These privileges consist in the removal of certain agricultural and commercial restraints, which I shall separately enumerate; and in a free government, under the protecting shade of which, the colonists may fearlessly exercise and enjoy their personal and private rights, without molestation or hindrance.
PART III.
VARIOUS ALTERATIONS SUGGESTED IN THE PRESENT POLICY OF THIS COLONY.
Of all the steps that could be taken for the relief of the colony, none certainly would prove of such immediate efficacy, as the creation of distilleries, and the imposition of so high a duty on the importation of spirits from abroad, as would amount to a prohibition. The advantages that would be attendant on this measure may, perhaps, be most forcibly illustrated by a short review of the actual loss which the colonists have sustained during the last fifteen years, from the want of its adoption. The spirits imported during this period may be safely estimated on an average at the annual value of £10,000, amounting in fifteen years to the sum of £150,000: and if we add to this £100,000 more, which it may be calculated that the government have expended in this interval, in the importation of corn, flour, rice, etc. from other countries, we have a grand total of £250,000, that would have been saved to the colony by the erection of distilleries. The application of so large a sum to the immediate encouragement of agriculture, would have imparted life and vigor into the whole community, and would have effectually prevented that increasing poverty, and the black train of evils consequent on it, which I have already depicted. And although from the increased demand for foreign luxuries, which so great an addition to the colonial income would have naturally occasioned, but a small part perhaps of this sum would have eventually continued in general circulation, still the means of the colonists would have at least been brought to a level with their wants; and a sterling circulating medium would have remained sufficient for all the purposes of domestic economy. Under such circumstances there can be little doubt that the active and enterprizing spirit of our countrymen would have long since effected the establishment of an export trade, which would have freed the colony from future embarrassment, and the mother country from the enormous expence which she is annually forced to incur in its support. But the continual and amazing fluctuations which have taken place in the price of corn, have been a death-blow to the success of every effort that has been directed to this most important object. At least but one out of all the numerous attempts that have been made by individuals, (for none have been made by the government,) to raise various articles of export, has realized the expectations of its sagacious author, and promises to become eventually of permanent relief and importance to the colony. But it will be more in the order of the arrangement which I have marked out for myself, to treat of this very important subject hereafter: I recur, therefore, to the conclusion which I was about to draw from the foregoing premises; that to the perfect success of every enterprize of a manual nature, it is essential that the price of provisions in general, but of corn in particular, should be reduced to such a point as to afford a fair profit to the grower; and at the same time that it should not be subject to any such extraordinary rise as to superinduce a proportionate increase in the price of labour. To keep the value of corn in this just mean, it is necessary that the growth of it should be encouraged to a pitch far beyond the sphere of the ordinary demand; and this is to be effected generally in two ways, by augmenting the internal consumption by artificial means, as by breweries, distilleries, etc. and by permitting a free exportation of the surplus. But the colony is at present unable from the smallness of its resources and its remoteness from Europe, the great mart for the surplus corn of other countries, to become a competitor with them in this branch of commerce: it follows, therefore, that the constant abundance of corn indispensable to the establishment and maintenance of an export trade, can only be guaranteed by the enforcement of all such measures as have a tendency to increase internal consumption; and of these I again repeat that the erection of distilleries, etc. is the most easy and the most efficacious.
Independent of this general reasoning, which is equally applicable to all countries, the colony can unhappily furnish particular grounds of argument in the unfortunate localities of its agricultural settlements, which render the adoption of this measure of still more imperative necessity. Allured to the banks of the river Hawkesbury, both by the superiority of the soil, and the facilities which the navigation of this river afforded for the conveyance of produce to market, a circumstance of material advantage even at this moment, but of incalculable importance at a period, when as yet there were few or no cattle for the purposes of land carriage, the first colonists were encouraged by Governor Phillip to establish themselves on this low fertile tract of country, not so much perhaps from choice as necessity. His successors, influenced in part by the same considerations, followed his example in directing the current of colonization into the same channel, till in the lapse of about fifteen years the whole of the fertile lands on the banks of this river were completely appropriated. Thus unfortunately for the colony, its principal agricultural establishment was formed in a situation subject to the inundations of a river, whose waters frequently rise seventy or eighty feet above its ordinary level.
The present governor, to his lasting honour be it mentioned, has done all that prudence could effect with the limited means confided to him, for the prevention of the calamities invariably consequent on these destructive inundations. He has placed the great mass of the colonists, who have been settled during his administration, in districts that are not subject to flood; thus securing to themselves and the community at large the fruits of their industry. He has also established townships on the high grounds, which generally at the distance of a mile or two from the river border its low fertile banks, and has held out various encouragements, in order to induce the settlers to remove their houses and stacks to them. The richer class have in most instances been alive to their own interests, and have abandoned their ancient abodes on the verge of the river: so that the destruction occasioned by future floods will be infinitely less extensive. But, still, a great part of the poorer class adhere to their ancient habitations, impelled by the double motive of avoiding the cost of carrying their crops to these townships, and from thence back again to the river, in order to send them to market by the boats, which ply on it for this purpose. And to such as have not horses and carts of their own, and would consequently be obliged to hire them, a residence on the banks of the river is a saving of greater magnitude than might be at first imagined.
The greatest obstacle to the complete realization of the governor's project, arises from the extreme poverty of the great body of the settlers, occasioned, as I have already noticed, by the limited and precarious market afforded for their produce. To build a house, however small, is an undertaking in this colony as every where else, which can only be effected with adequate means; and if the colonists do not resort in crowds to these townships, it is not because they are insensible to the advantages which they would derive from a removal to these seats of security, but because their penury chains them to their present dangerous and miserable hovels, and compels them in spite of their better reason to hold their lives and property on the most precarious of all tenures, the caprice of the elements. But could the governor succeed in this, his project to the utmost, could he induce every settler on the banks of the Hawkesbury to remove to these townships, he would be still far from guaranteeing the colony from the calamitous effects of these inundations; since they are not periodical, like the risings of the Nile, but happen at all times, as well when the crops are in stack as when growing, when they are in the infancy of vegetation, as when they have attained maturity and are fit for the sickle. Some other expedient, therefore, would still be necessary to guard against those inundations which may happen at such disastrous periods; and there is but one that will be found sufficient at all times and under all circumstances. It is to encourage by artificial means, the growth of corn so far beyond what is necessary for the bare purposes of food, that in years of scarcity, whether arising from flood or drought, these artificial channels of consumption may be stopped, and the whole of the corn in the colony appropriated to the supply of the inhabitants. And this encouragement would be amply afforded by the establishment of distilleries; since allowing the colony to require sixty thousand gallons of spirits annually, twenty thousand bushels of grain would be expended in distillation, the whole of which, when necessity required, might be diverted from its ordinary course of consumption, and directed to the purposes of subsistence.
These advantages, great as they must be allowed to be, are not the only ones that would follow the erection of distilleries. This measure would still further promote the prosperity of the agricultural body, by creating in the market a competition with the government for the purchase of grain, and would thus destroy the maximum, that has been hitherto arbitrarily assigned as an equivalent for their produce generally, without reference to the state of the crops, whether they have been productive or otherwise. The prejudicial operation of this maximum was noticed in the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons made in the year 1812, and the propriety of devising some remedy for this evil strongly enforced; but this recommendation has hitherto been disregarded, from the want, perhaps, of information sufficiently precise to enable the government of this country to attend to it.
I close the catalogue of arguments which I adduce in support of this measure with the last and most powerful of them all, its beneficial influence on the morality of the rising generation. I do not so much take into calculation its probable bearing on the existing race of colonists, the greater part of whom are and will, perhaps, always be more or less addicted to the pernicious habits contracted in their early days of riot and debauchery, as on their posterity, who will necessarily soon form the majority of this colony, and whose amelioration or reformation all legislative measures should have principally in view. With those the immoderate use of spirituous liquors is a long contracted disease, which it is perhaps past the skill of legislation to cure. It is like an old inveterate ulcer, whose roots have penetrated into the seats of vitality, and are so intimately interwoven with the very principles of existence, that the knife cannot be applied to the extirpation of the one, without occasioning the destruction of the other. But though this gangrene can never be entirely eradicated, the experience of late years has shewn that it may be prevented from increasing, and even considerably reduced. Drunkenness has been observed to be less frequent since the unlimited importation of spirits was permitted, even among that class who were most addicted to this vice during the long period when the importation was in a great measure restricted, the price of liquor exorbitantly enhanced, and the consequent difficulty of obtaining it much more considerable. Great, therefore, as are the present facilities to the indulgence of this propensity, they should be still further extended, and this would be effected by internal distillation; for although the importation of spirits from other countries has been for many years past subject to no restriction, but the payment of a certain duty, which would be equally levied on all spirits made in the colony, still the expence of freight, insurance, etc. would be avoided, the price proportionably abated, and the means of indulgence increased in the same ratio.