From the beginning of November last, the towns of Melbourne and Geelong were forsaken. Out of this numerous population the women alone remained stationary. The proximity of the “placers” at two or three days’ journey rendered the access easy. It was not necessary, as at Sydney, to equip for a long journey, or to lay in a stock of provisions and money. Men deserted, in crowds, flocks, farms, ships, workshops, counting-houses, and shops; no wages would induce them to remain. They flocked in from Sydney, Van Dieman’s Land, South Australia, and even from California. Vessels arriving could not discharge their cargoes for want of hands; goods perished on the quays, where they had been piled up. In many districts of the colony business and cultivation were suspended; hands were wanted everywhere. When shearers were to be met with, they asked the enormous price of 3s. 6d. for twenty fleeces. A month later, and Adelaide, the capital of Australia, realized the picture of the “Deserted Village.” Traders, artizans, proprietors, and capitalists, all were either ruined or had emigrated to Port Philip, to escape from inevitable ruin. The shares in the celebrated Burra Burra Copper Mine, which had been sold for above £200, found no buyers at £60, and their 700 workmen had disappeared; prices of all goods and wages rose in a frightful degree.
We read, in a letter from Melbourne, of the 17th January, 1852:—“In the Banks and at the Post Offices, the clerks work double tides; other public services are at a stand for want of hands. There are no male servants to be found, even at exorbitant wages, and women will not remain, unless at considerable increase of pay. I requested first the waiter, and then the maid, at the hotel where I was stopping, to send a small parcel of linen to be washed. They told me that they could find no one who would wash. I was obliged to go to a shop and buy some new things. If you want a pair of boots, you must pay £2 10s. (63 francs). A pair of shoes cost 20s. (25 francs).”
Another letter, of the 1st January, adds again to the picture:—“In my opinion, this town is threatened with complete ruin. Last night, two men arrived, announcing a discovery of gold deposits in the district of Gipp’s Land; they had brought £10,000 sterling in gold, and said there was enough there for all the world. What shall we do for want of labor? Suppose that 100,000 immigrants were to arrive here next year, would one of them remain in the towns or at the farms, earning a few shillings per week, when they can go to the diggings and gather £50 in one day? At this very moment I cannot find one man in Melbourne who can mend a pair of boots at any price. I get bread from Collingwood, as a great favor, and the baker will not engage to supply me regularly. I pay 5s. for two buckets of water, and 30s. for as much wood as a horse can carry. One can hardly find a man with a handbarrow to carry a portmanteau, even at any price he chooses to ask. The servants of the Judge have all left him, and he cannot use his carriage; his sons clean the knives and shoes, and drag their invalid father to the court in a wheel chair.”
An inhabitant of Melbourne, himself reduced to the necessity of looking after his horse, whilst his wife attended to cooking the dinner, writes:—“One of the members of our club, a large sheep-owner, and who cannot obtain shearers, is gone to the diggings to try and hire some men. He asked them what wages he should pay them, they replied that they must have all the wool; and, as he was leaving them, they called him back to say. ‘We are in want of a cook; we will give you £1 a day if you like to take the place yourself.’”
At the “placers,” a mechanic is worth at least £1 a day. The people who return to the towns with their little fortunes will no longer work, and consider that they have a right to live on in idleness. All provisions are dear. At Mount Alexander, flour was sold at 5d. a pound (which is equal to [117]60 centimes the demi-kilo.); oats at 18s. the bushel, or [118]64 francs the [119]hectolitre. In August last, wheat was not higher than 3d. a pound, and oats 4s. the bushel, in the Sydney market, a higher price than in any famine year in the European markets.
Two causes have been acting simultaneously in creating this great rise in the price of all the necessaries of life, in those countries where the gold finders have become suddenly enriched by the discoveries of these “placers.” In the first place, population increasing more rapidly than the supply of food, has necessarily caused a rise in price, and this consequent increase in price, is out of all proportion to the deficiency of supply. Who does not know that a deficiency of one-sixth, or even of one-tenth of the crop of grain, frequently doubles, or even trebles, the price during the famine. Such was the case in France and England in 1846; and without facilities of communication, and the cheapness of carriage, the result, even at that period, would have been much more calamitous. Can we be astonished, then, that in a country where civilization is but just established, where roads, canals, and railroads are wanting, the evils must be felt in a greatly increased degree?
Another cause is the very abundance of the precious metals. Gold, when amassed by handfuls, instead of being collected in very small quantities, and with great labour, must necessarily lose a large part of its value. The diminution of the price of gold and silver is, generally, only shewn by the increase in the price of every other article. The nominal value of the monetary sign remains the same, but its power diminishes in proportion to its increase in quantity, unless some counteracting cause, such as an excessive supply of provisions, &c., should step in and re-establish the equilibrium.
Up to the present time, every progress in mining in Australia is retarding the proper care and attention to the breeding of cattle. Van Dieman’s Land, which produced food for other districts of Australia, is likely, it is said, to require an import of food for her own people. It was true that the crops at the end of 1851, presented every appearance of a magnificent harvest, but how could a harvest be got in on an island inadequately supplied with labour, and where the people are deserting daily for other places?
The position is certainly critical; with any other people than those of Anglo-Saxon race, it might be desperate: a few months more delay, and the wool shearing will be lost; for the flocks, no longer watched, will have strayed away, and possibly will have perished. It was the work of a quarter of a century to have accumulated the capital employed in Agriculture in Australia; without an immense immigration, not of gold seekers, but of shepherds, and persons accustomed to a pastoral life, before the end of 1852 all this capital will be inevitably destroyed. England has awakened rather late to the danger, but she has now to work in good earnest to apply the remedy. The Governor of Australia witnessed the daily arrivals of emigrants with alarm, so long as they added only to the crowds of miners, and who by their competition still further increased the price of provisions; he even pressed the Colonial Secretary to try and turn the stream of emigration to other colonies. But independent of Government emigration, voluntary associations for the same object have not been inactive. Liverpool alone has been shipping at the rate of 2,000 a month for Sydney or Melbourne. Ships are wanting in all the ports of Great Britain and Ireland, for the transport of emigrants. Shipbuilding yards are all in the greatest state of active employment.
Nor has this want of an agricultural population in Australia been overlooked. The islands to the north and west and the Highlands of Scotland, contain a population far too numerous for their means of adequate support, so that in spite of hard and constant work, there is frequent mortality from famine in this poor and barren country. Twenty or thirty thousand of these labourers, engaged for agricultural occupations in Van Dieman’s Land, and for sheep tending in New South Wales, would cease to be a burthen on English charity, and would avert the ruin of Australia. Subscription lists are opened in England for this object, and the colony itself is in a position to lend its aid, as Sir John Packington informed Sir G. Fitzroy that the government would place at the disposal of the local legislature the revenues which might accrue from the workings of these gold regions. At this time the port of London contains a fleet of vessels ready to sail for Australia, capable of conveying 23,000 persons and 30,000 tons of merchandize. It is clear, that by abandoning all the rights of the Crown to the treasures of the “placers,” the British Government has saved Australia. By this arrangement, the Colonial revenues have been almost doubled; 30s. a month levied on 60,000 miners, working eight months in the year, would produce [120]18,000,000 francs. A tax of 60s. which was attempted to be established, but which the miners resisted, might have produced [121]36,000,000 francs. In default of English labourers, the expenses of whose voyage must necessarily be great, and whose willingness to work could not be depended on, there would be funds enough to import a whole population of Indians or Chinese.