THE CRISIS IN AUSTRALIA.
Wen might have been done to mitigate the crisis which has fallen Upon Australia, rapidly, no doubt, yet not altogether without warning; but in this country the reports from the Colonies have received a tardy belief, and in the uncertainty as to the facts, the bewildered public, if it thought about the matter at all, has not known what ought to be done. The belief was tardy because sonie of the statements were manifestly untrue, and the truth which did penetrate through the obscurity has been disarmed by Systematic misrepresentation. Every branch of the subject has been subjected to this obstructive obscuration,—the real amount of the gold-findings and the effect in drawing off labour ; the actual state of the emigration-fund in the hands of the official Com- missioners ; and even the resources for emigration available in this country.
Part of the mystification respecting the actual state of affairs in Australia arises from ordinary exaggeration ; part from not ob- serving the distinction of the different sources of information ; part from the very common mistake which Mistimes the whole of any field to correspond with the objects in the immediate fore- ground; and part from the substantial ignorance which prevails respecting Australia itself. This last source of error seems to be incorrigible. Within these few days we have seen a book specially intended to convey information respecting the recent state ofthings, and containing a map which shows us " New South Wales " un- divided, points out the site of " Australia Felix," and makes no sign respecting the new province of " Victoria," now formally divided from New South Wales in the part designated as Australia Felix. This ignorance of the broadest geographical distinctions becomes practically important when we find respectable journals accepting without question reports of one province emanating from another, —reports of South Australia, for instance, emanating from Western Australia. This confusion is about the same as if any one took his Spanish news from Copenhagen ; only that in the Australian instance there are peculiar grudges of old rivalry be- tween the several colonies.
The extent of the industrial disturbance cannot be exactly de- fined, since the figures continue to fluctuate ; but the general cha- racter may be readily understood from facts sufficiently known. Our readers, we presume, need not be told that the staples of Aus- tralia have been wool and tallow; a full half of our imported wool having been brought from that island-continent. A considerable in- ternal trade had also arisen in corn ; besides many others inci- dental to British capital and labour working in a fine climate. Australia, in a compact form, nearly equals Europe in size • with a population of about 400,000: the centre of the island is a depressed basin, with a vast hollow plain sterile and impassable; but practicable tracks have been established between the three principal settlements, of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia; Van Die- men's Land being accessible to all by water. A large proportion of the population is descended from convicts, and many convicts come over from Van Diemen's Land. In such a country, gold- fields that appear to excel those of California are discovered • a large proportion in New South Wales, but the richcsi of all in the newly-separated province of Victoria. Here is instant wealth, for every class, from the merchant to the shepherd—instant wealth for every man who has energy and boldness to go and seize it for himself. Of course other occupations become very unattractive, and there is a general preference for gold-digging to sheep-tending, tallow-melting, wool-clipping, corn-reaping, or any other slow occupation. When a man hears of fifty or a hundred pounds picked up in a week, fifty or sixty pounds a year for looking after sheep is not so attractive an offer as it would be in Somersetshire or Sutherlandshire. It follows that there is a general defection; and stories have reached this country how Adelaide was "a de- serted village," Melbourne "a place without a working class," Sydney but an entrepeit for deserting sailors and so on. These tales were evidently exaggerated: anything lie accuracy in them is disproved by certain contemporaneous circumstances,—the fact, for instance that the wool-clip of the year has been very fairly secured ; and that the harvest, at least in South Australia, has been secured. There could not, therefore, have been the sudden desertion asserted by the accounts. At the time, for example, when Adelaide was first said to have been "deserted "—at the be- g of January—the number of those who had gone was un- doubtedly
about 5000; but, setting against that defection the ani- vals the nett loss to the colony did not exceed 700.
Taking the most favourable view, however, three conclusions are inevitable,—that the progressive discoveries of gold are causing a progressive defection of labour from other branches of industry ; that if these defections proceed without check or compensation, the staples of Australia will be in the greatest danger of suspen- sion, if not of extinction ; and that a terrible loss of property is therefore hanging over the colony, with the certainty of some corresponding loss to England.
Considerable sums have been sent by the Australian Colonies for purposes of emigration ; and we have before stated how the right appropriation of those sums was checked by some crotchety official notion that the emigrants might be demoralized. A move has re- cently been made by the Emigration department ; but it has been only a beginning, and large sums remain in their hands for use. An eminent daily journal speaks of "a quarter of a million" as having been recently sent over from "Port Philip" for the pas- sage of emigrant labourers; • whereas the allusion in question must
have been intended to apply to the whole of the monies in the hands of the Commissioners for the whole of Australia. The sum re- cently sent over from Port Phillip was 100,0001.; • but other sums, as we have before mentioned, had long lain in the hands of the Commissioners ; and, making every deduction and set-oft; they amount to something over the sum just stated. Sir John raking- ton makes the neat amount 200,0001.; but he seems to have forgotten South Australia ; Lord Derby calls it 170,0001. These are only samples of the general laxity and confusion in the English versions of the accounts from the Colonies ; and while such ex- cessively vague and erroneous notions prevail, it is all but im- possible that anything like proper measures can be taken to meet the very critical- juncture of affairs in the Australian group. The ideas as to the state of the Colonies and their funds have hardly been more lax than those respecting the opportunities and resources for emigration here amongst ourselves. In spite of the immense mass of people, 300,000 or more, yearly leaving the British Islands, many people of sense and information are persuaded that no emigrants are to be found—that they cannot be got to go. On the other hand, many have accepted the assurance that the colo-
V ni.sts do not desireahuch as can be procured here ; an idea strength- ened by the rigorous limitations of the official department, and the excessive delays in sending out people who are ultimately found to be eligible. These delays extend over months, and even years ! One example of the mode in which these delays work will make the matter intelligible. A. man is "nominated." with his family, by a purchaser of land in Australia, as a proper emigrant to be sent out by the Commissioners : the man sends in the nomina- tion; and his papers are returned, with forms to be filled up "within a month "; he returns the forms; and then the Commis- sioners, overlaid with routine and arrears, send the reply when they can. It probably runs to the effect, that some doubt is felt as to his being the person intended by the nominator; and he is told that reference will be made to the colony. Perhaps the an- swer may be received in eight or ten months ; the negotiations in England are renewed ; and then, if the man has not given up the attempt, and resettled in business here, he is duly accepted as " eligible." On the other hand, there was a report, not long since, that 60,000 persons were preparing for immediate departure. These totally incompatible errors arise from the fact that people judge of what they see immediately around them ; and that, for some reason or other, the channel for obtaining facilities and information is not very readily opened. The statements made at the meeting of Yorkshire wool-manufacturers last week, and at a London meet- ing of Australian merchants this week, must have astonished many who construed the official delays into Colonial indifference. We have seen letters from Australia repeating the constant cry of the capitalists there, "Send us more labour, or our property Will be confiscated"; while letters from the most distant and different parts of the United Kingdom attest the general desire for informa- tion as the first step towards emigration. Petitions from the hand- loom weavers have proved the desire; in Lanarkshire alone 3000 persons are desiring to go ; in Worcester, in Norfolk, in Somer- setshire—indeed in almost every county, there is a passion to get away : thousands upon thousands are ready to set out. The diffi- culty would be to find the ships and to victual them. And when the reader learns that "miscellaneous labourers" are rather at a discount in the capriciously rigid regulations of the Emigration Commissioners, he will not wonder that the dammed-up stream of surplus population does not find its level in the great Australian vacuum.
If the reader wishes to know the cause of that official obstruc- tion, let us remind him that the Colonial Office has ever been jea- lous of active colonization ; that the jealousy of the superior de- partment succeeded in keeping the Emigration Office weak in every resource, especially in men and in powers to act; and that the stunted proportions and petty ways of the disliked department cannot be expanded at the sudden demand of an unforeseen require- ment. The Emigration Office is an organized apology for a public department, and its action is an organized effort to keep up appear- ances with the slenderest capacity or even desire for that end. The Government plans are as yet a mystery. Six hundred sol- diers are to be sent to keep " order "; which they will succeed in doing—if the gold-diggers agree to let them. If the gold-diggers, reinforced by thousands of convicts, deserters, pirates, and raga- muffins of all sorts, choose to riot, or to give the soldiers a taste of bush-hunting, the interior of the Australian continent will afford a spacious playground for the purpose. A man-af-war is also to go to Melbourne or Sydney to check desertions—or contribute to them : which will it be ?
It is clear that means of this sort will contribute exasperations rather than order. The great element of order will be the largest available influx of labour, so as to keep the proper branches of in- dustry going, and to supply the drain that will continue of labour to the gold-fields ; and also to tend on the exorbitant but profit- able wants of the gold-finders. A sufficiency of labour is the first element of order. The introduction of respectable settlers to swamp the ragamuffins might do much ; but the great thing is to prevent the anarchy which must ensue if the staple trades of Australia come to a stand, or if the excited population be reduced to short commons. Introduce labour,—from England, as fast as the dis- tance and the difficulties will permit; but from whatever sources, Introduce labour as fast as possible.
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