RAILROADS IN TASMANIA.
I could not avoid, during this journey, being forcibly struck with the great facilities afforded by the road from Hobart to Launceston for a railway; and I have since heard and seen enough to convince me, that not only would such an undertaking be practicable, but that it would greatly conduce to the prosperity of Tasmania. At present, most of the productions of the northern part of the island are necessarily, on account of the expense of land-carriage, shipped at Launceston or Port Dalrymple, whereas the Derwent affords such superior facilities for the purposes of commerce, that if a means of cheap and rapid intercourse with it existed, nearly the whole export and import traffic of the coasts would be drawn thither. I have already observed that large vessels at Launceston cannot discharge alongside the wharfs. Besides, on the whole of the northern coast, with the exception of the Hunter Islands, there is no place of safety for a ship in all winds that a stranger would like to run into, the mouth of the Tamar being too much occupied with shoals. On the other hand, Hobart lies on that part of the island which may be approached with the greatest safety, being on a weather shore, whereas the northern side is partly a lee one. In saying thus much, I do not mean to imply that a private company, under ordinary circumstances, could construct a line with immediate advantage to itself, though I will go so far as to say, that in a very few years, comparatively, an ample remunerative return might be expected. What I especially desire to insist upon, is the fact, that a railroad traversing Tasmania from north to south would be a great benefit to the community, would stimulate trade, and consequently production, and would aid in restoring the prosperity which it once enjoyed.
LABOUR MARKET.
This being granted, let us take into consideration the condition of the labour market in that country, and observe what an opportunity now presents itself of executing a work of prodigious magnitude at a comparatively trifling cost. It will be seen at once that I allude to the population of probationers, pass-holders, ticket-of-leave men, who now compete with the free inhabitants, and cause the whole land to throng with people in want of work, with paupers and with thieves.
The great evil at present complained of by the settlers of Tasmania, is the superabundance of labour. In most other colonies the contrary complaint is made; and were it not for peculiar circumstances, the great demand in one place would soon relieve the pressure in the other. But it must be remembered, that the glut in the Tasmanian labour market is produced by the presence of crowds of convicts, in various stages of restraint, all prevented from leaving the island, and forced to remain and seek employment there; so that as soon as the demand for labour falls off, or the supply of it becomes disproportionately large, it is the free population that is necessarily displaced.
The effect, therefore, of the gradual pouring of a superabundance of convict labour into this island, must naturally be, first, to check free immigration; and secondly, to drive away those who have actually established themselves on it as their second home, and may perhaps have abandoned comfort in England in hopes of affluence there. So great is the number actually leaving the place every year, that it is calculated that in six years, at the same ratio, there will be absolutely none left.
COMMERCIAL DISTRESS.
And yet, no further back than 1841, the Legislative Council voted 60,000 pounds to encourage immigration, thus needlessly taxing the colony to aid in producing a disastrous result, which certainly, however, no one seems to have foreseen.
Who, indeed, four years ago, could have believed that, above all other things, there should arrive a glut in the labour market? Such an event was looked upon as absolutely impossible in the full tide of prosperity that covered the island. Everything wore a smiling aspect. The fields were heavy with harvests, the roads crowded with traffic; gay equipages filled the streets; the settler's cottage or villa was well supplied with comfort, and even with luxuries; crime, in a population of which the majority were convicts or their descendants, was less in proportion than in England; in short, for the first time, in 1840 the exports exceeded the imports; trade was brisk, agriculture increasing, new settlers were arriving; everything betokened progress; no one dreamed of retrogression or decay.
In four years all this has been reversed. We now look in vain for the signs of prosperity that before existed. In their place, we hear of complaints loud and deep; of insolvency, of reduction in the Government expenditure; of a falling off of trade; of many beggars, where none before were known; of large agricultural estates allowed partially to return to their natural wildness; of cattle and all stock sold at half their original cost, and of every symptom of agricultural and commercial distress. I may further add, that the funds derived from the sale of Crown lands in Tasmania in the year 1841, amounted to 58,000 pounds; in 1844, to 2000 pounds; and in 1845, to nothing. The revenue, in the same time, has decreased one half; and, to close the financial account, at the end of 1844 the colony was in debt to the Treasury, 100,000 pounds.