OUR HOPES FROM GOLD. (From the Sydney Morning Herald.)

Otago Witness, Issue 17, 13 September 1851, Page 3

OUR HOPES FROM GOLD. (From the Sydney Morning Herald.)

Since we wrote the series of articles commencing towards the close of May and ending early in June, on the probable effects of the discovery of gold on the destinies of the colony, commercial, social, and political, the question has assumed a still more important and a still more cheering aspect. Except from the deductions of geologists, of which the popular mind is not prepared to understand the process or to appreciate the force, we had then no conclusive evidence that the gold-field was so extensive and so rich as not soon to be worked out. In the interim, short as it has been, such evidence has poured in from nearly all quarters, indications of auriferous wealth having been met with in almost every part of our vast interior where they have been sought for with any reasonable success. The first scene of operations, Summerhill Creek, wonderful as the treasures it developed, was soon followed and well-nigh superseded by the more productive regions of the Touron; and scarcely had the value of this second grand discovery been put beyond all doubt, when the colony was startled by the announcement that a larger lump of gold had been picked up than had ever before been found, in modern ages at all events, in any part of the world, surpassing by far the most magnificent trophies realised either in California or the Ural Mountains t That a Block of Pure Gold, weighing One Hundred and Six Pounds, had been found by oneJucky individual, and, shattered into glittering fragments, safely deposited in the Bathurst Bank, was a fact which no sane mind was disposed to credit, until substantiated by proofs which it -would have' been insane to doubt. We have said the announcement of this fact startled the colony : it will startle all Austra. lasia; it will startle England, Ireland, and Scotland ; it will startle even California ; shall i we exaggerate if we say ? — it will startle the whole civilised world ! Every mail arriving in England from these colonies, after the one despatched by the Thomas Arbuthnot, will add confirmation to the glorious tidings that New South Wales is a country rich in virgin gold, and will of course serve to arrest more and more the attention of all classes of our countrymen. But when the

.. -jaaafl- ajgLfak iV W^fo V *gftl :^pg^f^nj*^pd the - extraordinary fact just referred 'to — when every newspaper in/ the three kingdoms echoes and. re-echoes the story of this Marvel of the Age — there can be no question that a sensation will be produced in the national mind such as, for intensity and prevalence, was never produced before. From the monarch on the throne to the peasant at the plough, there will be astonishment, wonder, and admiration. From the , palace to the cottage, from the drawing-room to the nursery, from the philosopher and the statesman to the school-bpy, this Lump of Gold and the land which produced it will for awhile be the all-absorbing topic. And that this sensation will not die away like that produced by a nine-days' wonder, but will be productive of consequences most important to our colony, is as certain as that the love of gold is a universal passion, and that in no country beneath the sun does this passion more or more powerfully prevailthan in, aristocratic and commercial England. " Ships) Colonies, and Commerce," always a> favourite mntto there, will have a new and more inspiriting signification — associated as it must henceforth be with - the idea of ships freighted homeward with gold, and of colonies receiving British manufactures in exchange for that most precious of earth's productions. From every considerable port in Great Britain and Ireland ships will come in abundance, as full of merchandise and passengers as ths law will al^w. Popu'a f im ml wta'th will flow in upon us in copious, rapid, and continuous streams. Port Jackson will ere long be one of 'the most crowded and bustling harbours in the world, and Sydney take her place amongst the richest and most flourishing cf cities. Xew South Wales will be crowned by England as the Queen of Colonies. Steam navigation will connect the two countries by a strongerand dearer bond of union, and British capitalists vie with .each other in hastening, so happy a-eonsummation» Steamers of the first class — the largest, the strongest, and the swiftest — will be placed on the line which is to bring England in communication with the Land of Gold. "Railways will follow as a natural and necessary result. Transportation will be put down. Our political freedom will be enlarged. Our country will'be blessed. | Englishmen will know- how "to discriminate between New Wales and, other auriferous countries. They will know that if South Americana spite of albher metallic^ wealthy i|£a a.poor and degraded country, neither her- ie» i sources nor her people are to be compared with oars.-- Site -has no other -sources o£ wealth to i depend upon, or if she has, her inhabitants are too lazy and unskilled to turn them to advantage; whilst we have the means of growing rich and- powerful even were our gold field to become soon exhausted; and, better still, we I have Anglo-Saxon energy to work them. They will know that if California, in spite of her auriferous millions, is a place of anarchy and lawless outrage, it is because when her Ueasures were brought to light she was an untamed wilderness; and because the genius of her republican citizens is impatient of the restraints of authority ; whilst we have had the advantage, at the time the same ci'isis occurred here of being a well-organised community, having all the machinery of Government and Legislation, and possessing a spirit of loyalty to the throne,, and habitual submission to the laws. Our fellow-subjects at home will do us the justice to mark these points of difference in our favour, and to appreciate the immense superiority of our Eldorado over all others, hi point of civilisation, industry, social order, and all that Englishmen deem essential to the calm enjoyments of domestic life. i _ The " Mary Bannatyne," which sailed for England on the 23d of July, .had Bathurst gold on board valued at the current rates at £9,919. It was shipped as follows : — Thacker and Co., 873 ounces ; Young and Co., 68S ; G. A. Lloyd^ 541; It. Campbell, tertius, 401; S. Folk, 126 \ William Walker and Co., 121 ; A. Dreuttler, 85. .We believe she also took hotne about 800 ounces of gold from California. A Fact for, the Puotectios'ists. — At the weekly meeting of the board of guardians of the Swansea .Unio.n, held .yesterday, there* was not a single application for relief from one of the 17 agricultural, parishes conipussd in this union. The only applications made were T>y persons residing in the town, and those numbered only two. Some months ago the business of the hoard generally engaged the attention of the chairman and guardians from 10 to 4in the afternoon. For some weeks past the -.number* of applicants for relief has diminished so much that the business has not detained' them more than a few hours. Such has been' the effect of free trade in the Swansea Union;~ 'JKlij CaJibrun. ' ' '