Handbook to the new Gold-fields

by R. M. Ballantyne

The merchants and other business classes of Victoria are rejoicing in the advent of so large a body of the people in the colony, and are strongly in favour of making this port a stopping point between San Francisco and the gold mines, converting the latter, as it were, into a feeder and dependency of this colony.

Victoria would thus become a depôt and centre of trade for the gold districts, and the natural consequence would be an immediate increase in the wealth and population of the colony.

To effect that object it will be requisite to facilitate by every possible means the transport of passengers and goods to the furthest navigable point on Fraser River; and the obvious means of accomplishing that end is to employ light steamers in plying between, and connecting this port (Victoria) with the Falls of Fraser River, distant 130 miles from the discharge of that river, into the Gulf of Georgia; those falls being generally believed to be at the commencement of the remunerative gold diggings, and from thence the miners would readily make their, way on foot, or, after the summer freshets, by the river into the interior of the country.

By that means also the whole trade of the gold regions would pass through Fraser River and be retained within the British territory, forming a valuable outlet for British manufactured goods, and at once creating a lucrative trade between the mother country and Vancouver’s Island.

Taking a view of the subject, simply in its relations to trade and commerce, apart from considerations of national policy, such perhaps would be the course most likely to promote the interests of this colony; but, on the contrary, if the country be thrown open, to indiscriminate immigration, the interests of the empire may suffer from the introduction of a foreign population, whose sympathies may be decidedly anti-British.

Taking this view of the question, it assumes an alarming aspect, and suggests a doubt as to the policy of permitting the free entrance of foreigners into the British territory for residence, without in the first place requiring them to take the oath of allegiance, and otherwise to give such security for their conduct as the Government of the country may deem it proper and necessary to require at their hands.

The opinion which I have formed on the subject leads me to think that, in the event of the diggings proving remunerative, it will now be found impossible to check the course of immigration, even by closing Fraser River, as the miners would then force a passage into the gold district by way of the Columbia River, and the valuable trade of the country in that case be driven from its natural course into a foreign channel, and entirely lost to this country.

On the contrary, should the diggings prove to be unremunerative, a question which as yet remains undecided, the existing excitement, we may suppose, will die away of itself; and the miners, having no longer the prospect of large gains, will naturally abandon a country which no longer holds out any inducement for them to remain.

Until the value of the country as a gold-producing region be established on clearer evidence than can now be adduced in its favour—and the point will no doubt be decided before the close of the present year—I would simply recommend that a small naval or military force should be placed at the disposal of this Government, to enable us to maintain the peace, and to enforce obedience to the laws.

The system of granting licences for digging gold has not yet come into operation.