[From the London Examiner.]
THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.
The Jutland and Sleswick pirates, who fourteen centuries ago performed the great achievement of conquering and colonizing Britain, have since, in the persons of their descendants, achieved the still greater feat of colonizing and settling, while they are in a fair way of conquering and occupying, a whole continent, to the destruction or absorption of every other race. The Anglo-Saxon population of America, in fact, constitutes, at this moment, a people more numerous and mighty than any European nation of the period when their emigration commenced. The very same people is now engaged in achieving another great, although not equally great enterprise, the colonization of another continent, Australia; and the Australian colonies, within sixty years of their first foundation, are already calling loudly for self and responsible government, which is, by more than a century, sooner than the American Colonies made a similar claim. We have not the least doubt but that it will be to the mutual and permanent advantage of both parties, that these demands of the Colonists, which are in no respect unreasonable, should be liberally and readily granted.
The better to understand our position in relation to them, let us compare the two continents alluded to. America has a greater extent of territory, and therefore more room for expansion than Australia. Its natural products are more valuable, its soil is more fertile, and its climates more varied and propitious to vegetation. Its greatest superiority over Australia, however, consists in its magnificent water communication—its great rivers, its splendid lakes, its navigable estuaries, and its commodious harbors. Finally, it possesses the vast advantage of being only one-sixth part of the distance that Australia is from the civilization and markets of Europe.
Let us now see what Australia is. It is said to contain three millions of square miles. But of this we take it that about one-half, or all of it that lies north of the twenty-fifth degree of south latitude, is unfit for our use as Europeans, and, most probably, for the profitable use of any people, on account of the comparative sterility of the land, or, what in such a situation is equivalent to sterility, the drought of the climate. But for these great and, we fear, insuperable disadvantages, the tropical portion of Australia might have been peopled from industrious and teeming China, which, with the help of steam navigation, is at an easy distance. Notwithstanding this serious deduction from its available area, Australia has extent enough for the abode of a great people, as what remains is equal to near twenty Britains, or above seven countries as large as France!
The absence of good water communication is the greatest defect of Australia. It has not one great river which at once penetrates deeply into the country and communicates by a navigable course with the sea. The best of its rivers are not equal to those of the fourth or fifth order in America, and it has no lake at all of commercial value. Another almost equally great disadvantage is frequent and long-continued droughts, even of its southern parts, which, however, as strength and wealth increase, may in time be, at least, mitigated by the erection of great works of irrigation, such as those on which the existence of whole populations depend in the warmer regions of Asia.
In salubrity of climate Australia has a great superiority, not only over America, but over every other country. For the rearing of sheep and the production of fine wool, it may be said to possess almost a natural monopoly; and in this respect, it will soon become as necessary to us, and probably as important, as America is for the growth of cotton. Its adaptation for pastoral husbandry is such, indeed, that we have often thought, had it been settled by Tartars or Arabs, or even by Anglo-Saxons of the time of Hengist and Horsa, that it would have been now thinly inhabited by nomade hordes, mere shepherds and robbers, if there was any one to rob. One immense advantage Australia possesses over America, which must not be omitted—the total absence of a servile population and an alien race. In America the bondsmen form a fourth part of the whole population, and in Australia little more than one sixtieth, speedily to vanish all together.
If the comparison between America and Australia have reference to the facility of achieving and maintaining independence, all the advantages are unquestionably on the side of Australia. It is at least six times as far away from Europe; and a military force sufficient to have even a chance of coercing the colonists could not get at them in less than four months, while the voyage would force it to run the gauntlet of the equator and both tropics. When it reached its destination, supposing its landing to be unopposed, it would have to march every step to seek the insurgents, for there is neither river nor estuary to transport it into the interior of the country. The colonists, rifle in hand, and driving their flocks and herds before them to the privation of the invader, would of course take to the bush, and do so with impunity, being without tents or equipage, or risk of starvation, having a wholesome sky over their heads, and abundant food in their cattle. With a thorough knowledge of localities, the colonial riflemen, under such circumstances, would be more than a match for regular troops, and could pick off soldiers with more ease than they bring down the kangaroo or opossum.
We should look, however, to the number and character of the Australian population. In 1828 the total colonial population of Australia was 53,000, of whom a large proportion were convicts. In 1848 it was 300,000, of which the convicts were but 6000. In the two years since, 37,000 emigrants have proceeded thither, and the total population at this moment can not be less than 350,000. It has, therefore, been multiplied in twenty-two years' time by near seven-fold; and if it should go on at this rate of increase, in the year 1872 it will amount to close on two millions and a half, which is a greater population than that of the old American colonies at the declaration of independence, and after an existence of 175 years. Such a population, or the one half of it, would, from numbers, position, and resources, be unconquerable.