Of the three great gold-producing countries of modern times, New South
Wales is the one now most attracting public attention. This country
enjoys several advantages over the others.
The climate is mild and healthy, the land is neither occupied by savage
tribes nor infested with wild beasts. In a country where drought is
the principal obstacle to successful cultivation, the gold regions,
situated on the slopes of the highest mountains and near the sources
of the principal streams, are naturally the best watered. They appear
to extend from north-east to south-west, following the direction of
the Murray, the largest river in Australia, and over an extent of 1,400
miles, [108](2,452 kilomêtres) by 400 miles (643 kilomêtres). This
surface is larger, by four times, the extent of California, and five
times larger than Great Britain.
The effects of the Californian gold have been principally felt at a
distance from the producing country. The valleys of San Joaquim and
the Sacramento were, before the extraordinary discoveries of 1847, but
a desert, with but an occasional “oasis” of cultivation; California
had neither population, agriculture, commerce, or industry. The
“rancheros,” half farmers, half hunters, raised cattle for no other
purpose than for the value of their hides; the discovery of gold could
hardly disturb any existing trade. The production itself was then the
cause or the motive power, creating a new state of society, a new order
of things.
In Australia, on the contrary, and long before the consequences of the
discoveries could be appreciated in Europe, the working of the mines
was of itself a revolution. The first washings occurred in May, 1851;
at that time the English colonists in that part of the world were in a
flourishing position. The population of European origin did not exceed
400,000 in the whole Australian group of islands. New South Wales, in
which division Victoria was included, recently elevated into a separate
colony, numbered more than two-thirds of this total, and formed the
chief seat of its industry and wealth. The inhabitants, principally
the descendants of convicts of the last century, obtained, in 1850, a
representative form of government, and now make their own laws. They
have upwards of fifty-one newspapers, and they have also public schools
and banks. Their principal harbours are on a large scale, and the
inter-communication by steam-boats and roads excellent. Their principal
cities are Sydney, with its 50,000; and Melbourne, with its 35,000
inhabitants, which are lighted with gas, and have an organized police,
as in London.
The luxury of living and of dress defies comparison, and affords large
profits to tradesmen; they have already begun to make two railroads.
Australia has its commercial fleet, which entered into competition
for the supply of flour to California in 1850. The trade with England
is of twice the magnitude to that which existed between England and
her American colonies at the time of their separation. The colonial
revenue, exclusive of the sale of the Crown lands, which forms the
foundation of the emigration fund, nearly amounts to £1,000,000
sterling, per annum.
Australia produces wheat, Indian corn, and barley, in abundance; they
have planted vines, from which they are making good wine; tobacco is
successfully and extensively cultivated; but the principal source of
wealth is derived from the growth of wool, for the production of which
the lands watered by the tributaries of the Murray are as well adapted
as the valley of the Mississippi is for the production of cotton.
Australia takes a prominent position with respect to civilization, in
the midst of the pastoral employment of her population. It is a vast
arcadia, the poetical side being cast into shade by the industrial
occupation of its inhabitants, and perhaps somewhat damaged by a very
natural corruption of morals. It has been called a mine of wool and
tallow; 20,000,000 of sheep are said to be pastured on its plains.
In England the use of Australian wool has almost entirely superseded
that of Germany and Spain, and the Yorkshire manufacturers cannot now
dispense with it. In 1850 Australia exported 137,000 bales, and in
1851, 130,000; 130,000 bales are worth about [109]65,000,000 francs.
The mother country receives, then, from Australia about £3,000,000
sterling of raw material in exchange for £3,000,000 of English
manufactures; the result is most profitable for capital and labor; it
is to this beneficial and flourishing trade that the sudden appearance
of gold has threatened a most unexpected and alarming interruption.
Sir Roderick Murchison, whose opinions are considered as of high
authority, commenting on the writings of Count Strelecki on the geology
of New South Wales, announced, in the year 1845, that gold would be
found in the sides of those great chains of hills, which may be called
their Alps or their Pyrennees. At different times, fragments of the
precious metal had been brought either to Sydney, or to Melbourne,
without having excited the belief in the minds of the public that they
were really the product of their own soil. In the month of March,
1851, a person, less incredulous than his neighbours, a Mr. Hargraves,
struck with the similarity of the geological features of the country to
California, whence he had lately arrived, made up his mind that gold
must be to be found in New South Wales, and set himself resolutely to
work to hunt for it at the foot of the mountains, and in the beds of
the adjacent rivers. Having found some small portions, he followed the
pursuit until he had satisfied himself of the existence of gold in a
great number of places. He then went to Bathurst, an advanced post in
the country, called a public meeting, openly announced his discovery;
and in order to give practical proof, took many of his hearers to the
seat of his own exploits, in a little valley at the foot of Mount
Sumner, where he employed nine miners to dig actively, and to wash
the earth. Four ounces of the purest gold were brought to light, as
the produce of three days’ labor; each man had gained £2 4s. 4d. (61
francs) per diem; but this was not considered by Mr. Hargraves as above
the half of the probable gain to be obtained by an experienced workman,
and with proper implements.
This happened on the 8th May, 1851. The result of the experiment was
immediately blazoned forth: three persons started for the washings, and
returned in a few days with several pounds of gold. At the same time
a geologist, ordered by the local government to attest the statements
of Mr. Hargraves, at once stamped an official authority on the actual
existence of gold mines. This news created an immense sensation, not
only in Bathurst, but beyond, and in the capital of the colony. On
the 19th May, there were 600 miners at the “_placers_;” an enormous
immigration to a district where the population was but thinly scattered
over an almost indefinite extent of land. On the 24th, some of the
people wrote to their friends, that they were collecting from £3 to
£4 per day. One party of four miners had in one day, obtained thirty
ounces of gold, and had found a “nugget” weighing one pound. In three
weeks time, one workman alone amassed £1,600 sterling.
We would remark, in running hastily over the account of these early
experiments, that from the first, the inhabitants of Australia
foresaw the serious consequences of the revolution about to occur.
The colonial journals were filled with lamentations and direful
forebodings, and cursed, both in prose and in verse, the mania for
gold. The solitude of the towns, at the expense of which the deserts
were peopled, the abandonment of labour, the disruption of all social
ties, flocks left without shepherds, and crops destroyed for lack of
harvestmen: in short, every kind of misfortune from which the colonies
are now suffering, were seen in perspective. The greediest seekers
for gold might well take alarm; the epidemic, however, stopped not,
and soon spread in all directions. The Government took the lead, by
largely rewarding Mr. Hargraves, and appointing him the “explorer of
the mineral districts.” A proclamation immediately appeared, claiming
the precious discoveries as Crown property, and announcing a rate of
license for working gold mines at 30s. per miner per month. A wild
spirit of speculation soon sprang up in every direction. The municipal
authorities everywhere followed the example of the Government.
From the Bay of Newton to the Gulph of St. Vincent, over an extent
of 2,000 miles of shore, there was no town or village without its
sought-for neighbouring “placers.” In many districts, associations were
immediately formed, offering premiums for the earliest discovery of
gold.
The locality of the first operations was situated at the junction of
two little valleys, whose water-courses fell into the River Macquarie,
a tributary of the Murray, and which soon received the scriptural
name of Ophir. The early successful workings in these “placers” were
soon cast into shade by the more brilliant result of the works on the
Turon, and its tributaries; here gold was found not only in scales,
but in pépites or nuggets. Whilst the Ophir digger was making his 15s.
or 20s. on an average day’s work, the people at Turon were counting
their gains by ounces. The more primitive process of washing had given
way to the more philosophical system by amalgamation. The operation
was sufficiently remunerative to repay a simple mechanic at the rate
of 20s. a day in addition to his keep; but the miners no sooner
obtained money enough to buy a license, and some implements, but they
set to work in a more business-like manner. They formed themselves
into parties of three or six, the day’s work of each party sometimes
producing several ounces of gold. The weight of the pépites varied from
one-fifth of an ounce to many ounces.
Towards the middle of July, Doctor Ker found in the valley of Meroo, a
few miles from Wellington, a lump of quartz weighing 3 cwt., containing
more than 100 pounds of gold. Later, again, they found three “nuggets,”
each weighing from 26 to 28 pounds. In the month of August, the export
to England commenced; the first remittances of gold dust amounted to
£50,000 sterling. The washings at the Turon and Mount Ophir were then
producing £10,000 to £12,000 sterling per week.
The treasure of Doctor Ker, exhibited first at Bathurst and then at
Sydney, soon drove everybody wild. The very newspapers which had first
maligned the discovery, now sounded the trumpet in praise of this
wonderful piece of good fortune. “The news,” says the _Morning Herald_
of Sydney, “will astonish Australia, will astonish England, Ireland,
and Scotland, will astonish California, and will astonish the whole
world. On the arrival of the packet in England, when every newspaper
throughout the United Kingdom shall have repeated the news of the
discovery as the wonder of our age, the sensation will be profound,
and will exceed anything hitherto talked of, or thought of; from the
queen on the throne to the peasant in the fields, there will be but one
united exclamation of surprise and astonishment; from the palace to the
cottage, from the drawing-room to the stable, from the schoolboy to the
philosopher and the statesman, there will be one universal talk of this
mass of gold, and of the country whence it came; from all the ports in
Great Britain and Ireland, ships will be freighted with passengers and
goods--population and wealth will rush to Australia like a torrent.
Port Jackson will be the best filled and the most flourishing harbour
in the world, and Sydney will take its rank amongst the most opulent
cities. New South Wales will be looked upon in England as the queen of
her colonies.”
Waiting the impression to be produced in the mother country by the
news of the “golden land,” to use again the expression of the _Morning
Herald_, the population of Sydney flocked to the diggings; the numbers
who left were about 400 a day. Sailors deserted their ships in the
harbours. Government, on account of the dearness of provisions,
doubled the salaries of their officials. In every direction there was
a general hunt in quest of new “placers;” and the districts South and
West of Sydney were explored by miners to the extent of 200 miles.
Auriferous deposits were discovered in the counties of St. Vincent,
Argyle, Dampier, Wallace, and Wellesley, as well as in the basins of
Murrumbedgee Shoalhaven, the River Hume, the River Peel, and the Snow
River. At the extreme north of New South Wales, in the district of
Moreton Bay, the diggings are in full work at the several branches of
the River Condamine. Nearer to the capital, in New England, gold has
been found in abundance in the basin of the River Macdonald. 200 miles
south of Sydney, at Braidwood, one miner realized £30 sterling in five
weeks; another £42 sterling in fifteen days; and a party of three £200
sterling in one week. Nothing was more common than a produce of two
ounces per man per day; and not unfrequently it reached as much as one
pound. Women also set to work. One widow and her two daughters are
said to have collected an average of two ounces a-day.
The district of Turon did not lose its repute. Such was the attraction
for gold hunting, that a labourer at Meroo would not undertake to work
for hire at a lower rate than £3 a-week, in addition to his food. Up
to October, 1851, the Government had given out 8,637 licenses; 10,000
miners were at work in the province of Sydney, and £215,866 sterling,
(about 5,500,000 francs) had already been shipped to England.
In December, the yield of the “placers” averaged £40,000 sterling per
week, a sum equivalent, after deducting the stoppages during extreme
drought and rain, to £2,000,000 sterling per annum.
These results, however brilliant they appeared, were soon eclipsed by
the accounts from the province of Victoria. Gold was first discovered
at Ballarat, where it was found at some considerable depth from the
surface; then at Mount Alexander, where it was dug up merely by the
pickaxe, almost on the ground; at Caliban, fifteen miles further, at
Albany, on the Murray, and on the east coast at Gipp’s Land.
It is asserted that the chain of hills which separates the province
of Victoria from Sydney, and which are known by the name of the Snowy
Mountains, is one vast mine of gold. Every day announces some new
discovery, and that of yesterday is almost always surpassed by that of
to-day. The mines of Mount Alexander are in extent about ten miles,
and the earth is said to be full of gold; they find the precious metal
in a gravelly clay, and in the interstices of a slatey formation. It
is sufficient to dig six inches of soil; and already, in the month of
December, 1851, there were 15,000 miners at work, and the deposits
appeared inexhaustible.
Here occurred the most extraordinary events. Amongst ordinary cases,
seven workmen were cited, who amassed 500 ounces of gold in three
weeks, which at £3 sterling per ounce, the then current value of gold
in the colony, was about [110]260 francs per day each; at another
time, two miners, in the same space of time, collected 400 ounces, or
[111]735 francs per day each. One carman, who had never even removed
the earth, made up a bag of £1,500 sterling in five weeks. A convict,
but just freed, made £150 sterling in sixteen days. A workman, who had
never exercised any trade but that of shoeing horses, was somewhat
less fortunate, but brought home £100 sterling, clear, after paying
all expenses, and working five weeks. A boy of fourteen, in less time,
collected £400 sterling; and another of the same age, £120 sterling;
but the ambition of the workmen knew no bounds; there was scarcely a
man who set to work digging a hole who did not expect to come home at
night with £40 or £50. These expectations were kept up by some most
wonderful instances of fortune, the recital of which, repeated from
group to group, amongst the diggers, soon became matters of history.
One spot of a few feet square produced [112]45,000 fr.; four sailors,
after six weeks’ work, loaded their cart with a case containing
two hundred pounds of gold, about [113]260,000 francs; four other
workmen, after two months’ labour, divided [114]1,000,000 francs.
One workman was spoken of who gathered twenty-five pounds in two or
three weeks, and another was known to have amassed eleven pounds in
forty-eight hours; another, in less than one hour, made up a package
weighing thirty pounds, worth at least [115]38,000 francs. It was said
that the miners would no longer pick up gold-dust, it was not worth
while; anything smaller than a pin’s head was thrown aside as too
insignificant for notice. There must have been fine gleanings from
these fastidious reapers.
In the “placers” of Mount Ophir, and of the Turon, where the profits
and the workings were on a more moderate scale, there was less
difficulty in preserving order and good behaviour. Captain Erskine,
of the Royal Navy, who was there about the end of July, 1851, reports
most favourably in this respect. The miners received him with the most
perfect civility; order and good feeling was the general rule. Captain
Erskine only saw one man drunk on the placers. The sale of spirituous
liquors was forbidden, and the Sundays religiously observed. There even
appeared some traces of regular industry. The neighbouring “placers”
of Port Philip presented a perfectly different scene. There, mining
appeared to be considered as a complete lottery. The coolest heads soon
grew as wild as the steadiest--passions and extravagance broke loose in
all directions. The consumption of wine, beer, and spirituous liquors
was enormous; gambling tables, quarrels, and prize fighting, desecrated
the Sundays. One man was quoted who placed a £5 note between two pieces
of bread and butter, and ate it as a sandwich. Another rolled up two £5
Bank notes, and swallowed them as a pill. A third went into a pastry
cook’s shop to eat a cake, threw down a Bank note, and refused to take
up the change. The miners appeared to have no idea of the value of
money; they bore their losses with the most perfect philosophy. One
man, who had had a draft of [116]3760 francs stolen from him, and on
enquiring at the bank, finding it had been already cashed, exclaimed,
“Bah! there is no want of money now.”
A “_placer_” in the colony of Victoria presented the appearance of an
immense encampment, with thousands of tents of all sizes, colours,
and shapes; the bivouac during the night was illuminated with fires
in all directions, and noisy with the discharge of guns and pistols;
every miner was armed to the teeth, and could only trust to himself
for the protection of his booty and his life; every one kept himself
on the _qui vive_, and took even the precaution of daily discharging
and reloading his firearms every evening at sunset. Government offered
a weekly transport to Melbourne at a charge of 1 per cent.; but as,
notwithstanding so exorbitant a charge, this transport was without
any guarantee against robbery, the miners formed themselves into
parties, when tired with making their fortunes, and escorted their own
treasures. The bandits from Van Dieman’s Land came down like birds of
prey, and fell upon the miners, and in such numbers and with such fury,
that when a murder was committed the local police were not unfrequently
afraid to go amongst them to seize the murderer. The authorities of
Melbourne were unable to give effectual aid under such circumstances;
for their own city police, with the exception of six, had all gone off
to the diggings. A cry of despair and indignation was universally
raised. “The imbecility of our Government,” says the _Argus_, “has
compelled us to take the police into our own hands, and to make lynch
law the rule of action.” The _Morning Herald_ says, “The Government
must act with energy, and without loss of time, or we shall become a
second California, with mutiny and lynch law established, and crime in
its naked deformity.” The Governor, Sir G. Fitzroy, responded to this
appeal by sending home for more troops, and by recruiting his police
by discharged soldiers. Will it be sufficient for the preservation
of this community, scarcely yet formed, from the threatened danger
of disorganization, to send a vessel of war to the station of Port
Jackson, and to Port Philip, and to reinforce the garrisons of
Australia, as Sir John Packington proposes, with some 400 or 500
soldiers?
Fortunately, such a state of disorder is not likely to become chronic;
when public authority, which ought to suppress it, is declared
incompetent, society, alarmed for its own existence, steps in and
at all hazard gets rid of turbulent characters. What is to be as
much feared, especially in a community of such recent formation, is
the attraction to a spirit of gambling, from fortunes thus suddenly
acquired. Men, fascinated by such a magnet, abandon all productive and
useful employment. Neither their ordinary vocations or their known
duties will retain them in their ordinary habits; no rates of pay can
follow the progressive chances of the miner with his pickaxe; the
trade of gold-seeking supplants every other occupation; a whole people
are bowed down to the earth, and absorbed in a work which brutalizes
them, and they abandon to others all the cares of and attention to the
cultivation of the soil.
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.
The production of these gold regions in Australia does not appear to
have exceeded £1,500,000 sterling in 1851, from all the “placers” then
worked; but we know that the working in the province of Sydney did not
begin until the middle of May; and in Victoria, not until the end of
September. In January, 1852, they reckoned 10,000 miners in the Sydney
gold districts, the produce of which oscillated between 12,000 and
15,000 ounces per week. For eight month’s work this would give about
[122]31,000,000 francs at the Colonial price, and [123]35,000,000 at
the English price of gold; but the population will certainly have
increased in 1852, and it will be a moderate calculation to estimate
the produce of this province at [124]40,000,000 to 50,000,000 francs
during this year.
In the province of Victoria, 30,000 miners were at work at the
“placers,” at the end of December; and the number was daily increasing.
They probably would have received, by the spring of this year, a
reinforcement of 10,000. Mineral working is a lottery, in which very
few gain the great prizes. A letter from Sydney, dated 4th February,
thus sums up the result of the work, and of its uncertainty and
irregularity. “They calculate, that out of every ten speculators who
hire workmen for the gold-washings, only one repays his expenses,
and of those who work on their own account, the proportion who are
successful is about one in five.” It is not to be expected, then,
that the quantity of gold collected by so many miners should equal
the brilliant, the extraordinary, profits made by many of the first
adventurers. It is a liberal calculation to suppose that the 40,000
miners of the province of Victoria might obtain on an average 10s. or
12s. each for their daily work. At 200 days’ work this could give about
[125]3,000 francs each, or about 120,000,000 francs per annum. Thus,
these two provinces would yield a produce in 1852, of [126]40,000,000
for Sydney, and [127]120,000,000 for Victoria, together about
[128]160,000,000 francs.
In following the scale of progress of California, these results might
be doubled the third year: but it should be remarked, that up to March
last, notwithstanding the immense increase of the workings carried on
for nearly a year in Sydney, and for six months in Australia-Felix,
the colony had not shipped, of all the gold it had collected, above
£819,000 sterling (20,537,000 francs) to England.
Uniting the products of the three great gold regions, we find that
Siberia, California, and Australia, are expected to supply in 1852,
about [129]600,000,000 francs: a mass of gold equal to about 175 tons
in weight. It should be borne in mind, that China and Japan have
also their mines of gold and silver in full work; the produce of
which does not appear, however, to leave those countries. The Chain
of the Himalaya possibly contains mineral wealth equal to that of
the Cordilleras, the dorsal division of South America, from Chili to
Oregon. It is also said, that the inhabitants of Thibet have begun
to work their golden alluvial deposits. All the mines in the world,
therefore, are not yet fully worked; and there will, probably, be
an ample supply for some generations to come. The gold supplied by
America, independently of California, can hardly be estimated at
above [130]8,000 kilogrammes per annum. Hungary is the only country
in Europe, excepting Russia, which is producing about [131]2,000
kilogrammes of gold. The quantity from Africa is very small; and
[132]3,000 or 4,000 kilogrammes is the whole of the known produce of
the washings in the Straits of Sunda, and in the peninsula of Malacca.
From all which sources united, an approximative value may be fixed at
from [133]40,000,000 to 50,000,000 francs. To sum up the whole, then,
it would appear that the gold production of 1852 may be estimated at--
For California 300,000,000 francs = £12,000,000
” Australia 160,000,000 ” 6,400,000
” Oural and Altai 90,000,000 ” 3,600,000
” rest of the world 50,000,000 ” 2,000,000
----------- -----------
Making a total of 600,000,000 francs = £24,000,000
It has been already stated, that California produced [134]750,000,000
francs during the four years 1848 to 1851. Russia, during the same
period, at the rate of [135]100,000,000 fr., will have produced
[136]400,000,000, and the other gold districts [137]200,000,000. Thus,
in the five years ending with 1852, the total production including
Australia, will probably amount to nearly [138]two milliards of francs:
a result unexampled in history; gold has never previously flowed from
such numerous channels, and from such abundant sources.