The last colony to which convicts were regularly deported was West Australia, founded in 1829. In 1849 this colony sent a petition to the Government asking for criminals to be sent thither, in order to promote the development of the colony. Under pressure from the other colonies, which finally on their own account resisted by force the landing of such immigrants, West Australia had to abandon this traffic in 1868, having then received about 10,000.
Thus it will be seen that this transportation introduced great numbers of people to Australia, and at the same time the voluntary immigration kept increasing. Two of the present colonies were not started as convict settlements. There was an attempt to send convicts to Melbourne in 1803, but the plan was soon abandoned, and the colony of Port Phillip, as Victoria was then called, was founded in 1834 by free citizens from Tasmania. South Australia was colonised directly by an English company, who received the land for nothing on condition that they should encourage immigration. In 1841 this settlement contained 23,000 inhabitants, chiefly freemen.
The growth of the colonies depended on the development of trade and industries. In the beginning all labour was confined to agriculture, and but little progress was made, till during the first decades of this century MacArthur advocated the raising of sheep with great energy, and after a passage through the Blue Mountains had been found by Macquarie, a new impetus was given to the development of Australia. The manner in which the country became settled may be described as follows—
In the first place, an explorer makes his way into unknown regions. Close on his heels follows the squatter or shepherd, and slowly in his track comes the selector, the permanent agricultural settler. The original huntsman, the shepherd, and the farmer follow each other in rapid succession—it is the history of civilisation in a nutshell.
The economical politics of Australia have long been wrestling with the question of the proper modus vivendi between the squatter and the selector, whose interests are conflicting. Many experiments have been made in the various colonies, but this troublesome question has not yet been solved.
In the midst of the development of sheep-raising and agriculture a third factor, gold, was added, which gave Australia an immense advantage, even though it at the same time interfered with the above-mentioned industries.
The year 1851 marks an epoch in the history of Australia. It was literally the beginning of a golden age for the continent, for in that year the great gold mines of Victoria were discovered.
It had long been believed that gold must be found in Australia; among the deported criminals there were all sorts of reports about finds said to have been made in the Blue Mountains; but the Government paid no attention to these strange rumours and the result was that the matter was not properly investigated.
But in 1851 the greatest excitement was created when the Government purchased from a Californian gold digger, for a large sum of money, some rich gold fields which he had discovered in the Blue Mountains. When the Government by this step had given its public sanction to the question, the colony became wild with excitement. The most extravagant reports concerning the immense wealth of the gold fields were circulated, and were accepted as gospel truth. From all quarters people assembled to the new fountains of wealth, where they expected to find the pure gold in such quantities that it was only necessary to stoop down and fill their pockets with the precious ore. The disappointment when they arrived in the promised land and learned from experience that there was need of months—nay, of years—of hard and persistent labour to attain the wealth they were seeking, was as great as the expectation which had previously been formed. The larger part of the army of adventurers who had flocked together to the gold mines to secure all of a sudden a wealth which they had neither the strength nor the endurance to acquire under ordinary circumstances, returned discouraged to Sydney, after having spent a month in idleness in the gold fields. In their wrath on account of the deception, as they called it, they nearly took the life of the Californian who had discovered the fields.