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CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
| No. 421. NEW SERIES. | SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1852. | PRICE 1½d. |
NOTES FROM AUSTRALIA.
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.