The credit system also led many mercantile men into speculations which they never would have entered into under a wholesome system of trade. From these many serious losses resulted, which have led to ruinous failures. Any man with a hundred pounds in his pocket, could get credit for a thousand; and numbers of adventurers of all descriptions, taking advantage of the times, opened stylish shops well-filled with goods bought on credit, carried on a flourishing trade till within a few days of their bills falling due, and then decamped, leaving their unfortunate and silly creditors to get paid from the wreck of the stock left in the shop. I knew an auctioneer who played this nefarious trick, leaving his creditors minus the enormous sum of 70,000l. He did not, however, long retain his ill-gotten wealth: how he got rid of it, I do not know; but I found him two years ago in Singapore, where he kept a small grog-shop, and lived in great wretchedness; and I have since met with him knocking about the streets of Macao, a disgrace to his country in a foreign settlement. The credit system ruined two thirds of the respectable auctioneers in Sydney, and upset the Australian Auction Company, absorbing every shilling of its paid-up capital.
In addition to the evils inflicted on this Colony by these main causes, great losses were sustained by settlers through their becoming shippers of their own wool. At the time I speak of, wool was worth, in Sydney, from 2s. 1d. to 2s. 2d. per pound, and, in England, some 6d. or 8d. more. These high rates would not satisfy some settlers, who foolishly took an advance upon their clips, letting them go home on their own account, and at the risk of the agents of the parties who advanced the money in Sydney. In the meantime, wool fell in the English markets to 1s. and 15d. per pound. The nett proceeds of the shipment did not nearly cover the advance made; and the hapless shipper, already in debt to his agent for supplies, and without a penny of cash at his command, was called upon to make good the difference, which he was unable to do. His agent, pressed by others, must press him; his flocks are brought to the hammer, and sold at the now ruinous current prices; and he becomes a bankrupt. Dozens of cases like this, occurred during the late wretched times.
I come now to the consideration of the bad seasons of 1838-39 and 1839-40. While I maintain that they were far from being the sole, or even the chief cause of distress, I allow that they added to it very materially. To shew that they were not the sole cause, I may mention, that, among my own personal friends in the Colony, not one who avoided speculation and putting his name on paper, has failed; while those who followed the stream have sunk, every one of them. During those years, every thing the unfortunate grazier had to sell, was cheap beyond all precedent; while every article he was compelled to purchase, was very dear. Tea, owing to the China war, rose from 5l. to 15l. per half-pecul chest of hyson skin. Flour of the very coarsest description could not be had under from 30l. to 35l. per ton of two thousand pounds weight,—a colonial cheat, calling two thousand pounds a ton! Sugar and other necessaries were equally high; and many a poor settler who had never refused his hard-worked servants their tea, sugar, and tobacco, was compelled to stop those indulgences.
To the working-classes in Sydney and other towns, the bad seasons were ruinous. Provisions were so dear, that many a father of a family found his earnings far from sufficient to provide food for his wife and children. Building was almost entirely put a stop to; and thus, hundreds of industrious men were thrown out of employment. To so serious an extent did this distress reach, that Government was called upon to afford pecuniary relief to the starving poor; a circumstance altogether unprecedented in Australian history.
So low had these evils sunk the Colony and all its inhabitants, that failures of merchants and settlers continued to be of almost daily occurrence up to the end of the year 1843. No one durst push his neighbour for payment of debt: were such a thing attempted, an immediate surrender of his affairs to the official trustee of the Insolvent Court, was the consequence. Several of the first and oldest merchants in the Colony have sunk under the long-continued pressure; and, at the date of the last accounts, more failures were looked for. These, however, were expected as the result of old causes, not of new or recent transactions.
Upon the whole, I am disposed to think, that Australia has seen its darkest day, and that things are likely soon to improve, if, indeed, they have not already mended. The price of stock was looking up; and ewes that had actually been sold as low as 9d. each, were worth 7s. 6d. Men of capital lately arrived from England with ready money, had commenced purchasing land and stock; and their operations had given an impetus to affairs in general, that could not fail to be beneficial.
CHAPTER XIII.
NEW SOUTH WALES.
ELEMENTS OF PROSPERITY STILL EXISTING—HINTS TO THE COLONISTS—FUTURE PROSPECTS.