The discovery of gold in the new continent has thrown the country into
a state which well merits examination. The same circumstance in
California was no interruption to progress of any kind. It merely
peopled a desert, and opened a trade where there was none before;
while in Australia it finds an established form of civilisation, and a
commerce flowing in recognised channels. It is an interesting task,
therefore, to trace the nature of the influence exercised in the
latter country over old pursuits by the new direction of industry; and
it is with some curiosity we open a mercantile circular, dated Sydney,
1st November 1851. This, we admit, is a somewhat forbidding document
to mere literary readers; but we shall divest its contents of their
technical form, and endeavour, by their aid, to arrive at some general
idea of the real state and prospects of the colony.
Up to the middle of last May, the colonial heart beat high with hope.
Trade was good; the pastoral interests were flourishing; the country
properties, as a matter of course, were improving; and the
introduction of the alpaca, the extended culture of the vine, and the
growth of cotton, appeared to present new and rich sources of wealth.
At that moment came the discovery of the Gold Fields; and a shock was
communicated to the whole industrial system, which to some people
seemed to threaten almost annihilation. The idea was, that
gold-digging would swallow up all other pursuits, and the flocks
perish in the wilderness from the want of shepherds. Nor was this
altogether without foundation; for the stockholders have actually been
considerable sufferers: all the industrial projects mentioned have
been stopped short; and the gold-diggings still continue to attract to
themselves, as if by a spell, the labour of the country. The panic,
however, has now subsided. It is seen that the result is not so bad as
was anticipated, and hopes are entertained that the evil will go no
further. A stream of population, it is thought, will be directed to
Australia from abroad, and the labour not demanded by gold may suffice
for other pursuits. Up to the date of the circular, the value of gold
shipped for England from New South Wales had been L. 217,000, and it
was supposed that about L. 130,000 more remained at Sydney and in the
hands of the miners: 10,000 persons were actually engaged in mining,
and 5000 more concerned otherwise in the business; and as the result
of the exertions of that multitude, the amount of gold fixed
arbitrarily for exportation during the next twelve months, is L.
2,000,000.
But, on the other hand, in the Sydney district alone, the trade in
wool has already fallen off to the extent of several thousand bales--a
deficiency, however, not as yet attributed to the diminished number of
the sheep. It is supposed that the high rates of labour will operate
chiefly in disinclining the farmers to extend their operations; and if
this at the same time affords them leisure and motive to attend better
to the state of their clips, it will ultimately have an effect rather
beneficial than otherwise. Australian wool has hitherto been
attainable by foreigners only in the English market; but it is a
favourable symptom that two cargoes left Sydney last year direct for
Hamburg. To shew the falling off in trade during the gold year, it may
be mentioned that the exports of wool in the two previous years were
about 52,000 bales; and in 1850-1, about 48,000. There was likewise a
deficiency of about 6000 casks of tallow, and 3000 hides.
It is interesting to notice, that preserved meats are sent from New
South Wales to the neighbouring colonies and to England in
considerable quantities. Timber for shipbuilding is rising in
estimation in the English market. Australian wines are said to be
fully equal to Rhenish; and a Vineyard Association has been formed for
the purpose of improvement. Wool, however, is at present the great
staple; and the Circular seems to derive some consolation from the
idea, that if the crop should continue deficient, prices in England
will probably be maintained. 'To anticipate the future prices for our
staples,' it says, 'in a market open to so many influences as that of
Great Britain, is almost impossible; but it may be well to point out
the causes which are likely to affect their value--we allude more
especially to wool. We have stated that the production thereof, in New
South Wales, is likely to be checked by the attraction of the
gold-diggings; and still further, by the gradual abandonment of
indifferent or limited runs, which formerly supported a large number
of sheep, but which will not pay to work at present prices of wool and
labour. Therefore, if we bear in mind that Australia has furnished
half of the entire quantity of the wools imported into Great Britain,
and that the English buyers have hitherto been purchasing in
anticipation of a large annual increase from hence, which for the
present, at anyrate, will not be forthcoming, we think we need be
under no apprehension of lower prices than the present.'
It will be remarked, that this somewhat unfavourable report is made at
the end of the first six months of the gold-fever. That kind of
gold-seeking, however, which unsettles the habits of a population, and
represses the other pursuits of industry, is not likely to endure very
long in any country. It must give way in time to scientific mining,
which is as legitimate a business as any other, and which, by the
wealth it circulates, will tempt men into new avenues of industry, and
recruit, to any extent that may be desirable, the supply of labour.
Hitherto that supply has come in inadequate quantities, or from
polluted sources; but we have now precisely what the colony wanted--a
stream of voluntary emigration, which, in the process of time, when
skilled labour only can be employed, will flood the diggings, and its
superfluous portions find their level in the other employments
afforded by the country. That this will take place without the
inconvenience of a transition period, is not to be expected; but, upon
the whole, we look upon the present depression of the legitimate trade
of the colony as merely a temporary evil, arising out of circumstances
that are destined to work well for its eventual prosperity.
The same process, it should be observed, has already been gone through
in California. The lawless adventurers who rushed to the gold-fields
from all parts of the world subsided gradually into order from mere
motives of self-preservation; and as the precious metal disappeared
from the surface, multitudes were driven by necessity or policy into
employments more remunerative than digging. The large mining
population--the producers of gold--became the consumers of goods;
markets of all kinds were opened for their supply; emporia of trade
rose along the coast; and a country that so recently was almost a
desert, now promises to become one of the great marts of the commerce
of the world. If this has been the case in California, the process
will be much easier in Australia, where the rudiments of various
businesses already exist, and where the staple articles of produce are
such as can hardly be pushed to a superfluous extent.
The true calamity, however, under which the fixed colonists, the
producers of the staples, suppose themselves to suffer, is the change
occasioned in the price of labour by the golden prospects of the
diggings. On this question there is always considered to be two
antagonistical interests--that of the employers, and that of the
employed; the former contending for the minimum, and the latter for
the maximum rate. But this is a fallacy. The interest of the two is
identical; and for these obvious reasons, that if wages be too high,
the capitalist must cease to produce and to employ; and if too low,
the working population must sink to the position of unskilled
labourers at home, and eventually bring about that very state of
society from which emigration is sought as an escape. In supposing
their interests to be antagonistical, the one party reasons as badly
as the other; but, somehow, there always attaches to the bad reasoning
of the employed a stigma of criminality, from which that of the other
is free. This is unjust enough in England, but in Australia it is
ridiculous. A capitalist goes out, provided with a sum so small as to
be altogether useless at home as a means of permanent support, but
which, in the colony, he expects, with proper management, to place him
for the rest of his life in a position of almost fabulous prosperity.
These cheering views, however, he confines to his own class. The
measure of his happiness will not be full unless he can find cheap
labour, as well as magnificent returns. For this desideratum he will
make any sacrifice. He will take your paupers, your felons--your
rattlesnakes; anything in the shape of a drudge, who will toil for
mere subsistence, and without one of the social compensations which
render toil in England almost endurable.
We are never sorry to hear of the high price of labour in countries
where the employers live in ease and independence; and we join
heartily in the counsel to the higher class of working-men in this
country given by Mr Burton in his _Emigrants Manual_--'never to
confound a large labour-market with good sources of employment.' It
does not appear to us to be one of the least of the benefits that will
accrue after convalescence from the gold-fever in Australia, the
higher value the employed will set upon their labour. We cannot reason
from the English standard, which has not been deliberately fixed, but
forced upon us by competition, excessive population, public burdens,
and the necessities of social position. In a new country, however,
where all these circumstances are absent, and whither employers and
employed resort alike for the purpose of bettering their condition, we
should like to see traditions cast aside, and the fabric of society
erected on a new basis.