of fifth quarter of the Avorld, yet Aye could do nothing Avith it; and up to ten years ago Aye had not sent to it the population of a London parish or a small Midland county. This_ Avas a far more substantial and more criminal shortcoming than a short supply of the precious metals. It Avas a social fact, and a very lamentable fact, whereas the apprehension of _ universal poverty Avas only a speculative chimera that had probably derived some of its vitality from the excessive and almost morbid appreciation Avhich certain circumstances are apt to inspire for one of the higher coins of the realm. The fact told very seriously on that class of our population Avhich may be said to represent our rising energy, education, skill, and physical poAver. England Avas full of ill-paid labourers, ill-paid clerks, shopmen, porters, engineers, farmers, and labourers. They did not know whither to go. The climate of Canada Avas supposed to be rather against them. The authorities, the gentry, and the clergy would not countenance emigration to the United States ; Avhile Australia, besides its immense distance, was contaminated by a convict population. It produced a good deal, but there Avas nobody to eat it, and nothing could be done even with the sheep but to clip their wool and reduce their carcasses to tallow. It was in vain that philanthropists and politicians pictured to our starving population a country under the British flag where good mutton was burnt by waggon-loads, because there Avas nobody to eat it. The people would not or could not go; and, though every village clergyman, churchAvarden, and even postmaster Avas instructed to distribute bills offering assistance to emigrate, the appeal Avas in _vain; a few score parish emigrants a-year Avas all that came of it.

We are speaking of anticipations not yet ten years ago. Noav the Avonder is all the other way, and men ask how it is that Avith the enormous influx of the precious metals, so little comes of it. Have our readers perused the letter from Melbourne in our Monday's paper t It appears that from one province of Australia we are now recei\ing at the rate of 3,000,000 ozs., or £12,000,000. a year. It has nearly doubled upon last year, and is still rapidly increasing. The increase is against all opinion, for there is no point on Avhich people are more incredulous. It has been said OA rer and over again that these or those diggings were Avorked out, that machinery woidd neA^er have a chance against manual labour, and that crushing was sloav work against washing. EArery such prediction has been falsified, and it appears that laws of social progress vindicate themselves even in that rude state of society. Labour finds it worth its while to divide profit with the capitalist. The "rocking cradle" is worked by the horse, the bucket gives way to the pump, and both in their turn give Avay to steam The quantity of British manufactures poured into the colonies, in return for its few but precious exports, constitutes a new and astonishing feature in our commercial condition. It is true that so much was sent to Australia on speculation that there AA ras at one time great loss; and and a class of economists in their usual search for mares' nests, discoArered that the balance of trade was against Australia. HoAvever, this is a sort of evil that soon rectifies itself in an infant and prosperons colony, just as a child Avith a vigorous constitution can soon give a good account of a little extra feeding. A good deal of the supposed excess Avas invested in the colony for the benefit of neAV settlers, and a good deal was " sacrificed " at the cost of the importers. A little time since there Avas a redundant supply of a class of persons Avho are redundant everyAvhere,—that is, persons of both sexes avlio expect a competence Avithout much exertion, who cannot dig, and don't Icuoav what else to do. The cost of all tho necessaries of life became enormous ; useful enterprise received a check from the high price of food, and the candle was

burnt at both ends in a large consumption and short supply. It is not so now. There baa been a great falling off in the immigration; mouths and hands are fewer; the market for all provisions is abundant, and though wages are nominally much lower, yet labourers, artisans, and domestic servants are both much more in request and better off than they were. It is calculated that the colony—we are speaking of Victoria, but we believe it to be the same with the other Australian colonies —would really absorb any reasonable amount of serviceable labour that could now be sent to it; and it is rather important that the supply should be maintained. At present the rate of arrivals this year is only 18,000 a-year, against 50,000 last year, in the face of the fact that the gold yield is double, all provisions twice as cheap, and the balance of exports and imports very much in favour of the colony. Here, then, is Australia suddenly, by magic, sprung up into a colony of wealth beyond the means of avarice," receiving, and-still inviting, immense accessions of British labour and skill, giving new impulse to our manufactures, and opening visions of imperial grandeur far surpassing any we ever formed across the Atlantic, or found in our Indian possessions. Within ton years—within seven, we have an influx of gold from those despised penal settlements exceeding the revenue of the East India Company. Meanwhile agriculture, the arts and sciences, and all the permanent institutions of British and civilised society, establish themselves at the call of the digger, and will probably maintain themselves even if his trade should one day fail. It is not we or our policy that has wrought this change ; a higher jaoAver has done it in gpite of us ; but the change is made, an empire has been founded and Aye shall not see the end of it.