Letters from working-men have been published in great numbers by the
home-press, but a voice from the tradesman has seldom been heard; or,
if heard, has not been attended to. I trust in some measure to supply
the deficiency to those middle-class townsfolk who seek to emigrate to
Australia.
_1st_, I can only reconcile the different accounts furnished by
emigrants--believing people to write as they think at the time--by
remembering that some have come from quiet rural places, and others
from populous towns. The first will consider Geelong--its beautiful
bay, ships, and steamers, as a hustling, improving, and increasing
town, laid out for a future provincial capital; the last will regard
it as a dull, detached series of villages, which will some day be a
large town. A modification of these causes, allowing for age,
temperament, circumstances, and station in life, will explain any
ordinary discrepancy in the accounts from this country.
_2d_, The various accounts of the climate must in a measure be traced
to the same causes. People used to out-door labour in Britain find the
winter so mild, that everything is lauded to the skies; those used to
nice, roomy, convenient houses at home, finding themselves so very
differently situated, condemn climate, prospects, and everything. Both
may convey a false impression. The cold or heat by the thermometer is
no test of sensation; days, however warm, are exceedingly agreeable,
except the hot-wind days, which are absolutely indescribable, yet I
have seen some men work out all day in the worst of them. They cause
great relaxation in the system, and produce dysentery, especially
among children. Compared with other _hot_ countries, this appears to
be the most agreeable.
_3d, Employment_.--This is readily to be obtained by working mechanics
of all kinds in the towns; remembering that a very small sprinkling of
workmen for finer work--such as cornice-mouldings, fine freestone
work, cabinetwork, &c.--will be able to find employment for a long
time to come, because, till a new generation spring up, who can live
upon the accumulations of their sires, money will not be diverted to
any great extent from business in land, buildings, or merchandise. A
considerable number of labourers will find employment about the towns,
at the stores, on the wharfs, &c. at about 24s. weekly. Country work
on the sheep-stations--as shepherds, drivers of bullock-drays,
sheep-washing and shearing, cooking for the men, &c.--is remunerated
by about L.25 and food. These live far off in the solitary plains,
almost apart from men, and come to town once, twice, or thrice a year,
as their distance and employment may determine. The Sabbath has little
of the religious character for them, and they know little of the
progress of mankind. Agriculture also employs men at about the same
rate. There is no probability of wages falling, for a long time to
come, with any stream of emigration likely to come out hither; for if
the country cannot grow more wool, a greater attention to its quality
would employ more men; and agriculture will absorb a vast population
as soon as the land-question has been fairly overhauled, and settled
on a foundation that will allow a small capitalist to obtain, at a
fair price, a suitable farm: besides, everything necessary to
civilisation has yet to be done--roads, bridges, quarries, wells, and
a long _etcetera_ that one can scarcely catalogue.
_4th_, Capitalists of L.1000 and upwards can make, apart from
wool-growing, twenty per cent. on their money without being in trade,
chiefly by buying at the government land-sales, and subdividing the
section into small allotments, or by building houses, shops, &c. The
average of rental returns the capital in four years. But this can only
be done if emigration continues--and emigration with a sprinkling of
holders of L.50 to L.200. If this stops, there can be few purchasers.
Should a fixed price be put upon government land, there might be a
difference in the way in which capital could be turned to profit; but
L.1000 and upwards can find so many favourable investments in a new
colony, that a living could be secured without much trouble or
anxiety.
_5th, Population_.--By the census just completed, there are 78,000
inhabitants in Victoria (Port-Philip); County of Bourke,
44,000--including Melbourne, the capital, 20,000; County of Grant,
12,000--including Geelong, its capital, 8000. Warnambool, Belfast, and
Portland, along the coast, only number hundreds, and Kilmore, forty
miles inland, nearly 2000: there are also various villages--on
paper--so called, numbering ten to fifty houses each. From this it
will be seen that more than half of the entire population is within
twenty miles of Melbourne, a third of the residue within fifteen miles
of Geelong, and the remainder scattered, including the 1200
squatting-stations, over a very extensive country. These towns are
not, in my opinion, a natural growth, but have been forced into their
present magnitude from the difficulties in obtaining land at a price
to make up for the utter want of every convenience, a want arising
from the total absence of any effort on the part of the government
hitherto to make even one great trunk-road through the colony.
Facilities for internal communication would cause towns to increase
naturally. Now, people arrive with glowing ideas of the beauty and
fertility of the country, and finding everything difficult of access
there, betake themselves to shopkeeping, forcing up rents to an
exorbitant sum, and losing their little capital. I think my opinion
borne out by the fact, that the country population of Grant County was
1959 in 1846, and 4469 in 1851; Geelong in 1846 had 1911, and in 1851,
8000--the town population more than quadrupling itself in the last
five years, the county increasing only 2510. Melbourne and Bourke
County are nearly in the same position.
There are seven or eight merchants in Geelong who import goods of all
kinds, twenty-two drapery establishments in a respectable way, besides
numbers of small ones on the outskirts; other trades are
proportionately overdone. Melbourne is, I am credibly informed,
equally crowded. These facts shew that there is no opening for people
in business. A great imposition is practised by stating the increase
of a town at so much per cent., or having doubled or trebled itself in
so short a time, the fact being that even its present condition may be
that only of a village. Interested parties too often talk their places
into notice; and if people do not deal in 'notions,' they all have
some allotment that will just suit you, which they don't care to keep
any longer.
An argument from the amount of imports is made use of unfairly. The
United States are set down at 30s. per head, Australia about L.7 per
head. This latter, they say, is the country to encourage, to emigrate
to--see how prosperous it is! being blind, apparently, to the fact,
that Australia, having nothing as yet but the raw material, tallow and
wool, it must barter all it has for what it wants--a proof to me as
much of necessity as of prosperity. Many more persons cannot engage
profitably in the wool and tallow trade; the field is therefore narrow
for general purposes of emigrants, and easily liable to be
overstocked, unless the government take prompt measures to open out
the abundant internal resources of minerals, &c. and give easier and
cheaper possession of land: then, though the imports might not be much
more, the prosperity would be much greater. America I believe to be in
this latter position, presenting a more varied field for the
operations of the small capitalist, though her imports may be
inconsiderable per head.
I ought to state, that a great many of the reported cases of success
are, from misapprehension of the real circumstances of the parties,
either quite false, or calculated to mislead. Doubtless many
successful hits will be made by purchasers of mineral land, and so are
successful hits made at the gaming-table. Successful men, besides, are
well known, while the unsuccessful have slunk away and are forgotten.
Few fortunes have been made by simple shopkeeping.
I ought not to conclude without referring to farming, although not
practically acquainted with it; indeed, the accounts from farmers
differ as much as the size and shape of their farms: but it appears to
me that, from one or other of the following causes, farming has not
hitherto paid well:--A large farm has been purchased, leaving too
little cash to spare for the erection of houses, fences, and
cultivation; or leaving it burdened with a mortgage at heavy interest;
or a short lease--of three years--has been taken, and the money sunk
on the improvements; or the cultivation has been of such a wretched
description as failed to raise a remunerative crop. There never
appears to have been a want of sufficient market for any
field-produce. L.1000 judiciously invested on a farm, I believe, would
pay.
I trust it will be seen that my object in writing the foregoing has
been to guard against the pictures of climate and scenery, good or
bad, that are constantly written; to shew that plenty of employment at
a remunerative wage is to be had, but only of the heavy and laborious
kind; that there is a wide field for capitalists; but that shopkeepers
and townspeople, unused to out-door labour, have a poor chance, owing
to the smallness of the population and the competition which already
exists.