said, not only for the reasons already urged, but with the additional weight of Mr. Mill's authority, that no advance of money could be made with a greater certainty of yielding a return, both directly, and still more largely in its indirect influence on the condition and industry of the home population. The object of the present chapter, however, is not so much to enforce the general principles of colonization, as to urge the specific necessity which exists for expediting emigration to Australia, in order to save from ruin the most important interest in the whole circle of colonial industry.

Supply of Wool from Australia.

The staple production of the Australian colonies is wool, the very same which was in former days the staple production of England herself. What England was during the middle ages to Flanders, Australia is now to England; but neither England nor any other country ever showed a more rapid development of industry than that which appears to have taken place in this department of colonial production. Here are, in round numbers, the exports of wool from New South Wales since 1827, taking only every fourth year1.

thus sent to us comes whose pastures stretch

from innumerable flocks of sheep, out over a tract of land much larger than Great Britain. Exposed to long seasons of drought, often succeeded by floods,

1 Danson's "Commercial Progress of the Colonial Dependencies of the United Kingdom."

2 I cannot state exactly the exports from New South Wales for 1851, but believe them to have been nearly 50 per cent. greater than those of 1847. The fol

and scattered over a country full of dense forests and dangerous rocky gullies, those flocks would soon perish without human care. Hitherto they have been tended, probably by a smaller number of guardians than were ever before found sufficient for so great a task. Neither on the great table-land of Spain, nor the plains of North Germany, nor in the boundless pastures of Asia, are there to be met with examples of life so solitary as that of the shepherds at many of the out-stations in Australia. Months roll by without seeing the face of a stranger, and still from year to year new and more distant “runs" have been sought out and occupied, and the ever-multiplying swarms of sheep and cattle are rolling inwards over the surface of a continent almost equal in size to Europe itself. It is by such means that the astonishing increase has taken place in the exports of wool; but now, all at once, an event has occurred which threatens that hard-won and prodigious mass of wealth with nothing less than absolute destruction.

Effects of the New Gold in Australia.

The discovery-if the limited human mind dared to pronounce upon the ordinations of the All-Wise, one might say the unfortunate discovery-of gold in Australia, seems likely to tear asunder the whole of that industrial organization which has been so rapidly gaining magnitude and strength during the last quarter of a century. The magnetic mountain did not more certainly draw the nails out of the ship of Sinbad the

lowing is a statement given not in pounds as above, but in bales, of our imports of wool from all the Australian colonies since 1847 :

In the last year, 1851, Australia sent nearly one-half of all the wool imported into England, the gross imports from all countries together having been 307,085 bales.

Sailor, than the gold-mines will draw away those shepherds from their lonely huts, where they are in effect the nails and rivets that hold together the whole pastoral system of Australia. If the stations be once deserted, it will not require many months to effect the irrecoverable dispersion or destruction of the flocks; the half-famished aborigines, one of the most wretched families of the human race, being always at hand to seize any opportunity of adding to their scanty supplies of food, and wholly incapable of preserving what they may acquire, for the wants of a distant time. Meanwhile, the production of gold instead of wool, while it will be a doubtful advantage to the gold-finders, will be a certain loss to the majority of mankind; for its effect must mainly be to cause a new distribution of all the other products of human labour in favour of the discoverers. Neither they nor any others want the gold for its own sake, but only as a means of procuring commodities; and though the new demand will, of course, stimulate and increase production, its chief effect must be to disorder the industrial relations already in existence. Here, then, is a state of things pre-eminently calling for the interference of a Government, if Government can interfere to any useful purpose. It must be admitted, however, that there never was a case which appeared to present greater difficulties.

Probable Effects of Emigration.

Even to maintain order amongst the excited hordes who will be drawn together at the diggings, may prove a matter of enormous difficulty; but to make any provision for the care of flocks and herds, where every new set of guardians will come under the same temptations to forsake them, seems a task almost beyond any power that belongs to a Government. It has been suggested, however, and the suggestion is of great practical importance, that all men are not equally fitted for the gold-mines. Gold-finding, in fact, both in California and Australia, requires much of that intense labour and power of endurance which seems to be peculiar, not merely to the English race, but to

that peculiar class, the members of which, as navigators, have been taken even to the Continent at high wages, from their superiority to other unskilled workmen. The less energetic adventurers, therefore, it may be presumed, will gradually be driven away from the mines; and if the current of emigration now setting strongly to Australia be aided as far as possible by the Government—the shepherd class especially, who are not accustomed to the hardest labour, being encouraged to go out-it is no unreasonable expectation that considerable numbers would soon be found glad to undertake and adhere to the old pastoral employments. One strong recommendation of this scheme is, that in any case it must tend to correct at the earliest moment the disturbances produced by the gold discoveries in the whole of Australian society. The capacity of the gold-mines must be, as it were, saturated, that is to say, the openings which they offer must be filled up, before other branches of industry have a chance of attention. If the present state of things continues long, the whole social fabric, not merely in New South Wales and Port Philip, but in Van Diemen's Land, and even in New Zealand, will be dislocated and pulled to pieces.

Importance of the Supply of Wool.

The evils with which the colonies are threatened are very great, and those which must result to our own manufactures will scarcely be less great. Upon the latter ground alone, that is to say, with a view to the security of our regular supply of that material which is second in importance to cotton only, the largest advances that might be made by the Government in promoting emigration would be a judicious investment, even if repayment could not be secured, as it might easily be, out of colonial resources. To multitudes of the manufacturing population wool is as necessary as bread. Without the wool there is no way of getting the bread. The foreign grain would become a mockery to spinners, carders, and weavers who, for want of materials, were standing in compulsory and hungry inaction. It must be remembered that the evil of a short sup

ply of wool is not represented by the mere rise of price. The effects of that rise must be traced. It instantly checks demand at home and abroad; and manufacturers, in such cases being always more or less uncertain as to the future, become anxious to contract their operations, which means to diminish employment, and stop, to numbers of families, the daily supplies of food. That a Government, with any power to avert so great a calamity as a short supply of material to a great branch of industry, should look passively on and see the mischief take place, out of respect for the economical dogma of leaving things to themselves, would be a pedantry as imbecile and ridiculous as that of the physician who would not use a lancet to save the life of a man in a fit because he was not qualified to practise as a surgeon.

Supply of Cotton.

One thing is very clear, and that is, that the Manchester Chamber of Commerce would not be guilty of any such pedantry. It was in no such spirit that they sent Mr. Mackay' to India. That most judicious mission was no doubt intended to lead, and probably will yet lead, to the pressure upon the Government of India of measures calculated to extend largely the growth of cotton in that country. It may be safely said, that, at this moment, there is no object of greater national importance. The supply of cotton, which is scarcely less needful than the supply of corn, depends upon the regularity both of industry and the seasons in one region of the globe in which the social system is so violently at war with all the tendencies of modern civilization, that no man acquainted with history can put faith in its permanency. It may or may not last out a generation; but no one can tell what impulses are obscurely working in the minds of that vast slave-population which thrives and multiplies, while the white man is daily losing both the

I cannot pass the name of Alexander Mackay without expressing the sorrow with which I heard of the loss of an old friend and fellow journalist, who was every way likely to fulfil, in public life, the expectations created by a youth of great promise.