THE COMING FORTUNES OF OUR COLONIES IN THE PACIFIC.
From the earliest records of what has been termed profane history, down to the present day, we have been accustomed to regard Europe as the centre of civilisation and of wealth. From Asia, Greece and Rome in early times, and the commerce of European nations more recently, exacted tribute and rich products. Two centuries ago the precious metals and tropical yield of South America and the West Indies excited the rapacity of adventurers from this and other countries; and towards the close of last century we had to recognise the germs of a great Anglo-Saxon power occupying the Atlantic shores and territory of North America, which we now see competing actively with us for a share in influencing the affairs of the world. Still both Asia and the American continent were regarded as merely the feeders of the commercial and political greatness of Europe. Africa was and remains comparatively an unknown continent, whilst the inhospitable regions of the north are shunned by all, save the hardy mariners engaged in the pursuit of the whale and the seal, the former for its industrial usefulness, and the latter as affording us articles of comfort and luxury. The extreme southern hemisphere had, indeed, been explored by Cook, Vancouver, Fourneaux, and others; and its clusters of islands were laid down in our charts, and some of them claimed as calling-stations for the shipping employed in our commerce with India, whilst others were appropriated for their valuable tropical productions. But beyond this the Southern Pacific and Antarctic Oceans were comparatively unknown and unvalued. Below the latitude of Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Indian Ocean, their waters were an unbroken solitude, save that occasionally a ship bearing the British flag might be seen steering for our penal settlement of Australia, there to deposit its living freight of criminal outcasts beyond reach of contact with the populations of the civilised world; and more recently with a few adventurous colonisers going out to cultivate its untrodden wilds, and, amidst privations and arduous toil, to wring from its soil the means of living, which they had been jostled out of on that of their own densely peopled fatherland.
A mighty change, however, has come over us—unlooked for and undreamt of—the issue of which the wisest can scarcely imagine for himself; for it is plainly not the unaided work of man which has brought about that change, but an overruling Providence, carrying out a preordained decree that one of the fairest portions of the globe shall be a solitude no longer. In most of the ordinary revolutions which have taken place in the world, human agency is directly traceable. We have witnessed in Europe the hardy tribes of the north over-running the fertile soils, and subjecting to their rule the degenerate populations, of the south. We have seen similar changes in Asia; and one of these is now progressing in Africa, the northern provinces of which are being subjected to the Gaul. Colonisation and emigration are rapidly peopling the western states of the northern continent of America. But to produce such a change in the condition of those far-distant countries, whose shores are washed by the Pacific Ocean, and which are comparatively inaccessible to the ordinary movements of migratory populations, whilst they held out little to invite conquest, an extraordinary stimulus was required. That stimulus has been lately afforded in abundant and overpowering measure. A popular outburst, excited by the love of territorial aggrandisement, which is inherent in the nature of the people of the United States, and which, indeed, is inseparable from the very character of their institutions, led to the seizure by them of a portion of the territory of Mexico on the shores of the North Pacific Ocean. Under ordinary circumstances the acquisition was almost valueless. By land it was well-nigh unapproachable. A wild and mountainous territory, occupied by various Indian tribes, intervened between California and the settled States of the Union. Commercially it was unimportant, and likely to remain so for years, if not for centuries, whilst, as an agricultural territory, it was inferior in fertility to those States. It had certainly the advantage of nearer proximity to India and China; but there was scarcely along any portion of the west coast of either the United States or South America sufficient population to render that advantage of value. But in 1848, only a few months after its acquisition by the model Republic, the world was startled with the news that gold had been discovered upon the Sacramento River, within a short distance from the port and bay of San Francisco; and further advices informed us that the deposits of that mineral extended over a territory five hundred miles in length by forty to fifty miles in width; and that, in fact, it promised to be inexhaustible in amount, as it was unrivalled in fineness. A population immediately began to flock to San Francisco by every possible route from the United States, from the west coast of South America, and from the islands of the Pacific. Even China was attracted by the flattering accounts promulgated of the richness of the mines, and began to pour forth its population towards the scene. The emigrating population of Great Britain swelled the tide; and, within twelve months of the first discovery of gold, we heard of nearly three hundred sail of shipping being assembled in San Francisco bay, deserted by their officers and crews, who had joined their cargoes of passengers, and run off to partake of the rich harvest provided for them. The sufferings and privations endured by some of the early adventurers—the crime, the outrage, and utter lawlessness, which spread over the entire territory—were recorded in vain. No warning was heeded. The passion for gain is one of the strongest in our nature. Men heard of fortunes being earned in a day; of the poorest becoming suddenly rich; of revelry and wild enjoyment ensuing after severe toil and privation; and the tide of adventurers flowed on with increased volume as every day added to the assurance that the attracting cause was a permanent one. It cannot be forgotten by the commercial people of this country how vast was the impulse given to the industry, and the agricultural, manufacturing, and maritime interests of the American Republic, by this state of things. Her people almost ceased to care about supplying Europe with farm products. The wealthy settlers in her golden territory could now afford to consume what had formerly been exported as a disposable surplus. Their monetary circulation was being largely expanded; and to a corresponding extent they were enabled to extend their commercial operations to every country. Their shipping, having earned large freights by the transport of passengers from the Atlantic ports round Cape Horn to California, could afford to make the run across the Pacific in ballast to India and China, whence they competed with us in homeward freights on terms almost ruinous to the British shipowner. And although they became, and have since continued to be, larger consumers than formerly of our products of every kind, it is very questionable whether, in the long run, this increased consumption would have compensated us as a nation for the advantages which America had obtained over us, through the possession of this new territory, with its mineral riches, in carrying on the traffic between our eastern possessions and China and the various markets of Europe.
The route westward, by the North Pacific to the Indian Ocean, was thus for the first time established as a great maritime highway by the enterprising mercantile community of the United States. We had ourselves long previously used the route via Cape Horn and the South Pacific in our trade with Chili, Peru, and other countries on the west coast of South America. It was reserved for us for the first time to open out for the commerce of the world an eastern route from the Atlantic and from Europe across the South Pacific Ocean; in fact, to bring into practical use the voyages of Cook, Vancouver, and other circumnavigators of the globe, whose achievements during the past century had hitherto been regarded as interesting only in a geographical point of view. Here, again, it was an all-wise Providence which directed our path. On the 6th May 1851, it was first announced that gold had been discovered in our convict settlement of New South Wales. The news spread like wildfire throughout the colony; and in a very short space of time there were upwards of four thousand “diggers” at Ophir, near Bathurst, where the discovery was first made, whose success fully equalled that of the early adventurers at the Californian mines. Additional gold-fields were found shortly afterwards both in New South Wales and the province of Victoria; and before the end of July the arrivals of gold at Sydney, Geelong, and Melbourne were sufficiently abundant to create a perfect revolution in the labour market, not only in those towns, but in the agricultural districts of the entire colony of Australia. The ordinary pursuits of the population were everywhere abandoned. Men of all classes, capable of wielding a pick or a spade, and many to whom such instruments had been previously unknown, were seen abandoning their farms, their shops, or their counting-houses, to swell the throng which rushed forth from every quarter to “prospect” for gold in the gullies and creeks whose appearance or geological formation promised a yield of the precious metal. At the first announcement of so startling a discovery, a large portion of the public in this country were indisposed to credit it. Would-be-wise people shook their heads, and hinted that a mania had seized upon the Australian colonists, which in its issue must be productive of their utter ruin. We had black pictures painted of the effect of a neglected agriculture; and some wiser people than their fellows—journalists and statisticians—indulged in laboured arguments to show that picking up “nuggets” or dust must in a very short period become an unprofitable avocation, and absorb more labour than would yield a paying return, in comparison with the ordinary pursuits of industry. But each fresh arrival from the colony showed the fallacy of these anticipations and prophecies. Gold continued to be picked up in abundance, sufficient to remunerate every person engaged in its search, although the number of the searchers had been multiplied twenty-fold; and a vast emigration began to flow from this and other countries towards the new El Dorado. In 1851—the year when the discovery was first made—there were despatched from the United Kingdom alone 272 ships, with an aggregate tonnage of 145,164 tons, having on board 21,532 passengers. In 1852, the number of ships despatched was 568, with an aggregate tonnage of 335,717 tons, having on board 87,881 passengers. When using this term, by the by, it ought to be borne in mind that adult passengers are meant, children of tender years being counted as nothing, whilst of young persons under fourteen years of age, two are counted as a passenger. The emigration of 1852 would thus be at least a hundred thousand souls. During the past year the number of ships despatched was 1201, with an aggregate tonnage of 553,088 tons, being an increase on the year of 633 vessels and 217,371 tons over the amount of 1852. We have not before us accurate data for determining the precise number of passengers taken out by them; but it would certainly be equal to that of the corresponding period of the previous year. Great Britain, however, was not the only country which was adding to the population of Australia. The United States of America were sending us practised gold-diggers from California, which shortly began to be regarded as affording a less profitable field for their labour. Germany had begun to pour forth her emigrant classes to the colony; and even China was joining in the movement. In the summary of the Melbourne Argus, written for the mail of the 25th March, we find the following statement: “In the course of the last month several separate ship-loads of Chinese have landed on our shores.... Numbers of these people, strangers as they are to our customs and religion, have been sought for and engaged at good wages by employers, with whom they can only communicate by signs. They have shown themselves, on the whole, one of the most inoffensive races of the motley group who seek our golden land; and a colony of them, that have been for some time established at the diggings, are remarkable for the quietness of their demeanour, and the propriety of their behaviour.” The growth of the colony is, however, best shown by comparing the aggregate number of the population now, with what it was at the period when gold was first discovered. In the commencement of 1851, it was ascertained that the province of Victoria, which contains the most productive mines, was 77,360. The same journal from which we have quoted estimates it to be now 250,000; and adds, that it is being increased by the arrival of about 1000 immigrants per week. It is doubtful whether the other provinces—New South Wales and South and West Australia—are progressing at the same rate. The “diggers” are a migratory race. The report of a new “find” attracts them from all directions. In February last, the Tarrengower gold-field was opened out, and discovered to be most productive; and the following is a description of the state of things which followed, from one who had visited the locality: “In leaving Bendigo, the comparatively deserted state of the diggings along Kangaroo Flat, in Adelaide Gully, and the Robinson Crusoe, is very apparent. The vast extent of the yellow mounds, where so much bustle and activity formerly prevailed, is now in many cases unenlivened by the presence even of a solitary digger. The want of water, in the first instance, but chiefly the attractions of Tarrengower, have almost depopulated this portion of the Bendigo. Many stores have been removed, and a large number are closed up for the present; yet there is a vitality about the place which shows that the glory has not altogether departed. Some business is being done, and those who still remain have infinite faith in the recuperative energies of Bendigo. ‘When the winter sets in,’ they say, ‘we shall have the diggers back.’” Similar migrations are continually occurring; and hence it is most difficult to arrive at the actual population of any particular province or district. It is most probable, indeed, that the numbers of souls in the entire colony are considerably understated. This, we think, will be apparent when we come to examine the consuming powers of Australia, as tested by its imports. From a return, moved for in the House of Commons by Mr Archibald Hastie, and ordered to be printed on the 1st of May last, the following were the exports from the United Kingdom to the colony in each of the three years ending the 5th January 1854:—
| Declared value exported. | |
|---|---|
| 1851, | £2,807,356 |
| 1852, | 4,222,205 |
| 1853, | 14,506,532. |
There is certainly evidence here, either of a most wasteful consumption, or of the existence of a population greater than it is generally supposed to be. But this return does not convey the full extent of that consumption. From what appears to be a carefully compiled statement in the Melbourne Argus of the 25th of March last, the imports into the province of Victoria alone, in 1853, amounted to the enormous sum of £15,842,637, received from the following countries:—
| Great Britain, | £8,288,226 |
| West Indies (British), | 14,973 |
| North America (British), | 13,560 |
| Other British colonies, | 5,036,311 |
| United States of America, | 1,668,606 |
| Foreign States, | 820,961 |
| Total Imports, | £15,842,637 |
If the same proportionate amount has been taken by the other provinces from colonial and foreign markets, the total imports for the year would reach the vast amount of twenty-three millions sterling!
It is certainly true that, with respect to many articles, these imports have been in excess of the requirements of the colony. Its markets have been drugged with Manchester goods, with hardware, and slops, or “haberdashery,” as our parliamentary returns rather absurdly call hats, shoes, boots, ready-made clothing, &c. Serious losses will have to be encountered by those parties who are unable to hold over their consignments, and in part from the want of storage-room. But this state of things is merely temporary, and applies to articles which are not strictly necessaries. The arrival of the overland mail, with dates to the end of May, brings us the assurance that business is improving, as indeed might have been expected in a country whose population increases at the rate of a thousand persons a week, each of whom is, on landing upon its shores, placed at once in possession of an income never previously enjoyed. We have the material fact, too, before us, establishing the capability of the Australian colonist to consume largely the products of foreign industry, that during the past year the province of Victoria exported to the amount of £11,061,543, of which £8,644,529 was gold, and £1,651,543 was wool. The difference between the amount of imports and exports may be accounted for without concluding that the population has been running itself into debt beyond their means of paying it with tolerable promptitude. We may reasonably hope, too, that one of the causes of such excessive importations as those of last year will shortly be removed. We have had thus far no efficient and regular mail communication with the colony. Up to the 20th of July, our latest advices from Melbourne were dated the 25th of March; and it was to American enterprise that we were indebted for intelligence up to May 11, brought by the steamer “Golden Age” to Panama, and thence by the West India Company’s boats to Southampton. Close upon four months had thus elapsed, during which our merchants had been operating in the dark, making shipments to a colony the consuming powers of which had not been fairly tested, and which might, for anything we knew, have supplied its wants from the nearer markets of India and China, or taken a portion of the surplus shipments to California. It is clear that such has been the case. We have shown above, that of the total imports into Victoria in 1853, £5,036,311 were derived from “other British colonies,” and £1,668,606 from the United States of America. Our East Indian markets, no doubt, supplied the former amount, and the bulk of the latter crossed the Pacific from California. On the 27th July we had a regular mail by the overland route, via India and the Mediterranean, bringing advices up to the 29th May, which confirmed those brought by the “Golden Age.” It is clear that a country, which takes from the United Kingdom upwards of fourteen millions sterling per annum, ought to have permanently established for it a postal communication as rapid as possible. It is unreasonable and suicidal to torture a great mercantile nation with a system, or arrangements, which leave us for four months consecutively without advices of the wants of one of our most valuable customers, and exchange of sentiments with nearly half a million of our own fellow-countrymen. Before concluding our remarks, we shall endeavour to point out how such improved postal communication can be best established.
Returning to the immediate question of the increase of population in Australia, and its probable future rate, we may state, unhesitatingly, that it must be vastly beyond what is generally anticipated. In fact, the increase is self-creative—“vires acquirit eundo.” Every newly-arrived immigrant, who purchases land from the colonial government, and every digger who pays for a gold license, becomes, in so doing, an importer of labour. Writing on the 25th of March last, The Melbourne Argus says:—
“The following is a statement of the arrivals and departures of passengers by sea since our last summary:—
| 1854. | Arrived. | Departed. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week ending | Jan. | 28, | 2,619 | 739 |
| „ | Feb. | 4, | 1,561 | 632 |
| „ | „ | 11, | 970 | 512 |
| „ | „ | 18, | 1,475 | 557 |
| „ | „ | 25, | 1,438 | 607 |
| „ | Mar. | 4, | 1,576 | 434 |
| „ | „ | 11, | 1,336 | 670 |
| „ | „ | 18, | 1,494 | 332 |
| 12,469 | 4,483 | |||
| 4,483 | ||||
| Increase to population, | 7,986 | |||
“In the same number of weeks previously, as stated in our last summary, the increase was 6281. The immigration is, therefore, again on the increase. It is now proceeding at the rate of about 1000 per week; but we ought not to omit mentioning, that a very large increase over this may be speedily expected. We lately stated, on the authority of public documents, that our land-fund available for promoting emigration from the United Kingdom amounted in the last quarter to upwards of £250,000, and if that rate is maintained during the present year, at the cost of £6000 per ship, as estimated by the Land and Emigration Commissioners, and an average of little more than 400 persons to each ship, there will be a fund sufficient to convey free to these shores no less than 70,000 souls in one year. This, of course, is altogether independent of the emigration of persons paying their own passages, which, we have noticed, always increases with an increased Government emigration. Within the last few weeks we have been invaded by what seems likely to be the advanced guard of a large army of Chinese. Several ships have arrived crowded with Chinese passengers, and many more are reported to be on their way. The same spirit of enterprise is doubtless gradually extending itself amongst the people of other countries; and the natural effects will be exhibited in the inflow of a vast wave of population, to a colony which affords such a field to the labouring man as is presented in no other country upon earth.”
It may appear singular that there should be so large a number of departures as 4483 to set against 12,469 arrivals. We have already remarked, however, that the gold-diggers are migratory in their habits. Many of them, who have amassed a few thousand pounds, return to their own countries to settle. The state of society in Australia is not such at present as to attach parties to the colony. There is unfortunately there a want of home comforts. The wealth in the colony, suddenly acquired, is in the hands of people unprepared, by education or early pursuits, for spending it in a sensible manner, or investing it profitably. Many are coming thence only for a season, as visitors to their native land, or to return with relatives and friends; and some are going away in quest of gold, reported to exist, in more than Australian abundance, elsewhere. For example, there has been recently a rumour of the Peruvian mines reassuming their original fertility; and we observe, in recent Australian papers, announcements of numerous ships about to sail with passengers for Callao, on the west coast of South America, in the neighbourhood of which port it is said that gold has been recently discovered in large quantities. The real gold, however, will most assuredly be Peruvian guano, with which such ships will load for this country and the United States. Such re-emigration is natural amongst a population like that of Australia, and will continue for a while. But the arrivals in the colony are becoming more and more composed of the class likely to be settlers. The Germans have been lately extensive purchasers of land, and are habitués in the colony. A report of a Hamburg society gives the following as the German population in 1852:—
| New South Wales, | 13,500 |
| South Australia, | 8,000 |
| Victoria, | 1,320 |
| ____________ | |
| 24,820 |
The German emigration to Australia last year will have greatly swelled these numbers; and the description of emigrants from that country may be estimated from the fact that, of nearly 6000 persons who applied to the Berlin Emigration Society in 1852 for advice and assistance, 4444 possessed property amounting in the whole to 977,635 dollars, or, upon an average, 218 dollars (£32, 14s.) per head.[[12]] We have also yet to experience the effect which will be produced by remittances home by emigrants for the purpose of enabling their friends to join them in the colony. The impetus given to the efflux of population from Ireland by such remittances was strikingly shown by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners in their Report of last year. The remittances from the United States, as ascertained through leading mercantile and banking firms, were as follows in the years mentioned:—
| 1848 | £460,000 |
| 1849 | 540,000 |
| 1850 | 957,000 |
| 1851 | 990,000 |
| 1852 | 1,404,000 |
We observe at present that several of the leading emigration firms in London and Liverpool are making arrangements in Australia for the purpose of enabling settlers to pay the passage of their friends out to the colony.
Independently of the attractions offered by the gold-fields, of remittances from friends in Australia, or of Government aid, there is abundant certainty that emigration to that colony must increase very rapidly. In fact, scarcity of shipping is the only bar to it which is likely to be felt. There is a positive want of labour in Australia, which mocks at the childish efforts of such parliamentary committees as that of which Mr John O’Connell was recently the chairman, to prevent its supply. Notwithstanding its vast agricultural resources, the demand for their development created by a rapidly augmenting population, and the ample, and, in fact, extravagant remuneration afforded in the colony for every description of industry, the entire world, whose attention has been for the last two years attracted by its display of wealth, and which is assured of the genuine and permanent character of its claims to notice, appears unable to supply labour in sufficient abundance. Whether we turn to its imports or its exports, furnished us in the valuable report moved for by Mr Hastie, the great want of labour forces itself upon us. We shall take at random a few of the articles exported from Great Britain to the colony during the past three years:—
| 1851. | 1852. | 1853. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel, Slops, and Haberdashery, | £591,516 | £959,687 | £3,633,908 |
| Beer and Ale, | 135,674 | 245,657 | 635,870 |
| Butter and Cheese, | 4,142 | 50,583 | 207,094 |
| Soap and Candles, | 14,812 | 45,924 | 121,774 |
The last two items certainly would not occupy a place in the list of our exports to Australia if that fine agricultural country had even a moderate supply of labour. The anomaly is monstrous that butter and cheese, soap and candles, should be wanting in a country whose live stock are so abundant that they have actually to be boiled down for their tallow and hides! Our imports from Australia, however, exhibit most strongly its deficient supply of labour. We select a few items:—
| 1851. | 1852. | 1853. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regulus of Copper, tons, | 1,115 | 660 | 41 |
| Unwrought Copper, „ | 773 | 632 | 473 |
| Flax, undressed, cwt. | 1,259 | 904 | 664 |
| Hides, tanned or dressed, lb. | 931,600 | 642,198 | 9,842 |
| Oil, Spermaceti, tuns, | 1,911 | 1,609 | 940 |
| Tallow, cwt. | 174,471 | 159,333 | 125,206 |
The above articles the colony can supply to almost any extent; yet it will be observed that their export is falling off every year. Its mines of copper, especially, are amongst the richest in the world; yet they are comparatively unworked for the want of hands, whilst the world holds so many human beings who would gladly toil for one-fourth of the remuneration which Australia could so well afford them. To the people of Great Britain it is a very material object that the agricultural and mineral resources of the colony should be more largely developed than at present; for if, almost exclusively by the produce of her gold-fields, her population of little, if at all, over half a million souls can afford to import our productions to the amount of above fourteen millions sterling per annum, what may be expected when it becomes enabled to export freely the raw material, the agricultural products, and the valuable minerals—copper, tin, &c.—which its soil will yield to an extent almost beyond the power of calculation?
We have already stated that the increase of the population of Australia is self-creative; and we can very briefly show how that principle is likely to operate. We have a large amount of tonnage at present employed in the passenger trade from Great Britain to that colony; but we have not as yet sufficient homeward freight to employ one-fourth of that tonnage. Since the discovery of the gold-fields the ordinary agricultural and other pursuits of the colonists have been neglected; and, as we might have expected, the exports of bulky raw materials and produce, which constitute freight, have diminished in quantity. Hence our emigrant ships, except in the case of those of the established lines from Liverpool and London, which now return direct from that colony, have had to go in ballast to the Eastern Seas, or to the guano islands of Peru, to seek cargoes. Where such a course has to be pursued, the passage-money outwards must range high—far above the means of the most valuable emigrants, who are agricultural labourers, practical miners, and artisans. But this state of things cannot continue to exist long. The gold-fields are sufficiently tempting, no doubt; yet there are blanks there as well as prizes. The disappointed must resort to agricultural and other walks of industry. The flocks and herds of the squatters in the bush are increasing at a most rapid rate—far beyond the consumptive demand of the colony—and the supplies for export of hides, tallow, oil, and wool must very largely increase. Of the latter most important raw material the following were the shipments to this country during the past three years:—
| Wool—Sheep and Lambs’ | 1851, | 41,810,117 lb. |
| 1852, | 43,197,301 „ | |
| 1853, | 47,075,963 „ |
In bales the total exports of last year were 153,000, of an average of about 300 lb. weight each. This article alone would afford return cargoes for from thirty to forty thousand tons of shipping. The yield both of wool and tallow must increase enormously in a few years; and when an ample supply of homeward freight is afforded, our emigration houses will be enabled to reduce considerably the outward passage-money for emigrants to the colony, and thus add to the numbers of its population.
But we cannot regard the discoveries which have been made in the countries of the Pacific as merely tending to give an impulse to our commerce, and to afford increased employment to our shipping and to industry at home. We must regard them in a much more extended light. The important change which is taking place may fairly be termed the opening out of a new quarter of the globe, rich beyond measure in all the products which are valuable and useful to man, and the establishment, in its centre, of an Anglo-Saxon empire, whose future destiny and greatness it is almost impossible to predict rightly. A glance at the position of Australia will be sufficient to show its great commercial importance. To the north-westward it has the fertile islands of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Philippines, Ceylon, with the vast continent containing China and Hindostan. The extreme portions of these are at less than half the distance which lies between them and Great Britain. From Melbourne to Madras is little more than 5700 miles, whilst the nearer islands in the Indian Ocean are only distant from 3000 to 3500 miles. From Melbourne to any portion of the west coast of North and South America the distance, by the eastward Pacific route, is 8000 miles, or little over that from Great Britain to Cape Horn. It is thus in closer proximity than the mother country to San Francisco, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, and La Plata. There can no want occur of any of the products of the tropics, at all events, to a country occupying a central position as regards such markets as we have named, rich in all that conduces to the comfort and the luxuries of life; whilst of those products which are raised in the temperate zone, Australia has soils of her own capable of providing her with food in abundance, and raw materials amply sufficient to pay for all that she will require to import, without drawing upon her vast stores of the precious metals. These must rapidly become available to create for her population a capital for the purposes of commerce, a mercantile marine, railways, and other improved communications, well-built towns, substantial public works, and the usual accompaniments enjoyed by settled and prosperous communities. There can be no doubt that the absence of these are amongst the main causes which retard emigration to the colony of families belonging to the middle and superior classes, and the absence there so generally regretted of what may be called a “home circle.” Such a want keeps back the influx of a female population, especially of the class required to make a home comfortable; but it will be supplied in time, and, in fact, is being rapidly supplied now. Not much more than six months ago, Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, and the seat of the government of the colony, was in a most deplorable state, and without anything like the accommodation required for its population or its commerce. Stores and warehouses there were almost none; and we heard, by every arrival, of merchandise being sacrificed on this account. But more recent advices report that—
“Melbourne is branching out upon every side. Townships spring up in localities where a short time ago there was not a single dwelling of any description; houses seem, in fact, to swarm like mushrooms from the ground in a single night. A little more than twelve months since, and North Melbourne was merely the site of a few scattered tents; it now contains a population of several thousands, with comfortable homes, shops, hotels, and schools to meet the wants of its inhabitants. The suburbs, that are being formed in the opposite direction, offer a still stronger proof of the growth of a taste that has always been peculiarly English, and one that will do more than anything else to place the prosperity of this colony upon a secure foundation—namely, a desire for home comfort. In former times the pursuit of money was the whole, the engrossing passion of the community; so long as this object was attained, the feverish seeker cast not a thought upon the manner in which he lived; he appeared to have an utter disregard of the comforts of home. If he happened to have a run of luck, and was successful, what benefit did he reap from his success! He would run riot for a time, and spend the hard earnings of a month in the dearly-bought pleasure of a few hours’ debauchery. The principal reason for this, next to our abominable land-system, was, that the colony could not offer the swarming mass of new-comers any domestic comforts. Now, however, the case is becoming far different: at Richmond, Prahran, St Kilda, and Brighton, the passer-by can gaze everywhere with pleasure upon pretty cottages enclosed in their own little gardens, cheerful, trim-built English-looking villas, and some dwelling-houses that may fairly lay claim to the high-sounding appellation of mansions. Each of these suburbs, hemming Melbourne in on every side, constitutes a town of some size; and we have no doubt that, in a very short space of time, they will form part of Melbourne itself, much in the same manner that Chelsea and Putney do of London; indeed, St Kilda, Windsor, and Prahran are already connected by a line of houses almost the whole of the way with the town.”
A similar state of progressive improvement exists at Sydney, Geelong, Adelaide, and other towns. The population in them is becoming a more settled one; business goes on in more regular channels, and domestic comforts are more studied. Substantial stores for merchandise are also rising up on every side; and importers are now enabled to hold back their goods for a more profitable market than the previous system of selling them on landing, whatever might be the state of the demand, would admit of.
The colony, too, is assuming more and more the character, which it is destined to possess, of an important mercantile community; and its commercial firms are actively preparing for extensive transactions with the rich countries with which they have communication in every direction. The first step towards forwarding such object has naturally been to connect with each other the various ports along the coast, and the towns on the principal rivers; and accordingly we find established lines of steamers running from Sydney to the leading ports in the other provinces, and to the interior at every point where river navigation is practicable, and a working community and trade exist. The same accommodation is provided from Melbourne, Geelong, and Adelaide, to other ports and towns. Several lines of sailing packets also offer themselves to the public between the principal ports. In fact, a large coasting-trade is carried on, both in passengers and merchandise, the route by sea being preferred to travelling by land over badly-formed, and frequently unsafe, roads. In the first instance, some difficulty existed in procuring vessels, especially for the navigation of the rivers, where a light draught of water was necessary, as such vessels could not be trusted to make the voyage out from Europe or America. They are now, however, being gradually supplied by builders in the colony. A somewhat larger class of vessels is regularly employed in the trade between New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, and New Zealand, Van Diemen’s Land, and the government settlement in West Australia, with a few for San Francisco, Callao, Manilla, and the near East Indian ports. The enterprise of the mercantile community in the colony is being gradually drawn towards this trade; and shipping of the class suitable for it is in active demand, both for purchase and charter. Attention is also being re-directed to the staple business of the colony—the export of its wool, tallow, hides, &c., which will be more cultivated as the fever for dealing in gold abates. At present, indeed, gold, as an article of merchandise, scarcely yields a profit, so numerous are the buyers of it, competing with each other, belonging to the Jewish persuasion. Employment for capital must be sought for in another direction, and it is to be hoped a legitimate one, otherwise the large sums now lying idle in the colony may be squandered in rash speculations. At the close of the last quarter, the Bank of Australia held deposits, not bearing interest, to the amount of £1,998,730 sterling; the Bank of Australasia held at the same period £2,358,390; the Victoria Branch of the Bank of New South Wales held £760,731; the Bank of Victoria, £988,244; and the London Chartered Bank of Australia £133,200, making an aggregate of deposits, not bearing interest, of £6,239,297 sterling. As might have been expected, these establishments are dividing amongst their shareholders, forty, fifteen, and twenty per cent respectively. The last mentioned has only been established nine months, and as yet has made no dividend. A large portion of this money must be employed either in commerce or in improvements, as the colonists begin to see their way more clearly. It can never be allowed to lie thus unproductively; yet from the habits of the diggers, and their want of opportunities for investment, there must always be a large amount at their credit in the banks.
The increased employment given by Australia to the shipping of all nations is not, perhaps, sufficiently estimated by the public, and certainly goes far to account for the prosperity of the British shipowner, and for the high rates of freight prevailing throughout the world. From the 20th of January last to the 23d of March, the number of vessels cleared out from the port of Melbourne, exclusive of coasters and colonial traders, were 198, and the number of entries inwards 163, making 261 ships arriving and departing in the short period of sixty days. The bulk of these were large ships, of from 500 to 1000 tons, with some even of more than that tonnage. The arrivals and departures from Sydney, Geelong, and Adelaide would no doubt be greater in number, although of a less size than those of Melbourne. It is probably not unfair to estimate the entire number of arrivals and departures in the colony at 400 ships; and taking the tonnage at the low average of 400 tons each ship, we have the quantity employed in the two months, 160,000 tons, or 960,000 tons per annum, by this noble colony.
We must not, however, confine ourselves to Australia, although we might be excused for dwelling upon it as our own possession. It is a portion, indeed, and the most important one, as being the centre, and probably the seat, of the great Pacific empire which is to be; but still it is only a portion. We have a young and enterprising competitor for sway in the southern hemisphere, and one who is even now making vast efforts to assert that sway; a competitor who regards lightly the geographical formation of the globe itself, if it offers a barrier to his ambition. The acquisition, by the United States, of the territory of California, with its great mineral resources, has given their people a footing in the Pacific, and opened out for them a trade not only with the fertile countries of South America, but also with Australia itself. They outstrip us in their knowledge of the wants of those countries, and in the ample provision which they have been making for their profitable supply. Nay, they have even been enabled to bring their own gold-fields, notwithstanding geographical impediments, actually nearer to Great Britain than its own gold-yielding colony. On the first discovery of the mineral riches of California, it became an object with the United States people to bring to their Atlantic ports, as expeditiously as possible, return remittances in gold for the large shipments of provisions, merchandise, and necessaries, sent by them round Cape Horn for the increasing population of California engaged in mining operations, and by whom agricultural and other pursuits were almost entirely neglected. In the first instance this was endeavoured to be effected by the employment of a line of steamers to make the passage round Cape Horn to New Orleans, whence mails and specie were conveyed by another line of steamers to New York. But our quick-sighted and energetic brethren soon discovered that this natural route was too long for their purposes. The time occupied by the voyage round the South American continent could be saved, if the means could be found of crossing the Isthmus of Panama, which, from Panama on the Pacific side, to Chagres, or Navy Bay, on the Atlantic, was only fifty miles in width; and notwithstanding the passage over the isthmus was at first a difficult and even an unhealthy one, it was adopted; and the mails and specie, having been transported across from Panama to Chagres, were taken on to New York via Jamaica, by the United States Mail Steam-ship Company. By the adoption of this route, the distance from San Francisco to New York was reduced to 5450 miles, of which 2100 miles was accomplished by steaming on the Atlantic, 3300 miles on the Pacific, and 50 miles by overland conveyance across the isthmus, and the time reduced to about three weeks. In September last, we find from an article in the New York Merchant’s Magazine, republished in the Sydney Herald of February 23d, that the following was the provision made by the United States for their traffic with California and the countries of the west coast of South America:—
“Of the American steamers sailing between New York and the West Indies, one of the most important communications between the former port and Havanna is established by the United States Steam-ship Company. By virtue of the law of Congress, contracting for carrying the mails, the steamers of this company are commanded by officers of the United States navy. Of the steamers of this line plying between New York and New Orleans, embracing the alternate voyages of those ships, the aggregate tonnage is 4800. The steam-ship ‘United States,’ in her trips from New York to Aspinwall, touches at Kingston, Jamaica. The Pacific Mail Steam-ship Company, which, in connection with the United States Mail Steam-ship Company, carries the American mails to California and Oregon, was established in 1848. It numbers at present fourteen steamers, built at New York, with an aggregate of 15,536 tons.
“In the transportation of the mails, the United States Mail Steam-ship Company on the Atlantic side connects with the Pacific Company. This line, established in 1848 by Mr Law of New York, comprises nine ships now on the service, with one recently launched, and not yet placed on the line. They register in the aggregate 19,600 tons. The steamers of this line are despatched from New York and New Orleans for Aspinwall twice a month.
“The Nicaragua Accessory Transit Company was established in 1850, by Mr Vanderbilt, of New York, and he receives twenty per cent of the profits of the company. This line, forming a communication between New York and San Juan del Norte on the Atlantic, and between San Juan del Sud and San Francisco on the Pacific, is composed of ten steamers, with an aggregate of 18,000 tons. Of these, two sail from New York twice a month for San Juan del Norte, and five are plying on the Pacific side.
“The New York and San Francisco Steam-ship Company comprises four steamers, with an aggregate of 7400 tons; the ‘United States,’ 1500 tons; and another, the ‘Winfield Scott,’ 2100 tons; and the ‘Cortes,’ 1500 tons, plying between Panama and San Francisco. They are equally divided upon the Pacific and the Atlantic sides. All of these vessels were built in New York.
“The Empire City Line was established in 1848, and is composed of three steamers, of an aggregate of 6800 tons. The ‘Empire City’ and the ‘Crescent City’ were the pioneers of this line, and were two of the first steamers engaged in the California trade.
“From the foregoing estimate of the California steam-ships in connection with the port of New York, it will be seen that the number of steamers engaged in that trade is forty-one, including four ships of Law’s Line, which were formerly engaged in the California trade, but which now run between New York, New Orleans, and Havanna—viz., the ‘Empire City,’ ‘Crescent City,’ ‘Cherokee,’ and ‘Falcon.’ The aggregate tonnage of these forty-one ships is 67,336. But this is not all. There are ten American steamers plying between San Francisco and Stockton; there are ten also plying between San Francisco and Sacramento. The latter are for the most part of a larger size than those on the San Joaquin river, and make the trip of a hundred and twenty miles in from seven to eight hours. In the elegance of their accommodations, and the luxuries of their larders, they might compare favourably with any passenger vessels in the world. There are ten other steamers plying from Sacramento to different places above that city. One year ago, there was but one steamboat in Oregon, the ‘Columbia;’ now there are eleven steamboats of different kinds running in the Columbia and Willamette rivers, not including the Pacific steamers,’Sea Gull’ and ‘Columbia,’ running between Oregon and California. At this rate of progress the United States will soon be mistress of the Pacific. American steam-ship lines will, in a few years, be running from San Francisco to Australia, China, and the East Indies.”
There can be little doubt of the truth of one of the prophecies with which our extract concludes, that American steam-ship lines “will, in a few years, be running from San Francisco to Australia, China, and the East Indies;” but what a great future for Australia does this suggest! There must spring up a vast trade between her population and the entire Pacific seaboard of South America. When her agriculture is more fully developed, it is not at all doubtful that, whilst supplying even California with breadstuffs, &c., she may also supply the west coast of South America with the products of the temperate zone, and with the copper and other minerals abounding in her soil. We doubt, however, the truth of the prophecy that the United States is likely to be soon “the mistress of the Pacific;” to prevent, in fact, the trade between Australia, China, the East Indies, &c., and San Francisco, being carried on by Australian enterprise, aided by British capital. Fortunately the same enterprise, aided by the capital of this country, might be so directed as to confer a vast boon upon Great Britain herself. One of the leading sources of her present influence in the Pacific is evidently considered by the writer, from whom we have quoted above, to be the adoption by America of the short route to the Pacific via Panama. That route, however, is equally as available to the commerce of Great Britain and Australia as it is to that of the United States; and the fact leads us to the consideration of one of the greatest wants of Australia, which has very materially retarded its progress, whilst it has also been severely felt by the mercantile community of this country—viz., the want of a regular, frequent, and expeditious mail communication between Great Britain and her southern colonial empire. We have already stated that during the past spring serious commercial losses have been occasioned by the want in question, no Government mail having been received in this country from Australia during a period of four months, up to the 27th July last, whilst we have been exporting actually at random. The colony and this country have been mocked by postal arrangements, proposed, but never efficiently carried out. The “Peninsular and Oriental Company” have been subsidised for the purpose of conveying mails once a month; but their efforts have been a failure. Not once in three times have we had a mail without a mistake occurring at some point of the route. Sometimes the steamers employed from Australia have arrived at Singapore or Point de Galle a day or two after the steamers for England have started. Occasionally a few letters have come, whilst the newspapers, containing the most important news for the public—shipping and market intelligence—have been left behind. A while ago, we heard of the “Chusan” steamer arriving at Sydney a day or two earlier than her previous performances led her to be expected; and it was with difficulty that the colonists were enabled to induce her commander to stay above twelve hours to enable a mail for Great Britain to be made up. Any one who has read the excellent digests of Australian news contained in the Melbourne Argus and the Sydney Morning Herald, sent by every Government mail, may imagine that some time is required for writing them, irrespective of printing. The General Screw Steam Company also attempted the carrying of the mails, and subsequently the Australian Royal Mail Steam Company, both subsidised by Government, made the same attempt. They failed in the performance of their engagements. The latter had contracted to perform the voyage from England to Sydney in 64 days, and homewards in 68 days. The “Chusan” was 79 days on the passage from England to Sydney; the “Formosa” 76 days; the “Cleopatra” 120 days. In fact, the Company’s ships were laughed at by ordinary sailing vessels. Then sailing vessels were tried; and we were told that mails were to be forwarded by this or that “clipper,” the Post-Office guaranteeing its sailing on a particular day. But first-rate ships would not accept the terms offered; and accordingly, we had continual instances of those who had undertaken the work failing in its performance. There has hitherto been no certainty as to the mail communication between this country and the colony. We never could tell, within two or three months, at what date we might expect to receive the reply to a letter to Australia, or when one from Great Britain would arrive out in the colony. The merchant who had shipped, or made advances upon goods, had no certainty as to the time when he must make arrangements to meet the demands upon him out of his own resources. The want of certainty imparted an additional amount of hazard to the trade between the two countries. But this is not all the evil resulting from inadequate postal communication. It has tended very greatly, combined with bad post-office management in the colony, to prevent emigration. People accustomed to daily intercourse with their friends are unwilling to embark for a country from which they can rarely assure them of their safe arrival, or inform them as to how the world goes with them, in less than eight or nine months. A brother, a sister, or a friend, with whom we can correspond, is not as one lost to us. We do not regard them as quite beyond our social circle. But an emigrant to Australia has thus far been practically rendered an outcast. We may hear of him, or her, if fortune smiles, or dire adversity occurs; but the ordinary kindliness of brotherhood, or sisterhood, becomes neglected when the means of epistolary intercourse are denied. The rudest amongst us feel this as a bar to adventuring into a new country. The emigrant would be glad to communicate the tidings of his good or evil lot to sympathising friends at home; and there are few who do not know with what delight even the merest scrap of home news is received by those who are separated by far less than half the circumference of the globe from that home. What would not any Australian digger give at the present moment if he could hear his parent’s clock tick in its old familiar place? What would any parent at home not give for a glimpse of the present features of a child now located at the antipodes?
It is humiliating to us as Britons, to contrast the niggardly conduct of our own Post-Office authorities, and of the Colonial Office, with that which we have already shown was adopted by the Government of the United States towards the population of its new territory of California. Unfortunately, we are governed in this country upon “economical” principles. The spirit of the trader is carried into every department of the public service. When we ask for any comprehensive and perfect scheme of improvement, we are mocked by some petty expedient, because every successive administration, and every public official, are ambitious of doing their work more cheaply than their predecessors. This is especially the case with respect to the postal arrangements of the country. When an extension or an improvement of the system is suggested, the first question asked is not, “Is it wanted?” but, “Will it pay?” Our American brethren have always dealt with the business of their post-office in a different spirit. They felt that those who are maintaining the commercial greatness of the country by their toil in California are worthy of being enabled to communicate cheaply with their friends at home. Our own postal authorities, however, appear disposed to treat that colony, which is similarly promoting the commerce of Great Britain, rather as an unreasonably intruding suppliant than an important community asking for what is fairly due to them. Our colonists feel deeply the injustice of their position, that, whilst a portion of the colonial revenue is contributed to the Home Government, to be expended in securing steam facilities for their mails, the object for which they are paying is not accomplished.
We feel perfectly assured that we never shall have an effective postal communication with Australia, until we cease to regard that important colony as a mere calling-station for our East Indian mails. Its increasing commerce with the mother country demands that it should have a mail service distinctly its own, conducted with no other view than to promote the convenience of that commerce, and of the people of the colony. How then is this to be provided most economically, and, at the same time, most effectively? The latter is the main question. We ought scarcely to think about cost in the effort to improve the postal facilities of a possession which, we have seen, took from us last year upwards of fourteen millions sterling of British produce and manufactures. Past experience has, we think, shown sufficiently that the object in view can never be obtained by steaming round the Cape of Good Hope. The shortest passages as yet attained by that route were performed by the “Golden Age” in 61 days, and by the “Argo” in 64 days. The noble steam-ship “Great Britain,” in the last trip made the distance to Melbourne in 65 days. The Australian Steam Navigation Company, which promised so largely, failed most unequivocally. The first of their ships, the “Australian,” took 44 days to reach the Cape; the “Sydney” took 54 days; the “Melbourne” took 75 days; and the “Adelaide” took 77 days. Of the two last vessels’ voyages the Melbourne Argus remarked at the time:—
“The preposterous length of the voyage is a minor evil in comparison with the anxiety which haunted this community for weeks in the case of the last two steamers. We were almost on the point of giving up the ‘Adelaide’ for lost, when the lumbering old hulk was reported at last to have rolled into Adelaide.... The mischiefs inflicted upon the mercantile community here, by the detention of the ‘Adelaide,’ and the fears for her safety, have been intolerable. Mails have been postponed—goods have arrived before the advices or bills of lading had come to hand—correspondence has been confused, and business transactions have been utterly deranged. It is most provoking to think that a steamer holding the Government mail contract, and for which the mails have been kept back for several weeks, should leave London on the 11th of December, and arrive in Port Philip on the 11th of May following—a period of five months precisely!”
Undoubtedly the Company must have mismanaged its business, and its vessels been unfit for the service. But it is the opinion of all nautical men, that mails, conveyed in even the most superior steamers by way of the Cape of Good Hope, can never be depended upon either for speed or regularity. The most efficient mode which we have seen proposed for performing the service, is that of the Australian Direct Steam Navigation Company via Panama. It is intended that this Company’s vessels, which are to be powerful paddle-wheel steamers of 3000 tons, shall proceed at stated periods from Milford Haven to Aspinwall (Navy Bay), on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus; from whence passengers and cargo will be conveyed by railway to Panama, on the Pacific side, and there re-embarked for Australia, accomplishing the whole distance, to or from, in about fifty-five days. That the power of fulfilling this promise is within the reach of an energetic Company, has recently been proved by the experiment made by the United States steamer, “Golden Age.” America, by the by, is still our pioneer in steam enterprise.
“The ‘Golden Age’—(we quote from an ably-conducted Liverpool paper, the Journal)—steaming only slowly, and under unfavourable circumstances, made the run from Sydney to Tahiti in 13½ days, and from Tahiti to Panama in 18 days 12 hours. A more powerful vessel would have performed the distances in about 11 and 15 days respectively, and surmounted effectually the only difficulty to be experienced in crossing the Pacific, namely, carrying coals sufficient for the voyage from station to station. The detention, which in this case was nearly 15 days between Sydney and Southampton, might be shortened to about 4 days, by proper arrangements being made for prompt despatch; and the voyage would thus be performed in from 50 to 53 days.”
A portion of the journey across the Isthmus, we may remark, was performed on mules, only thirty-one miles of the railway being as yet completed. The whole line, however, is expected to be opened in the course of the present year.
Many circumstances concur to render the Panama route infinitely preferable to any other. In the first place, the shortest distance has to be traversed. From Milford Haven to Sydney by this route is only 12,440 miles, the whole of which, with the exception of 45 miles, is by sea. By the present Peninsular and Oriental Company’s route, via Swan River and Cape Leeuwin, from Southampton the distance is 12,855 miles, of which 238 have to be performed between Alexandria and Suez by canal, by the Nile, and across the desert. By the same Company’s route via Torres Straits, the distance is 13,095 miles, with the same overland journey to make from Alexandria to Suez. We can only get our mails from Australia by either of these routes in sixty days, by the very costly express from Marseilles. The General Screw Company’s route, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, Madras, and Point de Galle, is enormously circuitous; and the same Company’s new route, without touching at the Cape, is 12,837 miles. There is another serious disadvantage connected with the eastward voyage. From the Cape to Australia the weather is generally boisterous, with variable winds; and in passing the equinoctial line, ships have to encounter calms, and can derive no aid from carrying canvass. The loss of that aid is a serious matter to screw steamers, in a voyage where economy in the article of fuel is so desirable. From Great Britain to Navy Bay, on the other hand, is usually a run in which canvass can be advantageously used, whilst the run from Panama to Australia is through pleasant weather for the entire distance, the Pacific fully justifying the propriety of its appellation.
Of course, a company working the Panama route effectively, with superior vessels, and carrying regular mails, must be subsidised by the British Government. Our colonists themselves would gladly lend their aid by grants out of their own public revenue. In fact, the province of New South Wales has recently advertised its willingness to give a bonus of £6000 sterling to any company which will bring the postal distance between England and Melbourne to sixty days each way. The Australian Direct Company, however, anticipate a good profit on their undertaking, irrespective of remuneration in the form of a subsidy for carrying the mails, as will be perceived from the following extract from their prospectus, published last year:—
“It is thought unnecessary to dwell on the great extension of general traffic wherever proper facilities of intercourse by steam have been afforded: it may, however, be briefly stated, that the produce of gold during the year 1852, in the colony of Victoria alone, amounted to over £18,000,000, with every prospect of a continuous increase, exclusive of the produce of New South Wales, which forms a large addition to this vast amount; that, during the months January, February, March, and April last, the specie transmitted across the Isthmus—from Peru and Chili, from the western coast of Mexico, and from California—amounted to 20,410,796 dollars, exceeding £4,000,000 sterling,—and that the passenger traffic, by the same route and for the same period, amounted to 10,568 persons, irrespective of those conveyed by the San Juan de Nicaragua line. It may be, moreover, observed that this extent of traffic, however great, affords no adequate idea of the vast trade which will arise to feed this line, when in full operation,—with all the important advantages of a completed railway, and of a systematic conduct of business.
“Large additions to this vast traffic must necessarily flow from the increasing intercourse between North America and the Australian colonies, facilitated as such intercourse is by the powerful lines of steamers already established between the United States and the Isthmus of Panama in the North Atlantic, and between California and Panama in the North Pacific. The augmented line of steamers, also, employed by the Pacific Steam Navigation Company between Valparaiso and Panama, must considerably swell the stream. These great results stand in perfect independence of a line projected, which will in all probability, at no distant period, connect California and China; and likewise of traffic, the natural result of conveyance of passengers and valuable merchandise diverted from old and circuitous routes.
“The Directors derive great encouragement from the knowledge that the objects of this Company are favoured with the high approval of British merchants in general. Many of the most eminent London houses have strongly expressed their approbation; and the following document fully attests the spirit in which the enterprise is regarded by several influential and distinguished Manchester firms:
“‘We, the undersigned, being desirous of encouraging the establishment of a line of first-class steam-packets, offering increased facilities and advantages for the transit of passengers and goods to and from Australia and the different important States in the Pacific Ocean, and being deeply impressed with the advantages of the route by the way of the Isthmus of Panama, since the establishment of the railroad at that place connecting the two oceans,—hereby signify our approval of the projected British and Australian Direct Screw Steam Packet Company, for the purpose of carrying out the line of communication to those parts in the most efficient manner. (Signed)—R. Gladstone & Co., Horrocks, Jackson & Co., Robert Smith & Co., Robert Gardner, Samuel Mendel, Robt. Barbour & Brothers, John Pender & Co., George Fraser, Son, & Co., Henry B. Jackson, R. I. Farbridge & Co., B. Liebert, Prescott, Brothers, & Co., Thos. Cardwell & Co., Oswald Stevenson & Co., J. A. Turner & Co.’”
It is most desirable that whatever line is selected for conveying the mails should be as far as possible remunerative, in order to enable Government to fix the rates of postage as low as possible. The present charges are preposterously high. A letter by a sailing ship, which may be from ninety to one hundred days on the passage, costs eightpence, if under half an ounce. By steam and overland mail, it is from a shilling to twentypence, if under a quarter of an ounce in weight, for what to a man, whose caligraphy is not of a diminutive order, or who cannot command “bank” or “foreign post” paper, must be only half a letter. Cheap postage for the newly settled population of Australia, and for their friends in this country, is as essential as regular and expeditious mails are to the mercantile communities in both countries. We must remark, too, that newspapers and trade circulars are as much required to be conveyed expeditiously as mercantile letters. By the last overland mail a fortunate few received despatches via Marseilles in sixty days. The bulk of the mail, consisting of newspapers and letters from emigrants, &c., was not delivered until the arrival of the steamer at Southampton, nearly seventy days from her leaving the colony.
We have certainly little hope of our Government doing much to develop the resources of Australia. The Post-Office authorities may, indeed, be induced to concede to the colony, and to the mercantile community of this country, a direct mail communication via Panama, by the prospect—indeed, almost certainty—that if they fail in the performance of their duty, the United States Government will do it for them. The experiment made by the American steam-ship “Golden Age” is said to have been, commercially, an unprofitable one. But the application of steam power to the performance of long voyages is even as yet in its infancy. The chief difficulty hitherto experienced in making short and regular passages to a distant port has been the large quantity of coals required to be carried, which diminishes the power of carrying cargo in our mail steamers. It is estimated that our Cunard Company’s and the Collins’ boats would have to diminish their speed, and to forfeit some of their character for regularity in the transmission of mails to and from America, were the two countries a thousand miles farther apart. But at the present time an improvement is making in the machinery of one of the boats of the latter Company by her owners in the United States, which, it is stated, is likely to economise very materially her consumption of fuel, the saving by which may either be applied to increasing her speed or her carrying capabilities. The same improvement can be adopted in our Australian steamers. But from the Colonial Office we expect literally nothing. The treatment of Australia by that Office has been, from first to last, most neglectful; and even since the gold discoveries, and the recognition by all thinking men of the vast importance which the colony has assumed as a feeder of the commerce of England, our statesmen have appeared incapable of appreciating its claims to their consideration. A glaring instance of this perverse or ignorant blindness has recently occurred in the filling up of the office of Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia. The first party appointed was Mr Stonor, an Irish member, of no great mark in Parliament or elsewhere. This gentleman duly sailed for the colony, but was shortly after his departure unseated for bribery. Such was the grossness of the charges against him, brought to light by a parliamentary inquiry, that the Colonial Office were compelled to despatch his recall. Another Lieutenant-Governor was to be appointed; and the choice fell upon the Hon. F. Lawley, M.P. for Beverley. Mr Lawley’s claims to hold an appointment, so important at the present crisis in a country which eminently requires the supervising of a practical statesman, experienced in the management of colonial affairs, are not easy to discover. He was a young man—young at least in public life—twenty-eight years of age; had passed rather a distinguished course at the university, and had held for a few months the situation of private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he was chiefly known to the public as a runner of race-horses, and a rather unsuccessful speculator on the Turf. The noble Lord at the head of the Administration, it appears, had some interest in the borough—Beverley—which Mr Lawley represented, and had also a son, who was ambitious of parliamentary honours. Mr Lawley was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia; vacated his seat for Beverley; and Lord Aberdeen’s son was elected to fill his place. We only mention this as a curious coincidence. But Mr Lawley had some sense of honour in his breast, as became a young man of his rank and birth, or he may have had merely a correct appreciation of “the fitness of things.” Subsequently to his ill-success upon the Turf—it is not said whether or not during his tenure of his confidential office under the Chancellor of the Exchequer—he had speculated on the Stock Exchange—and lost. His resolution—taken, no doubt, after a due examination of the state of his affairs—was promptly notified to the Government. He resigned the office to which he had been appointed; and the colony was spared the infliction of a Lieutenant-Governor in whom the propensity for gambling was so strongly developed, and whose favourite sphere of action would probably have been upon the race-course of Adelaide. What may be the effect upon the minds of the population of this treatment of South Australia by the Colonial Office we are not to foretell. It cannot, however, advance that Office in their estimation.
Failing the hope of efficient Government aid to the growth of the Australian colonies—as we think it will fail—those colonies have within their reach the means of aiding themselves in one vitally important matter—the securing of a larger supply of labour. The funds accruing from the sale of lands in the colony have, for some years past, been devoted to the purpose of assisting the emigration of useful classes of labourers—principally agricultural—to the various colonies; the business being managed in this country by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners. Of course, a crotchety management was to be anticipated from such a body, composed of parties utterly unversed in the business. We believe it will be found by the colonists that the management has not only been crotchety, but extravagantly expensive, and even destructive of the lives of the intending emigrants. A few extracts from the Report of the Committee (1853) to the Colonial Secretary will be sufficiently intelligible as to the inefficient working of the present system. In the first place, it will be made clear that a great public office, with already a multiplicity of business to conduct, is incompetent, from its very composition, of carrying on a trade in which they have to compete with experienced private firms. After mentioning the utter failure of an experiment made by them of sending out a large number of Highland emigrants on board H.M.S. the “Hercules,” which was proceeding to Hong-Kong as an hospital-ship, and was offered them by the Admiralty for the purpose, the Commissioners report:—
“Meanwhile applications for assistance were made on behalf of Germans and Swiss, and, by a very respectable committee at Madras, of the half-caste population of India. But the growing eagerness to reach Australia soon rendered it unnecessarily pressing for us either to close with applications of this kind, or to relax our ordinary rules in regard to British emigrants. This eagerness soon became excessive—so much so, that, at one time, our office contained no less than 18,000 applications for passages to Australia. The number of letters received in the month of June, which, in 1850, was 1564, and, in 1851, 2884, amounted in 1852 to 18,910, being at an average rate, excluding Sundays, of 727 a day. And when it is remembered that a large number of these transmitted small sums of money, requiring considerable accuracy of treatment, and that a far greater number respected the time and manner in which poor emigrants were to leave their country for ever—a matter in which any inaccuracy, though trifling in respect to the magnitude of the whole service, was of the greatest importance to the individuals—that a great number of our correspondents were persons who could not be counted upon for expressing their own meaning with clearness, or understanding correctly what was written to them—and, finally, that all this mass of details, by no means capable of a cursory or careless treatment, was to be disposed of by persons partly overtaxed and partly new to those details, it will be seen, we hope, that we laboured under no ordinary difficulty in meeting the unusual pressure.”
Of course, such a business, attempted to be carried on by an inexperienced public board, sitting in a central office in London, although dealing with emigration from various ports in the United Kingdom, was likely to run into arrear and confusion. Individual local firms, however, feel no difficulty in carrying it on, upon a scale fully equal to that of the Board, when measured by the extent of their establishments. Those individual firms would have forwarded promptly all the Government emigrants which the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners might have thought proper to hand over to their care, and managed all the details and correspondence dwelt upon as being so onerous upon them. But the Commissioners must needs charter ships of their own, throwing away all the advantages which private merchants possess, of procuring profitable freight for a portion of each ship sent out. And they had to “pay dear for their whistle.” At page 18 of the Report, they say: “The freights, which in June 1851 had fallen as low as £10, and in one instance to £9, 9s. 5d. per adult, rose in June 1852 to upwards of £17; and since that time they have actually reached the enormous amount of £23 per adult.” Undoubtedly, they might have reached this “enormous amount” at the time named. But private and most respectable and experienced firms, at the dearest time mentioned, taking advantage of their ability of paying merchandise freight, would have sent out emigrants, supplied to them by the Commissioners, at an average price of two-thirds the amount, and furnished them with the ample stores, the ventilation, and the other conducives to health insisted upon by the local Government Commissioners, in the case of voluntary as well as Government emigration. Taking from one hundred to one hundred and fifty passengers, paid for by the Commissioners, in each ship, they might have afforded to charge even lower.
But the Commissioners had a model system of their own to exhibit to the world, and peculiar views as to the fitting up of emigrant ships, more calculated, they maintained, to secure the health and comfort and safety of poor persons going out at the expense of the colony, a knowledge of the nature of which was denied to the experienced Government officers stationed at the various ports, whose duty it is to superintend the accommodation and quality of provisions afforded to persons going out at their own expense. Let us see what was the working of this model system! They state that, in consequence of the high rates for shipping, they were compelled to adopt large ships, and they add, page 18:—
“We lament to say that in those despatched from Liverpool the result was unfortunate. Among the adults, indeed, no bad consequence followed, but amongst the infants and young children, whose numbers had been increased by the then recent relaxation of our rules, a great mortality occurred. On the ‘Bourneuf,’ ‘Marco Polo,’ and ‘Wanata,’ in which the aggregate number of passengers was 2581, the number of deaths was 181, of which no less than 152 were below four years of age. On the ‘Ticonderago,’ 165 persons died on the voyage, or in quarantine after arrival, of whom 65 were below fourteen, and 18 were less than one year old.”
It is a somewhat singular fact, that in not one of these vessels, since their being sailed under private management, has more than the ordinary rate of mortality prevailed. After this disastrous loss of human life, the Commissioners came to the resolution of diminishing the number of children allowed to each passenger, and limited the size of their ships. Private firms allowed the same number, and increased the size of their ships. Yet the latter have had no increase in the rate of mortality, whilst, only a few weeks ago, a ship chartered by the Commissioners lost at sea—having only reached Cork—in putting back to their depot at Birkenhead, and after placing the sick in hospital, upwards of sixty lives! The absurdity, on the part of the Commissioners, in employing exclusively small ships, is thus apparent, even in a sanitary point of view. The large clippers, built expressly for the trade, have at the same time had the advantage over their competitors in quick sailing. In proof of this fact, we quote a table, extracted from a file of the London Times of this year, showing the average number of days occupied in the passage by the vessels of different tonnage, ranging from 200 tons upwards, despatched from Liverpool to Australia in the years 1852 and 1853.
| 1852. Average number of days. | 1853. Average number of days. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under | 200 | tons, | 137 | 133 | ||
| From | 200 | to | 300 | tons | 122 | 122 |
| „ | 300 | „ | 400 | „ | 123 | 113 |
| „ | 400 | „ | 500 | „ | 118 | 112 |
| „ | 500 | „ | 600 | „ | 113 | 112 |
| „ | 600 | „ | 700 | „ | 107 | 103 |
| „ | 700 | „ | 800 | „ | 108 | 101 |
| „ | 800 | „ | 900 | „ | 103 | 100 |
| „ | 900 | „ | 1000 | „ | 102 | 95 |
| „ | 1000 | „ | 1200 | „ | 96 | 91 |
| „ | 1200 | & | upwards, | 91 | 90 | |
We entertain little doubt that, in a short while, the provincial legislatures and people of the various provinces of Australia will protest loudly against this mismanagement of their contributions for the purpose of encouraging emigration, and assert the right of exercising a greater control than they have at present over their own funds.
But it is, after all, to the honest press, and to the enterprise of private individuals, that these important colonies must look chiefly for a relief from their present temporary difficulties. A large amount of misconception has been spread abroad as to the prospects which they hold out for settlers and their social condition. We have had too much information from the Colonies themselves about the state of trade in Melbourne and the other large towns, and the yield of the various gold mines, and much too little of the progress making in agricultural pursuits. With respect to the latter, too, the sort of information conveyed, and the picture which it presents, have not been of a character likely to attract the most useful classes of settlers—our small farmers and farm-labourers. Sheep-farming and stock-farming in “the bush,” as it is still absurdly termed, is naturally associated in their minds with ideas of solitary and half-savage life, to adventure upon which most men, and especially those who have been accustomed to quiet domestic life, and have no pressing necessity for taking such a step, will hardly be induced to leave their native land. In the large towns society is gradually assuming a settled character, and their population, the old and the newly arrived as well, are directing their attention to the ordinary avocations of industry. Dwellings, as we have shown, are being erected almost with sufficient rapidity to meet the demand for them, and proper sanitary and other arrangements will follow. The most congratulatory movement which has recently, and is now more rapidly than ever taking place, is the conversion of the soil, hitherto in a wild state, or forming portions of sheep-runs, into farms of various sizes, cultivated in the best manner by British and other farmers. Little communities, the germs of future towns and villages, are springing up on every side; and before many seasons are over, the population, however largely augmented, will have no occasion to depend upon extraneous supply for any of the leading necessaries of life. Whether as a merchant, a tradesman, or to engage in other legitimate and useful occupations, the emigrant may now safely leave his home to settle for life in Australia in the entire confidence that his industry will meet its full reward. To bring about the future greatness which we have predicted for the colony, as the centre of a wealthy and powerful Anglo-Saxon empire in the Pacific, whose population are governed by British laws, and are in the enjoyment of British institutions, it is most important that the British element should be as largely as possible infused amongst them. Society in Australia calls especially for the presence of an educated middle class, capable of ameliorating, by its example, the rudeness of character and manners which may be expected from amongst her successful gold-diggers, bush-farmers, and traders. The spread of truthful information respecting the climate, capabilities, &c., of the country, will effect much in supplying that want, and inducing such a class to emigrate thither as to a permanent home. The time may come—be it far distant!—when the colonists may demand to be an independent people. Such an infusion amongst them of right-hearted and loyal British men and women—the fathers and mothers of another generation—may do much to postpone such an event. And when it does arrive—when a people grown great and wealthy under the protecting arm of British sway refuses to be governed from the antipodes—the breaking of the link may be rendered a kindly one; and it may to no slight extent operate upon our future relations with the grown-up child, who has cast us off, and decided to walk by himself, that his heart still clings to the home of his parents, and feels an interest in maintaining the prosperity of the land which gave them birth.