A SECRET OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 9921, 5 February 1894, Page 2

A SECRET OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.

A cable message from Brisbane published towards the end of July this year announced the proclamation of a British protectorate over the Pacific group known as the Solomon Islands. Thereby hangs a tale, and not the least singular of the many romances of real life that ara associated with the early history of Australii. It is the story of one of tlu most colossal speculators of the ninotjoiiuh century, and of his unwitnessed, but, there is every reason to conclude, horrible fate. His name was Benjamin Boyd, and he was born about 171)6, the son of Edward Boyd, of Merton Hall, Wigtown, a member of an old Scottish family. He claimed to be a direct descendant of a brother of the Thamas Boyd who was the ancestor of the Earl of Kilmarnock. For some years he carried on business in London as a stockbroker ; and in the year 1840, being then in his forty-fourth year, Ben Boyd — to give him his familiar colonial designation — arrived at the antipodes in the capacity of maniging director of a new financial institution called the Royal Banking Company of Australia, but which was in reality a syndicate of Scotch and English speculators, who had convinced themselves that huge fortunes for each and all were to be made in a few years by large and judicious investments in Australian land. As a matter of subsequent history, they were perfectly right if their calculations ; but the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip camo in the collapse of their trusted colonial agent (Mr Boyd) when they were all on the eve or' becoming millionaires. Had they been able to hold to their investments until the gold discoveries had sent up the value of Australian land a hundred, and even a thousand fold, they would have rejoiced in the title of lucky speculators ; but the fickle goddess decided against them. They not only lost most of their original capital, but they had the added mortification of seeing others reaping the golden harvests that they had sowp. But I am anticipating the course of events. From the nature and constitution of the Royal Banking Company of Australia — a syndicate of British speculators with no practical knowledge of the colonies, and only anxious to acquire wealth without working for it— it is obvious ghat Mr Boyd, the managing director, and the man on the spot, could do what he pleased with the subscribed capital of the organisation. There was practically no check whatever upon his operations. Finding himself virtually uncontrolled, and with large financial resources to draw upon, he lost no time in either purchasing or leasing from the State immense areas of land in New South Wales and the districts that have since become the separate colonies of Victoria and Queensland. These he stocked with sheep and cattle ; and he thus rapidly blossomed into one of the most enterprising of pioneer ' squatters.' As a further outlet for his superfluous energies, he organised a fleet ot whalers, with which he pursued and captured the leviathans of the deep, that were then pretty numerous in the Australian seas but have since been scared away in the direction of the South Pole. As a headquarter for his whaling industry, as well as a port of accommodation for his numerous squatting stations in the south of New South Weles, he resolved to build a to\yn on the southern shore of Twofold Bay. In the establishment of this town, which he niimed after himself, he sank thousands of pounds ; and it proved the most disastrous of all his speculations. It involved him in a long and ruinous conflict with the New South Wales Government, who were sensible of the great future importance of Twofold Bay as the one safe and commodious hurbour between Sydney and Melbourne. They accordingly proclaimed a Government town on the north side of tho bay, and christened it Eden, -which paradisiacal title it bears to this day. The fight fo supremacy between these tvo towns wab^fierce and vigorous in the extreme. Eden of course was pushed ahead by all motive-power of Government patronage and State expenditure ; while Boydtown was built up into prominence and seeming prosperity by the capital of the confiding shareholders of the Royal Banking Company. It was probably to keep these latter iv good humour that a most attractive and reassuring picture of Boydtown found its way into an early number of the 'Illustrated London News.' Amongst his other varied accomplishments Mr Boyd must have thoroughly mastered the art and practice of ' booming, ( for in a voluminous ' Gazetter of New South Wales' brought out in 1848 in London and Sydney by the Government Surveyor of the Colony, there arc actually more than twenty pages devoted to a eulogistic description of Boydtown ; while the rival Government town is dismissed in a dozen lines.

[ Co be continued.]

(For continuation of reading matter see

fourth page.)